Everything currently wrong with the DH (there is a lot)

demon hunter
1

The bg leaderboards for dh is currently obscene, 90% are beneath 50% wins with 30% to 45% common.

Problems:

  1. Magic Damage: that dh takes 100% more damage than other classes such as barbs, crusaders, and necros is obscene, that is like an auto critical hit which doubles should an actual critical procs, and all this upon a class that is at the lowest end of health. In game play that means what barely even damages others one hit kills dh. In pvp it means those with way worse secondary stats and lower CR play as though they are twice our stats. We are told the reason why we take so much from magic is that our damage is much higher than everyone else, except it isn’t cause damage is largely reduced and capped in pvp.

  2. DH movement speed is capped, allowing other classes to move faster than we can even though I as a DH have maxed out speed, equipped all the speed bonus gems, use the fastest speed set, have the toggle set to speed, have increased speed whenever I leap, etc. All that is however worthless, as my speed is capped and ghost form and the like all are allowed to move faster.

  3. For some stupid reason DH was given incredibly boosted primary attacks, with much increased damage, much increased speed, and cc to boot, all while absolutely nothing was done for their actual skills. No other class was totally screwed over for this in terms of having other builds. The changes pretty much said, you either rely only upon primary attacks as your build or you shouldn’t play dh at all cause we no longer support other builds for dh.

  4. New legendary gems keep coming out as improved options for continual damage, which pretty much is magic based and ramps up the damage against us insanely large, all while channel damage which we do actually use a lot is given absolutely nothing.

  5. Daring Swing doesn’t work as depicted. Immune from damage while leaping shouldn’t mean if we are hit while leaping our leap gets canceled out so that we can take damage and be frozen and poisoned for the like in mid-leap. To make matters much worse, when casting daring swing and we get hit, getting hit cancels out the leap while reducing the number of leaps we have remaining.

  6. With low health and twice the amount of damage being taken by magic attacks, I find as a DH that I absolutely have to use battleguard to stay alive in both pvp and gameplay (I’m literally being one shot killed by fireballs in defend the castles, while if I switch to a different class I take like nothing from them). This reliance on battleguard takes away my ability to use other legendary gems in its place (I keep trying to replace it, but keep having to use it instead) and it states that it gives freedom of movement beneath a damage threshold with is absolutely false. When dropping health beneath the percent it used to give a fraction of a second to leap out of a cc, but that was ages ago, and now it doesn’t even do that. Freedom of motion means we get to move and not be cc’ed.

  7. Legendary gems typically have magic effects (again, DH is subjected to what amounts to automatic criticals which double on actual crits). Not only is this damage obscene, legendary gem effects typically override and cancel out DH skills. A blood knight with bats has a huge area of attack circle which moves with them which I believe is magic based. Can’t leap out of it very easily cause being hit while casting leap cancels out leap. Why should blood knights of all classes be given what amounts to double damage against DH in the first place? It is no wonder why blood knights and wizards do so well in bg, and why DH are typically slaughtered by them. DH damage is heavily reduced, its movement speed is heavily reduced, its ability to leap away is heavily reduced, all cause it is supposed to be a high damage class all while the supposedly lower damage classes don’t take much damage from DH non-primary attacks and pretty much one shot kills DH (or rather one hits, stuns, and kills without ability to break free or retaliate).

  8. DH attack skills cancel out when they hit necro towers (if spinning chakram hits a tower it instantly stops working even though it should still have time remaining).

  9. Radella’s Lifebraid Armor reads “Each time strafe deals damage to an enemy, its damage against its damage is increased by 6%, up to 30%, for up to 1 seconds.” Strafe isn’t continuous damage, it is channel damage and as such it doesn’t hit up to 5 times in a second or I do believe even twice in a second.

  10. The tiny circle on the ground spell that draws everyone into its middle pretty much has a 100% kill rate on my DH regardless of who casts it. Not sure if its called black hole or something else. Worse yet, it draws me into the circle even when I never touch or move into the circle, just being outside of its visual parameters is close enough to draw me in, at which time all control is lost and I die once I reach the center never being able to break out of it despite having most likely twice the amount of resistance as the caster has potency. Again, why are DH’s being nerfed in bg at all when such one cast kills are against us?

