The problem:
There’s a big divide between Havoc players between Demonic and Momentum playstyles, and it guarantees that one group or the other will always be dissatisfied based on what’s meta in a given season. When Demonic is popular, Momentum players are bored. When Momentum is popular, Demonic players are frustrated.
One of the reasons this is an ongoing problem is because Demonic and Momentum do the exact same thing as each other: Use ability, get a short-term damage window and try to dump as much DPS into that window as possible. Aside from fights like Sludgefist where Momentum is completely off the table, Demonic doesn’t accomplish anything that Momentum doesn’t also accomplish. Since they do the same thing, the only question for many players is which one is mathematically better. If one gives better DPS than the other during a given season, it becomes the meta and everyone follows it.
As it stands, we’re not making choices about how we want our character to play or what we want to be good at; we’re just solving a math problem that then determines everything about how we have to (or get to) play our character.
My solution:
Give Demonic and Momentum different niches. Make one better than the other at AOE, single target, cleave, funneling, burst, or sustained dps. Give the other something it does better. Give Momentum utility that augments their party’s mobility. Give Demonic utility that augments their party’s tankiness.
Give them both something they can do that the other can’t. That way, even when one is mathematically better than the other, there’s always some excuse to play the other one.
(PS: Really, adding a third Demon Hunter spec – Vengeance, Demonic, and Momentum – should be the way we implement this. Separating these out would make it easier to create more defined roles. Additionally, it would give Demon Hunter players more license to play the spec they prefer, in the same way that someone who plays a Frost Mage feels like they’re still allowed to play Frost even when it’s not favored.)
Just my 2 cents, not necessarily disagreeing with anything you posted above.
I will probably always use demonic, due to:
aesthetic reasons
– I like being in demon form; I like the class fantasy and lore
– would love more customization, more (talents, abilities, visuals) that draw inspiration from demons your character has consumed
preferring the bonus haste:
– faster gcd = less latency between a gameplay event and my reaction
– less RNG variance, due to more samples averaging things out
the extra charge of fel rush being available:
– more useful movement when demonic
bonus leech of soul rending synergy:
– still have to move just as much as any other melee, if not more due to no netherwalk, but saves the healer some reaction time to help other teammates / can avoid a full wipe when healer goes down
I was just thinking about this actually now that we’ve had some changes in the alpha. I’m a momentum evangelist but even tho it looks like the talent is getting a buff (benefit off fel-blade and the hunt) I’m worried that this is going to give us far too much up-time and it’s going to make momentum into a maintenance buff. Plus all the crying from the usual types who are “forced to play it.”
I think momentum shouldn’t be a buff at all, it should just enhance a few of our abilities, maybe buff throw glaive to spread a dot like burning wound, blade dance to not trigger its CD, chaos strike to guarantee a refund, stuff like that. If we don’t spend the charges within six seconds then each charge should refund a few seconds for the Fel Rush CD so that there’s not as much penalty for using it strictly for movement. If we’re just talking a distinct damage window then that’s two talents doing roughly the same things - demonic’s meta window you want to time death sweep at the start and the finish and momentum’s window you sync up with essence break. It wouldn’t take much to alter these talents to be more about informed choices and less about a specific input formula that’ll guarantee the most output.
Giving one a niche just makes it meta in that niche… it solves no issues. if one is better in aoe then you are forced into it in M+. So if you hate that playstyle you are now still forced to play it. Not sure how you think this helps anything.
They just gotta choose. They gotta pick which one is the real demon hunter style. Momentum, or Demonic. And the other half will just have to go. Personally Demonic is 100 times more popular than momentum so it should be momentum that goes. Momentum is just super flawed anyways.
I probably continue to use Demonic as it gives me more survivability and control over my position in combat.
The problem with momentum is that it can cause accidental kills or additional stress on healers, and its damage bonus does not compensate for this.
For me the difference between Momentum and Demonic should be like the difference between Crit and Haste, or tanky dps vs glass cannon dps. But the DH doesn’t really have the tools to be a glass cannon dps, like the rogue does.
