A Havoc DH Shadowlands Baseline Wishlist

Classes Demon Hunter
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When faced with the reality of our baseline in Shadowlands, and the absurdity that is patch 8.3 (vis a vis, corruption), all of my WoW time is really just spent wishing for an improvement in Shadowlands. Unfortunately, it’s not looking good.

That said, here’s a revised wishlist…
If you prefer video format, see this:


Intro: 0:00 - 07:11
Frost Death Knight Comparative Analysis : 07:12 - 19:29
Shadow Priest Comparative Analysis: 19:30 - 31:07
31:08 - 32:59 - Bridge to Demon Hunter
33:00 - 42:06 - Demon Hunter Problems
42:07 - 1:21:00 - Demon Hunter Solutions
1:21:01 - End - Conclusion

Firstly, the concept.

  1. Havoc DH’s, first and foremost, must capture the fantasy of demonic transformation. It should be at the forefront of our damaging rotation’s design.
  2. “Darting around the battlefield” should be the secondary driver of our baseline damaging rotation. It should inform animation and should be reflected at a baseline level.
  3. Warglaives and forbidden Legion magics (chaos damage) are the tools we use.

With the above in mind, here’s what I’ve come up with.

Baseline

  1. Additional Fury resource - Demonic Hatred. Max of 120. All abilities which consume fury generate a small amount of demonic hatred.
  2. Eye Beam.

Cooldown removed. Costs 100 Demonic Hatred. No longer interruptable by kicks, however we can still be cc’d (stun’d, incap’d, disoriented, etc) during the cast. Causes us to enter demon form for 10 seconds + duration of eye beam cast (we’re in meta while channeling eye beam) (blind fury would accordingly increase the duration).

  1. Felblade. Baseline Ability. Now deals chaos damage upfront.

2x charges with an eight second recharge time. Proc chance removed. Fury generation removed (at baseline level). Damage converted to chaos. Felblade has a minimum charge range of 5 yards, and a max range of 15 yards (it cannot be cast while standing on top of the target. there must be at least 5 yards separation). Applies “Touched By Fel” (Placeholder, discussed below) Debuff. All abilities / talents / borrowed powers that reference fel rush now reference fel blade.

  1. Fel Cleave (placeholder) - Baseline Ability.

Deals x% of AP Chaos Damage to all nearby targets. Costs 40 + fury. Spammable aoe ability that effectively replaces chaos strike when two or more targets are present. Any talent, passive, or borrowed power which references chaos strike will also apply to fel cleave (primary target only). If fel cleave’s primary target is suffering from touched by fel, fel cleave spreads touched by fel to all enemies hit by fel cleave. Generates x demonic fury. x% base chance to refund fury, increased by sqrt additional targets hit.

  1. Touched by Fel - Baseline Passive.

Your felblade places a DoT debuff on the target, dealing x chaos damage over 10 seconds. Each time the dot deals damage, gain z demonic fury.

  1. Demonic Appetite - Made baseline. Passive. Does not generate Fury.

Your chaos strikes and fel cleaves have a chance to rend a lesser soul fragment from your primary target, healing you for x% of your max health.

  1. Blade Dance

Now deals chaos damage and has a primary target damage increase (1/2 of first blood baked in). Generates z demonic fury.

  1. Chaos Theory (Name stolen from Legendary) - Baseline Passive.

When striking a target afflicted by touched by fel:
Your Blade Dance causes your next 2 chaos strikes or fel cleaves to deal x% of AP additional chaos damage, and increases the chance for them to refund fury from the primary target hit by y%

Your chaos strikes and fel cleaves have a x% chance to cause the cooldown of blade dance to reset, to increase its damage done by x% of AP, and to reduce its fury cost to 15.

  1. Demon Form.

While in demon form, cannot gain nor lose demonic hatred (so, if you had 120 at the time of transformation, you’d have 20 left over when you leave demon form). Increases haste by x%, and increases the damage done by blade dance, chaos strike, and fel cleave by y%. Your Felblade now applies Overwhelmed by Fel.
Overwhelmed by Fel - In lieu of giving us demonic hatred, Overwhelmed by Fel now deals more chaos damage over 10 seconds. Additionally, chaos strikes buffed by chaos theory are able to increase the stack count and seconds remaining of fel devestation by 1, up to a maximum of two additional stacks & seconds.

  1. Lingering Demon - Baseline Ability. Castable while in Demon form.

Adds an additional 6 seconds to your current demonic transformation. 1 min cd.

  1. Chaos Blades - Reduces fury cost of all abilities by x%. Auto attacks deal chaos damage. Increase damage done by 20% for 15-18 seconds.

  2. Metamorphosis - Removed.

  3. Fel Reflexes - Active Ability

Increases our chance to dodge all physical abilities by 100% for one second. 20-25 second cooldown.

  1. Blur - Dodge component removed (it’s redundant with fel reflexes). Reduces physical damage taken by x%. 1 min cd.

  2. Chaotic Transformation removed. We have more engaging and better-designed passive synergies, but these need to come at a tradeoff. Losing CT is more than fair

Baseline Overview.

