[Beta] Havoc Discussion

[Orloth]

The hidden artifact appearances, and we're currently thinking that clues might be in the lore books that come with the AP acceleration researches, but that particular one was from datamined info.

[Adoxe]

All the icons for the Havoc artifact have "Azgalor" in their name even though they are in no way associated with him. It's probably not a hint towards it's source.

[Gracin]

Oh, I didn't realize there was going to be hidden appearances.

[snowden3j]

That both-strafe-keys FR canceling is a game-changer, thanks td-. 100% reproducible and you even still get the damage if you're a standard melee-attack range from a mob. Makes Momentum playable in essentially any scenario, but FR through packs still has a place (e.g. AoE). It's a huge QoL change, reeeally hope it's intended.

[Segerr]

That both-strafe-keys FR canceling is a game-changer, thanks td-. 100% reproducible and you even still get the damage if you're a standard melee-attack range from a mob. Makes Momentum playable in essentially any scenario, but FR through packs still has a place (e.g. AoE). It's a huge QoL change, reeeally hope it's intended.

Probably not intended.

[Kuze]

I would imagine at this stage its safe to say mechanically DHs are pretty set?

[snowden3j]

Probably not intended.

Ya, probably not. I still hope it is. Or maybe more precisely, I hope it's tolerated. After all, it's an additional task to go in and change the behavior of the spell (to move the player forward) given that specific user input. It might be trivial, or it might be more work than it's worth to them considering the class team has dozens of such tasks right now.

[ChakanDH]

I would imagine at this stage its safe to say mechanically DHs are pretty set?

Pretty much. Aside from MAYBE some talent shuffles(doubtful), it's really just tuning to be done.

[nethara]

So as someone who didn't get the beta, i'm curious what the main builds are that people are using? I pretty much only see people talking about Momentum builds, and I'm curious what other options there are.

[Roshar]

Ya, probably not. I still hope it is. Or maybe more precisely, I hope it's tolerated. After all, it's an additional task to go in and change the behavior of the spell (to move the player forward) given that specific user input. It might be trivial, or it might be more work than it's worth to them considering the class team has dozens of such tasks right now.

You can create a G-key macro or a Naga macro to do it all in one button press. So someone with macro-enabling hardware has an edge over someone that doesn't. That's not something Blizzard generally lets slip by unchanged.

[snowden3j]

You can create a G-key macro or a Naga macro to do it all in one button press. So someone with macro-enabling hardware has an edge over someone that doesn't. That's not something Blizzard generally lets slip by unchanged.

Yep, fair point. Although strafe + Fel Rush is intended gameplay, so one could argue pressing both strafe keys instead of just one isn't such a huge leap in complexity that a macro is very advantageous. In any case, I agree it's almost definitely unintended, whether it's for your reasoning, because it's counterintuitive to FR in place, or because the risks/time-on-target issues of zipping around in some situations are meant to be the drawback that prevents Momentum from being "strictly better". But I still really like it, because it adds options to the spec (i.e. you won't always ani-cancel) and it plays really clean. We'll see, but fingers crossed.

[Orloth]

So we're talking about the Deathwalker* skins.... those are really our hidden artifact appearance? If so Im more than slightly disappointed.

Deathwalker and Flamereaper for Havoc; and Umberwing and Iron Warden for Vengeance.

[Jekuto]

Is the momentum build still superior to the other builds? Tried asking this before but no answer.

[Sonrisa]

You can create a G-key macro or a Naga macro to do it all in one button press. So someone with macro-enabling hardware has an edge over someone that doesn't. That's not something Blizzard generally lets slip by unchanged.

I can buy that argument for the backpeddal FR jump cancel, strafe canceling on the other hand is absolutely trivial to pull off.

[The Archmage]

Is the momentum build still superior to the other builds? Tried asking this before but no answer.

As an overall spec, yes. There is another spec that comes closer (and in some cases also surpasses) pure ST fights, that is the Nemesis / Chaos Blade build.

For all other situations Momentum is superior.

[ChakanDH]

You know what would be a nice change? Take Fel eruption off the GCD.

[The Archmage]

You know what would be a nice change? Take Fel eruption off the GCD.

That would be a nice boost, but i don't think it would change the situation too much... Momentum burst is simply too strong currently, since its use is valid in a wide variety of situations and against a wide variety of opponents, being a straight substantial damage buff to the player.

[Lillpapps]

You know what would be a nice change? Take Fel eruption off the GCD.

Or just fix the extra damage on stun immune targets.

[TKTank]

Rather anedoctal evidence caveat...

Smacking for almost 30min on Boss Dummy in IF, I was trying to better understand (and confirm) my suspicion that Demon Blades net more procs of Felblade reset than Demon's Bite active usage.

With a rather crude control of environment (people were dpsing the dummy with all kinds of specs and classes) my uptime of "comboing" Vengeful Retreat+Felblade back in was 17% higher with Demon Blades than Prepared specced.

To count as a "combo" VR+FelB I only considered the ones that I could FelB back in under 2sec from VR out. 2+sec waiting for a FelB proc was counted as downtime.

This is expected behavior, since Prepared increases uptime of VR and supposedly doesn't alter FelB reset chance, but my perception is that Demon Blades has a higher chance to proc FelB.

My whole point bringing this up is that animation canceling is clearly a non-expected game design (even if allowed under clever use of game mechanics) AND the fact that the rotation seemed sooo smooth during the long periods of alignment between VR_FelB combos that to me that seems like the expected rotation behavior or at least one that could very well be if adjusted accordingly.

There're times I even had long periods I could VR_FelB and FR_FelB back in back to back.

Did anyone experience this? What you think if we could move towards this behavior and rotation instead of animcanc shenanigans?

P.S. Not bringing this because I don't like Momentum build or animation canceling or think it's hard to do consistently (it's not and macroable easily) but due to the fact that a new class starting with a rotation with an already funky behavior opens all sorts of cans for unbalacing and problems along the way.
I'd rather we started with a very solid rotation and mechanics and undertuned than starting with funky behaviors and mechanics that will be fixed or changed down the line...

[ChakanDH]

Or just fix the extra damage on stun immune targets.

That I'm positive will be fixed eventually.