Tree:
https://i.imgur.com/cA4Y2iR.jpg
Talent Tooltips:
https://i.imgur.com/S3GcBq5.jpg
Tree + Talent Tooltips:
https://i.imgur.com/KhgyfBD.jpg
Import Link for Interactive Tree (Requires Wow Talent Tree Generator):
https://pastebin.com/iyj4v2QJ
Hey guys, I know I’m a little late to the party here, but I just wanted to give some thoughts to the current Dragonflight Talents for Havoc DHs, as well as some suggestions to fix the issues and a mock-up talent tree with ideas I had. While some of the new talents do seem interesting, the Havoc DH tree ultimately feels extremely lackluster and feels like it was put together as a last-minute effort with a “will work on later” stickied to it. Have you ever worked on an essay in the middle of the night, got super tired mid-way through and just copied/pasted a couple of paragraphs from Wikipedia and called it a day with the intention to polish it the next morning? That’s the gist I get when I see the Havoc DH tree in its current state. I don’t really blame the Devs, as it is likely the hardest tree to work on, seeing as how it was introduced in an Expansion with heavy borrowed power from Artifacts and Legendaries.
With the pre-patch likely to hit in a month or so, I don’t expect any changes to the trees besides some minor tuning and maybe some moving around of talents. I do expect that the talent trees will be the point of contention for balancing throughout Dragonflight just as Azerite/Covenants/Legendaries/Corruption were before it, especially seeing as the devs have stated that there will be no borrowed power in Dragonflight. And if nothing else, creating a talent tree was at least a bit of fun for me.
Structure:
First thing to note is that the current tree design is symmetrical. This is fairly common across most of the DPS trees (i.e., Mage, Rogue, Warrior), compared to a select few others (i.e., SPriest, Destro Lock, Hunter). Our tree is well dispersed in terms of talents per row compared to something like an Ele Shaman, which is a very top-light and bottom-heavy spec with 7 talents in Row 9 and 5 in Row 10 compared to our 5 and 3, respectively.
To transition from one side of our tree to the other (i.e., left > right) can be done only through Chaotic Transformation in Row 5. In order to reach 2 of the 3 bottom row talents (Any Means Necessary (AMN) and Essence Break), you must invest at least 6 points if transitioning across the tree from the Chaotic Transformation node, whereas only 4 points are required to be invested to grab Shattered Destiny as long as you spec into either Blind Fury or Serrated Glaive. The former is a much more attractive and well-rounded talent for any spec, while the latter is fairly niche and only really appeal to players who are going to be playing a Throw Glaive build, or a build that focuses around Eye Beam/KYE/CoH (in which case you’ll need to take Blind Fury anyways).
The main body of the tree gives us 4 columns from Row 5 to Row 8, with freedom to skip points invested and to move between columns adjacent to each other to the right and left sides of the tree . Additionally, the middle “column” that starts with Chaotic Transformation and ends with Shattered Destiny focuses around Metamorphosis/Eyebeam will fit into any playstyle.
Some talent points feel like they were strewn around randomly. Having Relentless Onslaught in the right side of the tree definitely feels off; it doesn’t make a lot of sense for anyone who isn’t playing a build focused around spamming Chaos Strikes to take it. If someone wanted to play Momentum but wanted to invest more into a single target build with Isolated Prey/CT and into Shattered Destiny as opposed to Growing Inferno/BW, they won’t have enough points to grab Relentless Onslaught. So was this just meant to be taken by people who want to buff Eye Beams with Serrated Glaive? I think while the overall structure of the Havoc Tree is well-defined, the placements of some talents could be better organised.
Demonic:
I understand why the Devs want to have Demonic in the class tree as Demonic is a very impactful talent for both specs. However, after seeing the last (2?) talent tree updates and all the band-aid changes they made, it feels that it was a very poor decision to put Demonic up against Demonic Origins in a choice node.
