Havoc Demon Hunter Raid Guide
Welcome to the Havoc Demon Hunter Raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.0! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!
Overview
Hero Talents
- Aldrachi Reaver and Fel-Scarred are the new Hero Talent tree options.Aldrachi Reaver is currently very slightly ahead of Fel-Scarred in single-target scenarios, however it is significantly harder to play and therefor not worth the hassle for the majority of players.
- Art of the Glaive makes your Throw Glaive ability become Reaver's Glaive, an ability that is off global cooldown that allows you to to cast either one of two combinations of abilities to trigger a debuff on your current target and do additional damage
- Casting Blade Dance or Death Sweep after Reaver's Glaive into Chaos Strike or Annihilation makes you current target take 14% more damage by you for the next 20 seconds.
- Casting Chaos Strike or Annihilation first after throwing your Reaver's Glaive will make your target take 4% more damage by you for the next 20 seconds and make your next Blade Dance or Death Sweep do additional damage.
- Additional to that after casting one of these two combinations you will get the Thrill of the Fight buff, which increases your attack speed and overall damage done by 20% for the next 10 seconds
- The Fel-Scarred talent tree is generally more passive than the Aldrachi Reaver talent tree, Monster Rising it is a bit counter intuitive as on one hand, it enhances your abilities during Metamorphosis turning Eye Beam into Abyssal Gaze, Sigil of Flame into Sigil of Doom and Immolation Aura into Consuming Fire making them look fancy on your bar.
- On the other hand however the tree has talents like Monster Rising, Burning Blades and Enduring Torment that significantly increase your output out of Metamorphosis.
- Generally I would highly recommend to play this talent tree as it almost does the same damage as Aldrachi Reaver with way less effort, which allows you to focus on more important stuff than dealing damage.
- Make sure to use your Sigil of Flame, Immolation Aura and Eye Beam before using Metamorphosis as Violent Transformation resets those abilities.
Talents
Gameplay Altering Talents
Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.
Spec Tree
- Essence Break
- Does massive damage in a frontal cone and amplifies the damage done by your Chaos Strike and Blade Dance on all targets hit.
- Initiative
- Hitting a target before it hits you increases your critical strike chance by 10%, this is reset on every hostile target by casting Vengeful Retreat.
- Inertia
- After casting Immolation Aura your next Fel Rush empowers you, increasing all your damage done by 18% for 5 seconds.
- Chaos Theory
- Blade Dance enhances your next Chaos Strike, increasing it's crit chance and making it refund fury.
- Furious Gaze
- After casting your Eye Beam ability you gain an additional 10% of haste.
Class Tree
- Darkness
- This group-wide defensive cooldown creates a zone of Darkness at the Havoc Demon Hunter's location, granting all allies within it a 15% chance to avoid all damage from incoming attacks.
- The Hunt
- This strong offensive Cooldown puts a major DoT on your target and every other target you charge through (capped at 5).
- Soul Sigils
- all your sigils spawn an additional Soul.
Hero Talents
- Student of Suffering
- Makes you gain a Mastery & Fury regeneration buff after casting Sigil of Flame.
- Demonsurge
- Empowers your Death Sweep and Annihilation after entering a Demonic window to procc an additional damage event after casting them.
- Demonic Intensity
- This also empowers your Sigil of Flame, Eye Beam and Immolation Aura to procc a Demonsurge.
Rotation
Tier Set
- 2-Set: Blade Dance deals 20% increased damage.
- 4-Set: Chaos Strike deals 20% increased damage, and has a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Blade Dance and reduce its Fury cost by 50%
Single-Target
Opener
- The Havoc Demon Hunter's opener is very complex and it is important that you do it in this exact order to maximize your damage output.
- The goal of this opener is to maximize your damage output in the first 30 seconds of the fight and maximizing the uptime of all your buffs and utilizing the Demonsurge buff properly.
- If your 4set proccs make sure to always instantly utilize your proccs and cast Death Sweep as much as possible during your Metamorphosis.
Priority List
This is a general priority you aim to maintain throughout the fight.
- Cast Immolation Aura if your Eye Beam is about to be ready
- Cast Sigil of Flame if your Eye Beam is about to be ready
- Cast Eye Beam on cooldown
- Cast Fel Rush if Unbound Chaos buff is up
- Cast Vengeful Retreat on cooldown
- Cast Essence Break on cooldown
- Cast The Hunt on cooldown
- Cast Death Sweep
- Cast Annihilation
- Cast Blade Dance
- Cast Chaos Strike
- Cast Felblade
- Cast Fel Rush if everything else is on cooldown and you have no fury
Multi-Target
Opener
- Below, you see an example of how your opener looks like using the recommended Multi-Target talent spec.
