Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Gear and Best in Slot — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.2.5

Gearing up to prepare to enter raids provides a lot of different options now that Battle for Azeroth has opened up the majority of different gear paths. You will ideally want to get yourself to a healthy item level before setting foot in either Uldir, Battle of Dazar'alor, or The Eternal Palace, and this can be done through a variety of different ways.

Remember to sim yourself a healthy amount when deciding on gear pieces to know what stats to aim for and which pieces to equip. The stats that you want to focus on will usually be decided by what build you are currently using (as defined by your Azerite), but Critical Strike and Versatility are both safe choices for most content types.

• World Quests will provide players with a variety of gear rewards for all slots, including Azerite. This will cap out at 340. Emissaries will also appear once a day and can potentially provide either an equipment piece or an Azerite piece, which will cap at item level 385 in season 2.
• Reputation gives out rewards based on your status with the faction. For most factions, Honored awards a 320 cloak, Revered a 335 item, and Exalted gives a 350 piece. Champions of Azeroth awards a 355 item level Azerite Chest with the Furious Gaze trait. Additionally, each reputation level grants additional item level boosts to your Heart of Azeroth.
• Mythic+ rewards gear based upon the keystone level you complete:
  • 2-3: 405
  • 4: 410
  • 5-6: 415
  • 7: 420
  • 8-9: 425
  • 10: 430
• World Bosses spawn in the following areas and cycles with the following rewards:
  • Zandalar/Kul'Tiras (Weekly): 355 Item Level
  • Arathi Highlands (Warfront Patrols): 370 Item Level
  • Darkshore (Warfront Patrols): 400 Item Level
  • Nazjatar (Weekly): 415 Item Level
• Leatherworking can craft 410 item level Boots and Legs, that can be upgraded to 425 and then 440 with unlocks to the Abyssal Focus in Nazjatar. These also come with a socket baseline.
• Engineering provides a craftable Azerite helm with unique traits, and can be upgraded in the same way as Leatherworking via the Abyssal Forge.
• Warfronts can be repeated as many times as you want, each rewarding a random piece of gear. Arathi will be set at 340, and Darkshore will be 355. Each time the Warfront becomes available, a one time quest will reward a higher item level piece, with Arathi being set at 370, and Darkshore at 400. These can only be done when your faction has the siege event open for each respective warfront.

Along these same lines, you should be completing at least one keystone at a high item level each week to make use of the weekly chest. Each week you will receive one piece of loot, and a fixed amount of Titan Residuum The highest keystone you complete (up to a maximum of 10) will determine the final reward (current residuum values are estimates):

Keystone Level	Weekly Chest Loot	Residuum Awarded
Mythic 2	410	800~
Mythic 3	415	800~
Mythic 4	420	1700~
Mythic 5	420	1700~
Mythic 6	425	1700~
Mythic 7	430	5500~
Mythic 8	430	5500~
Mythic 9	435	5500~
Mythic 10	440	17000~

With the release of patch 8.2, Benthic gear is available via vendors in Nazjatar and can be purchased and upgraded using Prismatic Manapearls. These tokens can also roll sockets and tertiary stats, making them very desirable to pick up if you can acquire these bonuses before spending the resources to upgrade them. A number of pieces have additional effects active exclusively in Nazjatar and The Eternal Palace that do not impact the stat budget, and are therefore very powerful options:

• Ori's Tidal Wristwraps — Bracers that deal Frost damage to your target and slow them with a 1.5 (scaling with Haste) RPPM. Strong damage effect for free and good base stats on the item.
• Fathomstalker Wristwraps — Bracers that proc a Pufferfish, which will detonate after 3 seconds to nearby enemies, dealing Physical damage with a 1.5 (scaling with Haste) RPPM. Good damage effect for free and perfect base stats on the item.
• Akana's Reefstrider Footwraps — Boots that grant 3% increased Critical Strike damage bonus, which is an incredibly strong effect, and have good base stats on the item.
• Poen's Deepsea Grips — Gloves that deal Frost damage to your target on a 3 (scaling with Haste) RPPM, but with weaker base stats.
• Fathomstalker Waistband — Belt that increases all damage dealt to Aberration type enemies by 2%, making it a great piece specifically for Orgozoa and Za'qul, Harbinger of Ny'alotha, but with average base stats.
• Vim's Scalecrusher Clasp — Belt that deals Physical damage to nearby enemies on a 1.5 (scaling with Haste) RPPM with average base stats.

