I agree. The Furnace is not available to a DH in the Cube because a DH cannot equip it. The request is essentially to remove the Cube’s class restrictions so that other class’s items could be utilised. That would open up the possibility of all sorts of nonsense in Season 20, where you could have three items from the same category as the Cube powers.
I thought of an example off the top of my head, the UE/Grenades DH. If they had access to the Barb’s Oathkeeper (50% increased attack speed and 200% damage to primary attacks) and the Monk’s Flying Dragon (doubles attack speed when attacking) that would lead to huge attack speed bonuses with a 3 times damage multiplier.
Hey Hebalon, I like your thoughts here. I just wanted to touch on one thing:
Ruthless and Ambush actually get an almost identical bonus from Stricken (Ruthless is about 0.8% more efficient).
For instance: Let’s say your Stricken gives you +2% per attack.
If you have an enemy with 1,000,000 life, and you’re doing 1000 damage per attack for the first 70% of life, and 1400 per attack for the last 30% of life, via the Ruthless model, it takes you 219 hits to reduce that enemy to below 300k, and you kill him on hit 257.
Given the same enemy, using the Ambush model, you reduce the enemy below 750k on hit 93 and kill him on hit 259. So, there is a difference, but it’s pretty small.
To start, I should tell you that I feel for you, and for all DH’s who feel like they’ve been left behind. I played exclusively DH for all of vanilla, and the class is still close to my heart.
I need to warn you that a buff that balances your class against other classes is almost certainly going to come at the expense of your interior class balance. Now, I’m definitely not saying “don’t pursue it”, just that you should prepare yourself for what might happen.
I mean, in hindsight, when Free and I wrote BBP, the interior class balance for Barbs was actually pretty good: maybe a 3-4 GR spread between our strongest build / set and our weakest. Today, that spread is roughly 10 GRs. My personal favorite build ever, Leapquake, basically went into the dumpster, and who knows if it’ll ever be seen again. I haven’t looked at the exact numbers, but it seems like a similar situation for Crusaders: one particular set/build is now way, way ahead.
I think you can expect, to a fairly high degree of certainty, that when your new set comes, it’ll be pretty powerful. Sadly, I think you can also expect all your other builds to be left in the dust.
The underlying reason for this, I think, is that the devs have determined that major changes are what bring people back to the game. So, rather than pursuing a policy of trying to bring all major builds for all classes into some logical semblance of balance, they will simply “highlight” a few things each season.
Maybe a season or two after your new set drops, they’ll then drop huge buffs onto some of the items for UE6, and that build will have its time in the sun. The next season, maybe they’ll buff the hell out of corpse lance Necro, and that will be back on top.
Bottom line: expect the overall balance picture to get worse, not better. I certainly hope I’m wrong. Best of luck in your efforts.
Thank you. I understand the situation you’re describing, and I also understand how it feels like you don’t have the personnel to get the ball rolling. When Rage and I were doing the Barb Proposal, we considered reaching out to all classes, finding the community experts, and making a larger, multi-class Buff Proposal pitch. Unfortunately, real life got in the way, and we didn’t have the time to dedicate to the project.
Do you mind if I ask you and other DH mains a few questions here? Maybe they’ll be fruitful.
Assume there are 2 and only 2 ways to buff DHs. The first way is to simply increase multipliers on existing items and sets until their respective builds are competitive. The second way is to overhaul (create new or modified affixes on) items (supporting legendaries only–no sets) to make builds stronger and more competitive. And let’s say the goal is to get every DH build able to do 138-140 at 8k Paragon.
How would ya’ll go about doing it each way for every DH build?
Create two lists. The first is simple numbers increases. Not graceful, but effective. The second list excludes the first and contains numbers increases and completely re-written item affixes–again, restrict yourself to only supporting legendaries, no sets.
For example, here’s a List 1 revision of Karlei’s Point (Impale is my favorite DH build and the only one with which I have extensive experience):
Karlei’s Point
The damage of Impale is increased by 344% 550% and it returns 15 Hatred if it hits an enemy already Impaled. (Demon Hunter Only) [300 - 375]% [550-625%]
That would be enough to bump Impale up by a few tiers. The damage value would have to be calculated with more precision based on other adjusted items.
And here’s a List 2 Revision:
Karlei’s Point
The damage of Impale is increased by 344% 550% and it returns 15 Hatred if it hits an enemy already Impaled. (Demon Hunter Only) [300 - 375]% [550-625%]. You take 5% decreased damage from enemies recently Impaled.
I think you get my point. This can be a great way to start a public discussion. You’ll just have to be able to weed out the bad ideas from the good.
