DiabloFans

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/18710646678

It's a multiplicative buff and your examples should look like this:

if all buffs were additive:

=100 * (1 + (10 + 10 + 20) * 0.01)

=100 * 1.4

=140

if all buffs were mulitplicative:

=100 * (1 + 10 * 0.01) * (1 + 10 * 0.01) * (1 + 20 * 0.01)

=100 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.2

=100 * 1.452

=145.2

It's possible that you were facing enemies that can reflect projectiles, for example chakrams, impale, rapid fire, ect.

Here's a few monsters that can do it:

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Dune_Dervish

when they spin they can reflect physical projectiles back at team mates and kill them

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Sand_Dweller

they have a sand shield attack that on hit can reflect projectiles back at you

With the current patch, if you stay above 93.5% damage with EW, you will deal more damage than FnR versus non-elites.

Steady Aim will also have a lot to do with playstyle, so it's hard to truly judge the passive. But sure I'll bite:

Steady Aim won't be active all the time, monsters will slip by making you drop the passive entirely:

=2.25 * 1.4 * 35.4

=111.51x dmg

now with steady aim:

=2.25 * 1.4 * 1.2 * 35.4

=133.812x dmg

________________________________________

EW @ no Steady Aim FnR:

X = 111.51 / 1.6 / 39.4

X = 0.768

so staying above 76.8% will make EW equal to no SA FnR.

________________________________________

best case scenario for EW is:

=2 * 1.6 * 39.4
=126.08x dmg

difference versus trash mobs:

=((133.812 / 126.08) - 1) * 100

=6.13%

_______________________________________________

Now realistically, you shouldn't be standing around wailing on only trash mobs, you should be using multishot to pull the trash towards elites.

EW+SoJ is faster at killing elites and the rift guardian by:

EW+SoJ

=2 * 1.6 * 1.4 * 39.4
=176.512

FnR

=2.25 * 1.4 * 1.1 * 1.2 * 35.4

=147.1932

difference versus elites:

=((176.512 / 147.1932) - 1) * 100

=19.92%

The Rift Guardian takes about 1/4 to 1/5 of the the timer to complete a rift more often than not, so you clear that last 4-3 minutes of the rift 19.92% faster, not to mention every elite pack you find will die 19.92% faster, allowing you to collect globes and keep going.

You can't look at FnR in it's absolute best case scenario and exclude EW's best case scenario in the comparison, both of them have advantages that depend on play style a lot. I for one much prefer FnR, but I can't deny that if you accommodate EW's greatest strength, by constantly pushing forwards to find elites, then it can out perform FnR. Also, some people won't be able to keep Steady Aim up constantly, so the passive won't be the best choice for them and will result in a lot less damage then EW, so again, use what's best for your play style.

Don't expect EW+SoJ to work better than FnR if you are just standing around shooting trash mobs and don't expect FnR to kill the RG or an Elite pack faster, because that isn't it's strength. Like I said, both set-ups have major strengths and weakness and you need to accommodate the set-ups strength and your play style for them to perform at the fullest.

UE is a bit trickier than usual because of the discipline damage. With that said, EW+SoJ is theoretically stronger, but it doesn't always work out in actuality and a lot depends on an individuals play style; whether they are playing in a group or solo, do you stutterstep a lot, and overall habits when an attack is launched right at you.

we'll assume we have 40% Fire from the bracers and ammy, 86 discipline as per usual, and 10% elite damage on the weapon, just to give FnR a hand for the comparison:
EW + SoJ:
EW is 100% more dmg, but we'll look at it for 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%
SoJ is giving us 20% more fire, 12 more discipline and 30% elite damage

= EW * Fire Damage * Elite Damage * (20 * Discipline)

@0% dmg:
= 1 * 1.6 * 1.4 * 20.6
= 46.144x more damage

@25% dmg:
= 1.25 * 1.6 * 1.4 * 20.6
= 57.68x more damage

@50% dmg:
= 1.50 * 1.6 * 1.4 * 20.6
= 69.216x more damage

@75% dmg:
= 1.75 * 1.6 * 1.4 * 20.6
= 80.752x more damage

@100% dmg:
= 2 * 1.6 * 1.4 * 20.6
= 92.288x more damage

IMO the extra primary on CP gets cancelled out by the lack of standard primaries on SoJ (can't get both CHC/CHD on SoJ), so I'll ignore that primary for now.
__________________________________________________________________

FnR + Hellfire:
FnR is 125% more damage combined
the hellfire we'll say gives us ambush, so ~11.3% more dmg(with a 60% DML considered)

= FnR * Fire * Elite * Ambush * (20 * Discipline)
= 2.25 * 1.4 * 1.1 * 1.113 * 18.2
= 70.189119x more damage

but mind you this is active 100% of the time.
__________________________________________________________________
conclusion:
50% of the time EW+SoJ is either more powerful by a fair bit, or quite a bit weaker. So I think use what ever suits your play style better.

