With patch 1.0.4., Demon Hunters received an unexpected (to say the least) present in the form of the 1500% weapon damage Trail of Cinders rune. According to Blizzard, this is a bug and the skill will be changed in 1.0.5.
With Vault being a Discipline-fueled skill, its Trail of Cinders damage in Patch 1.0.4. lifted not one or two eyebrows in befuddlement as it became the DoT with the highest % weapon damage in the entire game, beating Barbarians' earthquake more than twice.
Apparently, the intended damage was supposed to be five times lower and Blizzard will be making the according changes in Patch 1.0.5, whose release date is still not clear.
In patch 1.0.5, we will be fixing a bug with Trail of Cinders that is causing the rune to deal five times more damage than intended. As a result of this fix, the amount of damage done by Trail of Cinders will be reduced from its current value (1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds) to 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds. While this bug was discovered very quickly after 1.0.4 released and is capable of being hotfixed, we didn't want to move forward with the fix without giving players proper notice. We also know that players are having fun using Trail of Cinders in their builds, so -- although this is an important issue we want to address -- we're opting to wait for the next client patch to make any adjustments.
We recognize that some builds which currently use Trail of Cinders will no longer be viable once this bug is fixed. Ultimately, we want to continue to provide players with more build options and ways to feel creative with their skill/gear selections, but not at the expense of going against our design goals or creating situations which can encourage players to limit themselves defensively.
Discipline-based skills were never intended to trump Hatred-based skills when it comes to dealing damage. Instead, Discipline should be something you build up and save to use defensively, or to provide utility in addition to dealing damage. Allowing Trail of Cinders to remain in its current form goes against this philosophy, and in addition creates risky scenarios for players (after all, if you’re incentivized to spend all your Discipline doing damage, it won’t be available when you need it to keep yourself alive with skills like Smoke Screen or Shadow Power).
We don't yet have a date for when 1.0.5 will be released, but we'll provide more information as the development process continues. We'll also update this thread with a reminder once we're close to releasing the patch.
We recognize that some builds which currently use Trail of Cinders will no longer be viable once this bug is fixed. Ultimately, we want to continue to provide players with more build options and ways to feel creative with their skill/gear selections, but not at the expense of going against our design goals or creating situations which can encourage players to limit themselves defensively.
Discipline-based skills were never intended to trump Hatred-based skills when it comes to dealing damage. Instead, Discipline should be something you build up and save to use defensively, or to provide utility in addition to dealing damage. Allowing Trail of Cinders to remain in its current form goes against this philosophy, and in addition creates risky scenarios for players (after all, if you’re incentivized to spend all your Discipline doing damage, it won’t be available when you need it to keep yourself alive with skills like Smoke Screen or Shadow Power).
We don't yet have a date for when 1.0.5 will be released, but we'll provide more information as the development process continues. We'll also update this thread with a reminder once we're close to releasing the patch.
Source: Battle.net