Excellent point – I agree 100%. I think the problem lies in the fact that Blizzard has done a very poor job (until recently) in cultiavating their community here on the forums. They’re far too hands-off and unwilling to help cultivate forum experts and MVPs. In other words, part of the reason the community is in this state is due to their inactivity and neglect. There are other reasons, of course, but this is a big part of it.
Some folks in this thread seem hesitant to propose fixes and present problems in a more assertive way, but I’m here to tell you: That’s not gonna work.
You’ll need to do both. Reach out to Reddit, to other D3 forums. If you don’t have experts here, find them elsewhere. Bring them together.
And like Rage noted, throw “balance” out the window. It is not the end goal of getting your class buffed.
Nev has explained this multiple times. You can dig up her posts for more info.
You’re “smh” at a back and forth pun fest that Rage and I had in a thread on the Barb forum? You realize the “win” refers to the puns? Now I’m over here smdh at you because you can have pun, too.
I’m no math wiz, Meteor, but that set up wouldn’t be the huge buff to UE Grenades you think it.
First, Oathkeeper would basically replace Hunter’s Wrath Belt and Depth Diggers. Flying Dragon would increase the attack speed a bit more, but no more than any other kind of buff a season usually gives. The kicker would be being able to use Krysbin’s instead of any other ring since it’s the best in the game.
But even with all those multipliers it wouldn’t elevate UE Grenades to the top of the leaderboard because most of them would be a near one to one switch.
The mechanics on DH are simple, which makes it easy to pick up and play.
There are no stack counts reflecting surrounding density apart from standard stuff like Pain Enhancer.
Distance calculation mechanics are minuscule or available to other classes:
Zei’s is not specific to DH class.
Steady Aim is minuscule 20%.
Single Out is minuscule, may amount to 40% more damage when conditions are met.
Hebalon hit the nail on the head for why our game play is incompatible. One other point, enemies move when you’re not stationary, they instead travel towards us, which reduces density and area damage.
If they ever did remedy this issue, and made DH ranged builds more focused on separating density, or gave us a role in group play where we become very strong when the trash is gone… what would the game play be like? What would the itemization look like? How would it affect a solo and group play?
I am thinking of affixes / legendary effects that already exist:
Elite damage %
Gain % Damage when X enemies are within Y yards
Gain % Damage for every Y yards from your target.
Gain 30% damage reduction against ranged attacks.
More unique takes on them:
Gain 300% more damage, but it is reduced by 20% for every target within 5 yards of the enemy you hit.
You no longer deal area damage, but damage is increased by 150%.
You deal 100% more damage when no allies, pets, or followers are within 25 yards.
Enemies that pierced from more than 40 yards away take 75% damage from your attacks for the next 3 seconds.
Enemies hit by your attacks have a chance to be pulled back and immobilized for 8 seconds.
Each enemy knocked back within 30 yards grants a 10% damage bonus for 10 seconds and only applies to targets you hit surrounded by 10 or fewer enemies within 10 yards. (this is for 4-man groups, where your zbarb/zmonk groups many targets, or when you bust out a Windforce and become superman. There are some wonky ways to pay this solo, where you’d drag a herd of trash behind you and demolish isolated stuff ahead, it’s probably hard to keep pockets of 10 targets together without losing the bonus)
In groups, I would suggest a role that lets us quickly finish elites. If the Trash Clearer is smacking stuff down for 100Q+ every 30 seconds, we should be able to very easily hit 10 or less targets (with typical debuffs) for 3Q per second so the team can move on. Perhaps the last mechanic cited is a way to build up to this number. I can see a zbarb harpooning trash away from elites so it can die quicker.
I don’t think every DH build should avoid Area Damage, or grouping mobs together, ie Cluster Bombs, Impale, Grenades – HOWEVER, there should be a distinction in how we build our ranged and melee builds. Some of the suggestions above could be reversed for close ranged play styles.
Free, it’s the midnight hour. She is telling us don’t expect anything, she is hunting for feedback, and it’s unrealistic that anything will be done for PTR 2.6.8, but she specified the desire for short and long term feedback.
Now let me ask you this question, did you go to our class forum and see the thread showing what we requested? The one with over 30 likes titled:
PTR 2.6.8 - LAST MINUTE BUFF REQUESTS FOR DH
It is conservative, and while it may be perceived as half baked because there are no mechanic changes within, it DOES leave some room for sweeping changes in the future.
Yeah, that’s a huge issue for us, remedied through quick fixes of things like Aquilla or working Evasive Ring or both into a build just to survive.
That’s where we have to go back to our class having to play the equivalence of melee builds. We don’t get the native 30% damage reduction melee classes get but in most of our builds to really do damage they have to get in melee range for a lot of the time in the GRift.
I would really appreciate it if the devs would make the decision of whether our class should be melee or ranged.
Like dmkt said, it’s possible for us to do both but right now we just don’t have the kinds of passives that would really allow us to shine in either.
