Momentum build - Too awkward?

[Shirofune]

Nemesis has another +: You can use it on longer burn phases or when you need the DPS for a longer time than a few seconds.
I think the best way is to learn the playstyle of all 106 talents. All 3 talents are fine, maybe FE could have a very little, little buff.

All three talents have their niche, I really enjoy this, but did not like momentum a lot. But I have to practice it. I'm sure, the talent is fine, when I'm comfortable with it.

I don't think so. Nemesis has a very big minus on it.

You're not using all the time you've of it in your burst window. When you use Nemesis, considering you're full fury, eventually, you'll run out of it and you will have to generate it back.

Momentum doesn't have such minus. A properly played Momentum only uses the buff when they're close to be fury capped, unload hell, and then regain the lost fury back before refreshing the debuff.

The uptime on the skills that matters is a lot higher in Momentum than Nemesis.

Of course, if the target dies within a minute, Nemesis is superior since you're buffing everything, but in a boss that lasts > 5 min, I think Momentum would be the clear winner.

[Deleted]

In terms of DPS yes, but if you need for a boss mechanic the biggest burst you can offer for 1 minute momentum does not win everytime

It is not everytime the best to have most DPS over the complete fight.

[Phanex]

Momentum never felt like a raid/PvE talent to me. I know that we'll be taking it for such but it has always struck me as something you'd want to use in PvP where the short bursty window and damaging dash would be more effective. Unfortunately, the other options aren't enough to convince most raiders to take them. I know the counter argument is always "play what you want to play" but the reality in raiding is there is a perceived "right way" to play a class which includes talents and the "best" rotation.

I understand there is a opinion that Momentum is fun and skill rewarding. I understand that but I don't think a lot of people will find Momentum to be fun and many I think will find it frustrating.

[Nightwatchik]

I hate talents that make you trade something for dps. It's like rune of power but instead rooting yourself to one place you must fly around enemies like crazy wasting your precise movement cd'. And Blizzard is fucked up with this talent, it must be ahead of everyone or no one would take it. This philosophy makes two other talents completly useless. Momentum is better on single target and miles ahead on multitarget. This is just wrong in every way.

[Deleted]

What was wrong with this talent is the fact you use a cancel spell animation macro to use it most efficiently, i find that ridiculous. (unless something has changed with it that i am not aware about).

[Icoblablubb]

i can't stand Momentum either .. played it for a bit and ya at the end you do more DPS if played somewhat well .. but well i choose to do little less dps (though still more then these DH's on Beta with no clue how to play Momentum ) than playing a spec i can't stand . This will probably change when it comes to raiding where it makes a change but till then i have quite some time to get *used* to Momentum or just play another class if lets say Nemeis is too far behind

[Deleted]

It will be situational. Bosses with small hit boxes , cleave abilities, or lots of void zone mechanics will be tough with Momentum. It will be really hard to use against Krosus. You'll have to dash side to side or you will fly off the bridge and die. Not worth the effort imo, unless it ends up being a huge dps increase(unlikely). I'll be sticking with Fel Eruption for single target or Nemesis for fights with adds like Skorpyron.

rofl, i hope u are joking, krosus is one of the best bosses for momentum with strafe FR/VR, there is 0 chance you lose any downtime on the boss.

[Deleted]

I see this argument a lot, about momentum being viable in raids etc. The truth of the matter is, some players will be able to play momentum on a boss at 60%+ up time and will have high DPS without dying. Some players, will likely use momentum on easier bosses to use it on, and use Nemesis on others. Some will simply use Nemesis and the realistic difference between these builds is between 3-7% DPS.

That being said, the way I see it is that if you are capable of using momentum properly and enjoy it's play style then you should play momentum. If you struggle with it, you will not have the full DPS advantage from momentum anyway, so it may benefit you to use something else you can play well. The only time you should be playing the absolute best build is if you are a bleeding edge mythic progression raider.

[Deleted]

What was wrong with this talent is the fact you use a cancel spell animation macro to use it most efficiently, i find that ridiculous. (unless something has changed with it that i am not aware about).

I agree with this. I love the playstyle of momentum but hate animation cancelling. As it stands, with blizz trying to patch animation cancelling (and EU beta is harder to do it on), I am learning to do it without animation cancelling. I hope it does get patched! Feels wrong animation cancelling

[jayinjersey]

I really don't think Momentum should be the complaining factor in the "movement spec issues"


In a pure Single Target fight, Fel Mastery is a MUST as the other two don't offer anywhere near the DPS increase.

1230111 = 245k (best sim build)
1230311 = 244k (Nem over Mo but still using FR a lot)
3230311 = 223k (no Mo and no Fel Mastery)

That's a big hit if you want a "stationary" spec

[Rekuja]

Momentum works really nicely with Prepared and Felblade, especially when you proc Felblade you can dash + felblade immediately to avoid any weird positioning problems.

[Orloth]

@jayinjersey: The concept of using our mobility abilities for optimal dps has been overall generalized as "Momentum" since the early days of Alpha, where it was the highest dps increase. So, in this case, "Momentum" refers to the gameplay style, rather than the talent. Though you are right, even in builds that don't use the Momentum talent, Fel Mastery will often still be included. I don't think it's as much of an issue in those cases as you can use both charges to return to your original position without loosing much of anything. But what do I know? I'm maining Vengeance and play Havoc fairly casually.

[Vuhl]

Momentum works really nicely with Prepared and Felblade, especially when you proc Felblade you can dash + felblade immediately to avoid any weird positioning problems.

