Dragonflight Sinful Brand

Classes Demon Hunter
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I heard the Sinful Brand playstyle is being removed in Dragon Flight.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA

Sinful Brand made the class unique, most of your damage was a single dot that benefits from a major cooldown. So we have to use Cycle of Hatred to benefit more from Sinful Brand, which benefits our major cooldown.

This acts like having a pet always on a target attacking, because if we have to do mechanics during a fight, at least our cooldown on Eyebeam is still ticking down, if you’re a goodplayer your damage shows in your Sinful Brand uptime, and it has heavy punishment if it drops, making this class have a higher competition.

Demon Hunter already lacks a lot for the Talent tree. Do NOT remove this high skill cap gameplay and make it optional. I see beginners complain about it and Fel Rush, yet Blizzard wants to listen to them? Are you just going to make this an easy class to play where you mindlessly mash buttons and don’t have to manage a DoT at least?

PLEASE BLIZZARD IF YOU ARE TRULY LISTENING, MAKE SINFUL BRAND A PART OF THE TREE AND AN OPTIONAL HIGH RISK HIGH REWARD PLAYSTYLE.

For e.g. Eyebeam right now feels a lot more meaningful and a LIFE SAVER, when you finally get it off CD (and I saw you removed the RNG from Cycle of Hatred for DF) it’s just a huge relief.

Now that you’ve removed the RNG (with the recent DF Alpha Chaos Strike 1sec CD, 2sec Crit) Sinful Brand will be a lot more predictable, so you can manage it on multiple targets easier.

I agree with most people that Sinful Brand should NOT be a THIRD of our damage as this overshadows every other ability (we don’t have many and I’d like to see more added), however, it MUST be placed on multiple targets a lot easier, either through buffing Metamorphosis or making Sinful Brand reduce its CD with a new talent, I’ll leave how to you, it can’t be through Chaos Strike, but maybe Death Sweep since a straight up damage increase over Blade Dance is not worthy of being renamed and given a new Icon. And maybe have only Annihilation reduce Eye-beam CD since I feel like this change is TOO consistent.

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It’s the best idea!

No, it made this spec an absolute pain to play, forcing you to be glued to the boss with massive DPS loss if you didn’t refresh it in time because of a mechanic.

No, it acts as a main source of damage, negating your entire toolkit just to keep that DoT up, even making you actively avoid pressing certain buttons at all. You don’t have to be a good player to keep it up 24/7, you just need to stick to your target and spam 2 buttons.

If Blizzard is truly listening, they are removing SB and will never return it again.

No it doesn’t, it feels like all I’m doing is pressing buttons to get passive damage. None of my abilities feel meaningful.

DoT management based gameplay does not belong on DH, should’ve never been added. If you reduce its usefulness, it will be overtaken by other abilities as you’ll only find a handful of people that enjoy the degenerate gameplay SB brings.

I want to never ever see that horrible spell ever again. It ruined DH for me in S3 and S4. Go play affliction warlock or assassination rogue if you want dots.

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I liked legion demonic in antorus.

With all the soul fragments, annihilations etc…

I think dh could use a few things to make it a little more interesting.

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I don’t know how you manage to get ‘fun’, ‘high risk high reward’ and sinful brand in the same sentence. It restricts the build you can play, it makes it so you cannot use certain abilities, it removes every bit of what makes DH what it originally was. It’s such a large part of our dmg that you effectively reduce your role in raid to a tunnel bot if you want to max dps. There’s nothing engaging or fun about it. The fact that dh now basically has no build choice, no covenant variety and no dmg in any ability outside of brand just sucks. Gonna take a hard pass on having that as a basis for anything in the new xpac.

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I am really unsure if Foac is just trolling or in the .0001% in liking sinful brand.I for one will be reroll or quiting the game if brand is a thing . DH needs a full work over meta on a 4min cd needs to change i mean its not even a big power/dps spike and there nerfing it based on what i have seen so far. I hope this is so other abilities are buffed and worth pressing and not just so i can take a filler talent later on in the tree just to get it back. Also why is Eye Beam name being changed to Furious Gaze ?? thats weird and again its getting a nerf or the haste is anyway will it scale with mastery anymore ? will we need 2 gear sets 1 for aoe another for single target ? Tbh i cant wait to see what they do and hopefully it will be good but never know with blizzard.

