Introduction
As of May 8, a hotfix has been deployed to both PTR and Live realms that has completely changed the behavior of Fiery Brand as well as its related talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters. This has significant implications for the skill ceiling and strength of the spec which we’ll go over in this article.
What is Lunchboxing?
For the uninitiated, Lunchboxing was a term invented by the primary discoverer of this tech, Meyra, because the behavior for spreading Fiery Brand with the Burning Alive talent behaved similarly to packing a lunchbox, then reheating it and pulling it out later.
For an in-depth explanation of all the issues and bugs that were solved, refer to my article on Why You Should and Shouldn’t Play Vengeance.
For those of you that just want the meat of it – a simple explanation of how this tech worked – what effectively happened was that Fiery Brand was limited to spreading only to 1 target a time, no matter how many were cast. This had previously caused issues, as prior to the 10.1 patch, with the Down in Flames talent, if you cast 2 separate Fiery Brand, the spread from Burning Alive would break entirely until one of the origin brands expired.
Because our new 4 piece tier set bonus, Demon Hunter Vengeance 10.1 Class Set 4pc automatically cast a short duration Fiery Brand when procced, and they wanted it to interact with all the talents that affected it, they needed to fix this behavior, or the set bonus would be a net negative for the spec. Therefore, they fixed it by storing the state of the current brand(packing the lunch), letting the initial cast spread, and then pulling out the stored state(reheating the lunch) once the current one had expired.
Why was Lunchboxing Important?
Due to various bugs which I won’t rewrite as it’s quite involved(refer to prior article), this allowed for us to effectively extend and chain Fiery Brand to an infinite number of targets in AoE, with infinite duration given enough time and proper play. The method to do this was to always target the enemy with the longest duration of Fiery Brand remaining, to spend our 4p proc on it. As a result, we could have permanent uptime in any situation with 2+ targets when played properly, giving a large bonus to both damage and survivability. The only requirement was that Vengeance players would have to continually chain extra enemies into a pull or boss before long duration Fiery Brand ran out, which made for some unique, though difficult gameplay.
Once people found about this, it generated quite a bit of excitement in the community, leading people to believe that Vengeance was going to be an extremely strong spec this tier when played well. Even players who don’t normally care about Vengeance were excited to play the spec as it offered a unique playstyle that had incredible potential.
What Changed?
As of the hotfix, the behavior of Fiery Brand has changed entirely and is much more intuitive. To sum it up,
- Fiery Brand can now spread from any number of sources at once, in a realistic situation, it is possible to spread from 3 at the same time – 2 hardcast with Down in Flames and one from the 4p tier set.
- There is no longer a cap on the number of spreads from Burning Alive and they will spread as long as the initial brand is active.
- The duration of spread Fiery Brand from Burning Alive are set to exactly 10 seconds and are not based on the initial brand duration.
Due to the spread brands being set to 10 seconds, this means that the spreads from the 4p will last longer than the original brand, but if you hardcast a brand and then 4p a proc into it, it will spread up to 8 times because of the 16 second duration. However, even with this many spreads, you will never get more than 6 brands active at once if spreading from 1 target because the duration is set to 10 seconds rather than equal to the origin brand duration.
On the other hand, it is now possible to cast 2 separate brands with Down in Flames and get a proc on another, and each will spread individually, so you can have up to 16 targets of brand at one time, once every 90 seconds (limited by the charges).
Optionally, you can hardcast a Fiery Brand, then apply Recrimination to a target that it has spread from, and both will spread while they are active. This means you can get 5 spreads from the initial brand, plus 8 from the spread+extended duration, but never more than 10 at a time due to some of them expiring.
Edit: This appears to be unintended as per the developer, brands should not last more than 10 seconds at any point.
What is the Impact of this Change?
Lunchboxing as we know it is effectively dead, but the new changes are far more intuitive for most players. Vengeance will no longer likely be a candidate for meta tank through sheer output, and will be somewhat weaker defensively, but will be less reliant on infinite chaining of enemies.
Luckily, this will not change our recommended Talents or Rotation, as there are still benefits to playing the Down in Flames build, and it will likely be generally easier to play, as you no longer have to track the longest Fiery Brand or Recrimination procs to use them effectively.
I believe these changes are healthier for gameplay of the spec as a whole, though it has definitely muted the excitement. The redesign of the spread mechanic allows for more flexibility in gameplay, providing players with the opportunity to choose whether they want one longer brand with a lower target cap, or shorter duration brands on more targets. In addition, it doesn’t punish players as heavily for dropping Fiery Brand, whether it is from being unable to chain, forced RP, or misplay.
However, a side effect is that Vengeance has lost much of its expected power this tier, and will likely need some compensation beyond the announced ST buffs.
Unfortunately, community perception also exists, and while it was favorable towards Vengeance due to the Lunchbox tech, public sentiment has already begun to sour with the announcement of this fix on Fel Hammer, and will likely continue to do so, making it harder for Vengeance players to get invites in the group finder.
