Devourer DH Feedback

Classes Demon Hunter
1

Continuing the discussion from 12.0.5 PTR Development Notes:

*Update
This will help with some on demand healing. However the spec still needs a ground up overhaul. Please consider my feedback.

Devourer DH is thematically interesting with cool visuals. However, it feels like a very unfinished class with alot of work to be done before it can be viable. Here are a list of problems and solutions.

Lack of AoE on demand, requires massive ramp up.

  • Give Reap a baseline AoE function. Have it deal 50% of itā€™s single target to everyone in a cone.
  • Change Eradicate to instead buff Reapā€™s AoE damage to 100% of its single target.
  • Either make ā€œThrow Glaiveā€ a powerful cosmic ability or remove Bouncing Glaive from the class tree. Itā€™s ruining Devourerā€™s pathing and should have been baked into the ability years ago.

Get rid of the whole Metamorphosis fury drain mini game. It makes using Collapsing Star terrible in open word content and trying to maintain transformation in between fights, just isnā€™t fun. Itā€™s unplayable in PvP, Devourer just dies before ever getting to Metamorphosis. The Feast/Faming design simply canā€™t be balanced. We tried this already with Legion Shadow Priest, and this version is even more problematic because the spec has no rotation in base form.

  • Make Collapsing Star a separate ability, usable in any form. Make it cost 35 souls, adjust based on flow.
  • Casting Collapsing Star transforms you into Demon Form for 6 sec, gaining Leech and Damage bonus.
  • Change Metamorphosis to be a 2 minute coodown ability with a base duration that extends by 6 seconds based on casts of Collapsing Star.
  • Rank 3 of Apex talents would still grant a free cast of Collapsing Star after using Metamorphosis. But requires an added buff to be worth taking.
  • Have Void Ray casts always count as being in Demon Form and all the bonuses that come with it. This would significantly increase leech and improve self sustain. Channeling Void Ray would temporarily pause the countdown timer of Demon Form.
  • Void Ray would continue to cost Fury in Demon Form, rather than being a cooldown ability.
  • Casting Collapsing Star and Void Metamorphosis would grant a free cast of Void Ray.
  • Change Entropy to instead grant a free charge of Void Ray when entering combat. This would give us early burst and allow players to make use of Doomsayer for Annihilator hero spec.
  • Increase max Fury pool to 200 so as to not waste any ressources and give players some agency on when to cast Void Ray, since it requires 100 to cast.
  • Update existing talents to reflect this new direction.
  • Fix talent pathing and update the class tree. Does Charred Blade apply to cosmic damage? Only the Gods know.

These changes would allow Devourer to:

  • Start fights with some punch.
  • Have readily available AoE.
  • Give more consistent damage and reduce the time stuck in Consume spam lull.
  • Greatly increase survivability by granting access to staggered Demon Form leech and damage bonus via Collapsing Star transformation and more access to Void Ray.
3 Likes
Devourer issues and blizzard ignoring feed back
Shadow AoE
2

A lot of this might be good in the long term. Iā€™ll add my thoughts with a few things that would be quick/dirty solutions given a full redesign probably wonā€™t happen soon. I donā€™t really have much more than a perspective on how Devourer DH feels in pretty casual content so keep in mind that is my perspective.

Pain points:

Slow initial start up at least for the caster build with no on demand aoe. A quick fix might simply be making that one talent that sets our out of combat souls to 25 set our fury to 50-75 or something. If they really wanted to be fun having souls and fury at max out of combat would be super cool for world content (maybe too good) and have almost no impact on raid tuning. The problem I noticed is that devourer feels like it was solely designed for raids (or maybe M+?).

Survival: I feel like devourer heals a decent amount while bursting/doing dungeon pulls, but I swear I find myself kiting basic questing mobs. It is really strange. I really feel like they need some defensive that is more than a weak (if low cd) wall. Something a bit more reactive like a heal or an absorb. For pvp I honestly think they might need more soul fragment healing, though I am not particularly qualified to talk about pvp balancing.