All of these pieces can be upgraded up to item level 425 for a total cost of 220 Manapearls from the base level. Some of these effects are powerful enough (assuming you have a socket present) to compete with even Mythic level items currently. Note however that these are only relevant as raid items, as they are not active when outside of Nazjatar or The Eternal Palace.

Patch 8.2 and the release of Season 3 has also unlocked the new mega-dungeon Operation: Mechagon, which provides items with a base item level of 415. If completed on hard mode, this will also provide a 430 Azerite Helm from King Mechagon to one player in the group. Some of the unique effects within here can be potentially useful, and some items to look out for are:

• Remote Guidance Device can be powerful as a burst damage option with some Essence choices Havoc takes, and due to being an on-use effect, can be especially helpful to prop up burst AoE concerns.
• Mekgineer's Mindbending Headgear is the 430 Azerite Helm available from completing the dungeon on Hard Mode. This comes with perfect traits for Havoc, and is a great pick up.

There are also a number of Rings that can be paired together to create a unique proc effect, as long as you have one of each equipped. The "Logic Loop" rings will drop from the fourth boss, the HK-8 Aerial Oppression Unit. The "Bit Band" rings will drop from the seventh boss, the Machinist's Garden. Ideally, the combinations of rings you want to pair for Havoc is:

• Logic Loop of Division;
• Shorting Bit Band or Overclocking Bit Band.

Lastly, there is also the Pocket-Sized Computation Device trinket provided from Mechagon island content, which can be filled with 3 different punchcards. Yellow provides secondary stat combinations, Red provides unique damage procs or active abilities, and Blue provides separate utility effects. You will only be concerned with Red and Yellow for performance purposes.

The overall item level of the trinket is dictated by the combined item level of the Red and Yellow punchcards placed in the slots of the trinket. Red and Yellow punchcards come from a number of sources, including the Operation: Mechagon dungeon, some rares on the island, Reputation rewards, and the Pascal-K1N6 Junkyard Tinkering.

Ideally, you want to aim for a Yellow punchcard that provides high Versatility and low Haste when using this trinket (namely an Omnipurpose Logic Board). For Red punchcards, currently the strongest option is Cyclotronic Blast, which gives an on-use single-target damage effect, but is interrupted by other ability casts. This is easy to access, as it is purchased for Gold when you reach revered with the Rustbolt Resistance. This provides a strong burst on-use effect with the cast, even despite the downsides of pausing your rotation. This is especially good for Havoc with a Demon Blades that can sometimes find gaps in its rotation.

Trinkets, Weapons, and Azerite Armor are the three largest DPS increases to any class in the game. Getting good pieces to fill these slots early allows you to perform incredibly well. They are also the hardest pieces to get.

There are a number of strong weapons for Havoc Demon Hunters, and note that they can all be used in either hand. Ideally, you should be looking for weapons with a healthy mix of Versatility and Critical Strike, trying to avoid Mastery:

• Claw of the Myrmidon from Abyssal Commander Sivara;
• Swarm's Edge from Temple of Sethraliss;
• Bloody Tideturner from Freehold.

There is also a unique proc effect Fist Weapon, Bile-Stained Crawg Tusks from The Underrot. This effect can be strong, but the loss of secondary stats and additional randomness makes it a sidegrade choice based on current simulations.

Thanks to Bloodmallet.com, a comprehensive list of available trinkets for Havoc are listed against each other below.

