A lesson you’d think they’d have learned after the number 1 complaint of MM in legion was being too RNG dependent.
Agreed. Already spent way too much time and effort to even consider switching. (Not that I would, I’d have been Night Fae regardless)
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I must admit that I’m biased toward PvP, those alone probably won’t be impactful in pve. Venthyr fits our damage profile well in that scenario (for surv at least).
Just seen the fleshcraft buff too, kinda worried about ele shamans and such now lol.
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In sims venthyr is about 300 dps currently behind NF at least for pure single target. I think this will be the new cov choice for survival pvp and raiding, where single target is the weakest issue of survival (already does great aoe).
The necrolord buff is not nearly as big as the venthyr buff so i dont think its standing will change much
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Good god now I have to go back to venthyr
Better get that started now
Makes me wonder if Venthyr will become the go-to for raiding MM’s.
prob not the difference between NF and Venthyr MM is like 800-1k dps pure ST, and in AoE its a massive canyon.
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So the Flayed Shot damage per tick is identical. It gets two extra ticks. The bigger change is the removal of Focus and the buff to the proc’d Kill Shot.
Death Chakrams buff is a small numbers increase. Mechanically the same, including how it scales per hit.
I don’t see either of these changing the meta, but maybe making it easier for people who would rather be Necro/Venthyr to justify the decision to switch from NF/Kyrian or stick with Necro/Venthyr.
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Odd question, but wouldn’t that make it potentially worse for Venthyr Sirvival hunters? Not sure how the math works out, but doesn’t their mastery boost focus spending abilities?
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Probably not since its not about the damage of flayed shot, its about the kill shot procs and kill shot does benefit from SV mastery. Plus they increased the bonus damage of free kill shots.
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Ah, okay. I wasn’t sure because outside of the bits I’ve dabbled with it, I don’t really play SV and was mildly concerned that it would make a subpar choice even worse. Glad to hear that likely won’t be the case.
Not a chance. Wild Spirits is still substantially better, not to mention the superior soulbind-specific conduits of Night Fae.
The core problem of Flayed Shot is that it has no AoE functionality. It’s only good for single target… in theory because Wild Spirits in fact does more single target than Flayed Shot. Also, having a lot more damage on a 2 minute cooldown tends to be a stronger damage profile than more sustained damage at all times because you can line it up with other cooldowns + specific parts of the fight (think of increased damage phases like Sludgefist).
Beyond that, though, covenants have soulbinds and conduits and they are laughably imbalanced. This is especially ironic because those were actually meant to help keep the covenants balanced by providing extra tuning knobs, but the Night Fae conduits just reinforce its superiority.
Making a mastery based on focus-spending attacks is just bad design, and they already knew it’s bad design because that’s how MM’s mastery worked in Legion. Blizzard has a habit of having to relearn lessons of the past.
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They are ok I suppose, not sure about compelling.
Flayed shot does damage but suited for long encounters only at 18sec (like a boss fight). At 10% chance we expected that after 100 uses of flayed shot you would have seen it proc 10 times. Each proc being a free 25% increase damage kill shot. So distilled all the way down on a boss fight it’s probably a few % increase in damage for a small change to rotation but only time will tell. There’s no utility there, but maybe soulbinds help with that?
Death chakram is the same. It gives you 21 focus on cooldown and acts similar to an AoE. Not sure if it’s a dps increase over other AoE abilities but it does provide 21 focus per cooldown which can be spent on other abilities. Again, no real utility and needs simming to see if it’s competitive.
These changes are nothing in the competitive world of high end PVE content.
WS is still the best. I am only Kyrian cause I enjoy PVP as well. Actually contemplating changing to Night Fae. Do not PVP as much as I thought I was going to. they would have to nerf the burst of Wild Spirits to make any other Covenant worth going to.
They need to buff most legendaries. Some of them are just laughably bad. Especially for bm.
I really think Flayed shot shouldn’t put Kill Shot on CD.
Would be fun to be able to get a Flayed Shot crit and then follow it up with a Kill Shot for the kill. Would add much needed burst to the Class.
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Been Venthyr and will stay Venthyr(although i was seriously considering switching to Necro). As ive said before… Blizz should make procs of kill shot add a charge and not put it CD. Also, an extra 5% proc rate would have been nice. Its not like most hunters who go venth are using the proc conduit… Or are they?? Other than that, i like the buff. Couldve been more, but heeyyy…
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You realize that right now with zero haste and a 200 ilvl conduit it averages 1.5 procs per cast? With even basic 10% haste and max ilvl conduit it will be pricing 2-2.5 times a cast. That’s actually really good.
All they need now is to make it so we can either spread the DoT or trick shots kill shot to cleave damage.
Then venthyr will be competitive and not just a meme burst CD like WS.
Really don’t think it’ll be enough outside of pure ST scenarios. With the way Wild Spirits are, and Resonating Arrow to a slightly lesser extent, Death Chakrams and Flayer’s Mark have to be extremely potent on a single target to compensate for having minimal to zero AoE effectiveness while also having damage profiles that are less friendly to the design of PvE encounters.
edit: The buffs certainly bring up their viability, I’m not discounting that at all. Just more concerned with the competing designs of the four covenant abilities and how on demand burst tends to be the most important thing.
Just look back at Breath of the Dying for improvements to Flayed Shot.
Rather than Flayed Shot being a separate ability, have it replace Kill Shot.
Rather than a DoT with random procs, have Flayed Shot deal the up-front damage of Kill Shot in addition to the DoT.
Let Flayed Shot be cast on targets regardless of health percentage, but if cast on targets above 75% or below 25% health, have its cooldown reduced by 15 seconds.
If a target dies by Flayed Shot or while affected by its DoT, have its cooldown reset and damage increased on next use.
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Isn’t Wild Spirits also getting buffed?!?!?! Am i missing something here.
Wild Spirits Evoke the energy of Wild Spirits at the target location, dealing [ 25% of Attack Power ] Nature damage and apply Hunter’s Mark to all enemy targets within the area for 15 sec. While the Wild Spirits are active, each damaging ability you or your pet use against a target in the area will strike up to 5 nearby targets for [ 35% [ 38.5% of Attack Power ] Nature damage. Limited to 5 targets. Night Fae. Night Fae. 100 yd range. Instant