DH - BfA

[Yhcti]

Has anyone tested it? is there much different to live?

I've noticed Havoc gets Immolation Aura as a talent and that both the Eye Beam options are in the 1 tree so guessing they don't want us rapid firing eye beams any more...

Has anyone tested how decent the Immo Aura talent is? seems like it could be pretty awesome for cleaving etc...

Also seems to be 2 talents to make both the first and last hit of blade dance do extra damage (bit random?) how is this feeling?

[ufta]

I don't have alpha access but from looking at the talent trees it's pretty apparent that it's going to play entirely differently than it does now.

[Saverem]

DHs are right up there with Locks and Hunters with the most changes done n BfA.

They got a lot of talent and ability revamps. I think overall, the changes are positive for both specs. They got a very nice utility buff (+5% spell damage to raid). VDH are getting better self heals with the Soul Frag revamp and Havoc is getting more ways to AoE as well as Eyebeam doing 100% more damage single target so you can now use it on a boss for DPS gain, which is nice.

[Deleted]

DHs are right up there with Locks and Hunters with the most changes done n BfA.

They got a lot of talent and ability revamps. I think overall, the changes are positive for both specs. They got a very nice utility buff (+5% spell damage to raid). VDH are getting better self heals with the Soul Frag revamp and Havoc is getting more ways to AoE as well as Eyebeam doing 100% more damage single target so you can now use it on a boss for DPS gain, which is nice.

this is only pve

In pvp Havoc isnt in a good spot atm. We loose our ae stun, imprison is a 1 min cd, 70% leech talent goes down to 10% leech and 10% in meta,
Demonic build gets a huge nerf, Demonic apetite spawn souls but souls dont reduce the Cd from eyebeam, plus Demonic is in the same row like nemesis, and demonic apetite is in the same row with felblade and Blind fury.
Also we loose the heal from Demonic apetite
Felblade is stil a talent.

VDH are still good, but in Mythik plus they are gods atm and also in raids still playable in every encounter.
And wtf why Havoc gets more ways for AoE? We have still blade dance and Eyebeam or and yes sry the new aura but we loose one charge of glaive throw and we loose bloodlet as a talent for ae dots.
So:
Bloodlet loose
Eyebeam CD reduce with souls loose and no legy cd reduce
Firstblood dark slash both st talents
Train of ruin Fel barrage fel mastery all 3 Ae talents in one row

So why we getting more ways for AoE
We can only choose 1 out of 3. in Legion we have Felbarrage Fel mastery blood let or chaoscleve, so 3 out of 4 if you like to spec only AoE
Felbarrage gets also nerfed its a melee AoE attack in Bfa plus no CD reduce passive. And the channel time goes up from 2 to 3 sec.

So wtf why you say havoc is in a good spot?
The only good thing in BfA atm is that we get Dark Slash for Demon Reborn and Immolation Aura for Prepared (Prepared is only now a passiv from Momentum)

And you see it on every Bfa Video atm, Out of Meta (4 Min cd) we loose against every class and Demonic isnt playable because of the long cd. Yes the have to balance a lot on numbers its alpha. But you see our new Talent build isnt working that well for the class in pvp. Maybe in PVE raids with the new neck. But in pvp and in open pvp and lvl zones and dungeons it isnt that great. Atm Legion DH ist in a better spot for Mythik + raids and PVP i think.
Demonic works atm great in raid and Mythik+. And bloodlet works good in pvp. But in Bfa we loose both mechanics and get nothing to compare with this problems. A lot of other classes get their artifacts reworked in passives or talents we get nothing only 1 legy gets a rework in a bad talent. so wtf.

And Rets Shaman and Arms Warrior also get the same rework but they get a lot of cool choices from old abilitys.