Too bad Bloodlet does sooooooooo much more dmg. Felblade should be built into the class imo.

- - - Updated - - -

I really don't think Momentum should be the complaining factor in the "movement spec issues"


In a pure Single Target fight, Fel Mastery is a MUST as the other two don't offer anywhere near the DPS increase.

1230111 = 245k (best sim build)
1230311 = 244k (Nem over Mo but still using FR a lot)
3230311 = 223k (no Mo and no Fel Mastery)

That's a big hit if you want a "stationary" spec

Honestly the problem that I and I feel many people have is the clumsiness of it. Non momentum builds are pretty smooth. As with most classes in Legion, then you go to momentum which is clunky as hell to play. The movement abilities as with most in wow are constantly littered with pathing bugs and glitches. In my opinion Momentum is great in theory, it's just completely garbage to play. (I know, subjective) It's the Rune of Power problem all over again, except I'm not glued to one spot, I'm flying left and right like I'm training for the Olympics.

[Tibbets]

Honestly Mo was the preventing me from swapping to DH from WW. I have played WW and am currently in a 2x a week 13/13M guild that ended just above 200US. With that being said the min max for momentum is amazing however to play the spec perfectly, and positioning perfectly beats out nem everytime but by maybe (2-4%?). Just wanted to add this tidbit for anyone in a similar circumstance that thinks they will not get a raid spot on a DH by not playing Mo. If you are in a top 100US, probably not but anything above that, Nem will be fine.

[Vuhl]

Honestly Mo was the preventing me from swapping to DH from WW. I have played WW and am currently in a 2x a week 13/13M guild that ended just above 200US. With that being said the min max for momentum is amazing however to play the spec perfectly, and positioning perfectly beats out nem everytime but by maybe (2-4%?). Just wanted to add this tidbit for anyone in a similar circumstance that thinks they will not get a raid spot on a DH by not playing Mo. If you are in a top 100US, probably not but anything above that, Nem will be fine.

True, however that is single target (I'm assuming because Mo build is CRAZY for aoe thanks to Felrush). Not sure how most boss fights will end up later in the expac.

[the boar]

with 160ms ping on beta, momentum is not .. fun. having to mash fel rush to get it to cast sometime randomly within the next 10th of a second.. ah, too much of a headache and has sent me flying into mobs by mistake when the fel rush lasts longer than it should, or i stopped strafing 10ms before it decided to finally cast.

if you have a high ping on beta, the non-momentum spec is almost as good.

on live, with 10ms ping, i am sure momentum will actually be fun and interesting! heck, just being able to play DH without having to spam my buttons to ensure they cast will be amazing!

[Snegovik]

with 160ms ping on beta, momentum is not .. fun. having to mash fel rush to get it to cast sometime randomly within the next 10th of a second.. ah, too much of a headache and has sent me flying into mobs by mistake when the fel rush lasts longer than it should, or i stopped strafing 10ms before it decided to finally cast.

if you have a high ping on beta, the non-momentum spec is almost as good.

on live, with 10ms ping, i am sure momentum will actually be fun and interesting! heck, just being able to play DH without having to spam my buttons to ensure they cast will be amazing!

Yeh I was worrying about the same thing, since i play from Australia and my ms aprox 200-260 as I pvp in BGs/Arena, i was not sure if Momnt would be the best pick for me personally, i think Nem will be much more desired and i can save Fell Rush to get away when i am in trouble without losing my burst capabilities and higher ms will not impact my dmg as much as it would with Momnt build.

[Irian]

I think it would be more okay if it weren't for the fact that the boss's size actually dictates how good it is, from my experience.

For example, if you have a HUGE boss, a momentum build isn't that big of a deal because with no downtime you can utilize its benefit constantly. But when you're facing a player-sized boss, it's honestly the most awkward thing I've seen in class design in WoW ever because there's really no way I've found to properly use Momentum on a small boss. And honestly? I think that's the reason why it kinda needs to go, IMO. This shouldn't be a consideration in talent choices and the gameplay in my opinion is just not even remotely fun.

[Xenyatta]

Sorry for sounding like a total noob. I went away on vacation and I'm trying to catch up on what's going on. I missed this whole momentum build and animation canceling... can someone help explain it please?

[Orloth]

@Xenyatta: A good portion of Havoc's talent tree offers options to add in Fel Rush (our forward dash +damage) and Vengeful Retreat (our Disengage +damage) to our dps rotation in various ways. As a general rule these are referred to as "Momentum" after the most offensive such talent. As of current numbers, the highest dps specs use Momentum gameplay, but as people have been discussing, it can't really be used in all situations.

Now, because of this, people have figured out various ways to animation cancel (or use FR or VR without actually moving anywhere) in order to better utilize these specs. Blizzard has removed most versions of animation canceling (and I haven't been keeping track of that back and forth so I don't know what the current methods are if they exist). Unless Blizzard states otherwise in the DH QA on Friday, it should probably be considered an exploit and should be discouraged.

@Irian: I don't really see a problem with having a talent build for small hit boxes vs large hitboxes. It may not be something any other class has to worry about, but choices around AOE and ST, or Movement vs Stationary, or Steady vs Burst have been in the talent system since MoP recreated it. It's just another such choice which gives the talent system it's current strength and gives our class a unique identity. (On a side note: I would like Nemesis to be more interesting than it's current iteration, but that's nothing against Momentum.)