The distinction doesn’t have to be AOE vs. ST. One could be better for cleave, funneling, or burst. Just as long as it does something well that the other doesn’t do as well.
I don’t think this is a bad thing. Having different builds and playstyles for different content is good and normal.
Which one is more popular in a given moment depends entirely on how the math works out in a given tier. More importantly, if you have two playstyles that do all of the exact same things exactly as well as each other, obviously the one that’s easier to play is going to be more popular.
If the two talents are equal, Demonic will always win because it requires nothing of you. Gameplay with and without Demonic is identical. It carries no risks. It doesn’t affect your rotation. It doesn’t change anything at all. It’s a passive buff that passively makes you stronger when you do the things you were going to do anyway.
If we had cheat codes, those would be popular too.
Stop being ridiculous. No. Momentum is never popular. Even when it was a meta build for the tiny portion of time it had, you still had a lot of Demon Hunters not picking it. Which is incredibly unusual. It just goes to show how much people hate using mobility to deal damage.
No matter what, if you make it better in any scenario, it’s suddenly mandatory within that scenario. Nobody wants it to be pickable… freaking ever.
Just let it go. Let momentum die. If you want you can dash around like a fool on your own time. But don’t try to push this on us. We don’t want it.
Demonic is good because it doesn’t force us to do stupid things to deal damage. Yes, it’s just a buff, it lets us do our normal rotation. Normal rotation good, mobility rotation bad. Get it through your head.
Of course. Why would you make your rotation more complicated, difficult, and risky when there’s a passive talent that does all the same things but stronger, safer, and easier?
If you offered every spec a talent that replaced everything interesting about their class/rotation with a 2-button rotation that did everything their current rotation does but better, 100% of them would take that talent 100% of the time.
If Demonology’s final talent row had two talents that were “You have to do this big complicated rotation to get all your imps out to get a big Tyrant for your burst” and “Just spam Shadowbolt and you’ll do more damage,” the current Demonology playstyle would die instantly and Demonology would become a meme spec like Havoc is currently.
Well. Just remove the big complicated talent and you no longer have a problem, right? I mean if majority of the playerbase hate that complicated talent, and refuse to play the class cause it exists… maybe it shouldn’t exist.
I think most players are fine with Demon Hunter being a little simple. It’s when they add things like Momentum, or the venthyr ability do they start to just hate demon hunter. It’s a know your audience type of deal. It’s clearly shown that Demon Hunters don’t want all this maintenance garbage in their kit.
I get you dislike that… but honestly I don’t think Demon Hunter is for you. You don’t really fit in with the average demon Hunter player, and you get frustrated by their demands. I think it’s time you just picked a class that better suits your taste instead of trying to swim upstream here.
That’s not true. I mean what you said goes for any meta build. Has nothing to do with momentum for starters. And even still, as far as meta builds go, it was heavily divided with many players still not wanting to play it. Which again, that never happens with meta builds. It just shows how garbage it is.
Now stop swimming up stream. Go play your dk and go bother the dk forums.
Emerald Nightmare is the first tier we played as Demon Hunters. Nemesis got buffed immediately after relevating Momentum to irrelevance for the rest of the expansion.
This shows how much people “loved” Momentum. There were complaints on the forum since day 1.
Yeah. if it happens everyone will rage. Then it will be updated in a week with momentum nerfed even worse than the joke pick it already is. So I welcome that. Let it be in the middle and see what happens. But you won’t like the results afterwards.
Every single time momentum has been meta, people have gone on a tangent on this forum, and every single time just shortly after it gets nerfed to the ground or something else made a million times better.
If you spent a couple expansions training people to think spamming Shadowbolt was all Demonology should ever be, you’d have a lot of people arguing for this. Why should there ever be anything interesting, unique or challenging about Demonology when I’ve gotten used to being successful by pressing one button?
You’d have people longing for the old form of Demonology and getting shouted down by people who’ve decided a class that only spams Shadowbolt is Good, Actually.