Multi-Target Priority List
- Cast Immolation Aura if your Eye Beam is about to be ready
- Cast Sigil of Flame if your Eye Beam is about to be ready
- Cast Eye Beam on cooldown
- Cast Fel Rush if Unbound Chaos buff is up
- Cast Vengeful Retreat on cooldown
- Cast Essence Break on cooldown
- Cast The Hunt on cooldown
- Cast Death Sweep
- Cast Annihilation
- Cast Blade Dance
- Cast Chaos Strike
- Cast Felblade
- Cast Fel Rush if everything else is on cooldown and you have no fury
Deep Dive
Dead or Alive
The most important part of doing damage and being a useful part of your Raid group is staying alive. With movement being a core part of your damage rotation you NEED to always be aware of your surroundings. Do not Fel Rush or Vengeful Retreat into frontal abilities or area of effect zones.
You cannot do damage while you are dead and neither can you stop abilities from going through.
Being able to execute the perfect rotation isn't going to help you if you are lying dead on the floor or if you need externals/healing that your tank would need otherwise.
Making proper use of the Restless Hunter talent
Restless Hunter increases the damage of your next Blade Dance by 50%, however what most people don't know is that Restless Hunter also triggers when you are currently in demon form and activate Metamorphosis.
Additional to that Death Sweep has a small "cast time" or animation window which allows you to benefit of the Restless Hunter talent twice.
The way this works is showcased below, basically you cast Death Sweep, into Vengeful Retreat and animation cancel the Vengeful Retreat with the @Player Metamorphosis Macro from the Macro section and press Death Sweep again.
This is going to take some practice but being able to perform this combination properly greatly increases your overall damage especially if you are combining it with an on use trinket.
Immolation Aura
Manage your Immolation Aura charges properly as it is the biggest portion of your damage breakdown in AoE scenarios. When you are about to overcap on charges but you don't have Fel Rush charges ready to spend on Inertia uptime just use your Immolation Aura charges and ignore Inertia.
Never overcap on Immolation Aura charges, no matter what!
Initiative Windows
Another important part of your damage is managing your Initiative windows properly. Remember that every single hostile enemy procs Initiative and Vengeful Retreat also resets it on EVERY hostile enemy.
You can optimize this by staying out of range of some enemies to procInitiative again later.
Haste ?!
Even though Haste Sims pretty poorly on paper, it is a great stat for multi target scenarios as it smooths your gameplay out by a lot.
Haste increases the amount of Immolation Aura charges you have as it decreases the recharge time and helps with Fury generation as well as helping you fit more abilities into your Demonic windows.
Understanding Mechanics
Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.
Nerub-ar Palace
The following tips are mainly applicable to Heroic and Mythic Bosses.
← Scroll for more Bosses →
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Avoid running into nets and getting the Stalker Netting as it doesnt allow you to Vengeful Retreat and Fel Rush, gutting your damage.
- Help your raid by using your mobility to feed the boss with Chunky Viscera, you do this by picking them up from the killed smallies in the intermission and running them to the boss and pressing the extra action button.
- Always watch out for the portals in the intermission to avoid getting hit by Juggernaut Charge
Offensive Cooldown Usage
If you're assigned to Group 1:
If you're assigned to Group 2:
- Do note that the length of the fight impacts your cooldown usage heavily. If your fight lasts shorter than 6 minutes you use your Metamorphosis on pull followed by using it after every Goresplatter.
Defensive Cooldown Usage
If you're assigned to Group 1:
If you're assigned to Group 2:
Boss Tips
- You can double jump over the Spewing Hemorrhage if you Fel Rush at the maximum height.
- Use your mobility to get out of Goresplatter easily, avoid running through the Black Blood by simply double jumping and Fel Rush over it.
- Don't do fancy stuff while having Grasp From Beyond on you, avoid Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreating into your fellow team mates or other void zones.
- Help controlling the adds in the other phase by using Chaos Nova and maybe even picking up Master of the Glaive to slow them.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Blur whenever you are targeted by Decimate or Decimates are about to hit Cosmic Simulacrums.
- PRAY THAT YOU ARE NOT TARGETTED BY THE FIRST Phase Blades.
- Avoid standing between the boss and the players that are affected by Phase Blades.
- Dont bathe in the Rain of Arrows swirlies.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Stun Infested Spawn withChaos Nova, you can also pick up Chaos Fragments for a minor dps increase.
