Someone with beta, can confirm if annihilation just gone while in meta? i was testing it on ptr and seens it gone 
Comparing Havoc to the two most undeniably broken specs on the beta rn seems kinda dumb
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because it wasn’t flagged on build notes?
“Broken” speaks to performance, not to fun/playability, which is what I’m discussing.
Tuning numbers will happen as necessary, but this likely won’t affect the rotation in any way.
Thanks for your overt toxicity, however. As if this comment was remotely constructive.
sighs
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Yeah man, it really sucks that Shadowlands tuning is over.
Wait a minute…
I’ve no idea why people prioritize numbers over enjoyability of a class/spec.
Tuning is just modifying numbers.
I’m not worried about beta numbers. I’m worried about whether I can stand to play this class for untold amounts of hours. I just don’t find the rotation challenging/engaging enough to sink that much time into it, unfortunately.
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I don’t understand why people focus on numbers and not how the classes fundamentally play either.
People get so worked up over numbers when Blizzard has shown, through Legion and BFA, that they’re trying to balance all the specs with a decent range, generally close to 5%, which is entirely reasonable (since true balance is impossible without every class being the exact same) and something they’ve been able to achieve for most tiers.
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I agree with most of your ideas, Haugs. Felblade baseline, everything that references Rush switches to Felblade, and Felblade gains charges. I also think the entire 40 row should be baseline and the row replaced with enhancements to Essence Break.
EB should be the main catalyst for injecting complexity into the build via row 40 talents. EB can enhance Felblade to synergize with UBC/Momentum, EB enhances BD to synergize with ToR/Demonic, and EB enhances Glaives to synergize with TG and GT. Make Fel Barrage uncapped and baseline and replace it with a talent that changes it to hurl glaives instead so it synergizes with the new EB Glaive talent.
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Class should be fun to play first, then numbers.
Each class has a game play that fits the players, rangee vs close combat, combo points or channel abilities etc … But it has to be fun! People need to love their class for it be use as a main.
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Looks pretty good overall. Only thing I would add is that Mementum should be completely removed.
Thanks, but I don’t agree with that last bit.
Momentum as a concept would actually be an excellent addition to our baseline rotational toolkit, provided it isn’t contingent upon fel rush.
I’d agree the fel rush contingency needs to be removed, but not “momentum” itself
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Momentoum is fun I use it every now and then could be cool if added additional FX.
Theres a few things I definitely disagree with in your big changes post.
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Fel Blades should stay a talent. The Fel Blades/Demon Blades build has been good in the past and should stay as a competitive build option in single target fights.
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They don’t need to introduce a spammable AoE ability. They could just give us the AoE component to Chaos Strike back as a talent. Possibly replacing one of the dead talents.
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We don’t really need a DoT outside of Trail of Ruin. If anything the DoT they should bring back is the one from Bloodlet. If they baked it into Master of the Glaive it would at least make that talent strong enough to compete with a single target stun.
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Soul Rending should stay a talent. In some cases the huge amount of leech is stronger than Netherwalk. The only thing that needs to go on that row is Desperate Instincts since its only use is/was against RMX teams in 3s. Personally I’d like to see the dodge from Blade Dance put there as a talent.
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All the Fel Rush focused items/talents shouldn’t have their effects also work on Fel Blades. That would remove the skill gap from Momentum completely. I’ve seen a lot of your posts complaining about lack of complexity/skill in the class, so I don’t think you’d want to make the class easier overall.
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I’d say buff Cycle of Hatred instead of making it baseline. Saying that 2/3s of that talent row should be baseline is too much in my opinion. Making it reduce Eye Beam’s CD and Meta’s CD would be a good buff.
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I know this is more if they completely removed the 40 talent line, but CT is a really important thing to have baseline. CT is a huge dps increase in Single target and AoE. It being made baseline saves a talent row from being another one option only row.
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We really don’t need a spammable AoE ability. Blade Dance, Unbound Chaos, Eye Beam, Immo Aura, and Fel Barrage are enough to keep us competitive in AoE situations. If anything our single target dps is complete garbage going into SLands and needs buffs.
Thats my main problem with your overall “redesign” of the class. It trying to change the class to be some other class, but somehow misses all of our actual problems going into SLands. We need more focus on the fact that Havoc has no way to compete in Single Target situations and will only be brought for the debuff.
Why wouldn’t it be with my redesign?
Why not? I think it would add a distinguishing element between ST and aoe
Bloodlet is a talented dot. My idea for bringing a dot to our baseline was to add that engaging element to the rotation. The dot is also the source of our blade dance / chaos strike synergy, which makes sense imo. Afflicting the target with a chaos dot renders them increasingly vulnerable, and we take advantage of that vulnerability by increasing the degree of our assault.
