Feedback: Havoc and Vengeance Demon Hunters

In Development Midnight Beta Test
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This thread is dedicated to leaving feedback on Havoc and Vengeance Demon Hunters in Midnight. Look in this thread and in the Midnight Alpha Development Notes for adjustments and bugfixes made throughout the testing period.

Please note that off-topic or inappropriate posts will be strictly removed.

Apex Talents

Many Apex Talents are available for playtesting and may be selected using specialization tree points in the final specialization tree node. The current User interface (UI) is temporary for playtesting purposes and will be replaced with a final UI later in development. As with any test cycle, we will be adding more Apex Talents to the test over time and not all will be available with the start of the alpha test.

To help us refine Apex Talents, please consider the following questions as you playtest:

  • How gameplay-impacting, exciting, and fantasy forward is your Apex Talent to you?
  • Are your Apex Talents and new Hero Talents meeting the approachability goals laid out in our Combat for Everyone in Midnight article?
  • Are there cases you would consider not selecting your Apex talent?
  • Does the Apex talent disproportionally favor a particular talent build or Hero Talent tree?

For feedback regarding the changes on making the combat system more approachable for players of all skill levels, leave your feedback in the Combat Approachability feedback thread.

Thank You

We greatly appreciate all your feedback and are very excited for you to test out all the changes in Midnight!

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Havoc

Midnight brings targeted changes to Havoc focused on two key areas: Reducing total button count of both offensive and defense/utility abilities, especially when they have overlapping identity or functional redundancy; and simplifying circumstances of conditional bonuses that warp ability usage in unintuitive ways, especially those that stem from overlapping buff windows. Many skills have been changed or removed, including talents with unclear or overly-niche purpose. Large multiplicative skill bonuses have been changed or removed to make room for Havocā€™s natural gameplay to be fun and effective.

Vengeance

Vengeanceā€™s Midnight updates are primarily focused on improving the natural usability of its defensive kit. Before Midnight, Vengeance had defensive gaps that made it susceptible to difficult-to-understand deaths; it relied heavily on effects that were conditional or ramped up over time; and it skewed too heavily towards effects that were predictive in nature and required advance knowledge of encounters to use effectively. In Midnight, Vengeanceā€™s defensive kit has been significantly streamlined by increasing baseline defenses, by making Demon Spikes easier to maintain at a high rate, by replacing complex ramp-up effects with simpler versions that reward core rotational gameplay, and by reducing emphasis on predictive effects to make room for more potent reactive ones. Additional changes aim to simplify and clarify Vengeanceā€™s offensive rotation.

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(Deleted by user)

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Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in the Beta testing of the Midnight Expansion!

I would like to share my experiences and observations from the perspective of a veteran player (started in July 2007) and a long time tank (since WotLK), with past history of clearing all Raid bosses on highest difficulties, and as of Shadowlands focused on Mythic+, though not a high key pusher (currently 3.1k, not interested in pushing higher due to lack of tangible rewards).

I currently main two classes (i.e., playing both to same extent), Demon Hunter and Death Knight, primarily in the tanking role that is closest to my heart. As I am getting into playtesting, I wanted to share my initial thoughts now, and add additional in-depth feedback once I get more experience in the more end-game type of content where the tanking role shines.

Perspective Disclaimer:

I will be mostly referring using ā€œvibe and feelsā€ rather than hard math. There are greater brains within Demon Hunter community that have the talent and skills to optimize the playstyle; personally, I consider my feedback as coming from a casual player who just wants to log in and have fun, with nominal research and character optimization, but without simming every new item or spending hours in Excel spreadsheets.

Initial Thoughts:

1. The Good

Generally speaking, the majority of changes to and simplification of the Vengeance Demon Hunter are overwhelmingly positive. The main rotational abilities and defensives were improved and simplified. There are more good than bad things, so letā€™s start with cheering on the good stuff:

  • New Spirit Bomb feels amazing and has itā€™s own niche, with the cooldown (reduced by Haste) being the cost of it hard now.
  • Finally, uncapped target limit on Soul Cleave! Obviously, this was likely warranted due to Spirit Bomb change, but still feels amazing. There is something about the animation, the visual and the sound of Soul Cleave that scratches that itch for me. If only it had the green tinge of Fel instead of the odd purpleā€¦ At least a glyph, perhaps?
  • Simplified Frailty is a major improvement, as it removes the mental load of choosing to add stacks on multiple high-priority targets vs. using other abilities.
  • Fiery Brand applying a defensive buff instead of relying on debuff is a major bonus for big pull M+ enjoyers, not having to wait half the engagement for debuff to spread - the spreading is now for damage purposes, not survivability.
  • New Demon Muzzle is a significant improvement, I thought it was an amazing idea when it was added to Shamans, and I am excited to see it added to Demon Hunters.
  • Wings of Wrath is probably the strongest capstone we get and itā€™s not even offering direct offensive or defensive bonuses. Absolutely loving it!
  • Burn It Out/Soul Cleanse self-dispel choice node, which will help with a lot of encounters and an M+ affix.
  • First In, Last Out which will help a lot with engaging new enemy packs, and upgrades Infernal Strike into a minor defensive CD.
  • Vengeful Beast - I wasnā€™t happy to see Fel-Scarred go, but this is a pleasant and meaningful way to keep a part of it.
    • It would be nice if the abilities upgraded (to Soul Sunder, Spirit Burst andā€¦ well, Fracture didnā€™t have one) as they did for FS, same as they do for Havoc and Devourer in their respective Metas.

2. The Bad (not really bad, but not good either)

Then there are some really good talents but with some caveats I am not too keen on. Some of these are a tuning matter, and some feel awkward for one or another reason:

1. Felfire Fist

Donā€™t get me wrong, I love this talent, I think itā€™s an amazing idea to bring back Sigil of Flame being cast on Infernal Strike and I love this talent, I have a concern about its implementation. The concerning part is of course the fact the talent requires dropping out of combat - a talent most useful in M+ where chain pulling is often preferred or even required.

While Vengeance get this requirement implemented, at the same time Rogues have it removed - historically a class that required dropping out of combat to go back to Stealth and be able to perform their opener. This doesnā€™t seem fair to me.

If the Team is open to ideas, this concern could be easily fixed by having Felfire Fist mechanics be inspired by Havocā€™s Initiative talent:

  • Damaging an enemy with Infernal Strike that is not in combat with you places a Sigil of Flame at the target location. Vengeful Retreat refreshes your potential to trigger this effect on any enemies you are in combat with.

This is by no means a perfect solution, but something that maybe could be used for inspiration and iteration. I just think using either or both of the Initiative talentā€™s functions could make Felfire Fist more functional and remove the friction of having to drop off combat.

2. Soulcrush

This one is very simple - this talent is mandatory, as is pretty much every Frailty-related talent, but this one so much more. The only issue I have with it is a capstone that can only be reached by spending two talent points into Vulnerability. Thatā€™s 3 talent points in Gate 3 that cannot be moved elsewhere, limiting choices.

I believe the talent should be made baseline, baked into Frailty. A lot of classes and specs had mandatory talents that added modifiers to existing abilities baked in to simplify them, and Soulcrush feels like a talent that has missed reaching that goal.

3. Painbringer

With the update to Calcified Spikes, Painbringer seems to be a worse, more expensive copy of that talent. Moreso, the talent name never fit with what it does.

It would benefit the tree if the talents did not duplicate effects (and personally if their names aligned with what they do). I think as a 2-point talent this could be a talent that draws inspiration from Unholy DKā€™s Ancient Power:

  • Consuming a Soul Fragment increases your [Agility/Critical Strike] chance by X% for Y sec. Multiple applications may overlap.

Both Agility and Crit benefit the DH offensively and defensively, so any could work. Also, it would align with other classesā€™ Spec Trees that also offer talents with stats.

4. Soulmonger

This has always been a dead talent, but it has potential. Itā€™s main issue always seemed to stem from the fact Leech (that we have access to through talents) cannibalizes Soulmongerā€™s benefits.

It could be a simple solution to let Soulmonger always grant an absorption shield, not just overheal, or to allow all self-overhealing to shield the DH.

5. Darkness

I always had beef with this talent, now even more since itā€™s contending to be a capstone. For a 5-min cooldown (that can be reduced to 3, but doesnā€™t have to, so not an argument) it is a very dubious ability. Two factors:

  1. When it works, itā€™s amazing. But itā€™s RNG nature can also cause it to do absolutely nothing every 5 minutes.
  2. Itā€™s visual isā€¦ invisible. Even when I cast it in the middle of combat and I know where it is because Iā€™m standing in the middle of it, I can barely see it.

