Devourer Demon Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — 12.1

Midnight has introduced Apex Talents, which are 4 step talent nodes at the bottom of your specialization tree, unlocking on the way from Level 80 to 90. Uniquely, they're sequential nodes that add different effects with each extra point invested. To access the next level of talents, you must put points in the previous one, and can't just skip to the powerful end point. For Devourer, The Apex talent focuses solely on Collapsing Star, greatly increasing its damage!

• Point 1: Midnight - the first Apex node, causing your Collapsing Star to always critically strike. This greatly increases the damage of the ability, and has synergy with the already powerful talent Calamitous, further increasing the damage of your Collapsing Star.
• Points 2 & 3: Midnight - increases all Cosmic damage you deal with Devourer abilities by 3% per point. Additionally, it increases the Critical Strike damage of Collapsing Star by 50% of your Critical Strike chance per point, which is additive. For example, if you have 20% Critical Strike, your Collapsing Star will critically strike for 220 damage (or 260% damage with Calamitous).
• Point 4: Midnight - the most rotationally impactful node unlocked after investing all points. When taken, each time you enter Void Metamorphosis you will spawn five Soul Fragments, and immediately gain access to Collapsing Star. This effectively means a free star and 8 Souls toward your second (due to the additional three from Star Fragments), while also ramping Impending Apocalypse.

While the hero talents for Devourer don't have specific interactions with the Apex Talents, Annihilator has additional synergy, allowing you to immediately trigger Dark Matter after transforming.

Devourer is a Dual Resource specialization, needing to balance both its Fury and Soul Fragments as fuel for its abilities. Depending on whether you are currently in Void Metamorphosis or not, they each serve a dual function.

Fury is your primary resource while outside of Void Metamorphosis, and is spent to cast Void Ray. This has a cap of 120 as Annihilator, or 140 as Void-Scarred, and you should always avoid wasting any by overcapping. This is generated by casting Consume, Voidblade / Hungering Slash, while Soul Immolation is active, or by collecting Soul Fragments. Void Ray also generates 10 after its channel completes via Voidglare Boon.

While inside Void Metamorphosis, your abilities no longer cost Fury, and instead it passively drains while transformed. When you completely run out, this effect ends, so generation is still crucial to maintaining the benefits of your cooldown.

Souls grant 4 Fury when collected, and also fill up your secondary resource bar. When you reach 50 (or 35 when playing Soul Glutton), you gain access to your Void Metamorphosis form. While transformed, every 30 Souls generated will also allow you to cast Collapsing Star once. Souls are generated from a variety of abilities and talents, listed below:

• Consume spawns 1 Soul via Predator's Thirst
• Shattered Souls grants all ability damage a chance to spawn a Soul
• Entropy will passively spawn 1 Soul every 12 seconds
• Soul Immolation spawns 3 Souls over its duration
• Void Ray spawns a large number of Souls via Waste Not
• Collapsing Star spawns 3 Souls via Star Fragments
• Void Metamorphosis spawns 5 Souls on entry via Midnight

You can only have a maximum of 10 Souls on the ground at a time. Any after this are automatically collected when a new one is spawned. Additionally, any Souls collected after the limit of 50 while outside of Void Metamorphosis (35 with Soul Glutton), or 40 while transformed, will be wasted. That means you want to try to avoid collecting any until you've either activated your window, or cast Collapsing Star when it becomes available.

Since both resources fluctuate in how important they are based on your Void Metamorphosis state, it can take a little bit of getting used to. A few quick tips when getting started are:

• Don't Waste Fury or Souls - be aware of both caps, and always aim to stay below those limits. There's a small buffer for both, so make use of it.
• Check Before you Reap - bear in mind that Reap will collect Souls and generate 4 Fury for each, so consider holding off if it will significantly overcap your resources.
• Smuggle Souls - Souls are a very important resource, so try to have some present on the ground as you enter and leave Void Metamorphosis.
• Use Spenders Aggressively - generation of both resources can be very fast, so try to use Void Ray and Collapsing Star as soon as they activate.

