3
Normal weapons should just have the same damage range as Ancients. Then the only benefit to ancient is stat increases, which are meaningful but not gamebreaking (as with ancient armor pieces).
It would make ancient weapons nice, but not essentially required. It's just the increased damage that makes them that way.
6
Hopefully this doesn't sound like baby rage. QQ
last season they broke leader-boards with a patch 2 weeks prior to season close. this season they broke leader-boards by letting 2 groups use sever and removing it right after for the rest of the community to try. last season they dragged s1 in the mud for about 5 months and this season they don't even give us 1 and 1/2 months. with ancient weapons being so crucial and the amount of rng they cram down our throats you would think they would at least give us the time to grind out our gear before attempting to push leader-boards. idk, i never expect to be rank 1 in anything but i enjoy pushing for top 50. and when i see how poorly blizzard handles the seasonal leader-boards it makes me rethink why i am even bothering... its almost like the leader-board means nothing to them, they just want to roll a dice and see who comes out on top, and they will say "that was cool". but a lot of people out there take the competition of seasons very seriously and spend a lot of time pushing to be the best (and even more people enjoy watching them and encouraging them to keep trying via twitch/youtube)
randomness is fun and all but i think there has to be some sort of consistency here if there is to be any competitive spirit.
season length needs to be consistent please. 3 months would be a perfect time but please give your suggestions on season length. the biggest problem here is last month we had 5 months to gear and a months notice b4 end, this season we had no idea how long it would end and only 2 weeks notice. no one was ready and now everyone will be scrambling to post their clears. give us notice at the beginning of the season please
IF you ARE going to make seasons short from now on than you at least need to remove the rng and importance of ancient weapons somehow. this can be done in multiple ways. don't let the damage range on weapons be affected by ancient roll. allow a way (that involved grinding with NO rng involved) to upgrade a non ancient weapon into an ancient weapon. you could even allow ALL stats on ALL gear to roll 30% higher, so at least someone with an ancient ammy can compete with someone who has an ancient weapon. (i think option one is best) (also i got my ancient weapons, I'm not crying cuz i didn't get them I'm crying because it doesn't make sense)
stop changing things in the middle of a season! if you mess up and allow something broken to slip into a season than you should bite the bullet and let it play out! let everyone use it and attempt to post ranks, or let no one use it and removes ranks posted with it.... there should be no in between, wtf? isn't that common sense?
just to clarify, i LOVE diablo, i have been playing d3 since vanilla launch and never put it down for more than 1month at a time. I also played d2 for over 10 years before that! I'm going to play season 3 no matter how bad it is. i don't want to just post blind rage on forums, i want the game to be better. and it has the potential, my thought is - if enough people like me post this stuff to show blizzard the potential than maybe one day they will live up to it.
i would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this that's why i'm posting my QQ.
1
How do you hold the stacks when spending decreases your DPS? Golgok should be used to increase the quantity of balls. This will also pretty much give you perma wolf bonuses as CD will be reduced by Golgok as well. The other gems should be BotT and Zei's. If you want the 10% CHC bonus you have the option to stand in a caltrop for that. If the the monsters are locked down this is probably your best option. Mind you if you have 400% CHD this is a 40% overall bump to your DPS. Ambush gives you that, but it stops when the monsters hit 75%, the caltrop lasts until the monster dies if you keep replacing the caltrop. With slow ball you don't need hatred generators, so your skill bar can be Caltrops, Invigoration, Wolf and Vault. Of coarse you can swap out Caltrops for MfD if the other DH isn't equipping that skill.
1
The impact of adding CHD is multiplicative to Current CHC.
A x ( B+C ) = ( A x B ) + ( A x C )
If B is current CHD before the necklace and C is the value on the necklace, with A being current CHC, then A x C can be used as the increase.
1
Mainstat is almost never better than another offensive buff, socket included.
