I really do hope you have learned from this and that in the future if there are time sensitive restrictions such as this that you send out more alpha invites to people to make sure you are getting feedback for each spec before it is too late. Also this is a VERY long post but it touches on both hero trees slightly and goes into several points for the havoc spec tree which need to he addressed, plus a couple of things for the class tree, as the hero trees arent the only thing that need some love.
Aldrachi Reaver (havoc):
As most people here have pointed out with the rotational complexity it adds, Aldrachi Reaver makes havoc dh feel actively WORSE to play than it does in dragonflight (something i am sure hero trees are trying to avoid). Many people in the havoc disc, including influential people, are talking about completely rerolling classes if things continue like this. While things like a way to suck up souls from a distance or changing reaver’s glaive to work off generated souls instead of gathered souls can make it feel partially less bad, at this point it seems like most people just wish it had been completely reworked from the ground up (which again, we didn’t have representation in alpha). Additionally, though significantly less important at this time, the visuals are very lackluster. The only change is reaver’s glaive which is very easy to miss. Changing the appearence of souls in some way, or changing your appearence as ypu gain souls could be a cool effect to make you remember that you actually acrivated a hero tree.
Fel-Scarred (havoc):
Mostly fine design-wise, a bit bland but after reaver that’s ok. The main problems currently is that it is massively undertuned compared to reaver, it very heavily wants most of the bottom gate (KYE, CoH, Chaotic Disp, AFI, AMN, inertia, ragefire…), and somehow has even more lackluster visuals. When fel-scarred was first added most people’s initial reactions were “oh the visuals arent added yet, ok” but apparently they were. I honestly can’t even see the demonsurges most of the time because of immolation aura or any number of other effects going on, and i know exactly when they will happen and am actively looking for them. To anyone else im just playing dragonflight havoc, no hero talent visually. Meanwhile you have other classes summoning barrages of meteors, laser beams, the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse… There are 3 main visual fixes I can think of. 1 is obviously updating the visual effects of the abilities that now get empowered in meta. Another is to alter the demon form and make it even more demonic, possibly becoming more demonic with each demonsurge. Lastly, additional demonic features could be present outside of demon form when talented into fel-scarred. Not saying all of these have to be implemented, just some ideas I’ve seen thrown around.
Havoc spec tree (this needs love too, not just aldrachi):
Cycle of Hatred: this feels really bad any time we take essence break (which is most of the time), as any downtime or slightly too much/little haste causes eye beam and essence break to desync. Either making CoH a flat 10s/20s eye beam cdr node or making it effect both eye beam and essence break (like anger management for warriors) would fix this issue.
Essence break: tbf getting rid of any of the short damage amp windows would help, but i’m focusing on essb since it’s what a lot of people struggle with and/or dislike. I’m not saying completely throw it out, but slightly redesign it. Rather than having all blade dances and chaos strikes for the next 4 seconds do increased damage, making it so that your next 2 blade dances & chaos strikes within 20 seconds do a larger amount of increased damage would not only make it feel less restrictive in our rotation but allow for more adjustment in tuning it later on since it would be independent of haste.
Accelerated Blade, Furious Throws, Serrated Glaive, and Soulscar: Having to spend 4 talent points to get an extra button in your rotation that does just ok damage is a definite weak point of the tree. Without the s3/4 df tierset it is just not worth it. Serrated glaive might be taken but solely for the chaos strike damage. If throw glaive is to remain a rotational option, then either some of the power of these talents (like accelerated/serrated glaive) needs to be baked into throw itself or the DF s3 tierset needs to be worked into the tree in some way.
Eye Beam: it’s technically a talent so im including it, eye beam does almost no damage. This makes the damage amp of blind fury or Looks Can Kill feel like bait or underwhelming, as even with them eye beam amounts to less damage than a fel devastation from collective anguish. The tank version of eye beam that is supposed to be more defensive does more damage than eye beam in the dps spec, and it is NOT because fel dev does too much.
Fel barrage: it was redesigned and then promptly nerfed into obscurity again so that we dont even use it in aoe, and currently it is not looking like either hero tree will either. If you want us to use it, let us use it, otherwise put something else in its place (like the df s3 tier for throwing glaives).
A Fire Inside: this isn’t a design/tuning issue, but a pathing one. At the moment it is fine because we always take KYE anyway, but something to think about if that node gets changed or moved. Why is AFI on the opposite side of the tree from growing inferno, burning wound, and ragefire? It makes no sense.
Class tree (short but i might edit to add more later):
Darkness: this being in the bottom gate with all of the dps options has always felt strange, but not impossible to get. With aldrachi wanting all of the sigil synergy now, it is much more difficult. It is very similar to how warriors in dragonflight had to choose between massive damage, massive damage, massive damage, or shockwave. We are being put in the same position of having to choose massive damage or a potentially large group defensive. Please adjust the position of darkness so that we are choosing between utility options, not between damage and utility.
Vengeful Retreat: There is absolutely no reason this shouldnt also remove roots. The majority of non-DHs already think it does anyway because disengage does. It wouldn’t even be broken since we would have to hold an important 20s damage button just to break a root. Demon hunters are by far, no contest, the class that is the most negatively effected by roots but has absolutely no way to break them. The hunt, fel blade, fel rush, meta, and vengeful retreat simply do not work if you are rooted even if you are in melee range. I suppose another solution would be to make those abilites still pressable but keep you rooted in place. Another option would be to have the intial burst of immo aura “burn away” roots, which may be too powerful but again no other class even comes close to being effected as negatively by roots as havoc does (this coming from someone who plays multiple melee specs).
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