Void Ray is Devourer's primary spender outside of Void Metamorphosis, and a key cooldown while inside it. This is the specialization equivalent to Havoc's Eye Beam and Vengeance's Fel Devastation, boasting a 25-yard range. It can be channelled for up to 3 seconds (reduced by Haste), and deals heavy Cosmic damage over the duration while rooting you in place.

Uniquely, it has a dual function depending on your current Void Metamorphosis state. While outside of this form, it has no cooldown, but costs 100 Fury to cast. While inside, it has a Hasted cooldown of 16 seconds (reduced to 14 by Voidpurge), and pauses your Fury drain both while channelling and briefly after ending. Due to being a central part of Devourer, it has a number of talents that augment it:

• Waste Not — significantly increases the rate of Souls it generates, turning it into one of your most reliable source of Souls.
• Full Channel Rewards — four talent options add payoff to completing a channel. Voidglare Boon grants 10 Fury, Eradicate and Moment of Craving empower your follow-up Reap cast, and Final Breath increases the damage of the final tick by 300%.
• Damage Amplifiers — Focused Ray increases Void Ray damage by 80% when it strikes three targets or less, while Demonic Instinct increases all damage it deals by 10% per point.

Due to its raw damage alongside the effects tied to it, it is ideal to cast Void Ray as much as possible, ideally as soon as it becomes available. This means avoiding Fury waste is especially important while outside of Void Metamorphosis, as this directly leads to less Void Ray casts.

Uniquely, Devourer comes with a number of talent options that encourage you to jump into melee range briefly for a few globals, before then quickly leaping back out. Void-Scarred especially emphasizes this playstyle, with its core talents being:

• Voidblade — 30-second cooldown ability that leaps to your target, dealing heavy Cosmic damage and generating Fury. Comes with a number of talents to empower it such as Duty Eternal, Devourer's Bite, Singular Strikes and Soulforged Blades.
• The Hunt — 90-second cooldown that charges to your target, dealing Cosmic damage and applying a DoT both to that target and up to 5 enemies in your path. Your hitbox remains active for a few seconds after this, allowing you to apply the dot to any targets you missed.
• Hungering Slash — The core of the "melee combo". After using Voidblade or The Hunt, they are replaced on your action bar with this ability, causing you to slash in an arc around you. This shatters 2 Souls, generates 10 Fury, and can be further augmented by Soulforged Blades, Singular Strikes and Demonic Instinct. Additionally, when used, it triggers Voidstep, granting a free cast of Vengeful Retreat that deals Cosmic damage to nearby enemies when cast. This allows you to leap in, do the combo, and then quickly return to range.
• Voidrush — Adds extra value to Voidblade during Void Metamorphosis. This causes both it and The Hunt to briefly pause Fury drain when cast, and also reduces Voidblade's cooldown by 10 seconds after each Collapsing Star cast. This makes them extremely good for extending your transformations even further!

All of these talents combined create a strong incentive to mix in some quick melee combos for a big payoff, especially for Void-Scarred. While Annihilator does not currently make use of it, they are still strong independent talents.

Void-Scarred in particular synergizes strongly with the melee toolkit. Upon entering your Void Metamorphosis form, all of these abilities are upgraded - much like how Consume transforms into Devour:

• Voidblade becomes Pierce the Veil
• The Hunt becomes Predator's Wake
• Hungering Slash becomes Reaper's Toll

These upgraded forms all deal significantly more damage and, additionally, the first cast of each ability after entering Void Metamorphosis will trigger a Voidsurge for additional Cosmic damage. Finally, the cooldown of both Voidblade and The Hunt are reset on entry, so make sure to use them before beginning the window!

