Demon hunter late game defense

[Sqeecoo]

Well, I like the dh very much, but I am considering the wizard as an alternative, since I am worried about the dh's late game defense. He has huge mobility, but almost no damage mitigation (shadow power runed for dr can work at best as a panic button, I feel). With huge monster speed and lots of ranged enemies in later difficulties, it looks likely you'll have to vault (or shoot evasively) between almost every shot - and I'm not sure you can even support so much evasion, discipline-wise. And you still probably won't avoid getting hit entirely.

So I'm worried about the late-game viability of the dh. I don't mind playing a class that takes a lot of skill to play well (in fact quite the contrary), but I'd want my first class to be one that is strong late-game. Hence my thoughts on switching to wizard

What do you think?

[Demoss]

It feels like to me the Wizard would be even more squishy then the Demon hunter. I would say if you wanted a hero that could take damage aim for a Barbarian or a monk.

[z00t]

Smoke Screen seems to completely drop all monster aggro, so I imagine that that'd be phenomenally strong lategame.

Even when you Vault, certain enemies will still chase after you, but if you Smoke Screen and Vault, you can probably clear monster aggro range by the time you're visible again.

[Greystone]

Demon hunter uses dexterity for defense so I assume dh's will have some dodge to mitigate damage. They have a ton of slow/immobilize options and lot's of spammable maneuverability. They don't have any armor boosting skills, no damage immunity skills and not much in the way of burst healing so I really think they'll have to use positioning, timing, traps and cd's very wisely to be maximally effective. I would actually guess that the wizard will be significantly more durable than the demon hunter. She has slows, immobs, armor boosts, damage soaks, maneuverability etc. That said they are going to play quite abit differently. I'm guessing the dh will have better sustained damage than the wizard while the wizard will have bigger bursts of overlapping damage. Hard to say really.

[Qvardz]

Well, I like the dh very much, but I am considering the wizard as an alternative, since I am worried about the dh's late game defense. He has huge mobility, but almost no damage mitigation (shadow power runed for dr can work at best as a panic button, I feel). With huge monster speed and lots of ranged enemies in later difficulties, it looks likely you'll have to vault (or shoot evasively) between almost every shot - and I'm not sure you can even support so much evasion, discipline-wise. And you still probably won't avoid getting hit entirely.

So I'm worried about the late-game viability of the dh. I don't mind playing a class that takes a lot of skill to play well (in fact quite the contrary), but I'd want my first class to be one that is strong late-game. Hence my thoughts on switching to wizard

What do you think?

I think that you are afraid of challenge.

[Karpalo]

Now that they reduced disc cost of shadow power i think that with gloom rune it's the best defensive ability in the game hands down. DH has the damage output to make it really good and even without any bonus disc or bonus disc regen from abilities you can chain it if needed.

Compare it to ignore pain and you see what i'm talking about. True that generally it isn't smart to compare individual abilities when balancing is based on complete toolkits, but just look at those two.

[Incompetent]

If your enemies are moving at full speed in the late game, you're doing it wrong and need to go back to Demon Hunter school.

[Sqeecoo]

I like challenge, but I want you to convince me the dh won simply be a sub-par wizard in the late game, even with optimal play

Incompetent, I hear you, but how would you both mitigate ranged enemies and slow melee enemies and deal good damage? I can see how I would do it with the wizard (one word: slowtime), but not with the dh.

[koalasgomeep]

Demon Hunters will stack dexterity though, so you should have tons of dodge, which will mitigate both ranged and melee physical attacks. Wizards, with their main stat being int, will only mitigate elemental damage.

[Sqeecoo]

Um, as far as I know, intelligence increases physical resistance also.