Improving Vengeance

[skribzy]

The Tomb of Sargeras patch brought some neat changes to the class. It also has pigeon holed us into using at least Spirit Bomb, and more than likely Fracture as well. Mandatory talents are nothing new, but these two really clash with the Soul Cleave rotation that I assume Vengeance was built around. To me, it feels like there were two developers arguing over how Vengeance should play. One thought Pain management, Demon Spikes uptime, and powerful Soul Cleave heals was the vision for Vengeance. The other thought pooling soul fragments, and healing through damage was the best. In this hypothetical situation, the first developer got fired halfway through Nighthold and we are now under the watchful eye of Dev number two. That's not to say this is a bad way to play, just that when the first Dev got his way, he designed the talents accordingly. now that Dev two is in charge Fracture and Spirit Bomb are too good to pass up. To wrap up this pointless Paragraph, Vengeance has some problems and I'm here to fix them.

First things first, this post will deal with Mechanical changes only. These numbers would have to be balanced with changes to attack power scaling, or pain cost. Secondly, I am open to criticism on this, especially from people who like the pain management and soul cleave builds we had a few months ago.

So my current problem with Vengeance is Soul Cleave, and more specifically how it eats the soul orbs on the ground. This has conflicting problems with the new Spirit Bomb playstyle, making fracture better to cast in most situations, not only for survivability, but also for damage. Spirit Bomb hits harder than a full soul cleave, and is free. allowing you to spend that pain on Fractures for even more damage. My other problem is the delay between hitting Soul Cleave or Spirit Bomb, and the heal actually going off. I'm not sure why this hasn't been changed, but it should be, and that can and should be done without any of the changes I'm about to argue for.

So, the problem with Vengeance:

• Soul Cleave eating orbs, making casting it unattractive unless you really have to. Made worse by our T20 four set.
• Spirit Bomb feeling clunky to use since it is on the GCD, and deals more damage than Soul Cleave.
• Fracture and Spirit Bomb being almost mandatory talents.

Solutions:

• Soul Cleave shouldn't consume orbs at all. You probably saw that one coming. The AP based heal from Soul Cleave would stay, giving us a way to spend pain on a nice heal, but not over do it by sucking up all those juicy orbs that we will need later.
• Break Spirit Bombs mechanics into a baseline ability, and a talent that improves it. The Leech on Spirit Bomb, and the damage it deals would still require taking the talent to get. But add a new ability that collects orbs on the ground for a large heal. This would probably have to be off the GCD to smooth out the rotation, but I could see it being on the GCD just for balance sake. For clarity, all this ability would do is clean up the orbs on the ground and heal you. It would not deal damage baseline, or debuff the enemy unless you have taken the Spirit Bomb talent. The artifact talent erupting souls would have to be changed to deal damage with this new ability, since Soul Cleave would no longer eat orbs.
• Problem three is a bit harder to solve. With a free ability to consume soul fragments, Spirit Bomb will be a less attractive talent, but by how much? And would it be enough? Ideally, this talent tier would be split for those who like Soul Fragment management, those who like pain and Soul Cleave management, and for people who would like a burst cooldown.
• Fracture is even harder to solve. Once again, ideally the talent row would be split for pain, and soul fragment managment. removing the fragment generation from Fracture and compensating it with maybe a leech based heal. Giving you a more powerful spender for single target, as well as a heal that would be close to soul cleave's, and would have a flat pain cost.
• Another idea would be to up the Fragment generation on Shear to at least one, and maybe a chance for two. This would provide the orbs a fragment build would need, as well as a steady stream of heals for a pain build that doesn't want to worry about that fragment nonsense.

I'm not saying that Fracture and Spirit Bomb won't still be the best talents. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Nerfing is not the goal here. The point is to give people options that are relatively viable.


