Damage on Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat

[ro9ue]

I just want to put out my thoughts on these abilities and see what the community thinks. I'm personally in love with the mobility of the Demon Hunter, including these abilities. However, I'm already starting to see a trend of "you need to use Fel Rush/Vengeful Retreat for DPS noob" occurring in game.

As a fairly casual player, I'm okay with not being tippy-top dps. I'm not going to use those abilities to their maximum damage output potential, but instead just use them for fun, to relocate quickly, etc - and if it does a little extra damage - fine.


So my questions to the community are as follows:

1) Do you think Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat belong in a DPS rotation or even do damage at all?
2) Should these abilities be baseline just for mobility, with the option to talent for damage (obviously as a choice along side other equally powerful damage talents)?
3) Or is it better just to say fuck it and simply ignore the few know-it-alls trying to instruct you how to play the game?

[ChakanDH]

My only issue with fel rush, is that outside talents that augment it, ie. Fel mastery, it should be DPS neutral to use. As soon as you attach a gain in using it regardless of other talents, you basically funnel players into specific talent set ups unless they truly don't care about dps numbers at all(which to be fair will be the vast majority of "casual" players).

Vengeful retreat damage by itself is minimal, and outside of prepared and momentum you can use it when the situation calls for it, so have no issue with that at all.

[Justin-Sane]

My biggest issue is that DH mobility is tied to their damage. I'm not the best player by any means, so it happens on occasion that I need to move out of stuff and my abilities are on CD, or sometimes I feel reluctant to use my mobility to move around if I can't hit anything with it because I feel like it'd be a DPS loss(unless of course the time spent moving to the next target ends up being an even bigger loss).

This is entirely my personal opinion and I only speak for myself about this, but I think it'd be good if they baked fel rush damage into fel mastery or something, but also gave fel rush a baseline 3 charges but only 2 with fel mastery. Basically have the option to use fel rush as only mobility with 3 charges or continue to play with it as it is now. Just a quick idea off the top of my head, it isn't amazing and I know most people would hate it, but again, this is my personal opinion and what I would enjoy, not how I think it should be.

[Pigglix]

2 charges on fel rush means nothing if you take Momentum.

Also, i like fel rush being in the dps rotation, but for VR, i would prefer if they make Felblade baseline and give the VR treatment to feblade, both for generating fury and poping Momentum.

Or just switch place Prepared with Felblade and make felblade generate fury and momentum buff.

[Divinism]

Personally, I like how Fel Rush feels as a rotational ability and it is satisfying to use.

However, I don't like Vengeful Retreat as much. Having to turn around the camera and maneuver around the boss hitbox while avoiding getting cleaved doesn't feel as smooth.

Vengeful Retreating into Fel Rush is a fun combination and feels like these abilities were designed to be used together, but with Momentum it becomes a DPS loss as you overlap the two buffs. My suggestion is to make Vengeful Retreat no longer proc Momentum and compensate the change somehow, by increasing its duration by 1-2 sec or something else. If not, at least give it a Pandemic window.

[Justin-Sane]

Demon Hunter has significantly higher base speed due to mastery which solves most of mobility issues by itself. Fel rush has two charges and those are more than enough to use it for both dps and mobility; you keep one charge available for when you have to move. If you do not spec prepared, heck you use VR to move out of melee range AoE and just fel rush back in.

I wouldn't really say significantly higher. If mastery is as bad in legion as it is on live(which I hope it isn't, stacking mastery and haste with that haste=movement speed legendary sounds like a ton of fun), I don't expect to have much. I've been stacking crit/vers and because of that, I'm only at 18% extra movement speed. Keeping one charge of fel rush is a good idea though. Using demon blades, I kind of just spam fel rush on CD because I have a lot of down time, but I guess I can give that a try.

[Pipboi]

Fel Rush is the only thing making Havoc's gameplay unique. Imo if you don't like it, don't play Havoc. The problem is not giving DH a caster spec or something for those people who only want to be DHs to cosplay Illidan . . .

Nothing else makes havoc unique? Really? How about 100% crit eye beam, double jump, glide, ONLY class that uses glaives, Metamorphasis?
And the talents offer a fuck ton of rotation options like including throw glaive in the rotation if you spec for it's bleed, or you can spec to put blade dance in the rotation if you spec for First Blood. I have a 100 of every class, and doubles on many. I can say confidently that Havoc has plenty to make it unique over other classes.

[Deleted]

Fel Rush is the only thing making Havoc's gameplay unique. Imo if you don't like it, don't play Havoc. The problem is not giving DH a caster spec or something for those people who only want to be DHs to cosplay Illidan . . .

That's sort of the OP's point though. Right now you HAVE to play the class this way meaning you get a momentum style gameplay regardless of if you take momentum.

I played to 110 on the beta and had a blast with the DH (still am on Live). That being said it turns out I was playing it "incorrectly" on the beta in not using Fel Rush to damage. I enjoyed using it to zip around but now on Live I feel like I am wasting potential DPS by using both charges to get in range of mobs.

I like the idea of having Fel Rush be usable for DPS if you spec into it. Personally I'm not a fan of having to use it no matter what.

[Zeek Daniels]

So you dont want to use some of your best resource gainers and hardest hitting abilities as part of your rotation. Thats fine. Just dont expect to be raiding seriously on a DH. Keep using Blade dance on single targets because it looks cool.