[Saverem]

this is only pve

In pvp Havoc isnt in a good spot atm. We loose our ae stun, imprison is a 1 min cd, 70% leech talent goes down to 10% leech and 10% in meta,
Demonic build gets a huge nerf, Demonic apetite spawn souls but souls dont reduce the Cd from eyebeam, plus Demonic is in the same row like nemesis, and demonic apetite is in the same row with felblade and Blind fury.
Also we loose the heal from Demonic apetite
Felblade is stil a talent.

VDH are still good, but in Mythik plus they are gods atm and also in raids still playable in every encounter.
And wtf why Havoc gets more ways for AoE? We have still blade dance and Eyebeam or and yes sry the new aura but we loose one charge of glaive throw and we loose bloodlet as a talent for ae dots.
So:
Bloodlet loose
Eyebeam CD reduce with souls loose and no legy cd reduce
Firstblood dark slash both st talents
Train of ruin Fel barrage fel mastery all 3 Ae talents in one row

So why we getting more ways for AoE
We can only choose 1 out of 3. in Legion we have Felbarrage Fel mastery blood let or chaoscleve, so 3 out of 4 if you like to spec only AoE
Felbarrage gets also nerfed its a melee AoE attack in Bfa plus no CD reduce passive. And the channel time goes up from 2 to 3 sec.

So wtf why you say havoc is in a good spot?
The only good thing in BfA atm is that we get Dark Slash for Demon Reborn and Immolation Aura for Prepared (Prepared is only now a passiv from Momentum)

And you see it on every Bfa Video atm, Out of Meta (4 Min cd) we loose against every class and Demonic isnt playable because of the long cd. Yes the have to balance a lot on numbers its alpha. But you see our new Talent build isnt working that well for the class in pvp. Maybe in PVE raids with the new neck. But in pvp and in open pvp and lvl zones and dungeons it isnt that great. Atm Legion DH ist in a better spot for Mythik + raids and PVP i think.
Demonic works atm great in raid and Mythik+. And bloodlet works good in pvp. But in Bfa we loose both mechanics and get nothing to compare with this problems. A lot of other classes get their artifacts reworked in passives or talents we get nothing only 1 legy gets a rework in a bad talent. so wtf.

And Rets Shaman and Arms Warrior also get the same rework but they get a lot of cool choices from old abilitys.

Guess those changes don't really effect me since I PvE and PvP as VDH.


As for VDHs in M+, I think they will be getting a bit of a nerf there in BfA. They are going to lose 10% leech from SB and 15% leech from fire damage which are the 2 main things making them immortal on trash packs right now.

From what I'm seeing VDH will be getting a raid tanking buff with the soul frag buff and a slight M+ nerf to survivability due to losing a lot of leech.

[Tech614]

Guess those changes don't really effect me since I PvE and PvP as VDH.


As for VDHs in M+, I think they will be getting a bit of a nerf there in BfA. They are going to lose 10% leech from SB and 15% leech from fire damage which are the 2 main things making them immortal on trash packs right now.

From what I'm seeing VDH will be getting a raid tanking buff with the soul frag buff and a slight M+ nerf to survivability due to losing a lot of leech.

The loss of leech is irrelevant when they have the 2nd highest hp pool of tanks on alpha, fragment healing scales off damage in take and fragment spawning will still scale with AoE packs with fallout still existing.

That is all before factoring in Demon Spikes is a much stronger AM in BFA then it is on live, and on top of it costs no resources at all.

Hell, Spirit Bomb might not even be what we talent when it's all said and done since they back tracked on it replacing Soul Cleave. Void Reaver is looking like the best talent in the final row right now which if it stands will make Spirit Bomb a shit talent and we'll probably be back to Fel Dev.

Right now VDH is looking strong in all facets. It's actually looking like the top tank spec of the alpha currently.

[Deleted]

Guess those changes don't really effect me since I PvE and PvP as VDH.

why you say than havoc is in a good spot for BfA?

[Saverem]

why you say than havoc is in a good spot for BfA?

Because I think it is.

[Deleted]

Really wish they rethought demonic, if demonic worked the way spriest insanity does i think it would have been a fantastic way for the spec to work, possibly even vengeance but they want tanks to all be very similar now so no chance there.