I’m one of them. I primarily play simple, low-maintenance specs that I can play instinctively while focusing on mechanics and/or raid leading. Even simple specs can be interesting and satisfying in some way.
Other simple specs I enjoy, like Frost Mage, Outlaw Rogue, and Fury Warrior are extremely simple and easy to play, but each of them still has a “hook” that makes them feel unique, rewarding, and fun.
The problem with Demonic Havoc is there’s no “hook.” There’s no fun mechanic, high-point in the rotation, satisfying payoff, or any kind of gameplay loop that feels rewarding in any way. You spam Chaos Strike hoping for resets so you can Eye Beam more often. That’s it.
Momentum was never difficult to play, but it was the hook that took a simple class with a simple rotation and made it feel rewarding.
Momentum was the original form of Demon Hunter. It wasn’t added - it was taken away.
Sinful Brand is something else entirely. It actually is a maintenance buff and actually does make us into something we’re not supposed to be.
You really don’t know when to give up. You see what’s going on here? You’re completely alone. Your takes are not at all well received. Like how long can you keep going against the grain like this? What does your persistence do but tire you out and make you annoying to everyone else here?
You can’t change demon hunter. People have vocally decided what they wanted it to be, and it’s fully against everything you want. Take the L. Move on. Plenty of other classes to play.
There’s no point in continuing to argue. It’s already over. You have no supporters. This is pointless.
Chill out , and I don’t think he is alone in what he thinks, Momentum has problems, but it’s not like they can’t be solved, the question here is if Blizzard is willing to do it. Also, there is no talent tree yet, so c-h-i-l-l o-u-t.
Okay. No one is ever alone. So let’s put it this way. Momentum supporters are like a twig, versus a giant tree. What does a twig do when rammed against a tree? It snaps in half.
Anyways. We’ve had leaks. It’s best to nip this in the butt asap as to not ruin this spec for the majority of players that play it.
Absolutely true! Whichever build is meta will always be the most popular. You should keep that in mind while you argue for Demonic on the basis of its popularity.
This is the problem with there only being two specs for Demon Hunter. Demonic and Momentum should have been different specs so people could split up into the specs they enjoyed.
What? It happens all the time. Constantly.
People hated Disciplinary Command. People hated the Meteor build. People hate SKB. People hated Glacial Spike build. People hate Demonic. People hate Momentum. People hate Venthyr Boomie. People hate Breath of Sindragosa. People hate Kyrian Arcane. People hate Thermal Void/Icy Propulsion. People hated Kyrian WW. People hate Bonedust Brew.
Every one of those specs has a large number of players who like the playstyle. Meta shifts with a significant playstyle impact always has a bunch of people who are happy and people who are upset.
What you NEED to understand is how unpopular a certain meta build is. Momentum was unpopular enough to get a very vocal crowd to yell at blizzard enough to actually make momentum the weaker option.
You see, that shows dedication to hatred. Even though every meta build has haters, it takes a very flawed, deeply unpopular build to get so many players vocal enough to go out and actually change the meta through detest.
There is a much larger margin of people who are happy with demonic being meta, than people who are happy with Momentum being meta. I think a meta build should keep in mind the players wants and desires, and not push something out they dislike just because it is a more difficult playstyle. People play for meta. And honestly, if they dislike the meta playstyle of Demon Hunter, they will more likely than not just jump ship and play a different classes meta they do enjoy. That’s how it goes.
So why push away the vast majority of your players making momentum good when they have already told you they like demonic and want demonic to be best? You don’t want all of your demon hunter players to leave like they have now. You want them to stay and enjoy their class.
So, you just do as they ask. They are the people paying your bills. At the end of the day, they really should have the final say. Cause if you just refuse them, they will look elsewhere.
But the DH doesn’t really have the tools to be a glass cannon dps, like the rogue does. 
, and I don’t think he is alone in what he thinks, Momentum has problems, but it’s not like they can’t be solved, the question here is if Blizzard is willing to do it. Also, there is no talent tree yet, so c-h-i-l-l o-u-t.