A talent should not provide passive leech. It’s not good design imo. Passive leech should be a baseline thing. however, souls are a far more unique element to our class, so revising leech to healing from soul consumption is better both in terms of class fantasy and in terms of uniqueness.
While this is true, my baseline rotation does increase the skill cap of the class overall. Not to mention, the active dodge ability increases the skill cap as well. In PvE, the skill cap is increased by having a more complex damaging rotation, which is found in my baseline. in PvP, the skill cap is more about utility and awareness. Dealing damage is just a given, though the rotation still needs a degree of complexity.
Remove Chaotic Transformation. It’s a baseline synergy that makes absolutely no sense, considering 1/2 of the abilities it refreshes aren’t even used in ST rotations unless talented into.
Cycle of hatred in its current design and location on the talent row doesn’t make any sense.
It’s on an “aoe talent row”, but uses a ST ability to potentially reduce the cd of a ST/aoe ability. Poor design, and incorrect location on the row.
First blood is made baseline, but it’s divided. the damaging component is baked into blade dance, which just makes sense, but the fury reduction is contingent upon the proc, which also makes sense.
My design of cycle of hatred does exactly that.
It’s terribly-designed. It’s based on a 4 minute cd and the only benefit it provides in ST is eye beam reduction, unless we talent into FB. Removing it from our baseline allows room for much better-designed baseline passive synergies. I need to update my solutions post to notate that it’s removed entirely.
I’m buffing our baseline ST by giving chaos strike more interaction, by bringing fel blade baseline, and by introducing the dot component, which is also stackable in demonic windows, and strictly applies to chaos strike / fel cleave’s primary target.
Interesting, I think our problems are:
- Lack of engaging baseline rotation because we don’t have any buff/debuff/proc mechanics. I introduce all three of the above in a baseline.
- Lack of a core rotation that reflects class fantasy. I absolutely resolve this problem in my redesign of the class
Making it baseline just slightly changes the rotation of the current build instead of allowing a second playstyle to exist. Reducing the class to one playstyle makes it easier overall which you seem to keep saying you don’t want.
There already is? If you’ve done higher M+ you’d know there different things you do in AoE vs Single target along with different builds depending on whats needed more.
A DoT doesn’t really add anything more to the class or change how we would DPS in any situation. Like you’d just make sure to put it on the priority target that you would be Chaos Striking anyways.
Leech should be both like its been since DH came out. Blizzard doesn’t like the passive leech though, so having it as a talent in a row of defensives is fine. Having both healing from souls and leech is part of the class fantasy that works completely fine as is with the only changes needed being ones for Vengeance.
They really don’t. If they made the changes to Fel Blades that you want then we would basically become a one button spec. Fel Blades would have a 7 second CD with two charges that applies a DoT, does instant AoE damage, gives fury, and gives you a 15% damage buff that you could keep up permanently. You would just Fel Blades > Immo Aura > Vengeful > Fel Blades > Fel Rush > Fel Blades > etc. for all situations.
The dodge being tied to Blade Dance increases the skill gap more than a “press this to dodge” button. It forces people to think about when to use it for damage or use it as a defensive. If you watch people doing 20+ keys then you can see the difference from a good DH who knows how to use Blade Dance to do both vs someone who just hits Blade Dance on CD.
What? Eyebeam and Blade Dance are used in ST all the time unless they are nerfed to a point where its a waste of globals to use them. I agree that Cycle is worthless right now, but its not an AoE talent row. First Blood is a single target talent thats overtuned at the moment. Essence break is a dead talent just like Cycle, but its most likely better in single target vs AoE since Chaos Strike is going to be used more often than Blade Dance with the lack of 3x Furious Gaze.
Making First Blood baseline fixed the fact that the other two talents will never be picked, but doesn’t fix the fact that the talents are still bad.
Again, saying CT is terribly-designed makes me think you don’t play the class above a casual level in PvE. Its the second most important Azerite Trait next to Furious Gaze from a DPS/Utility standpoint.
You are making the class basically a 1 button spec with the changes as explained above. It adds no complexity and just makes the rotation even easier.
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The rotations of Havoc are different for each playstyle choice right now. You want to remove one of the different playstyles and make that single ability OP. We don’t need to bloat our rotation with random procs/debuffs. That would just make us a leather Arms/Fury Warrior.
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I’m not an RPer so I don’t really care about class fantasy. I care about the class being viable for Raids, M+, and PvP. Right now Havoc is only brought for the debuff in Raids and nothing more. You’re changes do make an OP mindless spec, but I doubt anyone wants that.
The playstyle differential is in the final talent row, as it already is.
You understand we’re talking about baseline, not borrowed powers related to azerite traits.
Yes, and it would then add a proc mechanic to both our blade dance and chaos strike/fel cleave. It would also be modified in our demonic windows.