Reap is positioned as a central part of the Devourer rotation. It has a base 8-second cooldown, instantly dealing Cosmic damage to your target, and consuming up to 4 Soul Fragments. A variety of effects and talents also modify it in different ways:

• Void Metamorphosis — Transforms Reap into Cull while active, significantly increasing its damage. Its cooldown is also reduced by 1 second each time you cast Devour (the replacement for Consume).
• Scythe's Embrace — Causes Reap to also generate 10 Fury.
• Second Helping — Grants Reap a second charge.
• Umbral Blade — Causes Reap's cooldown to be affected by Haste.
• Soulshaper & Moment of Craving — Soulshaper increases its damage dealt by 8% per Soul consumed, and Moment of Craving allows your next Reap cast following a fully channelled Void Ray to consume up to 10 Souls. These effects serve as a large increase to Reap casts, and massively increase its damage.
• Moment of Craving further empowers Reap, resetting its cooldown and increasing the souls it can collect to 10, further amplifying the damage boost from Soulshaper.
• Eradicate — Upgrades Reap to Eradicate after fully channelling Void Ray. This causes it to deal damage in a 25-yard cone in front of you, gaining all of the bonuses a standard Reap cast would. This is a very powerful AoE tool.

For Void-Scarred, Reap is very powerful, and should be used as much as possible. The Season 2 Tier Set further leans into this, and you should aim to cast Reap (or Cull) whenever they will collect four or more Soul Fragments. Eradicate follows a similar rule in AoE, though ideally it consumes 10 Souls instead.

Annihilator hooks directly into Reap, using it as a way to activate a number of its Hero Talents. The key effect - Voidfall - is triggered via Consume / Devour casts, and after reaching 3 stacks, your next Reap will call down void meteors on your target. Additionally, upon entering Void Metamorphosis, Annihilator resets the cooldown of Reap, while also instantly generating 3 stacks of Voidfall. This gives the tree strong up-front burst, while setting up all of your important Hero tree effects to cover your key damage window.

For Annihilator, the tier set greatly empowers Reap, placing it as a central part of the rotation. Similar to Void-Scarred, you should aim to cast Reap (or Cull) whenever you have 4 Soul Fragments active to collect, maximizing the number of Soulbursts you trigger. Due to how much more frequently Reap is utilized in Season 2, there's a lot less focus on manually triggering Voidfall, as it's often consumed naturally in the rotation.

Soul Immolation was reintroduced into the active rotation in Patch 12.0.5, and in almost all situations is played with Tempered Soul. While Soul Immolation itself isn't a a powerful button, it is a more powerful generator than Consume. It can also be cast without a target, allowing you to generate extra Fury or Souls when moving between pulls.

Bear in mind though, due to how much stronger Devour is, we do not want to be using Soul Immolation inside of Void Metamorphosis. It can also be used if needed for healing, but this should be considered as more of a passive benefit, rather than something you are saving it for.

The exception to this is for AoE for Void-Scarred. Due to wanting the tree wanting to AFK in AOE after your second Void Ray to allow for Void Metamorphosis to fall off, some of these globals can be filled with Soul Immolation instead. Ideally, this is done with 20 or less Fury, to avoid extending it further than needed.

Devourer's major cooldown is Void Metamorphosis. Unlike many other specs, this does not have a fixed cooldown or duration, and is instead only usable after collecting 50 Souls (reduced to 35 when playing Soul Glutton). After use, it remains active until your Fury is drained to zero, and while transformed you gain the following benefits:

• The benefits of Mastery: Monster Within are substantially increased.
• Consume becomes Devour, dealing significantly more damage and having a shorter cast time.
• Reap becomes Cull, dealing significantly more damage.
• Void Ray damage is significantly increased, and no longer costs Fury, instead having a Hasted cooldown. Also pauses Fury drain while channeling.
• You gain access to Collapsing Star after collecting 30 Souls.
• Your Fury bar is fully refilled.
• With Emptiness — You gain 0.25% Haste per Soul consumed.
• As Annihilator — You gain 3 stacks of Voidfall and refresh the cooldown of Reap.
• As Void-Scarred — The cooldowns of Voidblade and The Hunt are reset upon entry.
• As Void-Scarred — Voidblade, The Hunt and Hungering Slash are upgraded to Pierce the Veil, Predator's Wake and Reaper's Toll, respectively.