- Move out with Spinneret's Strands and quickly move back in by using Fel Rush.
- Follow the boss as fast as possible by utilizing your Fel Rush stacks when he moves, be ready to interrupt Acidic Eruption, however don't interrupt it instantly.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Defensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- You can generally Vengeful Retreat to remove Unstable Web from yourself, however it is not recommended as you trigger a Web Eruption which is really bad for the other melee players around you, just move out and get dispelled.
- Use Chaos Nova to help controll the small adds.
- Try to interrupt the Poison Burst cast of the Voracious Worms as much as possible.
- Avoid additional raid damage by not standing in Hemorrhage during Ingest Black Blood
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Defensive Cooldown Usage
Use Blur whenever you're targeted by Twilight Massacres.
Boss Tips
- Use Netherwalk as an emergency button. For example, if you get hit by multiple Twilight Massacres.
- Queensbane can be quite dangerous. Consider using a defensive and be ready to use Healthstones and or Health Potion.
- The main thing to keep an eye out for on this boss is the position of each Nether Rift. Their placement dictates how much you get pulled towards them. Try to position yourself in a way that each Nether Rift is at a similar distance to you, be ready to Netherwalk if you messed up your positioning.
- Don't do fancy stuff while targeted by Regicide, avoid Fel Rush and using Vengeful Retreat to make the other players in your raid happy!
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Defensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Avoid trying to hold stuff for vulnerability windows as you tend to lose more damage than you gain by it if you are not doing it properly.
- After Web Vortex use your mobility to break the Binding Webs as fast as possible to minimize raid damage.
- Alternatively, use Vengeful Retreat in the correct moment to negate the pull in effect, however this tends to bug and makes you lose dps.
- Try to get close to the adds that spawn from Call of the Swarm since they fixate the closest target and getting them into melee massively helps killing them.
- Use your mobility to move out of any kind of swirly and avoid taking extra damage.
Offensive Cooldown Usage
Defensive Cooldown Usage
Boss Tips
- Line up your Eye Beam for every root set to help break free other people and get Initiative buff and Demon Souls from the roots.
- You can technically Metamorphosis the first and last set of roots in Mythic difficulty if your raid group is missing freedoms, this will however come at a minor damage loss on the boss.
- You can counter the Pull-in by jumping right before the cast happens and pressing jump another time as soon as you are getting gripped.
- Try being stacked with the melee group during Web Blades as this will generally make your life easier and don't bait ahead of the group.
- You can bait the beam of the Chamber Expeller as it is cast on the closest target, try baiting the beam as you are immune to the grip.
- In Phase 3 you can double jump over the line of the Frothing Gluttony, it is significantly easier if you look straight at the line, double jump and follow up with a Fel Rush over it.
- Use Chaos Nova in Phase 3 to avoid having adds walk into the boss.
- Use Netherwalk if you are targetted by Royal Condemnation.
Stat Priority
Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Havoc Demon Hunter. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.
Higher Item level items are better in most scenarios. For an accurate representation of what item to equip you should use Simcraft! A static "Stat Priority" is just a starting point and can easily shift depending on your individual gear.
- All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!
Tertiary
- Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
- Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
- Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. Makes playing certain mechanics a lot easier.
Gear
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Impalers of the Hypogeal Nemesis | The Silken Court |
| Neck | Locket of Broken Memories | Rasha'nan |
| Shoulder | War-Mantle of the Hypogeal Nemesis | Rasha'nan |
| Cloak | Wings of Shattered Sorrow | Rasha'nan |
| Chest | Chestguard of the Hypogeal Nemesis | Broodtwister Ovi'nax |
| Wrist | Rune-Branded Armbands | Crafting |
| Gloves | Thousand-Scar Impalers | The Silken Court |
| Belt | Rune-Branded Waistband | Crafting |
| Legs | Pantaloons of the Hypogeal Nemesis | Nexus-Princess Ky'veza |
| Boots | Whisperer's Echoing Steps | City of Threads |
| Ring 1 | Seal of the Poisoned Pact | Queen Ansurek |
| Ring 2 | Seal of the City Watch | Siege of Boralus |
| Trinket 1 | Treacherous Transmitter | Nexus-Princess Ky'veza |
| Trinket 2 | Void Reaper's Contract | Nexus-Princess Ky'veza |
| Weapon | Void Reaper's Warp Blade & Predator's Feasthooks | Nexus-Princess Ky'veza & Rasha'nan |
Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Guise of the Construct | The Stonevault |
| Neck | Trailspinner Pendant | Mists of Tirna Scithe |
| Shoulder | Whispering Umbral Mantle | The Stonevault |
| Cloak | Troggstitched Drape | Grim Batol |
| Chest | Vest of Misshapen Hides | Grim Batol |
| Wrist | Unbreakable Beetlebane Bindings | Ara-kara, City of Echoes |
| Gloves | Gorebound Stranglers | City of Threads |
| Belt | Shadow Congregant's Belt | The Dawnbreaker |
| Legs | Gauzewoven Legguards | Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
| Boots | Whisperer's Echoing Steps | City of Threads |
| Ring 1 | Umbriss Band | Grim Batol |
| Ring 2 | Seal of the City Watch | Siege of Boralus |
| Trinket 1 | Ara-Kara Sacbrood | Ara-Kara, City of Echoes |
| Trinket 2 | Skardyn's Grace | Grim Batol |
| Weapon | 2x Coral-Edged Crescent | Siege of Boralus |
Trinkets
Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the raid boss.