I've been using Fortress Ballista and I'm kind of shocked to see it get nerfed immediately after being released. I've been using it cubed with UE6 piece with the following setup:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#QUVTfS!aZch!cYacYZ

+

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/demon-hunter/passive/ambush from hellfire

Wearing:

UE6

Hellfire + F&R

Yang's + DML

Werzechian Bracers

Krelm's Belt

Cubed:

Fortress Ballista

Pride's Fall

Convention of Elements

Gems:

BotT

BotP

Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard/zei's/stricken

Fortress Ballista/MWG is used to keep Pride's Fall and Krelm's belt up permanently. FB scales with the APS bonus for Multishot and every shot restores a shield stack, so the only way to truly lose the shield is to take a huge hit. MWG provides a bit more shield but it also provides a ton of LPS just incase my shield falls. These two items work really well together, both providing a shield and the insane amount of LPS complements the big health pool well. I haven't tried swapping MWG to something else yet, might do it when the patch goes live. Shields also benefit from all toughness benefits that HP would, so things like Aquillas, WoC, ect, all make the shield even tougher.

Pride's Fall's RCR will allow me to use Shadow Power - Shadow Glide + Tactical Advantage permanently, combined with Krelm's belt I'm always sitting at 140% move speed, occasionally 190% from Werzechians. It provides the same amount of RCR as cindercoat would but now applies to all skills including discipline spenders.

I may be missing out from not using Vengeance, but I refuse to use the skill for reasons you know why. When all is said and done I feel like all things I lost from not using it, I've made up for: I don't need to rely on Dark Heart for toughness because I have a huge shield and enough speed to dodge just about anything, I may be missing 40% more damage but I'm travelling everywhere so fast I feel I'm making up for the lost time, and resources are even less of an issue because PF effects everything. I could always just swap FoK-FoD to Vengeance but I love the skills CC.

Overall I really like the item personally, but I'm sad to see it nerfed for no good reason. It really didn't deserve it, you're giving up an entire cube slot for a shield, it should be a decent size shield and 30% isn't much unfortunately, I might need to keep MWG.

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.

After testing S6 in Grifts for a long time now, I do think that they need to address the AoE issue with the set, but I hope that doesn't involve a complete rework. I really like S6 and the other sets are so boring/less involved in comparison imo.

-UE Multishot just blankets entire areas and requires no effort/skill to pull off really, there's nothing to learn or improve upon. Aim and Click, still a fun set, but not much to it.

-M6 you focus on making sure sentries are close by and that's about it. They will help blanket the entire area with what ever attack you want, and will auto aim and shot around corners for you. At least learning and improving upon sentry positioning is possible

-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.

What they need to do to S6 is add in ways to make it deal AoE more easily, some involving active game play, others passive game play:

-Change Grim Reaper to a flat percentage of damage dealt to all enemies in 20 yards, that way its power is not diminished as you climb Grifts. Climbing grifts inevitably means larger packs of monsters because they take longer to kill.

-add in a legendary quiver that gives the first hit of impale a 50% chance to proc Area Damage

-Change Demons Demise to a sword

-Change Spike Trap so that every single rune rearms itself 3 times

-Add a shield/quiver that makes Spike Trap rearm itself 10 times

there's lots they could do for the set to make AoE easier to obtain.

Now this is gonna be an unpopular opinion, but I REALLLY hate how almost mandatory Vengeance has become. The skill looks incredibly stupid and is way to chaotic. It ruins my characters transmog appearance into ugly ass Nats 6 set, I really hate the horns on the helm and the way the cloak looks and the fact it completely negates the time I spent transmog my DH. The 40% multiplicative buff is great and all, but its making most other options completely pointless; they should either make our other damage buffs multiplicative (wolf, MFD, ect) or make Vengeance an additive buff. The new Helm and Dawn aren't helping either because the cube is also getting completely consumed by these items because of this skill, top it off with ORotZ just to keep the skill up even more. I really do not think it is healthy for the longevity of these sets/the demon hunter, we were already getting almost to many skills and items forced on to our char from these sets, but now vengeance too and vengeance is consuming all of our cube slots. There's lots I like about this patch and lots I really don't like.

My only thing about Endless Walk is I hate being forced to stand still, it just doesn't lend well to the way I like to play. I'm also a bit of a stickler for aesthetics and I hate the way Vengeance makes our char look all crazy and out of control, there's just to much visual stuff going on with it IMO. So I'm reluctant to use them, I think I might trying gaining toughness from other ways and see how far I can take it.

