So what happened to 'No major nerfs all of a sudden'?

[Deleted]

I remember Ion Hazzikostas stating in one of his numerous interviews (prior to Legion launch) that Blizzard will NOT greatly nerf a class all of a sudden and if there are any MAJOR changes then they will happen over time and fully take effect during the next raiding tear. Why state such things in an interview if 2 weeks into the expansion you do the exact opposite?

Now, take a look at the below changes:

Throw Glaive damage reduced by 30%.
Fel Mastery (Talent) damage bonus to Fel Rush reduced to 30%.
Bloodlet (Talent) now deals 100% of initial Throw Glaive damage.
Fury of the Illidari (Artifact Ability) damage reduced by 20%.
Note: See below for for additional PvP tuning adjustments to Fury of the Illidari.
Balanced Blades (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Blade Dance reduced to 3% per target.

If the above is not a major change then I do not know what is. I understand that Havoc's AoE was borderline broken and I expected a nerf to it but nerfing one of our main abilities that is also really good for single target is just silly.

Just take a look at the first rough estimate of DPS after taking recent hotfix changes into account: http://www.simulationcraft.org/reports/Raid_T19P.html

While this might not be 100% accurate the difference is obvious. Even if our sim nets results of 260-270k I do not understand the nerf. Our single target was really strong but on par with other classes such as Feral, Arms, Outlaw and Fire Mage which was not nerfed AT ALL.

Wasn't it better to revamp throw glaive into a single target ability and leave the damn DoT alone? In addition you could have nerfed abilities such as Blade Dance and Eye Beam and we would have been strong but still fine.

Might as well sell my legendary to a vendor now.

[Ilnezhara]

Feral not getting touched at all is a travesty. Such "balance".

[Deleted]

I'm a warlock that is currently dancing on your new grave. Ah-ha! Enjoy the dirt boys.

INFRACTION

[Deleted]

That sheet couldn't possibly be more wrong.
But I'll let everyone who thinks these nerfs are going to put the demonhunters in the dirt just keep on believeing.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Whats disturbing to me is that, all Druid, Mage and Rogue specs are in the upper half of the charts.

[Rafoel]

Demonology from zero to hero?

[chronia]

I feel that ppl are misinterpretating the quote out of the interview. Afaik he talked about balancing within a class, so that when at the start of Legion players would not pick spec A (lets say firemage), and then invest AP in that spec's artifact, if then they would do a balancing patch they would make sure that fire would not end up below Spec B (Frost) or Spec C (Arcane) so they would feel not to have waste AP on the wrong spec within that class.

However seeing that DH only has one DPS spec, that quote does not seem to apply here.

[Schizoide]

However seeing that DH only has one DPS spec, that quote does not seem to apply here.

Yes, that's how I took it as well. Still, there's no clear indication Havoc was overpowered on single-targets. Nythendra is a single-target fight with a fair bit of movement, right up Havoc's alley, and while the spec is strong, it clearly isn't an outlier.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10/#boss=1853

More targeted nerfs would have hit only secondary targets on Throw Glaive and Fel Rush. Havoc AE was OP, Havoc single-target was not.

[BRO90X]

I'm a warlock that is currently dancing on your new grave. Ah-ha! Enjoy the dirt boys.

What you couldnt bare to be lower middle of the pack for 3 days?

[Stacie]

Don't forget the sims are not finished for every class. Some have not been updated for the changes (nerfs) or possibly buggy. We lost about 9% on ST. Give it a few weeks they will probably buff something.

[Deleted]

today we got raid night ....and people were joking about AoE nerfs. thats when you lean back and chill because trash packs? Pff someone else shall do it. Not my job anymore :>

i can now afk trash and pull 250k dps and point at every mage and hunter and tell them "not my fault, you asked fo it" kinda love it.

[Jazzhands]

Game has been out for over 3 weeks now, closer to 4. The nerfs will happen when the expansion is a month old.

I'm happy FoTM scrubs are going to be leaving this class this early tbh, maybe in a few months we'll have a better reputation.

[Jakkhel]

Game has been out for over 3 weeks now, closer to 4. The nerfs will happen when the expansion is a month old.

I'm happy FoTM scrubs are going to be leaving this class this early tbh, maybe in a few months we'll have a better reputation.

I'd like it if they didn't blatantly reveal that they have no idea how the spec works.

I refuse to reroll, I love my DH, but DH weren't FotM in raids for their single target damage.

[The Archmage]

I completely agree with my man Wattmate. Guys, i know that it looks like the sky is falling. It really isn't: the class will still be competitive, they just made it so it's not so overwhelming in its performance anymore.

This, at the moment, requires a hit on our single target aswell, but it's not final: give it some other weeks and more balancing changes are coming out.

I know it hurts, but believe me: it's gonna be fine.

[Jakkhel]

I completely agree with my man Wattmate. Guys, i know that it looks like the sky is falling. It really isn't: the class will still be competitive, they just made it so it's not so overwhelming in its performance anymore.

This, at the moment, requires a hit on our single target aswell, but it's not final: give it some other weeks and more balancing changes are coming out.

I know it hurts, but believe me: it's gonna be fine.

Why would nerfing our AoE require nerfing our single target? Can they not just make TG have diminishing returns on subsequent targets? What about if they had instead targeted Eye Beam instead? I don't buy that we have to have our ST nerfed to fix our AoE. At the very least they could have buffed our Demon's Bite or even Chaos Strike.

I mean, we'll adapt, but losing TG and Bloodlet is miserable to me. Felblade is kind of boring and so is FB.

[Goldielocks]

However seeing that DH only has one DPS spec, that quote does not seem to apply here.

This is the main reason why I and many others want a second DPS spec. We need to have options. Blizz isn't going to add it for this reason though, because doing so they'd admit their incompetence.

[Deleted]

Feral not getting touched at all is a travesty. Such "balance".

Havoc will still trash Feral on any fight that requires frequent AoE, the sim is for Patchwerk type fight.

[The Archmage]

Why would nerfing our AoE require nerfing our single target? Can they not just make TG have diminishing returns on subsequent targets? What about if they had instead targeted Eye Beam instead? I don't buy that we have to have our ST nerfed to fix our AoE. At the very least they could have buffed our Demon's Bite or even Chaos Strike.

I mean, we'll adapt, but losing TG and Bloodlet is miserable to me. Felblade is kind of boring and so is FB.

I know man. It hurts. But that is balancing, and i tell you this from experience. In a few weeks time, they'll reshuffle things so that straight single target abilities do more damage to compensate for this initial nerfs.

There are SO many things to consider that it will be hard to write about them all, but i'll just throw one in there: at the moment, the player base is SO disproportionate in favour of melees that it's a problem, probably for the first time in this game's history. And Demon Hunters are big contributors to this new reality. Heavy nerfs insure that some of those players, the ones that only care about numbers and facerolling, reconsider their choice, in an effort to rebalance things a little. And you'll see that it provides the desired results. It has been done to DKs aswell in the past, with much success.

Only one piece of advice: STICK TO IT. Things are bound to change again. Quote me if wrong, but i can bet i am not. You'll see.