Hello!
After almost a year of no changes to the Demon Hunter class, and the Havoc specialization in particular, I felt it is important to highlight some of the issues that I believe have plagued the class and spec. Some of these issues have persisted beyond even our small “revamp” in Amirdrassil - and to be clear, it was not a full rework, the basic core remained the exact same - and some of them have only really become glaring with the introduction of hero trees. Buckle up, this is going to be a long one, likely the longest post that I have ever made on the forums.
Who am I?
No one special, really. I’ve played Havoc since mid-Legion casually, and then seriously starting in Battle for Azeroth. I’d like to think that at least a small subsection of the Havoc playerbase might recognize my name with the resources I have attempted to create and maintain, but at the end of the day, I’m not a big streamer, I’m not a World First raider, I’m not a Gladiator, and I’m not a Title Key pusher. I would like to think my views represent the views of a good chunk of the playerbase, but I am absolutely not representing this as such. The views that follow are mine, and mine alone.
The Good
I will start off with the positives. As far as the class is concerned, it does have access to a lot of new things that it did not have the ability to have before. Some of the largest complaints that were made in the later parts of Shadowlands (when Venthyr and Sinful Brand were the go-tos) surrounded just how critical borrowed power systems became for the class and the very limited number of things we could do at once. Having to choose between Cycle of Hatred or First Blood sucked, and having a whole tier where your entire gameplay loop consisted of extending Sinful Brand as much as possible made Havoc nearly unplayable. I enjoy the current gameplay loop, and I enjoy the damage profile. I will grant that - at times - it is weak, and the effort put in does not match the result, but the general playstyle now is one I like.
The Bad
Here is where I get into my criticisms. There are many. The long and short of it is that the class tree is a mess, the bugs we have are irritating, and the spec tree is full of superfluous things that could just as easily be built into the core of the class and spec. With that core complaint in mind, let us begin.
1. The Bugs
There are a lot. This is not an issue specific to Havoc, and there are numerous classes that have their fair share of bugs, but some of these have existed since the new talent trees were first introduced. The most egregious bug that comes to mind is the interaction Know Your Enemy has with cantrip effects and trinkets. Other classes have had interactions like these purposely removed because it was disproportionately beneficial. Hasted PPM was heavily limited (or it was hinted that attempts were being made to limit it) because of how overbearing it was for some classes. The fact that this has existed since the first iteration of our spec tree back at the end of Dragonflight’s Alpha is a testament to how little effort it feels like Havoc has received. Let me be clear when I say this: I am not saying Havoc is intentionally an afterthought or is maliciously singled out, but instances like this do give the impression of such, and the number of people who have expressed this to me - in public and in private - is alarming.
I would get into detail as to all of the bugs, but at this point, they are documented very publicly, and would only serve to inflate the size of this post beyond reason.
2. The Class Tree
It genuinely feels like a mess. Paladins complained early on that there were too many massive throughput options at the bottom of their tree, and the tree was reworked. Every single capstone at the bottom of Demon Hunter’s class tree is a throughput node. This is compounded by the fact that there are a lot of very useless nodes that you have to path through to get there. You are required to take two nodes that involve parry in some way just to get down to this part of the tree. And then, of course, the largest elephant in the room is the fact that Darkness was divided into two nodes and stuck in the bottom of the tree.
Rallying Cry and Anti-Magic Zone are one-point nodes in the dead center of the Warrior and Death Knight trees, and these are arguably stronger raid defensives than Darkness depending on the situation. Why is Darkness unique? What makes it so special that it needed to be cut in two and stuck in the bottom? If I could make one change immediately to the tree, it would be swapping the positions of the two parry nodes and the two Darkness nodes.
