You don’t bring a DH in m+ because of Chaos Brand. You bring whatever is good. If DH was not strong right now, it would not be part of the meta comp. Chaos Brand does not matter.
In season 2, Guardian Druid was part of the meta comp. Because they were the strongest tank. You did not care about bringing Chaos Brand to buff the Mage/Shadow Priest.
In season 4 Shadowlands you brought a Blood DK. Because it was the strongest tank. You did not care at all to bring a DH to buff the Warlocks/Surv Hunters.
Chaos Brand is not always present when caster comps are strong, so why use it to balance caster versus melee groups? nerfing it just reduces the incentive to bring a Demon Hunter when its not strong
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it doesn’t matter in a meta comp. e.g if bears are the strongest tank and dominate in representation as part of a meta comp (like season 2) Chaos Brand does not matter. Even with a group of casters.
I’m looking at this through the lens of an underrepresented spec (which vDH was before it got a rework in season 3)
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Didn’t bears get some talent changes part way through season 2 of DF, the same time aug was added? I don’t think they were on the radar for the first few weeks of season 2 until aug was added. It was just a perfect storm. MotW is a powerful buff, and usually you want a druid in your group if you can help it, whichever out of bear/resto/boomy is the strongest.
Druid was already good at the beginning of s2, the changes just pushed them to the top. My whole point is that I feel like it was wrong to target Chaos Brand because it’s not always present when caster comps are dominating/DHs are not always going to be this strong. I played this spec at the end of Shadowlands/Beginning of DF when it was weak. It would be sad to go back to that power level with a nerfed brand.
Shadowlands season 4 had about 5 vDHs in the world at title cutoff. Imagine there’s another season like that, what would be the point of nerfing brand? you just nerfed the little incentive of playing a weaker non meta spec.
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It’s not just about the case of caster comps being dominant. With most healers and a lot of melee damage (including tank damage) being magical now Chaos Brand is a disproportionately large contribution to DPS. Same with Arcane Intellect (and arguably Fort/MotW). This ostensibly affects how DH is balanced overall.
This leaves several options for balancing:
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Massively buff Mystic Touch and other undertuned buffs, pigeonholing these specs into specific comps to maximize the value you get
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Nerf DH damage to compensate for the value CB brings, leaving these specs weaker in physical heavy parties and pigeonholing them into certain comps
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Nerf Chaos Brand
The specs that do magic damage now did magic damage when chaos brand was added to the game. This is not new.
Blizzard didn’t say chaos brand itself was too strong. The reasoning given was to improve the balance of caster vs. melee groups, which you are right, doesn’t make sense since a lot of melee specs deal magic damage.
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