Why Are Demon Hunters So Hated?

Classes Demon Hunter
61

That may be true on the origin of the design, but the mechanics - and more importantly, background/lore - was established in the later game to make it different from DH version.

Officially speaking, Warlock’s version of meta would be a modified version of DH, which is passed on from a warlock who previously was former leader of the Council of the Black Harvest. He was present during illidan’s defeat in the Black Temple - so most likely, he gained the inspiration from there and experimented a version of his own. Think of it like Pepsi and Coca Cola.

Though the question is why would blizzard think having both warlock and DH able to meta would be ‘confusing’, since they both functioned differently.

And more importantly, they looked completely different enough that it’s almost impossible to mix up between the two. The ironic thing is, it is way easier to tell the difference between a meta-warlock and a meta-DH than a tanking warrior from a tanking paladin, and yet the latter is totally fine.

Well, certainly makes the players wonder why the spec was in such state if they ‘actually play the game’.

I like to think the developers do play their handiwork, but at times i really do find myself wondering how is it possible - Do they even like how the spec works when they played it but we don’t? Do they actually tested the talents and say ‘yeah, this works ok’ when we don’t feel that way? Do they really think it is ok to have only one viable choice on that row of talents?

62

This is my thought is that the devs have specs they play and that’s it. So they have no problem messing up others that aren’t their babies. There is no way that anyone on the shaman dev team plays enhancement and think that its fine. Just like they realized they screwed up removing 2h from frost. Frost actually might have a chance to get 2h weapons back.

As for us enhancement shamans we are just preying that we get some love. Personally I loved enhancment when SS stacked a debuff and you popped a shock to remove the debuff and get a different effect. Frost did some dmg but prolonged the slow debuff. Earth Shock was massive dmg-crit.

If you go to shaman forums will see me saying we need all 3 shocks back for all shaman specs.

63

I mean, it took an entire expansion to reach that point. The Legion iteration of Demo was a dumpster fire, casting Demonic Empowerment every 2-3 GCDs just to make your demons not completely and utterly useless.

Also, Aff is as dominant as it is in BfA (and Legion) because of how oppressively (and how consistently so) it has been tuned, and because frankly it is more mobile than the other specs (and for Legion at least, had superior utility, since specs were more locked into pets, and Felhunters are usually more useful than Imps or Felguards on the utility side). In Legion especially, Aff had incredible single target, incredible cleave, and absolutely jaw-dropping AoE. In BfA, they lost that AoE potency, but their single-target and cleave has remained, and they gained a remarkable amount of 3-minute burst with the introduction of Deathbolt + Dark Glare.

Basically, they are as dominant as they are not because most warlocks prefer Aff over the other two specs on a gameplay or thematic level, but because Aff is simply the only valid option in raiding content, and has been for roughly 3 years now.

Prior to Legion, it was a different story. Charred Remains Destro was extremely powerful in Legion, as was Demonology pre-kneecapping. Both Destro and Demo were also quite strong in MoP (MoP was arguably the heyday of warlocks, tbh. MoP’s iteration of both Demo and Destro was exceptional). So memories of warlocks only playing Aff is rather selective and/or only recent (well after Demo’s kneecapping around the end of BRF).

This is, frankly, naive. Of course the devs play WoW, and I can pretty much guarantee you that every spec in the game is played by at least one of them. It’s also rather naive to think that they have their “favorite” specs, personally, and will dumpster other specs while giving special favors to their own. It was a meme for a long time that the devs played mages, which is why warlocks kept getting shat on…until Aff dominated for literally 3 years straight, and mages could hardly get a couple coins in their pity jar.

The devs have also said before that they don’t have specific devs (or even subteams of them) assigned to specific classes, and that development of all of the classes is much more communal than that. It’s conceivable that certain devs, due to preference, might advocate more strongly for certain specs when the team is deciding what needs worked on, but it’s highly unlikely that those preferences are universal amongst the team.

These forums have a talent for assigning all of the worst personality traits (capriciousness, selfishness, laziness, mythomania, etc) to the devs, both as a way of voicing that player’s frustration and as a way of attempting to explain the unexplained decisions made by the devs (following the same habit as most of human superstition, actually).

Anyway, don’t take this as me defending Blizz or white-knighting them or something. They make a lot of decisions that I don’t agree with. I just take issue with people hyperbolically demonizing them. It doesn’t help one’s case and just makes the forums that much more toxic for the devs, reducing the likelihood that anything out here will make it to their desk.

64

Someone didn’t play with the Throne of Thunder 100% crit trinket.

65

Wasn’t demo like super op in WoD and took a massive nerf?

66

I too was primarily a feral but I just couldn’t do it anymore. Complexity doesn’t equal fun and DH’s are fun. Call me what you want, but I see crappy DH’s too that are barely making a dent in a mob.