You can check through the Havoc Azerite page to look through the values of different traits and target different items. A quick recommendation of ideal pieces to aim for in Season 3 and which traits to select can be seen below:

Slot	Item	Traits
Helm	Helm of the Inexorable Tide	Furious Gaze Revolving Blades Lifespeed
Shoulder	Tidal Drifter's Shoulders	Chaotic Transformation Furious Gaze Lifespeed
Chest	Cephalohide Jacket	Thirsting Blades Furious Gaze Unstable Flames

The Eternal Palace comes with a number of specific pieces that have very unique effects that may not be immediately clear how strong they are. This is mostly tied to trinkets and weapons, but there are also separate pieces to look out for:

• Diver's Folly has a 1 RPPM chance to trigger. For the 12 seconds that this is active, 5% of all damage you do will be copied and stored as Bioelectric Charge, and when this expires, will deal the same amount of damage to 3 nearby targets. This is not split, and the effect has no impact on the stat budget of the item. This makes it a very strong weapon choice even despite the less than ideal stats.
• Dribbling Inkpod has an 8 RPPM chance to trigger (scaling with your Haste). This will accumulate charges as long as the target is above 30% Health and can stack infinitely. When they drop below the 30% threshold, these stacks will all detonate, dealing Nature damage relative to the number of stacks. This can be extremely potent for any execute-oriented fight, and you can potentially have a very high number of stacks before entering into these windows. Note however, the debuff does only have a 1-minute duration, so do not let the stacks fall off!
• Vision of Demise on the surface is quite simple, with a 1-minute cooldown Haste buff for 10 seconds. The added effect, however, grants additional Haste for every 10% Health your target is missing, meaning that if you activate it on low HP adds, you can amplify this trinket's on-use effect by over 100% with clever use.
• Azshara's Font of Power does pause our rotation, which can be very detrimental due to our high uptime requirement if using a Demon Blades build, but on the other hand, we do consistent damage throughout the entire period. This means, if you can find a window to do a full 4-second channel for the 30-second buff, this is a big window of damage to line up with Metamorphosis.
• Ashvane's Razor Coral is currently looking to be the ideal choice from Eternal Palace due to the double dip of damaging effect plus secondary boost. The Coral effect when applied by the on use has a 6 RPPM, so you can also rack up a sizeable Critical Strike boost by re-activating if you hold it for the right time.

Queen Azshara gear also drops 3 items that have unique effects, two of which are tied to the Storm of the Eternal trigger. This happens once every 2 minutes, and both items with this flag will go off at the same time reliably.

• Beloved Monarch's Waistwrap provides a buff for 10 seconds to when Storm of the Eternal triggers every 2 minutes. The average bonus Critical Strike this provides at Heroic item level is 75, meaning this is effectively free stats for your raid that can, in some cases, make up for the less than ideal stats overall.
• Gloves of Incomparable Beauty will deal Arcane damage 3 times to a random nearby enemy within 60 yards. This is effectively free damage and while not a huge amount, is worth considering.
• Cursed Lover's Ring provides ideal secondary stats, and allows you to bind to another user of the ring. When bound, every 5 seconds and within 20 yards this will check if you have more Health, and if you do, you will sacrifice a small amount to heal them. This also works in reverse, allowing players to bind to you and heal you in the same way.

This list does not include items that are found outside of the raid, so this may be altered based on items you have available from outside sources. Note this also does not include trinkets as they are covered in the above chart.

Slot	Item	Source
Helm	Helm of the Inexorable Tide	Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace
Shoulder	Tidal Drifter's Shoulders	Orgozoa in The Eternal Palace
Cloak	Drape of the Hatcher	Orgozoa in The Eternal Palace
Chest	Blackwater Shimmerscale Vest	Blackwater Behemoth in The Eternal Palace
Wrists	Tideblood Bracers	Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace
Gloves	Gloves of Incomparable Beauty	Queen Azshara in The Eternal Palace
Belt	Ship Swallower's Belt	Blackwater Behemoth in The Eternal Palace
Legs	Leggings of the Stormborn	Radiance of Azshara in The Eternal Palace
Boots	Ardent Worshipper's Boots	The Queen's Court in The Eternal Palace
Ring #1	Cursed Lover's Ring	Queen Azshara in The Eternal Palace
Ring #2	Ring of the Highborne Courtier	The Queen's Court in The Eternal Palace
Weapons	Claw of the Myrmidon	Abyssal Commander Sivara in The Eternal Palace
Alternative	Diver's Folly	Blackwater Behemoth in The Eternal Palace

You should ideally be spending your Seal of Wartorn Fate on a combination of Abyssal Commander Sivara, Blackwater Behemoth, and Queen Azshara. This is due to there being strong trinket options, Azerite and weapons available, and are the quickest, strongest upgrades available.