Havoc Demon Hunter 7.3

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Havoc Demon Hunter.

[Guest FutureDemonHunterMai]

Why would you take a talent that changes an active ability to something passive. That talent is boring and I dont think any Demon Hunter will want to take it.

[Lockybalboa 618]

1 minute ago, Guest FutureDemonHunterMai said:

Why would you take a talent that changes an active ability to something passive. That talent is boring and I dont think any Demon Hunter will want to take it.

Currently it is the best DPS talent. That will likely change before live as Blizzard has already made a blue post saying that they want it to be the second or third best DPS talent on that tier so that people have the option of an easier rotation, but it would not force people into it.

[wordup 37]

4 minutes ago, Guest FutureDemonHunterMai said:

Why would you take a talent that changes an active ability to something passive. That talent is boring and I dont think any Demon Hunter will want to take it.

It's definitely a polarising talent, but I think if you're more open-minded to it you'll find it isn't as bad as it may look. Currently it's benefit is significant enough that it's pretty much impossible to ignore just how much better it really is.

A great deal of Demon Hunters have played around with it on the Beta and its playstyle is definitely different, but I'd say to be fair there is a lot more nuance to Demon Blades play than it's given credit for. The banking system and the not-on-GCD requirement means that you have to be even more aware of your resource state, which in a lot of cases is more difficult than simply filling empty GCDs with Demon's Bite.

[Guest FutureDemonHunterMai]

Thank you for answering me so fast. I am happy to hear that Blizz wants to make that ability less mandatory. I like Demons Bite quite a lot and would not like to just watch my character auto-attack to build fury.

[demonardvark 556]

what's a demonter? anything like demon hunter? (cough title cough cough hint)

[Damien 1,514]

lol, I fixed it :P

[Guest Missdiealot]

Hi

you say that Demonic Appetite is unfortunately not competitive in any situation currently as it relies too much on additional killing blows to keep it at the same level, and the Lesser Soul Fragments it provides do not proc the Shattered Souls damage increase to Demons. It does however have some great implications in the open world allowing for more frequent sustain and additional Fury.

However the Demonic Appetite relies on Chaos Strike not on killing blows.

Just wanted to clear it up, and i'm not trying to poke you guys, as you make a awesome and useful site :)

Missdiealot :)

[wordup 37]

2 hours ago, Guest Missdiealot said:

Hi

you say that Demonic Appetite is unfortunately not competitive in any situation currently as it relies too much on additional killing blows to keep it at the same level, and the Lesser Soul Fragments it provides do not proc the Shattered Souls damage increase to Demons. It does however have some great implications in the open world allowing for more frequent sustain and additional Fury.

However the Demonic Appetite relies on Chaos Strike not on killing blows.

Just wanted to clear it up, and i'm not trying to poke you guys, as you make a awesome and useful site :)

Missdiealot :)

Hey :)

I could see how it might be a little confusing the way I worded it. When I say it relies on the killing blows, that's to push it into being equal with the two. The procs alone from Chaos Strike are not enough for it to be worth the pick.

[Guest NewDemonHunter]

So which is more important in stats - mastery or versatility? The article is a little confusing on this point.

[Valks 2,373]

19 minutes ago, Guest NewDemonHunter said:

So which is more important in stats - mastery or versatility? The article is a little confusing on this point.

What do you mean?

Quote

 

1. Basics

The stat priority for Havoc Demon Hunter is:

1. Agility;
2. Critical Strike;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste;
5. Mastery.

 

 

 

[Guest Final]

when legion goes live will stats priority for demon hunters change? just asking now so i can better prepare for legion!

[Valks 2,373]

23 minutes ago, Guest Final said:

when legion goes live will stats priority for demon hunters change? just asking now so i can better prepare for legion!

The stats might be different at level 110, but the gear you earn now won't affect you at that level. Follow these for now in the pre-patch.

[RageMonkey 1]

I know Demon Blades might be more damage, but there's NO way I'm taking it in prepatch. Without Fel Eruption or their talent cds, or Fury of the Illidari the spec is going to be SUPER boring. Like tears inducing boring. 

