You really can’t use latest PTR to prove anything about DH, DH participation in the PTR was so low as to make any data gleaned from it irrelevant.
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LOD RF is not really popular, better improve Impale and Multishot builds
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seasonal theme is pretty new, in fact, introduced after UE and s6 got their last set of updates…neither set has changed DPS since then, although aughild’s and CCR set changes have changed the builds. From what I’m seeing, CCR and s6 are pretty even at the moment, with RF LON about 5 GRs ahead. The same applied last season too…
Personally, I think the season themes are massive gimmicks, and attention on fixing the games issues was more important, but, I digress…
If you’re talking about averages, then UE is way weaker. S6 has one of the lowest “spreads” of any build, for any class, in the game, because it does so much single target damage and doesn’t rely too much on fishing. That’s why, if you look at the leaderboards, (especially at era 2019-1) they’re filled to the brim with S6 clears up to about rank 5 or 6, and then the top few clears are Rapid Fire (because this build capitalizes much better on density).
UE is basically the opposite. It’s squishier and relies a ton on density, which is basically a double-whammy: not only do you have something like a 1/20th chance of drawing a good map (big open areas), you also have maybe a 1/20th chance of drawing a good mob type (good progression + won’t kill you), which means you might need to spend as many as 400 keys before you find a really “ideal” situation.
From the perspective of highest clears, UE and S6 are very close, maybe even equal. In 2019-1, the rank 8 NA clear is UE: GR 128 with 4799 Paragon, while S6 came in at rank 6: GR 129 with 7381 P. And if the UE guy gained 2600 more paragon, to match the S6 player, he definitely could have cleared 129, too.
Over on the Asia server, in the same era, top for UE was rank 4, GR 133 at 9482 P, while for S6 it was rank 5, GR 132 at 9438 P. So here, UE actually came out ahead.
I wrote this last year about class / set / build balance. I just re-read it and I still think it’s pretty relevant. You guys might want to give it a look.
If you don’t feel like reading that, the major takeaway is that it is virtually impossible to balance builds/sets on both average clear and top clear. So if you want to balance UE and S6 on average clear, then UE will clear higher at the top end. Or, if you want UE and S6 to be balanced by top clear (this is essentially the case now), then the average for S6 will be much higher than that for UE.
So: give some thought to whether you want stuff to be balanced by top clear or by average clear, because you can’t really do both.
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That is not the major takeaway from that analysis. In fact, I would say that the data supports the opposite conclusion. With thorns necromancer being an exception, classes that perform best at the top end also perform better throughout the entire leaderboard.
Also, Pro’s analysis presented for patch 2.6.6/era 11 shows that the weakest class below GR 120 or so are necromancers (gray line) and more broadly across higher clears monks (red line) .
I have performed a more comprehensive analysis of era 11 using the final data from that era . My results and Pro’s are largely consistent.
This analysis also includes a peek at the era 12 data.
What do you mean by average clear here and average clear for whom?
That’s where it would help if Blizzard would clarify whether they want 130 at 5000 to be achieved by the average player or if they mean for that to be the clears of the best players to do.
I’d hope they mean the average player. I consider myself average or a little below and if they want a player like me to clear 130 whenever I reach 5000 paragon then yeah, about a 5X buff with UE would be about what is necessary. But, if they intend for the top players to reach that plateau then UE wouldn’t need that large of a buff and Shadow would need even less.
Point is, I can make my wishes known but I think Blizzard already has something in mind and they haven’t made their goal for the class exactly known.
In the blog post, they wrote:
“Assuming a player is at 5000 Paragon, here’s where all the classes landed, on average , a few weeks into Patch 2.6.7 for non-Seasonal play , aggregated across player leaderboard data world-wide:”
They have also stated that there are looking a multiple later timepoints as this early data created artifacts. Class popularity and who that class is popular with creates an extra layer of complexity. For example, if more casual players flock to OP classes (or a class that is favored by botters) , then this can skew the data versus an unpopular class where the diehards know the class well.
I’m not sure if even that would accurately tell them what the DH needs. It is my understand that the DH is a popular class among people that don’t push the leaderboard because it is good at everything but. The few who do push the leaderboard still realize that the class won’t do what other classes can do leaderboard wise but like the class otherwise. But there’re few of those that actually visit the boards, so it is an unknown to me.
