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I am still thinking about why Vengeance related bonuses have been set in both M6 and UE sets.

Given how the mechanics worked, i am fine with Vengeance in M6 builds (rucksack/manticore setup is basically a must, leaving cube spaces for Dawn/Gunes).

However with UE and how fast the Ballista shield stacks, i would rather have the damage bonus baked directly in the set for balancing it and leave the space for Ballista in the cube (again given that Yang/DML is the bust have equipped combo).

More variety and usage of different items across the board. Vengeance as a must have ability for every spec kinda sucks.

I like Alka's propositions and especially the first one - making a synergy between Impale and FoK usage.

As for the Ballista. as i said i didn't even test it. It's great to see that i was wrong and it's actually a good defensive choice, but perma Vengeance (given the fact it now makes you also immune to CC like similar effects) with Dark Heart and a damage increase seems to mee a too much good deal for high GR pushing.

@wudjo: glad to see you back. I'm waiting for new theorycrafting posts

Latest hotfixes:

• Lord Greenstone's Fan
• Reduced damage bonus from 250-300% to 80-100%. (12/1)

• Fortress Ballista
• Shield reduced from 4-5% to 2-3% (12/1)

I'm sad to see the FoK dagger nerfed, it was an awseome weapon but i assume that having it on builds different from Shadows set wasn't intended. I hope there will be a Shadows set rework that includes FoK so the dagger becomes again a good complementary item.

As for the ballista, iì'm not playing PTR recently but i have yet to see anyone using it.

Quote from TastySouP1157»

-N6 I don't even like to talk about because IMO it is the absolute worst set they have released. The playstyle N6 promotes is dumb, the fact that N6/RoV doesn't even deal the damage its a legendary belt and sword that deals the damage is even worse then the playstyle, and strafe looks realllllllly stupid imo. The whole set, from looks too gameplay is just ugly and twisted if you ask me.

Now this is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I REALLLY hate how almost mandatory Vengeance has become.

Just highlighted these two points.
I personally like Natalya set, but tbh i don't like much RoV, while i love Strafe. S1 i played with a melee Strafe/FoK/Shuriken cloud build which was a lot of fun to play for me - in my mind (before current Natalya set) this was the idea i had about what the Shadows set would have needed to be; the knives rune of FoK wouldn't have required a bow weapon, and the rest is known, with perma shadow power giving us the needed survivability to stay in melee.
I agree however that spin-to-win builds haven't a lot of dpeth in gameplay generally.
Agree fully with vengeance. As said above, i'm fine for it to be a core ability for a single set and Marauder imho is perfectly fit for it, both thematically and given the free cube/skill slots - i don't like the fact it's become a really powerful survivability and damage tool so good that every build has it now, while before it could be easily skipped.

As i said some posts above - Shadows set is receiveng the same feedback as the Sunwuko set for monks. On paper, numbers seem fine and we all knwo that we could run with it up to a certain point, and i expect that we could complete the s5 journey even with shadow set in current state (i don't expect last objectives go higher than GR70 and such).

The problem is that the set bonuses promote clunky playstyles that suffer from incredible inefficiency and in some cases contradictory mechanics. To fix this, they need to rework the bonuses and not just tune numbers as they've done with latest hotfixes.

I'll be playing marauder since i love cluster arrow or UE since it's a solid build anyway - this until Shadows set won't be fixed. And i expect at least that.

EDIT: i think i'll go for a non-standard fire/grenades build for Marauder, since now we have all generators streamlined. Maybe not the best effective but who cares, i'm not going for ladders

EDIT2: here's a profile, final d3planner jhas been "updated" http://ptr.d3planner.com/180821342

Mah, i don't like this at all. I didn't like Aquila anyway, but now the bottleneck is too narrow.

I was happy to have perma Vengeance for marauder, but not for the other sets.

Double posting to avoid mixing considerations with the changes list.

Sets got buffed both in damage and survivability, nothing much to say here.

About generators: FINALLY. However people would still use the rune that gives more hatred back since generators damage has always been negligible. Generators should all give back the same amount of hatred, end.

About Shadows set: because you don't see anything in the list (apart the 4S/4M nerf making the build useless) it doesn't mean it's not considered. The issues the set has are not about damage or number tuning but about the playstyle and the way the involved skills work (Chakram, FoK, Impale) making it clunky to use while it's an awesome concept and many of us want to play it.

I expect more for the Shadows set the next updates.

