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A guide to building and playing the high-mobility DPS Havoc Demon Hunter.

World of Warcraft Legion: Havoc Demon Hunter Guide

A guide to building and playing the high-mobility DPS Havoc Demon Hunter.
This article is over 8 years old and may contain outdated information

Demon Hunters are the newest class in World of Warcraft. Havoc is the DPS spec and offers high mobility. Demon Hunters are different from other classes and get most of their talents after 100. 

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I’ll help you master the Havoc Demon Hunter by explaining the talents, as well as their artifact weapon traits and play style.

This guide will go over everything about Havoc Demon Hunters in Legion including:

  • Havoc Playstyle – How Havoc Demon Hunters play, and stats that help them the most.
  • Talent Choices – Which talents are suggested and why.
  • Artifact Weapon Traits and Relics – Beginning path to take for traits and the best relics to use.
  • Havoc Rotation – The suggested rotation of a Havoc Demon Hunter.

Havoc Playstyle

Havoc Demon Hunters use Fury as a resource for their attacks. Some attacks generate Fury, while others spend it. The main idea is to use those abilities that gather Fury until you can use those that spend it.

  • Demon’s Bite – Low Physical attack that generates 20-30 Fury.
  • Chaos Strike – High Chaos attack that spends 40 Fury. Critical hits refund 20 Fury.
  • Blade Dance (10 Second Cooldown) – Physical attack that hits all enemies, increases Dodge by 100% for 1 second, and spends 35 Fury.
  • Eye Beam (45 Second Cooldown) – Spends 50 Fury to blast all enemies in front of you for Chaos Damage.
  • Fel Rush (10 Second Recharge) – Charges forward to deal Chaos damage to all targets in your path. It has 2 charges.
  • Vengeful Retreat (25 Second Cooldown) – Attacks enemies with Physical damage and slows their movement by 70%, then vaults back 15 yards.

Havoc has great mobility with attacks such as Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat. If you time it right, you can use Vengeful Retreat to escape danger, then Fel Rush to get back into the fight. You can also use it as pure escape, or for crossing distances quicker.

They also have a big cooldown ability called Metamorphosis. This ability causes the Demon Hunter to leap into the air and land with area damage. After the landing, they transform into a demon for 30 seconds.

This empowers their Chaos Strike and Blade Dance abilities, and grants 25% haste. Chaos Strike becomes Annihilation and deals more damage. Blade Dance becomes Death Sweep and also deals more damage. The idea is to use as many Annihilations as possible during that 30 seconds,  and Death Sweep if there are many enemies.

Stat Priority
  • Agility
  • Critical Strike
  • Versatility
  • Haste
  • Mastery

Talent Choices

 I’ll list all the talents in each tier, then tell you which ones are suggested.

wow legion havoc demon hunter talents

Tier 1 – Level 99
  • Fel Mastery – Increases Fel Rush damage by 50% and grants 25 Fury when Fel Rush damages at least 1 target.
  • Chaos Cleave – Causes Chaos Strike to hit an additional target for 50% damage.
  • Blind Fury – Increases the duration of Eye Beam by 50%.

The best choice is Fel Mastery because it is great in all situations. Chaos Cleave is only good if there are 2 targets and no more.

Tier 2 – Level 100
  • Prepared – Reduces the cooldown of Vengeful Retreat by 10 seconds and generates 40 Fury of 5 seconds if Vengeful Retreat hit at least 1 enemy.
  • Demon Blades – Causes your auto attacks to have a 75% chance to generate 10-15 Fury and takes away your Demon Bite ability.
  • Demonic Appetite – Chaos Strike has a chance to spawn Lesser Soul Fragments, which grants 30 Fury when consumed.

Currently, Prepared is the best choice. Demon Blades is good if you want a simpler rotation.

Tier 3 – Level 102
  • Felblade – Active ability that charges target and deals fire damage.
  • First Blood – Reduces cost of Blade Dance and increases damage it deals against the first target it hits.
  • Bloodlet – Throw Glaive causes targets to bleed for 200% of the damage over 12 seconds.

Bloodlet is the best ability in this tier. It gives you extra damage on the good ability, Throw Glaive.

Felblade isn’t worth adding to your rotation and does not flow well. First Blood just is not as strong.

Tier 4 – Level 104
  • Netherwalk – Active ability that increases movement speed by 100%, makes you immune to damage, and unable to attack for 5 seconds.
    • It replaces the Blur ability and has a 1.5 minute cooldown.
  • Desperate Instincts – Automatically activates Blur when you fall below 35% health. This cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
    • This replaces the normal Blur
  • Soul Rending – Gain 100% Leech while Metamorphosis is active.

Overall, Soul Rending should be the choice here because it lets you get a bunch of health back while attacking in Metamorphosis.

Netherwalk can be useful in certain situations to save you from death. Desperate Instincts is not great because you lose the ability to use Blur on command and it could be down when you need it most.