But, we’re a pretty casual friendly class in that folks can just grab a UE set and run Grift 70, 80, or 90 really fast, and also scoot through bounties, and the season journey because most of conquests seem custom made for our class.
Basically, there’s the casuals that want OP classes like say Crusader or Wizard, then there’s casuals that want classes that are relatively easy to play in low Grifts and the other things the game as to offer. The DH is the latter. But even at that we deserve to be able to reach higher Grifts with other classes.
Obviously fishing comes into play, and it’s harder to get that perfect map/mob for UE MS than impale s6, but the latter requires fishing too - right mobs/map with impale also makes a helluva difference. For example, in s18, I did a 115 clear in 8 mins (8 items augmented @ 110, great map/mobs/pylons) with 4 weeks of the season to go. I could not match that, despite adding 5 augments to my character and 200 paragon.
Fishing is a massive issue with D3 and it’s bad game design. All maps should have an equal chance of spawning, not the weighted crap that Blizzard currently gives us. The same should apply to mobs too. Pylon spawn design is horrendously bad imho. The massive amount of time that I’ve had a power or condi pylon spawn with SFA near it is amazing. Let’s face it - D3 is about RNG and luck and not skill…
I’m never going to run 400 keys to get that GR - that’s just plain stupid and time ineffective. I am not that obsessive compulsive about a game.
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So, I know folks really like the N6/M4 build but it basically makes M6 obsolete. It does everything M6 was originally design to do extremely better than M6 could.
So, how do we fix M6 with or without destroying N6/M4? Does it need a redesign? Where would the fix for M6 be put? It appears that the only way to play M6 is with Hellcat and that in itself is a problem because Hellcat Waistguard is chockfull of RNG.
Would a way to fix M6 come from letting more skills or items be useable by the Sentries? For instance, like Holy Point Shot allowing the sentries to shoot three daggers (unless it already does that.) Or sentries shooting Fan of Knives when you do?
Or maybe going back to how Marauder used to play where you’re attacks make the sentries attacks more powerful, like how N6/M4 plays with the global bonus?
My point is it appears that Marauder set has been relegated to just being a booster for N6. I’m just saying, Marauder set should be cool too and fun to play.
So how would we fix it if we were given a choice?
I don’t necessarily want to take N6/M4 away but it is my opinion that M6 should play like N6/M4 does. Putting that playstyle back on M6 instead of only being able to play it through N6/M4 just seems off to me.
I hate to tell you, but I dropped Dawn for the Marauders set and went to Echoing Fury and achieved slightly better results.
Hate to tell me what again? Read what you quoted one more time.
Hint: It’s in the second bolded section of what you quoted…
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that’s one singular build where you can drawn dawn…one…in every other DH build, dawn is a pre-requisite. So, what is your point?
I use two DH suits; Marauder’s and Shadow which is 50% of the DH sets, in neither set do I use Dawn for as I said, Echoing Fury gives me better results. Have you tried Echoing fury or are you just going by surreptitious game play?
I use two DH suits; Marauder’s and Shadow which is 50% of the DH sets, in neither set do I use Dawn for as I said, Echoing Fury gives me better results. Have you tried Echoing fury or are you just going by surreptitious game play?
You do know you posted the same twice.
121 @ 7K paragons with Impale is not that impressive. If you did not use Echoing Fury you would go higher probably.
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I have looked at it, and prefer Dawn. Dawn gives me defensive capabilities, which echoing fury does not. A dead DH doesn’t do much damage.
Unlike you, I have much lower paragon, as I’m a solo player who doesn’t milk group play for mega paragon. Instead, I rank on skill, rather than paragon.
Note: I did a 121 clear in s18 with just p1200…this season I did a 119 clear with 40 seconds left on the click with just p1050 in HC (ended up rank 4, PS4).
A 121 clear with 7k paragon is pretty poor. No, very poor. I’m not trying to be mean, so please don’t take it the wrong way. With 7k, I’d be doing a 127/128 probably.
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Echoing Fury is a solid choice for T16 bounty/rift farming with UE.
Here’s some early notes on the build:
An Echoing Fury Shadow is something I’ll play around with in S20. I have a couple other ideas that may work out better, we’ll see.
I agree. I cleared 120 with a DH Impale with about 3,000 paragons (non-seasonal) and was borderline with my toughness so I don’t think I could do better without the perma vengeance granted by Dawn…
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