While in Void Metamorphosis, your Fury will drain at an increasingly rapid pace, ramping up the difficulty of maintaining the form as time passes. Thankfully, a handful of abilities will pause this drain briefly after use: Void Ray and Collapsing Star, alongside Voidblade and The Hunt when paired with the Voidrush talent.

Due to these factors, it's extremely important to plan around your Void Metamorphosis windows, ideally having some Souls already generated on the ground to leverage after entry. While transformed, any Souls gathered after 40 disappear, so avoid holding onto Collapsing Star casts for too long if playing Annihilator.

While in your Void Metamorphosis form, all of your abilities deal significantly more damage, but most importantly, you can cast your strongest spell - Collapsing Star. This can only be cast under the following conditions:

• Void Metamorphosis is currently active.
• You have gathered a total of 30 Soul Fragments.
• On entry once via the Midnight Apex Talent.

When cast, this deals massive Cosmic damage to your target and nearby enemies (reduced after 8 targets), and resets your Soul counter displayed on the resource bar. Through the Impending Apocalypse talent, each subsequent Star cast in each Void Metamorphosis will become 20% stronger; meaning that the longer you can sustain your transformation the more powerful each cast becomes.

Following the changes in 12.1, a lot of power has been removed from this ability. While Annihilator still utilizes it, it's far weaker than it was in Season 1. Due to those changes Void-Scarred does not make use of it at all, as the damage it deals doesn't justify the extra time lost from cycling through extra Voidsurges.

Rolling Torment serves as a redundancy tool for excess Souls gathered while transformed. This rewards you with 5 Fury and 0.5% increased damage for 12 seconds per Soul present when your transformation expired. This means it's less punishing to gather Souls without reaching a Collapsing Star cast while in Void Metamorphosis, and also gives some nice resource kickback. This is especially helpful in reaching your first Void Ray after you leave, allowing you to restart your cycle faster.

In Patch 12.1, this talent warps the playstyle of Void-Scarred, providing a large power gain when leaving Void Metamorphosis. When coupled with the balancing changes in 12.1, this allows Void-Scarred to also deal high amounts of damage while outside of your main damage windows. As such, Void-Scarred avoids casting Collapsing Star at any target count, instead opting to leave Metamorphosis early with a high Soul count to capitalize on this buff. Once Void Metamorphosis fades, aim to use your strongest abilities in the window, such as Void Ray or a Reap/ Eradicate buffed by Moment of Craving.

Smuggling is the act of carrying procs from outside of Void Metamorphosis inside of it, leveraging the increase damage from both our Mastery, and the increased damage Void Metamorphosis provides to abilities. This is primarily done with a few abilities:

• Eradicate, in AoE.
• Hungering Slash.
• The Hunt.

In AoE, both hero talent trees look to always smuggle in an Eradicate, due to the 30% upgrade Void Metamorphosis provides to it. This is a hard rule, and the only ability you should be smuggling every time. For Void-Scarred, the other two abilities are important, but not to the degree where you should go out of our way to achieve it. Smuggling a charge of Hungering Slash upgrades it into Reaper's Toll, and is fairly easy to achieve by casting Voidblade right before activating Void Metamorphosis.

For The Hunt, things are a bit more involved, using a technique referred to as Huggling (Hunt Smuggling). To Huggle, a baseline level of roughly 15% Haste (although Devourer aims for more) is required, alongside a minimum distance of 15 yards from your target. The easiest way to set this up is by using Vengeful Retreat right before casting The Hunt, then, as you charge to your target, activate Void Metamorphosis. This activates the form switch in the middle of the charge, resulting in the damage event switching to Predator's Wake instead, both increasing its damage and granting you a charge of Reaper's Toll. This is fairly easy to do with a little practice, though the animation locks may make it hard to notice when you've pulled it off.

Note though, while smuggling is important for Void-Scarred when trying to optimize for the maximum throughput possible, cycling through Void Metamorphosis is still more powerful. Don't delay the activation for any meaningful amount of time to smuggle buffs over, aside from Eradicate in AoE.