Tier 5 – Level 106
  • Momentum – Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat increase your damage done by 20% for 4 seconds.
  • Fel Eruption – Active ability that hits a target with Chaos damage and stuns them for 2 seconds. It deals 100% more damage to targets immune to stun. It has a 35 seconds cooldown.
  • Nemesis – Active ability that increases the damage you do to the target by 20% for 1 minute. It has a 2 minute cooldown.
    • If the target dies before the minute is up, you will deal 20% more damage to enemies of that same type, like humanoid, demon, etc.

Momentum is the best choice for overall damage, but it requires you to be very mobile and a more complicated play style.

Nemesis is the easier and better choice for single target. It also helps in fights with adds of the same type that can die in under a min. Fel Eruption just doesn’t compare to the other 2.

Tier 6 – Level 108
  • Master of the Glaive – Gives Throw Glaive 2 charges and reduces enemies movement speed by 50% for seconds.
  • Unleashed Fury – Removes the Fury cost of Chaos nova and reduces its cooldown by 33%.
  • Demon Reborn – Using Metamorphosis also resets the cooldown of Eye Beam, Chaos Nova, and Blur.

Master of the Glaive is vastly superior, especially if you have the Bloodlet talent because it causes a lot of damage when stacked.

Demon Reborn is a decent alternative for burst damage. Unleashed Fury is not worth it compared to the others.

Tier 7 – Level 110
  • Chaos Blades – Active ability that increases all damage done by 20% (based on Mastery) for 12 seconds. 
    • While active, also increases auto-attacks damage by 200% and causes Chaos damage
  • Fel Barrage – Active ability that has a max of 5 charges that deals damage to your target and up to 5 enemies, depending on number of charges.
    • Your attacks have a chance to generate a charge.
  • Demonic – Eye Beam causes you to enter Demon Form for 5 seconds after it finishes doing damage.

Chaos Blades is best for single target and Fel Barrage is best for multiple targets. Demonic is good for questing, but not as good as the other 2 for dungeons and raids.

Artifact Weapon Traits and Relics

I’m going to outline the path you want to take for your first golden trait, which is after 13 points.

First, the trait you get automatically for equipping it is an active ability called Fury of the Illidari. Fury of the Illidari is an active ability with a 1 minute cooldown that deals Chaos damage over 3 seconds to all nearby enemies from the place you activated the skill.

Each trait has a number of ranks. You must must put points in all ranks before moving on to the one that comes after it.

For example, Demon Speed comes after Unleashed Demons or Illidari Knowledge, which each have 3 ranks. You must put points in all 3 ranks of one of those traits before you can get Demon Speed. Points you get from Relics do not count.

wow legion havoc demon hunter artifact weapon traits

Traits
  • Warglaives of Chaos (1 Rank) – Increases damage dealt by Chaos Strike by 15%.
  • Sharpened Glaives (3 Ranks) – Increases damage of Throw Glaives by 15% at 3 ranks.
  • Balanced Blades (1 Rank) – Increases Blade Dance damage by 10% for each target within 8 yards.
  • Unleashed Demons (3 Ranks) – Reduces cooldown of Metamorphosis by 60 seconds at 3 ranks.
  • Demon Speed (1 Rank) – Activating Blur generates 2 charges of Fel Rush.
  • Illidari Knowledge (3 Ranks) – Reduces the magic damage you take by 12% at 3 ranks.
  • Rage of the Illidari (Golden) – When Fury of the Illidari ends, 60% of its damage is divided among nearby enemies.
Relics

I’m going to list the top 3 traits you want your relics to give. Keep in mind that you get an extra relic slot when you complete the Class Order Hall Campaign.

  • Sharpened Glaives – Increases Throw Glaive damage.
  • Critical Chaos – Increases critical strike damage dealt by Chaos Strike by 6%.
  • Unleashed Demons – Reduces cooldown of Metamorphosis.

Havoc Rotation

Single Target
  • Vengeful Retreat if at 85 Fury or lower and you took the Prepared Talent.
  • Fel Rush if at 70 Fury or lower if you took the Fel Mastery talent, or if you are about to hit 2 charges
  • Fury of the Illidari
  • Throw Glaive
  • Chaos Strike at 70 Fury or above
  • Eye Beam
  • Demon’s Bite, or auto attacks if you took the Demon Blades talent, to generate Fury
Multi-Target
  • Fel Rush at 2 charges
  • Vengeful Retreat
  • Fury of the Illidari
  • Fell Barrage at 4 stacks or more if you’ve taken this talent
  • Throw Glaive
  • Fel Rush
  • Eye Beam
  • Chaos Strike if 3 or less targets, Blade Dance at 4 or more
  • Demon’s Bite/Demon Blades to generate Fury

That’s it for the World of Warcraft: Legion guide to Havoc Demon Hunters. Let me know if you have any questions.


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Synzer
After gaming for 25 years, Synzer leveraged his vast knowledge of RPGs and MMOs into a job as a games journalist, covering the games he loves. Five years later, he's still writing about Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon, and Knights of the Old Republic. Synzer has a bachelor's degree in English and creative writing. You can see him in action on his YouTube channel (https://bit.ly/2F97BrR) and Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/synzergaming).