The DH would most likely play really nice and largely as it should if it wasn’t absolutely nerfed to death in pvp while continual damage and CC effects are super buffed and magic damage wasn’t at an insane amount against them.

As it stands now, players are mentioning how many dh they have in bg matches, and if the number is anything other than low, they just state the team is going to lose.

Fix the DH. It is absurd that primary attacks is all the game seems to care about in terms of DH and all its other builds are made obsolute at the expense of primary. It is absurd that movement speed is capped, especially when the DH toggle talents toggle between movement speed and primary attack bonuses (I don’t even use primary attacks, so the entire toggle feature is 100% useless for my skill talents build).

I’m sure I forgot to mention other stuff in terms of what is wrong with the DH, but the point that needs to get across is that the nerfs on DH need to be heavily scaled down if not entirely removed.

2 Likes
2

Maybe try other builds? I read there was an essence that you could ‘throw’ the traps from afar instead of placing where you stand. If it’s not in the pants, there could be some great combos, alternative builds.
Just yesterday I used an alternative one on my necro, not using the pilar (chest) but the wall itself, since it has more uses than the pilar (mainly blocking attacks that ‘depart’ from the targets, like some primaries (yeah, DH with their meme builds pretty much would deal fewer damage on the other side). Plus knocking people away with the Scythe, creating corpses to use on empowered Corpse Lance that immobilizes people.
I read also that the teams on Defense side in PvP are getting more losses too. Yesterday I used the above build, still lost, but I did pretty well IMO, as I could manage to stand on top of the idols with 3+ opponents trying to get me off of it, and twice we almost won, but the idol I wasn’t defending in the beginning, and most of my team was, they were retreating from it instead of standing their grounds.

Maybe people should rethink their builds instead of complaining, can even find builds they get more comfortable than the ‘meme’ ones. Even managed to kill a 4k BK, with myself within 2k mark.

Oh and one of the DH pants’ essence is a trap that deals VERY HIGH damage too, you can pre drop them where people WILL stand (like in mid of idols, or just throw them in with the new essence).

3

There simply is no way I’m going to run a different build. Why is the game trying to force all the DH to go almost entirely with primary attacks. Again, I listed that as a problem, they didn’t pull this god awful stunt on any other class making their other builds obsolete.

DH had three suggested builds, and then the game decided to pretty much make all of them unplayable by significantly upping DH primary attack damage, primary attack speed, primary attack ability to CC and supplying it with primary attack based legendary gems, while completely ignoring the fact that it has other builds and skills that aren’t primary attacks. For some reason, Diablo must have said, DH should be pew pew pew, and nothing else. The to double down on that decision Diablo came out with a tab system which for the DH switches between movement speed (movement speed is capped so it doesn’t actually increase movement speed if its already capped) and a buff to primary attack (totally worthless to me, or any other DH build that isn’t heavily pew pew pew based).

1 Like
4

That’s the point, the meme build deals very high damage, yeah, but imagine if more and more people think ‘out of the box’ and counter it? It’ll get useless in a way.
The game has more tools, use it. Every patch they bring more Essences they repeat that they want for people to try new combinations, new things.

I even use sentinels in my ‘Farm’ build, which is 70%+ of what I do in the game anyway. We have 5 more armory slots to at least test new stuff, you can save your ‘preferred’ one there and try new ones to see.

People with that mindset limit themselves, not the game. I simply managed to counter ~3 DHs in one BG as all were using that on attack side. Stand on top of idol near a wall with necro wall in front, I laughed seeing them just standing outside of it while I dealt with the melees nearby and still managed to kill some of them from afar, as they thought their ‘Repulsion build’ (which isn’t ‘total loss of control’, and they do have essences that work like that) would push me back.

They simply won’t look into these kind of stuff, each classe has 11 essences on each slot.

