Anyone else think ranged damage is just completely off balance? I’m a vet of every Diablo game focused on clearing endgame content at as low a level possible, so yes I’m aware of the inherent disparities involved with fighting mobs that are 60 levels above me (and winning). I’m also familiar with how all the various ranged mobs have functioned throughout the life of the entire series, and folks… D4 ranged mobs are broken.
We all know how annoying wasps, succubi, corpse bows and wraiths are with their super-powerful shotguns slugs, but those are dodgeable—annoying, but legit dodgeable. I’m talking about basic ranged attacks from stuff like quillrats and bandit/skeleton archers that you cannot really avoid. I’m clearing a T94 NM Mercy’s Reach just fine until I open a single door to a hall with 7 quillrats, and I instantly die. I run back and am turned into swiss cheese from all the way down the hall before I’m even in Dash range. There is no alternative route past this hall, so that run is doomed… oh well, no big deal 
My Rogue is fully geared with BiS affixes & aspects, specced defensively specifically to push T90+ NM dungeons, and ranged mobs are simply doing too much base damage. I have >40% DR from both close & distant enemies on chest/legs, so the range the attack is coming from doesn’t really matter. The only real avenue for additional armor/DR that I’m not already using is the 1-in-a-trillion chance of getting a Doombringer drop… yeah, right! 
7 Fallen Overlord elites? Easy.
7 generic Quillrats? 
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Nothing is balanced yet. Give them 4-30 seasons. It’ll go like this: OP you, OP mobs, OP mobs, OP you, OP you, OP mobs…
I died to a room of green ghost archers today knowing full well that was a possible result before entering the room. Ina a race to see who can kill or be killed the fastest this happened to be the one I lost.
The reason being two wraiths appeared at opposite corners of the room and both had the purple damage resistance aura that covered every other ghost in the room. I killed both and most of the ghosts as well due to my thorns damage on barbarian.
It happened again on the very next dungeon with a slightly different twist. I could see one shield aura already in the room but the adjacent room also pulled and an other shield aura monster ran in. I think another 6 or 8 ghosts also spawned in mid fight while my ulti was on CD.
This is pretty much how I die in game now. Stun locks and 6+ elite mobs with every affix under the sun are no problem at all. The Butcher knows I own him so he doesn’t even try anymore. But a pack of regular ranged mobs with multiple shield auras takes me down from time to time.
This is what people wanted when they asked for increased density without thinking of the down side. I told people about the OP’s specific issue being a problem. The quill rat gauntlet in Mercy’s reach is one you can barely see coming. The first part of patch of the blind mixes those with the bees and so many projectiles on screen you can’t even see the quill rats sometimes.
The one thing I haven’t died to in a while, offscreen corpse bow to the face. Been hit by a few still but thorns damage is at a point where sometimes the corpsebow dies instead.
The mobs are just stacking “Damage to distant enemies” affix on themselves man. The affix is working as intended.
I would try to lure them into a trap with the decoy that spawns on a trap using the malignant heart. I forget the name of that heart. Thats what i do with my rogue. Although I’ve never ran nm dungeon tier that high before
It seems to me like blizzard wants you not to go over a certain nm level.
I was actually going to make a post on ranged enemies being OP as well. I play a Rogue, so sure a little squishy, but I’ve gotten top gear on as well as all my Armor glyph bonuses. Even basic ranged enemies only +5 levels above literally one-shot me.
I’ve saved at least five or six videos as proof if needed lol. One was after I finished an event in Helltides with 250+ cinders, and while I was gathering my loot I didn’t see one of those small demons that shoots fire from its tail (blanking on the name) and it one-shotted me full health.
I forget which Nightmare Dungeon it is that are full of ghosts and you have to destroy the constructs, but anything +3-5 levels above is literally impossible for me. I can’t even step into the middle of the screen.
Might need to add some defense aspects. Have a few pieces of gear with defense stats.
Rogue needs to solve the heath sustain issue in addition to damage reduction because it is extra squishy. When they added the lucky hit component to siphoning strikes that set the class back. Most people run the stolen vigor aspect and use the momentum key passive. You can also get by with the crowded sage aspect for a while also a line of life on kill on your helmet can help boost your health recovery more.
The highest I pushed was NM78 on my rogue, and that was with a flurry build and did not use barber or penitent greaves.
Like I said in the original post, the only option available to add more defensive properties is with an uber-unique that I and 99.5% of players will never see no matter how long we play this game.
Serious question, before the mob density buff would your rogue have been able to clear that same content? Second question, if they boosted disobedience back up to its pre nerf value would that be enough to soak up the difference from the extra enemy density.
Or is it just a question on broken resistances? I know those will impact Sorc and Necro the most, but that should also give a bump to the other classes as well.
Good questions, and I don’t know. What I do know is that buffing one aspect won’t address the underlying issue that affects everyone. My concern is purely related to the base damage of a ranged mob, regardless of level and/or quantity. The problem is evident everywhere, and it is a consistent problem from 1-100.
As an anecdote, the problem still exists when I’m fighting things below my level out in the overworld. Nothing is a threat to me in the overworld, yet the basic ranged mobs are the only ones that even tickle my health gauge.
A small khazra throwing a spear should not be doing more damage than a giant khazra swinging an axe bigger than it is. It’s a fundamental game design failure for an ARPG.
Shotgun wasps forcing me to dodge the bullet hell? Yes, they fit their role.
Corpse bow snipers forcing me to prioritize them? Yes, they fit their role (and quantity).
Quillrats/archers being stronger and faster than their melee equivalents? Go back to game design school. Their role is to harrass targets being pressured by the melee mobs. They are supposed to be the seasoning providing flavor to the meal, not the main course. Blizz dumped the entire salt shaker on it.
I see the same things as well. The place where it’s most evident to me is actually the Last Stand event where you have to save the three adventurers from their inevitable death. They hold up surprisingly well against a room full of poison spiders until they eventually die to poison. I can usually get them past an elite spawn phase or two, but if the first spawn is a room full of basic skeletons with crossbows they are all dead by the end of the second wave and often before that.
That’s also the reason I ask about resistances. Those NPC’s can sit in a poison puddle for 10 seconds and live, but try doing that on your character where even 2 seconds is a death sentence. Can we get some of that resistance on our characters please?
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Oh yeah, I completely skip that event every single time I see it 
Resistances are supposedly getting “fixed” in S2, and that’ll hopefully be nice. It won’t fix ranged mobs since that is physical