What a good idea!
Some of the Set questions I couldn’t answer very well, I haven’t played some of those builds in years and a couple not at all (Grenades and LON), but I think most if not all of the builds need more damage mitigation.
Good luck with this.
Thanks d, very nice poll. You should mention this over in the DH forum.
Just completed. Thanks for this.
atm, i got 2 DH,
but my guess is that not that many players choose DH as their main anymore.
The shadow even if tanky suffers from not enough dps at high GR’s. Its becomes like the WoL monk you wear your finger out firing until the elite dies. It also suffers from too many reflect damage elites. What use is it getting in a 4 player game if you can’t be offensive because of that? UE in that aspect if really beefed up is more formable and doesn’t suffer from incredibly high DPS being reflected back . Yeah love shadow but not enough protection against that.
I believe it goes back again to our class having dual personalities. Lots of folks think of the class as a pure ranged fighter, and other’s think of it as a stealthy assassin type.
The devs are split just like our player base is. They try to make the DH capable of both but one archetype fits better into the game mechanics and the other doesn’t.
Our ranged sets, in order to be played in their archetype, in my opinion, would have to play in Greater Rifts similarly to the way they play in T16 with maybe a difference of 10 to 20 shots to decimate a horde’s of similar size with no aid of Area Damage. So, their damage would have to be astronomical to accomplish this and would mean that the DH would have the easiest way of getting into those High Grifts. Other classes would not accept that DH’s are now easy mode while everyone else struggles to get all the right circumstance for their class to do the same.
So we have melee builds, but our melee builds lack the natural 30% damage resistance of melee characters and also our melee skills are some of our weaker damage dealers so the buffs to those skills have to be really high to boot.
I hope the devs are able to fix the class but I fear there really isn’t an easy fix to our class because of the mechanics of the game.
4 Likes
Awesome job dmkt!
Votes added 
Could someone please do same for WW/Rend vs Impale. We had few people here willing to help who are playing Barb and DH at same time.
Free maybe you could?
Yes, I see DH as both the archer and assassin type character.
dmkt - I might have a play with my NS DH and try for a 125 over the weekend - need to swap out COE for elusive, and add aughilds etc. I have around 27k main stat, but only 900 phys res.
Volatility, I’m playing HC this season, first time pushing competitively in HC and I hear you. I’ve went with vitality on helm/off hand and aughild’s Had a scare on my 116 clear, triggered awareness 30 seconds into the GR and went back to town to catch my breath for a minute lol. Don’t know if I have enough nerve to play full on push build, but I do have an excellent helm/off hand that I can swap out for another 1-2 GRs DPS boost at the cost of toughness if I want to later on near the end of the season.
Free - I respectfully disagree. Adding DR to the set, and elusive is pretty damn easy. Overhauling Dawn is also easy, it’s a simple change of cooldown time for vengeance from the current 2 minutes to say, 30 seconds. That’s a few seconds to change the code in the game. Does Blizzard want to do this? No. And that is where the problem lies imho. As someone said, the DH class was yang’s love and when he left…I do agree that Blizzard won’t change passive skills, too much work (well, it’s not really, but Blizzard doesn’t seem to want to really invest any money or time into making this game better). Adjusting skills will imho, fix a lot of stuff wrong with LON builds. For all character classes. Idolis is 100% correct on his assessment of the DH passive skill tree - most of our stuff is junk.
One only has to look at the proposed s20 theme, which to be brutally honest, will be absolutely useless to us DHs - we can’t afford to lose Dawn or aquilas - we need both for DPS and toughness. The ring slot ain’t much better (RORG if you play the CC or aughild’s variants for UE MS/impale). If we look at other character classes and their respective builds, they’re going to have much better options with the s20 theme…this should be pretty blatantly obvious if anyone at Blizzard was actually paying attention to the game.
Drakiock - and that is part of the problem - non group inclusion really hurts us with gaining paragon, and even gear. It’s demeaning to the players, and it psychological hurts us (non-inclusion). Blizzard must give DH more options for valid and meaningful group inclusion. I know most barbs hate the zdps barb build, but hey, you have had a valid inclusion in the group meta since day dot. You can push those upper GRs, gain those paragons and still roll your barb solo build and take advantage of that. DHs have to play another character class/build to be able to do this. Granted, barb solo GRs were at the bottom of the table for a good number of seasons and needed a lot of love, no argument from me here on that point. That extra paragon though from group play, did help you push higher than you ever would have solo wise…
3 Likes
Here’s a example why can’t a Karlie’s point do the same as this weapon? Why do we have to use ricochet or penetration only? The point game mechanics are stupidly ineffective for packs with elites! 
- [Bastion’s Revered]
Each additional hit will chain to any enemies within 15 yards and the damage is split between all affected enemies.
1 Like
I just read that too in the 2.6.8 dev’s blog. It does make the runes for impale rather unnecessary, doesn’t it? Earlier I made a suggestion to buff HPS quiver so that more daggers are thrown vs elites - kind of like what’s been done with the new barb set.
As an aside, I’d really like to see a chakram focused build and I’d like to see grenades get some love too. UE 'nades was a lot of fun. Whilst I’m at it, FOK needs love too. Whilst I wasn’t a huge fan of S2M2, there’s no doubting that for its time, it was able to push higher than any other DH build and it had its place in the build infrastructure.