In t21 demonic you sort of hop in and out of meta kinda similar to mini void forms from spriests, i feel like if havoc had this as an actual mechanic it would actually give something to the spec, you build up your fury and then unleash your meta and try to stay in meta for as long as possible, other than what happens now where essentially its spam annhi as much as possible and eyebeam off cd, changing meta to work like vf would actually not do too much of a change to how t21 demonic works but would actually remove the rng praying for souls element and possibly give it an actual fun mechanic, obviously with none of the garbage ramp up stuff that spriest deals with, just a general you hop in and out of this form and do more dmg

[Deleted]

Really wish they rethought demonic, if demonic worked the way spriest insanity does i think it would have been a fantastic way for the spec to work, possibly even vengeance but they want tanks to all be very similar now so no chance there.

In t21 demonic you sort of hop in and out of meta kinda similar to mini void forms from spriests, i feel like if havoc had this as an actual mechanic it would actually give something to the spec, you build up your fury and then unleash your meta and try to stay in meta for as long as possible, other than what happens now where essentially its spam annhi as much as possible and eyebeam off cd, changing meta to work like vf would actually not do too much of a change to how t21 demonic works but would actually remove the rng praying for souls element and possibly give it an actual fun mechanic, obviously with none of the garbage ramp up stuff that spriest deals with, just a general you hop in and out of this form and do more dmg

Yes Yes Yes. This would be the best thing they could bring to havoc ! Like the old Demo warlock. I would love to see this meta changes but i tihink blizz never bring this fun playstyle back.

[Deleted]

Really wish they rethought demonic, if demonic worked the way spriest insanity does i think it would have been a fantastic way for the spec to work, possibly even vengeance but they want tanks to all be very similar now so no chance there.

In t21 demonic you sort of hop in and out of meta kinda similar to mini void forms from spriests, i feel like if havoc had this as an actual mechanic it would actually give something to the spec, you build up your fury and then unleash your meta and try to stay in meta for as long as possible, other than what happens now where essentially its spam annhi as much as possible and eyebeam off cd, changing meta to work like vf would actually not do too much of a change to how t21 demonic works but would actually remove the rng praying for souls element and possibly give it an actual fun mechanic, obviously with none of the garbage ramp up stuff that spriest deals with, just a general you hop in and out of this form and do more dmg

But that's pretty much how it works in BfA, bar the prolonged upkeep thing. EB has a 30s cd and there's no CDR aspect through souls anymore, so their eventual RNG (also taken out might I add) does not concern you anymore. EB, Dark Slash and you're dealing absolutely brutal ST damage for these few seconds, and then you have downtime where you deal less until EB is off CD again. That's it.

And to be honest having something like VF cycles would be a pain in the ass for all kinds of content that are not raiding only to satisfy a percentage of a percentage of a percentage of a playerbase. I don't think it will happen, and I hope it won't happen. The Shadow Priest niche is covered by Shadow Priests, let them have their thing.

As for VDH, you give them meta cycles and you end up with either a shit tank (if the cycle doesn't sustain enough to always be in meta while tanking something), god tier tank (if the cycle permits perma meta while tanking) or massively watered down meta. Vengeance is really OK right now and promising to be even better with BfA changes, such as Fracture working like Enhancement's Boulderfist compared to Rockbiter. (back when Boulderfist wasn't baked in anyways)

[Deleted]

But that's pretty much how it works in BfA, bar the prolonged upkeep thing. EB has a 30s cd and there's no CDR aspect through souls anymore, so their eventual RNG (also taken out might I add) does not concern you anymore. EB, Dark Slash and you're dealing absolutely brutal ST damage for these few seconds, and then you have downtime where you deal less until EB is off CD again. That's it.

And to be honest having something like VF cycles would be a pain in the ass for all kinds of content that are not raiding only to satisfy a percentage of a percentage of a percentage of a playerbase. I don't think it will happen, and I hope it won't happen. The Shadow Priest niche is covered by Shadow Priests, let them have their thing.

