I really enjoy my DH yes I am pretty badly gear still only ilvl 437 but it feels like raids and M+ my ret pally and fury warrior both around ilvl 430 is doing a lot better than my DH in terms of damage and have better surivable (ret pally can surive and take hits way more due to many CD). I would say in M+ HD does a bit better but really lacks behind in raids.
Is it just the class is a bit behind in damage profile? I feel like with Ret and fury I can use my dps CD way more often in short burst vs DH meta is on a long CD
Most all of the raid this tier is ST and that is havocs biggest weakness atm. We struggle with pure ST most of the time and our rotation can be very unforgiving if you mess up so that most likely is why you’re having issues in raid compared to warrior or ret. M+ is definitely better for us because it lets us do what we do best which is burst AOE.
As far as the defensives we just lack them. Basically you’re only one is Blur which is only 20% DR and dodge that is useless if you don’t actually have aggro on something so make sure you have health pots at all times and health stones if you can. On top of that it is mainly just playing smart to keep yourself alive since we can’t just bubble like a ret or something when we mess up.
What needs to change is DH developer, awfull job and no commuication with community from their part
Pala and fury feel much more “right” to play if u ever tried them, while DH feels like ur scouting for what comes off cd to press, also with DH u really have to plan ahead with your demage there is so much little buffs that need to be up for ur burst window and if u miss something it is very punishing
If u dont plan on playing high end content DH is not bad, but pala and fury will outpreform you still most likley
Might get the ball, but I think Havoc throughput is perfectly fine at the moment, after all the buffs it got in 10.1.
Sitting in the mid chart of All damage, and sitting slightly below average in ST damage. For a spec that does both ST and AoE at the same time, I think that’s a fair spot to be in. There’re specs in way worse spots than Havoc are, and obviously above it, but most above are objectively overtuned specs.
What needs changes are:
Polarizing Momentum/movement gameplay loop. If RoP got deleted, I cannot fathom why this has survived for this long when it probably causes triple the amount of drama. This includes Isolated Prey and Initiative/UBC.
Fodder to the Flame: I don’t think there’s fixing this CD. It’s annoying while its doing is thing. Nobody likes RNG CDs. Rework it to be a normal CD and delete the demon portion.
More defensives. I don’t think anybody can deny that Havoc feels excessively squishy this expansion with only access to Blur, as Nethwerwalk is basically unpickable.
Misery in Defeat: We were told this would get changed after the Beta, yet still survives. Using a CC as a DPS CD is just wrong.
Wishes:
More talent options to sacrifice AoE for more ST damage.
A look at Metamorphosis, CoH and SD and Meta uptime. If Meta is up most of the time it is no longer a CD, it’s a maintenance buff.
After maining ret this season, I can say without a doubt, havoc needs a defined identity. There’s so much confliction going on that it’s basically boiled us down to one build. We do good aoe and mediocre ST.
Heres what I dont like:
Meta as a 3 min cd. This just doesn’t line up well in raids or mythic+. In raids, half the time you pop meta, karma hits you in the face with a mechanic causing you to run out losing all your dps. The mechanics in raids are set for short burst CDs that are less crippling if rng hits you. Get rid of 3 min meta. Mythic+, same thing. Monster pull, oh baby meta is ready. Everything dies before meta finishes and realistically it wasn’t all that great anyways.
Essence break. I like a 40s burst window, I just don’t like this skill. Give it some glitz and make it feel powerful. You know what feels more powerful? Execution sentence for ret and watching the hammer fall trying to squeeze off one more gcd before it hits. EB is buggy as hell too. It misses so much unless it’s perfectly timed.
Momentum. Not necessarily it in general. If blizzard wants the DH identity to be about zipping around and maximizing damage with movement, then make it seamless and not feel forced. Having to maintain a 6s buff is forced. What’s not forced? How about a veng retreat into a fel rush to hunt to enable a 10s burst window? Change VR to 30 or 40s. That would be a sweet wombo combo window. Again, I’m not against momentum I just hate having to fel rush or veng retreat every 6-8s just to maintain the buff.
Our defensive are horrible. When was the last time you saw, looking for darkness. Never. Darkness is so bad no one even cares if you don’t use it in mythic+. We have zero utility except chaos brand and it’s so ho hum. Netherwalk is like a poor man’s ret bubble and we have to talent for it.
Eyebeam should feel impactful. It’s a use on CD, does some damage and only feels pretty good on large AoE pulls. When illidan blew up that naaru with eyebeam, that was impactful. Maybe they can use that charge dynamic from the dracthyr and make it better. Their attacks with that charge up mechanic are so much better.
What’s with all the left over skills that got thrown in because we were the last class to get a talent tree in DF. Fodder is garbage and buggy. Elysian decree could be better, but why blue? Along with the hunt? It hits like a wet noodle.
I get the dev had personal stuff, but man this class needs a new perspective and a real identity in playstyle. it’s long overdue. I’d say VDH has a pretty good identity with frailty and fiery brand spreads with mini fel devs. I’d say keep going with veng because it’s so much better than havoc.
I agree with your changes and wishes, but why are we okay with being average and mid dps and justifying that? “I’m okay with being average”. When casters enjoy being, especially warlocks and mages, meta in ST and AoE and “overtuned” most season/tiers/expansions, there’s no reason to be okay with average or even think this is fair.
Keep in mind, in raid, most times we get a raid spot because of chaos brand. Are you sure we get a raid spot without chaos brand while being mid or below average dps? What about m+? As of right now, we struggle with our average dps to get a spot groups when mage, spriest, and Augvoker are meta.
I want to enjoy seeing us do big dam, have an easy time getting into groups while not having to achieve 70+ actions per minute, dashing around like an animal and worrying about what mechanic can one shot me because we have bad defensives. I want to enjoy the attention, love and benefits the devs give Warlocks in WoW without needing to reroll off of DH. Until then, we need to keep on asking for buffs.
