Need an Honest Bluepost Regarding Momentum

Classes Demon Hunter
#1

Because the last one we got was a lie.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-demon-hunters/1315896/48

Every update since this post was made has seen momentum be a mandatory talent for the standard single target build. Our damage is going to be balanced around having momentum because otherwise, we would be op by taking it. Momentum is too easy to take for the fringe, unenjoyable playstyle it is.

I’m not interested in switching to some throw glaive build to avoid momentum(which momentum is still looking mandatory for that build too anyway). I want to continue playing the same playstyle I’ve been playing for the last 4 years, and right now, that is being infected by momentum. Even doing 1% less damage than I should be doing by choosing not to play momentum is unacceptable.

Momentum needs to be a choice node with a genuine choice, or be completely redesigned to not trigger off of fel rush so we only trigger it during our burst window.

Do something. Don’t ruin this class by forcing momentum as it’s currently designed.

8 Likes
#2

The sky is not falling, OK, lets establish that first.

Momentum is not mandatory, will not be mandatory, stop basing your opinion on bugged talents and abilities along with not yet balanced talents and abilities.

If anything happens in regards to Momentum it will be that players will be able to choose it and say they get 10% more damage, but that comes at the loss of 10% from not having other talents. And they also have to Fel Rush constantly. It’s the fact that it must be constantly maintained only to be about equal to other talents that will kill Momentum.

Momentum as designed is a talent that kills itself, non-issue.

3 Likes
#3

Bugged talents have nothing to do with how mandatory momentum is. Because of how easy momentum is to take in the tree, our damage will have to be balanced around having it, because otherwise, we will be doing 10% more damage than intended by playing momentum.

Momentum is not a simple bonus 10% damage. More like not taking momentum is a 10% damage nerf.

3 Likes
#4

I know this may sound bad, but havok dh is actually in one of the best places right now compared to other classes and specs. I just played on the most recent df beta build that came out today, and it feels really good.

Didn’t touch momentum once, and felt very smooth and awesome to play. Fast paced, fun and extremely high damage. I really think even if momentum turns out to be like a 1-2% dps gain it won’t really matter. Player skill and gear will far more than make up for that 2% and you’ll get to have fun playing dh how you want.

I am far more concerned right now with rogue, and I say rogue because the dev that does DH also does rogue. I would much rather him work on that class now than DH, because I could easily see myself maining DH for DF. It feels really smooth and nice to play.

1 Like
#5

Momentum requires that the Demon Hunter spend five or six Havoc tree points (itself plus two for UBC and one each for Initiative, Tactical Retreat and Improved Fel Rush), while also making Felblade a near required talent from the class tree, a DPS loss.

Momentum is a great example of an optional but likely also quite good talent build, but don’t call it an easy or cheap option. A fifth or sixth of your talent points is not a small price to pay. Having to be constantly maintaining the buff is not a small price to pay.

1 Like
#6

Taking all the best single target talents isn’t a cost. Momentum is so easy to take because of where it’s at in the tree, which means it will always be correct to take it, which means our damage will have to be balanced around taking it, which screws everyone who doesn’t want to play momentum.

1 Like
#7

You would, if you were serious about the class. Especially now that you’d be expected to take Collective Anguish in the class tree - which would have you taking Erratic Felheart to get to, which would synergize perfectly with Momentum.

Every update locks us in further to mandatory Momentum. Actually very funny!

(Personally I’m anti-collective anguish bc it diminishes class fantasy but wtf dps talent is there to take instead? :woman_shrugging:t3:)

1 Like
#8

I’m not sure who is going to be the more wrong, you or Rasaric. You’ll both be wrong in the end.

Remember that percentage boost can be reduced again, and again.

It’s like you don’t understand that a flat percentage gain is the easiest type of talent to balance and compare against.

Momentum does more damage than all the other talents on that line? Nerf Momentum.

It’s very easy, and it will happen very easily. With the talent no longer being capstone it’s no longer sacrosanct and can be reduced to a why bother level of bonus.

Momentum at 6% bonus, how exciting does that sound?

#9

So that’s contingent on a) they nerf it over and over b) they also nerf every outsized damage window consistent enough with a 7sec Fel Rush CD + Restless Hunter proc c) they also nerf initiatve d) and UBC e) and tactical retreat f) and now also Erratic Felheart g) the players who take and do the dance don’t show up everyone who doesn’t/can’t.

Nerfing the number also doesn’t mean anything. Have you not been playing the class? You see how highly valued versatility is for us over things like haste and crit? 6% is an enormous difference especially if you can control the window it lines up with. A 6% difference is 6% off your Chaos Theory window (which they just gave an enormous buff, why are you trying to diminish it by 6%?) that’s 6% off an eyebeam with every talent stacking it up and now also Collective Anguish, 6% off your Ragefire burst and pooling, 6% off your soulrend, 6% off your fel barrage, all in exchange for… what. A single-talent? That’ll afford you comparable advantage of the very likely two distinct single target engines that will be missing 6% of their potential damage (and 15% extra crit if you’re activating off VR?)

Mark my words, the year of the spear follows into the year of the dance.

#10

But if you have Ragefire and Soulrend then you’re far up the right side of the tree, so what gets left off?

Do you loose out on Shattered Destiny then? How much of a DPS loss is that going to be?

Does that mean no Cycle of Hatred? So 40 second instead of 20~ second Eye Beams?

No Inner Demon, No Restless Hunter? (These do need to be buffed to be competitive)

What about Furious Gaze, Blind Fury?

All those are DPS gains that you need to choose between.

#11

KYE and Initiative will synergize far more effectively with Ragefire than anything down the center of the tree. You’re banking on Haste/Mastery Shattered Destiny/AMN being competitive with Crit/Mastery Momentum/AMN. I don’t see it happening. They would have to very deliberately underpower the crit co-efficients to make the Momentum column break even as opposed to pulling far ahead. Not to mention you can go all the way into Essence Break and AMN, so you have all the Mastery stacking up your Chaos Strikes for the EssB window.

The far broader problem - and this is sort of unavoidable given how stripped down DH is - is that the benefits are far too general. The left side privileges crit value, the right side privileges stacking crit value. All three have very focused damage windows and Momentum is a % buff that compliments any damage window. If I were to explain these trees to a layman that’s how I’d lay it out.

#12

And then you’re without Furious Gaze, Shattered Destiny and Cycle of Hatred. All of which seem as good a DPS talent as Momentum.

So what then, you talent for Shattered Destiny and we change the comparison back to Soulrend, Ragefire, and AMN.

You cannot take Momentum without having to not take something else.

This is a trap for the unwary. People will spec it, die a lot, do a lot less DPS than the sims say they should, and then complain that it needs to be made easier or just stop playing it in favor of a more Eye Beam centered build.

I know you enjoy that play style and it’s not going to be a bother for you, but most people are going to look at the need to Fel Rush every 5 seconds and die inside.

That’s great, but that doesn’t mean it will be more DPS than CoH/SD and Eye Beam.

1 Like
#13

It wouldn’t matter what they could reduce it to because of what momenum is. Momentum being indefinitely (manually) maintained is an aura buff to our damage profile. This means that havoc’s baseline damage profile will have to be balanced around momentum being active. Otherwise, momentum would cause dh to pull too far ahead compared to other dps.

A consequence of this is dh that don’t play momentum will have each individual damage-dealing ability we have doing x% less damage than it should be doing. While we would gain a talent point to put somewhere else, there currently isn’t one we can take to make up that difference.

It sounds like not taking momentum would cause our abilities to do 6% less damage than they should be doing.

1 Like
#14

I have my own misgivings tbh. I like it for what it is (a freakshow) but it needs redesigning. A lot of my momo doom mongering is to really press home the need to put the work in and not kick the can down the road - which is effectively what they’re doing.

I mean, I don’t mind a tier where it’s broke, and on top of all our other new toys we might just end up on top of the meters bc we have all the synergy and scaling that we’ve had pruned over the years, but it will ruin a lot of people’s experience of the game. I’d like to see the sensible (and obvious) solution of making momentum affect a set group of spells - or failing that, just making it harder to take.

I mean…

You would play this with Momentum too! You would be gearing for haste/crit, KYE/Looks Can Kill/Initiative would be how you would cast every single eyebeam. There’s nothing on the right side that’s going to compare. If you go AMN you have to forego your gearing priority for Mastery (another knock on why AMN is a terrible talent and should just be baseline) you’re stacking additional damage from Immo and Soulrend but it’s not going to compare to the direct synergy you’d have from the crit-favourable talents - which Momentum is sandwiched between and thus a no-brainer.