Agree to disagree. Leech has no skill element. If a class is going to have leech, it should be baked into abilities (like a Spriest’s VT / devouring plague). It shouldn’t be an all-encompassing effect as it is currently designed.
I think you’ve wildly misinterpreted my rotational design.
We would felblade once approximately every ten seconds to put up the dot. In reality, we wouldn’t even need to felblade more than once, because we could just fel cleave a different primary target, which would refresh the dots on all other targets. When did I ever attribute an aoe effect to felblade? Please quote me.
In aoe encounters, we would fel cleave to spread the dot and for added pressure. This would lead to more blade dance procs, so more blade dances, which would lead to more buffed fel cleaves. We would also be able to enter demon form quicker, so we’d be pressing eye beam more often. You also understand fel blade has a ten second cooldown and only two charges, right? It would literally be impossible to do my rotation as you’ve described. Also, why would you ever be pressing fel rush? it’s a utility ability. Has no place in the rotation. I’ve never once even mentioned fel rush
Which isn’t good design. Having a defensive ability still forces you to “think about when to use it”. Why should we have to sacrifice dps for defensive utility? Just get an active defensive ability we can press when we believe we need to. This is far better for the health of the damaging rotation.
Yes, if you’re talented into first blood. If you aren’t, you would not press blade dance in ST.
Yes, it literally is. Blizzard has called it an aoe talent row.
Essence break isn’t a bad talent at all. It’s just bad relative to first blood. It has great application in both ST and aoe if used correctly.
Also why i replaced the other two talents. There’s bloodlet, fel barrage, and essence break. Those are three good talent choices.
That is because of borrowed powers. You said it yourself. It’s an azerite trait. It is also contingent upon us being talented into first blood.
See above. It’s pretty obvious you didn’t understand what the rotation was going to look like.
What “playstyle choice”? We’ve had no choice for an entire expansion. Momentum isn’t a viable choice because it’s terribly designed. We have to play demonic, due to borrowed powers and simply because the other two talent choices are terrible.
Again, you don’t understand the rotation. This leads me to believe it isn’t such a mindless rotation after all.
I will break down the baseline rotation for you in ST:
- Felblade to apply dot.
- Blade dance off cd / when it procs.
- Chaos strike with 2x buff from blade dance, or otherwise when you have fury and have nothing else to do.
- Demon’s bite to generate fury.
- Immo off cd
- Eye beam when at 100 + demonic hatred
While in eye beam burst window:
- burn chaos blades
- Burn lingering demon
- felblade to refresh new empowered dot
- Blade dance off cd/when it procs
- Chaos strike, esp with blade dance buff, to increase strength of applied dot debuff.
- Reapply felblade dot debuff before leaving demonic window, and with enough time to reapply 2x chaos strike effect modifier.
That is baseline; not including talents which would modify that tremendously.
Having Essence break would introduce yet another ability to be pressed before your demonic window, to further buff the abilities you’ll be pressing.
Bloodlet would likely be used outside of demonic windows, as throw glaive isn’t buffed by demonic.
Fel Barrage could be used in / out of the burst window.
Having cycle would allow you to have more frequent burst windows, though would not effect chaos blades / lingering demon.
Having Momentum would make you want to press felblade as often as possible, but also keep in mind that dot uptime is #1 priority. Its stacking mechanic is more in line with the concept of momentum
Talenting into inner demon would be for the player who doesn’t want to have that additional layer of rotational complexity.
I’m happy to recognize flaws in any design, but your perceived problems don’t actually exist.
No one took Nemesis or Momentum in BFA. They did take Fel Blades/Demon Blades though which played differently than Blind Fury/Immo Aura.
Fel Barrage isn’t borrowed power. I guess you could argue trinkets are though.
Why would we need a proc on things other than Fel Blades? It sounds like you want procs just to have them not for a good reason.
Leech does have a bit of a skill element in PvE when its between Leech and an Immune. You need to be good enough to survive without an immune to capitalize on the leech.
Ok, so since you said you wanted all things that are used off of Fel Rush to work with Fel Blades I assumed you knew what Fel Rush had tied to it. Heres a list:
- Unbound Chaos - Activating Immo Aura will cause a Demon to slam down dealing AoE damage at the end of your next Fel Rush (thats the AoE part)
- Momentum - +15% more damage for 6 seconds after you Fel Rush (DPS increase)
- Erratic Fel Core - The cooldown of Fel Rush is reduced by 30% (Would work with Fel Blades with your changes)
- The changes you want to make giving it 2 charges at 7 seconds each.
Because sacrificing DPS to stop mechanics, save the tank, or just live adds a skill gap to the class. You keep saying you want more skill gaps yet mentioning the dodge makes you backpedal fast.
You Eye Beam in ST if you go Demonic not because of First Blood. Anyways you want to make First Blood baseline meaning you would use both in ST.
