Havoc Demon Hunter: Midnight Expansion Preview

The Havoc changes present on the Midnight Alpha currently lean much closer toward refinements, rather than the large scale restructuring some specializations have gone through. To accommodate the existence of Devourer as well, the Class Tree has undergone major changes, so we'll cover each individually.

The first thing you'll notice is the entire area below the 20 gate has been restructured, and Sigil of Flame (alongside supporting talents) have been removed. This includes all three capstones - both The Hunt and Collective Anguish have been moved to the Havoc tree alongside Demonic, and Sigil of Spite has been removed entirely. Instead, these have been replaced with some generic damage passives in Furious, Remorseless and Final Breath. Darkness remains in place, now sandwiched between some other strong defensive and utility options placed here:

• First In, Last Out
  Provides a small decaying shield after casting Fel Rush, giving a small amount of extra active defense.
• Demonic Resilience
  Adding an additional charge to Blur to go with changes explained in the Spec Tree section is incredibly strong, and likely places Havoc among the most durable specs going into Midnight.
• Demon Muzzle
  Now rewards you with damage reduction after a successful interrupt, as it no longer has Sigils to key into. This is more situational with the new texture of dungeons having less casters, but when it can be leveraged is even more survivability alongside the other changes.
• Wings of Wrath
  While innocuous on the surface, this makes Glide an escape and movement tool even more so than it currently is, layering on yet more instant movement tools to an already highly mobile spec.

While the removal of Fel Eruption does limit CC options (which seems like a casualty of the Developer intent to consolidate overlapping buttons), Chaos Nova has had its duration increased by 1 second, and has a follow-up Focused Ire that extends the duration on your current target. Additional niche utility has also been added to Immolation Aura with Burn It Out / Soul Cleanse that give access to self-dispel tools.

The Spec tree sees less dramatic shifts compared to the Class Tree, instead aiming to keep the core structure while fitting in some re-homed effects, with several key changes:

• Demon Blades
  This is now baseline, and your primary means of Fury generation. Demon's Bite has been removed. This makes sense, since Demon Blades has been a mainstay in every Havoc talent build since the introduction of Dragonflight talent trees.
• Essence Break
  One of the worst offenders when it came to buff overlapping gameplay, this is instead a flat amount of damage rather than a multiplier for Blade Dance / Chaos Strike. This pulls away the requirement to always link it to Metamorphosis to compound the effect.
• Desperate Instincts
  Now amplifies the damage reduction from Blur, and provides passive damage reduction while low instead of auto-casting when you hit the threshold. This changes it from a liability to a significant defensive boost.
• Netherwalk
  Instead provides a shorter immunity without the pacification effect when you cast Blur. This means Havoc has access to a damage Immunity for 2.5 seconds every minute and it has two charges!
• Removals
  Fel Barrage and Looks Can Kill have both been removed.

Compared to many other specs, it's a very small number of removals, and a much more targeted series of changes keying in on their stated goal. Essence Break was consistently the worst offender when it came to layering all damage effects inside its 4-second window, and with it instead being a flat amount of bonus damage from strikes, that will likely go away. This also means it likely has less hidden power, and probably falls away from being a mandatory talent to pick and optimize. Movement talents do remain including the buff window from Initiative, but as proven by recent content releases, these have been more optional, and the tree structure still allows you to build around them if an encounter doesn't suit them.

Looks Can Kill is removed to make room for Demonic which, at this point, is a core mechanic for Havoc that it's been built around. The Hunt is placed on a choice node against Inner Demon - one that will likely key into your chosen Hero Talent - and Collective Anguish has been placed against Shattered Destiny. Finally, Glaive Tempest has been converted into a passive, which currently casts the same effect for free whenever Blade Dance hits 4 targets. This is potentially an excellent way to free up GCDs, but the target hit limitation applies friction against one of Havoc's greatest strengths: talents flexibly scaling up from single-target all the way into mass AoE. This instead creates a dead zone at 1-3 targets where it does nothing, making it far more specialized than the rest of the spec's talent options.

Currently, Havoc doesn't have its Apex Talents implemented onto the Alpha just yet. Check back in as testing progresses and they get revealed!

Currently, Havoc has limited changes for both of its Hero trees in both Fel-Scarred and Aldrachi Reaver. Neither tree has its 3 new talent nodes implemented yet, though there are implications on how they function based on both the Class and Spec tree changes.

While Aldrachi Reaver has seen no direct changes to its tree yet, it is the tree that's been impacted the most by changes elsewhere. In particular, the loss of Sigil of Spite as a bulk Soul Fragment generator, and Sigil of Flame paired with Soul Sigils, the benefit provided by the new Soul Splitter passive doesn't really make up for it.

The tree carved out a strong niche in The War Within as a strong funnel spec via Wounded Quarry, but removing good on-demand tools to Reaver's Glaive and instead solely relying on The Hunt is a big loss, so hopefully what gets added here has that in mind.

Soon to be renamed to simply "Scarred" to fit in better with Devourer, Fel-Scarred also has nothing new to speak of on its tree. It's largely intact, with the Spec tree changes mostly just providing access to the same build as before (minus The Hunt - which had no interactions anyway for the tree). With the removal of Sigil of Flame though, Demonsurge lost an activation tool, so hopefully there's either a replacement or some rebalancing to accommodate this.

This section will be more populated once we have the context of what direction they're taking each tree, as there's clearly some missing pieces following the restructuring of both other Talent Trees. Check back over the course of the Alpha for updated analysis.