Edit: Oh, and for a spec that feels highly mobile both collapsing stars and void ray really punish you if you have to move during their very long casts.

3

In Raid why does our orb count have to reset when engaging a boss? That feels terrible. I even tried to pre meta on pull but it took me out of meta the moment the boss become engaged. Literally having to start every boss fight from 25 sucks. I agree that the ramp up feels awful. Damage out of meta is critically low. I agree with some of OP fixes.

Also remove to CD on collapsing star if you fail to complete the cast.

1 Like
4

I think what I would want to do is change the fury spender from Void Ray to Collapsing Star (and move appropriate talents over). Put VR on a short cooldown and have it generate fury. This helps a lot with the on demand AoE problem. I would also agree with Reap being baseline AoE, but with CS as a normal ability that may not be necessary. Leave meta as is, but rather than draining fury, make it drain souls and abilities can continue to have normal fury dynamics. This would heavily fix the massive build up issue to CS, but leave the ebb and flow of meta. Also, please make souls heal for 2% or something. We get enough of them that they donā€™t need to heal for a lot, but 1% is nothing.

1 Like
5

So that way your raid doesnā€™t have to wait for you to build up 50 souls pre-pull

1 Like
6

The feast/famine design never works. The shear amount of Void Rays avaiable, leech and mastery bonus while in the current Demon Form design, means that the whole spec is forced to be weak outside of Metamorphosis. If the made our base form decent, then Meta would be too powerful. There just isnā€™t any way to balance this kind of playstyle. Weā€™ve been hear before and somehow they never learn the lesson.

By evening out our damage, transforming intermediately, and gaining access to more Void Rays in general. We can essentially fix our damage ramp up problems and our survivability problems due to the higher damage/leech, which fits in well with the theme of Devourer.

1 Like
7

It would feel worse to need to pre-meta every pull, which isnā€™t possible when trash is dead lmao.

8

Not sure how would I feel about another Meta on a cooldown. Might ruin the entire spec. 2 minutes of consume spam just ā€˜becauseā€™ā€¦ Not a good idea.

Let me seeā€¦

Souls could build up to 45-48 out of combat. Dropping out of Meta while out of combat could also refund souls. We need a ā€œkilling blowā€ effect.

Fury drain could be more manageable, though. Smarter fury drain. Grim Focus is nice but could be better. Any form of idle time could have reduced Fury drain.

Now, to talents.

Thereā€™s too many points going into specific talents. Meanwhile, we lack in interesting alternatives in playstyle, as if all weā€™re doing is talent into DPS. That DPS output could be dumped onto other talents while turned into 1-point talents. SS and SR are the best candidates, imo.

Reap is the best candidate for changes, imo. Hereā€™s some suggestions:

  • Second Helping and Umbral Blade effects should both be baseline
  • Umbral Blade now causes Reap to provide as many souls as Consume
  • Second Helping now turns Reap into a cone aoe
  • Eradicate is unchanged
  • Eradicate should move up in the tree, closer to these two, since itā€™s useful for all specs

Rolling Torment shouldnā€™t function only if CS is talented. RT could be baseline or replace both Meta and CS on the talent tree (these 2 should be baseline).

I think this can be fixed by making out-of-meta rotation comfortable and easy. Unlike the current ā€œweak and overly punishingā€, which leads to our butts being handed to us while gathering herbs.

1 Like
9

Actually. Iā€™m designing it to get rid of the Consume lull. Itā€™s meant to give us an honest to God rotation outside of the current Void Metamorphosis implementation.

Itā€™s essentially going to greatly increase access to Void Ray, both by giving a free charge when starting a battle and triggered from Collapsing Star. Which means an extra charge of Reap each time as well. More Void Rays also means way more soul spawns. Which means faster build up to the next Collapsing Star.

It all feeds into each other. Pun intended.

10

But isnā€™t that going to just turn Dev into Havoc 2.0?