 

[wordup 37]

6 hours ago, RageMonkey said:

I know Demon Blades might be more damage, but there's NO way I'm taking it in prepatch. Without Fel Eruption or their talent cds, or Fury of the Illidari the spec is going to be SUPER boring. Like tears inducing boring. 

 

Probably true, but in general pre-patch DH is lacking a huge amount of tools so you're probably going to feel empty in some cases either way.

[Guest rach3l]

Throw Glaive presently has a 10 second cooldown on beta. This guide indicates a 3 second cooldown. Will that be changing in live, or is this an error? Thank you!

[wordup 37]

5 hours ago, Guest rach3l said:

Throw Glaive presently has a 10 second cooldown on beta. This guide indicates a 3 second cooldown. Will that be changing in live, or is this an error? Thank you!

That's likely pulling from the incorrect tooltip (i.e. the Vengeance tooltip which is 3, but it's definitely a 10, will ammend it.)

[Guest metronome]

6 hours ago, Guest rach3l said:

Throw Glaive presently has a 10 second cooldown on beta. This guide indicates a 3 second cooldown. Will that be changing in live, or is this an error? Thank you!

might be an error , because vengeance has 3 sec cd glaive toss afaik

[Guest Ney]

Hello, as a matter of fact, demon blades is supposed to be the most worse talent to choose - blizz already said so in an interview ( check it out on mmo-champion. they just wanted to give another possible playstyle... but dps while its not the way to go

[Guest DH Talents]

Maybe i am a little slow atm but why do we only get 2 tiers of talents? Do we get more later or will we only have that few customization options?

[Pandacho 286]

26 minutes ago, Guest DH Talents said:

Maybe i am a little slow atm but why do we only get 2 tiers of talents? Do we get more later or will we only have that few customization options?

The guide is for the pre-patch. You will get the rest of talents while levelling to 110.

[wordup 37]

11 hours ago, Guest Ney said:

Hello, as a matter of fact, demon blades is supposed to be the most worse talent to choose - blizz already said so in an interview ( check it out on mmo-champion. they just wanted to give another possible playstyle... but dps while its not the way to go

Whether it is supposed to be or not, no changes have occured to it yet. When that happens, you will likely be right and this will be updated to reflect that, but until then Demon Blades is just far too much of an increase to ignore.

[Astrinaar 1]

Really liking the guide, but I do have 3 issues with it. 
First one is in the multitarget rotation section

Quote

1. Cast  Chaos Strike at 3 or lower targets if  Chaos Cleave is taken.
2. Cast  Blade Dance at 4 targets or more.
3. Cast  Chaos Strike at 70 Fury or above.

According to this, chaos strike has to be used at 3  or less targets no matter if chaos cleave is chosen or not, the only difference with the talent being that you no longer want to pool the fury. That does not make a lot of sense to me. I'm assuming that Blade Dance is worth using at 3 or more targets without Chaos Cleave, which is what I've heard elsewhere. 

 

In the single target rotation you want us to pool energy, and it doesn't say why. It makes sense in multi, so you have enough fury to cast Blade Dance and Eye Beam when they're ready, but there's no other spender than Chaos Strike for single target. Pooling normally and spending everything during trinket/weapon procs would make sense, but that's not written anywhere in the guide, as far as I can tell at least. 

 

Lastly I'd like to suggest talking about Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat. It is written that they incur a 1 second movement cooldown, but it's not really emphasized that they only incur a mini cd for the rest of your abilities, allowing you to cast another ability immediately. WIth vengeful retreat jumping away from the target, you can even have enough time to use an ability before it takes you out of range. Knowing this makes it much more important that you are still within melee range of the target at the end of your Fel Rush, to not waste any time with running.  Took me a while to notice it when I played my DH, as I expected it to give a full GCD on all abilities, so wouldn't be surprised if other DH's would like knowing it.