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I’m guessing that it remains Eye Beam, but you will get a talent that applies Furious Gaze. This may or may not rename the spell itself, but I assume it’s just going to buff it.

Don’t pay too much attention to the datamined changes in this regard just yet.

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sinful brand was a Easy, Flavorless and bland version of DHs orginal momentum build, i dont understand how u consider the ability to be high risk, espically looking at DH Talents which is going to drop Meta CD by uptoo 3 minutes to stack going to have ALOT more uptime to quite a few things.

it’d be ironically even easier to use in DF.

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Sinful Brand should be buried so deep it will never be found again. Sooo boring to depend on 1 single dot as a DH… i hate it so much.

EDIT: and as someone else said already, if you cant time the SB with eyebeam due to mechanics u’re dps is screwed…

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exactly, i dont understand the OPs problem.

momentum is effectively sinful brand realistically in how it functions, the difference is momentum isnt stuck to a 5 minute CD and works around fel rush instead, but its the same concept.

Use a ability to retain a DPS Increase on targets hit. if he wants Sinful brand gameplay, simply play momentum, the end goals the same and i’d argue momentum is a far more “High risk” considering the factor you have to have control and directional control to not pull excess monsters using the build.

sinful brand to me just looks like they accept accidental pulling monsters in a DPS ROtation is annoying. so they decided to try momentums gameplay with a ability that doesnt require u to dash about.

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I honestly don’t know how to even respond to this. Momentum is the complete opposite of sinful brand in how it feels to play. Momentum is fast-paced, requires frequent changes of position and camera angle, and a good all-round spatial awareness, as well as using the full kit of abilities. SB requires standing there and pressing demon’s bite and chaos strike until it’s time to eyebeam again.

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i ment fundamentally.

being a Debuff which increases Damage the monster takes by you for a set time, that u upkeep by usuage of the ability.

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Many as me, are agree.

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i honestly think you all went to play demon hunter from classes with no dots, for you to find a single dot boring, when demon hunters are essentially melee warlocks. have you ever played feral? a playstyle where you leave dots on targets and jump around to other things to dot them. this class deserves to play similarly otherwise what’s the point of having mobility for the sake of having mobility if it’s not to manage dots on everything as a melee.

i really think the wrong people are playing demon hunter and i do hope you reroll if they add sinful brand back as you are not part of this classes fantasy at all. go back to mashing buttons for no reason. this really made the class low brain again. we don’t need more rogues/warriors/enhance shamans/deathkknights and all the other melee classes without a dot playstyle apart from feral

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then…play feral? assasination? affliction? boomie? unholy? shadow?
as to making the class low brain…we had to press felrush every 18 seconds, eyebeam every reset and builder+finisher.
even BFA was more entertaining than this. had to 2x blade dance in the window, soak certain mechanics with blade dance, kite pack when tank died with blade dance…dumb? sure, but way more fun than use dot with eyebeam…if dot drops use dot with eyebeam.
horrible game design, i may just play something else anyway in case they put it back at some point…as their innovation is kinda bs considering we’re not getting anything new only stuff that were in the game at one point.

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I would love to see antorus dh, but with blade dance thrown in the mix, and blade dance also generate lesser soul fragments.

And maybe some kind of reset for blade dance too, so you could use it like twice in a row in certain situations etc…

I don’t really like momentum, but sinful brand also doesn’t look great.

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feral yes id play it again but honestly the double jump is too fun for me

dh needs a redesign so it’s closer to a melee warlock, it’s a class with friggin mobility, dont you honestly want to omae wa shinderu walk away as the player/add dies in a cool fashion as a demon as well as a cat? i mean cats are called demons at times as well, it fits.

plus it fits the fantasy of torturing things to death, cats play with their food watching it bleed to death whilst re-stealthed somewhere, assassin rogue’s poison their targets and re-stealth similarly. affiliction warlocks afflict their targets with diseases and curses to watch them suffer. dh had sinful brand, you can leave it on a target and watch it die. do you not see how dh fitted the theme with that dot? it was unique in the way it worked also, it was refreshed through ticks of eyebeam/fel devastation. it had defensive capabilities, if people didnt complain vengeance could use it right now instead of this fairy ‘the hunt’ which is the most boring ability ive ever seen. you are definitely the boring ones blizzard listened to absolute projectors from non-dot or fantasy similar classes.

