Reasonable Class Changes to be Made for Shadowlands

Classes Demon Hunter
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I like to pretend blizzard occasionally looks at the DH class forums, and that they might see an article with this title and pop in for a read.

That being said, what are reasonable changes which could be implemented in advance of the Shadowlands release?

It’s been discussed and i think it’s well known that our class does not, at its core, contain any ability synergy, dynamic rotational elements, procs, or buff/debuff mechanics.

So, imagine blizzard were to take a look at this thread. What are your reasonable ideas to give our class a semblance of a core rotational toolkit?

Personally, and what i consider to be the most obvious:

  1. First blood being baseline - Don’t think there’s a single DH out there who doesn’t want this.
  2. Demonic being baseline - while not talked about quite as much as first blood, i think this is equally obvious. it is the core of our class fantasy.

Less obvious, but still pretty obvious:
3) Our rotation needs a baseline buff/debuff or proc mechanic. Something that brings our rotation together with synergy and/or engagement.

Stopping here, what would you want this to look like?

Edit: After a long discussion with Xaedys, I’ve revised the below slightly
Personally, i think an ability like Felblade (edited from essence break) should be baseline, and it should be given two charges. My current idea is that it would buff your next 2-3 abilities cast by X damage. By itself, the ability loses its ranged charge component. However, if talented into momentum, it, instead of fel rush, would proc momentum, and would be given a 5-10 yard charge range. (Credit to xaedys for creating the momentum charge modifier) This would fix the glaring issue with momentum - that is, being contingent upon a displacement ability, and being tied to movement. It would also introduce a new dynamic to our core rotation. An ability with charges encourages a shifting priority system, and this would add a core ability into our rotation, whose synergy is obvious in that it buffs our next 2-3 abilities cast. Like the current design of felblade, its cooldown could be reset by a proc, however this proc would be from auto attacking, not demon blades or demon’s bite. This, I think, allows us the freedom to keep demon’s bite, or talent into demon blades.

Considering that shadow priests got a major (and well-needed) overhaul, I think the above proposals are both reasonable and would require relatively less time to implement.

Thoughts?

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Yes to all of this!

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Personally, I think soooooooooooooooooooo much of SL beta Havoc could be fixed by reverting a crapton of the changes (especially to Demo build).

Unfortunately, Blizz adopted the attitude of if it ain’t broke, fix it 'til it is."

While I agree with the most of what you said, what I don’t agree with is introducing something that shares charges with fel rush, for two reasons.

  1. Fel rush is iconic and good for getting around
  2. Waaaaaaaaaaay too many fights require so much movement that gimping fel rush would be highly detrimental to the class. This is why I am 100% against the momentum build in the first place. Blizz loves their anti-melee mechanics, and reducing our ability to move around/get out of crap quickly is undesirable, in my opinion.
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Speaking of changes, did they ever remove the server restriction for DH’s?

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In 9.0 you can have as many DHs per realm as you want.

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Sure, which is why the shared charges aspect of the ability would introduce a level of thought to the rotation. Do we anticipate needing to move? if so, we don’t want to burn a charge. If not, burn the charge.

movement is required, sure, but is fel rush really required? Personally, i think we’re a little spoiled in that regard. If we anticipate mechanics, i think one charge of fel rush and vengeful retreat would be more than enough to get us from A to B
The primary issue with momentum isn’t that it burns our mobility cooldown. It’s that it requires us to displace in the first place. Most mythic and M+ mechanics require precise positioning. The primary concern with positioning isn’t “getting from a to b”, it’s “not standing in x”.

And yeah, i get that that was the more extreme recommendation. Really, it just came from a place of wanting that added layer of engagement to our rotation. Do you think we need a buff/debuff/proc mechanic? if so, what would you like to see?

Edit: I’m no longer for a new ability sharing charges with fel rush

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You will most likely get stoned if you say this at the DK forums lol. DKs are only really fine in PvP where their anti-mobility is actually a huge deciding factor for the matches, but playing DK in PvE, specially after playing a DH feels terrible.