3. The Spec Tree
Here is where I really get into the meat of my problems. There are a lot of core issues with the tree that I take issue with. There are some that have called out my criticism of Shattered Destiny and Cycle of Hatred, and upon re-examining it, I realize I don’t take issue with increased Meta uptime, but in how it is delivered. Shattered Destiny on its own is probably fine, but Cycle of Hatred is just too much of a problem. Uptime-dependent-CDR has been phased out of almost every other class because of this. If Cycle were changed to reduce Eye Beam’s cooldown by 10 second per point invested in the talent I would have much less of a problem with it.
That is only problem one.
Problem two is the superfluous talents that exist. Demon Hide and Scars of Suffering seem so silly, both providing what amounts to an aura buff to our spec. Scars of Suffering literally reduces our threat generation, something that I’m sure could just be turned down with a global threat generation aura tweak. They’re so bland and I don’t understand why they exist. Could they not just be cooked into the spec?
Problem three is the Throw Glaive talents.
I take no issue with their existence, I take issue with the fact they seem to have so much friction with so much of the tree. They don’t interact with anything else on their own (save Burning Wound, which is another issue entirely.) The fact you have to invest into a talent that adds a cost to it also frustrates me, but that could simply be due to the fact that we were spoiled with the Amirdrassil tier bonus. A friend of mine suggested that perhaps Essence Break could increase the damage of Throw Glaives during that window to really make them feel good, but as of right now, unless you play Aldrachi Reaver, there isn’t really a point to them.
Problem four is Burning Wound.
Okay, this one is admittedly a bit more minor, but I dislike strongly that the only way to apply it en masse is via Throw Glaive. You need Burning Wound to really play Ragefire, and considering Havoc is not a DoT class at its core, the way to play around it without wasting global cooldowns is to tab-target. It’s not great, and we already complained about this back in Shadowlands. Could Blade Dance - at the very least - also apply it?
Problem five is Chaotic Transformation.
When other classes want to use cooldowns, there is very little in the way of setup. They might have a couple globals, but when they want to use their cooldowns, they use them. Havoc is not like this. You have a number of GCDs you have to expend to build into your Metamorphosis cast, and then you can use it. It’s frustrating beyond belief. Your cooldown on Metamorphosis is not just 2 minutes, it’s 2 minutes and however many seconds until your next Eye Beam, and it feels bad near the end of fights when you can’t get your full combo in.
Problem six is the combo itself.
There are sixteen global cooldowns in your opener. Some of them are only added because of Fel-Scarred or Aldrachi Reaver, yes, but the fact it takes a full twenty seconds to even get into your rotation is insane. We have so many stacking damage amps that it has made many express they feel like they put in three times the effort for barely equivalent damage to other specs. Obviously that’s a tuning thing, but when you need to line up Sigil of Flame, and Eye Beam, and Immolation Aura, and Vengeful Retreat, and Essence Break all at once just to do a small six second burst, it feels overwhelming.
There are likely a few other problems I could mention (movement playstyles versus non-movement playstyles), but those issues are already heavily discussed as is, and considering I take no problem with movement-for-damage, I don’t believe I can expand properly enough on that complaint to do it justice.
4. Aldrachi Reaver
I hate this tree and hope it never sees the light of day. There, I said it, crucify me later. I dislike the playstyle requiring souls to activate it. I dislike that the “Aldrachi combo” only has an illusion of choice (you always Blade Dance first, Chaos Strike second, there is no other way to do it). I dislike that it’s so uptime dependent as a consequence of the first complaint. I strongly want it to be reworked. I don’t know to what, but I hate it as is.
5. Defense
Havoc’s defense boils down to leech and Blur, and leech has been nerfed a lot. It can’t trigger on absorbs, you can’t rely on it when you’re off the boss (or any mob at all), and it applies after the damage has occurred. Other classes have a few defensive options they can call on. Havoc has two, with one being on a three minute cooldown. As a side note, Netherwalk being on the GCD when it removes your ability to actually attack the target feels overkill, can this get removed from it?
In Closing
I hope I didn’t come off as ranty. Like I said, all of this is my own personal belief, and I encourage debate. I don’t know what else to do, really. Hope at least a little of my feedback can be applied for good and improve the class. Thanks for reading.