Please make some changes for S4

Classes Demon Hunter
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As stated in the title, some changes are warranted. Specifically for Havoc, and to have other covenant/build combinations viable, other than the Venthyr/CoH build.

It feels truly horrible having to play this in anything other than raids in my opinion. I’m biased to be fair, because I can’t stand the CoH build anyways, but having a build that is primarily ST oriented the best option for M+ is awful.

I have suggested before, and will once again suggest changes to one or more of the following;

The Hunt. Uncap or increase the target count. Remove or decrease the Agility buff if it makes the change too unbalanced.

Burning Wound. Change it so that Blade Dance applies the debuff. It’s so clunky to apply the debuff one by one. It would also create synergy with the 2pc bonus from the tier set. Remove or decrease the DoT if it makes the change too unbalanced.

Remove the sqrt scaling on Eyebeam, or make it like the other uncap changes we have seen recently, with 5-8 targets.

The first two options would give us a reason not to play Venthyr/CoH in dungeons, which I think most Havoc players would absolutely love.

6 Likes
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Have you tried the Venthyr Glaive Tempest/First blood build. Im having lots of fun with it in keys. So far the max keys i done is +20 with it but Havoc played like this is so fun.

Here is a video about the build. Maybe worth giving a try. :slight_smile:

Oh and dont just look a min into the video. The talents he shows at first (felblade,Demonblades) are not the ones to use with this build.

Im currently testing it with all 3 covenant souls. They all have some use i think. Oh and its super fun with spamming blade dance in M+ when all go for Uhr mostly. I started out with Dark Glare but changed to Collective Anguish but this is more a personal choice if you want more randomness or not.

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Here is a gameplay video of this guy doing a +20 key.

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As long as we’re forced to play around Demon’s Bite, no ty.

1 Like
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Tbh it doesnt feel much different either way to me.

Pressing 1 5 times or auto attacking 5 times has no real difference in thought process,

Just how lacking DH gameplay is that gives some illusion of it being better. They refuse to expand the class beyond just a basic shallow 3 button rotation that creates such demand to have that fourth extra ability.

I aint very hopeful for changes in S4 but im hoping they finally expand the class out in DF.

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I don’t like spamming demon’s bite, and fel blade is such a cool ability :grin:

1 Like
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Felblade is and imho it should be baseline 100%

A large amount of DHs problem is it is born during the inital prune. So its stuck in a design where so much of its talent tree need outright baselining.

Demon bite wouldnt feel near as bad, if theyd actually build up the gameplay around the resource system instead of doubling down on it continously.

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Yeah Fel Blade being baseline would be nice, but it’s always used in conjunction with demon blades. If felblade becomes baseline, I’d expect it to have way less interaction with the rest of the kit, meaning you’d have to talent into it and that’s fine for me.

In the current scenario you can play a less spammy build while still having good DPS (well, in 9.2 anyway), and not having to spam demon’s bite is much nicer for my hands.

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Or baseline demons bite with it. And give DH some new abilities and a proper mechanic to fill the hole.

1 Like
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I have three big issues with the current Havoc meta build.

First is of course Sinful Brand. It’s beyond ridiculous that a borrowed power does 20-30% of our dmg, and that our whole gameplay loop revolves around keeping up the DoT.

Second is that we are discouraged from using Blade Dance, due to Cycle of Hatred. It’s one of the core abilities of the spec, and it feels bad not using it.

Third is Demon’s Bite. This is highly subjective, but I much prefer the flow of Demon Blades+Felblade. The Demon’s Bite spam to generate Fury annoys me to no end, and I for one would be happy if the ability was purged from existence.

2 Likes
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If they have something similar to master of the glaive and bloodlet synergy back from legion, that would definitely have my attention.

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The answer is probably something similar to their reasoning on demo locks a few years ago when Ion right out said that we are not bad at numbers but we just dont want you to play demo locks.