5

As for your points:

  1. Both DHs and Wizards, both ranged, but in their own way, are ‘glass cannons’, that’s pretty true, maybe some imunity, as Wizards can bring a self imunity if needed. Can’t see where they take 100% damage, try putting other people in front of DH’s attacks with meme build (which is physical, wizards one is magical focused, as predicted), DH melts them in fractions of seconds, people just use more tools to counter them, maybe try something different, maybe not ALL skills focused on primary (you wouldn’t lose that much of damage, and could bring in utility/defense).
  2. In the heat of battle, ‘dash’ skills help more, and DH DOES have a MS skill, but in PvP itself, dunno if people would use it. Use dash to dodge, get in/out quick. You should use other sets, maybe even mountebank if you’re seeing yourself getting killed too fast, but try others first (more below).
  3. With meme build, ofcourse you can deal high damage with primary (that one is more useful now in PvE IMO to down Bosses fast, keep some elites away, etc). Even straying a bit off of the meme build, using 1-2 other skills, they still deal high primary attack damage. Not even BKs, which in pve deal very high damage, and have a Primary focused build, focused on Attack speed, use that same build in pvp.
  4. Like on 2, you DO have some set, the new ones, that focuses on channeled skills, and can even ‘imunize’ the player from repulsion and the like. When I played DH, on the chest I tested a build which makes their ‘repulsion shot’ into a flamethrower, short range, but on other slots you can drop traps and etc that would help dealing with targets in close range. The flamethrower’s damage was even HIGHER that regular Wizard’s long range Disintegrate, and it had continuous damage on top. Continuous + Channeled stuff, pretty sure there could be one more alternative in the Armory.
  5. Daring Swing, it is known of the bug (and the company is working on a fix), saw a video that even on ramps, it would stuck. As for getting ‘hit/cancelled’ by some skills. Necro’s pilar WILL cancel mid-jump, and other similar effects from them or other classes.
  6. People, and NPCs (bosses and some elites) WILL have pushback imunities and counter that meme build. Castle Defense, I used the sentinels on my DH, in the ‘farming’ build, and there are even essences that ‘reduces’ their damage taken by up to 66% in off hand, helmet that changes what kind of damage they deal, and even one essence that makes them more tankier (more health) and push back with attacks (it says it gets one max charge but you can increase it to 2, and with off hands, reduce their damage). Sentinels, at least in pve, gives you that ‘freedom of motion’ and you can still use Paragon/green sets more freely.
  7. Maybe focus instead in getting more Saphire on slots, as that trivializes if you’re using physical (which DH’s mainly do on meme build) or magical (you can deal magical with fire, with sentinels, huge fire damage with traps, etc) or magical.
    Again, BK, maybe use traps? Pants has one essence that ‘FREEZES’ targets, drop it and freeze the BK. Necros have their fear pants for that. It’s a ‘total loss of control’ effect, instead of the ‘repulsion’ that the meme build uses. There can be other essences there or other slots. On my necro I decided to play close+mid+far range with the alternative build, and found that I have more assists too, while helping more with the main objectives (In defense, for example, preventing the idols at all costs to step forward). Defense side, people think it as a ‘nerf’, in a way, that the idols now move a bit faster forward, even more with up to 4 people standing on it, maybe it’s time for you to rethink your build (again).
  8. The necro ‘Pilars’ doesn’t block attacks ‘properly’, unless, maybe, the opponent necro stands right behind it. Don’t know of this, maybe needs to be checked, but the only ‘Wall’ that Blocks attacks (the ones that depart from the players, yeah, DHs, one of Wizards’, both necros, mid range BK ones, the like, and skills) is the ‘normal’ wall. It even prevents ground ‘dash’ skills, not over it, like modified BK similar to DH’s Daring, maybe. If you mean ‘cancel when you’re gonna use a skill’, yeah, working as intended, and it’s one of the few uses of it, as necro (all the above, for regular wall, and more, is what made me try a different approach, with better results). Imagine a Wizard being canceled by the DH meme build, with ‘repulsion’ imbued on primary, nah.
  9. Continuous damage are all effects like channeled (wizards’ beams) and/or poison/fire, that deal ‘tick’ in X seconds (not 5 hits per second, that one is the attack speed, another attribute, both from set items or anywhere else).