I for one hope they don’t change the class to much as at my age now, 40, I want to log in, have some fun, kill some stuff and be done. When I started playing 15 years ago I cared about people thinking the class I played was hard to master. Now, I dont.

67

That is your opinion. DH is the most simple spec in the game, some people like depth and requiring a little bit of time to learn a speak in order to play better than others.

I totally understand and i think its great that you have a easy pick up and play class. When i couldnt play much in WOTLK and cata i played BM for that very same reason.

My problem, is most the specs in the game have been simplified over the last 3 xpacs. I dont mind some classes being easy… but not all of them. It use to take a while to learn a class, now they all feel like you could pick up a level 120 (not even have to level it) and play it well after practicing for 30 mins on a dummy.

68

After re-reading my comment, I think I misspoke. What I meant to say was complexity doesn’t guarantee fun, hence my example of feral. It was a mistype on my part.

2 Likes
69

Not play it well, but be able to play it. It’s what Blizz has intentionally done.

You don’t think Arcane Mage is ridiculously easy? I would say that BM Hunter is as well.

70

These people that actually believe Havoc is the simplest spec are delirious. Pretty much every spec is on the same ground in complexity nowadays with a few outliers. Some perform well, some don’t.

71

Whilst leveling one of my dirty alliance alts the other day, I saw a DH die to a single non-elite mob, and kinda had to double-take. Inspected him when he rezed, and ya: https://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/demon-hunter/havoc/c3Qz. There definitely be bad DHs in the world.

Yo, where’s your orange parses, broski? If it’s so easy, prove it.

Anyway, statistics make this difficult to maintain. Look at https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/statistics/23. The DH bar (which is a standard quartile bar, the narrow portion on the left is from the 0th percentile to the 24th, the fat bar to the left of the vertical line is the 25-49 percentile block, then 50-74, then 75-99 in the right narrow bar) is not appreciably smaller than most other classes, meaning that they are not really appreciably easier or more difficult at any percentile level. There are a few classes that are obvious outliers (Frost on the low end, Destro on the high end, Shadow on the high end), but most specs see roughly a 9k spread between their 25th percentile and their 75th percentile, and Havoc is right in line with that.

This is largely what most people in this thread have been arguing, tbh. Yes, Havoc is easy, but it’s not unusually easy, compared to other specs, because precious few specs can actually be set to be difficult currently. Most specs (including Havoc) can be difficult to truly optimize, but none of them are very difficult to play at a reasonable level (and frankly, that’s precisely Blizzard’s goal).

72

I would say BM hunter at high crit levels is kinda easy at lower levels if you want to pull high dps it’s not super super easy. With BM at low crit levels and how long the CD works there is a bit of skill trying to pump as much in before you have to barb shot again and timing it perfectly (this is for max dps like a 10k dps difference). This was in early gear levels where keeping barb up 3 stacks was difficult.

As for arcane, yes the burn phase is super easy but over the period of a fight its not super easy. Managing your mana and knowing the fight well. You have to know when a good time for burn is, know what your limit is and being able to push out the most amount of dps while at the same time managing stacks and knowing the limit of the spec and the fights.

If you have 2 arcane mages with the same gear its easy to tell who is better the dps will be far different. However with DHs with the same gear there is only a very small difference in those that can manage priority CDS and fury management around eye cd.

I have played arcane and BM (have not raided DH since legion only leveled) and i find both BM and arcane more engaging rotation wise than DH’s super simple priority rotation.

73

I would argue against Havoc being hard to master. What is hard to master about the priority cd rotation? The only thing you have to do is press priority cds right when it ticks and having fury management around eye cds. Its really difficult…

I would be fine with specs being easy to pick up and hard to master, but these rotations are so basic and “mastering them” means very little output and more to do with simming its bland. But i wouldnt expect a DH or anybody that plays simple specs to understand as they enjoy that kind of thing.

74

That’s a pretty sweeping statement and reeks of elitism. Which seems to be a common theme with those that do come here to complain about the class. You are assuming that players that play DH are brain dead and don’t play anything else. Which if you just scrolled up you would see that I have played almost every toon available. And I’d imagine others have too. Having an easy rotation is common to all toons and something that has been pointed out ad nauseum in this thread. Just because it’s not one you deem “hard to master” doesn’t make it a lesser class.

75

ITT: People angry the others enjoy playing a class that can kill PvE stuff a little more easily then they can.

