Drowning out positive feedback about their class or not providing that feedback in favor of “Nerf class x” threads. Lots of wasted time.
Good to see this thread finally turn into a reasonable mechanics discussion after my post yesterday.
30% damage reduction [same as melee] seems like a good start. When those original defensive tuning changes were implemented the game was different, and we’ve outgrown those restrictions.
So, I think there’s at least 3 changes to our class that are a must for most of us DH’s. Two of them would be relatively quick changes.
Give us more Damage Resistance. The quickest way to do this would be to give us the same damage resistance melee classes get natively. Another way would be to increase the resistance granted Elusive Ring.
Make it so Dawn is not mandatory in every build. The quickest way to do this is simply lower the cooldown for Vengeance from 90 seconds to around 30 seconds, making Dawn unnecessary to begin with. That would also open up Dawn to a different legendary power. This is necessary because they’ve balanced our class around having Vengeance on the skill bar. It’s a band-aid fix because of our class’s inherent resource management and defense shortcomings.
And the 3rd:
A rework of nearly our entire Passive Tree. That will be a massive undertaking and would do most of the work of deciding if the devs want us to be melee or ranged or some kind of mixture capable of both.
The think the first two wouldn’t be too much to ask for in the patch that brings us our new set. That third one is a pretty big undertaking but even at that, it’s not something we shouldn’t expect.
this season DH was amazing I know is hard to believe but with the crimson build I was the rgk doing 150 with killing boss in about 3 min. except for choker and Hamelin even perendi was ok. now my DH is back in the closet so sad.
The latter is more realistic. Don’t expect tweaks to intrinsic class characteristics. Likewise, don’t expect tweaks to actual skills. Here’s a list of potential buffs in order from most to least realistic:
If you want buffs, my recommendation is to make sure all suggestions adhere to the top 3. Asking for a buff to Elusive Ring is a great suggestion–easy, simple, and very little in the way of design complications or drawbacks.
Overhauling Dawn is unlikely. Tweaking other supporting legendaries to make Vengeance and/or Dawn less of a lock in every build is a better approach since it may directly buff other skills and builds via supporting legendaries.
But trying to get an ultimate form skill out of most builds is, honestly, a fruitless endeavor. I’d love Barb builds that don’t use Wrath, but that’s just not the game we’re all playing 
Never gonna happen. We wanted that, too, but let’s be honest: The Classic Games Team isn’t going to be adjusting skills when they can get to them via items.
That doesn’t make me very happy. Most other classes have a passive tree that at least offers a choice of 9 to 10 decent options spread out through their different builds.
We have 6 tops. That nearly three quarters of our passives are junk not fitting in any build whatsoever.
I don’t think we’re asking for all twenty to be equal but reworking at least 4 or 5 is a must because just giving us more items I don’t think will fix the matter and might wind up being more work because those items, at least from what I can tell will be game changing in some pretty drastic ways.
Well, look back at what has and has not been updated over the last few years. The only skills they’ve modified were either “broken” or were otherwise problematic. If you get buffs, bank on it coming from supporting legendaries and sets.
Trust me, I feel you on this one–every class has heaps of skills that could use updates–but there’s been zero indication that skill revisions, active or passive, are on the table.
I hear ya. I definitely see what you’re saying. It just appears to me that if they go the item route, then they’ll be building around LoD and LoN. Which now that I write that out doesn’t sound have bad. Seeing as how the LoD build we have now is Rapid Fire. Giving us something else in that category would be a plus.
In some cases, yes, LON/LOD would receive substantial buffs, but I don’t think that’s of much concern. What I mean is, if they buffed Karlei’s Point so it did 800% damage, it’s still going to be stronger with the Shadow set, you know? The same can be said for buffing other supporting legendaries.
That’s another issue…
Our supporting items. There’s one that reigns supreme and we’ve covered it, Dawn.
Then there’s Wraps of Clarity, Hellcat Waistguard, Visage of Gunes (cubed), Holy Point Shot and Deadman’s Legacy, Elusive Ring. And that’s pretty much it.
The rest of them either don’t have abilities or have abilities that don’t fit in builds. So going the item route, that would require years considering they only update items at most 3 at a time and only a few classes at a time.
Like I said, there’s a way that is time and work intensive (re-working our passives), or a way that’s more time and work intensive (fixing our items). Both would require time and vast amounts of it and since the D4 is in the works, time is a limited resource.