As a 5-min CD capstone, I would expect this talent to at least offer 10% damage reduction at all times (which is less than DKā€™s 4-min Gate 2 15% DR AMZ). Most of all, however, it needs a better visual - a floating translucent cloak of purple mists (that doesnā€™t cover ground effects), or anything that my party can see immediately.

6. Soul Splitter, Revel in Pain, Final Breath

Tuning issues, honestly. These talents sound great on paper, but they seem to be too poorly tuned to be worth considered.

  • Soul Splitterā€™s 2-point investment for 4% chance is too steep.
  • Revel in Pain is a talent I cannot be serious aboutā€¦ Even 20% of Fire damage dealt would be too low. It is already capped at 10% max HP, and I have no idea how would anyone reach even 1% of max HP in shield in combat with 2% Fire damage contribution.
  • Final Breath has the problem with Fel Devastationā€™s channel not being reduced by Haste and creates a partial tick that can deal next to no damage.
    • Besides that, Fel Devastation can often be cancelled early (movement or casting an ability instead of queuing it), making this Gate 3 ā€œcapstoneā€ null and void.

The Ugly (a.k.a. personal concerns and ither issues)

1. Spec Talents in Class Tree

The Class Tree still contains a number of talents useful to Vengeance only:

  • Infernal Armor (Armor and Thorns during Immolation Aura)
  • Aldrachi Design (Parry bonus)
  • Live by the Glaive (Fury generation and Heal on parries)

From Vengeance perspective this is not a problem, even beneficial not having to spend Spec talent points, but even though our Havoc and Devourer brothers and sisters have to go through talents that are either useless to them, or a new one (self-dispel) that is awesome, but situational.

Vengeance has a few talents that could be universally good for all specs:

  • Burning Blood (Fire damage bonus - could be Cosmic for Dev)
  • Fallout (chance for Soul Fragments on Immolation Aura cast)
  • Fel Flame Fortification (spell damage reduction during Immo)
  • Volatile Flameblood (Immo crit chance and Fury generation) [1]

I think (some of) these talents could be swapped around to give better mid-right part of the Class Tree side for DPS specs while keeping tank talents within tank Spec Tree.

2. Capstone Talent Benefits Disparity

One of the capstones, Demonic Resilience, offers powerful defensive benefit to Havoc and Devourer in form of additional Blur charge. For Vengeance, it offers additional Demon Spikes, which is nowhere near as capstone-worthy. With Feed the Demon, we really donā€™t need this talent at all, but even without it getting an additional charge of active mitigation doesnā€™t even begin to compare to Blur.

It seems like, as a capstone, this talent should rather offer a charge of Fiery Brand (and have that part removed from Down in Flames).

3. Movement Speed Redundancy

Demon Hunters were never a class that complained about lack of mobility, mostly because of superior movement abilities in Vengeful Retreat and Infernal Strike/Fel Rush/Shift. With the rework, we still retain Pursuit and Felfire Haste, none of which were very popular picks, but Havoc and Vengeance also gain Felbound, which is significantly worse than the two preceding ones.

On top of that, we get a new capstone talent, Wings of Wrath which is a massively beneficial talent (and probably the only worthwhile capstone we have in Class Tree) that itself, combined with our movement abilities, trumps the need for any extra speed talents.

Devourer gains a superior talent Guile - it is understandable as a ranged caster some spells should get more range, but 3% movement speed Havoc and Vengeance get is nowhere near as valuable.

Instead of movement speed, some of these nodes feel like they are prime spots for adding flat stat talents like all other classes get - they might be boring, but they are still worthwhile and much more valuable.

4. Old Dead Talents Looking For New Job

There are two specific talents that existed pretty much forever but their potential has been squandered by the fact they offered Fury, a resource we always had in abundance. These are Disrupting Fury and Swallowed Anger.

  • Disrupting Fury - I do not recall a situation historically when Vengeance would have problem with Fury generation, and now even with Felblade nerfed it does not appear there being any concerns. Havoc, with the removal of Demonā€™s Bite might see some use here, but the problem is not only that this source of Fury requires a talent point investment, it is unreliable as it requires an interruptible cast on an enemy. We do want to interrupt enemy casts, but we need to be tactical about it, choosing which spells must be interrupted, not treat it as a Fury source.*
  • Swallowed Anger - This one is even more interesting, recently nerfed to offer 1 Fury (at least as per tooltip) when dispelling an enemy. Was there an intent to replace Fury with Soul Fragment?