If Fel rush didnt hit so hard, i wouldnt use it. But it hits HARD, so i work it into my rotation and even tho retreat does not hit hard it still gives alot of resource and u can combo it with fel rush and even use another ability while using retreat because retreat isnt on the GCD.

[Deleted]

Most of the things you mention are visuals; Eye Beam is just another always crit spell, metamorphosis is simply a dps cooldown,. Double jump and glide are not but they are mainly exploration tools with limited impact on instanced gameplay. Talents altering the way a spell works exist for every single spec as well.
What truly sets Havoc apart from any other spec is that it does dps by moving around the boss' hitbox. This is not shitting on Havoc, it's praising it. They managed to keep the gameplay familiar yet make it unique but that was done entirely through fel rush; no other class has to run around the boss to do optimal damage. If not for fel rush, you would just stay building resource to use on one button and weaving a couple of cooldowns like every other class with nothing to distinguish you from them.

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I am sorry but the Momentum play style is more than using Fel Rush. The momentum play style is about using fel rush and then having small windows of burst (and often is optimal to fel rush again in the last half second so fel rush itself makes use of momentum). I fully expect that in practice, very few players will get better results from Momentum than Nemesis; the difference is minor and Momentum is very harsh to play.
Without using Fel Rush rotationally, the class is yet another melee. You will sit behind the boss and attack its shins. You'd be a rogue with no stealth.

Your point is reasonable of course but I wonder if they could manage to please both parties by using the talent system? Not sure which talent they could change at this point but I wonder if it could be done.

As it stands on Live I've gotten more used to it and leave one charge ready most of the time. In fact with the lack of abilities on Live right now it's handy that it does damage. I'm just remembering how much I enjoyed the class without it but with a more full talent tree and would like it back (provided it doesn't ruin it for others).

[Reiziger]

So you dont want to use some of your best resource gainers and hardest hitting abilities as part of your rotation. Thats fine. Just dont expect to be raiding seriously on a DH. Keep using Blade dance on single targets because it looks cool.

If Fel rush didnt hit so hard, i wouldnt use it. But it hits HARD, so i work it into my rotation and even tho retreat does not hit hard it still gives alot of resource and u can combo it with fel rush and even use another ability while using retreat because retreat isnt on the GCD.

you cant combo it with vengeful retreat tho, that way you overlap momentum buff time thus losing dps.

[Valsh]

you cant combo it with vengeful retreat tho, that way you overlap momentum buff time thus losing dps.

Not only that but VR is on the gcd with fel rush specifically, you don't want to be using them together.

[Schizoide]

Sure, they belong in a DPS rotation. They fit the DH class fantasy perfectly. I just wish that Havoc had the choice to opt-out of using them with a talent. But sadly they are completely mandatory, so I would personally never consider making a DH my main as I personally hate forced repositioning.

If you say "screw it" and don't reposition rotationally, you're giving up a whopping 20% of your damage. If you can live with that, go for it. But that's pretty darn casual.

Like I said earlier in the thread, DHs are a new class, the class fantasy is awesome, and they look flashy as anything. A ton of players will switch mains to DH, not knowing that they absolutely must use Fel Rush every 10s in battle. Some of those players will love it, some won't. But there's no doubt it's a polarizing issue, and many players will be very surprised to hear about it as the game doesn't really advertise that it's necessary. New players think of Fel Rush as Roll, not Mortal Strike.

[Adoxe]

Ever played Illidan in WC3 or Heroes of the Storm? He does dmg while being mobile. That has been part of the Warcraft DH's fantasy since their inception. It fits perfectly, if you don't care about min-maxing and being casual then just find other like minded people to play with, ignore everyone else.

[Aeriel]

2 charges on fel rush means nothing if you take Momentum.

Also, i like fel rush being in the dps rotation, but for VR, i would prefer if they make Felblade baseline and give the VR treatment to feblade, both for generating fury and poping Momentum.

Or just switch place Prepared with Felblade and make felblade generate fury and momentum buff.

I think it would be better if Felblade's CD always reset on VR/FR. You would use VR/FR to gain momentum, and Felblade to return to combat. Felblade would remain rotational with the regular resets, and would then actually compete with Bloodlet.

[MyndZero]

They are legitimately supposed to be used as part of your rotation, you will see this trend even more as you level to 110 and get another ability that charges you to your target. This is how demon hunters play, and it's god damn fun. It adds another layer on to boss fights and shit.

[Schizoide]

you will see this trend even more as you level to 110 and get another ability that charges you to your target.

There is no such ability, unless you're referring to Fel Blade which is a talent and undertuned compared to Bloodlet.

@Aeriel: Neat idea, that would be a nice QoL improvement. But giving the Momentum buff the ability to extend on multiple applications would be even better.

[Aeriel]

That is how I thought Felblade was designed to be used when it was originally implemented. However, Bloodlet has since become de facto, particularly with the legendary.

[physion]

Ok Look. they /dance just like Napoleon Dynamite. Entire servers should play this class simply because of that. Forget DPS. /DANCE baby!

[malcolmlu]

well, i think problem is that the FR w/ fel mastery is just too good in most scenarios, so there is literally no choice in lvl 99 talent row that force u into that certain playstyle. i mean at least the 100 and 106 u dont really have to take prepared and momentum if that is not ur thing since other talents are somewhat equal or at least not a mile behind.