7.2.5 Havoc changes incoming

[Soulfròst]

Changes. I don't really get the data mined Fel Barrage change but Demon Blades looks good.:

• Demon Blades Your auto attacks have a 60%100% chance to deal additional Shadow damage and generate Fury.
• Fel Barrage At your command, unleash Fel, inflicting [(300% of Attack power)] Chaos damage to your target and nearby enemies for each charge. Max 5 charges.
  
  • Your damaging abilities have a chance to generate a charge.
  • Cooldown changed from 30 sec recharge to 1 min cooldown
  • Charges changed from 5 Charges to None
• Prepared Reduces the cooldown of Vengeful Retreat by 10 sec, and generates 40 Fury over 510 sec if you damage at least one enemy with Vengeful Retrea

Massive improvement, now we just have to convince them to make the Demon Blades change stay and go live. If that's accurate, of course. Kinda like the change to Fel Barrage, too. Vengeful Retreat one makes no sense, though. Now all they need to do is trash the stupid "chance for autoattacks to miss" mechanic.

[Kelato]

Demon Blades sounds too good to be true. I have a feeling they will nerf something else instead. No idea why they nerf Fel Barrage though. Currently it's weaker than the other options in almost every situation.

[pay928]

Demon Blades sounds too good to be true. I have a feeling they will nerf something else instead. No idea why they nerf Fel Barrage though. Currently it's weaker than the other options in almost every situation.

They tweeted the data mining is incomplete and doesn't include numbers. They probably wanted to change FB to be a 1 minute cooldown so it felt more fluid and could number adjust easier instead of having RNG charges. RNG removal on DemBlades and just balancing proc damage/fury gen also removes RNG. No idea what VR is doing. Overall, if their goal is to reduce RNG I'm all for it.

[Killface1]

Our fury generation is annoying. Three layers of RNG with only one consistent source of fury every 15s (and another 1:30 if you're a belf) is pretty insanely annoying and bad. Was fluctuating between 1.5m and 3.4m dps on the pull on mythic anomoly as we worked for rekill after a guild merger.

Literally just delete AotHG. I have it. I'd be happy if they deleted it. Then, provide a fix for our fury generation. Nobody likes how dependent we are on RNGesus on the pull, and its time to make a significant class rework to fix it.

There are lots of fixes. My personal favorite is demon blades proccing 100% of the time, but producing 60% of the fury it does now - same total amount of fury, consistent generation. Capping fury because you literally cant spend GCD's fast enough is almost as annoying as a 6-7s window of "welp.... RIP fury " during chaos blades opener.

I get rewarding a lucky crit with some extra fury, but to have baseline fury generation be determined by that is crazy annoying.

And I think blizzard recognizes that and wants to do a rework. I also wouldn't be surprised to see a few balance changes to open up and increase the viability of different talents in different settings. Right now, for instance, you play felblade if you're in a raid setting (and good), and you play blind fury if you're in a mythic plus or doing skorp. There is a decent amount of tuning room right there to adjust and make different playstyles viable or preferred.

Important takeaway - People have panicked every time they've made a change to demon hunters, and there are thus far two changes that they've made for the worse that shrunk our available playstyles, specifically bloodlet and momentum. Mostly, their changes haven't screwed us. Lets wait and see what they announce their focus is, and how they implement it in PTR.

[Deleted]

I'm still waiting on Momentum becoming Havoc's Mastery. I might die before it gets changed though

[Deleted]

Demon Blades Your auto attacks have a 60%100% chance to deal additional Shadow damage and generate Fury.

So. So. So. Nice.

[Pigglix]

As long as they dont nerf the felblade reset chance, ill be fine with a reduced fury gen from demon blades.

Hell, i dont even see reason for them to nerf it, since DH are middle of the pack.

[Super Kami Dende]

If the reduce the fury Gen from Demon Blades but make it 100% chance to proc, haste will become more attractive I would dare say.

[bowchikabow]

I'd prefer FOTI stay how it is, because I utilize its stationary properties fairly well. Say, for example, M-Tich (any diff. Tich really) bat phase. Rush in, drop FOTI & Blade Dance, VR out quickly to allow others to get orbs from the bats that just got dismembered by my FOTI & Blade Dance.

Why would you propose Nemesis have both a reduced duration and increased cooldown?

I am not proposing that they do it. I am suggesting that it is something BLIZZARD might do.

I like the change to fury generation from Demon Blade. I still stand by the idea that they will nerf CS fury return.. especially with this change. I don't want it, but I see it coming.

Vengeful Retreat change looks like a first go at a QoL change. I imagine a lot of people stopped using it after they broke momentum (I basically never use it..)?

As for Fel Barrage... Looks like what they did was change it from a recharge system (like Fire Blast etc) to a build up CD. The idea being that instead of being able to hit it at one, two, or three charges based on recharge timer... You instead build it up while it is on CD and when it is off CD you blow it. Since I haven't used FB in a while, I don't remember how long it usually took to fully recharge. This might end up being a buff and we just aren't seeing the bigger picture yet.

[Occar]

I'm still waiting on Momentum becoming Havoc's Mastery. I might die before it gets changed though

This will never happen when there is only a single dps spec. A huge number of people can't stand momentum.

[Measure]

I just main swapped to DH after being tired of how Marksman hunters have been treated. I don't know if I can keep playing if DH's get dumpstered like marksman has been. I just can't take more bullshit. Blizzard class design and particularly their choices when tuning specs during this expansion have been horrible. They have a bad track record this expansion of just neutering the class' they "look at" and "focus on" during their tuning passes. I guarantee you the next set of datamining shows overall nerfs to burst with barely any compensation to help sustain.