As I said earlier, I am open to critique on these changes. Especially three, I feel changes one and two are pretty solid.
There is some stuff on not on this list that I would like to add, but i'm not sure how to fit it in. A talent to return the fragment consuming function to soul cleave would be nice. Or maybe tie it to Fracture? Perhaps Fracture should be baseline? It is very useful, or roll its effects into soul cleave. And maybe a way to make Soul Cleave deal more damage based on how much pain goes into it.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on improving Vengeance Demon Hunter. It's a great class, I really like it, but nobody seems to talk about it much as Havoc always steals the show.

[Deleted]

Simply make Spirit Bomb modify your Soul Cleave to deal fire damage instead of physical and put a leeching debuff on the target. Keep the pain cost, keep the soul fragment eating mechanic, keep the 3 traits interacting with Soul Cleave relevant, keep any set bonus relevant, keep talent interaction. Then you have choice : use Soul Cleave for big healing burst / change it via talent to Spirit Bomb to increase DPS sacrificing burst healing.

Is that not easier ? I don't get that Blizzard team do not see the obvious here.

[Tech614]

Soul Cleave consuming souls is not the issue with it, Soul Cleave costing up to 50 pain that can be spent on fracture to do more damage and generate 2 souls is the issue with it.

The issue is not Spirit Bomb, and it hasn't ever been. Even before Spirit Bomb was a good talent in Nighthold you rarely used Soul Cleave because Fracture is just... better on a ST boss fight. The problem is fracture.

No offense but your ideas don't seem to fix any of the class issues, you just want to make it more of a cluster. The spec doesn't need reworked, the spec needs a meaningful reason to hit Soul Cleave in certain builds and the above post is a much better solution to that then your add 5 million new abilities bigger then an expansion overhaul that will never happen checklist.

[Yxiomel]

Soul Cleave consuming souls is not the issue with it, Soul Cleave costing up to 50 pain that can be spent on fracture to do more damage and generate 2 souls is the issue with it.

The issue is not Spirit Bomb, and it hasn't ever been. Even before Spirit Bomb was a good talent in Nighthold you rarely used Soul Cleave because Fracture is just... better on a ST boss fight. The problem is fracture.

I think this is basically it, although I'd probably have attributed the blame in reverse - the problem is Soul Cleave because its just... worse xD

[LightClaw]

Simply make Spirit Bomb modify your Soul Cleave to deal fire damage instead of physical and put a leeching debuff on the target. Keep the pain cost, keep the soul fragment eating mechanic, keep the 3 traits interacting with Soul Cleave relevant, keep any set bonus relevant, keep talent interaction. Then you have choice : use Soul Cleave for big healing burst / change it via talent to Spirit Bomb to increase DPS sacrificing burst healing.

Is that not easier ? I don't get that Blizzard team do not see the obvious here.

I mean if they could figure out the balance # wise, this honestly sounds like the exact change vengeance needs right now. It would even incentivize trying to weave soul cleave into current set tier rotationif #'s lined up.

edit: this is coming from a VDH main this expansion that has felt we've been pretty lackluster even if it's super fun (in raids that is, we're fuckin kings of pug mythic+s lol) till spirit bomb changes (and even with those changes after a month of mythic raid progression VDH is still bottom / tied for bottom for #'s representing guilds actually progressing.) I don't mind VDH niche being the "DPS tank" but I feel like this would enable this niche to still exist while giving VDH that little extra bit of skill oriented survivability it needs to compete with at least the other middle of the pack mythic progression tanks. I'm only an HC raider that follows the higher up scene for what's it's worth though (figured this is worth mentioning since HC is pretty much norm with one extra mechanic for most fights compared to mythic tuning requiring much more specific CD usage for each mechanic.)

[MookieRah]

I also think this sounds good. Soul Cleave is supposed to be a button we press and everything seems to be built around it. With these changes it would streamline a lot of things, and suddenly the current t4 bonus is legit, and I might actually equip my leggo bracers again.