Imo, allowing us to start with max souls would fix the issue. Not into the 2 min Meta. I suppose itā€™d make more sense to provide Havoc with a ā€œChaotic Starā€ and enable some ranged function in Meta. Might be easier.

Reap changes, I like those.

Void Ray (to count as Meta damage) seem to help with AoE and build up, so Iā€™m all for those. Thing is, we already spend too much time on VR, rooted and channelling. I donā€™t think we need more.

CS outside of Meta might be an issue too. Because, if we can cast at any given time, itā€™s not a ā€œburn abilityā€. Damage ends up spread out.

Wouldnā€™t make more sense to have another, more generic ability that morphs into CS while in Meta? One that fills the aoe gap and help get rid of some Consumes like a Conflagrate/Judgement or sorts.

11

Canā€™t say Iā€™m a fan of a collection of changes that amount to ā€œDelete the spec and start again with the same ability names.ā€

3 Likes
12

Honestly: iā€™m not a fan of the metamorphosis rotation. Feels like a lot of power is gated behind that, then you have to build up the stacks for collapsing star and hope nothing stops you (questing is almost never get a chance to be used) and it just feels like a let down.

I would rather trade the metamorphosis for just building up the fragment stacks and then dropping the star once we have so many: the more fragments the bigger the damage. Just cut out the metamorphosis.

Also, they feel so squishy: Havoc i feel like i have a lot of leach and self healing coming in and void DH i feel like the glass cannon without the cannon BECAUSE the power is stuck behind metamorphosis.

3 Likes
13

To be fair, its still a very mobile class either way. The problem is, we basically donā€™t have a rotation outside of Metamorphosis.

I agree that we get spoiled with Void Ray currently when in Demon Form because of the short cooldown and no ressource cost, followed by a free AoE Reap. Which is basically why the spec doesnā€™t work in base form right now.

My changes are aimed at keeping the identity of a mid range mobile caster with 2 separate ressource spenders.

The current design is the Feast/Famine problem on steroids. Itā€™s not like Pillar of Frost for Frost DK , which feels bad when itā€™s on cooldown sure, but at least you still have access to your core rotation. With the old Legion Shadow Priest Void Form mechanic, you also still had access to most of your rotation except Void Bolt and Void Torrent, and even then it was a massive balance problem.

You canā€™t fix this with tuning, because itā€™s more than just a numbers issue, itā€™s a mechanical problem. There are simply not enough abilities to use in base form. Spamming Consume isnā€™t going to cut it, even when fighting a small amount of enemies.

Itā€™s doomed to the old ā€œtoo weak, then too strongā€ problem but on a scale weā€™ve never seen before.

Thatā€™s not an fair description of my suggestions. Iā€™ll reference you to the above paragraphs. Iā€™m guessing you havenā€™t played it outside the target dummy, otherwise the problems would be glaringly obvious to you. Any suggestions? The spec is perfect? No notes? Some constructive feedback might be helpful.

Exactly, everyone can see it. Thatā€™s why all the DH mains, who desperately wanted to like it, just tapped out and went back to Havoc.

If it was just a difference in flat damage, it would be manageable but still difficult to tune. But as Iā€™ve pointed out, there is literally no rotation outside of Metamorphosis. And because of that, we have NO AoE on demand and spamming Consume and praying for enough fury to get a cast of Void Ray, followed by a free AoE Scythe, is not a viable class design.

Just increasing our Fury cap would be a massive improvement and allow us to use Void Ray more often in base form. Sometimes youā€™re missing like 2 fury before you can get a cat of Void Ray, so you use another ability and passively collect a void orb or 2. Now you just wasted all of that fury because Void Ray cost 100 but your cap is also 100 so say goodbye to all that extra fury you could have built up. Is it 10, 15, 20? Who knows? Because every other spender class designer had the foresight of knowing that capping your ressource beyond the base cost of your spender should be a given.