Max is 1000 Dex on an Ancient Amulet. Say you have 10,000 Dex without the Ammy. Improving it would 11,000. The upgrade would be a 10% increase in Damage. The best Gems are infinitely upgradeable and usually far exceed this at Rank 25. Elemental buffs go up 20% on Amulets, bracers & SoJ. Even stacked the 3rd time, even with diminishing returns, it's better than a 10% increase. Crit at 100% CHD would increase by the product of 100% * %CHC. So at even at a low %age of 40%. this is 40% increase. My character has over 60% CHC. So 100% CHD would be an increase of over 60% Damage.
The only time you keep Dex on jewelry is when you have Vit or any other defensive skill to roll off in it's place.
1
I would gift for Elite damage. It would be a straight up muliplicatve since you pretty much can't get it anywhere else with UE.
1
Pairing DML with Ambush is in essence doubling the Multishot damage for almost the entire health range of the Target. You'll probably swap Custom Engineering for Ambush and Ballistics. CDR will become more desirable if you are limited to 2 charges on Sentries. Gogok will probably used by some to get some added benefit to the Helm Diamond as RCR will still be required. But CDR will also keep Bat and Punishment up. I doubt anybody will upgrade past 25, but the CDR benefit is more than the Diamond with full stacks.
Regarding IAS, this will become a thing. As Hungering Arrow with UE buffs will exponentially Crit to over 1 Billion. Now the chances of this are small, it will happen with enough casts. So dishing out as many arrows is going to be at least a niche build.
1
I find it amazing you even went for Tier 25 without full Marauders. Well there's one way to learn. Trial by fire. Anyway, tough break on your fallen character. I'm glad you seem to be in good spirits about the death. At least you have the Paragon. I hope you ranked up your Gem of Ease. It'd be fun 1 shotting everything with a Crafted Legendary. Oh, not sure if you know this, but, Ancient weapons have a unique ability to roll with 30-40 level reduction. This is the actual range. Ancients with level requirement reduction can not roll with 28 level reduction it's out of range. So it might be worth your while to craft until an ancient with a socket spawns. I've always wanted to try out that bow with the crit damage or even the one with elite damage. Keep getting Kridershot Drop. I really like Elemental Arrow, so, maybe next season I'll give it a go. This season, I got my bow to drop before I even had enough Forgotten Souls to begin crafting for Ancient weapons. About your legendary quiver, don't use it. Reflect will kill you. The Lightning Builds I've watched VODs on always include Deaths to finish the rift. And these were before they patched out permanent Smoke Screen. If reflect spawns as an Elite affix you are standing in a room full of things that will kill you and there is nothing to do but wait for your death sentence. Anyway, seems like you having enough fun, so I'll leave it at just good luck.
P.S. You asked about passives. Ambush will probably be popular with the new Dead Man's Legacy in the new patch. So you get 40% damage buff with the passive until 75% health, the quiver allows a double hit with Multi-Shot around 50-60% health. Until the patch, you basically have half damaged monsters chasing you around the screen. Some people like Singled Out for Greater Rift Guardians. Almost everybody uses Cull the Weak in tandem with Zei's Stone. Grenadier used to be great with Cluster Arrows, but a 10% buff is low compared to Gem Damage and I'm pretty sure the 20% area increase is useless. Most have dropped Grenadier for trying to get both Elemental and CA bonuses on their gear. CA can roll on 3 slots, and Elemental on at least that many. It lost favor when cold became the way to proc Cull the Weak and Zei's. CA is normally Grenades with SS & Maelstrom being the exceptions. Custom Engineering is required with M6 or any other Sentry build. The other ones tend to be used only early when you are defenseless without decent gear.