Demonic transformation becomes the conceptual core of our damaging rotation, with a resource that gradually builds over the course of the battle and is ultimately expended upon demonic transformation. The amount of fury generation would be tuned at a ST level to approximately equal 30-35 seconds. In AoE encounters, this would be reduced, thanks to fel cleave spreading touched by fel to additional targets.

Fel blade being a mandatory button to press at minimum once every 10 seconds includes at a baseline level the concept of darting around the battlefield, because it has a minimum cast range of 5 yards. Blade dance being given a proc chance further enhances this fantasy, because we’d be pressing this ability more frequently.

Blade dance and chaos strike have a fun interdependent baseline synergy.

We have a dot mechanic we actively manage.

We have a traditional two minute cd that is unique unto itself, rather than being a demonic transformation that is simply on a longer cooldown.

Lingering demon would be used every other demonic transformation, and would allow us to fit in a 3rd blade dance during a demonic window. (not on GCD). It also complements chaos blades, as we would want to line up these two cooldowns.

Talents:

Row 1:

  1. Blind Fury - Unchanged
  2. Soul Gluttony - Consuming a lesser soul fragment generates x fury
  3. Felblade - Your felblade generates x fury.

Adjustments made to accommodate baseline.

Row 2:
Unchanged

Row 3:
Unchanged

Row 4:
Soul Rending changed to Feast of souls - Consuming a soul fragment additionally heals you for x% of max health over y seconds.
Spell Deflection - Replace physical damage % reduction with magic % reduction.
Netherwalk - Unchanged, but cooldown reduced to two minutes.

If we’re facing mechanics that are largely spell damage, we’d choose deflection, provided the damage mitigation is worth losing the additional leech.
If we need an immunity, netherwalk
If we’re facing a hybrid of physical / magical damage, and don’t need an immunity, Feast of Souls.

Row 5:
Cycle of Hatred - Removed. Replaced with bloodlet - Throw glaive causes all targets hit to bleed, dealing x% of AP physical damage over y seconds. Increases charges of throw glaive to two.
First Blood - Removed. Replaced with Fel Barrage
Essence Break - Cooldown increased to 30 seconds.

Regardless of choice, we get a new ability added to our action bar. These are primarily aoe-centric, however essence break would be a viable choice in ST rotations as well. The duration allows it to be used before eye beaming.

Row 6:
Unchanged, however MotG does not increase the throw glaive count to two.

Row 7:
Demonic - Replaced with cycle of hatred. Eye beam cost of demonic hatred decreased 20% (down to 80) to use, and abilities which generate demonic hatred now generate an additional 20% demonic hatred.
Momentum - Fel blade causes you to deal 5% increased damage for 10 seconds, stackable up to 3 times.
Inner Demon - Your chaos strike & fel cleave abilities have a chance to cause your inner demon to crash into your enemies, dealing x% of ap damage to your primary target, and y% increased damage to all secondary targets. All opponents hit by your inner demon take a% increased damage from you for b seconds.

Cycle of Hatred increases our uptime in demonic, providing for more burst windows.
Momentum having a stacking mechanic better adheres to the very concept of momentum. Its application is more practical because we generate it by applying a debuff to our opponents while still using an ability with a charge animation, but that charge is able to be controlled.
Inner demons (name and function stolen from legendary) is a versatile ability that would further increase the value of chaos strike & fel cleave.

Overall I think the above brings a lot to our baseline rotation, with talents further enhancing what we’re doing.

Baseline, we would have a fun interactive proc synergy between blade dance & chaos strike/fel cleave. While outside of demonic windows, we would feel like we’re actively taking control of getting back into them, and the rotation will still feel engaging whether we’re in or out of demonic.
While in demon form, our abilities naturally deal increased damage because they’re no longer generating demonic fury. Felblade’s revised dot component gives us a modifier to the effects of the debuff while in demon form.

I could main a class with a rotation like this.

Thoughts?

12 Likes
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This post makes me sad. Too cool for BlizzSchool.

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Nice. Really the only flaw I see potentially is Fel Blade cd being 10 seconds, and momentum uptime being 10 seconds but stackable to three.

I’d either re add the proc chance through the talent or change the cd to Fel Blade 8 seconds while leaving momentum at 10, or 10 and 12. Having them both be at 10 leaves 0 room for error and you potentially stalling gcds on top of having to move the 5yrds out.

Overall very good.

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Great point, i’ll revise the cd to 8 seconds. Think that makes sense

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What about moving fel blade to final talent row and baking in fel blade and momentum together? Keep fel blade at its current state, this will allow fel rush and fel blade to proc momentum making for a well rounded play style and upkeep. Then momentum would be a smoother playstyle that in my opinion would rival that of demonic. Now as to what to put in place of fel blade on 1st row, that I havent thought of. I can see different applications of this working in my head, but would have a hard time describing it. It would remove the concern of having to use fel rush specifically to proc momentum, allowing for more options for upkeep in case movement is needed to avoid mechanics or to move to a pack of adds that spawn across the map, you utilize its bonus without fear of missing opportunity.

