Updated August 19
This week’s build brings a complete set of level rewards for the post-50 Demon Hunter, including the addition of popular spells Furious Gaze and Revel in Pain.
Havoc has also had a few changes to its talent tree to address Nemesis. Nemesis was intended to be a strong single target sustained option, but it hasn’t proven popular among players. We’re reshuffling the tree a bit, bringing a buffed-up version of Fel Barrage down to the level 50 row and adding a new AoE Fury spender, Glaive Tempest, to the level 30 row.
This creates more interesting choices in the rows on the complexity and payoff you want in your damage rotation. Please give them a try and let us know what you think!
July 8
In the next Alpha build, we’ve made this change to Unbound Chaos:
- Activating Immolation Aura will cause your inner demon to slam into nearby enemies at the end of your next Fel Rush, dealing Chaos damage.
- Developers’ notes: We like the feeling of Immolation Aura empowering your Fel Rush, but requiring Fel Rush to be cast while Immolation Aura was active placed too much pressure on that particular window. We want this talent to be for occasionally weaving Fel Rush into your rotation for a big payoff, so we’ve changed the talent to Immolation Aura buffing your next Fel Rush, which means you can find the right time to fit it in.
July 1
Fair tidings Illidari. The next build of the Shadowlands Alpha will have a number of changes based on your feedback. We’re generally happy with the core kit of both Demon Hunter specializations, but want to improve talent diversity.
Havoc
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Demonic Appetite - Consuming a soul fragment no longer reduces the cooldown of Eye Beam.
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Cycle of Hatred - When Chaos Strike refunds Fury, it will reduce the cooldown of Eye Beam (was Metamorphosis) .
- Developers’ notes: We’ve reconsidered the addition of Eye Beam cooldown reduction to Demonic Appetite, believing it will make that talent a dominant choice in the row. Instead, we’re placing that benefit on Cycle of Hatred, which is competing against other options for AOE damage.
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Insatiable Hunger: Demon’s Bite deals 20% more damage and generates 5 to 10 additional Fury.
- Developers’ notes: Since this ability only increased the maximum additional Fury that Demon’s Bite could generate, it was possible to frequently see no noticeable benefit. The talent will now always result in at least 5 extra Fury generated.
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Immolation Aura now generates 20 Fury when cast.
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Burning Hatred: Immolation now generates an additional 60 Fury over 12 seconds.
- Developers’ notes: We added Immolation Aura back to Havoc baseline because it was a nice mid-tier AOE damage ability that could be shared across the specs. Player feedback made it clear that Fury generation was an important part of the ability, so we moved the initial burst of Fury to the main ability. The Fury generation over time will remain in the talent.
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Fel Mastery has been replaced with a new talent, Unbound Chaos.
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Unbound Chaos: While Immolation Aura is active, your inner demon slams into nearby enemies at the end of your Fel Rush, dealing Chaos damage.
- Developers’ notes: Fel Mastery was a simple buff to Fel Rush damage that required frequent reorientation to your target and as a result primarily saw play alongside Momentum. By binding the damage bonus to Immolation Aura, we feel like the talent can be taken on its own or alongside Momentum.
Vengeance
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Immolation Aura and Fiery Brand tooltips were changed to show the total amount of damage done over the duration of the spell.
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Soul Cleave damage increased 20%.
- Developers’ notes: We often see feedback that Soul Cleave is a low priority button because the passive consumption of soul fragments means no healing is lost if it isn’t pressed, and Spirit Bomb offers more damage and healing per soul fragment. We made a change already that adds additional healing to Soul Cleave for each orb consumed, but also we’re increasing the damage of Soul Cleave as well. We’d like to see Spirit Bomb used intermittently to apply Frailty, but Soul Cleave to be the spec’s primary source of healing and damage.
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Agonizing Flame no longer increases the damage of Immolation Aura. It now increases its duration by 50%.
- Developers’ notes: Increasing the duration of Immolation Aura increases the value of the talent’s movement speed buff and creates synergy with other talents like Infernal Armor and the re-design of Charred Flesh mentioned below.
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Feast of Souls healing increased by 25%.
- Developers’ notes: This talent is intentionally straightforward, offering an option that makes Vengeance’s primary consumer Soul Cleave better. It’s a fine option, but may need additional tuning to close the gap with the more active options in the row.
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Charred Flesh has been redesigned: Immolation Aura damage now increases the duration of your Fiery Brand by 0.5 seconds.
- Developers’ notes: Fire damage alone was not an attractive option when compared to the other options in the row. This interaction with Immolation Aura can significantly increase the uptime of a key defensive ability while also increasing its overall damage. This creates interesting synergies with anything that modifies Fiery Brand or Immolation Aura such as the talents Agonizing Flames and Burning Alive.
Please continue to reply with your thoughts on Demon Hunters in Shadowlands!
In this thread, we’re discussing Demon Hunter class changes coming in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.
Read more about initial class changes in the World of Warcraft blog.
This initial post will be updated periodically throughout the Shadowlands test. Please check back here for information about further updates to this class as they are made.
Thank you for your testing and feedback!