1
Wow, didn't notice that you were playing HC. You're awfully brave to play with tumble. It's effective, but, Smoke Screen gets you out of more trouble. I would definitely recommend the Healing Vapors Rune. SS has the ability to get you out of Jail. Where as Vault you are stuck in jail. Not much you can do about wallers without Kulle-Aid, but if they can't see you they tend not to throw down additional walls to stack up. I noticed you have a lot of Discipline, probably from Nat's, so that will help your survivability. I know Vault plays faster, but, you have to watch out for using it for speed over getting out of trouble. It's very effect to get the distance bonuses though. Not sure if you actually know that how these 2 skills work, but, you are for invulnerable while the skills are active. So Vaulting you are safe, but you have to be moving. This is why jailers can get you killed. You can't move. With SS, you're like Frodo Baggins putting on the Ring, the jailer doesn't even know you are still there, so you sentence in jail is suspended. If you are looking for Speed, Krem's belt is better solution than fast forwarding with Vault. You'll probably lose Black Thorn's buff, but the only viable set that you can match up with that set is the Shadow one which keeps you alive, but, gives very little damage buffs. So, you are going to have to give up Black Thorns at some point.
To be honest, I wing the Mid-Game. I play the drops. Ok, since you are HC, it make a little more sense why you went with Pain Enhancer. I've played around with most of the Gems. It just seems that Pain Enhancer doesn't build enough damage as you progress. But you're right, it's a gem that does better upfront, but increments slower than the other gems. Tox still seems better in the long run. As far as the Defensive Gems go, don't even bother with Moratorium, you will lose your character. I got mine up to the 25 Rank. I think that extends the duration to about 6 seconds. Then you get a great buff that fails 90% of the time. Great, you die 6 seconds later. The new seasonal gems are much better. As an Armored class, the Resist (All but physical) seems best, but I actually have no experience with it. Healing I've tried, but, you can get over confident wearing it. You heal so fast, but a 1-shot is a 1-shot. But ground effect you don't have to worry about much.
Regarding the Boar, I don't think much of the taunt. The wolf while technically doesn't draw any body and distract, he is more aggressive and tends to keep them further away with a bigger hit box. I guess what I'm saying is that since he's bigger, he blocks better and from futher away. If you get the Cloak of the Garwulf, you get three wolves and they can actually keep monsters from getting past doors. And the Wolf Howl is awesome. So I'd go with Wolf over Boar.
I still stand by the resist all comment over the additional life. There are limited sources for resistance and you run out at Paragon 200. And I don't think gemming to get more is worth it. You get armor and damage with Dex, so, why would you do that.
Getting back to the midgame. I think you're on the right track, just a little unfamiliar with the the Runes and Passives. Just try to familiarize yourself better with them and look them over when you get something new. There quivers that let you generate hatred with Chakrams. Your yellow quiver sucks, so, that may be useful. I wouldn't get rid of your bow, you need that to proc your damage buffs, but, Chakrams will deal more damage and it pierces so it will clear out mobs faster. Regarding, RoV. I think it's weak. The CD is too long. I was playing in the PTR and the upcoming changes address this. They kind of over did it. I had RoV up almost 100%. But, for season 2, it's weak. With you probably no going to risk swapping out a Diamond into your helm (I know, I have a HC Crusader that wears one) it doesn't make sense to rely on a CD spell. Oh, if you ever go with Chakrams, ignore what I said about SS, use Vault. You want to burst those things out and then run. Using Chakram is about positioning your DH so that everything is lined up for max damage. Vault is particularly useful for this. I will state that Archery is more than useful with a bow. Xbows get a Crit bonus, but Bows get damage on every cast whether Crit or Not.
I see you switched over to Ballistics, so you should know the other Rocket Skills are Mulitshot Arsenal and Spitfire Sentries. You should look into incorporating these if it fits for that 100% buff. The 2.1.1 build for M6 had rockets on everything. The Ballistics buff might be the best single buff in the game.
Again Good Luck
1
I agree with the weapon change. But, there are a few other things you could try to get.
Since you're using Maelstrom, I would go for a Hellfire Amulet to add the Ballistics Passive. If you can kill off Level 39 Grift bosses, then taking down T6 Ubers shouldn't be hard. But getting an amulet to get close to your Crit Output might be tricky. Still I thing it might be worth it to go at least 1 round with the Ubers.
