Honestly, I'm not too impressed. I don't think much needed to be changed. However, Hungering Arrow's advantage over everything else is that it seeks targets. If it still theoretically does more damage too, everything else is still real world worse. Also, Bola Shot needed a decrease in it's explosion timer to make it worth while. I especially like the way they kindly said that Grenades are so messed up they can't fix it. They'll probably leave it until the expansion and then replace it.
And Rain of Vengeance? I think the new wording is more clear as far as what it's doing, but how much damage was it doing before? "75% weapon damage for 5 seconds" would be what? "600% weapon damage over 5 seconds"? I don't even know. That skill needed a reduction in it's cool down time to get a spot on my bar.
I don't see anyone going away from Hungering Arrow with the announced changes so far. Maybe when they mention runes things might look better.
As for Rain of Vengeance, it seems nice. A lower cooldown is not coherent with some other stuff they posted, as they said before that skills with a higher cooldown would be buffed damage, which seems to be the case.
For me, a bigger concern is the passive abilities, not the damaging ones. Whatever works out to most real-world damage will eventually become more popular than the rest. Trying to balance them all is a fool's errand (see Warcraft, World of).
The passives and disipline-spenders do more to control how you play your Demon Hunter. Do you kite, with caltrops? Do you face-tank? (Can you face-tank?). I was very disappointed none of them was really mentioned. Doubling Turrent damage was lackluster, I would have preferred to see the runes on it (especially healing and damage reduction) buffed to make them useful to play style.
Everyone should keep in mind this was just a preview of changes, and not the entire list. They just gave us some ideas they have, but there's likely to be so much more.
Calm down and wait. We've only got a couple of weeks, guys. I'm sure things will look nice.
For me, a bigger concern is the passive abilities, not the damaging ones. Whatever works out to most real-world damage will eventually become more popular than the rest. Trying to balance them all is a fool's errand (see Warcraft, World of).
The passives and disipline-spenders do more to control how you play your Demon Hunter. Do you kite, with caltrops? Do you face-tank? (Can you face-tank?). I was very disappointed none of them was really mentioned. Doubling Turrent damage was lackluster, I would have preferred to see the runes on it (especially healing and damage reduction) buffed to make them useful to play style.
I definitely think the passives need to be revamped. There are so many that are completely useless. After playing with Natalya's set for the last month or two, I can see how it improves the class in ways that make it much more fun. I want a passive that increases Discipline regeneration, maybe by 1 per second. It could be in place of Nightstalker, or maybe not.
For the turret, I think a boost to the damage reduction and healing would be nice, but it'd be great if they increased the area of effect as well.
in only a few words 1.0.4 dh preview wont affect MOST of the current builds at all, none of those skills seems to be useful enough to change them for any of the current skills on our builds
Sentry was a nice try, but it unfortunately just won't be enough to get it to be used. Just not worth dropping the Discipline for anything not survival-related.
Honestly, I'm not too impressed. I don't think much needed to be changed. However, Hungering Arrow's advantage over everything else is that it seeks targets. If it still theoretically does more damage too, everything else is still real world worse. Also, Bola Shot needed a decrease in it's explosion timer to make it worth while. I especially like the way they kindly said that Grenades are so messed up they can't fix it. They'll probably leave it until the expansion and then replace it.
And Rain of Vengeance? I think the new wording is more clear as far as what it's doing, but how much damage was it doing before? "75% weapon damage for 5 seconds" would be what? "600% weapon damage over 5 seconds"? I don't even know. That skill needed a reduction in it's cool down time to get a spot on my bar.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
Edit: grammarrrrrr
I think the damage boost to all the generators is really cool, because I don't really like using HA when ES can trip my cull the weak, and bola can replace my EA for aoe.
Also on RoV, they are almost doubling it. At the moment the 75% dmg over 5 seconds would be 375% damage overall, and the 715% damage will probably make me find a place for it on my bar =)
You also have to remember these are just highlights, and not the patch notes. A lot of stuff is going to get tweaked.
Honestly, I'm not too impressed. I don't think much needed to be changed. However, Hungering Arrow's advantage over everything else is that it seeks targets. If it still theoretically does more damage too, everything else is still real world worse. Also, Bola Shot needed a decrease in it's explosion timer to make it worth while. I especially like the way they kindly said that Grenades are so messed up they can't fix it. They'll probably leave it until the expansion and then replace it.
And Rain of Vengeance? I think the new wording is more clear as far as what it's doing, but how much damage was it doing before? "75% weapon damage for 5 seconds" would be what? "600% weapon damage over 5 seconds"? I don't even know. That skill needed a reduction in it's cool down time to get a spot on my bar.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
Edit: grammarrrrrr
I think the damage boost to all the generators is really cool, because I don't really like using HA when ES can trip my cull the weak, and bola can replace my EA for aoe.
