Devourer Demon Hunter DPS Guide — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.1)

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Devourer is a new mid-range DPS specialization available to Demon Hunters in Midnight. It unleashes void empowered spells, dealing Cosmic damage, and devouring the souls of its foes.

Devourer gameplay mixes a build-and-spend loop with a unique twist during its transformation phase, Void Metamorphosis, which has no timer-based cooldown, but is instead accessed by collecting Soul Fragments generated by your abilities. Devourer utilizes smaller cooldown abilities to build up to this, and rewards both good planning and execution of your Void Metamorphosis windows. It primarily operates as a 25-yard caster (much like Evokers), but also mixes in some talents that encourage moving into melee range, giving a unique flow to combat. As a Demon Hunter, it also has a wide suite of movement tools, and brings the Chaos Brand debuff to assist your group.

Pre-Patch Disclaimer

Due to the pre-patch only lasting for a very short amount of time, recommendations and advice provided may be slightly less accurate. Keep that in mind check back for updated details after Midnight's full release!

Like any spec, even though Devourer is new, it has some strengths and weaknesses. Below, we've evaluated it based on some key categories. During the Pre-patch, since there's no War Within equivalent to compare it to, we'll be looking at how it fits into the future endgame landscape:

3.

Devourer Demon Hunter Features in Midnight

Devourer Overview Key Abilities

4.

Devourer Demon Hunter Overview

Devourer is new in Midnight, featuring a distinct playstyle departure from its melee counterpart, Havoc. It's a caster/melee hybrid, mixing close range abilities and spells with a 25-yard range. It centers arouind the Void Metamorphosis effect, generating and consuming Soul Fragments to unleash Collapsing Star.

Releasing at the onset of the Midnight Pre-patch, below we've provided some quick things to know. This will help you jump over from Havoc or Vengeance, or prime you to start a new Devourer!

• Primary Stat
  Devourer is Intellect based, sharing gear, weapons and trinkets with other casters.
• Weapon Types
  Devourer uses Warglaives , Fist Weapons, Axes and Swords. Of these, Warglaive are unique; they change primary stat to Intellect when playing Devourer.
• Range
  Most spells have a max range of 25 yards. Also has a number of abilities that either move you into, or out of, melee range when used.
• Resources – Fury / Souls
  Fury powers casts while outside Void Metamorphosis, draining while inside;
  Soul Fragments grant access to Void Metamorphosis, and allow you to cast Collapsing Star.
• Hero Talents
  Devourer's shares Void-Scarred with Havoc, and the newly added Annihilator with Vengeance.
  Void-Scarred focuses on explosive bursts of damage during Void Metamorphosis windows.
  Annihilator builds up Voidfall, unleashing void meteors on enemies.

3.1.

Pre-Patch Hotfixes

After the release of Devourer onto live servers, Blizzard has applied some changes that have impacted builds and playstyles:

• Consume / Devour now generate one Soul Fragment baseline, with Predator's Thirst increasing this to two. Damage also reduced by 30%.
• Waste Not increases Soul Fragment generation from Void Ray by 200%, up from 100%.
• Entropy generates a Soul Fragment every 12 seconds, up from 8.
• Reap / Cull damage increased by 75%.
• Shattered Souls now has a 4% chance to generate a Soul, down from 8%.

This moves more Soul Fragment generation into active abilities, and increases the importance of Reap throughout the rotation. Due to these changes, both our Rotation and Talent pages have been updated.

4.

Devourer Demon Hunter Key Abilities

With Devourer being an all new specialization, there's no changes to really compare it to with the release of Midnight. Instead, here we'll be taking a quick look at the most important abilities within its toolkit at a glance. It replaces almost all of the baseline Demon Hunter abilities with Void themed alternatives, better suiting its caster hybrid playstyle, but function similarly:

3.2.

Offensive Abilities

Ability	Description/Effect
Consume	This is your primary filler, dealing Cosmic damage to your target with a base cast time of 2 seconds. Each cast generates Fury and one Soul Fragment via Predator's Thirst, and can be cast while moving. When you transform into Void Metamorphosis, this is replaced by Devour.
Void Ray	Deals heavy Cosmic damage to targets in front of you over its 3-second channel. While outside of Void Metamorphosis, this costs 100 Fury with no cooldown, but when inside it has no cost with a 14-second cooldown, briefly pausing Fury drain. This is your main spender.
Void Metamorphosis	Your main cooldown. Unlike most classes, this ability has no fixed cooldown. Instead, this can be cast after gathering 50 Souls (modified by talents). When activated, you deal significantly more damage, gain access to Collapsing Star, some abilities are improved, and your Fury begins to drain rapidly. When you run out of power, you're forced out of the form.
Collapsing Star	Can only be accessed during Void Metamorphosis. Every 30 Souls you gather while transformed (or via other means with talents), you can cast one Star to deal massive Cosmic damage to your target and nearby enemies, pausing your Fury drain briefly. Each cast during your transformation becomes stronger via Impending Apocalypse.
Reap	Deals instant Cosmic damage to your target with an 8-second cooldown. When cast, this pulls in up to 4 Souls (generating Fury in the process), so it can be used to collect any Souls that are too far away to manually pick up. This is currently tuned to be quite weak, but some talents add it into the rotation. When you transform into Void Metamorphosis, this is replaced by Cull.
Voidblade	Charges to your target, dealing Cosmic damage with a 30-second cooldown. This has a lot of supporting talents to make it a more prominent part of some builds, and is central to melee hybrid builds.
Soul Immolation	Deals Fire damage to yourself, generating 3 Souls and 30 Fury over 5 seconds. Has a 1-minute cooldown, but follow-up talents alter your access to it. This serves as a small on-demand resource generation bump.