Ok, but its not. If it was it would have Glaive Tempest and Fel Barrage on that row.
Its bad from an actual numbers standpoint. It would need to be off-gcd to be worth using in its current state.
Its a Azerite trait being baked into the class. Did you forget that? Also stop assuming things are only good because of First Blood. Eye Beam > Meta > Eye Beam adds a ton of extra time to Meta.
You don’t even know whats being added. Please read what we know about Havoc.
Fel Blades + Demon Blades for Single Target at the start of the xpac. Fel Barrage vs Trail of Ruin for Season 2 to now. The last row isn’t the only set of talents that change things. If you did more than PvP you would know this.
Read above where I list everything.
Your changes are bad for the health of the class. Its fine if you don’t see why theres problems, but from a higher end PvE setting these changes aren’t going to make the class work outside of the insanity of the Fel Blades changes.
Found the blue post for you.
Oh, and cycle isn’t worthless. We might be playing it in Shadowlands. For the pre-patch it is looking to be better than First Blood at least.
On CT, I agree with Haugs that it is bad design. You are severely limited to when you can use meta. Yes, it boosts your dps, but now meta is a cd you have to follow a specific rotation to use properly. You need to make sure you eye beam and blade dance before you meta otherwise your are wasting damage from the meta cd. Those two abilities now determine when you can use the meta cd. Using the meta immune to avoid some mechanics and stuff was something skillful to do. Yes, you can still use meta for that, but now you are losing out on using meta ideally because you didn’t press eye beam and blade dance before trying to immune something. That just feels bad that you are now wasting part of the cd. I want meta to be more free form of when I can use it, not ok every time you meta use eye beam, blade dance, meta, blade dance, eye beam.
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And they would be free to make that same choice.
Felblade would be used baseline for its dot effect. How we want to improve our fury generation, however, would be differentiated.
Fel barrage is a talent. We’re talking about baseline. I assumed you were talking about azerite traits.
It’s Felblade. You keep saying “fel blades”.
Why would fel blade need a proc? It’s a fury generator in its current design iteration. Proc mechanics should be relegated to the primary high-damaging abilities. Felblade is to generate fury. Why would the high of a proc be allocated to a generator rather than a spender? I want a proc on blade dance because blade dance is a fun ability and is our highest-damaging ability on a short cd. Makes sense to me.
Immuning is more for mechanics and utility than it is for “oh crap i’m making a mistake”. Leech serves to correct the latter far more often than netherwalk does.
- Correct. You would immolation aura before using your felblade. This is a modification to the rotation.
- I revised momentum to last 10 seconds rather than 6, but it has a stacking component.
- This is a legendary. You’re citing a legendary in an argument against baseline. This manner of thinking is part of the problem. You’re contextualizing baseline around borrowed powers. Don’t do that, please.
- Which would hardly benefit you. Momentum lasts ten seconds. We wouldn’t need felblade to have a 7 second cooldown, which, again, comes from a legendary. It’s not worth discussing.
How does baking the dodge element into an active defensive ability hurt our skill cap? i can agree with the notion that, yes, before we had to make a choice as to whether we do damage or serve utility. My argument, however, is that that is not a choice that anyone should ever have to make. Offensive and utility are two different things.
Once again, think fundamental design. A defensive utility is baked into an offensive damaging ability. This in and of itself is terrible design. If you don’t understand why, I can’t really help you. It just is.
If we have an active defensive ability with a 100% dodge, we still have to control when it’s pressed. The only difference is it isn’t baked into offense. This would be a good thing.
Yes, I said CT refreshes the cooldown of 50% of abilities that would be baseline used in a ST rotation.
Your argument is with blizzard, not with me. They called it an aoe talent row, so it is.
This is a tuning issue. I’m not discussing tuning. I’m discussing having a meaningful and engaging baseline rotation.
No, I didn’t forget that. my argument is there are far better baseline passives that can be baked into our class than CT, when 50% of CT, in its current iteration, has no relevance in ST rotation.
I’m talking about my design. I do know what’s being added because I designed it. I said this in reply to you discussing my “one button rotation”.
My design does not in any way take issue with the above. There is nothing in the baseline design that invalidates any talent choices in any of the rows. If so, feel free to point out how. I’m welcome to criticism when it’s actually helpful. Avoid the personal attacks. If you want to involve them, I can laugh at a DH with a 50% w/l @ 2.1k rating after nearly 300 games in a 2’s bracket. I mean, you have two mythic slappers and you clear mythic raiding so i’m sure you have a mythic drest, and I’m sure it’d be no issue to have a gushing / vers set. That’s literally a free gladiator. Yikers
I read above. You’re blatantly wrong.
You haven’t once explained why or how. You’ve clearly misinterpreted the entirety of my design and drawn conclusions accordingly. Re-read everything, please, then get back to me.