If a player is to invest talent points into situational talents that require using situational spells such as offensive dispel and interrupt, the talent nodes should offer greater benefit than Fury that isnā€™t even enough to even cast a Chaos Strike or Soul Cleave. Based on the talent names, there is a lot of potential to make these more interesting, for example:

  • Disrupting Fury - Successfully interrupting an enemy with Disrupt increases the damage you deal to them by 5% for 10 sec.
    • Aside from the fact the name of the interrupt is Disrupt and that the talent gives Fury, one could say the name indicates the disruption enrages/infuriates the Demon Hunter. The effect can be found in Warriorā€™s Honed Reflexes.
  • Swallowed Anger - Consume Magic increases your Agility/Intellect by 5% for 10 seconds when a beneficial Magic effect is successfully removed from the target.
    • When I think of Demon Hunter consuming magic, I see them as empowering themselves the same way when they (lorewise) consume demonic essence to become as strong as what they hunt. Consume Magic could therefore

Obviously, the values and durations are just an example, I lack the Devsā€™ expertise. I do think however that such would be better, and could even be made powerful given their limited, situational nature that requires a spell cast to interrupt and a spell buff to dispel from target. Mages are expert at Spellstealing actual magical effects, Warriors can reflect the magic back at their opponents, Death Knights can nullify magical attacksā€¦ Demon Hunters could be the ones that feed on the magic to empower their attacks.

  • Guest star: Felblade - I am not sure what is the intent of this ability now in Vengeanceā€™s toolkit - it deals less damage and generates less Fury than Fracture. Heck, even Sigil of Flame deals more initial damage than Felblade against single target, which is just silly. Felbladeā€™s only benefit seems to be closing distance, something that Infernal Strike is better used for.

4. Closing thoughts and personal wishes

I know it may look like there is more bad than good, but honestly it is not. It is just that the bad things and things that bother us are the ones we want to talk about in detail. I apologize for the amount of suggestions and ideas - I am well aware the Devs are more than capable of coming up with good ideas, especially knowing how things work on the back end - I did not mean to pretend I know better. I do think that ideas should be shared and maybe someone find an inspiration in them - or an idea might be something one missed due to having spend working on something for way too long (I am a designer IRL, not related to gaming at all, but I know the pain of iterating and reiterating over and over and over again).

In truth, I am having a blast playing the new Vengeance and I havenā€™t even reached max level yet (taking my sweet time). None of the ā€œissuesā€ I raised are dealbreakers for me or something that will push me back from the class.

As a final note, as I would not be myself if I didnā€™t push for itā€¦ Until Devourer, Demon Hunters were always about using Fel/demonic energies. With the loss of Fel-Scarred spec, Vengeance feels too purple in too many areas, with both Hero talents having purple/Void image and spell effects.

  • Could we have some of the purple visuals replaced with green instead? None of Vengeance abilities are Void/Shadow/Cosmic damage. Wounded Quarry deals Chaos damage, but it has purple animation. Soul Cleave animation is purple. Fury of the Aldrachi is purple. Can we keep purple at Annihilator and have green in Aldrachi Reaver? Pretty please?
  • Last and least, can we please have green-tinted Aldrachi Reaver icon? :star_struck:

When Vengeance lost Demonic, I started to wonder if our demon form will only be coming from 2min CD abilityā€¦ Then the Apex talents for Vengeance were announced, and wellā€¦

Amazing, simply amazing! 9.5/10 would recommend. I think that among all tank specs, Vengeance gets the best Apex option - even better than Blood DK due to the fact we get full control on when we use it.

Now, the 0.5 point is missing from a perfect score because I am not too fond of the proc being tied to Metamorphosis button - I like to tap my buttons multiple times and Iā€™m afraid Iā€™ll use the proc and the main CD when I really donā€™t want to do so.

  • Iā€™d feel better if the proc replaced Demon Spikes with Apex Metamorphosis rather than Metamorphosis CD itself. Both Meta and DS are defensive abilities and double-tapping the ability to have Apex Meta and Demon Spikes is less painful than putting 2min ability on CD. Alternatively, Fel Devastation could be the trigger ability - anything but Meta CD.