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:

His spec has EW and Vegenace

Endless Walk = 100% Damage = x2

Vengeance = 40% Damage = x1.4

Overall Damage Buff = x2.8

We have F&R as well as Convention of Elements

Focus = 50% = x1.5

Restraint = 50% = x1.5

CoE = 200%/4 = x1.5

Overall Damage Buff=x3.375

Theses are the only differences we have in regards to damage buffs, all other buffs being used are available to both our specs so they can be ignored. So our impales should be dealing more DpS than his, we just have waaaayyyy less toughness. This is also ignoring Sticky Trap and its uptime with CoE. Maybe I missed something? Maybe I'm just dying to much? I'll take the guys word for it, but I'm a bbbit sceptical of his claims. Again, maybe I missed something.

Quote from TrueColdkil»

Quote from undefined »

I managed to figure out a way to get really good use out of the dagger. If you get 25% RCR and use a Karlei's dagger that has +15 Impale, after the first impale is cast you can impale a single target infinitely. In situations were there are multiple enemies, the bounces from Ricochet will proc another 15 hatred, so it is possible to get 45 hatred from one throw. Same goes for Overpenetration, any enemies hit by the pierce will return 15 hatred.

I've managed to clear up to Grift 63 with:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#WZTShj!aciR!YY.cZb

-Shadow 6 Piece

-Karlei's dagger

-Lidless Wall

-Ess of Johan

-F&R

-WoC

-Witching Hour

Cube:

Demons Demise

Garwulf

CoE

Not the highest but I'm still trying to find an ancient Dagger and a lidless wall that has lightening and CHC so i can reroll the monks spirit to Discipline, as well as ancient armor. I don't think it's going to take me much higher into the grifts though. the set may need a buff. Maybe if they made the 6 piece: "Impale deals an additional 40,000% weapon damage to the first enemy hit and has an additional 30% chance to proc area damage".

Quote from TrueColdkil»

Ok, dropped the new stuff for Marauder, it's insanely fun Dat 3 billion crits.

I'm still running Enforcer/Zei/Trapped, will likely drop Zei for a more reliable Stricken and Powerful for speed farming.

Garwulf seems the more balanced choice for cube, giving 12%-ish more dmg reduction and damage. The new helm is also really good as 50% dmg reduction baked on Vengeance is nice and uptime is really high with Dawn/Zodiac. Would like to try RoRG+T&T setup for even more pet damage.

Shadow set: a lot of the issues with this could be solved if Blizzard chnages the mechanics of Impale. Instead of colliding with the first monster on path, Impale just need to hit the monster we are currently pointing with the mouse. This way the skill stays a pure ST and doesn't need damage tuning, but we could actually make use of the Impale dagger and in general have more control on our damage.

I got a chance to get on the PTR and play with shadows 6 and personally, I completely disagree, I would be extremely disappointed if they change impales mechanics. For starters having it hit where you mouse is, would make the pierce and ricochet rune very clunky to use, they already go to your mouse cursor. Karlei's Point is actually useless, the damage you deal is so high that you pretty much 1 shot all monsters that you hit first with. I got up to grift 62 with 0 ancient items and a bad 1,8000 dmg dagger and I could never get the hatred return to happen because everything was dying in one shot. The dagger needs to be changed to something else in my opinion, maybe even just "RCR for Impale" would be sufficient, not as cool, but would definitely work.

I couldn't push much higher because of toughness issues, but I want to work on correcting those by swapping gear and try pushing higher again. Also, during these tests, I came across a Bug with Shadows 6 piece set that greatly reduces the Grift potential. Impale - Grievous Wounds does not work with the 6piece bonus of shadows set, it gets cancelled out and you do not gain an extra 330% CHD. Here's a video/bug report I made about it:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/19892439217#1

my spec while pushing was:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#WZTShj!acYi!YcbcZb
-Shadows 6 piece
-Kerlei's Point
-Holy Point Shot
-Witching Hour
-Reapers Wraps
-F&R
-Ess of Johan

Cube:
-Demon's Demise
-Garwulf
-Convention of Elements

Basically, the Witching Hour and F&R are used to get the highest DPS possible, the Ess of Johan also helps with crowd control and DPS by allowing very potent procs of Area Damage. I stacked +100% area damage from my Weapon, Shoulders, Gloves and Paragon. Convention of Elements is also added for damage, but more impotantly, it makes Impales crit so absurdly high that when coupled with MFD-Grim Reaper, I was 1 shotting entire packs in Grift 62. CoE also works really well with DD+Sticky Trap, the constant AoE helps but when Fire rolls around, it would start to melt mobs. I took the rift gaurdian down in seconds with all this combined. Also Bola-Bitter Pill is lightening and Lightening comes just before phyiscal damage in CoE's rotation so it works out well. RW's were for more hatred but didn't seem to useful in the long run.