3 Likes
I requested manitory impale damage on HPS, more daggers would approx UE a bit. Playing frenzy tonight, just opened my eyes to how bad shadow is to area damage, there is no body’s rupturing expanding area damage, as well as all demons being attacked in a area that could clear small chunks of packs and elites fast. Other builds can now make playing shadow a total joke.
Yes I expect a chakram build as that is very popular.
I requested elemental arrow like damage applied to chakram for better area damage. Hope we get something similar.
1 Like
impale is sorta OK with stacked AD, but yeah, it’s sub-par compared to every other actual AD based skill. I guess Blizzard will argue that it’s a single target skill (i.e. elite hunter) so AD isn’t desired. I can sort of understand their logic, it’s just frustrating. At least more daggers via HPS quiver etc should mean say, 5 (if of course, additional daggers are changed from 2 to 4 as per my earlier suggestion) daggers vs elite can crit, rather than the current 3…This would help at least this build with the RGK role, although I don’t think it’d be enough - I suck at the game math mechanics, so i’ll leave that to those far better than me. I’m not sure if impale itself would need a buff (either via set or dagger) on top of the HPS quiver change suggestion.
Chakram is great in terms of AD - we need the supporting items to exist though - spines of seething hatred needs a dmg buff added to its existing legendary power, and sword of ill will needs DPS buff too to make it viable for high GR pushing. It should, in theory, operate similar to UE MS. All it’d take is to change the set bonus for UE to add chakram to the existing MS entry…nothing complex, would be easy to implement, it’s just the math for balancing would take some time. Mixing this with a trap skill like caltrops or spike trap would be cool too - no generator for the build, but lay tray down, mobs immobilized and then let rip. Great as a trash killer for 4 man meta group.
I don’t want DH to be OP. I want it to be balanced, have the ability to hit the same high solo GR clears as other builds, and have a valid entry in the 4 man meta.
1 Like
I’ll add that the devs also need to fix:
- nemesis bracers - that they spawn Dervishes effectively means they are death to DHs, especially the impale build. Every other character class can use nem bracers without fear…this is not very balanced.
- dervishes and sand dwellers - their reflect attacks are instant death for impale build. We can’t even dodge it. We have to skip these mobs, meanwhile no other character class/build has to do so…again, how is this balanced? These mobs should affect all character classes/builds in the same manner, not just single out one character class/build.
3 Likes
-Wrath of Beserker (with morticks in order to get DR) vs Dark Heart
-Band of might vs Elusive ring
-WW set damage reduction vs shadow power
-Istavan blades vs bladed armor
-Ancient spear vs Boar
-Morticks (LpFS) and sometimes LpH roll on gear vs Leech
-Rampage gives 25% armor but can be very inconsistent vs nothing
-inherent 30% DR vs nothing
Might have missed something but it’s tough to compare the two like you asked.
80% BoM
50% WW set
50% Morticks
30% inherent
30% armor Istavan blades
20% armor Taeguk
25% armor from Rampage up time is inconsistent when pushing
Healing varies for this build some use just the LpFS from all runes of Beserker, some use Battle rage swords to ploughshares, and some go with a LpH on gear.
Impale plays more like HotA than WW though so a bit tough to compare builds of completely different play styles like WW vs Impale.
Thank you. Almost no one is running with Leech passive. We get some Recovery from Shadow Power itself.
I think the Dervishes were put in there to keep S6 from being OP. If Rattling Roll could keep them from whirling (and break shields), S6 would become a desired member of a 4P group.
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So I looked at the Survey and it’s nice for getting some general information and player opinion, but I think the strategy for getting buffs to the class should look at exactly how much buffs builds need rather than opinion.
Blizzard has given a benchmark, GR 130 @P5000. I would suggest looking at what the builds are capable of at 5k paragon, calculate the damage needed to reach that bench mark and then decide on the best way to buff that build to that level, whether that’s a supporting item, new item, or set multiplier. Make sure to consider LoN variants when making these adjustments. You can also offer a couple different ways to buff each build and give the devs some more options.
A more systematic approach I think is the better option. This type of approach I described above will also lead to some really good discussion about the builds and how they should be buffed.
Since you haven’t had much changes over that past couple eras you could use the API data from several eras to get data on each build or you can discuss among some of your DH pushers where each build caps at around 5k paragon. I think you should work off a baseline when discussing how and by how much to buff builds.
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I understand that, but that is only one build that is behind by that much. It is not considering any of the other builds and will you be happy if that is the only build that is buffed to GR 130? I assume this is the LoN rapid fire. Is this the build DH’s want as their best build? If it is LoN rapid fire, is this the best build to buff? It’s not a great speed build and wouldn’t offer much for group play.
I’m not sure, Shark, but I don’t think many DH’s that visit the forums have anywhere near 5000 paragon.
It’s sort of a bi-product of not being in the meta but most DH’s on the forums, I think, most of us would be considered casuals by the standards of other classes.
I know that I specifically play DH the most and I have about half that amount of paragon. Admittedly, my few experiences playing in groups weren’t pleasant and so I haven’t played that much in groups. So I wouldn’t even be able to make an educated guess as to what I could do with double the paragon because as things stand now, since I’ve played pretty much since RoS was released, it would take at least another five years to get that high.
I guess what I’m saying is that I, and maybe several DH’s that still visit the forums, would be unlikely to make informed decisions about that.