Adding the missing stuff:

Natalya’s Set

• Increased damage reduction from 50% to 60%. (11/24)
• Increased duration from 6 to 10 seconds. (11/24)

• Shadow’s Mantle
• Fixed a bug where the bonus was applying to non-Demon Hunters. (11/24)


• Fortress Ballista
• Fixed a bug where this item wasn’t dropping. (11/24)


• Dawn
• Increased cooldown reduction from 45-60% to 50-65%. (11/24)


• Zoey’s Secret
• Increased damage reduction per Companion from 6-7% to 8-9%. (11/24)


• Preparation
• Invigoration
• Increased max Discipline bonus from 15 to 20. (11/24)




• Vengeance
• Increased duration from 15 to 20 seconds. (11/24)




• Plus all generators now generate the same amount of hatred.

Quote from Arokhantos»

If its baseline then they should nerf the tone down the classes or sets that obviously way ahead of it.

Baseline means anyone with just a little effort and not many hours of gameplay can reach it.
Think about GR 60 in current season - anyone with the correct build can tackle it, but people compelled to pushing reach much higher levels.

Keep in mind that they nerfed monsters hp in solo up to 3 players, so it's basically automatic to gain a few levels from that. It seems GR70 will be baseline for everyone next season.

Quote from HuckleberryPhlegm»

Anyone playing with the sharpshooter (passive)/ envious blade mechanic? Might be interesting in a melee build.

Sharpshooter is good when you have bad gear, but the more CHC you get the worse it becomes. The passive got scrapped from basically any build back in Vanilla when people started to realize this.

Quote from Alka»

Apparently impale can't pass through obstacles so be more picky while placing sentries

Which is the main gripe for the skill.
I think the synergy between Grim Reaper and S6 is great and actually what Blizzard wants us to do or at least thought was a good strategy. The Impale collision and how the S6 bonus works makes it not viable.
Something on the line of "Impale does 40000% damage to MfD enemies" and giving Overpenetration rune baseline would make things much better. Well, likely this combo would be too much (especially if you count a Calamity) but the idea is to get rid of the collision (Overpenetration rune) and to keep the bonus to 40k on single target.
Something like "Impale does 5000% more damage. If it hits 2 or less targets, it does 40000% damage". I don't think it's broken.

Nice video. Only thing that gripes me is the permastunlock on the Guardian at the end - afaik that shouldn't be possible anymore and i think something's not right between Impact rune and sentries.

However, it's not much a problem. In case it's a bug and it gets fixed, you can equip the bracers and cube Aquila cuirass. With Chakram as generator you shouldn't have issues in keeping the hatred high for triggering the bonus.

Also EW looks an option again, coupled with either CoE for more damage or Elusiveness for a good OHSHIT button in shadow power.

Quote from KhaosTheory»

TCK, can you upload some videos of that build if you could, so we can visualize.

I would really like, but connection sucks and it may take like err....a day or so? Really, i have like 0.38Mb of upload bandwidht (fuck yeah 2015).
I will try this evening anyway. I'll think i'll run a GR60 so i can actually push something tougher, but i expect to melt it quite fast.
Tried the lighting build - i am having more or less the same outcome and have less aoe; though Vengeance/Dark Heart is a great survivability tool. Still stays the fact i have pretty crap gems and would like to raise some ofthe and actually try to push higher stuff.

Quote from TastySouP1157»

Also, I'm really curious how he is pushing Grift 70 with only impale and no AoE. If we compare the damage modifiers that we have exclusively compared to each other's set ups the numbers look like:

Eh, basically you summed up my doubts.
What i see good: EW + Elusiveness is a great increase in survivability for a tradeoff in damage (we lose a 5th passive from Hellfire, but we keep the 100% bonus). EW is kinda good for tghis spec as DH doesn't have many skills to be cast on the move, so maybe it's actually better.

Also from his posts if you plan to use Vengeance in a decent way, you're giving up a skill slot + 2 cube slots (Dawn+Zodiac) which i would also use (and in fact use with Marauder). This way we would ditch the wolf (doesn't make a good meatshield alone) and Sticky Trap because it would turn out useless without Demon's Demise.

His core build should be like this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#.ZTO!acR!.Y.Z - no generator is an option since EW doesn't require one.
But this way he's also passing over Carity's Wraps, so no 35% reduction from it. Also, requiring the Impale Dagger and Dawn is a must-cube weapon, FoK returns to be the semi crappy aoe skill.

The toughness is amazing - he got to that level because he simply doesn't die due to all buffs stacking. But i think that with just EW and Elusiveness i can reach very similar toughness amounts (200 million is a bit overkill imho) while keeping higher damage.

He may be right on the gems choice. Tough with our build Gogok won't be useful as we won't have CDs apart wolf - with my buil Trapped+Iceblink+Taeguk seems the best way to proceed (until Stricken is more powerful, but i don't think so given the high crits from Impale).

FUN FACT: i'm still runnign with Grevious Wounds hoping for a bug fix. Still when CoE runs into Phisical i see 8billion crits from FoK and 27billion crits from Impale - which would be higher XD