Where are the DH players?

General Discussion
428

We’re off-shooting into a different subject all together. Blizz, I believe have said that they don’t balance around 4-man groups but class by class. And what a class can do solo specifically.

They want all our classes to be able to solo a 130 at 5000 paragon. I don’t know if they intend that for every build of every class though.

What we can ask for is whatever buffs, whether damage or damage resistance that would allow our class to do so.

Seeing as I’m only around 2500 paragon and I have cleared a 116 but haven’t been able to repeat that and apparently have to do some heavy fishing to clear 117 at the moment, but I’m close.

I’m doing this without being able to group up mobs very well because I’m just terrible at it. So, I’m pretty certain my skill is considerably less than other folks with UE.

I’m just not certain whether they intend that 130 for folks like me, just an average joe, or if they mean for people that play the set really well and 5000 paragon to boot.

It’s a little unclear in their blog post which they mean.

Edit:

Earlier in thread, it was determined that UE’s damage would have to be upped to 1700 percent per point of Discipline instead of the 350 percent it does now or Yang’s and DML’s damage to 500 percent each instead of 200 percent each they do now to achieve just a 127 clear for a guy like me if our assumptions about the class are true. Math pretty much dictates that.

But then, I would also need at least some sort of improved DR too. So the UE set has one damage resistance item that isn’t tied to a skill like Gunes is and that’s Wraps of Clarity. So if they leave everything else about the class alone, like not touching Vengeance/Dark Heart or never giving us the 30% damage resistance melee classes get, what kind of increase would Wraps of Clarity have to have?

Would upping it to 60 or 70% be enough or too much?

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429

I realise that I sort of went off topic a bit idolis, but I was kinda answering Pe3eWe3e’s reply (solo vs group issues). I fear that if Bilzzard buffs us to be able to do a GR130 solo with 5000 paragon, that’ll mean a GR128 with p2500 or thereabouts. and, it’ll mean we’ll still be underpowered for the 4 man meta and gasp, again, we won’t be in the 4 man meta. It is critical to be in the 4 man meta to hit higher paragon. We should not only be pushing for buffs to our builds (solo) but for inclusion in the 4 man meta.

The problem with UE MS (from memory, you’re playing UE MS) is that you need to be very good at stutter step and herding mobs and timing outbursts with the fire/physical CoE ranges. Without that, you hit a ceiling and can’t push any higher. Part of that issue is that MS doesn’t do enough damage in a timely manner at higher GRs imho, hence needing to herd and then let rip. In reality, herding shouldn’t be required to play a build. Some will argue that this is a sign of the better skilled player vs the lesser skilled player and I can see their point, but I do think herding is a bad game design option.

I’ve done a 123 @ p2270 with my NS character (impale), so I think I could manage a 130 with appropriate buffs. But to be honest, a lot of other builds are well above a GR130 and boosting us to a 130 would be a total joke imho. We should be able to hit GR140 at p5000 imho. That is a far more realistic goal, and far better matched to the current top solo builds.

DR of course will need to be buffed for ALL DH builds. We are very fragile. Yes, impale is pretty tough, but try doing a GR121 with p1200 and not dying - it’s very difficult. We again come to an earlier point that I made - group players shouldn’t be getting a benefit on the solo LBs because of playing high level group GRs. At least introduce solo self found LBs then if Blizzard wants to persist with this silliness. It can be done, and it can be done very easily (PoE does it no problems, on PS4 too I might add). This would flatten the LBs and make group play irrelevant to many players who are solo players.

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430

No, that 127 for me was including 5000 paragon. That means, at 2500, I’m about topped out at 117 as far as what I can do, though some other folks might clear 120-122 with my gear and the same paragon.

431

My point was: Because of DH limitations already highlighted in this topic we would need to be well above GR 130 @5K Paragons to be even considered for a trash killer spot.

There are some limitations for RGK spot but far less.

432

Oh okay.

And I’m sorry that I came off as singling you out or that anything you said wasn’t a discussion worth having.