For both Vengeance and Havoc, Demonic will always be more desirable than Demonic Origins for multiple reasons. For Vengeance, it’s a simple matter of it simply offering more survivability as opposed to a 3 min cooldown that’s only good… if you’re anticipating a lot of incoming damage every 3 minutes for 30 seconds with almost nothing going on in-between. Now, the Devs have tried to ameliorate this by giving Demonic Origins a 10% Versatility buff, which doesn’t really resolve the problem of everything that happens between those 3 minutes. The only exception that I can see is if I’m tanking a Key and there are only good large pulls every ~3 minutes or so.
For Havoc DHs, the choice is even more obvious. In addition to CoH, the 2 new Talents, Restless Hunter and Inner Demon work almost exclusively with Demonic in mind. Now, both of those talents have their own issues, but we will touch on that later. The Devs have tried to make the choice a little less obvious, by nerfing the CD of Eye Beam to 40 seconds. I think it’s very poor game design to change the cooldown for a hallmark ability that’s used in every single playstyle for Havoc just to make Demonic less appealing. Additionally, the 10% Versatility buff doesn’t feel like a very strong secondary stat to give since the left/right halves of the trees are seemingly focused on Crit/Mastery towards the bottom. It honestly feels like the Devs are hurting the way the spec is played just to try to fit Demonic/Demonic Origins into the same choice node in the class tree.
I do think that Demonic belongs in a choice node, as otherwise it would be almost cookie cutter and picked by every DH. However, Demonic Origins is a poor talent for it to go up against, because Demonic would honestly win almost every single time. A choice that makes more sense would be something like Chaotic Transformation plus some perks. Players should be able to choose between being able to deal damage consistently with Demonic, or to have a more impactful 3 or 4 min cooldown with their Metamorphosis. Demonic/Chaotic Transformation should be a choice node in the Havoc tree and not the class tree, and Vengeance would have to have their own version of a stronger Metamorphosis.
Individual Talents Feedback:
I won’t go into as much detail on my thoughts about each talent as I did with Demonic, as I feel that none of them have really negatively impacted the class just to force the choice between Demonic/Demonic Origins to feel more balanced.
Ragefire: A very good talent upon first glance, but going for a Ragefire build means that you will probably have to take Aura of Pain, Initiative, KYE, and build on Crit at the same time, which can really restrict how you spend whatever little talent points you have left and means that you’ll almost always be building your tree around this specific talent with the same specific routes. Additionally, the new changes to Ragefire (capped at your 3 highest crit ticks), may make it extremely unfun/inconsistent to play. With this change, you’ll want your last few ticks of Immo Aura to crit due to Growing Inferno, but that is extremely hard to control. I understand that Ragefire was outperforming any other build before this nerf, but I think that capping Ragefire to 3 crits does more harm than good to the talent. Instead, it would make more sense to just make a nerf to the damage accumulated per crit, or to cap the total accumulated damage would be a much better move.
Momentum: Momentum has always been a controversial talent. The Glide element has been removed, likely meaning that its duration will be additive come DF release. Since the bonus where Vengeful Retreat grants Fury has been moved to its own Talent Node, Momentum now can be activated by Vengeful Retreat. However, with this, alongside the decreased Fel Rush CD with Erratic Felheart, Momentum goes from having a ~50-60% uptime to nearly 100% uptime. If Momentum’s duration isn’t additive on release, it goes back to its Legion iteration with higher uptime but lower %dmg amp at 10%. This makes the build extremely hectic to play and likely fairly unenjoyable. Ontop of this, because Momentum is no longer directly competing with something like Demonic, and acts as its own node, means that it will likely be nearly mandatory for anyone who wants to optimise their output.
Essence Break: I can understand why the Devs moved Essence Break to the bottom row over momentum, since they want Momentum to be a more accessible build in its own lane. However, I feel that adding what is essentially another AOE talent with a bit of rotation built into it isn’t really impactful as a bottom row talent. We already have 4 AOE talents to choose between in Row 9 with Glaive Tempest/Fel Barrage and Fodder/Elysian, after all.