Biggest issue with DH is that we do not have any other DPS spec. So is the thought maybe that they want us all to spec tank or just reroll to another class? Now days it is hard to say since they stopped talking to us players.

2 Likes
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sad that vdh is literally the worst tank rn xD

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Raid wise, they seem to be bad but are VDH the worst in M+ also or? I may be wrong since I do not tank so often.

By the way do you have any tip or pointers how I could up my game as Havoc in M+? It is hard to find any good information or videos showing how you should play as DH when you want to push higher than +20 keys.

I am really struggling to get the current Havoc/Venthyr playstyle to work any better for me. Is it maybe more a issue of needing a good group/tank that tracks from your CD: s so you get to max benefit from your meeta or is it more that havoc is brought for a utility like darkness and 5% buff? Sure, big part is also me failing rotations, and so on but still I get a feeling that you on most other classes can perform better with much less effort.

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Guardian is also pretty gutter tier for m+. The issue with VDH rn is also the same class ability issue that havoc has - meta for both specs is super weak compared to everything else its supposed to be ‘the equivalent of’. The damage for a 4min CD (-dr tier set) is actually awful and its the only class left in game with a 4min ability iirc.
Our dmg spread in abilities is actually cringe rn. If you look at logs we have core abilities doing less dmg than trinkets and our entire dmg profile is dominated by brand. Not only that but because of the reliance on brand and on Nadjia to actually do anything, our build options in both raid and m+ are massively restricted to the point that we pretty much can’t (with very specific exceptions) pick anything else talent or covenant wise.
I, and I think a lot of DHs would actually be pretty happy if Blizzard nerfed brand by 40% and buffed our base abilties by 100-200% and it wouldn’t even break the class. Like people aren’t asking for much. Havoc has been pretty awful for the whole xpac outside of winds in Sanctum effectively carrying damage for us.
It doesn’t really prove too much, but you can see on logs top ranking DHs getting something stupid like 7-13 buffs a fight - pi, fae, spirits, bond, and you literally don’t see them competing with other classes even then. They’re literally bottom 5. And VDH is the worst tank for damage in the raid. That’s actually kinda shocking on Blizzards behalf. CN havoc was so bad you brought a worse tank just to have the buff and this tier and now into S4 we’ve had no changes at all even though we’re struggling behind other classes. SP deserved buffs for sure, affliction was bad but now its kinda flown up in raids recently after the tuning so lock has 2 of the top 2 specs in the game and a competitive 3rd before anything happens to other classes.

The issue with VDH and meta is that unless you are high rolling your lego for resets and clipping the dev just to get the CD on CD you’re just feeling like you’re bleeding out. And you’re often feeling like you’re dying in high keys with meta up. And for our biggest CD that just feels bad. Like real bad. Especially if you’re stacking it with spikes.
Its not impossible to do high keys, its not like we are ruled out of any content if we choose to play DH, its just the +/- of VDH vs brew/dk even paladin, isn’t really weighing up. We do less ST dmg than all other specs by a considerable amount (even with the what 200-300dps they gave us we’re literally thousands of dps behind other tanks), we aren’t as tanky as the better specs and outside of bomb + tier in bigger pulls we’ll likely need more attention than other specs from a healer, which classes like DK simply don’t have.