  1. Note that I do not believe Soul Immolation design for Devourer is a good idea and the ability should be revamped. There is a reason Warlocks no longer have Life Tap and there are no other abilities that deal damage to self. Even despite that, it is an infinitely boring ability that should be changed to actuall deal damage to enemies - even if itā€™s a single target DoT rather than AoE aura ā†©ļøŽ

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My suggestion pertains to the core identity of Havoc, and the unique playstyle it provides. I fear that the present simplification harms the identity of Havoc to such a degree, that it becomes a detriment to the class fantasy.

  1. Demon Blades should never forcefully override Demonā€™s Bite.
  2. Give Havoc its Momentum back.
  3. A Fire Inside must be extinguished.
  4. Havoc is the warglaive master of Demon Hunters

1. Demon Blades should never forcefully override Demonā€™s Bite.

Demonā€™s Bite is a reliable resource generation ability for Havoc, and it has two unique animations tied to it found nowhere else in the game. It should always be left up to the individual playerā€™s decision, whether they prefer auto-attacking for resource generation, or an active ability within the playersā€™ control.

This is why we have talent trees. The removal of such a choice needlessly simplifies the class in a way that is detriment to not only the identity, but also the enjoyment one may derive from it.

2. Give Havoc its Momentum back.

Momentum was a long since beloved talent ever since its inception back with the classes initial launch in Legion. It was a thrilling talent that encouraged the player to keep momentum during combat, by weaving in Fel Rush, Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt during combat. Exergy and Inertia does not fulfill the same engaging playstyle as Momentum once did.

My suggestion is to return this identity to Havoc, again as a choice node, and add in Felblade to the rotation.

3. A Fire Inside must be extinguished.

The talent A Fire Inside promotes an unhealthy obsession with Immolation Aura that doesnā€™t belong with the Havoc specialization. Its random proc chance ruins the flowstate of Havoc and overrides any other ability in its importance. Immolation Aura works fine as a 27 second cooldown, but when it refreshes multiple times during an encounter it becomes infuriating, and worse yet, dissatisfying to press the ability, and becomes a burden to the gameplay style of Havoc.

4. Havoc is the warglaive master of Demon Hunters.

The removal of sigils is a good decision, as that identity belongs with Vengeance rather than innately with Havoc. To better reinforce this identity, and with the removal of A Fire Inside as previously suggested, my proposal is to include the Nerubā€™ar Palace 4-piece set as the new capstone talent in its place:

Chaos Strike deals 12% increased damage, and has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade Dance and reduce its Fury cost by 30%.

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Hi there - I only have one small bit of feedback that is quite crucial for Havoc, and pertains to the Cooldown Manager.

With ā€˜A Fire Insideā€™ talented, you can have multiple applications of the Immolation Aura buff. The CD manager seems to bug out and not know what version of Immo Aura to pick. This is also an issue on live. It causes some to not be displayed, and the behaviour being inconsistent on which one it is tracking.

Solutions could include always displaying the one with the longest time left, or allowing the CD manager buff window to displaying multiple instances of Immo Aura (as their own bars) with their own timings.

Thanks!

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Great changes for Havoc, just feels like its missing a button or two now but headed in a right direction

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I honestly miss my sigils but I can see why they were removed and the apex talents pretty much cover for the loss of Sigil of Spite in aoe.

I only played Aldrachi Reaver so far, but I have 2 issues:

  • Resource generation is way too low (souls and fury)

  • No active reliable way to generate souls outside of the free glaive from The Hunt

The first point is really nutering the spec and absolutely should be looked at asap.
Regarding active soul generation I would like to see a talent to make Immolation Aura generate souls. It could be placed as a choice node to the new Soul Splitter talent (which needs a buff btw) for example and it would give Immolation Aura a clear purpose for Aldrachi Reaver. Right now we only press it for a little bit of fury generation unless you put like 4 talent points into the ability to make it do decent damage in big aoe pulls. It is very underwhelming and borderline pointless otherwise.

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You have done nothing to address Vengeanceā€™s complete lack of viability in a high level raid environment.We still have zero real raid utility to speak of,brand being brought now even more handily by a devourer or chaos DH, darkness being completely useless due to its rng nature,while also having the worst cheat death by a mile(last resort 8 minutes cooldown that directly competes with other much better talents for throughput and now apex talents as well) meanwhile DK gets purgatory on half the cooldown and having to cut worthless points like umbiblicus eternus.Not to mention ppala with multiple immunities on themselves+group or prot war/brew being nigh unkillable even while progressing meanwhile VDH could literally die to purely dimensius melee damage unless you severely overgeared the fight,thatā€™s simply DUMB.Also you nerfed our ramping defensive capability such as it was by removing frailty stacking.