14

Your cap is 120, as you should be talenting into Unrestrained Fury at the very top of your class tree. Itā€™s 140 if youā€™re Void-Scarred. You have plenty of wiggle room.

2 Likes
15

Iā€™ve been doing m0s and raiding on it too. I think there are problems, I very much dislike the idea of taking the things that make it unique and interesting and removing them. I plan to play it in m+ too when that opens.

Void scarred needs a stronger connection to collapsing star that also aligns with itā€™s more hit and run play style. A start would be adding star to voidsurge, a more thorough plan would be working some way to send off star instantly after executing a reaperā€™s toll retreat combo. Vs already gets less stars than Anni so I think letting them be easier to use makes sense with the rest of what VS wants to do.

Get rid of devourerā€™s bite. This talent is holding back the design of void scarred by keeping the direct damage of its melee abilities way too low. Itā€™s also blurring the lines between VS and Anni because everyone wants a 12% damage bonus on a star that crits for a million.

The change theyā€™re making in 12.0.5 to soul immolation is a good start to bring on demand resource generation and health regen. Iā€™d still like to see something to improve engagement soul gen.

Reap needs to gen a soul baseline.

1 Like
16

This. Iā€™m so tired of stacking damage amps in this class.

Replacing it with a talent that makes Cstar instant after hungering slash would be good, and would have less value for Anni.

4 Likes
17

Oh and on the topic of Anni cstar. Make star castable while shifting.

AND make shift retain your direction instead of turning you in the direction of travel. Trying to shift backwards on alleria and then having to 180 your camera to keep playing is awful.

4 Likes
18

But thatā€™s the thing, our core rotation isnā€™t great. No need to expand whatā€™s bad. A cd Meta will only pile up a load of dps in a very short amount of time.

To be fair, it doesnā€™t that take long to get into Meta. Its greatest quality is that it isnā€™t like other cooldowns. Players tend to delay long cooldowns (1+ min) in fear of wasting them, waiting for a burn phase. Void Meta is our rotation. Thatā€™s why it actually feels motivating to go into it. Turning it into a cd would ruin that.

The biggest issue is that, in any realistic scenario, there are too many hazards and mechanical limitations that just wonā€™t let devourers rotate freely. Out-of-meta is painful. Enemies give us pushbacks, damage, CC, mechanics, etc. Then thereā€™s fury drain, lack of CCs, defenses or mobility (thanks to CS and VR).

I think preserving the specā€™s identity is more important, in this case. So, smoothing fury drain and mobility, while providing some fun, comfortable skills for out-of-Meta would do the trick.

As for Spriest, I donā€™t think it is a good comparison. Apples and oranges. Devourer feels better thanks to the lack maintaince dots and other stuff. DDH feels more intuitive.

DHs should have a perk to aim at stuff without facing it. Aside from obvious stuff, like Void Ray, of course. DHs special sight allows them to see in dark, ā€œsniff outā€ magic and secrets, etc. We got the lore to justify it, at least.

That, and AoEs. Not a big fan of cones, like Essence Break, in a class thatā€™s meant to be moving around.

3 Likes
19

Iā€™d love an alternative to Meta, a hybrid form showing only wings, with reduced power but permanent.

1 Like
20

Thatā€™s my point. I want our core rotation to actually be great instead of having it essentially locked behind Meta. If the argument is always going to be ā€œthe spec feels fine when youā€™re in Meta, itā€™s just when youā€™re notā€ then everyone is just confirming my assessment.

My suggestions are actually aimed a piling less damage onto Meta, because if we actually have access to a rotation all of the time, then Meta becomes essentially a damage and healing buff instead of a state that allows you to use all the abilities that you are starved of in base form.

The spec is brand new, preserving a design doomed to fail isnā€™t a priority.

Blizzard had no trouble ruining Frost Mageā€™s core mechanic for those of us who have loved it for decades. If they can break something that didnā€™t need fixing, the least they can do is fix something that actually requires fixing.