if blizzard wants to add more dot melee classes, why is it so alien to all these dh players all of a sudden, we only truly have feral/rogue for that from melee, we could use another melee with dots even if it’s just one major dot

i’m not saying you have to make it a third of your damage, but it can be 2nd or 3rd most damaging or more balanced, and a way for it spread. and for those who dont want to skill tree into it they can go play momentum. sinful brand is the only way we will get uncapped as a melee, since most melee direct aoe damage is capped, this way whoever complained about sinful brand gameplay who im betting is a warrior since they think demon hunters with their fury are similar to rage- have now devasted our uncapped (except ragefire kinda solves uncapped). you can’t tell me hitting a meta on a massive group of adds then eyebeaming wasnt satisfying

why is blizzard listening to these people who don’t understand the appeal of bleeds/dots, let alone the torturing/assasinating fantasy. dh doesn’t suit working for its damage as hard and fast as a tryhard enraged warrior. dh suits calmly applying dots and shooting lasers from its eyes. not tryhard dashing, backflipping everywhere because some kids want a class that fits their energy, thinking dh is ‘cool’. thats what i meant by low brain.

18

I main feral, and that isn’t how you play it at all. Feral has been about bites for the whole of SL.

What fantasy? The fantasy of the Illidari is killing demons, not playing with them. We’re supposed to be quick and efficient killers.

It sounds like you’re trying to make DH into something it isn’t.

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Bites are filler, your priority isn’t to go around biting things, it’s to bleed and maintain those bleeds… every feral worth his salt knows this, don’t even try to word it differently.

They may be killing demons but they are also demons themselves, some say half demons, like Dracthyr who have a human form, and demon hunter who has metamorphosis. So they could kill demons/enemies in a demonic way. I dare you to not build into demonic talent or ever use glide because then OH! you will be a demon! If you want to stay in denial then go play human alliance, and don’t bother with Dracthyr either, since they kill things in a draconic way with fire breaths.

Also “killing efficiently” i introduce you to the rogue class, thanks but no thanks for trying to make DH into a rogue fantasy,

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ST opener: rake, thrash, swipe to 5CP, apply rip.
ST rotation: build to 5CP (maintaining BT if talented), bite.

AOE opener: rake, thrash, swipe to 5CP, primal wrath.
AOE rotation: build to 5CP (maintaining BT if talented), primal wrath.

You don’t even bother maintaining rake in AOE.
During berserk, it’s shred, bite, shred, bite, shred, bite for ST. Shred, PW, shred, PW, shred, PW for AOE.

In ST, more than 50% of your damage is from bite. In AOE, it’s combined rip and upfront damage from primal wrath, but the rip damage is coincidental. If PW didn’t apply rip, you wouldn’t go around applying it to targets individually any more than you apply rake. That would be a waste of combo points. You’d continue PW spam for the upfront damage.

Feral hasn’t been ‘about bleeds’ for a long time.

Do you know the lore behind demon hunters? They gain the power of a demon by consuming it - all of it, flesh and soul. Those that survive the process then need to learn to control the demon soul before it controls them. They are not ‘half demons’, but elves who have consumed a demon and use its power. Entering demonic form or using glide is using the demon’s power.

I don’t know about the other specs, but I’ve played assassin rogue a bit and I wouldn’t call it particularly efficient. Poisons are not efficient because the victim takes time to die which means an antidote could be applied. Bleeds are not efficient because bleeding can be stopped and wounds healed.

A blast of fel energy or a rapid series of slashes with warglaives is efficient because it does serious, immediate damage and it’s intended to kill before any remedy can be made.

Dracthyr do lots of things. I tried one out of alpha, but I didn’t like it all that much. (Personal preference thing - I’m sure lots of players will love it.) As for me being ‘in denial’, I think you’re confused. I love the fantasy of DH. I just don’t like YOUR fantasy of how DH should be.

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Deleted because I made two posts by accident.