It's still too early to tell, some of the changes look good but we'll have to wait for it to go live to really know. I don't think they're trying to replace HA as the best theoretical single target, they just want to make it so you aren't gimped if you choose something else. I think everyone underestimates the usefulness of RoV even in its present state - the damage may not be huge but it's worth a slot for the Stampede knockback if nothing else. Boosting the damage is a big plus for me
A couple of things I would've liked though; I feel like my Hatred spenders aren't enough more powerful than my Hatred generators. I would've liked generators toned down and spenders beefed up a bit more, it feels more satisfying and your resource management feels more important that way. Also, I think the major problem with SS is not the core skill but the fact it's a DH's only root breaker! I'm really hoping they do something about that, at least let Vault break roots, maybe Shadow Power too? So you don't feel completely screwed if you choose something other than SS. Even my Vault build has to have SS on its bars just to avoid getting into an impossible situation with certain jailer packs.
Our damage is fine, so they spend all their efforts to tweak it on dps abilities we never use and don't want to...?
We get 1shot by most things, we're forced to use builds which have all 3 defensive abilities loaded at once, we must use SS constantly or die and as such are chained to Nat's set in order to have enough disc to do so - and they completely ignore our survivability?!?!?
I wish I could say I was surprised, but this sort of befuddled "who's on first - what's on second" tactic they have for balancing their games is nothing new. Anyone who's played WoW for a year or more has seen them buff already-overpowered classes, nerf already-weak classes and make drastic changes to classes which had been perfectly balanced.
It truly is as if they don't play / test their games at all, and just make balance changes that they think look good on paper. Nothing else explains how they could be so unbelievably clueless about their own games.
This was the preview I was looking forward to the most, since I've only made 1 character from the start and been playing this exclusively. I use the Entangling Shot (with Shock Collar rune) most of the time as well as Twin Chakrams, I've found it helpful (for me anyways), to be able to slow them down from afar and use the T.C. to slice through them before they make it to me (having 51K in life also helps keep the 1 shots down). While it wasn't specifially mentioned by number, It's nice to see the E.T. get a boost, and the T.C. get a 15% bump as well. Perhaps it's just my gameplay style, but I've found the T.C. to be one of the best things for my character to use. Also nice to see the Rain of Vengence get boosted too. While kiting some Elite packs, I've been able to use that and have their health whittled down a bit while they're tailing me since my DPS isn't THAT high compared to other lvl 60 DHs. (maxes out just about 30K DPS) Plus, it's also helpful when standing in a pack of monsters to have that going so it'll knock them down some before I have the chance to dispose of them. I look forward to the exact patch notes to see what all they did for everything and what little things got tweaked.
I was just about to start making a Barbarian since I usually don't play melee type characters often and would be a fun change of pace, but I'll probably wait until 1.0.4 goes into effect to make that character so I can take advantage of some of the buffs they got as well.
Patch notes say the same: Vault with fire rune is 1500 damage over 3 seconds. Ok, I'll trade my half discipline vault rune for 1500 damage over 3 seconds
We'll see tomorrow how quickly they burn, or if it's really a typo.
A couple of things I would've liked though; I feel like my Hatred spenders aren't enough more powerful than my Hatred generators. I would've liked generators toned down and spenders beefed up a bit more, it feels more satisfying and your resource management feels more important that way. Also, I think the major problem with SS is not the core skill but the fact it's a DH's only root breaker! I'm really hoping they do something about that, at least let Vault break roots, maybe Shadow Power too? So you don't feel completely screwed if you choose something other than SS. Even my Vault build has to have SS on its bars just to avoid getting into an impossible situation with certain jailer packs.
We get 1shot by most things, we're forced to use builds which have all 3 defensive abilities loaded at once, we must use SS constantly or die and as such are chained to Nat's set in order to have enough disc to do so - and they completely ignore our survivability?!?!?
I wish I could say I was surprised, but this sort of befuddled "who's on first - what's on second" tactic they have for balancing their games is nothing new. Anyone who's played WoW for a year or more has seen them buff already-overpowered classes, nerf already-weak classes and make drastic changes to classes which had been perfectly balanced.
It truly is as if they don't play / test their games at all, and just make balance changes that they think look good on paper. Nothing else explains how they could be so unbelievably clueless about their own games.
I was just about to start making a Barbarian since I usually don't play melee type characters often and would be a fun change of pace, but I'll probably wait until 1.0.4 goes into effect to make that character so I can take advantage of some of the buffs they got as well.
We'll see tomorrow how quickly they burn, or if it's really a typo.
Conform or be cast out.
My Demon Hunter: http://tinyurl.com/anufqzj Yes, THAT Analogkid- pissing off Hunters since 2007.