But, I don’t think getting the DH into the meta is a priority for them. If we don’t wind up there, to them, isn’t a big deal.

So, we’ll just have to settle for being on equal footing to other classes as for what we can do solo and if by happen stance, we also wind up in the meta would just be gravy.

I don’t like that anymore than you do though.

433

yeah I get that, I’m not trying to be obtuse. This is why I’m saying it’s worthless us pushing for buffs to clear solo GR130 - we’ll still be too weak to be included in the group meta. Blizzard must solve DH solo limits and group inclusion - anything else is really a waste of time for us imho.

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434

It’s worth it to me to at least be able to be on equal footing in the solo race.

To be included in the meta we’d need more than just buffs to sets. We’d need a complete overhaul of the entire class, from skills, to every rune for those skills, all or nearly all our passives, the whole kit and caboodle.

Our class doesn’t fit into what the game has become. So it’s D4 or bust as far as a ranger class.

That said, games evolve, it’s a shame our class didn’t evolve with the game as well as others have, but it is what it is.

We, the DH community, has to recognize and accept that our class has more wrong with it than just “this or that buff will fix it”.

Because, like I said, buffs won’t fix it. They can’t.

435

Well for me personally, a GR130 is too little, too late. It’s a minimal improvement for me as a player.

One has to ask, where did D3 go wrong with regards to DH as a class? The same applies to WD too.

I have a mate on PS4 doing 110 clears with his rend barb close to, and in some cases, in under 3 mins…that is significantly stronger than my DH by a fair margin (typically takes me around 8 mins with my HC char, a bit faster with SC of course). Granted, he has around 800 paragon more than me, but that’s not enough main stat from paragon to make up for the differential in speed of the 110 clear.

We need to have Blizzard pushing to put us on the same playing ground as barb rend and other top builds. Or, those builds should be nerfed, to bring balance back to the game.

I again maintain that Blizzard doesn’t even remotely care about the entire DH class.

436

I don’t want to return this thread to “our class is broken” that it started out as, so I’ll just say a few things.

It’s not that Blizzard doesn’t care about the class. I don’t believe that. But in Vanilla our class fit the games design because monster health and dam had a set limit. You could play a DH reasonably well in that sort of game. Our skills didn’t utilize area damage because they didn’t have to.

When RoS and Greater Rifts came along, that changed. Then all classes had to utilize area damage. But they have skills that can. Wizard’s meteor, now Barbarian with WhirlRend, Monks have their skills and the Crusader was built for RoS, so of course it could.

But us, and the Witch Doctor to a certain extent, nope. But ours is built to always be on the move. Speed is king with our builds and Blizz has only improved that aspect with items and sets that accentuate it. But we never had skills that deal massive damage to tight clusters of enemies. Our AoE skills are designed for enemies to be spread all across the map because we were never meant to facetank.

And before RoS, when we had builds that could facetank, Blizzard broke them on purpose because “the DH isn’t supposed to play like that.”

So basically, the game completely changed with the advent of RoS and our class doesn’t fit that design. But it goes back to the original design of our class and not anything, the devs intentionally did to make us not fit in its current design. They just can’t make us fit into this design because we were originally designed not to fit in the playstyles other classes have.

We were unique to every other class, and that uniqueness is what makes us not fit anymore.

Edits: Fixed some typos

437

No build utilized area damage in vanilla because area damage was released with ROS.

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438

That makes sense. My mistake. I didn’t pick up D3 until like a month before RoS and I was still playing Vanilla until about a month or two after RoS release, so me seeing area damage on items before I got RoS was the reason for my confusion.

Thanks for correcting me.

Edit: I’m not sure though, did that make anything else in my post untrue. I mean that’s a pretty big error, believing there was area damage before RoS. I realize that.

But I think the rest of the post makes some sense even if I hadn’t thought Area Damage was included in Vanilla.

I mean, it’s true we don’t really have AoE skills, or at least they haven’t buffed the one’s we do have, that would take advantage of tightly grouped mobs (I’m thinking of FoK and Spike Trap specifically).