For defense I was using the 3 wolves from Garwulf much like M2 uses the Wolf, Spider and Boar as a pet wall. This helped hold monsters in place a bit, but more importantly it allowed me to forgo using Vault/smokescreen by using the pet wall and constant movement to stay alive. The enchantress also help with her own Ess of Johan and all of her CC skills.

In the end I found my toughness was far to low and that the impale dagger's returns were next to useless as I was 1 shotting everything. I want to try this all again, but with:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#WZTShj!acXi!ZabcZb
-Shadows 6 piece
-Not sure which weapon maybe Doombringer
-Lidless Wall
-Witching Hour/Zoey's Secret if Lidless and WoC aren't enough
-Wraps of Clarity
-F&R
-Ess of Johan

Cube:
-Demon's Demise
-Garwulf
-Convention of Elements

Since kerlei's is pointless I want to switch my weapon, not sure what yet. Lidless/WoC will add a lot more toughness and Zoey's secret might be a better choice than lidless wall, if so i can use HPS again. Also, since I found out impale-greivous wounds doesn't work, I'll switch to Implae - Impact for now. I also noticed that without Vault/Smokescreen, I had a ton of discipline available, so I switched to Bola - Thunder ball for extra hatred returns.

Like I said, the only issues I'm having when it comes to progress in Grifts is toughness. Impale is not easy to use, but it can be done with enough practice. I think you gave up to early. Add me in PTR, maybe we can mess around and theorycraft for a bit

I see a lot of people including Shuriken Cloud in their S6 specs, but if they haven't increased the Radius and the Tick Rate (its only once per sec atm) of the Cloud, I think it would be kind of useless unfortunately. The skill just doesn't deal enough damage and you have to be way to close for comfort imo, if you had Chak-SC included, you could probably drop it for Action Shot.

Not trying to sound so negative/pretentious about it's uses here, I just think the skill is designed terribly in a lot of ways and doesn't have much of a use for the DH in it's current form. Just my 2 cents on the skill.

I like the looks of this, but don't forget that FoK has no character animation and you can use other skills while using FoK. You could switch it to FoK-Knives Expert and spam FoK while also spamming Bola, might not work out to well with the Dagger's time requirement for the buff, but even still. A constant 250% more damage while spamming both Bola and FoK would be nice.

In regards to chakram, have you tried Razor Disc? It works like Cluster Arrow, it goes directly to where you clicked, damaging enemies along the way and at the location, and then spirals outward hitting others.

Quote from etneet»

Well after some playing the shadow set seems really poor. It has most to do with pretty much all the legendaries for it being completely useless. The dagger that returns hatred when impale hits an already impaled target returns only 15 at maximum. In real in-game situations its nigh impossible to make any use of the returning hatred as one can be pretty damn sure that random monsters will always block the path to the target one actually wants to hit. This alone is also easily the biggest problem of the whole set. Sure it is nice to have good single target dmg, but getting to hit the one target that one wants just doesnt happen often enough. One simply ends up wasting all hatred on killing trash this way. (or wastes time killing the trash mobs using really weak chakram or even the fan of kniver or sticky bombs)

It's difficult to do, but it just takes time to learn how the spec plays. It seems damn near impossible at first, but like every thing, it gets easier over time. Check out this old video of Grim Sever(what Shadows set is loosely designed after):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD2HaBhUzbw

The gameplay is slightly different now, but he's using Grievous Wounds and I think this video illustrates that it is definitely possible.This was done with M6 originally because it was our only set that effected Impale during this patch. If Sentries killed the monster it didn't work. You had to be very precise with your throws to kill monsters marked with MFD before your sentries did. Grievous Wound being single target with no pierce or bounces made this even harder to pull off. Considering all of this, I think it shows you can definitely hit the same target over and over with enough practice, even with other monsters getting in the way.

I used to play Grim Sever before it got nerfed, and it took me about 1 month of playing every day before I could play it properly. I could see the same happening with S6 if you aren't used to it. But once your used to it killing monsters takes less concentration, as it becomes more muscle memory, and you can focus on dodging stuff and resource levels.

Here are more videos of Grim Sever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lZUWKqceHw <-- Lightening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1j0BDyydHE <-- Cold
https://www.youtube.com/user/bladezero25/videos <-- lots more Grim Sever game play videos.

never mind, the PTR patch notes incorrectly list Manticore's buffs