If you can play it is the massive asterisk ofc but I’m going to bet a lot of people can and will. There’ll be complaining, but there’ll be far more success stories than not because at the end of the day it really isn’t as difficult as people think it is. It’s just awkward.

But awkward inspires cringe and cringe inspires rage and the ghost of poor little stroke-induced Rasaric will thrive in the hearts of every DH that follows in his wake

#15

So? We have powerful abilities as talents. You can’t have them all.

You could have Momentum and all the Throw Glaive talents, but then be missing talents for Eye Beam and Demonic. Go heavy on EB and Demonic, can’t have all those Throw Glaive talents, or maybe you have to give up on something else.

Momentum is a trap for the parse chasers. It will only be a theoretical gain for the most part. Never a progress spec.

Which may be the real problem for Demon Hunters, that this kill yourself stupid talent exists and players being as dumb as they are will FR right into a void. Soon M+ queues will all list no DH Momo key brickers please.

#16

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - hasn’t happened for the wave upon wave of survival hunters discovering melee mechanics for the first time. The numbers will talk and the community will expect the performance they see at the 1% to fan out downwards. Folly tho it is.

You never been in a keystone where someone in over their head is holding you hostage to an MDI tech they just can’t pull off? And then it’s your fault when they botch it?

It’s a bullies game…

#17

The issue is that Momentum is simply not designed in a manner that makes it broadly viable. There are too many situations where yeeting yourself with fel rush is so detrimental as to merit taking another class entirely. From Tol Dagor to Sludgefist, N’Zoth to the Jailer there are too many fights or parts of fights where momentum is simply unplayable beyond meme-level content.

Any efforts that go into balancing momentum or balancing around momentum inherently remove time from the rest of the class. The talent should simply be deleted or replaced with something more functional. The idea of a damage burst window is completely fine from a design concept perspective however it shouldn’t be tied to movement. Tie it to some other ability, or add a new ability.

As long as Fel Rush and momentum are tied together momentum will be an awful talent. Momentum could give 100% damage increase and it would still be miserable to take due to the movement restrictions. We’d take it, but it would be objectively bad.

That also leads me to a second point: “Multiple builds” and “Talent choices” are a lie. There is a best build for a given situation, and that is the build that will be used. The top single target build will always be used for single target situations. The best cleave build will always be used to cleave situations. The best burst build will always be used for burst situations, etc.

If momentum is clearly the best talent for a given fight it will be taken, even if it’s miserable to play. Even if it’s 100% unplayable on every other fight in the tier. This concept of build choice is a lie.

5 Likes
#18

New players get better, an ability that takes you out of melee range every 5 seconds is an entirely different kettle of fish.

No matter how good you are, Momentum is completely unusable on Sludgefist and very difficult to play on the Jailer due to the hole density. (examples of current bosses)

And while you’re looking around to figure out which direction to Fel Rush on a fight like Guardian, someone playing another build will just smash buttons while standing still.

Momentum isn’t Shadowform, it’s a lot of work and the reward is just to get to the same place an easier build will reach.

2 Likes
#19

I’m not going to get into the hair-splitting about what makes momentum difficult or easy. I will say though, having to gauge the additional risk? For me personally? Keeps my attention heightened. I don’t tunnel like I do with my warlock or my rogue, I have to think about where I’m Fel Rushing to, what distance I have to manage the camera, what conceivable risks are in the way. I know a few other people who play momentum and they describe the same experience, there’s mind-numbing chaos strike spam builds and then there’s a build that requires an insane amount of focus to extract a few percentage points more value - and that’s the playstyle we love!

You can call it a joke spec all you like (like Melee Hunter!) but the players who can thrive with it will be towering above the players that don’t. I helped a friend with mythic painsmith prog and I refused to play anything but momentum. He didn’t give a djitt because when we were due a wipe I’d die last and consistently pulled ahead of the first blood/demonic DH because I was reserving a FR for every First Strike I could proc off the spiked balls. And that’s on top of cutting a diagonal dash across the 4x4 grid.

New players get better. That applies here just as well as anywhere else. You’ve seen the trees. You’ve seen how little they’re changing. The gauntlet has been cast. I’d like to see the devs take this as a challenge more on their end, but if it’s for us to deal with? I’m more than prepared. :smiling_imp:

#20

I’m going to simply say: You’re not forced to take momentum. Momentum and Essence break are both very situational. AMN and Ragefire will outperform during the majority of situations (with current tuning it’s not even a debate) in both PvP and PvE