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It’s an interesting design, but one that ultimately won’t solve the issue of momentum.
Outside of felblade proc resets, you’ll still end up pressing fel rush for the momentum buff. You’ll still use a mobility ability for offensive pressure, and you’ll still be forced to fel rush, which can cause you to incur much more risk to yourself and/or the group as a whole.

The solution to every single problem with momentum and any other talent / borrowed power referencing fel rush is felblade. It just makes sense

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This has got to be exhausting. It’s not your job to design the game, it’s theirs. Just vote with a reroll or an unsub till things get better. Take a break from the forums, play some other game, go outside, whatever. You’ve fought the good fight but, based on the blue text reactions we’ve seen, you’re trying to herd cats from behind a glass wall.

1 Like
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Thanks for the life advice, but FYI:
I workout every day, walk my dogs 3x a day, cook my own food, work from home, watch Netflix, read books, and do other stuff.

This isn’t exhausting at all. If anything, I consider it an engaging thought experiment. I like wow and I want my class to be good. If I fantasize about how it could be better, I’m not seeing the problem.

I’m doing just fine, thanks :slight_smile:

4 Likes
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I think with a lot of stuff like this I do kind of nod and pretend I get it, but the basic gist of it feels good to read. It more or less matches what I think most DHs would consider the class fantasy; unleashing that massive demon form, cleaving and burning our foes down. The mobility is great, of course, but I would consider that secondary, and, much like you said, it should generally inform our animations.

I will say, the idea of Fel Reflexes feels pretty… meh, to me? I get why people took umbrage with the dodge in Blade Dance, but a button to activate a 1 second dodge like that feels like it won’t ever be very satisfying. Maybe it can work like Aspect of the Cheetah, where you start with a high Dodge amount for a short time, then a period of less Dodge for longer?

That aside, some quick questions:

  • Anything not mentioned here is presumed to be unchanged, right? So it’s still a lot of Demon’s Bite to build Fury, Chaos Strike/Fel Cleave to spend that Fury, and using the DoT to further amplify our Hatred generation, right?
  • So from what I’m reading, Hatred is only used for Eye Beam, right? And we need 100 for that, while Hatred caps at 120… and if we can’t lose or gain more Hatred while in Demonic Form, why not just cap Hatred at 100, so when it’s maxed we spend it? (Yes, I’ve wondered this same thing about Fury Warrior at times. I just play the game, I don’t think about it that hard.)
  • How does Haste interact with Touched By Fel? That feels like it could get broken fast with enough Haste.
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Thanks! Glad you like it overall.

Not so sure about this.
In pvp, it has a lot of application. Dodging a kidney, for example, would feel very satisfying. I’m not sure if the ability would dodge range physical as well, like a warrior’s storm bolt. That might be too broken.
In pve, it’s not really any different from using blade dance to dodge mechanics. We just couldn’t do it as often. 100% dodge is a really powerful and niche utility to have on a super short cd. I think there would be a lot of areas where it could shine and really up the skill cap of a HDH

Yes that’s just about the gist of it.
Anything which consumes fury generates a small amount of demonic hatred, so demon’s bite, for example, would not generate any demonic hatred.

Yes that’s right. Basically just to have a small window to prevent over-capping on demonic hatred. Also alleviates the awkwardness of having reached 100 demonic hatred but being unable to immediately eye beam in that moment, due to any number of reasons, like anticipation to get cc’d / swapped to in a stun, or pve mechanics that temporarily render the mob(s) invulnerable/out of reach.

Haste would increase the damage and #of ticks by the dot, so it would further increase the amount of demonic hatred generated.
It’s a good point though. I had thought about and it had these ideas or solutions:

  1. The demonic hatred generation really wouldn’t be that high, so a higher haste stat wouldn’t break the class.

If we were to say that the dot deals damage every two seconds for ten seconds, that’s five ticks.
If I’m incorrect in how haste affects dots, let me know, but to keep the math simple, let’s say it’s 1 demonic fury for each tick, or five demonic fury over 10 seconds.
If we have 25 % haste, we’d see 2 additional ticks (one full, and one partial), which would be 7 demonic fury instead of 5. 40 % is a fairly large upgrade due to haste, but the number itself is so small it can be ignored. Really, it’s in aoe encounters this will shine

  1. The dot could instead be designed like a feral’s bleeds, in which haste doesn’t affect it.

  2. demonic hatred itself could be given a modifier, in which our crits with abilities that generate demonic fury give us a nominally-boosted ratio of demonic hatred generation, relative to a non-crit. This would boost critical strike as a highly-desirable secondary for the havoc dh, so we’d likely need to find a balance between crit and haste and versatility (in pvp)

  3. instead of touched by fel generating demonic hatred, it could simply put a debuff on the target which increases the amount of demonic hatred we generate from it with abilities like blade dance / chaos strike / fel cleave