The highlight of World of Warcraft Midnight is a complete failure. WoW demon Cortyn leaves no good horn on the new specialization.
It was supposed to be one of the highlights of the expansion “Midnight”. While not a new class, at least a new specialization for demon hunters. The Devourer sounds extremely cool in concept. It uses void energy to annihilate its enemies with devastating attacks. Fitting with the theme of the Midnight expansion and finally a 3rd specialization for the demon hunter.
However, Blizzard has failed with this introduction and not just “a little”, but phenomenally and catastrophically. The new specialization seems poorly thought out, inconsistent, and above all unfinished. It does not match the quality of other features (such as housing) or the new transmog system. It feels like an early beta concept that needs much polishing.
But let’s start from the beginning.
A class that never reaches the peak
Most classes and specializations in World of Warcraft have something that I like to call a “peak” state. This is the moment when all major cooldowns are active and you unleash a true fireworks display of effects and damage upon your enemies. For the shadow priest, that would be the void eruption with active void torrent and soul of power, unleashing devastating shadow effects and sending countless fatal spirits flying at all enemies.
For the fire mage, that’s when combustion is active and every spell is a critical hit—because then you can basically spam pyroblasts and enemies don’t even know what hit them.
The Devourer demon hunter has such a state too – mainly in theory. Because the spell “Collapsing Star” can only be used during metamorphosis. Essentially, it’s a race against time because you have to build enough resources during metamorphosis to unleash the star.
However, achieving this in practice is currently not so easy. Because if you have to evade a spell for even a moment too long, you won’t have enough time. It’s even more frustrating when the enemy dies while you’re summoning the star—because then it also breaks and has no effect.
No wonder then that in the WoW subreddit, the specialization is ridiculed and cynically remarked: “Finally, a specialization that fulfills the fantasy of ‘Blue Balls’.” A specialization that is endlessly focused on building up but never reaches the fulfilling peak.
That may be described a bit vulgarly—but it hits the nail on the head.
This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that with the Devourer, you essentially just spam one ability continuously, hoping to finally be allowed to use the big finisher (which usually never happens). Everything feels sluggish and monotonous. Because the Devourer is only complete with the talents from Midnight.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and only a small aspect of why the new specialization doesn’t feel rounded.
No weapons, no joy
Things are even worse when leveling the class, as other problems arise.
Devastating is also the weapon selection for the demon hunter. Because a demon hunter in the devastation specialization can use glaives, swords, and axes. However, he needs such weapons with intelligence.
Try to find such weaponry with intelligence during the leveling phase—that’s a rare exception.
This leads to demon hunters often needing to level up 20, 30, or even 40 levels while wearing such poor weapons that they cannot deal the necessary damage to fight more than two mobs simultaneously.
Especially “amusing” is when demon hunters sign up for timewalking dungeons and the tanks suddenly plead with Blizzard to help the poor Devourers because the tanks alone do more damage than all 3 Devourers in the group combined.
I have often read in the past days: “I think the Devourer is not for me, I died several times while questing.” This did not come from people who have no clue about WoW—but from players I usually do heroic raids with. It’s already almost an art to die during WoW’s leveling phase, yet with the Devourer demon hunter, it’s an everyday occurrence.
No customizations, no effort
Another aspect especially affects the void elf demon hunters because Blizzard really made no effort with them. They seem sloppily implemented without a thought. Because: They have exactly the same customization options as their blood elf siblings from the Horde.
What seems logical at first glance, as blood elves and void elves share the vast majority of animations and graphical customizations, becomes ridiculous once you look at the details.
Becase demon hunters have special underwear that was originally created for night elves and blood elves (the first possible demon hunters). For blood elves, the color of the underwear is red—red like the banner of Silvermoon, their capital.
Exactly this underwear is now also worn by void elf demon hunters. There are also no unique tattoos that were originally promised (and then deleted from the blog post).
What annoys me almost more are the eyes. Because Blizzard never tires of emphasizing that they put a lot of effort into replacing the fel green fire with the cosmic blue of the void. This has succeeded everywhere—but specifically not with the eyes, the most iconic body part of the demon hunters, who regularly use the ability “Eye Beam”.
No meaningful story, no explanation
Lastly, the existence of a “Void Demon Hunter” still makes little sense to me. Even after playing through the associated quest, I still don’t grasp it fully. Because the core aspect of a demon hunter, after all, is that one gouges out their eyes and absorbs the essence of a demon, with which one is always in conflict.
I really hoped that Blizzard would provide some coherent lore here. Because I fundamentally believe that a lot is possible in WoW if one takes the effort to explain it historically consistent and logically. However, why Devourer demon hunters should even be called “demon hunters” is completely unclear to me. They are just “Void Elves with extra steps”.
My conclusion is correspondingly devastating. I am deeply disappointed and see it like the community: The Devourer simply sucks. What was supposed to be one of the flagship features of Midnight turned out to be a complete mess and was unnecessarily smashed against the wall due to an unfinished and poorly thought out implementation long before the actual expansion launched. The Devourer demon hunter stands there like an incomplete idea from the developers that could someday become great if only more time and resources had been invested.
When comparing the Devourer to sensible, strong features like housing or the new transmog system, you have to clearly say: That was nothing, Blizzard. The Devourer demon hunter has, following Illidan’s model, sacrificed everything. Unfortunately, also the quality.
Let’s hope that upcoming new specializations are better thought out.