As for changes, I think Meta needs to be 2 minutes and be stronger - do something spectacular like all abilities you cast have a 50% chance to echo/repeat with 25% increased crit and crit damage or whatever, etc. Eye Beam needs to do something different - don’t put us in “meta” form. Put us in a different demon that increases your crit, haste, vers, mastery. Eye Beam demon form and Meta demon form need to do different things.
Because getting above the average tier as a DH will just get you nerfed, because you do both ST and AoE at the same time.
Ranged for some reason seem to avoid this reasoning.
Believe me, you don’t want your abilities to feel like Execution Sentence. I main a Ret.
It forces you into ST and you lose ALL your cleave and AoE because of it and how the Ret talent tree is done and it’s tuned so poorly it’s not putting ret even remotely close to the strong tier of ST/Boss damage.
Ret is a spec that can only do ST damage as it is atm in raids and even then, it cannot do it properly.
I main a ret too. Not mythic raiding but aotc on a very casual guild and at 2650 raider io. Parses on mythic+ were purples for the most part before Augs cleared half my 20s. I switched back to veng about 4 weeks ago and took veng to 2850. Again before Augs. I switched not because I don’t love ret but because it’s way harder to pug 20+ keys especially in the new meta world.
But as to your point. Scaling is a little rough due to vers, but I went high haste and crusader strikes because I like the feeling of demon blades more than demons bite (templar strikes).
I disagree though about ST vs AOE. They have great ST burst playstyle with execution sentence and yes their AoE falls off. But if you need mixed cleave or straight cleave then final reckoning is amazing and feels awesome when you drop it. The fall off on ST isn’t terrible and I’d say it’s close to what I see against other AoE builds.
Could it be better? Sure. Scaling seems to be a thing with ret the same scaling hampers windwalker later in the expansion. That aside, retribution is miles apart from havoc in terms of fluidity, power, feel, impactful skills, utility and defensives.
What feels stronger and impactful? Chaos strike or Templars Verdict? I’ll take a two handed overhead smash any day.
I do love VDH now. If I could combine the two into one spec I wouldn’t play anything else.
1- The most important thing is to get rid of the multi-window mechanic, currently to do good damage you have to properly align on average 3 damage windows (2 in the simpler game styles), the most direct effect of removing this mechanic would be…
2- Increase base damage and impact of all basic abilities. Depending on how to distribute the damage, the skills will feel more impressive, the ones that need the most help with this in my opinion are CS, EB and BD
3- EssB needs to go, not only because it’s a damage window plus which should be aligned with Demonic to maximize damage, but because it’s in essence an EB+Instant Demonic, it’s a completely redundant ability that only gives unnecessary complexity and limits talent options. (his buff would probably fit better into FotI instead of that mediocre 10% versatility, hopefully he would even be able to compete against Demonic)
4- Improve defense/survivability, Darkness in particular is a very useless niche defensive ability, it’s a defensive RNG with a very low chance on a very long CD, for this put back the 1sec 100% dodge in BD and leave it up to us to calculate when to use it defensively, we would lose damage but it would still be better than darkness. One thing that might help a bit is to make Desperate Instincts not put Blur in CD, and work even if Blur is on CD.
This is incorrect. If you play FR, your ST is bad. Very bad. Ret might be the spec with the least ST/boss damage in M+ entirely because of this.
We’re talking of Ret losing close of 30k simmed DPS between their ST and AoE builds.
Utility, defensives, I completely agree. Fluidity is subjective, even though I agree Ret plays better but that’s mostly because I am biased against Momentum. Power, Havoc is ahead, hands down.
Delete Cycle of Hatred. The game play of spamming strikes to reduce eye beam cooldown is terrible and we get punished more for downtime than other classes.
Increase our melee range
Have to stand still, can’t rush because mechanics - lose 8% damage buff.
Have to leave boss because mechanics - 1.6k dps (or was it 1%) loss per missed global per minute
I mean it does drop off but it does it well enough to be passable. Again, tweaking could move it a little but my point is the gameplay is miles better. And it’s fluid and if you have to get a little distance for some mechanics you can still use skills. Not so with havoc. Just sitting…waiting…
Stared playing my ret pally more and oh boy is so much more tankier. Hit that would one shot my DH the pally survived with no issue. Just did a +17 Neltharion’s Lair on my pally and mobs before the 2nd boss where there are rocks falling the ceiling and if you don’t get out fast enough you get one. ON my DH it would like like if I an not at 90% hp and got hit cuz I couldn’t get out fast enough I am dead. On my pally got hit no issue not to mention I do better dps I can pop wings every min even outside of wings the damage is better. I also have more DEF CD to cycle though (dark iron dwraft so I have even more def CD to use).
remove or tone down the essence break debuff and bring up our ability damage across the board (chaos strike and blade dance) so we can actually play something else instead of essence break and be on par or better when doing so.
this is 95% of the issues of the spec and community. a small loud minority is pushing a play style many dislike and silencing/flaming anyone who disagrees.
I think many of us like short 10-20s burst windows every 45-60s. The problem is ours suck. It requires a properly used essence break to hit, momentum buff, initiative, and then enough pooled resources to spam 2 skills. Oh also fit an eyebeam in there for a short meta window.
Ret = two skills to get to 4 holy power, wings, execution sentence, spam builders and spenders with priorities. Repeat every 30s for ST, 60s for AOE. On ST you get wings every other ST.
Do you know how much easier and impactful this feels?
Let me tell you, Havoc has issues, but Essence Break isn’t one of them. It’s the one thing that brought a breath of fresh air to the spec after having the dullest of damage profiles for 2 expansions.