I really don’t like buffing this build to be viable, just because how unbelievable boring this build is, of all the possibilities THIS is the best build for group DH? Please buff something else to become viable, just make the distance traveled by hungering arrow before turning 15% shorter and we’d be there for a UE HA build, that can be chosen over the crusader for the sheer damage increase because of Entangling shot.
2 Likes
This request is not like the lamentation belt. Ww/rend was a new build where only a few people recognized the true top end potential and even those still underestimated it by several GRs.
Even with a further buff to HPS, the top shadow impale will clear about GR145 in solo. The top ww/rend barb has cleared GR 148 in under 13 minutes with the damage on the belt is now 100-150% while during the PTR was 150-200%.
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2.6.7 PTR
- Lamentation
- Additional Legendary Power: Increases the damage of Rend by [150-200%]
Then Blizzard had Rend 200% multiplier was removed. (huge, huge protest!)
Blizzard after hundreds of messages, restores multiplier damage of Rend by [100-150%] in the end.
The new HPS added damage and requests to up that remind me of this belt discussion that all. 
2 Likes
I think most of us and not to speak for anyone does want the buff to be realistic.
250%-300% is just a base number off a few players math. I would like to say the DH community doesn’t find a buff that keeps HPS doing 130s max acceptable but also most don’t want a cake walk at 150 either. This is why the adjustment should happen in PTR and adjust +/- before the season launches.
Who knows maybe it will be 200-225% but without proper testing we will either have a very upset community if too little and multiple non DH player complaints if to strong.
11 Likes
I would not expect a HPS buff during the PTR. The math is straightforward. At 100%, the buff is what it is now (4.5 GRs) and yields ~GR 140 for a top player. Buffing to 300% is 4X versus 2X total damage. Therefore, the buff is another 4.5 GRs assuming you can survive the additional incoming damage.
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And they want people to focus on the new set. HPS buff is very straight forward, buff by x you get y. The y will be a little different for each player when survival becomes an issue. The only thing that really needs to be worked out drop rate of a higher tier HPS. I’m really hoping they make CHC a guaranteed roll.
4 Likes
yeah i really hope for this too.
They fixed the playstyle of both sets during the ptr. Afterwards its just a numbers tweaking. I hope that GoD stays where it is, the MoBC gets a huge damage buff and that the rest of the classes favorised sets (pestilence, shadow) get their numbers tweaked too again to be competitiv compared to other classes.
Its really not that i want DH to be on top of everyone else as rgk for example. But HAVING to run a crusader is what it is now… So a little tweaking is hopefully to come
7 Likes
I also would like to see another buff to Shadow Impale. Still seems kinda weak compared to the strong AoV RGK Sader.
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That’s just absolutely wrong. pre 2.6.8 the highest s6 impale clear in NS US was a GR129. EU was 130 (from memory, 8k paragon and 9.5k paragon respectively). The patch buff was good for 4-5 GRs, let’s settle on 4.5 as a nice average. That would make it capable of GR133/134. I’m not sure where you’re getting GR140 from.
DHs, including myself indicated that the HPS buff was clearly insufficient, but were ignored by Blizzard. Some said 200%, some said 300%, I went with an in between 250% average. That buff would put us on par with god HA. And, result in balance.
UE MS and M6 etc all need to be buffed accordingly too. LON RF was around 4-5 GR higher than s6 impale pre patch, so it’s now reasonably evenly matched between the 2 imho. It also needs a buff to compete with god HA.
You should look at the worldwide era 11/non-season solo clears. In EU, there was a player with less than 8k paragon that cleared GR 132 using impale. The Asia server also has a GR 132 solo clear using impale.
This clearly demonstrated that GR 132 is doable with impale. Please keep in mind that if someone clears higher with another set that it would replace an impale clear.
Considering one clear was with less than 8k paragon, you can imagine a bump of 1 GR for a 10K player. Since impale was weaker than other top builds (era 11, 12 and 13), fewer players push with it. You can easily envision more active DHs using impale that would result in 1-2 GR higher top end clears or alternatively, that top players best impale clears were replaced on the leaderboard with even better clears from another build.
This is why I estimated GR 135 pre-buff. It is indisputable using the era 11/non-season leaderboard that GR 132 is obtainable with impale pre-buff @ <8k paragon.
3 Likes
I did, and pre patch, there was no 132 clear. There was a 129/130 clear (US/EU) and both were > 8000 paragon.
I just knew this would be part of the argument 
1 Like
I explicitly said era 11. If you looked pre-patch, that was era 13. You can see for yourself in game.
- Go to EU server.
- Go to non-season leader board for DH for era 11 2019-1
- Check the rank #20 profile
For your convenience, the EU images are below. You can do the same thing to verify the fact that there is also a GR 132 clear on the Asia server in the same era.
Of course, it was since it is the truth. I suspect that is why you had trouble finding impale clears in era 13/patch 2.6.8 because the N6/CC3/RF build eclipsed impale by even a bigger factor than the top build in era 11.
4 Likes
You play enough you will get dream rifts that let you go way over the actual power level. This can make the data for the most played builds misleading at the top. The true power level is actually closer to the bottom of the top 1000 and not the top. But if a build is underplayed then even that can be misleading. This is why the leaderboards are actually quite misleading when comparing builds unless you can factor in how many instances for each build.
So yeah the data is something to look at but does not tell the full story.
1 Like
Unfortunately they tend to go off of 5k paragons and people always look to the top at the few who spend 10000 keys to maintain the furthest possible push.
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Balancing is based on the average 5k paragon players (or other clears scaled to that paragon level) that are on the non-season leaderboard. As such it is not the top players per class per se but the leaderboard.
In recent history (excluding thorns necromancers in era 2.6.6), they top clears on the leaderboard appear to be strongly correlated with 5k paragon GR clears.
3 Likes
The irony is, nothing came of it. If it was bumped to 250%, you’d have DH RGKs running around. Simple, 10 minutes change. And nothing.
11 Likes
HPS to 200 - 250% and make impale 10-15% a default. How hard could that be to change?
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there’s the problem right there - the vast majority of the player base hasn’t hit 5k paragon, even in NS. Only a small percentage of no-lifers do this. Balancing around a more typical paragon level, where the greater percentage of players sit, would be a far better option imho. The higher paragon players are always going to beat the lower paragon players anyway, no matter what (cos paragon advantage is incredibly badly balanced).
Exactly. Many DH players said this before the patch was closed by Blizzard, and we were, wait for it - ignored. Sure, impale s6 can still be a RGK in s21, but not a very good, or effective one for the typical 4 man meta group that’s pushing high end GRs. We have 2 chances of being invited into such a group - buckleys and none!
edit: the change would have been a very simple fix - probably less than a minute for the dev to modify and save. There was zero reason to ignore it. And, it would have created more DH diversity in s21, rather than 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of DH players playing the god build…
But - as I said earlier, that would have resulted in power creep. it would have been better to reduce power creep in the game by nerfing the most powerful build back down to the level of the other character class builds…yes, that would suck for DHs cos we’d still be in the same place as before the patch (well behind the other top character class builds), but that could be rectified by simply nerfing and re-balancing those other builds as well. Balance the game better and reduce power creep, win and win imho.
This is a friendly reminder that the shadow impale build still needs a buff.
13 Likes
“Your feedback is important to us, we’re listening”
Meanwhile,
…3 years later
3 Likes