Also on RoV, they are almost doubling it. At the moment the 75% dmg over 5 seconds would be 375% damage overall, and the 715% damage will probably make me find a place for it on my bar =)
You also have to remember these are just highlights, and not the patch notes. A lot of stuff is going to get tweaked.
Entangling Shot can trip your Cull of the Weak, but you'd be better off using Steady Aim for 20% boost. Thanks for the clarification on Rain of Vengeance's damage, I was unaware that had been calculated!
After reading the 3 previous class previews it feels as if Blizzard's preview for DH basically says 'you're the least broken class right now' which I feel like is generally correct. It appears that no skills received any significant changes to their mechanics and for the most part they are bringing low DPS skills in line with the higher DPS skills that people feel are currently required. I was really surprised they mentioned nothing about our discipline skills (except Sentry) so it leads me to believe they think we're mostly fine on that side of our skill tree. It is also important to remember that with the DPS increases, Inferno elites will also receive a 25% health nerf, so all these skills are going to feel much more powerful than they do today.
As for specific skills, I run a build that uses Cluster Arrow/Loaded For Bear, so increases in damage without resource increases are always nice. What is yet to be seen is how viable synergizing these skills with existing passives will be. Someone mentioned the cost of Sentry as being a negative to putting it on your bar, well when run in a high crit build with night stalker, sentry may be net discipline generator with the right crit level and attack speed. I'd also be interested to know if the sentry AI is smart enough to prefer targets with Marked For Death, which could lead to some interesting gameplay. RoV will be fun to play with even with the 30 second CD.
I think the changes DH's have the most to look forward to involve the updates to 1h and 2h weapons. I think 2h xbows and bows are going to be super-powerful (assuming the new affixes will be on them), and hand crossbows are going to be a competitive alternative with the right skill complement.
RoV is a CC not a damage ability. We do a lot of our burst/dpsing while RoV is stunning or knocking back monsters. Yeah, the DPs increase is nice, but that's not why we use RoV!!! Lower the cooldowns! If people want massive dps for ROV w/o the CC (stampede/striking) than by all means...but we all know what will edge out.
The changes are lackluster. =( We need more survability or buffs to our discipline spenders, maybe lower some of their cost? Our passives are okay, but there is very little variety to choose from imho.
I can see why they tweaked abilities upwards to make them more competitive, but that's only from the damage standpoint. A lot of the abilities that get high use have far superior mechanics, and I don't think twisting around some numbers is really going to get me to switch my play style around. They really needed to hit the cooldown, cost and mechanics of many of the low-use abilities in order to make them worthwhile, which based on the preview they did not do.
Didn't read anything in there that made me start figuring out what I was taking off of my bar - really you can get by in A3 Inferno with 1 generator and 1 damage skill (which for just about everyone is Elemental Arrow) and the rest is typically "How the hell can I stay alive" choices.
Be interested to see if they played with passives at all - my guess is that 90% of DH's use at least 2 of the same 3 skills.
I love my softcore DH but I wouldn't even consider playing on HC,
I'm a bit dissapointed that they didn't touch the subject of DH survivability, and how we are forced to use Gloom if we want any damage reduction at all (considering turrets have a diameter of 30 yards range, meaning a vault brings you from one end of the zone to the other). We have no viable choises in terms of passive survivability, while every other class has a *ton* of them.
We're stuck with Shadow Power: Gloom (assuming 50 disc from quiver + chest, it is useable 14+14+14=42 3 times, for an uptime of 9 seconds. Over 9 seconds you regen 9 disc without nats, 9+the remaining 8 = 17, giving you another one, making for a total of 12 seconds of "tankability", and leaving you at 6 discipline. At this point, you have to wait another 8 seconds to be able to become protected for 3 seconds, and from there on out, you'll have a 21% uptime on Gloom, not accounting for Preparation [which can basically be assumed as the above *2]. Which means 12 seconds of protection, 6 seconds without, 3 seconds of protection, 11 seconds without, repeat).
Obviously, Smoke screen is far worse - but as it is, even with prep, tanking for more than half a minute is not a probable scenario, and at the point where you've done that, you need to not spend any disc for almost a minute to get back to "full power".
we need some passive damage reduction, or other skills providing us with some - heck, even other forms of dmg reduction like Dodge (give vault a glyph that makes us dodge for 30% more after using it, etc) would be appreciated.
I'm a bit dissapointed that they didn't touch the subject of DH survivability, and how we are forced to use Gloom if we want any damage reduction at all (considering turrets have a diameter of 30 yards range, meaning a vault brings you from one end of the zone to the other). We have no viable choises in terms of passive survivability, while every other class has a *ton* of them.
