Hi, first time poster here. I've been lurking around these forums for a good few months, but the hype has finally overwhelmed me. Demon Hunter will most likely be my first class since I historically play hunter/ranger/sniper archetypes. Anyway I've been watching a lot of F&F beta streams and also been looking at different game mechanics. In my opinion, demon hunter seems to be the least popular and most underpowered class. Just humor me for a moment as this is not for whining about a class I haven't played or a game that is still in development. Looking at the original leaked skills, there seemed to be a solution to all the problems in the form of the old Archery passive skill (reduces hatred cost by 50%). This would have been extremely powerful as a primary beta complaint is that the demon hunter runs out of hatred too quickly (the other being damage is low, more on this later). The main downside is that it would be considered mandatory by most players as being able to use twice the amount of skills in a given periods is almost a no-brainer. With recent info from the beta, we know that this passive no longer exists in it's previous form, but that a new hatred usage talent appeared. Enter 'Fundamentals'
Fundamentals
Unlocked at Level 17.
Increases the damage of your basic attacks by 100%. Your basic attacks restore 15 Hatred.
This passive is extremely powerful, solves a few demon hunter problems, but also has some not so nice side effects on gameplay. In the rest of the post, I will try to explain the good and bad points that I have found and the problems it partially/fully solves as well as the problems that arise. I must warn you that this will be a pretty long post, but I'll try to summarize at the bottom.
The Good!
Solves Hatred Regen Problems
This is the basic purpose of the talent. Regens much needed hatred. If you have looked through streams/screenshots, hatred regens at 600 a minute, which is 10 a second. Demon hunter abilities have a fixed cost and only through runes or items could you reduce usage or increase regeneration. Compared to the Wizard's Arcane Power, that regens at 750 a minute, or 12.5 a second. They both have the same pool of 100, but the Wizard has academic spells which reduce the cost every level. Without going into this further, it seems some basic regeneration/cost reduction method was needed.
Static Regen Balances Out One-Handed Crossbows
One of the other common complaints I see from streamers is the complaint of damage being low. The main problem is that they are playing with the iconic weapons, the single-handed crossbow. These weapons are a lot faster (roughly 2x, 1.8 vs 1) than the slowest counterpart the two-handed crossbow, but the damage is much lower (roughly 1/2). The rate of using abilities is also linked to the attack speed of the weapon. The overall effect is that with 1h xbow, you can do the same dps with abilities, but run out of hatred much faster and then need to waste more time to regen either running around or using basic attack. The main points for the weapons without Fundamentals are:
One-Handed Crossbow:
+Use abilities roughly twice as fast
-Deals roughly half the damage.
-Uses energy faster on weaker attacks (due to abilities twice as fast, damage being halved)
Two-Handed Crossbow:
+Deals twice the damage
-Shoots half as slow
+Uses energy slower on stronger attacks (more damage per hit)
In beta, 2h xbows have a slightly higher dps (not damage), but for the sake of this point I'm going to ignore that fact and assume for the moment that they are similar in dps to 1h xbow. I'm also not considering dual-wielding as that is another issue. If you look at these points, you will see that a 1-h xbow will dump all their hatred roughly twice as fast, doing equal total damage, but using twice the focus and having to wait on a static regen. I'll do a quick THEORETICAL example to help illustrate the difference. Assume there's a 1h xbow with 10 dps (5 dmg 2 attack/s) and a 2h xbow with 10 dps (10 dmg 1 attack/s). If we assumed they would cast Impale (rounded to 200% weapon damage for 20 hatred) until empty on hatred, it would be something like this:
1h xbow
Impale x5[2.5 sec], (5 dmg x 200% x 5) = 50 damage, 100 hatred used 25 regen
Wait 7.5 sec, 15 auto attacks for 75 damage (or run/kite), back to full hatred
25% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
75% time regen hatred, 10 dps while regen hatred (or kiting)
2h xbow
Impale x5[5.0 sec], (10 dmg x200% x 5) = 100 damage, 100 hatred used, 50 regen
Wait 5.0 sec, 5 auto attacks for 50 damage (or run/kite), back to full hatred
50% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
50% time regen hatred, 10 dps while regen hatred (or kiting)
Through this example, it's pretty clear that 2h xbow without fundamentals is vastly superior in almost every way. You are able to retain more hatred while doing the same dps when needed, and regen/kiting time is much shorter than 1h xbow. This is also ignoring the fact that 2h xbow also has a higher base dps. But, Fundamentals changes the balance. With 15 hatred regen per basic attack, a faster weapon will increase your regen substantially. I'm going to ignore the 200% bonus to auto attack for now, as future runed skills will put abilities over 200% damage but not now.