3.3.

Mobility, Utility & Defense

Ability	Description/Effect
Shift	Devourer's answer to Havoc's Fel Rush, this moves you to your cursor within 30 yards near-instantly. Has a 20-second cooldown and 1 charge baseline, with talents to increase this limit. An exceptionally strong movement tool, but bear in mind it's not a teleport – you still pass through any environmental effects along the path.
Blur	Devourer's defensive tool, providing 25% damage reduction for 10 seconds with a 1-minute cooldown. Can also gain a second charge on the Class Tree when using the Demonic Resilience talent.
Vengeful Retreat	Causes you to leap backward, with a 25-second cooldown. Some talents within the Devourer tree can augment this to become part of your offensive rotation, but its baseline effect is simply a movement tool.
Disrupt	Devourer's interrupt, with a 15-second cooldown, 5-second lockout, and 30-yd range. This gives it an advantage over most other interrupts, especially from other casters.
Void Nova	Stuns your target and nearby enemies for 3 seconds, dealing light Cosmic damage. Has no cost, a 30 yard range, and a 45-second cooldown, making it a flexible stopping tool.

Devourer has a unique leveling experience on Mardum before reaching standard questing, providing a lot of core Demon Hunter abilities before granting access to specialization trees. It's capable of speeding through the open world, delivering massive damage with its burst AoE and mobility.

If you're thinking about playing Devourer Demon Hunter but haven't leveled yet, use our leveling guide for tips!

Devourer comes with a relatively small core of main spells, with some extra options in the talent tree to add flavor to your kit, or alter the way cooldowns function. The spec has a smooth pick-up-and-play feel, but has a surprising amount of depth in both planning and managing your cooldown windows. To break down the basics of the spec, there's a few things to keep in mind:

• Build and Spend Resources
  Devourer builds Fury and Soul Fragments with Consume, and collects them either by running over them or casting Reap. Fury fuels Void Ray, while Soul Fragments grant access to your Void Metamorphosis.
• Maximize Void Metamorphosis
  Void Metamorphosis is your main cooldown, increasing all ability damage. More importantly, it grants access to Collapsing Star, provided you gather enough Souls. While in this form, Fury drains rapidly, so the more Fury and Souls you generate; the longer you can stay inside and cast Collapsing Stars!
• Utilize your Hero Tree
  Each of Devourer's Hero Trees add in an additional mechanic. Annihilator has a powerful proc, Voidfall, consumed by Reap after reaching three stacks, and rains meteors from the sky. Void-Scarred instead releases Voidsurges with specific abilities while in Void Metamorphosis.

These three aspects form the main thrust of the Devourer rotation, with a rhythmic pace that sees you shift between your time inside and outside of Void Metamorphosis. The flow changes when selecting certain talents, but these rules always remain central to navigating combat. There's a lot of extra depth that can be found in preparing for and optimizing your Void Metamorphosis windows, but the base spec is very intuitive to get started with. Devourer, much like its two sister specs, also has an extremely strong movement toolkit through Shift and Vengeful Retreat, while also being able to cast Consume on the move. This gives it great control over positioning compared to many other ranged specializations.

If you're thinking about giving Devourer a try during the Midnight Pre-Patch, but aren't quite sure where to start, we recommend beginning with our Beginner page. This covers all the basic steps if you just want to jump in and get started.

If, however, you already have some experience under your belt playing during the test periods, and are instead looking for ideal talent loadouts and rotation tips, use the links below to jump to those pages.

While we always recommend simming yourself for ideal results, we do provide a dedicated Devourer gearing page, even for the short Pre-patch period. Bear in mind though, since this is the Midnight Pre-Patch, that gear will be in flux. Recommendations and gearing patterns may not be reflective of the type of items we're chasing when the full expansion releases.

Once you've picked up some gear, you'll need the appropriate consumables, gems, and enchants to go with those new items. We have a dedicated page for each of these linked below, and a stats page that covers our priority. Bear in mind though, since this is only the Pre-Patch for Midnight, some recommendations may not last into the full expansion release.