Demon Hunter Opinions

[Jaskroth]

Greetings,

I'm pretty new to twinking and I'm investing a little bit up front so that I can have an enjoyable experience later on after my sub runs out next month. Basically, I'm setting myself into a spot where I can enjoy the (vetted) F2P experience while also being able to be in a cool guild (shout out to the Twinkies!) and have a chance to be social instead of just a F2P "ghost".

I'm looking to set a DH up with the following things in mind.
-Stat priority: Mastery - Crit - Versatility
-Spec: Havoc, with off-tank Vengeance in mind
-Focus: PvE but want to participate and dabble in PvP when the itch arises

That being said, I have some questions.

1. GHOST IRON DRAGONLING: the dragon seems to do no damage in combat, is it just a stat stick?

2. DA OOZE: I understand this trinket is very beneficial, but is it truly "required" or is it just a good QoL thing to have on hand?

3. Baseline Stats: I've had some people tell me that I need upwards of 30% versatility just to exist in pvp, this seems insanely high and even if I were to full send on versatility (enchants, gems, etc) I'd only be at, or around, 18%. Do some classes like druids just have the opportunity to get away with something like this? 30% of ANY stat at level 20 seems absurdly high

4. Time to Fun Ratio: As stated before, I'm looking to put forth and capitalize on a time investment early on to set myself up for success later. Is it therefore worth it to mindlessly farm things while I have a sub active or are there "better things" i could be doing and/or completing? What I mean is that I'll have access to the AH and other subbed features and I don't want to do an oopsie later on after my sub runs out because I didn't do it before

5. QoL Items: Yes, I'm aware of the alchemist flask and the engineering items, but are there any particular pieces of gear, proc effects, or otherwise not documented (but noticed) pieces of gear that YOU have come across that you've found to be extremely handy? For instance, there's a BFA rare that drops a cloak that procs an "adaptation" which I've found to be neat and sometimes quite beneficial. Are there any AH items, toys, or other things that you think is worth going for?

Thanks!

-J

 

[orcgazmatron]

RIght off the bat, 20cap( for XXXTra credit, cap in the starting zone & get https://www.wowhead.com/item=128958/lekos-leash at lvl 20 ) & then go get https://www.wowhead.com/item=178769/infinitely-divisible-ooze from Aidsfall.
Then you will wait for https://www.wowhead.com/npc=193234/eldoren-the-reborn to spawn to get https://www.wowhead.com/item=200284/phoenix-feather-pendant from him.
Should you have a linked acct. witha sub, put 3 https://www.wowhead.com/item=192994/tiered-medallion-setting in the Warband Bank for you to buff the neck with. You will likely also want to have 1 each of https://www.wowhead.com/item=173125/revitalizing-jewel-doublet & https://www.wowhead.com/item=173126/straddling-jewel-doublet . THe heals from the Gem are astonishing & the speed buf is considerable.
Once you get the ooze, you can easily solo every instance you need to farm. I would go as far to say that it's required for a DH. Make sure you're on 'Present Time' & the little snots nuke everything.

You will want to solo dungeons as Veng, but this is just for gearing. Mastery is largely built in, but you can stack it with Rings & enchants.

 

[Derpyhooves]

1. Stat stick, 30 secondary points is nice. I use it on most of my 20s. Dragon proc isn’t great and can be problems for getting out of combat, though.

2. Ooze makes runs faster, gearing faster, bosses dead faster, get one!

3. look at the 20s armory, lots of toons have high stats. Some classes more easily than others for whatever reason. For example, I can get 31% haste and 25% vers on my frost mage from gear and talents. You could definitely get in the 20s for vers.

4. Stock up on gems, enchants, food stuffs, and other consumables, especially if you don’t have a subbed account linked via warband. Nothing worse than getting a new upgrade and not having an enchant or gem for It.

5. Flying changed the game. You don’t need a lot of the QoL stuff that twinks used to need to get around. Just make sure you have the pirate flag toy and wear it proudly!

 

[Dev]

The ghost iron dragon does practically no damage, and it has been like that for a while. Stats are still pretty good, but some trinket effects can overshadow it. Mostly you'll want to spend your sub time unlocking things you won't be able to later, account-wide features, buying things over 1k gold, farming raid tmogs, etc. After your sub expires, I'd recommend grabbing the Kalu'ak Fishing Pole for underwater breathing. If you're feeling up for portals you don't really need nowadays, you can also go do the pet battle quests to unlock them while you've got a sub.

 

[Calligraphy]

Specific to your last question, there's a treasure very early in the DH starting zone that's basically an alch flask that doesn't require alch to use. Not bad to have and means that you don't need to tie up a profession slot. (Inscription shoulders are better than the flask now, but free stats are still free stats.)

Otherwise we'd have to see one of your characters to give the fullest details. Most of the coolest stuff you might like is account-wide, but things I'd expect someone who's played while subbed to already have. A vendor mount, extra warbank tabs, allied races, etc.

 

[orcgazmatron]

Specific to your last question, there's a treasure very early in the DH starting zone that's basically an alch flask that doesn't require alch to use. Not bad to have and means that you don't need to tie up a profession slot. (Inscription shoulders are better than the flask now, but free stats are still free stats.)