1h xbow
Impale x5[2.5 sec], (5 dmg x 200% x 5) = 50 damage, 100 hatred used 25 regen
Wait 7.5 sec, back to full hatred
OR
Auto attack (10h/s base regen + 15 h/attack * 2 attack/s= 40 h/s) for roughly 1.875 sec.
25% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
75% time waiting for regen
OR
57% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
43% time regen hatred through auto attack, doing 10(20 dps)
2h xbow
Impale x5[5.0 sec], (10 dmg x200% x 5) = 100 damage, 100 hatred used, 50 regen
Wait 5.0 sec, back to full hatred
OR
Auto attack (10h/s + 15h/a * 1a/s = 25 h/s) for roughly 2 sec.
50% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
50% time waiting for regen
OR
71% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
29% time regen hatred through auto attack, doing 10(20 dps)
With fundamentals, the fixed regen has a larger benefit to the faster weapons, bringing the ability/regen difference from 25% to 14%. Now slower weapons still come out ahead due to the base passive regen, but this ability helps narrow the gap by a considerable margin. Unlike barbs and monks, DH will always have a passive regen on their resource which does not allow faster weapons to fully catch up until more static on hit effects are added. This example covers most of the abilities based on % weapon damage, but for abilities that aren't, the faster regen actually helps tip the scales for 1h xbows. A much shorter example here (with no math) shows that faster weapons with static regen will favor abilities with static damage.
1h xbow
Chakram/Grenade/Fan of Knives/Coompanion (X amount of time)
Auto attack (40h/s) for LESS TIME to regen full hatred
Result: LESS TIME or MORE NINJA STARS
2h xbow
Chakram/Grenade/Fan of Knives/Coompanion (X amount of time)
Auto attack (25h/s) for MORE TIME to regen full hatred
Result: MORE TIME or LESS NINJA STARS
While the attack rates and damage aren't fixed for all skills, you can clearly see the benefit of the faster crossbows and static damage skills. This is what I like the most about the fundamentals skill. It ends up balancing the weapon types and allows different weapon types to excel with different abilities. Whether inadvertently or not, this passive really alleviates a lot of issues and allows the iconic Demon Hunter weapon to be viable. On a side notes, I feel like a "ninja" build could be pretty fun and semi-effective with Chakram and Fan of Knives being fueled by the faster regen of 1h xbows.
More Damage!(through basic attacks)
The 100% damage increase to basic attacks is huge. It's just a big damage increase from almost every angle. It will be considered overpowered by many including me.
The Bad
Mandatory Passive Skill Means Less Customization
While I'm sure some will argue that this skill is not mandatory, I don't think any other passive will come as close as this one does. In my above examples, I didn't even consider the entirety of the talent, but from just the regen, it's almost unfeasible to pass this talent up. This leaves any meaningful build only 2 options for passive skills, which really sux :\.
Basic Attack Doing More Damage than Special Abilities
From the wording, there's almost no way around it. With fundamentals, your basic attack does 200% weapon damage. From all the skills under the level cap in beta, there is only one ability that does more than 200% damage (impale at 220%). Granted other skills can do more damage through aoe or a % proc, it still seems really stupid for your basic attack to do so much damage. This shifts the value of all your offensive abilities down by a lot. In a sense, the demon hunter no longer has offensive abilities, only aoe and utility. Runes may change this, but for the majority of abilities, I don't see them being better than basic attack for hitting single targets.
Only Class Forced to Use Basic Attack
The Monk and Barbarian have abilities to replace their basic attack which generates resources. The Wizard has academic spells which will cost little to no Arcane Power. The Witch Doctor has a seemingly endless supply of mana. The Demon Hunter uses Basic Attacks. The idea just doesn't seem as fun. Part of it is because of the name "basic attack", but there are other reasons. You could consider Spirit/Fury/Academic skills to be basic attacks, but there are many different spells in those categories. The variety of the other classes' "basic attacks" leads to more customization and dare I say, fun. You can punch or explode enemies. Bash in one skull or cleave them all down. Electrocute or whatever magic missile is supposed to do. It just adds a lot more flavor to the classes. The basic attack also has no flashy animations or special effects, which will lead Demon Hunters to seem more drab while other classes get to spam a plethora of "cooler" skills. If they added the regen effect to specific shots instead (say hungering arrow) this might solve the problem. Just slightly disappointing :QQ:.