I personally think an ability like Essence Break should be removed from the game. It’s just so clunky and vulnerability windows are usually heavily disliked. Colossus Smash was heavily disliked in the beginning by the Warrior community (well, it is forced down their throats and not an option like it is for us) and they just learned how to deal with it.

Sacrificing your mobility - a Fel Rush charge in this case - for damage will never be desirable or good game design. This is one of the biggest reasons people are so heavily against Momentum, so you will hardly get any sympathy with this proposed change.

That being said, I would be fine with some proc mechanics as long as they are not “feast or famine” like Frost Mages used to be. I’ve played Frost at the start of BfA and it was very common to cast 15 Frost Bolts with 0 Brain Freeze procs and it would drive me completely mad.

I don’t really want a buff maintenance mechanic, but I wouldn’t really mind if it’s not a hassle. I’d rather other stuff be fixed instead of trying to implement stuff like this right now that will require more attention and most likely get in the way of actual fixes.

I do however heavily agree with making First Blood and Demonic baseline, although First Blood is a lot easier (and most likely to happen) to implement.

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haha i sent this message, went to brush my teeth and perform pre-bed rituals, and i was actually going to edit it but you beat me to it.
Well, yeah, getting used to the mobility of a dh and then transitioning to a dk would feel terrible. that just makes sense in terms of freedom of movement. But does that speak to the fact that perhaps dh’s have too much mobility, dk’s don’t have enough, or both?

technically, we already have a “vulnerability window”. it just works in reverse. We have demonic. Rather than being a debuff/vulnerability window, it’s a buff/strengthened window. In actuality, they operate in similar ways - short burst windows of increased damage.

That’s okay. That’s pretty much why it was in a separate section, and why i wanted to get input on what people think would be a good addition to either a buff/debuff mechanic, or some sort of rotational contribution that would basically add a form of synergy to our rotation.
I get that the shared charges aspect of the ability would present problems. What i liked about it was the added level of thinking and opportunity cost, and the fact that it would require little effort to implement while also fixing the fundamental issue with momentum. At the same time, it wouldn’t necessitate choosing momentum, because it would provide a secondary effect on its own. Basically, idea #3 was just calling for adding that little bit of flavor to our rotation that gave us a core identity.

I mention buff maintenance because momentum has always been an option, so it’s something that can be readily considered. It just hasn’t been feasible because of the requirements to activate it.
If momentum wasn’t contingent upon fel rush, i think it would elevate havoc to one of the most engaging damage rotations out there. Imagine if momentum was baseline, just to a lesser degree, and talenting into momentum would just strengthen the effect of the buff. That, combined with demonic being baseline, would greatly enhance class identity in our core baseline rotation, and would provide a meaningful synergy to our core rotation.
Whether it be buff maintenance, debuffs, or proc mechanics, i personally don’t care, so long as there’s just one additional degree of complexity to our rotation

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No, it absolutely is a problem that it forces us to burn our mobility charges. Yes, the displacement can cause some serious problems too, but that at least can be mitigated in some cases by careful positioning and aim (for many bosses, you don’t even have to leave melee range with the rush, just rush tangentially along their hitbox).

But forcing us to choose between retaining our superior mobility and doing worthwhile damage feels terrible, and has since day one. Every time you use Fel Rush on getting out of bad or into good or going someplace you need to, there’s a part of you that just cringes at the wasted DPS. It’d be like if Sprint cost combo points for rogues, or if Roll cost Chi for monks.

Your idea fixes the displacement requirement without fixing the whole using-a-mobility-cooldown-for-damage problem, and both are core critical issues with Momentum.

If they really want to retain the damage window mechanism on it, move Felblade baseline (would give us a rotational short-CD nuke, somewhat akin to First Blood, even if it’s a generator instead, and a baseline RNG proc to react to), and make Momentum trigger off of using Felblade. That ability also has displacement, but it’s at least towards your target, and isn’t our primary GTFO button. That or tie Momentum entirely and only to Vengeful Retreat (since it’s also not really our primary GTFO mechanism).