[diachroniko]

The problem with making spirit bomb just modify soul cleave as a talent is that we would have two competing pain spenders. It would be very difficult to balance them to both be something you press and have the choice of which one to choose be meaningful and impactful. I understand fracture is a talent, and that reduces the significance of balancing around that one specific talent build, but it's still something important to consider.

[supertigerlamp]

I think Shear needs to go away, or it needs to be similar to either Warrior Revenge or Prot Pally Hammer of the Righteous. Spamming it feels old fashioned and clunky, and is my least favorite aspect of the entire spec bar none. Either that, or make each press of it feel more rewarding than currently exists. A chance to break off soul fragments is not good enough in and of itself. Shear needs to be doing either more Pain/attack or it needs to be a guaranteed soul fragment, and then add in that 3/3 talent on the Artifact that gives you a % chance for a second fragment when below 50% health.

To go along with the above -- Resource generation via incoming damage was bad design, in my opinion. If you insist on having it, make it good at all levels, not just strong when getting pounded. Having to rifle off 3-5 Shears in a row because I just am not taking enough damage to generate pain is boring and weak design, and belongs back in tBC or WotLK. Vengeance needs to be brimming with barely contained demonic power, and the Metamorphisis + minimorphisis procs need to be the release of that power. To put it another way, we need to be generating most of our resources from stuff WE'RE doing, less so from stuff happening to us. Or, again, if you insist of having things the way they are, double the Pain generation of Shear.

[yarafx1]

You propose nice changes, Blizz thinks a global nerf of 5% to healing and damage is what's required. Yay, 7.3 -___-

[Tinary]

I think Shear needs to go away, or it needs to be similar to either Warrior Revenge or Prot Pally Hammer of the Righteous. Spamming it feels old fashioned and clunky, and is my least favorite aspect of the entire spec bar none. Either that, or make each press of it feel more rewarding than currently exists. A chance to break off soul fragments is not good enough in and of itself. Shear needs to be doing either more Pain/attack or it needs to be a guaranteed soul fragment, and then add in that 3/3 talent on the Artifact that gives you a % chance for a second fragment when below 50% health.

To go along with the above -- Resource generation via incoming damage was bad design, in my opinion. If you insist on having it, make it good at all levels, not just strong when getting pounded. Having to rifle off 3-5 Shears in a row because I just am not taking enough damage to generate pain is boring and weak design, and belongs back in tBC or WotLK. Vengeance needs to be brimming with barely contained demonic power, and the Metamorphisis + minimorphisis procs need to be the release of that power. To put it another way, we need to be generating most of our resources from stuff WE'RE doing, less so from stuff happening to us. Or, again, if you insist of having things the way they are, double the Pain generation of Shear.

Only boss that hits you hard enough to actually give any significant pain is KJ, others do not. It may be a weak and boring design but its meant so that you have more pain when you need it for mitigation aka if you take more dmg you have more ways to deal with it.

[Tech614]

Only boss that hits you hard enough to actually give any significant pain is KJ, others do not. It may be a weak and boring design but its meant so that you have more pain when you need it for mitigation aka if you take more dmg you have more ways to deal with it.

I don't know what your definition of significant is, or if you're only tanking normal or what but say even on just lowly heroic goroth the difference in pain gen from when actively tanking to just off tanking is pretty damn significant to me. And he hits like a patsy.

If we start talking heroic avatar and mythic bosses then it starts to get really significant.

[Saverem]

There's just so many ways they can "fix" the current shitty mechanics of VDHs. Most of them revolve around SC changes.

VDHs are fine if they can get SC right. SC is supposed to be the DH's version of Avenger's Shield, Keg Smash, Shield Slam, Death Strike, and Mangle, ie a BIG attack that does BIG things like heal/damage/reduce CD/etc that you use once every 5-8s or so in a rotation. Right now, it's a dead ability, using it is a hindrance. Imagine if they did that to any of those other abilities I mentioned, those respective classes would go ape-shit.