When it comes to havoc in keys my best advice is to know the route, know every pull, make sure you’ve seen what the tank is pulling and know when your CDs are going to line with the biggest value pulls. You need to be getting Urh unless you’re skipping or your team is trolling. In keys you can pick up the extra dmg conduit (Dancing with fate) in Nadjia over the target 3% (Dauntless) as it’ll do more over the key to balance it out.
Don’t lose your brand, know when you can dance and when you have to spam for beam (e.g you can get away with more with Urh up cos of the cd gen), don’t really dance outside of meta windows, just get your beam back.
But yeah, your dmg comes from meta applying your dot in big pulls, so if you’re using meta on a 3 mob pack over a 5 pack pull then you’re just killing your overall. The more keys you do the more flow you have and the more you just know things will time out at a certain point.
In general though your overall doesn’t matter. You can compete with other classes but you’ll never beat good hunter/lock players so don’t expect to.
5% magic actually buffs survival hunter damage as well as the locks damage but 5% bonus to your dmg vs taking a class that does 40% more damage than every other class in the game kinda rules our ‘value’ null. Dark is fine, but its not really huge value either in m+ content.
Just don’t die and play consistent, its all you can do. People wont generally play around your CDs but around locks/hunters so its kinda on you to manage yourself. Our CDs are long and not that strong, we don’t carry packs even with meta up. Its kinda why DH is out of favour. AoE caps and long CDs and subpar damage don’t make us prio options when making a group.
Rotation wise there’s not much to fail in the current build honestly. You’re just playing around brand and eyebeam. Your tier set does itself as does just about everything else in the build. I miss momentum. Bring back bloodlet. Make covenant dmg less or tune others to make up for it… there’s lots they could do, but don’t expect it until next xpac if they ever will. DH has been begging Blizzard to fix our class to not be solely reliant on external sources for our dmg since the removal of artifacts and they still haven’t done it.

Feel free to message in game if you need any help with anything, always happy to help. Its a lot easier if I know your specific issues to advise than to try think of generics ':slight_smile:

6 Likes
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First, I want to say a big thank you for taking the time to in an easy and understandable way explain the issues for DH. All the pointer you gave are truly golden. I will try to start thinking more on what packs I should aim for and use my bigger CD:s on.

I am not any pro at all but try to improve and test stuff out and see if I can manage to get better. I get the feeling as you mention slightly when having a tank that dares to pull bigger packs it feels like my DPS increases a lot when playing around Brand and spread through Meeta. The biggest issue that I have is to manage my fury properly and tend to use my demons to bite too much. I may be wrong, but I can’t remember that was a huge issue in the past or maybe it was just not as punishing to do.

I am also trying to use my Cache trinket with the bleed and this is a trinket I have wondered many times if it actually damages me more to try and align the trinket with meeta with delaying them both and not getting it on a pack that matters the most. My cache is Heroic 265 ilvl so maybe I should just replace it with a 272 trinket instead like the totem or a passive one?

My biggest improvement lately I feel was to make good macros for focus target and kick.
Maybe theese macros can help others?

Focus Macro:

#showtooltip Disrupt
/focus [@mouseover,harm,nodead] ;[@target,exists,harm,nodead]

If you mouseover an enemy health bar it will focus target that one and if no mouseover exists, it will focus target your current enemy target.

My kick/disrupt Macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift,@target,nodead] Disrupt
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][@focus,harm,nodead] [] Disrupt

This one works in a similar way. If you mouseover an enemy health bar it will Disrupt that one and if no mouseover exist, it will try and Disrupt on a focus target. If no mouseover or focus exists, it will Disrupt my current enemy target. If I have a focus, but still want to Disrupt my current target I can do that by holding shift. You can replace the word Disrupt with any of the other classes similar skill if you want to use it on a alt.

Have a great day all.

1 Like
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Well we have being told by a blue post that basicly the team they dont want to do there job when it comes to Dh, saying they dont think it is a good time to make changes going in to a new season (but is that not the best time ??) yet hunter and warlock changes are coming in now. I feel like they do not care about DH anymore the forums have 100s of ways to change things around, the players have already told you what to do but they are just sitting on there hands.It really give me no hope for Dh in Df (Glad i havent pre-ordered and for the 1st time sence wotlk might not play) they still havent got the talent builds out to us yet. We should be one of the easiest classes to do we only have 2 spec balance might be a issue but thats why you have a tuneing phase really is a joke just shows they dont care if you guys plan on playing Df dont main a Dh coz you wont be looked after and forgot about.

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Didnt mean to post my answer with my priest. I was looking for some old friends from vanilla and forgot to change back to my DH. I am going to keep my hopes up that we are going to be able to play the class we like and not have to feel it would be better to change.

Have a great day.

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