The fact that you not only want to entrench one of the core issues with Momentum, but make it baseline, actually kinda scares me. That would absolutely decimate the spec. As in, dead as a doornail, Arcane Mage/Sub Rogue/SV Hunter level usage.

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Adding yet another mobility ability to our baseline toolkit would be broken.
You’re also tying momentum to a proc, which would feel awful. There isn’t much thought or fun involved in maintaining a buff around random chance. Any window of being un buffed and fel blade not proc’ing would just be a waste, and something outside of your control. Feeling like you have no control over a critical buff would feel just as bad, or worse, as losing a buff due to the necessity for mobility.

You do love your adverbs. What dramatic statements. The spec wouldn’t be “decimated” by any means. There are faults with my proposal, absolutely, but I’d argue that it at least mitigates the present problem with momentum. As you mentioned. It fixes one of two fundamental problems. Sounds like we’re on the right track.

Perhaps we need yet another ability added to our core rotational toolkit, which I’d be fine with. Add an ability with charges that provides a buff/debuff and can proc momentum. I tied it to fel rush in consideration of our shadowlands legendary, but I understand that losing dps in favor of mobility can feel bad.

Personally, though, I think that adds an interesting dynamic to the rotation. “Do I really need to burn a charge of fel rush?” “Am I fel rushing because I absolutely have to?” “Did i fail to react to a mechanic in time, forcing me to burn a charge, or was this unavoidable?” Min/maxers will very carefully monitor their positioning to maximize dps.

I’m not glued to the idea of tying charges to fel rush, it was simply an idea that would be easy to implement and would bring the rotation and class identity together. We need the buff/debuff mechanic in our toolkit, or something that provides a semblance of synergy.

Primary point of the thread is to address what our spec is lacking. 1 & 2 are obvious and need to be implemented. 3 as a concept also needs to be implemented. I merely presented an idea, and asked others for feedback what they think would be a good idea. Feel free to offer any ideas

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The other big issue that hasn’t been touched in this thread yet is how do you balance a buff ability that is tied to movement. Do you balance it with the assumption that people are playing it close to 100% or closer to what your average player would do (probably 60%-70%)? This becomes an even bigger problem if it is something that is baseline to the spec. You run into the same issue now that hunters are having with Hunter’s Mark. Everything hunters do is now balanced around having the 5% damage buff up, so it isn’t really 105% damage they are doing but rather they are only doing 95% damage when the buff is not up.

If it is balanced around playing 100% optimally, suddenly demon hunter becomes one of the hardest specs to play if the damage buff is big enough. Your average player has to decide if they want to sacrifice movement with a shared charge or play optimally and increase their damage. Most players would not be able to perform well on DH and it would show either with lots of deaths by not choosing to use movement or by lower dps because they chose to move. Even if you did play close to perfect, you wouldn’t really be that much higher than other classes because Blizzard decided to balance you around playing that way here.

Now if it’s balance around the average player, then playing only 60%-70% optimally would put you on par with the other classes. This brings up the issue of the players who can play at 100% at almost all times. If the damage buff is meaningful enough, these top players would be way ahead of all other classes. This would bring about another wave of people complaining about how OP DH are and asking for nerfs.

Personally I think it is unlikely we get a big rework before Shadowlands releases, but since spriests got one there is a tiny bit of hope. I think the main thing though is that all DH players need to come together and tell blizzard that any type of damage increase tied to movement abilities is a bad idea. Whether it be by using actual movement abilities or through a shared charge system. We need to get it through Blizzard’s head that it is bad and that player’s don’t want it, so that we don’t get some band-aid fix to momentum that doesn’t actually solve the core problem.

Not trying to completely bash your idea because you are right something does need to change with momentum. I think there is an easier solution though that doesn’t require making any new abilities or anything. I made a whole thread a little while ago about how you just put the momentum buff to trigger off throw glaive. You could just have momentum give us two charges of throw glaive and then the damage buff is triggered by an ability we already have that isn’t used that often right now. This could become a little awkward now since they showed the Fel Bombardment legendary and the Serrated Glaive conduit, both of which require us to use throw glaive at specific times. I would rather have a fix to our core game play than these borrowed powers though.