Inner Demon: This talent, while good in concept, is extremely confusing in design. It has a 5s cooldown, but a <1 min proc rate? Does this mean that you can’t cast Inner Demon’s buffed Chaos Strikes back to back to back with: Eye Beam (Demonic) > Inner Demon Chaos Strike > Meta > Inner Demon Chaos Strike > Eye Beam (Demonic) > Inner Demon Chaos Strike? Either way, I’m not sure how this works in Beta currently, but it feels like the only reason why you’d ever take this talent is if you went with Demonic, and the same is true for:
Restless Hunter: I guess the extra Fel Rush Charge would benefit Momentum players. But again, why would anyone ever take this talent if they aren’t taking Demonic? And is buffing Blade Dance again with a 4th talent (conditional this time, though) really good design?
Shattered Destiny: A fairly good talent that could, in theory, benefit both Demonic and Non-Demonic players; it allows Demonic players to try to extend their demon form, and it allows Metamorphosis to be even more impactful for us to theoretically extend their Demon form from Meta for a longer duration of time since there is more leeway to expend fury in a 30 sec window. However, due to the route required to take it, this is a talent almost exclusive to Demonic players.
Mo’arg Bionics/Soulrend: Both pretty flat talents. It seems that the Devs want to introduce a build that focuses, at least partially, around Throw Glaive. There is nothing wrong with that IMO, just like how there’s nothing wrong with Momentum; if you don’t like the build, simply choose a different one (assuming that multiple builds are viable). However, just adding damage/charges/ricochets into Throw Glaive is a very poor way to introduce a build around the ability.
Burning Wounds: I understand that there has been a bit of back and forth with what applies BW throughout its development in the Beta. Having played BW almost exclusively in 9.1, I definitely agree with the notion that applying BW with Demon Blades felt really bad since it was a % chance with passive melee. I think a pretty simple solution would just be to have Chaos Strike and the first X targets struck by your Blade Dance apply BW, as opposed to forcing it with Throw Glaive/your generator in the way it is at the moment.
Mortal Dance: The fact that this talent exists honestly makes me think that the Devs really ran out of ideas for the Havoc Tree. There’s literally no reason to take this talent outside of PVP/extremely niche PVE situations.
Looks can Kill/Furious Gaze: Deconstructing an ability just to split its benefits from higher ranks into talents feels a bit lazy. Then again, I haven’t really gotten into any of the other classes’ talent trees in depth enough to know whether the same was done to their abilities. Having to spend talent points just to make your abilities “whole” again honestly feels bad, and it feels worse to have to spend 2 points in separate branches in the tree to do it.
Improved Chaos Strike: Boring cookie cutter talents that straight up give a flat % increase in damage, IMO, were the main issue with the original talent trees pre-MoP. They don’t really offer any choice as to whether or not you take them, and exist pretty much solely because there’s nothing else to put there. The decision over whether or not you take ICS honestly comes down to waste a point in something that may as well be baseline, vs to not take the talent and feeling gimped doing so.
Improved Fel Rush: Really weird talent as there’s almost no reason to take it unless you’re taking Unbound Chaos way later in the tree, at which point you’re already heavily invested into the Momentum build line.
Dancing with Fate: DwF made more sense to be a Conduit and definitely feels awkward to exist in a Talent Tree when there’s already Trail of Ruin. Both talents do almost the same thing (buff damage output of the last slash of your Blade Dance), with the exception that ToR has the benefit of dealing Chaos damage over time. Having it as a 2 point investment just to branch out into ToR is almost adding insult to injury.