On top of that you have somehow seen fit to give VDH completely lackluster dps in the past few seasons and to what end exactly when i have already outlined why weā€™re trash in raid?The only reason weā€™re brought in m+ is for sigil of silence and brand and now we have 2 other specs who can bring brand,prot pala can solo interrupt a whole dungeon much better than us while prot war,brew and bdk do much better dps than us.What does vengeance even have that makes it stand out at this point?Literally nothing.

But in spite of EVERYTHING i have mentioned already you somehow saw fit to hit (annihilator) VDH with multiple nerfs like youā€™ve enjoyed doing the past few seasons and for what reason exactly?The complete lack of raid viability?The middle of the pack dps?Our supposed utility that has been left in the dust,with us getting overshadowed by other tank specs on what is supposed to be our strength?(gone are the double sigil charges and midnight is nerfing sigil cooldowns even more).

I hope you have a plan for VDH,one that does not involve it being an unplayable shadow of a spec for both PVE modes but so far at least iā€™m seeing none of it.

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After playing a bit more on all Vengeance, Havoc and Devourer, it seems like Vengeance has way more rotational, damaging buttons than either of the DPS specs, which feels very weird.

Aldrachi Reaver Feedback

With the addition of Apex talents and few other class changes, this Hero spec actually plays much better now. With Soul Cleave consuming up to 3 Souls and extra souls coming from various talents allow for more frequent Reaverā€™s Glaive application.

A few notes on new talents:

1. Bladecraft

Seeing the tier set becoming a hero talent is fine, but it just permanently formalizes the problem the tier set introduced - with current tuning, there is no point ever to press Fracture after Soul Cleave.

2. Broken Spirit

This is an awesome talent, feeding well into increased frequency of Reaverā€™s Glaive. BIS. Or will be BIS, of course, once it works - seems still bugged atm.

3. Keen Edge

Another tier set bonus made hero talent, this one seems needlessly weak. Tier set increased RG damage by 60% and other Physical damage by 30%, now we get a third of it. Second part benefits only Soul Cleave, Fracture and auto-attacks, and I get that it buffs Soul Cleave that now is uncapped AoE, but it is still reduced by armor, so the bonus feels insignificant. I doubt buffing it would be gamebreaking.

Few notes on things that could be improved with the spec now that the classes are being reworked:

1. Reaverā€™s Glaive Activation

As the hero that specializes around melee combat and glaive mastery, it sort of feels weird to have a Sigil activates Reaverā€™s Glaive. Havoc activates it from a ranged attacks that brings them into melee (The Hunt). Vengeance has a better melee ability that could fill that role, and thatā€™s Soul Carver.

Suggestion:

  • Swap positions of Soul Carver and Sigil of Spite, and make Soul Carver the activator for Reaverā€™s Glaive.
    • Make Soul Carver deal Chaos damage (the Physical variety, so it benefits from Physical damage buffs), and buff itā€™s damage, as it is severely undertuned - currently it deals less damage in Single Target than Sigil of Spite.

2. Aldrachi Reaver vs. Annihilator Abilities

Annihilator is the spec that buffs Fracture and Spirit Bomb, while Aldrachi Reaver works with Felblade and Soul Cleave, which is a cool distinction. However, as mentioned in my previous post, Felblade is currently not worth picking.

Suggestion:

  • Buff the duration of Army Unto Oneself (currently 5% damage reduction for 5 seconds) to 12 seconds so that Felblade is an optional pick that offers defensive buff. 12 seconds is the baseline CD of Felblade, so it will allow 100% uptime.
    • Annihilator has Phase Shift at 6% damage that that they can maintain through normal rotation, so this would put the defensive benefits on relative par between the two hero talents.
  • Make Aldrachi Reaver talents buff Felblade damage and/or Fury generation, to make it a competitive button to press over Fracture for at least one hero spec.

Loose Idea:

  • It could even be more interesting to make Reaverā€™s Glaive a melee attack that replaces/upgrades Felblade.
    • This change would require Demonā€™s Bite to return to Havocā€™s toolkit, and making different spell consume Soul Fragments via Warbladeā€™s Hunger (Blade Dance perhaps?), but this would give another reason to pick Felblade, and Havoc already has too few abilities on their bars.

3. ā€œButton Bloatā€

Not pertaining to Aldrachi Reaver only, but this talent is currently more worthwhile as AR: compared to Havoc and Devourer, Vengeance has a much larger amount of damage abilities. With Illuminated Sigils gone (rightfully so it was a powerful talent but very RNG, I prefer to be in control of my defensives), Sigil of Flame now exists to deal AoE damage, something we have Immolation Aura for already too. With Felfire Fist talent, we already have an ability that applies Sigil of Flame, too.

Suggestion:

  • Make Sigil of Spite replace Sigil of Flame as an active ability - double the CD but dealing Chaos damage instead of Fire, double the DoT duration, and spawns Soul Fragments.
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A bit of feedback solely focused on Vengeance Demon Hunter Apex Talents:

Impact, excitement and fantasy of the Apex Talent are 10/10.

This talent makes removal of Demonic not only justified, but it is simply an upgrade. It being a proc creates a moment of excitement, and letting player choose when to use it rather than automatically applying Metamorphosis control makes it tenfold better due to retaining full agency on when we use it (so we donā€™t overlap it with other defensives).

I think the 12 second window to use is generous enough to not cause any issues - we can use it instead of Demon Spikes for a greater effect - both defensively and offensively (via Vengeful Beast).

Simply put, yes. The Apex talent is a powerful defensive tool that is more or less hero-spec-agnostic. It does benefit Annihilator more (more on that below), but it still offers value Aldrachi Reaver.

None that I have encountered. All the benefits offered by all the Apex Talent ranks are valuable.

Not disproportionately, and not directly, but Annihilator has talents that benefit entering Metamorphosis (Mass Acceleration, Dark Matter) which in turn makes the Apex Talent stronger for that hero talent by offering additional demon form activations.

Aldrachi Reaver appears to be a spec intended to focus on non-Demon Form aspects of the class, and that is completely fine. However, I believe that where Annihilator benefits from ENTERING Demon Form, Aldrachi Reaver could get talents that benefit from LEAVING it instead - some sort of Lingering Felblood that grants a buff after exiting Metamorphosis, showing Aldrachi Reaverā€™s elf form being preferred.

This way Apex Talent procs would be equally beneficial to both hero specs, offering additional instances of said hero talent effects.

In addition to the above, I wanted to mention that there is a massive issue with the proc rate. I have experienced situations where I get back-to-back Apex procs, but more often than not I am not getting even a single one throughout whole duration of a Dungeon run.

It might be just my experience, but I havenā€™t done any log-checking or extensive math on this. It might be already the case, but if it isnā€™t, there needs be some bad luck protection or just RPPM on the Apex Talent, as it looks like itā€™s pure % RNG and it feels bad.

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Itā€™s a me againā€¦ Am I the only person in EU testing non-Devourer specs?

Anyway, cross-post from my US post for visibility.

After playing a bit with the new Unholy Death Knight I found how well executed the Dread Plague is - Outbreak can be used on demand to mark your current target as your main priority, and the opportunity cost to swap that target is one Rune to recast Outbreak.

This is also very similar to the updated Deathstalker Rogue, who got a much simplified and more effective way to apply Deathstalkerā€™s Mark.

This made me think that Aldrachi Reaver could use a similar approach to Reaverā€™s Mark and Wounded Quarry - one ability, perhaps Felblade, should mark the target hit with a simplified, nonstacking Reaverā€™s Mark.

  • This would make the ability less punitive when we need to swap targets - the opportunity cost being Felbladeā€™s CD.

Then, the Reaverā€™s Mark talent itself could use an update. Due to Bladecraft, there is till no situation where casting Fracture/Chaos Strike (ST) after Soul Cleave/Blade Dance (AoE) is worthwhile. Casting AoE second should empower AoE damage, so casting ST second should deal powerful single target damage.

To be in line with the new philosophy, it should be a very simple decision, and it should always be the right one to make:

  • Am I fighting multiple enemies? Blade Dance strikes second.
  • Do I only have one enemy, or I need to nuke down a priority target? Chaos Strike comes second.

I think it should be something simple that balances against Fury of the Aldrachi, which is actually fun and fine, for example:

Fury of the Aldrachi
When enhanced by Reaverā€™s Glaive, Blade Dance casts 3 additional glaive slashes to nearby targets.

If cast after Chaos Strike, cast 6 slashes instead. (12 with Bladecraft)

vs.

Soul Sunder
When enhanced by Reaverā€™s Glaive, Chaos Strike is guaranteed to critically strike and deals 100% more damage.

If cast after Blade Dance, the damage is increased by 200% instead. (300% with Bladecraft)

Random % numbers are provided just to provide a visual example. Fury of the Aldrachi might need to have itā€™s Wounded Quarry feed balanced (reduced or removed) to make sure the ST equivalent is preferred in ST/priority target situations.

TL;DR:

Unholy Death Knightā€™s new Dread Plague is a great example how to execute specs with priority target, and Aldrachi Reaver could benefit from similar design:

  • Make one ability (i.e., Felblade) apply Reaverā€™s Mark without any additional hoops and hurdles.
  • Replace current Reaverā€™s Mark with a Single Target equivalent of Fury of the Aldrachi that is a clear go to choice when dealing with a single/priority target.
2 Likes
15

Hello, really appreciating the chance to try out the Beta.

The lack of a non-cool-down bound fury builder button for Havoc Demon Hunters and the corresponding lack of anything to do while waiting for fury (especially while leveling) is really proving to be a large disincentive to playing the class.

The goal was to make them (and other classes) more approachable but now it is justā€¦ boring and non-interactive. When I have nothing to press, it feels like I am not doing anything because I am literally not doing anything. Increasing the damage of auto-attacks does not help with this lack of doing anything.

Yes, there is the whole thing about too many APM but for me at least, I WANT to be pushing buttons, I WANT to have things to do. On Beta, as a Havoc DH, this is missing the mark badly. It Might get better with enough Haste but right now, this is not fun.

This is really apparent while leveling a Havoc DH. There needs to be something, anything, that can be pressed that is not on a cool down OR if it is something that has to be on a cool down, should give a lot more fury so we can actually do something other than just stare and wait.

The lack of anything to do is not encouraging for new players either. Yes, too many buttons is intimidating and confusing but having nothing to do is even less fun.

At the very least, it could help greatly to bring back the choice of Demonā€™s Bite as a usable attack. Make it a choice node like it is right now in TWW. At least when I press that, I get a guaranteed return for my effort. Sitting and staring and waiting is not fun.

4 Likes
16

Demonā€™s Bite NEEDS to be brought back to Havoc. Baseline with a choice-node to slot into Demon Blades as it always has been, and always needs to be.

Itā€™s a fun ability to press, and it feels rewarding, in particular during levelling and in Overworld content :cry:

4 Likes
17

Absolutely, 100%.

Compared to Vengeance, Havoc has way too few buttons to press. Not only that, with Felblade Fury nerf and CD reset removal, itā€™s Demonā€™s Bite time to shine. The Felblade change is the main contributor to Demonā€™s Bite being sorely missed.

I donā€™t think it even needs to be on choice node - Demon Blades can exist exist alongside Demonā€™s Bite. Both arenā€™t even quite comparable - just because they both grant Fury, they do so in completely different way. Demon Blades have more in common with Immolation Aura, being trickle Fury over time.

Besides that, Demonā€™s Bite offers skill expression and build variety, the former in the fact that active ability usage and resource management (rotation) affects DPS more than passive effects, and tying the latter to Haste (less Haste and relying more on Bite, or more Haste and relying more on Demon Blades).

Furthermore, Demonā€™s Bite offers direct tie-ins to both hero talents:

  • Fel-Scarred - the very first talentā€™s (Demonsurge) very first line states that it increases Demonā€™s Bite Fury generation in Demon Form.
    • At the moment FS doesnā€™t care about staying longer in demon form, just to enter it as often as possible. This could be one aspect that makes staying in Demon Form longer worthwhile, having increased source of on-demand Fury to feed into Shattered Destiny.
  • Aldrachi Reaver - not as big (mostly tied to tuning), but Demonā€™s Bite physical damage feeds into Wounded Quarry.
    • Not having strong/direct tie-ins is actually a good thing, letting FS focus more on Demonā€™s Bite, and Aldrachi Reaver having more tie-ins with Felblade instead.

I donā€™t understand the attempt to make Havoc play like Arms Warrior, a methodical fighter that waits for an opening, or waiting to pool enough passively accrued resources that to deliver a mighty strike, when its closer in theme to Fury, one that delivers an onslaught of constant blows.

4 Likes