For those who missed the post today:
General Changes
All Demon Hunters now share a single resource— Fury —which channels their fiery hatred into relentless demonic attacks on their enemies. In addition, Immolation Aura (originally a Vengeance-only ability) will be available to both specs.
Vengeance
Vengeance Demon Hunters will see changes to Soul Cleave and their Talents to encourage more build variety outside of Spirit Bomb. This includes getting Demonic as a Talent option and Fel Devastation as part of their specialization’s baseline abilities so Demon Hunters can dish out more destruction than ever before. Similar to their Havoc brethren, Vengeance Demon Hunters who choose Demonic will temporarily enter their Metamorphosis form following a Fel Devastation.Vengeance Talents as a whole have been substantially reworked. We’ve combined several popular Talents, shuffled others to different locations, and introduced new Talents to encourage new build possibilities. One such Talent is the new Bulk Extraction , which immediately rips a soul fragment from up to five enemies around the Demon Hunter and consumes them. For situations that call for the Vengeance Demon Hunter to take a hit or two, Ruinous Bulwark (Talent) increases the healing of their Fel Devastation and converts overhealing into an absorption shield that lasts for a moderate amount of time.
Some very exciting stuff in here. Looks like a lot of the complaints many of us have had this expac are being addressed. Obviously need to withhold judgment until we see what the new talent tree is like, but looks like we should see some actual build variety now. Especially stoked to see Demonic for Vengeance, along with baseline Fel Devastation (one of my absolute favourite abilities in the game flavour-wise, but one I could never justify using this expac due to how weak it was on its row). Overall, this post has me pretty excited to check out the Alpha when the FnF invites go out soon.
2 Likes
The only change needed from what we know so far is a mastery rework. Our mastery is really bad with how much haste we need to generate globals from now.
Will wait till beta to make comments tho.
1 Like
The changes look interesting so far, but its a bit worrying that they consider Spirit Bomb the main Veng build at this point. Fel Devastation becoming a major ability seems a bit odd since most of the time you don’t want to channel things as a tank. If they buff it to the point where it does enough damage/healing to make up for the inability to move, parry, or dodge then it could be really good.
The main thing they need to change though is our mastery. If that doesn’t change then we will still have one dead stat. I am excited to see what the full list of changes looks like though.
3 Likes
Considering fel dev is a 2 second channel. 2 second isnt that long however you’re right you wont be able to dodge/parry for 2 seconds, maybe the heal will counteract the damage intake if they make it heal based off damage taken in the last 5 seconds or if it scales very well.
Maybe we’ll be able to parry stuff WITH OUR FACE.
5 Likes
The only reason it isn’t is because of corruptions, which will be gone in Shadowlands. Spirit Bomb has been the most dominant build since it was reworked mid-way through Legion, and will remain so without changes and the absence of corruptions to prop up our damage.
VDHs have been using Gluttony over Spirit Bomb for high keys since Season 2. If they consider the build for low end content the main build then I’m worried the changes won’t be good for higher end content.
No mention of demon spikes changes.
Vengence core problem is being very squishy in mitigation gaps. Mostly solvable at the moment through vision major and gluttony. These give 30-40% meta uptime with decent play. This reduces the times where you have neither meta or demon spikes, where you just get trucked in difficult content.
So we had a situation where Vengeance was a joke early in the expansion, and now is quite well balanced due to bandaids and having enough haste for higher demon spikes uptime at high ilvl.
It looks like they may be giving us another way to trigger meta, which is good. The concerns I have are:
Will channeling fel barrage work like other channels in that you have no dodge or parry and get trucked while casting it? This will mean death in hard enough content, and if not then it’ll be kinda weird being the only cast you can dodge or parry during.
Are we going to be able to take gluttony AND demonic to basically replace what vision gave us? Decent meta uptime.
And are there any plans to address the demon spikes issue which causes the spec to be trash tier until we get high enough haste.
If they don’t change uptime on one or both of those things, or give additional ways to trigger meta, my prediction is that veng will be rubbish in SL.
The Demonic tank build should be pretty good. That said, the current build puts venthyr miles ahead.
Really not into just how lopsided a lot of the Covenant combos are in this build.
Faerie Blood and Necro Prot Warrior are the same way.
It sounds like Fel Dev will put us in Vengeance Meta for the duration.
Is that even a surviveability increase though? I mean it probably still is, but taking every hit to the face while channeling will offset a lot of it.
I play havoc as well, but mostly venge. Have to say, I really hate the thought that i’ll basically have to pick which one to be “meta” or “optimal” if those choices for each spec are on different covenants. They better be careful there, or they’re going to really annoy a lot of multi-spec players. Azerite traits were bad enough.
What are you talking about. Essences changed it to Gluttony, corruptions have nothing to do with it. It just means we do less terrible damage when we go the spec we HAVE to go in higher keys.
It should proc the Venthyr Covenant when you Fel Dev so yeah, depending on the math that could be substantial mitigation.
Yes, I have written off there being good choices.
It is the same as the Artifact skill where for every soul consumption we turned every time in a Demon form, it is almost the same only that it gives us talent.
rather the Demon hunter will return to the classic Legion spec that we saw in the beginning.
Honestly, i just think with the loss of essences (vop in particular), i bet gluttony wont be as good. the spec will feel entirely different. I like the random Jekyll-and-hyde aspect of this build.
I like vengance how it is now, but im open to the changes. Heres hopin to good changes 
It won’t be the only one, most channels and casts on tanks allow avoidance during them. Chi Burst is a good example, it explicitly does not prevent avoidance for Brewmaster. All of the tank-oriented trinkets that involve channels or casts also have worked that way.
That’s not to say that Fel Dev will work that way. It doesn’t currently, obviously. All I’m saying is it definitely isn’t without precedent.
However, if it works anything like Havoc’s Demonic, we’ll also count as being in Meta for the duration of the channel itself, plus a duration afterwords, so we’ll at least have the armor and HP bonus during the channel.
I guess Vengeance’s Demonic is coming to mitigate the damage we’ll take with VoP taken away in Shadowlands. This time however, it’s going to be controlled mitigation instead of just random procs, so it’s definitely a plus.
I just want to know what changes have been made to Soul Cleave and if it makes it not a feel bad moment every time you press it.
2 Likes
True. I’d rather we had another spender (not spirit bomb) and that pressing soul cleave was more impactful. Sure, pressing that button accounts for a huge amount of healing over a run (when you count the souls consumed), but i’d rather it be less spammy.
Would like to see something you can use to spend excess resources but still stay above half and have some cleaves ready.
Blood DK can still move, parry, dodge, and use defensive abilities while channeling Blooddrinker. I have to assume Fel Devastation will receive at least some of those benefits.
1 Like
That’s the other one I was trying to remember! Thank you, I knew there was at least one more amongst the tank.