[Deleted]

they'll probably also reduce the damage from demonblade itself along with number tuning. My guess is that they'll make so that DB can't proc multiple times on one proc (like it can now) and lower the amount of fury generated per proc, basically turning it into some kind of resource meter that fills itself back up, similar to energy regen or rage regeneration on warriors. Pretty sick. I guess we might not need tier 19 then IF IF things go as predicted, which they probably will not. Either way, they clearly want dh's to stop having to NEED ring to play the class fluidly. Which is awesome to be fair, I'm guessing that shoulder (if tier 19 2p becomes obsolete) and belt would be bis, otherwise sephuz and belt? Just throwing some stuff out there.

To tl,dr this,
Demon blade shadow damage will probably get nerfed a bit to compensate for 100% proc
Demon blade will probably generate a significant less amount of fury per proc hit
Demon blades will probably not hit multiple times within a proc anymore to compensate
New bis legos? Belt+????
Tier 19 2p no longer needed in ToS???

Thoughts? I'm excited to be honest! Crit rng and auto attack being able to miss is enough :c step in the good direction imo, let's hope they won't disappoint!

[aGit]

New bis legos? Belt+????

assuming they don't nerf aothg to the ground (again!), surely it will remain bis, unless we somehow manage to run into a scenario where constant fury capping is an issue, but i really doubt that.

[Deleted]

assuming they don't nerf aothg to the ground (again!), surely it will remain bis, unless we somehow manage to run into a scenario where constant fury capping is an issue, but i really doubt that.

Well considering the new DB changes and the tier 20 2p, we probably will, I'm actually unsure now with the db changes to be fair, we were apparently going to hit fury cap a lot if things remained unchanged and we went into ToS, but now, pfft no idea.

You reckon they'd remove the +50 fury out of our consume magic if this db thing goes through?

[aGit]

You reckon they'd remove the +50 fury out of our consume magic if this db thing goes through?

probably not, its not like fury generation from interrupts is something havocs everywhere can count on anyway. It's way too early to tell what's going on, and this was the first iteration of ptr data mines we got, a lot is sure to surface up and not all of it good.

[Varlak]

I'm presuming less burst/cleave.

Problem is were not even the highest burst AoE class while its pretty much how the class was designed.

Burst AoE with high cleave is what sold the class to me.

[ssviolett]

The damage component of Fel Rush needs to be removed entirely. Fel Rush should be a mobility ability, not part of our dps rotation. I mean I appreciate that my asshole gets such an amazing workout during Krosus Mythic from all the clenching, but Fel Rush as a part of a dps rotation is just awkward and dumb.

Cannot agree with you. If we just stay in one place and spam CS, what will be the difference between us and rogues? DHs was originally designed about mobility - we are fast, we are unpredictable, we are attacking from all sides at once! Thats the class fantasy. As for me Im quite enjoying current playstyle.

[Shirofune]

Cannot agree with you. If we just stay in one place and spam CS, what will be the difference between us and rogues? DHs was originally designed about mobility - we are fast, we are unpredictable, we are attacking from all sides at once! Thats the class fantasy. As for me Im quite enjoying current playstyle.

Then our skills animations should reflect that. Give us more skills that show us "dancing" around the enemy in predictable ways, or vaulting over an enemy and then attacking in the air without sending us to Russia.

Momentum doesn't work on enemies with small sized hitboxes and Fel Rush is not in an acceptable status to be used as a rotational skill when:

1/ It DCs you
2/ Where it will send you is unpredictable due to server lag spikes.

It also doesn't work when half the bosses have some kind of mechanic around them that forces melee into specific positions. In that situation you can't use Momentum. There would be two ways to balance that:

1- Overbuff Momentum, to make up for those situations in which you can't use it due to boss requirement.
2- Remove all the mechanics that force melee into a specific location/spread mechanics.

Both of which won't happen.

[ssviolett]

Then our skills animations should reflect that. Give us more skills that show us "dancing" around the enemy in predictable ways, or vaulting over an enemy and then attacking in the air without sending us to Russia.

Momentum doesn't work on enemies with small sized hitboxes and Fel Rush is not in an acceptable status to be used as a rotational skill when:

1/ It DCs you
2/ Where it will send you is unpredictable due to server lag spikes.

I dont know about you - either it is Russia or USA or Zimbabwe, but after recent hotfixes it does not disconnect me - I yet to have seen a single disconnect in past 2 weeks. Moreover, I've never seen that FR teleported me somewhere else, I always know where I will be.

[Shirofune]

I dont know about you - either it is Russia or USA or Zimbabwe, but after recent hotfixes it does not disconnect me - I yet to have seen a single disconnect in past 2 weeks. Moreover, I've never seen that FR teleported me somewhere else, I always know where I will be.

They did 0 changes to Fel Rush ever since the pre-patch back in August 2016.

All over its existence it has been DCing people when using it in un-even terrain or after turning the camera fast after Fel Rushing. Also, if you happen to have a bit of server lag when you use it, Fel Rush might move you the normal distance, to the next map, or not move you at all.

The reason less people are experiencing it is because Momentum is not a thing anymore. Most people run Nemesis and Fel Rushing is used only for movement. (Ok, Fel Rush is still used in raids as a filler, but you get my point)

I, for instance, only use Momentum in M+ when there's no Tyrannical affix with Demonic build.

Also, let's not forget something. We're sold as a class with high mobility. If we use our mobility rotationally, we're losing that mobility to be as mobile as a DK.