We're stuck with Shadow Power: Gloom (assuming 50 disc from quiver + chest, it is useable 14+14+14=42 3 times, for an uptime of 9 seconds. Over 9 seconds you regen 9 disc without nats, 9+the remaining 8 = 17, giving you another one, making for a total of 12 seconds of "tankability", and leaving you at 6 discipline. At this point, you have to wait another 8 seconds to be able to become protected for 3 seconds, and from there on out, you'll have a 21% uptime on Gloom, not accounting for Preparation [which can basically be assumed as the above *2]. Which means 12 seconds of protection, 6 seconds without, 3 seconds of protection, 11 seconds without, repeat).
Obviously, Smoke screen is far worse - but as it is, even with prep, tanking for more than half a minute is not a probable scenario, and at the point where you've done that, you need to not spend any disc for almost a minute to get back to "full power".
we need some passive damage reduction, or other skills providing us with some - heck, even other forms of dmg reduction like Dodge (give vault a glyph that makes us dodge for 30% more after using it, etc) would be appreciated.
As I posted in another thread, I can't help but laugh at how moronic it was to design a class who's defense mechanisms are aimed at avoiding attacks in a game where you're not allowed to avoid attacks. Anyone ever vault away from an incoming blow only to find that you've died exiting the vault? Yeah...
I was expecting a revamp to strafe. It's by far (confirmed by blizzard) the least used skill.
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StarCraft Legacy - Content Staff Hey guys I want you all to know that my team is playing/did great this weekend so I am going to go ahead and make it my status because I know you all care and want to know my opinion on it.
-sports fan/douchebag
I'm a bit dissapointed that they didn't touch the subject of DH survivability, and how we are forced to use Gloom if we want any damage reduction at all (considering turrets have a diameter of 30 yards range, meaning a vault brings you from one end of the zone to the other). We have no viable choises in terms of passive survivability, while every other class has a *ton* of them.
We're stuck with Shadow Power: Gloom (assuming 50 disc from quiver + chest, it is useable 14+14+14=42 3 times, for an uptime of 9 seconds. Over 9 seconds you regen 9 disc without nats, 9+the remaining 8 = 17, giving you another one, making for a total of 12 seconds of "tankability", and leaving you at 6 discipline. At this point, you have to wait another 8 seconds to be able to become protected for 3 seconds, and from there on out, you'll have a 21% uptime on Gloom, not accounting for Preparation [which can basically be assumed as the above *2]. Which means 12 seconds of protection, 6 seconds without, 3 seconds of protection, 11 seconds without, repeat).
Obviously, Smoke screen is far worse - but as it is, even with prep, tanking for more than half a minute is not a probable scenario, and at the point where you've done that, you need to not spend any disc for almost a minute to get back to "full power".
we need some passive damage reduction, or other skills providing us with some - heck, even other forms of dmg reduction like Dodge (give vault a glyph that makes us dodge for 30% more after using it, etc) would be appreciated.
As I posted in another thread, I can't help but laugh at how moronic it was to design a class who's defense mechanisms are aimed at avoiding attacks in a game where you're not allowed to avoid attacks. Anyone ever vault away from an incoming blow only to find that you've died exiting the vault? Yeah...
I actually HATE dying coming out of a vault more than if I drop right where I was *vault - - -> *let the bodies hit the floor*... *rage*
The idea of *DODGE* is fine but it has to be a part of the whole "mitigate vs. avoid" scheme. Doesnt matter if you avoid 19 attacks out of 20 if the 20th one will always 1 shot you. I run A3 with ~50k hps but there are still plenty of singular attacks that will kill you in one hit.
There are none changes to the mechanics as far as i can see. Increasing damage just sounds dumb to me. Increasing damage on the obvious fail skill wont bring it to life imo
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Honestly, I'm not too impressed. I don't think much needed to be changed. However, Hungering Arrow's advantage over everything else is that it seeks targets. If it still theoretically does more damage too, everything else is still real world worse. Also, Bola Shot needed a decrease in it's explosion timer to make it worth while. I especially like the way they kindly said that Grenades are so messed up they can't fix it. They'll probably leave it until the expansion and then replace it.
And Rain of Vengeance? I think the new wording is more clear as far as what it's doing, but how much damage was it doing before? "75% weapon damage for 5 seconds" would be what? "600% weapon damage over 5 seconds"? I don't even know. That skill needed a reduction in it's cool down time to get a spot on my bar.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
Edit: grammarrrrrr
As for Rain of Vengeance, it seems nice. A lower cooldown is not coherent with some other stuff they posted, as they said before that skills with a higher cooldown would be buffed damage, which seems to be the case.
