Feedback: Devourer Demon Hunters

In Development Midnight Beta Test
21

Hello, I have reached level 90 (Glaivedave-Lor’themar) just now and I would like to give you some feedback about Devourer. I exclusively leveled as a Void-Scarred Devourer with the hybrid melee build and short meta cap stone.

The spec is very, very shallow when you are NOT using the hybrid build with Annihilator. You only cast Consume and the occasional Void Beam and Reap. That’s all. When you have collected enough souls, you press Void Meta, nothing changes. You cast Void Meta again (Collapsing Star) after collecting 30 souls.

Now let’s get into it!

Gameplay:

  • Collapsing Star: I think I have casted Collapsing Star 8 times during leveling. I have no idea how the spec “really” feels because of that, as the last capstone making the first Collapsing Star everytime you enter Void Meta for free is only available at level 90.

  • Reap: Numerically it sucks, I think all can agree on that.

  • Blur & Vengeful Retreat: They have no internal global cooldown meaning you can trigger it twice in a row spamming the button. This is really bad as you either waste a charge of blur or get out of range with Vengeful Retreat because of the double cast. Easy fix: Evoker’s Obsidian Scales has an internal GCD for like 0.5s and prevents instant double casts.

  • Meta immunity is still there, seems like a bug to me because there is no jump involved.

  • As a ranged dps I have no mob control. No slow, no knockback, no root.

Talents:

  • Placement Bouncing Blade: You never use Throw Glaive playing Devourer but yet it is needed to get the stun. Useless talent.
  • Live by the Glaive: Devourers don’t have regular attacks that can be parried. Absolutely worthless.
  • Aldrachi Design: Devourers are casting spells and won’t parry anything. Absolutely worthless.

Sound Effects:

Many spells do not have a sound effect. What you hear is when a soul is spawned. It took me 8 levels to realize why the spec felt so hollow. I understand beta is work in progress but I find it important to have it listed so it is on the radar.

  • Reap has no sound effect at all. You hear the soul at the end spawning.
  • Eradicate is a really hefty looking spell and it sounds like a knife stitch. Really bad
  • Hungering Slash & Pierce The Veil have no sound effects when nothing is hit. You are still doing the attack and it should do something.
  • Void Ray is too quiet. Seriously. It just vanishes in general combat.
  • Imprison’s sound effect does not match the new visual anymore. The new visual is possibly/ hopefully a bug because personally I don’t like the cage starting small. It makes no sense for a prison to start at miniature size.

Customization:

Demon Hunters desperately need customization options, as they are limited to the blood elf/ void elf and night elf models. Seriously, Warlock pets have customization for their pets, why can’t we customize the demon form? Horns, Spikes, different demon forms? Hooves for base model (Satyr-like). Right now DH have like 5 horn options.

1 Like
22

Played a bit of devourer in dungeons and with the spec focusing on managing your souls and fury, I feel there is no utility to help with that during movement. Another thing is not enought defensive and recovery options.

Utility:

  • Killing a pack of mobs with void metamorphosis up and then seeing fury slowly degen before pulling next pack is horrible. There should be an ability to exit void metamorphosis at least out of combat.

  • Very often on encounters you need to move even to the other side of the platform. If you need to do it fast there is no way to grab your souls. There should be an ability that allows to either: 1) move souls to specified location or 2) store the souls and on recast throw them up around you.
    Ability to consume souls without targeting anything/dealing damage to mob will not work because often it will result in overcapping souls for void metamorphosis

Defensives:
Devourer is missing another defensive option. Havoc has netherwalk or buffed blur in their tree but devourer don’t have not a single one. Not necessarily there needs to be a defensive talent in devourer tree but something needs to be added.

Recovery also feels lacking. Maybe bring back increased healing from soul fragment after killing mob that yields experience or honor or bake it into some ability to heal for some % of hp after killing a mob. Something like victory rush perhaps

23

I read all the comments and most if not al of them have valid points for me, and now that I reached lvl 90 I can confirm:

  • The melee hybrid style is the only viable build for leveling (and dungeons) that also prevents you from alt-f4 the game due to the caster build rotation boredom.
  • War mode with the instant consume cast after reap makes the spec two times fun, think about that.
  • Without the last Apex talent, there is no point in playing collapsing start at all, because you can almost never build up to it.
  • Throw glaive and all related talents are there just to fill up the blank space on the abilities sheet, sometimes I use it just to break the silence between two consumes and a reap.
  • I don’t think a sane DH player will avoid taking Spontaneous Immolation talent, except for those into weird stuff where they like hurting themselves. But I don’t know who’s sane anymore because taking a demon hunter ability that is present since 2015, use a talent to transform it, then another talent to make it passive (because who wouldn’t) ?? I mean hello, you get it right ? btw I still keep the passive ability on my action bar just to fill up the space.
  • The only way to have an on demand dps increase on a boss or trash pack is to plan it in advance by building up souls and fury, in my experience Collapsing star with Void Scar in melee hybrid build does a giga load of damage, but it only takes a knockback, or a slipping finger to lose all of that.
  • Each of the talent builds you take (melee/caster) forces you to miss out on key talent nods, for instance; I can’t take Soulforged Blades for my hybrid melee build because I have to take 2/2 Demonic Instinct or 2/2 Devourer’s Edge (to reach Collapsing Star nod at the bottom) either there are not enough points or too much 2/2 points (looking at you too +2/+4 mastery)

things that I love on the other hand:

  • Shift, it’s good keep it as it is, don’t listen to those who want fel rush back.
  • The spec in general, yeah I was worried before I played beta, but I love it, I wished there was a third ranged spec since Legion, and I love it really, even if it will launch in this state I will main it for what looks like the best expansion ahead. Good luck devs and players testing, Peace.
24

I’ve been testing Devourer in dungeons and I think Collapsing Star and Souls could work better with a simpler, closed loop. My suggestion: Void Metamorphosis becomes a short damage window with a clear end. At the end of this window you cast one Collapsing Star, and this cast ends the form on purpose. All Souls generated during Void Metamorphosis would instead increase the damage of this single Collapsing Star (up to a cap, e.g. +25%). Good players generate more Souls in the short window and get a stronger Star, bad players still get a satisfying hit. This fits Void fantasy (one big collapse instead of endless sustain), fixes the current frustration with rare Stars and wasted Souls, and is similar to the Voidweaver priest hero talent, where a Void Rift explosion scales with what you do in the window.

25

Hey!
I’d love to share my idea for the ability “Reap”. Since you create the Void Orbs by casting “Consume”, why not give them a passive effect for Reap aswell?
When you have 4 Orbs active and cast Reap, it could deal additional damage based on the number of orbs you currently have - up to 4 or more - dealing XX amount of damage and also hitting nearby targets for reduced damage.

26

Small correction: Here’s an improved version of my idea:

Since “Consume” generates Void Orbs, why not give those orbs an additional passive interaction with Reap?

When you have up to 6 Void Orbs active, casting Reap could detonate them - dealing bonus damage based on how many orbs currently have (up to 6). Each orb would contribute a set amount of damage, and the explosion could also deal reduced AoE damage to nearby targets.

This would create a satisfying “build-and-burst” mechanic similar to stacking sparks and detonating them, giving Reap more impact and synergy with Consume.

27

Hey, I love where this spec is going. Feels good to play. Some things need to be adressed in my opinion, but I like Devourer so far overall:

  1. Collapsing Star getting cancelled and all the stacks I collected are now gone. My day is ruined and my rotation falls apart for the worst reasons. Not sure if this is a bug or intended, but I sure as hell am convinced this should not be the case. Let me reposition if something random happens and let me cast Collapsing Star again even if I cancelled the cast.

  2. We’re casting Void Ray a lot and it’s AWESOME. One thing that doesn’t feel awesome is when I’m stuck in it while something is trying to kill me. I need to reposition and my rotation is completely ruined yet again.

  3. Maybe Shift could act like Shimmer does for Mages? Which is: if I’m in the middle of channeling something, let me Shift to reposition but my channeling continues, it isn’t cancelled. That would smoothen the most clunky parts of Devourer’s gameplay.

  4. Sound design isn’t impactful enough. I would imagine something as cool as Collapsing Star making a huge noise. Right now it feels like dropping a pebble into a pond. I’d imagine more of a swoosh and blast just like when you drop an Infernal on something while playing as a Destro lock. In fact, I’d pretty much copy some of Destro’s sound design into Devourer and it would fit perfectly into it.

  5. While I like the idea of Consume, the skill itself feels great mechanically speaking and it serves it’s purpose. It’s a boring button to press. You cast it and pretty much nothing special happens. A blue thingy appears on your target and you’re left thinking “that’s it?”. It’s like trying to kill something with a fart. It needs more visuals, better sound design. Something needs to happen. I’d love it if it really felt like I’m gripping a part of my target’s soul and ripping it apart from it. It needs drastically better visuals.

  6. Annihilator - When I’ve heard it’s going to rain meators on my enemies I was so excited. Then nothing happened at all in action. those so called “meteors” are barely noticable. I needed to really focus to even spot one. They don’t make any sound. Their visuals are weak. Again. When Infernal drops you feel the impact and it’s awesome. When “meteor” drops you don’t even notice it.

  7. I feel like Devourer needs another button to press in his filler rotation. Right now spamming Consume doesn’t feel too great when you’ve got nothing else to press. Something like Fire Mage’s Fire Blast or Destro’s Conflagrate to fill the emptiness in it’s rotation would be great.

Otherwise I really like the spec. It’s main idea is awesome, it’s just somewhat rough around the edges. I’ve played it quite a bit on Beta and already at level 90.

