The passive cleave of the proposed Dragonflight Mayhem talent seems boring and sub optimal in every case. Especially given that Havoc is such a fundamental part of Destro’s toolkit.
I’d like to suggest an alternative either/or option instead of that keeps Havoc available in the toolbox, but gives it an additional function if selected - something like the following:-
Option 1 - “Mayhem”:
“Your Direct damage spells against a target affected by your Havoc copies an additional X% of its damage to another hostile targets within Y yards” .
In this case, the difference is that “X” will be a lower than the default number Havoc copies to a single specific secondary target, but making the rotation easier as there is no need to manually cast havoc on a secondary target, while still requiring that the havoc button be pushed on CD to gain the benefit (to get players used to weaving the button push in to their rotation). The downside over “classic” Havoc of not being able to specify which secondary target takes the copied damage if there are multiple in range, and possibly being limited to a shorter range between the primary and secondary targets compared to basic Havoc if needbe. It’s still going to be better than basic Havoc if the secondary mob is likely to die before the full directly applied havoc duration has a chance to run its course, so there is a meaningly “choice” over where to apply your Havoc there, even for veteran Destro players.
Option 2 - “Carnage”:
“Your Direct damage spells against a target affected by your Havoc deal X% of thier damage to all hostile targets within 10 yards of the primary target” .
This option allow Havoc to also be used for localized mutli-target cleave, while still allowing the player to pump on the primary target with Chaos bolt etc. It would probably be better than Havoc or Mayhem against large groups of stacked mobs with a focus target, but still leave design space open for Rain of fire which will still be better against large groups without a focus target, while still remaining worse in terms of overall DPS against longer lived mobs than using Havoc “properly” by manually selecting the secondary target.
Both these options would encourage new players into the habit of thinking about and pressing Havoc regularly, and offer an extra capability for experienced players who know when best to use Havoc to cleave a secondary target, and when best to make use of the alternate “smart” cleave damage from dropping it on the primary target (versus defaulting to Rain of Fire when at a binary mob count like we do now).
This Mayhem/Carnage Talent option node could then open up some further passive design space on the left side of the tree for some extra nodes which affect all variantions of havoc, and helping keep havoc key to Destro’s toolkit and identity: for example-
- increasing the amount of damage transferred / cleaved by Havoc/Mayhem/Carnage
- reducing Havocs cooldown
- increasing Havoc duration
In both cases, it also avoids Havoc being seen as a simple single target damage increase CD on the primary target, which would make it a mandatory for all locks in single target situations and so should probably be avoided to keep Havoc (Mayhem/Carnage) as a cool cleave capability, but with some potential fun gameplay options and decisions rolled in.