There, for PvP, you have to think out of the box, they increased the slots in Armory, by 5, if you’ve been using the previous 5, now you have 5 more to try other builds. I myself tried 4 pvp on my necro, just yesterday. The game has tools (11 essences each slot), it’s a matter of each player to do their stuff, I’d complain about ‘this slot only has essences for Skill X’, or ‘There isn’t enough essence for Skill X’ like some primary skills (last I checked, BKs only have 1 skill in MH slot o.o)

As for DH, there certainly is 2+ alternatives for PvP, you have to change playstyle, for sure, but when you master it, you can always have your preferred one saved, or even get new preferred ones, expand, adapt, overcome. :wink:

6

I have the primary build, and I second Tak’s comments. It is absolutely unacceptable to nerf a class to death like this. And that’s saying something after I grinded the first 6 months with a BARB before they got semi good. It is by no means fair, to allow daring swing to be interrupted, yet allow wizards to ghost unhindered by enemy attacks, as well as the blood knight. How is that fair? We can’t run, we can’t defend ourselves, we have zero health, and we have no damage because it’s capped. It really stops my desire to spend money in game, to say the least. Quality builds and time mean nothing even with cr when every odd is against your favor. I’m not asking for it all, I’m just asking for the uninterrupted swing back, it’s the absolute bare minimum fair thing you could do. Unless you want to throw out a character completely that this game headlined on. For the hundreds of hours and dollars players spend on getting to where we are, we all expected better. We hope it improves.

1 Like
7

Make the essences more exciting, most dh play the build that gives most dmg while keeping mobility. No one’s gonna run explosive arrow unless it’s landslides better, because why not just play a wizard. if they could build essence around a similar play style ,and I think that essence escape live bait shoulders had 2 charges without the helm we would have a reliable way to avoid dmg I’d prolly just park darling swing it’s super slow can’t be used twice like teleport. As a dh we have not one immunity not even 2 seconds I think it’s the only class that doesn’t. All in all I think that dh would be in a decent spot if they dealt with the issue with not being able to target bks for so long or having to stand around for borrowed time to proc off then gladiator the whole team can rez and then it’s pretty easy for them to get a assist. If borrow time is gonna stick around make it pop off instantly come back with 1/4 life basically meaning they will die 100% but have enough time to land a couple hits mayb kill the other person.bk

1 Like
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Also we need another essence for main hand secondary slot

1 Like
9

So… umm, Ive never run a primary spam DH build, always a strafe build. Works great, I actually use Lifebraid! And Sjikar, Unrelenting Furor and Buzzard with Vithu 4x, allows for faster than 120% mv speed while delivering heavy damage. Trickshot helps a LOT. One tap of strafe fires off a bunch of bullets, 4 of them with my build, you can deliver 8 hits in less than a second with base attack speed, 16 hits total with base energy before 12 seconds for energy to recharge completely, though you can use it even if the energy bar is partially depleted

DS has a helm that bumps us to 150% move speed, barb sprint/shadowsight only thing that boosts us faster IIRC so we run fast AF

Your complaints about DS are valid. That skill has been messed up from day one, escape isnt much better, thats why I used strafe for unhindered

I dont find my build to be squishy, opposite in fact. It’s reliant on reducing damage through affixes on my gear, especially reduce damage while CC and reduce on moving

10

Tried strafe build didn’t like that shots went all over the place the strafe that goes in one direction should b aim-able while shooting n changing directions if needed

11

Again, they cap movement speed on DH, and it’s totally BS. The night before the last major changes came out all of the movement caps amazingly were gone for around half a day and I was simply amazed at how fast and maneuverable my DH was in bg. Faster than about anyone else, then Monday reset rolled around and once again my character is slower than about everyone and I’m being one shot held and killed again. This is all from the nerfing of DH. 90% of DH players really shouldn’t be observably beneath 45% win rates on the bg boards.

1 Like
12

I been using Demon Hunter as my Character since I started Playing the Game. I never switch Class even the other Class was hype or OP on that time…Now, when Blood Knight came… Demon Hunter went from the Playable Class to Trash Class. And the ironic part is, I’m still playing with Demon Hunter…ahahahaha…
Sadly, I’m came to terms that the Devs don’t want to Balance the Demon Hunter Class to other Classes…Now I’m not logging in cause I’m Fed up…By the way I’m 4,600 reso (Demon Hunter) with descent Normal gems…but can be killed easily by 2500 reso Blood Knight in 1v1 during Battle Ground match and when I looked at his Normal gem, compared to mine, it’s too inferior…
And also, I purchased the 7200 orbs just 2 days ago…went to Elder Rift…and got Mostly 1 star gem…Either I continue to not Play, it will all depend on how they will improve or BALANCE the Demon Hunter Class to All Classes…

1 Like