Playstyle Based Around Constant DPS, Not Hit and Run
The regen of fundamentals puts Demon Hunters in between the melee characters and the casters. Monks and Barbarians must constantly hit targets to build resources and then spend them. Any time off and there is a potential damage opportunity slipping away. With the resource systems of the Witch Doctor and Wizard (less for Wizard when academics are very low cost), you actually can take time off while your resource is regenerating and lose little to no damage opportunities. The Demon Hunter has a relatively weak passive regen like the casters, but also a much stronger regen through basic attack like the melee. Sort of in the middle. Now you can make arguments for where the Demon Hunter should belong, the weapon damage camp or the ranged damage camp. I think that placing a focus on constant attack does not fit the theme of the Demon Hunter and that requiring the only class that needs to manage 2 resources to juggle active regeneration is unfair. You've seen the beta streams. You can hit hit hit, and then run for 10 seconds and hit hit hit again. Without fundamentals, regen is too low for an active playstyle, but requiring constant standing dps to use abilities and regen makes hit and run no longer a playstyle but a choice between higher and lower dps output. People will say, that's a choice that you should have to make, but this is not the case with the other 2 ranged classes who can dump abilities then move with little downside. It just doesn't make sense for the theme of the class while overpowered Wizards are just turreting instant-cast-no-travel-time-piercing-high-damage-no-cooldown skills (I'm looking at you disintegrate) and then are able to quickly move and regen. Just seems to me that the demon hunter mechanics makes it more difficult to play without providing any rewards. This is bordering on unfounded QQ so I'll just end it here.
If you read the entire post, I hope you gained some insight about the future of Demon Hunter gameplay. I'd like to hear any thoughts you might have. Here's a short summary for lazies.
TLDR
"Fundamentals" passive skill doubles basic attack damage and regens 15 hatred per basic attack.
The Good:
Buffs all demon hunters regen
Buffs 1h xbow more to make them viable
Buffs basic attacks to do twice the damage
The Bad:
'Fundamentals' is mandatory for all builds
Your basic attack is better than all your abilities
You're gonna be attacking basically while everyone else has fun
Can't effectively hit and run, just stand and basic attack
2
Fundamentals
Unlocked at Level 17.
Increases the damage of your basic attacks by 100%. Your basic attacks restore 15 Hatred.
This passive is extremely powerful, solves a few demon hunter problems, but also has some not so nice side effects on gameplay. In the rest of the post, I will try to explain the good and bad points that I have found and the problems it partially/fully solves as well as the problems that arise. I must warn you that this will be a pretty long post, but I'll try to summarize at the bottom.
The Good!
Solves Hatred Regen Problems
This is the basic purpose of the talent. Regens much needed hatred. If you have looked through streams/screenshots, hatred regens at 600 a minute, which is 10 a second. Demon hunter abilities have a fixed cost and only through runes or items could you reduce usage or increase regeneration. Compared to the Wizard's Arcane Power, that regens at 750 a minute, or 12.5 a second. They both have the same pool of 100, but the Wizard has academic spells which reduce the cost every level. Without going into this further, it seems some basic regeneration/cost reduction method was needed.
Static Regen Balances Out One-Handed Crossbows
One of the other common complaints I see from streamers is the complaint of damage being low. The main problem is that they are playing with the iconic weapons, the single-handed crossbow. These weapons are a lot faster (roughly 2x, 1.8 vs 1) than the slowest counterpart the two-handed crossbow, but the damage is much lower (roughly 1/2). The rate of using abilities is also linked to the attack speed of the weapon. The overall effect is that with 1h xbow, you can do the same dps with abilities, but run out of hatred much faster and then need to waste more time to regen either running around or using basic attack. The main points for the weapons without Fundamentals are:
One-Handed Crossbow:
+Use abilities roughly twice as fast
-Deals roughly half the damage.
