Devourer Demon Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Midnight (12.0)

While early in the Beta, Annihilator has taken the clear lead in single-target. This is due to its higher resource generation, and stronger ability to leverage Emptiness (alongside simply having stronger tuning).

While early in the Beta, Void-Scarred unfortunately suffers from much weaker tuning relative to its competitor. Its greater investment in the melee toolkit to deliver damage is still strong, but general tuning holds it back right now.

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Talent Tree
Spec Tree	Class Tree	Hero Tree

Talent Tree
Spec Tree	Class Tree	Hero Tree

In Single-target, the strongest Annihilator builds always include a small package of melee abilities centered around Voidblade. This is to leverage Voidrush, allowing it to further extend Void Metamorphosis and take advantage of Emptiness by pausing Fury drain after use. This paired with the cooldown reduction provided by Collapsing Star allows for a strong Void Metamorphosis-centric playstyle that leverages the ramping Impending Apocalypse effect. Some additional notes are:

As a Hero tree, Void-Scarred focuses much more on melee abilities and your Void Metamorphosis windows, empowering the entire suite into stronger versions. These are also used to trigger the keystone effect - Voidsurge - so are required picks to build the tree properly. In particular Demonic Intensity heavily encourages filling out the entire left capstone area to reach The Hunt. Some additional notes are:

• Emptiness is always taken in single-target builds on the final choice node. The ramping Haste provided is key to extending Void Metamorphosis as long as possible.
• Spontaneous Immolation is always taken over Tempered Soul, due to the GCD efficiency benefits of triggering it passively.
• Despite Annihilator only using Reap to trigger Voidfall, a handful of key talents ( Moment of Craving and Soulshaper) are taken to help bolster its damage when it is used. It's also required pathing to Voidpurge, which allows for more frequent Void Ray casts to pause Fury drain during Void Metamorphosis.
• Due to the Void-Scarred tree design, melee talents are required to activate it. The tree can't fully function without utilizing Voidblade, Hungering Slash and The Hunt.
• Unfortunately, at this point in the Beta these melee options are a little undertuned. Talents that empower these tools ( Soulforged Blades, Demonic Instinct) can't be justified, so it instead opts for more resource talents to enter Void Metamorphosis more rapidly.
• While not as required in its rotation, the stronger Reap talents in Moment of Craving and Soulshaper are still taken. This leverages the power of Burning Blades and follow-up casts after each Void Ray channel.

While a bit closer than in Single-target, Annihilator still firmly wins out in AoE situations. This is due to its higher resource generation, allowing it to cycle Void Metamorphosis aggressively to take advantage of Midnight.

While a bit closer than in Single-target, Void-Scarred still falls behind in AoE situations due to melee ability tuning. This can still cycle Void Metamorphosis for powerful Voidsurge / Midnight sequences, but the overall package falls slightly behind.

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Talent Tree
Spec Tree	Class Tree	Hero Tree

Talent Tree
Spec Tree	Class Tree	Hero Tree

In AoE situations, Annihilator follows similar build principles to its Single-target core, still picking up the Reap suite and some extra resource generation tools. Voidblade follow-up talents are also still picked up, with Hungering Slash contributing more in AoE while also allowing for smoother Void Metamorphosis extensions. The biggest thing of note though is the switch to Soul Glutton on the final choice node for more frequent, shorter windows. Some additional notes are:

Much of the Void-Scarred toolkit seems well suited to AoE scenarios due to many melee talents scaling up well into AoE, alongside Voidsurge triggers after use. Unfortunately, the tuning surrounding many of these effects falls a little flat right now in the Beta test, and when paired with its slower cycling of Souls for Void Metamorphosis, hurts the tree a lot. It makes the switch to Soul Glutton on the final choice node to try to help with this. Some additional notes are:

• Demonic Instinct is taken instead of Devourer's Edge in the capstone area, to lean in further to the AoE damage provided by Void Ray and Hungering Slash.
• Due to the shorter duration Void Metamorphosis windows in AoE with Soul Glutton taken, Voidpurge is dropped in favour of a point in Voidrage.
• It finishes the entire right side capstone area to reach Eradicate. This helps convert Reap into an AoE tool after channelling Void Ray, allowing you to convert the damage increases from Moment of Craving and Soulshaper for extra value.
• Demonic Instinct is taken instead of Devourer's Edge in the capstone area, to lean in further to the AoE damage provided by Void Ray and Hungering Slash. This is slightly more beneficial for Void-Scarred, which makes use of these tools more frequently.
• It finishes the entire right side capstone area to reach Eradicate. This helps convert Reap into an AoE tool after channelling Void Ray, allowing you to convert the damage increases from Moment of Craving and Soulshaper for extra value. This has increased value for Void-Scarred as Eradicate applies Burning Blades to all target it hits.

While Annihilator strongly encourages playing with a melee hybrid build currently on Beta realms, we realize (similar to Havoc no-mover builds) that not everyone wants to mix in melee options. As such, this build provides the best caster-only setup, which can only be achieved with this Hero Tree.

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Talent Tree
Spec Tree	Class Tree	Hero Tree

Keep in mind that sacrificing the entire melee package does have a real downside for Devourer, limiting your ability to extend Void Metamorphosis. On the plus side, this is a very streamlined experience that limits some of the risk of having to weave in movement tools, instead focusing purely on the caster tools available to it. Some additional notes are:

• Scythe's Embrace is taken instead of Duty Eternal (due to the melee charge effect of Voidblade). This does change the use cases for Reap, reducing the active Souls requirement to 4 for Soulshaper.
• The melee suite on the bottom left capstone area is dropped, and in exchange Voidglare Boon and both points in Voidrage are taken instead.

Annihilator focuses on its keystone effect, Voidfall. A variety of Devourer abilities (most importantly Consume and Void Ray) grant a stack, and upon reaching three, your next Reap cast will consume them. Each stack consumed calls down a powerful Void Meteor, dealing heavy Cosmic damage to targets and generating 2 Soul Fragments. The playstyle is relatively simple, only requiring you to slot in additional Reap casts to consume stacks as they cap out.

For defense and mobility, Phase Shift grants 2% damage reduction per stack of Voidfall present, with Final Hour allowing it to persist after you consume them. Path to Oblivion adds 3% movement speed on top of that, though adding a third charge to Shift with State of Matter is generally preferrable.

Void-Scarred provides a variety of benefits during your Void Metamorphosis effect. Most importantly, Voidblade, Hungering Slash, and The Hunt are upgraded into more powerful versions while active. Additionally, the first cast of each of these trigger a Voidsurge for extra AoE Cosmic damage. This slots in over the regular Devourer playstyle, but heavily encourages using a hybrid melee approach, leaping in and out of range to activate these effects.

For the three choice nodes on the tree, there are the following options:

• Wave of Debilitation vs. Pursuit of Angriness - both are niche effects, with Pursuit of Angriness generally being better for the small amount of extra mobility vs. the extra CC utility of Wave of Debilitation.
• Set Fire to the Pain vs. Improved Soul Rending - this is a choice between passive damage reduction or self sustain. Generally, staggering some damage with Set Fire to the Pain so you can leech it back is the preferred choice but it's quite minor.
• Student of Suffering vs. Flamebound - due to the current tuning state of melee abilities as Devourer, the benefits of Flamebound focusing on Hungering Slash is pretty weak. Student of Suffering on the other hand significantly improves Fury generation alongside extra Mastery, making it the preferred choice.