And we’re definitely not built to facetank. The only reason we can with Shadow is Blizzard gave Shadow Power all runes and made it permanent and gave us Karlie’s to regenerate hatred quickly to utilize Aquilla. They had to specifically build a set to allow us to facetank.

And even at that, it doesn’t work well with area damage as far as I can tell.

439

I like the thinking on this, though it seems a bit more like a set bonus than a legendary power. That said, there are legendaries that make you both tougher and more damaging (again, Mantle of Channeling). And, assuming your 200k lph figure is indeed near the max possible, I think the proportion is about right (150% increased damage, vs 300% for the ranged/cc item). It should be less than the ranged damage bonus (especially if that one is contingent on CC), otherwise the “ranged” players will just end up facetanking.

I dunno, I’m still not sure 300% would be enough (proportional to 150 for the “melee range” item. I see your point about “good players control for CC immunity”, but I think you are nearly 100% certain to be running Zei’s in any ranged build, and thus dealing out lots of 1 second stuns “inadvertently”, which will cut into the damage you’re able to deal during that “damage phase”, a bit. Unless, of course, you just completely stop attacking.

Obviously, somebody would need to actually play the thing to see how it shook out in the end.

440

Maybe you can help me, Rage.

I asked a question earlier about how much DR should be added to damage resistance items, Wraps of Clarity and Elusive Ring to be viable for a solo 130 at 5000 paragon.

Basically, what I’m asking is how fast does monster damage scale in Greater Rifts?

That would determine what kind of buff we’d need to our DR items.

The specific question I asked is would bumping them from 50% (Wraps of Clarity) and 60% (Elusive Ring) to both up to 70% be too little or too much?

Edit:

For a little more detail. Wraps of Clarity go with Unhallowed Essence and Elusive Ring goes with Shadow.

Some of our builds would be able to work both in, but if I’m just wanting a buff to Shadow and UE specifically, then I think we’d have to start with those items, since they would require the least work for the devs.

441

GR1-25: ~1.1318511959629507425263002444922
GR26-70: 1.0717734625362931642130063250233
GR71-150: 1.02337389199677490985454347065

source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo3/comments/abtpaf/diablo_3_greater_rift_scaling_guide/

I think this is still valid. The interesting number is the last one, so damage scales by ~2.3% per GR level (GR 70 +) - much slower than monster life.

However, I don’t like the concept of huge DR on a few items. DH is quite in a good spot with a few 50-60% items. Border case is Zoeys with 63% DR, which makes it 100% necessary for M6.

Extreme case are Barbs with Band of Might with (up to) 80% DR, which is imho not a good item design. Especially not when you consider that you need to “jump” every few seconds to activate the buff. Thats way to much for one item.

By my opinion, every set should have a built-in DR, and when buffing the damage of a set, the DR part of the set should also be buffed. But if that’s not possible, Elusive to 70 and Clarity to 60 would be probably a good start.

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442

Thanks, Hebalon.

But then I have to go back to the fact that Monk, Barbarian, and Crusader have a natural 30% damage resistance. Which means even if they took off all their defensive items and replace them with damage increasing ones aside from their sets, they’d still have DR.

And even with that extra benefit, Blizzard found it necessary to increase their DR by similar amounts to ours.

So, I’m looking for a way to give us the same DR that Barbs, Monks, and Crusaders get their natural and item produced DR, which would be at the minimum a larger buff than their DR items get to our DR items.

443

Hey Hebalon, I just wanted to note that the scaling might have changed at some point. A few months back somebody was asking a question about whether the monster health scaled at a consistent rate, and somebody replied with a breakdown like the one you just gave on damage. However, a third person (I think it was Meteorblade) pointed out that in-game, they were not seeing the numbers produced in the table, and that instead they were seeing an even scaling all the way up the line (and then they produced in-game images supporting this).

Anyway, monster health and monster damage are not the same thing, but I wanted to make you aware it might have been quietly changed at some point.