[wordup 37]

49 minutes ago, Astrinaar said:

Really liking the guide, but I do have 3 issues with it. 
First one is in the multitarget rotation section

According to this, chaos strike has to be used at 3  or less targets no matter if chaos cleave is chosen or not, the only difference with the talent being that you no longer want to pool the fury. That does not make a lot of sense to me. I'm assuming that Blade Dance is worth using at 3 or more targets without Chaos Cleave, which is what I've heard elsewhere. 

 

In the single target rotation you want us to pool energy, and it doesn't say why. It makes sense in multi, so you have enough fury to cast Blade Dance and Eye Beam when they're ready, but there's no other spender than Chaos Strike for single target. Pooling normally and spending everything during trinket/weapon procs would make sense, but that's not written anywhere in the guide, as far as I can tell at least. 

 

Lastly I'd like to suggest talking about Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat. It is written that they incur a 1 second movement cooldown, but it's not really emphasized that they only incur a mini cd for the rest of your abilities, allowing you to cast another ability immediately. WIth vengeful retreat jumping away from the target, you can even have enough time to use an ability before it takes you out of range. Knowing this makes it much more important that you are still within melee range of the target at the end of your Fel Rush, to not waste any time with running.  Took me a while to notice it when I played my DH, as I expected it to give a full GCD on all abilities, so wouldn't be surprised if other DH's would like knowing it.

Hey!

On this, the first point I'm not sure what you mean. The list there is that, if Chaos Cleave is taken, you Chaos Strike at 3 targets or less if you have Chaos Cleave (as CS is more valuable than BD until 4 targets if you have Chaos Cleave active), and after that breakpoint of 4, Blade Dance starts to pull ahead.

Pooling is mostly because you want to be casting on cooldown, but that's it. The reason to pool and then spend is largely because refunds are unpredictable, and having a base that you can empty during situations where you would otherwise be forced into generating excessively on a target makes a noticeable difference. When it comes to Legion this does change significantly, but with pre-patch there really isn't enough important skills that dumping is worth the time spent when you have very few additional tools to bulk out the rotation. It is a good point that it isn't fully explained though.

With regards to the mini CD, Fel Rush incurs a 0.5sec GCD, whilst VR doesn't at all and is completely off the GCD, they do however both share the movement cooldown (along with Glide) to block the cancel I mentioned. The time that Fel Rush incurs is enough that you arrive at your destination by the time you can cast again, whilst Glide being fully off the GCD means you can cast mid-air no matter what, which I should also add in since that's not apparant at first glance, so I'll make sure that makes it in!

[Astrinaar 1]

6 minutes ago, wordup said:

On this, the first point I'm not sure what you mean. The list there is that, if Chaos Cleave is taken, you Chaos Strike at 3 targets or less if you have Chaos Cleave (as CS is more valuable than BD until 4 targets if you have Chaos Cleave active), and after that breakpoint of 4, Blade Dance starts to pull ahead.

What I mean is that you could completely remove either one of the chaos cleave steps, and the rotation would be the same. 
Use CS at 3 or fewer targets before BD, or
Use BD at 4 or more targets, then use CS.
Both equate to the same result, that CS should be used at 3 or less targets, with Chaos Cleave being irrelevant. 

I don't have the numbers myself, but I think the correct way to write it would be to change the target amount for BD to 3 or more. Then Chaos Cleave would still make CS better at 3 targets, but without Chaos Cleave it would be better to use BD at 3 targets. 

Here's the math that makes me believe that the rotation is wrong
Assuming CS with Cleave is best at 3, and BD best at 4.
On 3 targets without cleave, CS deals 33% less dmg. BD at 4 targets used on 3 targets instead, deals 25% less damage. With above info, BD at 4 targets is already a higher number, and it's reduced by less than CS is. Because of that it seems wrong that CS would be better to use on 3 targets without cleave, as the current rotation suggests. 

If CS is, for some reason, better to use at 3 targets without cleave anyway, then you can remove step 5 OR step 7 from the list, without changing the rotation.