It likely due to appeasing the most vocal critics out there. Barbs and Wizards are very active from S1 to now in multiplayer GR’s. DH builds have been for most part non multi player Involved because blizzard doesn’t focus on making them better for group play. The Shadow a couple of seasons ago could have been Boss killer, but the now nerfed wiz build was too dominant. Get it right Blizzard.
I understand what you’re saying about re-working Vengeance itself to make Dawn unnecessary being sort of unfair to other classes, but other classes achieve their ultimate forms quicker through set design. Lowering the cooldown simply by attacking in two of them with the help of OrotZ.
They chose a different tact with our class by creating Dawn, giving us our ultimate form through one item. That makes that item the one choice is most of our builds either wielded or in the cube.
Now they did do sort of the same thing with other classes, with either belt or ring that gives them all the defense they need making those items nearly mandatory in every build but that’s the difference. They aren’t weapons. So either Dawn has to go through transferring its legendary power onto another item like a ring, bracer, or belt. Or they fix the issue at its source and just lower the cooldown of Vengeance. I would prefer the latter but would accept the former since those items can for easily be worked in to builds.
Maybe not so much so that Dawn becomes unnecessary, but at least becomes optional.
I also want to add that it’s a little weird to hear Barbarians talking about changes to a class being unfair to others since when they came up with their comprehensive list of changes to their class one of the tenets they used was to not worry about the feelings of other classes.
That’s a little biased to say the least.
Unfair?
I don’t follow. Who is talking about something being “unfair?”
I’m sorry, Free. Maybe I misunderstood.
But the way I read it, it sounded that way.
But there is more to it than just Vengeance being our ultimate form. It’s the one way we fix huge problems with our class. Our resource management and defense deficiencies are huge when it comes right down to it.
I’m not sure, but I think other classes aren’t as reliant on their ultimate forms. Wizards can kind of relate, since Archon is what it is. But Necros and Witchdoctors don’t. Monks can fix it through a passive. Barbarians have the ability to work on theirs through a passive. And Crusaders have one set that works on the problem or fix it through intensive itemization.
We don’t have those options.
Here’s one out of left field…Since DML and Yang’s are pretty much tied together and mandatory for UE MS build, why not convert them to a 2 pc SET ala the BK or IB swords???
The great thing about the BK swords is you almost never run out of resources when attacking AND you get added move/attack speed
Increases Fury Generation by 15 (Barbarian Only)
During Whirlwind you gain 45% increased attack speed and movement speed.
For IB you get attack speed, damage and armor bonuses
Every time you spend primary resource, gain 6% increased Attack Speed, Damage, and Armor for 5 seconds. This effect stacks up to 5 times.
Why not implement something akin to this as a “new” 2 pc for the DH???
I mean UE is built around spamming MS with an EF tossed in every 5 secs to keep F&R buff up…so
“Every time you spend primary resource (Hatred via MS) gain 5 hatred and 5% increased attack speed, damage and armor for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times.”
It appears just looking at it, that items like would work best on channeling skills. Especially those that include movement. I’m not sure how well using a set bonus like that was skills that require you to stop and reposition would work. It would mean, I think, that we’d have to UE like LoD Rapid Fire in that we would have to remain stationary.
Now, changing our Strafe crossbows into something like that, would work though and make sense in that Strafe is basically Whirlwind at range which I could get behind.
I wish they can buff strafe tho. It’s a really fun skill but it seems so weak compared to barb’ WW. Imagine seeing you and your friend both spinning and killing demons lol, man that would be fun. But ww barbs are high up there and strafe is just weak in general to even contribute and compete.
True, but I think the reason for that is two fold. One, Whirlwind has a dedicated set. And two, they did something to Whirlwind internally along with the addition of Bul-Kathos which allowed the other sword set to work relatively as well if not better.
I want to say it was something to do with co-efficients or something like that. But basically Whirlwind is better than Strafe because they did something to it beyond just giving a set and supporting items but to the skill itself and didn’t do the same to Strafe.
For ww/rend, the big thing was to have Ambo’s pride auto-apply rend while whirl-winding.
However, when you have someone who disagrees vigorously, it does not make it class buff proposals.
If you have read the barb buff proposal, they proposed changes to 38 items/set bonuses and 8 passives.
See:
They also argued primarily buffs to supporting legendaries, but a 2X DPS boost to a supporting legendary is functionally equivalent to a 2X bonus for set bonus.