Otherwise we'd have to see one of your characters to give the fullest details. Most of the coolest stuff you might like is account-wide, but things I'd expect someone who's played while subbed to already have. A vendor mount, extra warbank tabs, allied races, etc.

Thanks, I totally forgot to mention the https://www.wowhead.com/item=129192/inquisitors-menacing-eye

 

[Xylar]

There is more in DH starting zone, check out this ^^
https://www.wowhead.com/item=128958/lekos-leash

 

[CroyeTchor]

I'm looking to set a DH up with the following things in mind.
-Stat priority: Mastery - Crit - Versatility
-Spec: Havoc, with off-tank Vengeance in mind
-Focus: PvE but want to participate and dabble in PvP when the itch arises

Firstly, while Mastery is decent for burst in PvP for Havoc, in PvE it's nothing too crazy. You should only really get some if you have some secondary stats to spare or can reach a certain number that would for instance allow to kill a standard mob in one les GCD.
For Havoc I'd rather go with Crit-Versa and a decent chunck of Haste.
For soloing purposes go for Vengeance. It's really not a debate here, you'll get mauled as Havoc and even with https://www.wowhead.com/item=178769/infinitely-divisible-ooze your soloing abilites will be unreliable at best.

1. GHOST IRON DRAGONLING: the dragon seems to do no damage in combat, is it just a stat stick?

It's a solid secondary stats stick. Some specs benefit from it more than others. Havoc certainly can make good use of it so feel free to grab yourself one.

2. DA OOZE: I understand this trinket is very beneficial, but is it truly "required" or is it just a good QoL thing to have on hand?

Not required at all (at least for Vengeance) but it is very useful. Honestly you might as well go for it if you intend on farming a lot of dungeons.

3. Baseline Stats: I've had some people tell me that I need upwards of 30% versatility just to exist in pvp, this seems insanely high and even if I were to full send on versatility (enchants, gems, etc) I'd only be at, or around, 18%. Do some classes like druids just have the opportunity to get away with something like this? 30% of ANY stat at level 20 seems absurdly high

Yeah 30% versa in PvP won't be a thing for you. I vaguely remember a guy who played a fury warrior with a shield and cloth pieces of armor to get as much versatility as he could and I believe he was at something like 40% but he was a level 29 at a time where we had much more stats. With the way secondaries scale at 29 it would already be great to reach 10-12%.
And to be fair to reach that much versa even in PvE you'd have to reach something like 150-160 versatility which I'm not sure is possible without a trinket like https://www.wowhead.com/item=110017/enforcers-stun-grenade.

4. Time to Fun Ratio: As stated before, I'm looking to put forth and capitalize on a time investment early on to set myself up for success later. Is it therefore worth it to mindlessly farm things while I have a sub active or are there "better things" i could be doing and/or completing? What I mean is that I'll have access to the AH and other subbed features and I don't want to do an oopsie later on after my sub runs out because I didn't do it before

Honestly keep the farming for when you won't have a sub anymore. While you're subbed get stuff like https://www.wowhead.com/item=173125/revitalizing-jewel-doublet (that will make your life a lot easier), https://www.wowhead.com/item=212174/the-warband-map-to-everywhere-all-at-once, buy a shitload of enchants, unlock https://www.wowhead.com/spell=393788/adventure-mode, buy generally useful stuff to save yourself some farming time like bags and gems and get yourself https://www.wowhead.com/item=44234/reins-of-the-travelers-tundra-mammoth and/or https://www.wowhead.com/item=84101/reins-of-the-grand-expedition-yak if you don't have them.

5. QoL Items: Yes, I'm aware of the alchemist flask and the engineering items, but are there any particular pieces of gear, proc effects, or otherwise not documented (but noticed) pieces of gear that YOU have come across that you've found to be extremely handy? For instance, there's a BFA rare that drops a cloak that procs an "adaptation" which I've found to be neat and sometimes quite beneficial. Are there any AH items, toys, or other things that you think is worth going for?

For toys https://www.wowhead.com/item=206268/ethereal-transmogrifier (sometimes at the Trader's Post) for transmog, https://www.wowhead.com/item=97919/whole-body-shrinka for fun and sometimes getting unstuck from some places, and for classes like DH or DK the https://www.wowhead.com/item=88375/turnip-punching-bag can allow you to get extra heals or build up your ressources before a tough encounter. This last one is very niche but I vividly remember it saving my ass against https://www.wowhead.com/npc=83612/skulloc once.
The "adaptation" cloak isn't that good tbh but it can proc a socket and the stats are good for DH.
Off the top of my head I don't really see that many other than the https://www.wowhead.com/item=44050/mastercraft-kaluak-fishing-pole which was already mentionned by an earlier post, the well known https://www.wowhead.com/item=113082/precious-bloodthorn-loop and the Legion JC recipe to unlock lockboxes.
I'm sure there is a lot more but none come to mind right now haha.


And for an opinion on DH, I'd say it's a really enjoyable class, you can explore a lot of stuff and even if the now available flying made their outdoors performances much less useful, they still can do a lot of cool stuff in instances.
Since we gained acces to it in SL, it has been a consistent class, always able to solo instances and I'd bet on them being a solid long-term pick.