Given the way damage is calculated in this game, Blizzard could change the multiplier on set bonuses and/or items. Set bonus modifications is the simplest way to go about this (1X to 2X). This amount to ~4.5 GR change assuming damage mitigation is not limiting.
For damage mitigation, we could change either items or set bonuses.
Lets also remember that the 2.6.6 barb buff proposal did not yield any changes for barbs in patch 2.6.6 (due to timing). DH proposals should be based on a fundamentally sound premise and not overly expansive. For example, it is highly unlikely that Blizzard will change a DH passive (or 8 for that matter) or >30 set bonuses/items.
P.S. Both DH and witch doctors have had a falloff in the number of high end players on the leaderboard from era 11 to era 12. For DH, there are 4.5X the number of DHs who cleared GR 121 in era 11 versus era 12. For WD, the era 12 numbers have dropped to roughly half in comparison to era 11. Even with the decrease in popularity, GR 124 on average is being cleared by a DH of 5K paragon while it is still ~ GR 128 for a 5K WD for both era 11 and era 12.
Oops, you’re absolutely right. I just double checked it, and it doesn’t even change much when you increase the HP of the RG, or the level of Stricken.
I think it’s not intuitive on the first glance, but on a second thought: With Ambush (and only a few stricken stacks at the beginning) you do benefit from the passive for a longer time. With Ruthless (and a lot of stricken stacks at the end), you benefit only for a few hits from both bonuses - at the end, the results are the same.
Interestingly, both ways of dealing more damage are equivalent (almost). Therefore: I withdraw that argument.
Yes, that is probably true. But that’s nothing new, actually. Balancing sets with such huge damage multipliers isn’t easy, and the higher the numbers become, the more complicated balancing becomes, imho …
No, just Stricken and the mentioned passives. My argument was that the Barb mechanic works way better with Stricken, and this is not the case. Math doesn’t lie.
How this changes when you consider mor complex combinations of items/skills/passives as well, I can’t say, as I don’t have an overview over all the classes. But comparing DML+Ambush with Ruthless only would be unfair.
UE MS ranged build is ostensibly the most popular build because it’s relatively good at most things (GRs, speeds, bounties, farming) except in most cases GR pushing. It’s because a couple item swaps (Nems/Warz v Wraps, Goldwrap v WH or CC) don’t gimp the build for that particular content…just zip zip pew pew profit.
But the push build is usually S6 (with exception of skill RF folks) which is an in your face melee build where you are up close and personal with elites so all 3 daggers hit the target.
Technically - that goes against everything a DH is supposed to be, according to the Game guide:
Demon hunters are relentless vigilantes who execute their infernal targets with an arsenal of ranged weapons. They crouch and **take aim far from danger**, relying on bows, deadly traps, and projectiles to swiftly bring an end to the creatures that haunt their world.
That’s not the difficult part, buffing your damage to make you higher GR capable, means higher incoming damage.
Higher damage is great, but if you spend half your rift laying on the ground, there is no real benefit.
They beat me to it lol
That might be a good way to help.
Don’t forget that the WW set has a built in DR set bonus.
This could also be something that could be looked at for DH sets.
Probably.
I seen someone post, not sure if it was here or somewhere else, about buffing Yangs & DML to 350%.
Although I know people seem to prefer set items being buffed, so they don’t have to re-farm weapons, especially if they already have a Primal or GG ancient.
You want to know why blizzard may well be holding back on buffs? Your entire communities behaviour and the behaviour of 2 or 3 people in particular.
I want to see DH get buffed. I have no idea at this point what the class needs so I’ll leave those suggestions to players who are more familiar with the specific mechanics.
Blizzard’s decision making progress should not be swayed by the actions of a few people in a class “forum community”. They should balance the game because it is just and fair.
Do you actually believe that Blizzard would hold back buffs or really any kind of improvement for the class because of few poorly executed posts of community members?
Does that really make sense to you?
Look, yeah, the thread got a bit nasty last night. No one is denying that but if you really read the thread it was a two way street with venom coming from more than just the DH’s side.
But yeah, we’re totally the bad guys in this, jay. Yep.
All our sets have defensive bonuses baked into them.
S6- 4 piece: Shadow gains the effect of all runes and is always active which comes with a 30 or 40% bonus to damage resistance thanks to one of the runes.
UE: 4 piece: You gain 60% damage resistance and 60% damage increase if no enemies are near you.
Marauder doesn’t get one but is given one through Zoey’s Secret belt in combination with the 4 piece giving you all pets.
And Natalya’s is tied to Rain of Vengeance in the 4 piece (I think).
Point is, the devs did consider it and added it but in most cases it isn’t enough because again, we have to play like a melee character without the 30% native resistance to melee damage melee classes get.