-Uses energy faster on weaker attacks (due to abilities twice as fast, damage being halved)
Two-Handed Crossbow:
+Deals twice the damage
-Shoots half as slow
+Uses energy slower on stronger attacks (more damage per hit)
In beta, 2h xbows have a slightly higher dps (not damage), but for the sake of this point I'm going to ignore that fact and assume for the moment that they are similar in dps to 1h xbow. I'm also not considering dual-wielding as that is another issue. If you look at these points, you will see that a 1-h xbow will dump all their hatred roughly twice as fast, doing equal total damage, but using twice the focus and having to wait on a static regen. I'll do a quick THEORETICAL example to help illustrate the difference. Assume there's a 1h xbow with 10 dps (5 dmg 2 attack/s) and a 2h xbow with 10 dps (10 dmg 1 attack/s). If we assumed they would cast Impale (rounded to 200% weapon damage for 20 hatred) until empty on hatred, it would be something like this:
1h xbow
Impale x5[2.5 sec], (5 dmg x 200% x 5) = 50 damage, 100 hatred used 25 regen
Wait 7.5 sec, 15 auto attacks for 75 damage (or run/kite), back to full hatred
25% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
75% time regen hatred, 10 dps while regen hatred (or kiting)
2h xbow
Impale x5[5.0 sec], (10 dmg x200% x 5) = 100 damage, 100 hatred used, 50 regen
Wait 5.0 sec, 5 auto attacks for 50 damage (or run/kite), back to full hatred
50% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
50% time regen hatred, 10 dps while regen hatred (or kiting)
Through this example, it's pretty clear that 2h xbow without fundamentals is vastly superior in almost every way. You are able to retain more hatred while doing the same dps when needed, and regen/kiting time is much shorter than 1h xbow. This is also ignoring the fact that 2h xbow also has a higher base dps. But, Fundamentals changes the balance. With 15 hatred regen per basic attack, a faster weapon will increase your regen substantially. I'm going to ignore the 200% bonus to auto attack for now, as future runed skills will put abilities over 200% damage but not now.
1h xbow
Impale x5[2.5 sec], (5 dmg x 200% x 5) = 50 damage, 100 hatred used 25 regen
Wait 7.5 sec, back to full hatred
OR
Auto attack (10h/s base regen + 15 h/attack * 2 attack/s= 40 h/s) for roughly 1.875 sec.
25% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
75% time waiting for regen
OR
57% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
43% time regen hatred through auto attack, doing 10(20 dps)
2h xbow
Impale x5[5.0 sec], (10 dmg x200% x 5) = 100 damage, 100 hatred used, 50 regen
Wait 5.0 sec, back to full hatred
OR
Auto attack (10h/s + 15h/a * 1a/s = 25 h/s) for roughly 2 sec.
50% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
50% time waiting for regen
OR
71% time using hatred, 20 dps while using hatred
29% time regen hatred through auto attack, doing 10(20 dps)
With fundamentals, the fixed regen has a larger benefit to the faster weapons, bringing the ability/regen difference from 25% to 14%. Now slower weapons still come out ahead due to the base passive regen, but this ability helps narrow the gap by a considerable margin. Unlike barbs and monks, DH will always have a passive regen on their resource which does not allow faster weapons to fully catch up until more static on hit effects are added. This example covers most of the abilities based on % weapon damage, but for abilities that aren't, the faster regen actually helps tip the scales for 1h xbows. A much shorter example here (with no math) shows that faster weapons with static regen will favor abilities with static damage.
1h xbow
Chakram/Grenade/Fan of Knives/Coompanion (X amount of time)
Auto attack (40h/s) for LESS TIME to regen full hatred
Result: LESS TIME or MORE NINJA STARS
2h xbow
Chakram/Grenade/Fan of Knives/Coompanion (X amount of time)
Auto attack (25h/s) for MORE TIME to regen full hatred
Result: MORE TIME or LESS NINJA STARS
While the attack rates and damage aren't fixed for all skills, you can clearly see the benefit of the faster crossbows and static damage skills. This is what I like the most about the fundamentals skill. It ends up balancing the weapon types and allows different weapon types to excel with different abilities. Whether inadvertently or not, this passive really alleviates a lot of issues and allows the iconic Demon Hunter weapon to be viable. On a side notes, I feel like a "ninja" build could be pretty fun and semi-effective with Chakram and Fan of Knives being fueled by the faster regen of 1h xbows.