Hey Idolis, sorry it took me a few minutes to get back to you. But, in the interim, you received Hebalon’s excellent answer.

I would mention that the -30% DR you guys have is, in a sense, not necessarily relevant. I mean, just look at some wiz builds, which suffer the same penalty. Chantodo Wiz is tanky as hell. So, even if that -30% stays there, that definitely doesn’t kneecap you. It’s just a question of getting the correct mechanics and numbers on your sets and supporting legendaries.

And, again, in a sense, you probably have plenty of DR right now. If, for instance, you received a new ring that gave you +1,000,000% damage, you could just wear Elusive, Clarity, Esoteric, Mutilation Guard, Molten Wildebeest, and all diamonds, because “needing more damage” would no longer be an issue.

You would still have an “interior class problem”, i.e. a high paragon DH could still drop, say, Esoteric for Zei and pick up a bunch of damage, putting him well ahead of a low paragon DH. But for a “DH vs other classes” comparison, you would no longer have any kind of toughness deficit.

Anyway, my point is just that there’s not really any one number that will give the “right” amount of total DR, you kind of need to know what level of damage boost you might get, in order to know what sorts of defensive choices you then need to make. I hope that makes sense…

444

Ah, I see, Rage.

Thanks, so much for that answer.

So we’re basically back to the Devs deciding whether we need DR or not as they’ll decide if they’re going to buff our sets to deal more damage or not. I mean, our sets could use a damage buff but if they can’t decide what DR we need till they come up with a number to the damage buff, then I think we’re stuck.

We’ve come to a conclusion that UE Multi shot needs about a 8X boost to damage to reach 130 solo at 5000 paragon and what you’re saying, if I’m reading you correctly, that in itself might be all we need because of the quicker kill speed. I don’t know if that’s true but it does make sense in one sense. It seems to me to leave us with a “kill them before they kill you” kind of playstyle though.

445

Hey again,

So, I don’t think you’re stuck, just that when you and other folks here are thinking about “how much DR do we need?”, this is somewhat tied to the question of “how much damage do we need?”, and that, roughly speaking, more damage gained = less DR needed.

There are obviously limits to this. If one hit of anything kills you, it’s tough to play the game, no matter how much damage you do.

As for 8x on Multishot, well, this will let you clear 13-14 GRs higher in terms of damage. So if you had the damage to do 120 before, you’d have the damage to do 133 or 134 now, killing the monsters at the same speed you had previously killed them at 120.

You wouldn’t be any tougher, though, so it would be easier to die. If you wanted to move up in toughness by the same number of GRs, so that playing 133 felt exactly the same as 120 had before, you’d need to add about 25% DR, whether that’s from a separate item or an increase in an existing source.

Without that DR increase, you wouldn’t be any tougher when playing GR 120, either, but you’d do so much damage that most mobs would be killed really quickly, and wouldn’t have much chance to do damage to you.

Does that kind of answer your question?

446

Yes it does, Rage.

See, I’m stuck at 116, almost able to complete a 117 but I can’t group with set worth a darn, but that’s my problem. Other folks, do it pretty well, so my shortcoming are my shortcomings. But it means I’m pretty tapped out as far as where I can go with the 2500 paragon I have.

But what I was hoping for is to at least reach that 127 with 5000 paragon and whatever buff UE gets. It looks like if the damage buff is big enough, I should reach that. But now, I’m thinking that the 8x boost would be too much as I’d be basically doubling my paragon to reach parameter the devs set at 130 solo for all classes at 5000 paragon.

Edit:

And I’m sorry for asking for the impromptu math lesson but I know little about the game and even less than about math. lol

447

One more note: just remember that doubling your Paragon doesn’t double your damage, it’s doubling your Mainstat that doubles your damage.

So, at 2700 P I have about 23000 STR.
At 5000 P I would have 11500 more STR, or 34500 total.
34500 / 23000 = 1.50, i.e. I would do 50% more damage.

I would have to get to 46000 STR (which would be at 7300 P) to actually double my damage via Paragon.

It’s no problem, man, I’m here to be of service.