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I appreciate everything about this post. I don’t think you bashed my idea at all. Your method of communication, i’d say, is far more effective than Xaedys’. You bring up a good point about balancing around damage windows, and evening out the numbers to incorporate the damage buffs. i won’t quote it all but, in summary, you’re right and the points are well-made.
I’ll edit the OP because i agree. Tying damage to movement is bad. I fixed 1/2 of the problems of momentum by introducing an ability that didn’t require movement, but i didn’t address the other half of the issue.

What i like about this idea, and what i think is similar about this idea to my own - it has charges. I think the charges system introduces an excellent and complex dynamic to the rotation, and momentum being based on it makes great sense.
What’s better about this idea than my own - it solves the issue of momentum being tied to movement
What’s worse about this idea - it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, conceptually. Why would throwing a glaive give us “momentum”?

Mechanically, though, i love this. It’s also efficient, because as you said, it works with what we already have in our toolkit. I think if we were to entertain this idea, throw glaive would need a bit of a rework. Still, i think this is the most efficient idea that would fix both core problems with momentum.

Though, I think the absolute best thing that could be done is to make essence break baseline, give it two charges, and make momentum proc based off it (should momentum be talented into). What would you think about that?

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I think that would be an interesting idea. Like you said with throw glaive momentum would probably need to be called something else using essence break. The momentum talent could either further increase the damage of essence break or after using essence break just give you 15% damage buff to all abilities for 6 secs or 8secs to line up with essence break’s duration.

I think the main problem with essence break though is it is essentially the same thing as demonic. Essence break increases the damage of chaos strike and blade dance whereas demonic does the same thing by changing them to more powerful abilities. Demonic also has the added benefit of increasing haste and is more visually appealing to use than essence break. Before the nerf to demonic they were even both 8 secs long. I don’t think you would ever get both demonic and essence break baseline. The last two rows of talents really just need a complete rework as there are so many problems with them.

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Right, it is. Since demonic being baseline makes more sense, I think it would then fall to essence break to be revised.

Instead of a debuff that increases damage taken from chaos strike/blade dance, it could instead be a debuff that: 1) Increases damage (overall) taken from you, 2) increases chaos damage taken from you, 3) possibly a chaos DoT (stackable?)? DOT would be a unique element of our class we haven’t really seen yet. Kinda like a replacement to gushing wound, which i wouldn’t hate to have as a baseline.

Or, it could provide a buff to us that: 1) Increases damage we deal; 2) Increases chaos damage we deal; 3) increases a secondary stat by x% (stackable?).

Momentum would then modify this ability by adding a % damage increase for x seconds, basically as it currently works.
This way, our new ability would be used regardless of whether we choose momentum. Momentum would just serve to strengthen it.

Also, demonic would increase the damage done by essence break. Still, though, the more efficient way to deal damage would be to essence break before going demonic, so we can strictly use blade dance / chaos strike

Agreed. Make demonic baseline, introduce an ability / revise momentum so that it’s not based on a movement ability, and remove nemesis. Then, add two new talents that really modify our damaging rotation in cool and meaningful ways.

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The single most over tuned class in World of Warcrafts history and you guys aren’t happy. Lol, christ.

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Go back to you monk forums and cry about how you’re a worse version of a demon hunter.

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I wish i could upvote this harder, but no we’re distinctively different classes now. I still have more mobility (:

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I won’t even bother looking at your armory.
I’ll just assume…
Low M+ experience
Low to none mythic raiding experience
Arena experience no higher than 2k
Cause really, you gotta be a baddie to think dh’s are overtuned.

Also, anyone with reading comprehension understands this post isn’t asking for a buff by any means.

Thanks for your contribution.

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Yeah maybe overturned, I 2V1 two monks the other day and I know I got under their skin when he /spit right before he died.

Love to see it :heart: