I remember talk on this exact topic with exactly same suggestion taking place like 5-6 years ago on old forums. Community manager was same person.
Not long after dodge was reworked… reworked because by their own stats DH was the class that would die most often.
Well, if the viewpoint is “facetanking is inevitable, and we just have to deal with it”, then I think discussion of extra toughness, whether “baked-in” or from items, makes a lot of sense. But, if I’m hearing you guys correctly, it seems like what you really want to do is fight at range-- pretty much what makes sense for your “class fantasy”.
In order to do that, I think the “damage plan” for DH needs to be one that takes into account all the stuff you guys have mentioned, like the fact that it’s tougher to group enemies when you’re across the screen from them, and that they’re going to start running right at you, which ruins the grouping even more. Since, for most builds in this game, 80+% of your damage comes from AD, that messed up grouping needs to get accounted for. Then, there’s the fact that if you’re meant to be somewhat more fragile, you’re going to have to spend some time repositioning / running away when those mobs reach you, which equals more lost damage.
I’d have to pick through a bunch of numbers to come up with a really solid estimate, but off the top of my head I’d say that to avoid needing to facetank, a build like UE6 needs flat damage to make up for about 50% loss of efficiency from AD problems, and 33% loss of efficiency from needing to reposition. So that’s about 3x damage that’s needed.
Obviously, that’s assuming you guys don’t get a new item or an item upgrade that basically reads “you take no damage from anything, lol”, because in that situation of course you’ll facetank. Facetanking is just the most efficient way to fight. The trick is altering the numbers properly so the relative efficiency of facetanking, vs fighting at range, is reduced.
Exactly, Rage.
My rough estimate of increasing the damage of UE from the 9000% or so to around 20000% to 30000% would be right in that ballpark but the problem then becomes our class with just that set would melt mobs pretty high in GRifts whether they’re grouped or not.
For instance, I’m probably about the most average DH to ever grace these boards and out of season with just under 2500 paragon, I’m working on a 117 clear and can’t quite make it.
But you give me a set bonus like that I’d be running 125 possibly higher with ease. I’d shudder to think what a more skilled player would do.
At this point you would need to look at monster sets and Elite Affixes.
Some of them are nasty like:
Mortar, Teleporter, Fast, Horde.
If you are not running with CC imunity from permanent vengeance than this can be a problem:
NIghtmare, Knockback, Vortex, Jailer.
You are getting hit no matter what. So, when that happens you will die if you don’t have enough damage reduction.
It’s clear from the 2.6.8 datamine that DHs aren’t getting anything this patch, but it’s never too early to start thinking ahead–which, as you point out with your linked thread, you’re already doing. Kudos for getting the jump on things!
Yes, I have! I think the suggestions are good–very good, in fact–but I also think it makes a critical misstep in focusing on group play. I’ve talked about this before, but my advice–and you’re welcome to disregard it–is to focus on buffs that boost your solo potential. If that happens to make you relevant in group play, cool.
My stance is that asking them to directly shake up the meta is not an effective approach to getting your class buffed. I could be wrong on this, but the only recent changes to group compositions have been to nerf certain DPS builds, and you all know my stance on nerfs.
Another way to approach it is to ask for buffs in a way that boosts your solo potential and makes room for you in off-meta compositions. This is the approach we took in the Barb Buff Proposal, and I think it’s safe to say that most of us are satisfied.
Gotta agree with you, Idolis. Blizzard is not witholding buffs because one or two members of a forum community are . . . whatever he’s insinuating they are. I’m fairly certain that substantial buffs for DHs are on the table, but they didn’t make it into this patch. Nonetheless, as we’re currently discussing the topic, it’s always a good idea to present organized, thorough suggestions. Be direct and be assertive.
Agreed: DHs need more DR. In sets like Shadow where the idea is to attack at melee (or very close) range, the DR has to be substantial. For ranged sets, you can get away with less, but either way, your items need more DR.
On the flip side, if your damage is jacked through the roof, DR becomes less important for ranged builds that may more easily avoid affixes and melee damage. I’m no expert on ranged DH builds, so I leave it to better DH minds to decide whether that sounds agreeable (or feasible).
From the defensive perspective, I’d rather not have to be married to Elusive, Aquila’s, or whatever on top of Dawn/Vengeance. Instead, perhaps the damage output of mobs after a certain GR level could just stop going up, or hell, they do another universal reduction.
I hear you, but don’t ask them to change the mechanics of GRs. That’s never going to happen.
Some Barbs are frustrated that pretty much every build relies on Band of Might, but it could be worse: What if we didn’t have an item that gave us enough DR?
See my point?
You may not like being married to certain DR items, but that’s probably the only practical solution.
Well, Free is a pretty good WW player with about the same paragon as you, and he did 125 with WW a month or two ago. So, those numbers you suggest don’t seem crazy to me, though like I said I’d have to do a lot of careful checking to be sure about anything.
One thing that makes it tough to balance is that disconnect between damage you deal and damage dealt to you… and thus, the relative powerfulness of many defensive options. I mean, Elusive Ring gives you 60% mitigation, which is enough to withstand 40 GRs more damage. To get the same GR gain in terms of damage you’re dealing, you’d need to get an increase of over 53,000 percent.
Definitely makes things complicated.
Buff the existing sets and some unused legs (Kridershot, Spines, Strafe Crossbows, random Quiver…) to a reasonable lvl for more diversity.
Consider that many dislike the currently strongest Bombardment build(s) because the gameplay is stationary with Pain Enhancer snapshot and the randomness of Hellcat Waistguard’s bouncing Grenades.
Make S6 Impale a competitive BK for groups again (also Necro Pestilancer :-).
Make UE bonus apply to more Skills.
Make Dawn less mandatory by adding other cdr options for perma Vengeance.
Add new strong set for something like Spike Traps with a rewarding tactical element of gameplay that could also make it a competitive trashkiller in group without lagging.
Add damage multipliers to items (bracer, offhand, belt…) that scale with density or hits like:
Spike Traps deal XX% more damage for every enemy located in your traps (upto XX stacks).
Every enemy hit increases the damage of EA/Chakram or Strafe/RoV by XX% for X seconds (upto XX stacks).
Every shot increases the damage of Multishot or Cluster Arrow by XX% for X seconds (upto XX stacks).
Maybe add an item bonus that enables extra/all Vengeance runes or makes a skill pull enemies.
How many of you DH guys are thinking about Recovery stat when you make a build?
If we are ranged we mainly focus on avoiding one shots, right? Why would I need Recovery if I am going to die from 1 Mortar ball. That used to be the case with UE set in higher GRs.
And speaking about staying at range. How to pull monsters around Conduit pylon?? No way to do it efficiently without enough damage reduction. Died so many times with Conduit while I was playing UE set… It is annoying as hell.
To clarify:
Open ended recommendations are being posted on this thread. Big picture DH problems and long term solutions, and even some short term ones (sets vs legendary items) are getting tossed around here. People are venting and dreaming of a better way to play DH, and this is a great place to host those discussions. Meta changing stuff belongs here for sure.
What is posted on the DH forum, in the post titled PTR 2.6.8 - LAST MINUTE BUFF REQUESTS FOR DH are short term solutions. If anyone has one, they can visit this thread and share their suggestion. I’ve made edits to include defensive buffs recently – it’s a living list of a concise feedback for this PTR. I would not expect to see meta altering changes there.
We are going for short term solutions right now, not meta changing stuff that would eclipse the primary emphasis of this patch (3 new sets).
As far as recovery goes, peewee, one of our variant UE builds that came about with the advent of Captain Crimson’s and Squirt’s is completely built about recovery because of the shield from Gizzard.
It’s the build, I’m running at the moment and is detailed in the thread titled something like “A quick guide to gizzard/squirts for UE”.
The build allows to you forgo Kormac for the sorceress. All you’re toughness is transferred to your shield by rolling off vitality from your equipment and replacing with All Resist, Armor, of Life Regen.
In my particular set up, my sheet toughness ranges from 55 mil to 60 mil after all buffs, but my shield has an effective toughness of almost a billion.
The only other thing that’s different about the build is you replace Stricken with Gizzard.
I supported it because most of you guys play in Seasons. You start from scratch all the time. But for me who plays non season because I don’t like to farm the gear I already have…it would be 4th version of LGF dagger to craft.
I did not try it after Squirts fix because I did not play this patch almost at all. Did Squirts fix help the build much?
Absolutely. That was the biggest thing, to me, that came out of that patch. lol
I got a treasure chest of primal legendary gear as well, a nice trifecta Karlei’s. I was irritated when i had to get Yangs/DML again in the previous patch – but if it means a better DH experience I’d happily do it.
After all of those hours, there’s much more to farm anyways.
Just checked. I have 8 Primal LGFs ahahaha. Got most of them while I was crafting Karlei’s with normal secondary stat (did not get it). Blind is annoying on Rift Guardian.
I like the 15% DR for ranged in melee. I think that is a decent request.
Personally, I’m more interested in playing the DH as a ranged character. I like impale, but if I’m going to play the melee style I’d rather being playing barb.
So to address changes that could make the ranged builds perform well in high GRs with density, you need a way to group and keep that group at range. So, the thought I’ve had for a long time is making one of the runes of either Caltrops, sentry, or probably most preferable, spike traps, with the ability to pull mobs and then either stun, immobilize, or slow the mobs after this pull. It would work like a ranged cyclone strike or ess of johan. Something along these lines would really help for density/grouping and increase survivability.
You need some kind of mechanic as I’ve described above to really help the ranged builds survive and take advantage of density and grouping. Just something I’ve always wanted while pushing UE. I think this could go a long way in promoting the ranged options for DH.
LpK rolls were especially useful in recent N6 Rapid Fire builds.
Defense was not a huge issue for me on these builds:
Thing started to get hairy with these builds:
Paragon cures much of this, you really feel the difference when a season ends.
How far did you push with Impale? I had problem surviving in 127… well DR is the biggest reason I did not finish it. WIth Esoteric I am just lacking damage. Was using Zei for 10% damage at melee range and Stun. Stun helps with survival a lot. Could not use Pain Enhancer efficiently. I just can’t survive with many monsters around me. So play style was semi ranged, shooting from Oculus buff.
That is with gear that has no AD rolled on it. With Boar companion, Aughilds, Bladed Armor, Templar for extra heal, Aquila, Dark Heart.
That is non season at 5200 Paragons. Almost maxed gear.