Actually, DH can get into the meta as RGK. It just need some buffs.
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Our damage is static. We’ve got no skills that increase exponentially over time other than with Stricken. So in order for the DH to be RGK in the meta in say 140 and up, the buffs to Impale would have to be astronomical in comparison to other classes that function in the RGK role.
We’d need items that add a buff like Stricken and then combine that with Stricken to be in the meta just like other classes do.
Just sayin’.
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I didn’t say it was impossible. I said, that there are more efficient classes at RGK. To be as efficient as those other classes, I believe, though I could be wrong, that we would have to have a skill and an item that works with it, that functions like Stricken.
To me, a far more likely candidate to be RGK would be LoD or N6 Rapid Fire and then only if they make some somewhat big changes to how the Rapid Fire Crossbow and Sin Seeker operate.
That would be more likely than them buffing Impale through the roof which would go against their stated goal of 130 at paragon 5000 with every class, in my opinion.
Edit:
And let me apologize right now for going off like I did. dp didn’t deserve that. And he definitely didn’t deserve that from me.
I’m sorry, dp.
Meta is all about the time to perform a task and the constituents that make it possible. Throwing raw damage numbers at any class/build can make it meta.
Yes, even a zDH could become meta with the right amount of damage buffs offered to teammates.
Will it happen for DH?
I distinctly remember last PTR, testing the Crusader’s set. I wrote up several recommendations for tuning numbers and interactions to help make AoV FotH more powerful and balanced with the build I was playing at the time… Blessed Shield. Myself and others wanted Phalanx, Smite was another popular suggestion for inclusion onto the AoV set.
The next thing you know, BlizzCon rolled around and news broke that a private PTR update had revealed a completely different skill than what the popular threads were discussing: Heavens Fury with an outrageous 2pc buff of 8x.
On some other remote thread in a sea of ideas for this game, I do recall a player suggested Heavens Fury, but that post was buried.
Thereafter, I had forecasted this buff would lead to GR150 solo clears, I did all of the extrapolating, compared it to existing LOD HF clears and suggested a nerf. Some agreed, some didn’t, but at the end of the day the devs did something completely unexpected and left the overpowered edit alone.
So the point I am trying to make is that in Diabloland you cannot predict what your class will be dealt. Ask for one thing, you’ll get another. Impale could receive the same treatment as HF, heck an 8x buff would make it nearly the same power.
These posts are just here for curating ideas, Nev and Matt will find the good suggestions, but they will put their own spin on how they get implemented.
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Agreed, but it would also, again, go past Blizzard’s stated goal of 130 at paragon 5000. If they meant 140 or 145 at 5000 paragon then I’m not sure what that post was all about.
Look, I’m terrible at math. ECT treatments when I was younger pretty much wiped huge chunks of my memory out of existence including much of what I learned in High School, but it appears to me that the math doesn’t add up to Blizzard’s stated parameters.
That’s all I’m saying.
That could be true but there are also players that have already solo’d 130 with Impale with albeit, possibly, more paragon with Impale, so I wouldn’t expect a buff of that size.
I’ve already been proven wrong in this thread once when it was stated that UE would need a 8X buff to do a 130 at 5000 paragon and it turned out to only need a 5x buff. And Impale would need a much smaller buff than that to do the same, I’m pretty certain.
You do know that a barb @2570, 2638, 2666, 2670, etc… paragon has cleared a GR 130. A barb @2955 paragon has cleared GR 132.
Whatever.
I give up. So yeah, let’s all do 150 solo at 1200 paragon. That’ll be about right.
That clear was non season or season ?
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All of these were non-season. I grabbed the data on February 1. It is from 3 leaderboards US/EU/AS. (not China)
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Well… These clears show again that WW is still over balance 
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Careful. Blizzard’s numbers are always right. 
There are 4142 and 4517 paragon barbs that cleared GR 136.
A 6346 paragon barb cleared GR 141.
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Careful now, Salamandra.
That could be seen as asking for a nerf.
Just kidding.
But seriously, I just want to stay within Blizzard’s stated goal. Player skill can allow for some fluctuation because it was never stated if they meant that parameter for just some regular joe or if they intend that to be tops for the most skilled players at that paragon level.
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Well 6346 clearing 141 is clearly way over balance lol…
But based on devs WD = Barb
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Your efforts have been noted by the DH community. I’m sorry if it came off a bit abrasive at times, though there’s a few things I’d like to say about what you offered:
1. The amount of effort and energy required to do it the way you’re suggesting is off putting.
I know we’ve discussed this before in the DH forums, but a number of DH vets have put forth that kind of time before. Most of the DH vets have careers, many with family and kids. This is not to say it’s impossible to set time aside for a proposal, but time is money and there is no money to be made in attempt to turn a casual game around. Unless we know for absolute certain that a proposal of that caliber will be taken seriously by blizzard this time around, no value comes out of it at all, effectively being a complete waste of time. If it was, I certainly wouldn’t mind being on the forefront, collecting and consolidating if the current community was ok with that. I’m sure you were around during the 5 kingdoms challenge back in Vanilla, where each forum voted their spokesperson to lead the kingdom. I was chosen by the DH community for that so the experience is there.