I STRONGLY disagree with people saying it’s almost impossible to build into a second Collapsing Star in Meta right after the free one. You guys must be playing terribly wrong for some reason. I’ve been able to throw 4-5 Stars in one Meta consistently both on dummies and in dungeons. Proper resource management - that’s all.

28

Hi, im Grave, ive been playing exclusively devourer demonhunter throughout the beta as well as tracking all of its deigns until its current iteration. i have spent the past few days testing out ideas amongst other demon hunters whilst progressing my way through what the beta has to offer.

Class talent tree:
No issues noted with pathing or node connections very good strong choices overall

Spec Tree suggestions:

Firstly Hungering slash.

As hungering slash is its very spec defining ability making gameplay much more interesting and interactive when talented, compared to the “caster” side of the spec tree which at the moment feels a bit slow and lacking rotational variation in order to be played optimally.

I propose that hungering slash is moved into the center of the tree in line with choices both aspects of this spec can utilize when defining how our metamorphosis works for us. Whilst doing this I suggest it also becomes a choice node to further accentuate our spec decision to split into the hybrid melee or caster roles.

the choices for this node I suggest is;

  1. as the ability currently is implemented on the beta servers, where it interacts with vengeful retreat.
  2. allow the hungering slash talent to change voidblade and the hungering slash itself into a ranged projectile akin to the reap ability animation (slashing style projectile animation) and effect throw glaive in the same way as it does vengeful retreat.

I feel this would bring more rotational variance and synergies across both sides of its kit by doing this without adding any over arching complexity to the gameplay.

singed spirit
This isn’t a good talent for our spec tree because the current iteration of immolation aura for devourer isn’t impactful enough with the 5% chance to proc on ability damage to warrant being taken in any build currently on the beta. Possible proc increase could fix this.

Void purge:
I feel this talent needs to be moved in the spec tree to allow better access for both spec iterations of this class to utilize as this is a spec defining ability it effects.

Second Helping Umbral Blade:
both talents Second Helping and umbral blade work if either is talented into our build. Having to decide between both of these talents or which one to take feels bad when we could either of these baseline and only one in our spec tree.

Void nova;
currently this talent choice does not work with the hero talent Wave of debilitation because of the tooltip requiring chaos nova.

Shattered souls:
I feel like the shattered souls mechanic is great for devourer but the healing aspect of these doesn’t do enough for our spec.

we do not auto attack the same as havoc nor do we have the same rotational speed of abilities beings used to fully utilize our leech the same as our havoc counterparts do. i feel a small increase to our souls healing would fix this without creating greater issues down the line like leech could.

Animations;

currently i feel the consume animation is a bit lackluster given the amount of time we spend casting it.

annihilator meteors arent very noticeable especially in condensed mob settings (raid mythic plus)

overall the devourer unique animations are great but can we have some updated ability displays for things that use the void animations like, throw glaive, shattered souls and void nova.

Voidray incurring a cooldown after exiting metamorphosis doesnt feel good, not when you have a full bar ready to go and have to wait for the meta version cooldown to end.

Leftover souls shouldnt be consumed exiting meta allow us with good gameplay to be able ti initiate another meta run with left over souls, if its too strong reduce the amount restored by 50% this way its not a total net loss of a resource we have been building on.

Movement;

Shift is great my only suggestion is making the @ cursor funtionality something like how destruction warlocks have a choice node for rain of fire, having to make macros for movement or ground toggles isnt great design when implementation of this already exists in game.

PVP Talents;
Beckon, i think this deserves to become a part of the core kit of devourer improves the flow of the spec greatly between either sides of the tree.

Currently Surrender to the void doesn’t feel very good, the additional 50 souls feels like its alot given the enviroment you wish this to be used in. it is already a challenging feat to pull off getting yourself into meta with having a single damage type you can be locked out of. doubling our time to gain meta for a 20% damage increase which we cant potentially utilise doesnt give you the kiss curse this talent wants to be the trade off is far too great.

overall im very happy with the way this spec is in its design through clear and impactful node decisions throughout the spec tree that defines our core gameplay loop whilst not bringing anything overly complex. i feel with the suggested changes above this spec would perform to the best of its intended initial iteration deigned by the team at blizzard.

2 Likes
29

the overal feeling is nice but the spec is very very frustating to play because of the collapsing star mecanism

you sometimes lose the meta with 25/29 shards, sometimes you cast collapsing star and lose the soul shards but the collapsing star is not cast effectively because silence/ interrupt/ mob moving

easy fix

1/ when you leave meta, make an automatic instant collapsing star be casted , using the soul shards left and doing a % damage depending the remaining shards ( i e = leaving the meta with 15 souls shards lauches an instant 50% damage collapsing star)

2/ make the furry drain pauses during the cast of collapsing star and something like 1/3 or 1/2 second after the cast , and make us lose the soull shards only if the collapsing stars was launched

if you want to be more punishing and raise the skill cap perhaps lose some shards ( like 5 or 10 ) when we are silenced or move, but do not lose it all