To Summarise:
- Demonic Origins is a poor counter option to Demonic under a choice node
- The idea of having talents like Inner Demon and Restless Hunter which work around your Demon Form is good, but feel too heavily reliable to taking Demonic in their current design
- Essence Break doesn’t really add anything new to the spec as a Row 10 talent
- Too many cookie cutter/underwhelming talents that are either redundant/there to build up an ability back to be baseline in previous expansions
- Some talents are out of place when the tree itself is seemingly very structured
- The current Throw Glaive build feels pretty flat and doesn’t add anything to your rotation; it’s really just using Throw Glaive on CD
Key Suggested Changes:
- Move Demonic and Demonic Origins back over to the Havoc/Vengeance trees, and into Separate choice nodes alongside Chaotic Transformation/Shattered Destiny, respectively. Change Demonic Origins from a flat cooldown reduction to be based off of Fury spent
- Change how Inner Demon/Restless Hunter works so that they benefit off of both Demonic and non-demonic playstyles
- Create a Throw Glaive playstyle that can shine in 2-4 target situations and give it synergy with the Immolation Aura column and a rotation of its own
- Make it so that a Ragefire build has the option to invest secondarily in either the Throw Glaive column or the Initiative/KYE column
- Remove cookie cutter talents/introduce playstyle/synergies to them by making new talents
- Move around some talents so their positioning makes more sense in the prior points invested to reach them and ultimately the builds that they’re trying to contribute to
- Overhaul Momentum to make its activation grant you a window where you have to use your movement abilities to maintain its damage amp buff, so that the build isn’t just the player hectically dashing around every 5 seconds.
With all that in mind, I came up with the following Talent Tree mock-up using TobiasM95’s WoW Talent Tree Generator; keep in mind that I had to change some Icons so that they’re all unique and can be correlated to their respective tooltips. Also keep in mind that I’m not hardlining for any of the numbers; that includes damage% buffs, durations, CDs, procs per min, max stacks, etc. I just put them there to make it easier to “visualise” the tree as opposed to having a bunch of “X%, X sec, X stacks”.
Mock Talent Tree Breakdown:
Demonic/Chaotic Transformation: It makes sense for us to have to choose between having a more impactful/powerful Metamorphosis on a longer cooldown versus the benefits of Demonic. The 10% Vers buff is honestly optional, and I only kept it because it was already there. The Greater Soul Fragments shattered serves to build up synergy between using Meta and talents which use Greater Soul Fragments.
Greater Soul Fragments: I wanted to 1) Give Essence Break and Chaotic Transformation more appeal and impact to Shattered Destiny/Demonic Origins and 2) Give Inner Demon a secondary means of activation so that it is not strictly a Demonic thing; it would benefit from taking Chaotic Transformation as well.
Restless Hunter: RH should be playable with both Momentum and/or AMN. Additionally, having the duration benefit directly based on how long the player spent in Demon form will allow it to be viable with both Shattered Destiny or Demonic Origins.
Demonic Origins/Shattered Destiny: Demonic Origins honestly doesn’t feel great as a flat -CD on Metamorphosis, especially since there is already a talent that does that with Rush of Chaos. A better way to introduce the talent is to have it as a choice node alongside Shattered Destiny, where players can choose to reduce the CD on their Meta or the ability to Extend its Duration, so that your decisions can have synergy with ID/RH as well as Chaotic Transformation/Demonic.
Essence Break: Having Essence Break generate Greater Soul Fragments allows it to play into both Inner Demon, as well as DO/SD and through that, into Restless Hunter. It also gives players the choice of playing Essence Break with Demonic for more consistent Greater Soul Fragment Generation, or to play Chaotic Transformation+Shattered Destiny to be able to cast 2 Essence Breaks in a stronger Meta.
The Demons Within: I just honestly hated FttF and how it’s played; it’s incredibly flimsy IMO and almost breaks lore on some levels. This talent does almost the same thing as FttF but it is more controlled (~every 2 Eye Beams, or 3 with CoH) and can proc off of Throw Glaive ricochets, allowing it to benefit more from a Throw Glaive build where you won’t have to switch targets to proc it.
Seething Blades: As opposed to just adding a flat 15% damage increase to Chaos Strike, I wanted a talent that buffs Chaos Strike to have a bit more nuance and synergy with various builds. With this talent, someone taking AMN will have a constant upkeep of their Chaos Strike damage buff through Immolation Aura ticks, and a player taking Trial of Ruin/First Blood will also be able to get a greater/more consistent buff to their Chaos Strikes.