76

Let’s see:

  • Minimizing fury overcapping, despite RNG regen (Demon’s Bite generates 20-30, randomly) and refund (Chaos Strike has a 40% chance to refund half its cost).
  • Optimizing Blade Dance CD (with as short as the CD is, and as high damage as it is, even a GCD delay is pretty significant).
  • Using Eye Beam on CD, but also ensuring that you waste as little of its massive fury generation as possible, and also ensuring you time it so you can fit 2 (or at very high haste levels, 3) Blade Dance casts within the Demonic window.
  • Optimizing Immolation Aura CD, without overcapping Fury from the significant amount IA generates over its duration (and without colliding with Eye Beam’s generation).
  • Timing Meta usage for proper reset of Blade Dance and Eye Beam, while adhering to the above, since Eye Beam reset is a second huge amount of fury in a very short period of time, but you also want to minimize the time it spends of CD after the reset.
  • In M+, figuring out when to use Meta, as the 4m CD on it means that you have to consider timing much more significantly than most DPS CDs, as it’s very common for it to not be up by the next boss. In addition, the reset from Chaotic Transformation means that it can often be as powerful or more on trash, but again, need to consider when, and if it’s worth the sacrifice on trash.
  • In raids, figuring out when to time your CD usage within the boss fight, both because the long CD makes it less punishing to delay it (for most bosses, you only get 2 casts or maybe 3 anyway, so delaying them isn’t a loss unless you lose a usage), and also because Meta + Demonic extensions is very nearly a solid minute of cooldown uptime that you need to make sure isn’t going to align with DPS stops or immunities or similar.
  • If running Fel Barrage, ensuring it gets used within a Demonic window while also getting in the two Blade Dance casts, which can be difficult in some cases, since Fel Barrage has a fixed non-haste-scaling 3.0s channel time.
  • As with most melee, maximizing uptime while fight mechanics often try to bork that objective.

Take two DHs of differing skill but identical gear, and you’ll see a pretty significant spread amongst them as well. Much of that difference can be predicted simply by looking at CD efficiency with Blade Dance, Immo Aura, and Eye Beam (ie. how much time it was on CD out of the total time of the fight) and fury overcapping, neither of which are as trivial to optimize as you seem to think.

But sure, it’s just face-rolling Eye Beam, right?

You say that like none of us have alts. I have both a hunter and a warlock that I’ve raided at a mythic level this expansion, plus a druid, rogue, monk, and mage that I’ve run normal and/or heroic raids on, and I’ve also cleared M+ at 10 or higher on many of them. I’m well aware of what constitutes a complex rotation, and none of them really have one at a base level. All of them have a fairly simple baseline rotation and a comparable number of things you need to keep track of.

And again, as I pointed out with the statistics link above, the math shows your assertion is wrong. If Havoc were as uniquely easy to learn and unusually easy to master, the quartile bar should be much shorter than other classes, and more especially the lower end quartiles should be much much higher compared to other classes, which patently isn’t the case. Unless and until you can explain that particular statistical pattern, your assertions about the ease of Havoc are completely hollow.

Also, anyone notice that the peeps making such condescending (and baseline) claims are always the ones posting on alts? Can’t bear to have your own logs, raiding experience, or M+ records looked at, eh? Maybe it might short-change the authority you’re trying to imply with your statements? I have a feeling you’ve never raided above Heroic, if even that high (and if you want to prove otherwise, most on your main).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

77

I don’t assume they are brain dead. But i will assume that people that play DH or Fury or other very simple specs actually enjoy the simple play style (Hence why they are playing it). Its not a generalization unless people play DH and they dont enjoy it.

I never called it less of a class you just pulled that out of your own head. I said its likely why people hate it. Its simple and has all the utility and mobility thats why people dont like DH and treat them like the new BM hunters.

Stop getting so offended. Its just my opinion and the opinion of the forum OP that DH is the new BM hunter. Not hating on anything

78

I am not offended. I am simply rebutting your statements. Just because you don’t directly state something there are plenty of implications in what you said. Just as you have your opinion, I too have mine. I haven’t once reverted to name calling or trolling in the hopes of having an actual insightful dialogue on the subject.

79

Yea its a huge list, with most of them being applied to other specs.

This is just normal priority rotation with fury management (and its SIMPLE fury mangement, its not rocket science). Its not difficult to make sure you eyebeam filler then bladedance before meta.

All specs have to time CDS i dont see a 1 min difference being a huge detail to deal with after you have run dungeons all xpac.

You don’t Run fell barrage if you want BIS in raids.

This is across every class its simple CD management

The only important thing you listed that takes skill is knowing how to priorities abilities so you can make the most of resets from meta. That and very easy fury management during eye beam meta. Sorry but this is not super difficult and the difference between a average DH and a good DH is still very small. Thats fine, and i have no problem with that. Just stating the facts, its a simple spec & thats okay.

80

If you ever ran high level keys, then you’d know how big of a difference it makes. Just a hint: very big.

You might want to check Mythic Azshara. Also high level high density keys on fortified weeks (Motherload).

Again, a 4min cooldown is very different from the others, and with Demonic, it can last up to 1min and you don’t want to waste even a single global.