More Damage!(through basic attacks)
The 100% damage increase to basic attacks is huge. It's just a big damage increase from almost every angle. It will be considered overpowered by many including me.
The Bad
Mandatory Passive Skill Means Less Customization
While I'm sure some will argue that this skill is not mandatory, I don't think any other passive will come as close as this one does. In my above examples, I didn't even consider the entirety of the talent, but from just the regen, it's almost unfeasible to pass this talent up. This leaves any meaningful build only 2 options for passive skills, which really sux :\.
Basic Attack Doing More Damage than Special Abilities
From the wording, there's almost no way around it. With fundamentals, your basic attack does 200% weapon damage. From all the skills under the level cap in beta, there is only one ability that does more than 200% damage (impale at 220%). Granted other skills can do more damage through aoe or a % proc, it still seems really stupid for your basic attack to do so much damage. This shifts the value of all your offensive abilities down by a lot. In a sense, the demon hunter no longer has offensive abilities, only aoe and utility. Runes may change this, but for the majority of abilities, I don't see them being better than basic attack for hitting single targets.
Only Class Forced to Use Basic Attack
The Monk and Barbarian have abilities to replace their basic attack which generates resources. The Wizard has academic spells which will cost little to no Arcane Power. The Witch Doctor has a seemingly endless supply of mana. The Demon Hunter uses Basic Attacks. The idea just doesn't seem as fun. Part of it is because of the name "basic attack", but there are other reasons. You could consider Spirit/Fury/Academic skills to be basic attacks, but there are many different spells in those categories. The variety of the other classes' "basic attacks" leads to more customization and dare I say, fun. You can punch or explode enemies. Bash in one skull or cleave them all down. Electrocute or whatever magic missile is supposed to do. It just adds a lot more flavor to the classes. The basic attack also has no flashy animations or special effects, which will lead Demon Hunters to seem more drab while other classes get to spam a plethora of "cooler" skills. If they added the regen effect to specific shots instead (say hungering arrow) this might solve the problem. Just slightly disappointing :QQ:.
Playstyle Based Around Constant DPS, Not Hit and Run
The regen of fundamentals puts Demon Hunters in between the melee characters and the casters. Monks and Barbarians must constantly hit targets to build resources and then spend them. Any time off and there is a potential damage opportunity slipping away. With the resource systems of the Witch Doctor and Wizard (less for Wizard when academics are very low cost), you actually can take time off while your resource is regenerating and lose little to no damage opportunities. The Demon Hunter has a relatively weak passive regen like the casters, but also a much stronger regen through basic attack like the melee. Sort of in the middle. Now you can make arguments for where the Demon Hunter should belong, the weapon damage camp or the ranged damage camp. I think that placing a focus on constant attack does not fit the theme of the Demon Hunter and that requiring the only class that needs to manage 2 resources to juggle active regeneration is unfair. You've seen the beta streams. You can hit hit hit, and then run for 10 seconds and hit hit hit again. Without fundamentals, regen is too low for an active playstyle, but requiring constant standing dps to use abilities and regen makes hit and run no longer a playstyle but a choice between higher and lower dps output. People will say, that's a choice that you should have to make, but this is not the case with the other 2 ranged classes who can dump abilities then move with little downside. It just doesn't make sense for the theme of the class while overpowered Wizards are just turreting instant-cast-no-travel-time-piercing-high-damage-no-cooldown skills (I'm looking at you disintegrate) and then are able to quickly move and regen. Just seems to me that the demon hunter mechanics makes it more difficult to play without providing any rewards. This is bordering on unfounded QQ so I'll just end it here.
If you read the entire post, I hope you gained some insight about the future of Demon Hunter gameplay. I'd like to hear any thoughts you might have. Here's a short summary for lazies.
TLDR
"Fundamentals" passive skill doubles basic attack damage and regens 15 hatred per basic attack.
The Good:
Buffs all demon hunters regen
Buffs 1h xbow more to make them viable
Buffs basic attacks to do twice the damage
The Bad:
'Fundamentals' is mandatory for all builds
Your basic attack is better than all your abilities
You're gonna be attacking basically while everyone else has fun
Can't effectively hit and run, just stand and basic attack
Thanks for reading