Well, that's what we have right now as a VDH, our core ability, an ability that they like so much, they have T19 and T20 set pieces that work around it, is completely useless.

[Tinary]

I don't know what your definition of significant is, or if you're only tanking normal or what but say even on just lowly heroic goroth the difference in pain gen from when actively tanking to just off tanking is pretty damn significant to me. And he hits like a patsy.

If we start talking heroic avatar and mythic bosses then it starts to get really significant.

Can you sc after their melee? Do they give enough to use ds after melee? If not then the pain gen for me is not significant. Also the only boss who pummels enough in heroic to make you want to time your def cds right is kj.

[MookieRah]

Agreed with Tinary in regards to pain gen and how hard bosses hit. Heroic avatar is very manageable with simply using spikes. I was very surprised that I didn't have to worry about actually managing my cds in a meaningful way, and pretty much only use SC for unexpected damage or if healers are pressed.

Only when Avatar has stacks of sear in late second phase does it begin to require proper management, but that shouldn't last for very long.

[Tech614]

Can you sc after their melee? Do they give enough to use ds after melee? If not then the pain gen for me is not significant. Also the only boss who pummels enough in heroic to make you want to time your def cds right is kj.

Uhh, yea. Actually 1 single melee hit even from some heroic bosses is enough to use DS, let alone Mythic Host and Maiden. DS is 20 pain. You might be able to pull 20 pain out of your ass from a few melee hits on a broken shore rare.

If you can't tell the difference between just shear spam/IA pain gen from when you're actively tanking a boss, even ones that hit like patsys then idk what to tell you. No need to strawman about what you need CDs for as that wasn't the discusion. Really if you need your CDs for anything but felclaws or soloing maiden hammers in heroic you're doing it wrong.

[Veiled Shadow]

Well, that's what we have right now as a VDH, our core ability, an ability that they like so much, they have T19 and T20 set pieces that work around it, is completely useless.

An absolute statement like this isn't correct. Soul Cleave does have use in nontrivial content, even outside of niche FtD builds.

[Tech614]

An absolute statement like this isn't correct. Soul Cleave does have use in nontrivial content, even outside of niche FtD builds.

Oh boy you sure got him. That ability you use 1-3 times a fight when you drop sub 50% to help out healers is very slightly ABOVE useless. Sick burn.

It's supposed to be a core rotational ability and it's used as an emergency button when you don't have anything else to press to stabilize your life. Even then, it's only slightly above useless as the heal is still only doing about 1/6th of your health pool in most situations.

If fracture is supposed to make Soul Cleave mostly worthless(which it's been doing since before SB was good) then it should replace Soul Cleave. Otherwise we should have a meaningful decision on which one to press.

[LazyCoding]

I think the meta proc trait(fueled by pain i guess?) is another big problem of VDH. The proc is so good that they had to bring proc rate to a shit level. My VDH alt is now 910 ilvl and it has never procced when I actualy needed it. not even once. They probabaly tuned Vdh survivability thinking that trait is a free strong CD which will save their asses once a minute. but in reality it just is a free fructure once a minute. They should make it a little bit controlable like demonic talent of Havoc.

[Ooshraxa]

I think the meta proc trait(fueled by pain i guess?) is another big problem of VDH. The proc is so good that they had to bring proc rate to a shit level. My VDH alt is now 910 ilvl and it has never procced when I actualy needed it. not even once. They probabaly tuned Vdh survivability thinking that trait is a free strong CD which will save their asses once a minute. but in reality it just is a free fructure once a minute. They should make it a little bit controlable like demonic talent of Havoc.

There's definitely some PPM-stuff going on - I can pretty much guarantee a proc when I initiate a fight and go Soul Carver -> Spirit Bomb.

[nikolaix]

vdh is pretty underrated imo. a drastic change like not requiring spirit bomb to cost fragments would be ridiculously strong.