The passives and disipline-spenders do more to control how you play your Demon Hunter. Do you kite, with caltrops? Do you face-tank? (Can you face-tank?). I was very disappointed none of them was really mentioned. Doubling Turrent damage was lackluster, I would have preferred to see the runes on it (especially healing and damage reduction) buffed to make them useful to play style.
Calm down and wait. We've only got a couple of weeks, guys. I'm sure things will look nice.
Well..at least I'm crossing my fingers, anyway.
I definitely think the passives need to be revamped. There are so many that are completely useless. After playing with Natalya's set for the last month or two, I can see how it improves the class in ways that make it much more fun. I want a passive that increases Discipline regeneration, maybe by 1 per second. It could be in place of Nightstalker, or maybe not.
For the turret, I think a boost to the damage reduction and healing would be nice, but it'd be great if they increased the area of effect as well.
I think the damage boost to all the generators is really cool, because I don't really like using HA when ES can trip my cull the weak, and bola can replace my EA for aoe.
Also on RoV, they are almost doubling it. At the moment the 75% dmg over 5 seconds would be 375% damage overall, and the 715% damage will probably make me find a place for it on my bar =)
You also have to remember these are just highlights, and not the patch notes. A lot of stuff is going to get tweaked.
Entangling Shot can trip your Cull of the Weak, but you'd be better off using Steady Aim for 20% boost. Thanks for the clarification on Rain of Vengeance's damage, I was unaware that had been calculated!
As for specific skills, I run a build that uses Cluster Arrow/Loaded For Bear, so increases in damage without resource increases are always nice. What is yet to be seen is how viable synergizing these skills with existing passives will be. Someone mentioned the cost of Sentry as being a negative to putting it on your bar, well when run in a high crit build with night stalker, sentry may be net discipline generator with the right crit level and attack speed. I'd also be interested to know if the sentry AI is smart enough to prefer targets with Marked For Death, which could lead to some interesting gameplay. RoV will be fun to play with even with the 30 second CD.
I think the changes DH's have the most to look forward to involve the updates to 1h and 2h weapons. I think 2h xbows and bows are going to be super-powerful (assuming the new affixes will be on them), and hand crossbows are going to be a competitive alternative with the right skill complement.
The changes are lackluster. =( We need more survability or buffs to our discipline spenders, maybe lower some of their cost? Our passives are okay, but there is very little variety to choose from imho.
profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/vanboon-1499/hero/3962228
http://i.imgur.com/8AfIp.jpg 4/4pc natalyza dps: 73k (w/o ss), dex: 1967, health: 22k, resist: ~150, mf: 90%/261%
Be interested to see if they played with passives at all - my guess is that 90% of DH's use at least 2 of the same 3 skills.
I love my softcore DH but I wouldn't even consider playing on HC,
We're stuck with Shadow Power: Gloom (assuming 50 disc from quiver + chest, it is useable 14+14+14=42 3 times, for an uptime of 9 seconds. Over 9 seconds you regen 9 disc without nats, 9+the remaining 8 = 17, giving you another one, making for a total of 12 seconds of "tankability", and leaving you at 6 discipline. At this point, you have to wait another 8 seconds to be able to become protected for 3 seconds, and from there on out, you'll have a 21% uptime on Gloom, not accounting for Preparation [which can basically be assumed as the above *2]. Which means 12 seconds of protection, 6 seconds without, 3 seconds of protection, 11 seconds without, repeat).
Obviously, Smoke screen is far worse - but as it is, even with prep, tanking for more than half a minute is not a probable scenario, and at the point where you've done that, you need to not spend any disc for almost a minute to get back to "full power".
we need some passive damage reduction, or other skills providing us with some - heck, even other forms of dmg reduction like Dodge (give vault a glyph that makes us dodge for 30% more after using it, etc) would be appreciated.
I also wanted to mention the change to sentry. While doubling the damage is nice, it doesn't fix the issue I always had with it. It's terrible range.
As I posted in another thread, I can't help but laugh at how moronic it was to design a class who's defense mechanisms are aimed at avoiding attacks in a game where you're not allowed to avoid attacks. Anyone ever vault away from an incoming blow only to find that you've died exiting the vault? Yeah...
Hey guys I want you all to know that my team is playing/did great this weekend so I am going to go ahead and make it my status because I know you all care and want to know my opinion on it.
-sports fan/douchebag
I actually HATE dying coming out of a vault more than if I drop right where I was *vault - - -> *let the bodies hit the floor*... *rage*
The idea of *DODGE* is fine but it has to be a part of the whole "mitigate vs. avoid" scheme. Doesnt matter if you avoid 19 attacks out of 20 if the 20th one will always 1 shot you. I run A3 with ~50k hps but there are still plenty of singular attacks that will kill you in one hit.