Also, you could get a slight buff from trying to roll an Ancient set of Reapers Wraps.
Maybe getting an RRoG with CD, you seem light in CD. You could get closer to 400 with a new ring.
2
Ok, I looked over your build. There are some inconsistencies in your build.
You have 2 High Power Skills in your skill bar. Those being Rain of Vengeance and Cluster Arrow.
RoV is strictly a cool down spell. And CA is spammable until you run out of Hatred. I don't have a problem with you using either skill, but each skill weakens the other in general. You really want to focus on a single source of powering your skills. To decrease down time on RoV, you will need to roll Cool Down Reduction. To decrease down time on Cluster Arrow, you will have to roll Resource Cost Reduction. So you might be spreading yourself thin trying to gear for both these skill. I would Drop of the 2, most people go with Hatred Based skills because you can find hatred generators in many forms. You are using quite a few. Entangling Shot is a generator, but I find it odd that you are using the Night Stalker passive for the +4 Hatred bonus. So you are netting 3+4 or 7 Hatred per cast of ES. I find this odd, when you could get +6 by switching to the Justice is Served rune. This would allow you to use a more offensive passive and gain some Damage output. I would suggest you do get rid of RoV. You have a lot of Discipline, so you might want use Marked for Death: Mortal Enemy to gain both Hatred and Damage Output.
The biggest inconsistency I see is your use of Damage bonuses. The Boar is physical, ES:Chain Gang is physical CA: Shooting Stars is physical and RoV is physical. So the 20% buff on your bracers might be warranted, but the use of the Boar is question able. The Bat has the same damage but would add Hatred that your build suggests you are lacking. The other odd thing is that you are using Shooting Stars. This isn't a bad choice in Rune but if you aren't using Ballistics you are losing out on the 100% Rocket Bonus. You would get a significant increase in Damage by just swapping your ES rune with a slight hit in Hatred generation and switching out Night Stalker for Ballistics.
I like that you are stacking Zei's Stone with Steady Aim. Both stack with your skills thereby increasing your damage per cast. But using Pain Enhancer over Bane of the Trapped seems wrong if you are using Cull the Weak and ES. I think you were thinking that it stacks well with Physical Damage but damage directly from the gem doesn't stack with you skills bonuses, so I would swap the gem, as well.
Believe it or not, I think you are actually going to have a hard time replacing your yellow amulet. It's socketed and is responsible for an 81% damage buff to your sheet damage. But your rings are much the opposite. You would be well served in rolling off Attack Speed for Crit 44.5% is respectable crit chance, so if you should try to get your Crit Damage up to 445% Crit Damage. CC on Rings if normally preferable over CD, but I'm betting you are starved in overall CD in meeting the 1:10 standard. CC is preferable because using the CC to CD ratios, max is 6%CC and 50%CD. So the there is a slight imbalance toward CC, as well, much easier to roll to max.
It also seems like you have plenty of Vit. So more HP, this is all Vit does. If you hover above your HP Globe it says it all. You lose it all you die. Well, it also seems like you are low on Resistance. It's generally better to mitigate damage than have more HP to lose. So you might roll off Life % in you Chest for Resist All. You have 23% from your Helm Gem, that's more than enough HP Bonus.
Another thing you need to consider is the Skill Bonus attributes on your gear. Right now I only see ES on your quiver. A quiver is a crazy place to roll on Skill Bonus. This is because all skills are available and it could end up costing a lot of crafting mats and gold to roll a better skill. Since it's yellow, I'd just look through your drops for something better. Ideally you want skill bonus attributes to be on your spenders not your generator. Right now you're buffing your smallest output of damage. You want to buff your highest output sources of damage. This will knock down the Elites and GRG faster. So look for a better quiver with a buff to your spenders. You have a yellow, even one with smaller CC is will probably be better if it had RoV or CA damage buffs.
GLHF Keep playing and you can get the GR 35 Conquest.