As for VDH, you give them meta cycles and you end up with either a shit tank (if the cycle doesn't sustain enough to always be in meta while tanking something), god tier tank (if the cycle permits perma meta while tanking) or massively watered down meta. Vengeance is really OK right now and promising to be even better with BfA changes, such as Fracture working like Enhancement's Boulderfist compared to Rockbiter. (back when Boulderfist wasn't baked in anyways)

So it's nothing like what i suggested in bfa, demonic in its current state already acts like mini void forms but its a fixed 8 second duration that is my point, but my suggestion turns it into an actual core part of the spec or even just demonic talent which really should have been how demon hunters worked originally.
Instead of meta being a cd it could have been our actual resource mechanic instead of just having purple rage, demonic t21 already has us zipping in and out of meta on regular cycles. With a cycle meta we could actually have an opportunity to get a more balanced self heal that is not totally over the top near immortality in pve unless its one shot dmg and completely obliterated practically non existent in pvp because all the leach comes from a big cd which got nerfed into the ground for pvp, if it worked as a cycle we would could actually have some sort of semi sustain in pvp closer to other classes. Practically nothing would change outside of instead of spamming annhi all day long you could actually have some resource management which makes the spec less braindead and offer opportunities to actually be a spec not totally based on rng.

Voidforms problems are due to needing high ramp up from stacks that take quite a while before you actually do any damage, any sort of movement or pause in the fight or anything for the priest which makes them unable to cast destroys it, THATS the problem with voidform, far too much goes into trying to build it up, demon hunter a meele class who right now just spams annhi as much as it possibly can does not need to worry about that, it has no ramp up time, and again t21 demonic already functions like very short voidforms that does not care about high ramp up, all the damage is there pre built into the meta with annhi. Short of pvp t21 demonic has absolutely no issues with ANYTHING i have come across and it is the most fun i have had this expansion due to how powerful it can be in pve, but it is still a very shallow spec.

Trust me, i have literally quit my spriest i have had for 14 years because of the insanity mechanic, yet here i am saying it would be perfect for demon hunters, because it would be, You juggle db, annhi, eye beam and in bfa immo aura to maintain your meta for as long as you can whilst still doing the exact same thing you do now in t21, drop out of meta? no problem you will be back in meta in about 20 or so seconds time to repeat the process. The only true difference to how t21 demonic works now as opposed to what i suggest would be you're no longer only in meta for a fixed amount of 8 seconds after you cast eye beam, with my suggestion you are in meta for as long as you can maintain it (be it 15 second windows, 20 second windows, 30 second windows whatever).

Instead in bfa we get a couple bolt on buttons to cast once every x seconds for a buff and extra resource regen, how exciting, however would be very beneficial to my suggested demonic rework. Like what will really change in bfa? we do the same we do now only now we might also cast dark slash once every 8 sec to maintain a buff?


For venge i would like it to have been a form of active mitigation, a style that would be unique to demon hunters like all tanks used to have unique styles, but as i said they want all tanks to be the same so it's not something i am suggesting.

While all classes in legion are extremely barebones and very simplistic, demon hunters suffer the worst from it and i would welcome any added complexity. Literally all i am suggesting here is allowing demonic to have skill based meta durations rather than fixed 8 second windows that would see some much needed yet simple meat to the rather barebones spec that it is right now.

[Deleted]

Anyone else looking forward to a Bladedance/Momentum build? Well, at least i am

[Deleted]

at least it seems theres options now to choose... but i will miss my glaive toss with bloodlet so much..

[Deleted]

snip

Look, I really like how you presented your point of view but I can't agree with it on any level. Not only does the idea of baked in demonic and removing meta as a big cd require massive resources to basically rework the spec from the ground, it also kills the remaining link to staple Warcraft 3 Demon Hunters, which is (subjectively) a deal breaker.