2. When barbs did what they did, it was a different time period.
You guys had no idea if blizzard was ever planning on doing anything for barbs at all. You all also started before blizzard even talked about on going support for this game with the classic team. With this being said, the effort exonerated somewhat made sense.
Fast forward to now, and blizzard at least recognizes that DH needs general attention. They know the class is behind, and they’ve stated they’re getting attention down the road. Of course none of the DH’s like being…well…last in terms of dev assistance, but we at least know it’s coming sometime in the summer. They’ve indirectly hinted at the fact that DH’s and Necros needed a little more time, indicating they (hopefully) understand the severity of the state of DH’s.
With that said, I’m sure they’ve already got the ball rolling with what they want to do for DH’s. I honestly do not think much is going to come out of a massive proposal at this stage. I personally think that what’s going on in this thread and the one on DH forums that brings this amount of attention to the class is the best thing we can do looking at the big picture and Idolis is doing a good job of keeping the conversation going.
At the very least, a thread like this might get looked at by a community manager for it’s popularity and may relay to the devs… “Hey, looks like a lot of DH’s really want quality stuff and they recognize DH’s are in a terrible spot. It’s going to be a hell of a push back if we disappoint. Let’s get on it!”
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With 3.6.5 they at the last moment changed Sin Seekers and Wojahnni Assaulter.
Not like someone couldn’t change Yang’s Recurve and Dead Man’s Legacy a bit, plus adjust the UE (6) Set bonus. 
At the very least, this thread is now 500+ posts. Lots of good ideas and discussions, mostly, that are keeping the thread high in the GD board.
While they might not have acknowledged or responded to it, I’d like to hope it has been seen by those that matter, and they’re taking note.
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Well, I finally got some sleep, so Good Morning, Folks.
So, I thought I’d begin this morning with some questions concerning the Shadow Set.
If we’re to buff the damage, which area of the set does it need it to be. The two piece, 4- piece or 6- piece?
Would we want to buff the two piece to help make the set usable with a skill like FoK in addition to Impale so that Karlie’s Point isn’t the only weapon for the set when it comes to pushing. Then maybe adjust the 6-piece to boost FoK as well as Impale? I’m thinking of perhaps something like the Barbarian’s got done to the Waste’s set.
What I mean is, we pretty have determined that Shadow needs a buff to damage, how big that buff needs to be is something I couldn’t determine on my own. My personal best with Shadow Set is a 115, but I haven’t played the set since the improvement of Aughild’s, so my experience with set is a bit lacking to what it can do now.
I feel the set can greatly benefit if the devs ever determine that Dawn shouldn’t be mandatory in every build. That’s another thing that we could revisit as a subject. We all would pretty much like Dawn not to be mandatory but how to do that seems to be a bit complicated.
They could just lower cooldown so that Dawn isn’t necessary at all, but how likely do you folks think that would be? They could change a passive to give us cooldown on Vengeance like some other classes have, switching the mandatory part to a passive and freeing up our weapon slot in the cube for most builds and wielded weapon in others. But how likely is that?
What are some other options we could give the devs to make Dawn not be part of every kit we have?
Or maybe we can discuss some of our cooler legendaries that go with cool skills but lack compelling affixes. What kind of multipliers would be looking at to make them work with our existing sets?
As an example, several of us would like an Elemental or Chakram build. We have both Marauder and Essence (if we use Spines and Kridershot respectively) to boost those skills. Which set should we focus on to be the Elemental Arrow or Chakram set? And do we want those skills to be signature to one set or the other? What I mean, just an example, if we choose for UE to be the set, should Elemental Arrow and Chakram’s damage be comparable to Multishot after the buffs are added? If so, what kind of numbers would we be looking at on the items to make that possible?
These are just some ideas to get the conversation going this morning.
DH is spoiled with Dawn. The alternative is OrotZ w/ high CDR and attack speed, Echoing Fury and or Pain Enhancer. Builds that use Yangs can pull this off rather easily, but it really doesn’t offer much advantage losing a ring slot. You need about 3APS and 60% sheet CDR to make it smooth.
For instance, I’ve done this with S6 Impale, by including LGF and Pain Enhancer.
Regarding the Shadow set, there is a lot of good info posted above, some of it answers these how-to questions. Is anyone willing to volunteer and combine it into a single post? Someone new coming into a this long thread is going to miss the golden nuggets, or the opportunity to dispute them.
Here are posts that I wrote on EA and Chakram, basing their upgrades behaving like generators, while making them not feel like the same build:
That’s some good stuff, dmkt.
Would it help if I linked those into the OP, just to give everyone one post that everyone could look at. I don’t want to necessarily bring everything over from the DH Forums to this thread, but on the other hand it would help to steer some traffic to our forum for any DH’s that might visit GD over class forums to our forum adding more voices to our discussions there.
But really, throwing stuff like that in OP would totally be worthwhile in my estimation.
Edit: Well, I did it without really waiting. Kind of impulsively but like I said it wouldn’t hurt.