Insatiable Hunger/Demon Blades/Demonic Appetite/Fallout/Thirsting Blades: I don’t know if anyone really prefers using Demon’s Bite over Demon Blades, and I think that it should ultimately come down to the Fury Generation vs GCD usage when it comes down to choosing between the two. I added Fallout as a choice node alongside Demonic Appetite for some synergy with a Ragefire build. Having played Demonic Appetite in BFA, I really didn’t enjoy having to move around as I did my rotation to collect soul fragments. That, plus the fact that any mechanic that prohibits the player from moving will null out using Soul Fragments as a means of Fury generation lead me to come up with Thirsting Blades as a means to claim Soul Fragments.
Grim Tinder: Obviously different from its iteration in Torghast, this talent was mainly created to both contribute to a Ragefire build, as well as contribute to a rotation for a Throw Glaive build.
Ruinous Brand: I mainly introduced this talent to give the Throw Glaive build a rotation of its own. Taken with Soulrend, this build would ideally be viable for a 2-4 target fight, while also being strong in an AoE/M+ situation. It shares synergy with the adjacent Throw Glaive column, allowing the DH to quickly build up stacks in a 2 or 3 target situation, and to build higher stacks in AoE situations. One point of contention is whether it’ll be too overpowered if stacked with Initiative’s Crit% bonus, but the max number of stacks can easily be reduced for it to still be viable, just less effective in 2/3 target situations. I wasn’t really able to perfect the wording for this ability’s tooltip, so to break it down:
- Whenever you damage any target affected by Ruinous Brand with your Throw Glaive (or its ricochets), they gain 1 stack of Ruinous Brand
- After that, any targets who do not already have Ruinous Brand on them will have Ruinous Brand applied to them if they are hit by subsequent Ricochets from your Throw Glaive
- So if you cast Throw Glaive on a target without Ruinous Brand on them, and it ricochets to 2 more targets, with the second target being affected by Ruinous Brand but not the third: nothing happens to the first target, the second targets gains another stack of Ruinous Brand, and the third target gains a fresh single stack of Ruinous Brand
Master of the Glaive/Fel Bombardment/Soulrend: In order for Ruinous Brand and ultimately a build centering around Immolation Aura to work in a 2/3 target situation, Soulrend is necessary as the bounceback will add stacks of Ruinous brand between 2-3 targets. This effect is exacerbated with Master of the Glaive and Fel Bombardment.
I understand that by moving the bonus charge and ricochet for Throw Glaive to the Havoc Tree, something has to be given to Vengeance in its tree as well.
Back to the Fray: This was mainly a filler point and a fix to Improved Fel Rush. I honestly don’t think that Fel Rush/Unbound needs another damage amplifier as it has its own perk of being uncapped AoE damage. However, having a talent that makes Momentum smoother to play by adding Fel Rush range and damage for Unbound Chaos when you Vengeful Retreat is a nice bonus.
Misc Changes:
- Combined Looks can Kill with Furious Gaze
- Combined the effects of Mortal Dance into Isolated Prey
- Removed Dancing with Fate
- Moved Relentless Onslaught to row 2 and nerfed the proc chance; it’s honestly a very basic passive
Misc Thoughts:
Collective Anguish: I was pretty disappointed with CA making a return. While I love the effect, I feel that the execution and spell art/effect is fairly clunky and clownish. The allied DH literally appears out of thin air and their Fel Dev/Eye Beam isn’t controllable mid-channel, which can be annoying at times. At least we don’t have to rely on it to extend our Sinful Brands anymore.
Desperate Instincts: Not really sure of any situations where you’d take this over Netherwalk, since having an immune is almost always better. Since this change was made recently-ish, I haven’t incorporated that change into my tree. The only suggestion I would have ATM would be to be:
Desperate Instincts:
When you fall below X% health while under the effects of Blur, you can activate it again to gain an additional X% damage reduction and extend its duration for X sec.
Any thoughts/feedback would be appreciated.