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...
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!
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.
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.
If you do X% of a a creatures life in one hit, it stuns them. All that has happened is you've moved down in either DPS, or Crit Damage so that you're not hitting as hard consistently to cause them to stun lock.
I use this strategy with my DH all the time, and Kieble is probably right, most likely something about your gear is different.
Well actually, if you're going for the two piece Nat's bonus, you need the cloak and helm or cloak and ring. Nat's boots w/o a high dex roll aren't a good trade off to get the +7.0 crit chance in place of a half decent pair of rare boots.
I can't see from your profile, but it would appear that your crit chance is relatively low (low enough to not show up on the gear bonuses). That's probably your weakest point. You have a lot of attack speed, so if you don't need it all maybe you could find a ring with crit chance and high dex, look for +damage on it as well. It certainly wouldn't hurt to fill out a spread sheet, that way you can judge what item upgrades will be most cost effective. For example, I know that in my case an amulet with 7.5+ crit chance and dex over 200 was a better upgrade than a neck with crit damage. I also don't know what the attack speed to crit chance trade off will be.
I'm also using Nat's set and I've got ~65-70k dps depending on what weapon selection I choose to use. 450+ resists, and I'm still getting one shot by hellfliers and it's a 50/50 chance whether I'll get one shot by spear goats.
IMO though, using spray of bone with hungering arrow is a waste of a rune. Hungering arrow is designed for single target damage, the only rune worth using with it, IMO, is devouring arrow. Devouring arrow with a xbow crit build for me has crit upwards of 320k damage. And that is not "extremely lucky" that is a pretty normal occurrence. Plus hungering arrow can kill one target while piercing it to go on and kill a separate target.
Spray of Bone constantly procs on original target, which is +50% damage on the first target regardless of priecing. Also, Hungering Arrow with Spray of Bone is the second most effective and spamable aoe ability (with Ball Lightning being the first) that scales extremly well with crit chance and attack speed.
With a lot of people gearing up and starting to use Cluster Arrow with Cluster Bombs as hatred dump, Spray of Bone is the top choice of spammable aoe ability, granted that you have atleast 40%+ crit chance.
I had been using Devouring Arrow since the rune became available, but after I achieved 50% crit chance and tried Spray of Bone, I never went back.
I tear down Inferno butcher in less than 20 seconds, Belial in less than 35 second, and Azmodan before he starts dropping pools using Hungering arrow/devouring arrow with only 22% crit and using just hungering arrow/devouring arrow. I'm sorry, but you will never prove to me that losing that kind of single target damage is worth adding AoE that is just as easily gained by using another ability that is designed to be an AoE ability.
I mean, why give up that kind of insane single target DPS when I can just get evasive fire/covering fire or elemental arrow/frost arrow which mows down mobs in less time? Makes no sense at all IMO.
Because this game is about fighting groups of mobs. Once you get down to a single target, you've already won the fight. Congratulations. It doesn't matter how fast you can mow down a boss, they drop crap.
Another point no one has mentioned yet is that Spray of Teeth has fantastic synergy with Nightstalker for massive discipline regeneration, which is also more important than killing that one monster really fast.
P.S. Spray of Teeth is designed to be an AoE ability.
Before anything else, I'd try a different build. Bows and hand xbows don't synergize well with Cluster Arrow. The spell costs too much hatred to risk a low damage hit, which is likely as your bow has a minimum damage of 322. If you want to keep Cluster Arrow, I'd recommend a 2h xbow. Otherwise give Ball Lightening a try, I think you'll find you get more bang for your buck (hatred) with it.
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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...
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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!
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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.
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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
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I use this strategy with my DH all the time, and Kieble is probably right, most likely something about your gear is different.
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I'm also using Nat's set and I've got ~65-70k dps depending on what weapon selection I choose to use. 450+ resists, and I'm still getting one shot by hellfliers and it's a 50/50 chance whether I'll get one shot by spear goats.
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Because this game is about fighting groups of mobs. Once you get down to a single target, you've already won the fight. Congratulations. It doesn't matter how fast you can mow down a boss, they drop crap.
Another point no one has mentioned yet is that Spray of Teeth has fantastic synergy with Nightstalker for massive discipline regeneration, which is also more important than killing that one monster really fast.
P.S. Spray of Teeth is designed to be an AoE ability.
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