Dragonflight Beta Demon Hunter Dev Notes: September 9th

How do you do fellow Demon Hunters,

We wanted to tip you off to some changes that will be present in an upcoming build, as we’ve seen discussion around these topics, and want to provide additional context for continued discussion since it helps guide future iteration.

First up is the feedback we’ve heard surrounding Vengeance’s Mastery: Fel Blood, which increases the armor granted by Demon Spikes. While there are (very intentionally) talent options available that can increase Demon Spikes uptime and therefore influence the relative value of Mastery for a character, two problems remain:

The starting value of the Mastery stat is drastically lower than other secondary stats

Mastery has no value while Demon Spikes is not active, further reducing incentive to invest in it as it does not help survive the moments of greatest weakness, as where other stats would

As a result, we’ve decided to softly rework Vengeance’s Mastery

What does this mean? While Demon Spikes is active, Mastery: Fel Blood will provide the same bonus per Mastery as it did previously, but now with 50% of that value persisting while Demon Spikes is not active.

As always, we welcome discussion about this upcoming change, and will be on the lookout for that as well as gameplay feedback when the updated Mastery makes its way into player hands on the PTR and Beta.

Now, on to the topic of Metamorphosis, talents that affect it on the Demon Hunter class tree, and some spec-specific changes related to it all. Here are the most relevant notes:

Metamorphosis base CD standardized at 4 min

Rush of Chaos still reduces CD by 60 sec, to 3 min for both specs

Havoc’s Metamorphosis duration reduced to 25 sec

Demonic Origins now reduces CD by 60 sec (reaching 2 min CD for both specs), no longer reduces duration, and now causes Metamorphosis to grant 10% Versatility while active

We hope the above will result in the cooldowns and talent options available for Metamorphosis making a little more sense as to what circumstances players might consider picking them, regardless of what spec perspective it’s being viewed from.

Moving on to Havoc, there are two topics to discuss. First, the talent Fel Bombardment (which was previously not yet implemented) has been removed from the tree. While many former Legendary or conduit effects have been able to transition to forms you’ve seen as Dragonflight talents for many classes, we have decided we do not want the particulars of Fel Bombardment’s gameplay cemented as a more permanent talent and will be leaving it in the Shadowlands. Mo’arg Bionics will be moving into its place, with a new Throw Glaive-related talent appearing near the top of the tree:

Finally, as a brief follow-up to a previous topic, Demon’s Bite/Demon Blades will be returning as skills that can apply Burning Wound, alongside the previously-added Throw Glaive. Thank you to those who played the updated version and shared feedback about your experiences.

Cheers.