Active Trinket alternatives
- Skardyn's Grace
- On use mastery trinket with baseline mainstat, synergizes very well with the Havoc Demon Hunter 2 minute bursty profile
- Treacherous Transmitter
- 1.5 minute on use that doesnt really fit into the profile of Havoc Demon Hunter but nevertheless is very strong, but hard to play
- Mad Queen's Mandate
- 2 minute on use trinket that does massive damage, synergizes well with the high crit chance of Havoc Demon Hunter and the Initiative talent
Passive Trinket alternatives
- Ara-Kara Sacbrood
- Strongest passive trinket choice, gives you baseline haste and a high amount of mainstat with high uptime
- Dead-Eye Spyglass
- Second best passive trinket, gives mainstat passively and substantially increases your critical strike chance on a proc basis
- Void Reaper's Contract
- passive damage procc trinket, does low damage currently but might possibly get tuned, synergizes well with the raid weapon if you can get your hand on it
Embellishments
- 2x Dawnthread Lining
- It is a good choice if you have over 80% health most of the time and during your cooldowns.
- The optimal slots to craft on are Wrists, Boots, Waist, or Cloak depending on your available gear.
Honorable mention
- Darkmoon Sigil: Vivacity
- Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension
- Blessed Weapon Grip
Remaining Sparks
- Crafted items are 636 item level and regular items are 639 on max item level, therefore, it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.
Simcraft
To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.
Consumables
- Phials
- Flask of Alchemical Chaos -- maximum DPS.
- Flask of Tempered Versatility -- less DPS but more survivability.
- Food
- Feast of the Divine Day
- Combat Potion
- Tempered Potion
- Health Potion
- Algari Healing Potion -- a big burst of healing
- Weapon
- Ironclaw Whetstone
- Augment Rune
- Crystallized Augment Rune
- Sockets
- Masterful Ruby
- Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem color to enhance your Culminating Blasphemite.
- Deadly Sapphire
- Deadly Emerald
- Deadly Onyx
Enchantments
| Head | Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Neck | Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak - Chant of Winged Grace |
| Chest | Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance |
| Wrist | Enchant Bracer - Chant of Armored Avoidance Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Waist | Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Legs | Defender's Armor Kit |
| Boots | Enchant Boots - Defender's March |
| Ring 1 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Ring 2 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Critical Strike Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon - Authority of the Depths 2x |
You buy Nerubian Gemweaver from the Great Vault Vendor to add sockets to your Helm, Wrists & Waist.
Races
For min-maxing a Havoc Demon Hunter in raiding, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.
- Shadowmeld -- Nightelf
- Provides nothing in Raid, but can be useful in Mythic+ in very niche situations.
- Arcane Torrent -- Bloodelf
- Removes 1 beneficial effect from hostile targets around you.
- Generates 15 Fury.
Recommendation
It does not really matter which Race you chose for Havoc Demon Hunter, as both provide about the same DPS benefits, it is however advised to go Bloodelf as Arcane Torrent might come in handy in some situations where you need a quick AoE purge and can be used to gain 15 Fury while you are out of range of any target in combat.
Macros
Discover recommended macros for Havoc Demon Hunter during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.
Cursor Macros
Mouseover Macros
General Macros
Addons
Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Havoc Demon Hunter, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.
Addons
WeakAuras
Changes this Patch
Patch 11.0.5
Patch 11.0.2
Patch 11.0.1
FAQ
Q: Is it worth holding my Eye Beam for X?
Credits
Written By: Nicememes
Reviewed By: Kush