Skill based metas sound good in theory, as dps SHOULD be more about skill and less about RNG, but blizzard disagrees. As it stands though, they're putting lots of control back into toolkits and dialing rng a tad. It's kinda better than skill based meta cycles because you won't be balanced around perfect usage in areas where perfect usage is impossible. Blizz has a track record.

The biggest surprise is that it's coming from a shadow priest. Leaving your longtime main because of a system to try to have a faster version of said system on a different class is being either a masochist or a sadist. Priests face a far too long ramp up. Shorter cycles would make more sense, but there. Not on a goddamn melee, unless you want to tunnel a single target for the entire expac not unlike BoS frost DK.

Fixed meta times allow for better balancing and tbh better gameplay. Being able to opt out is great. Being able to opt in into dps-positive talents that increase complexity is great.

Hell, you want more meat to the spec. Combine momentum with immo aura. Suddenly you are able to regenerate up to 18 fury per second, have 3 additional cooldowns to manage and, with refunds and other spells, it might get rather absurd at times, especially now that fury management will be even more of a thing again (back to 100 fury cap).

Add in even more cooldowns to manage through First Blood or Dark Slash (which also require being combined with damage windows for maximum effect, especially Dark Slash with its 8s duration and 20s cd), add Fel Barrage that eats up two globals and is yet another cooldown, although this one resembles FotI a bit too much. Add Demonic Appetite and now you also have to manage souls while having restricted movement once one spawns as you might overcap and 2 abilities forcefully reposition you...

A build that is absolutely legit and has metric fucktons of things to manage although they are more subtle than simply trying to keep a resource bar alive or having 5 different conditional dots.

And you get there from 4 damn spells and that is IF you count Metamorphosis as a button, and do not opt out of Demon's Bite.

I dunno, I like optional complexity, especially now that havoc RNG is nearly gone and static, so you aren't screwed by wrong secondaries so hard: No crit damage bonus, no Inner Demons, no souls CDR, no Chaos Strike chaining through Onslaught, static Chaos Strike refund chance. Hopefully Azerite neck lets us customize more but for now, the spec simply needs tuning as it really looks ok.

[Deleted]

@Sendula I think it would definitely have been an improvment over current t21 demonic which seems to be a pretty divisive spec atm, people either love it or hate it, i personally love it but feel that being able to control your meta duration would have made it better.

The reason that a spriest who hates it wants it for dh is really because the current demonic was not built around my suggestion being a thing which makes it perfect. The way its implemented for spriest is terrible, they put far too much into it and had the spec completely based on only doing damage at 40+ stacks.
Dh have none of the drawbacks spriest has for it and would play fairly similar to how demo warlocks played it, it was an addition to your spec not the defining part of it. Demo warlocks absolutely LOVED it but most spriests hate it because of the way it was designed for spriests which is completely different to demo warlocks.

Honestly if you ignore everything about spriest void forms and just look at how demonic plays right now, all that would change is you stay in meta for longer than 8 seconds. There would be none of the voidform stacks or stuff like that, no ramp up times. Just the ability to maintain your demonic metas for longer than the fixed 8 seconds.

They are going a different route im bfa which is fine but i would definitely like this to be how demonic worked in the future to give it something, because after t21 is gone i doubt it will be used again except for world content healing.

[Hisholyness]

All they're changing is Chaos Strike, which has a base 40% refund chance (removing our crit dependancy) and adding more playstyle diversity. It looks like they're trying to make a blade dance build with Trail of Ruin

[Teddybird]

All they're changing is

Alot more than you seam to realise?

Not a fan of losing the souls to CDR, although less rng is good - the best parts of the demonic spec have been forcefully stopped and stripped down in BFA :/
Hoping to get beta access to test before shit goes live.

[Ojocuervo]

CS - Demonic is going to die. Blade dance comes up to the game again

[Katsutomai]

Wish they'd move some of our damage away from Meta and in to our normal rotation. Going from top of the pack at the start of a fight all the way down to middle or lower by the end of the fight is frustrating as fuck.