Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

In the Midnight Pre-Patch, Aldrachi Reaver is still a potent option that provides solid cleave and funnel on any encounter that needs it. While it's hurting from the lack of access to the Apex Talent, it's still very competitive due to newly added Hero Talents, and is only slightly behind its competition:

In the Midnight Pre-Patch, Fel-Scarred benefitted a lot from a lot of broad changes to the spec - most importantly Demonsurge - causing it to leap ahead as the more consistent option. While it can be slightly harder to pilot now with its ideal build, it's the recommended choice:

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In single-target, Aldrachi Reaver picks up all of the Throw Glaive talents to empower Reaver's Glaive, and uses Screaming Brutality to pull value out of them rotationally. Its build remains very similar to The War Within counterpart, picking up both Exergy and Tactical Retreat, and takes Chaotic Transformation and Shattered Destiny on the final choice nodes.

In Midnight, the Fel-Scarred single-target rotation is still very focused on maximizing your Demonic and Metamorphosis windows. This means heavy investment into Eye Beam through both points in Blind Fury and Furious Gaze, while also picking up Shattered Destiny and Chaotic Transformation on the final two choice nodes. It also uses movement talents - in particular Inertia - to further enhance its burst windows, lining them up with Eye Beam casts.

In the Midnight Pre-patch, Aldrachi Reaver retains its potent funnel options, though is slightly more limited by both the lack of the Apex Talent availability and some more narrow talent selections. It's still capable of dealing extremely good damage, though is slightly less favoured than before:

Due to some significant scaling improvements, Fel-Scarred fares very well in the Midnight Pre-Patch. Demonsurge is now potent, frequent AoE and is well suited to the Mythic+ environment. While it lacks the power of the Apex Talent until full release, it's currently the recommended choice:

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In AoE situations, Aldrachi Reaver remains very similar to single-target, picking up all of the Throw Glaive to amplify Reaver's Glaive and pairing them with Screaming Brutality. It picks up the new Glaive Tempest as well to add more punch to each Blade Dance cast in AoE, while picking up Chaotic Transformation on the choice node.

Fel-Scarred remains very similar to its single-target counterpart, using similar talents to lverage cleave. It still picks up a lot of Eye Beam focused talents in Blind Fury and Cycle of Hatred, but switches to Glaive Tempest for cleave. It also picks up Screaming Brutality to more comfortably apply Burning Wound to multiple targets.

Aldrachi Reaver is well suited to Delves due to the high volume of Soul Fragment generation for sustain. It can handle larger pulls comfortably, though the extra management that Reaver's Mark requires can be awkward in some situations. Aside from that, it's still a solid pick.

In Delves, Fel-Scarred leans heavily into dealing explosive burst damage very frequently, making it well suited for this type of content. Pairing that with high uptime on Metamorphosis for high self-sustain with Soul Rending makes for a very comfortable build, and is the recommended choice.

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This tree grants access to Reaver's Glaive, which is triggered via consuming Souls and replaces your next Throw Glaive, dealing significantly more damage. Specific mechanics are:

• After casting Reaver's Glaive a combo sequence is initiated. Depending on the order of your next Chaos Strike and Blade Dance, a bonus effect will occur and you will gain Thrill of the Fight.
• Reaver's Mark is applied via Chaos Strike from this combo. This causes all Physical damage you deal to duplicate a portion as Chaos onto the affected target through Wounded Quarry.

This makes Aldrachi Reaver a potent bringer of funnel, while still having flexible single-target and cleave tools regardless of build choice. The addition of Bladecraft in Midnight causes Blade Dance casts to deliver enormous hits through this effect to enemies suffering from your mark.

Fel-Scarred focuses purely on your Metamorphosis windows, both via the 2-minute cooldown and Demonic. It comes with a number of buffs and effects to your core abilities, and some specific mechanics:

• After entering Metamorphosis via any means, your next Annihilation and Death Sweep will trigger Demonsurge, dealing high AoE Chaos damage.
• After casting the Metamorphosis ability, this also extends to your next Eye Beam and Immolation Aura, which are also both empowered into Abyssal Gaze and Consuming Fire.

This orients Fel-Scarred around a 20-second burst cycle with Cycle of Hatred, improved even further every 2 minutes during Metamorphosis. The up-front damage provided by Demonsurge is great in both single-target and AoE, giving it good cleave flexibility regardless of build.