Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.4 Demon Hunter Changes Revealed

Blizzard has finally revealed what its upcoming Diablo 3 patch 1.0.4 will change in regards to the Demon Hunter class, after already confirming some of the update’s other aspects.

Patch 1.0.4 for Diablo 3 is set to be biggest in the history of the role-playing dungeon crawler. Fans already got to learn about its general changes, the modifications it brings to Legendary items, and the various buffs and nerfs that it includes for classes like the Barbarian, Wizard, Monk, or Witch Doctor.

Now, Blizzard has officially revealed the array of modifications the new update brings for the Demon Hunter class.

Primarily, according to the studio’s Wyatt Cheng, the goal with the Demon Hunter was to bring other abilities up to the level of the Hungering Arrow, in terms of Hatred Generation, and of the Elemental Arrow, in terms of Hatred Spending.

Check out the changes and the details behind them below.

Hatred Generators

Four skills are intended to compete with Hungering Arrow as a Hatred Generator: Entangling Shot, Bola Shot, Evasive Fire, and Grenades. While each of these skills offer some unique utility options (Entangling Shot slows enemies, Bola Shot has an AoE component, Evasive Fire provides an escape route, and Grenades can bounce off walls), their damage just isn’t competitive enough when compared to the theoretical damage of Hungering Arrow and its rune variants.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found a great solution yet, so the Grenades skill isn't going to get as much love this patch. However, we do want to revisit the skill in the future.

As for the other three Hatred Generators, rather than nerfing Hungering Arrow to be less powerful, we’re instead bringing up the damage values for all three skills to make them more attractive. To use Bola Shot as an example:
Damage to the primary target is being increased from 130% to 160%
Damage for Thunder Ball and Acid Strike is also being increased from 130% to 160%
Damage for Imminent Doom to the primary target is being increased from 182% to 216%

With these changes, Hungering Arrow will still do more theoretical damage against a single target, but Bola Shot damage will become a viable DPS alternative and it will also do AoE damage. Entangling Shot and Evasive Fire are receiving boosts to their damage as well, so they should be much more compelling choices when it comes to Hatred generation. Much like Bola Shot, they won't compete directly with Hungering Arrow in terms of raw theoretical damage to a single target, but the DPS loss won’t be as great in order to gain the utility they offer.

Hatred Spenders

Our general philosophy for resource-spending skills (and this applies across all classes) is if you take the time to spend your resource, we want you to feel like you got a good return for it. Elemental Arrow is currently the most popular Hatred Spender in the demon hunter's arsenal and a good example for what works — given how quickly you can fire off each arrow, you can deal a lot of damage to nearby enemies. Unfortunately, many of the other Hatred Spenders fail to meet this benchmark in terms of DPS output, so we're buffing them up to match.

To give you an idea of what kind of increases you’ll see in 1.0.4, let's use Chakram and Cluster Arrow as examples.

Chakram:
We're increasing its damage from 150% to 170%
We're increasing the damage for Twin Chakrams from 100% to 114%
We're increasing the damage for Serpentine from 203% to 230%
We're increasing the damage for Razor Disk from 165% to 187%
We're increasing the damage for Boomerang from 188% to 230%
We're increasing the damage for Shuriken Cloud from 30% to 34%

Cluster Arrow:
We're increasing the initial bomb damage from 200% to 225%
We're increasing damage for Maelstrom from 145% to 165%
We're increasing damage for Loaded for Bear from 290% to 304%

Blizzard is also making modifications to the so-called iconic abilities of the Demon Hunter, like the Rain of Vengeance or the Sentry.

Iconic Abilities

Just like Hydra for the wizard, Rain of Vengeance is intended to be a trademark spell for the demon hunter. We want it to be one of those buttons on your bar that you look forward to pushing — not only because it's visually very fitting for the class, but also because it packs one hell of a punch.

To bring Rain of Vengeance up to the level it needs to be, we made some pretty notable changes. Not only did we buff the damage, but Rain of Vengeance is one of the skills being converted to a strict X% weapon damage over Y seconds format, as alluded to in the Systems Preview. As a result, the new base skill is quite potent:

Current: 75% weapon damage for 5 seconds
1.0.4: 715% weapon damage over 5 seconds

Anathema now also uses the "X% weapon damage over Y seconds format." Meanwhile, Dark Cloud, Beastly Bombs, Stampede, and Flying Strike are receiving straight boosts to their damage.

Sentry is also a very distinctive spell that doesn't get used very often. It's interesting mechanically, and it has some nice potential for team play, so we'd like to make it more attractive. The solution was pretty simple for this one: we took its damage, and then we doubled it.

Diablo 3 patch 1.0.4 is expected to appear in the following weeks, according to Blizzard.


Via: Diablo 3 Patch 1.0.4 Demon Hunter Changes Revealed