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Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Guide in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1

Last updated on Aug 12, 2018 at 22:58 by Wordup 29 comments

Table of Contents

General Information

Welcome to our Havoc Demon Hunter DPS guide for World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1. Here, you will learn everything you need to know about playing a Havoc Demon Hunter in a raid environment and in Mythic+ dungeons.

About Our Author

This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can also follow him on Twitter.

1. Class Overview

Havoc in Battle for Azeroth has gone through somewhat of a maturing process, trying to focus more on the talent tree and allowing for more diverse options in gameplay approaches, alongside tightening up some of the more loose aspects of the original implementation. It still remains a predominantly builder spender style rotation and is largely Global Cooldown locked. The core hook is making the most of your Fury pool and reacting to unpredictable gains, ensuring you use high burst cooldowns and windows to push yourself even further. On top of that, it comes with a variety of mobility and defense tools, creating a versatile toolkit with some unique abilities that can be used in a variety of ways.

2. Patch 8.0.1 Changes for Havoc Demon Hunters

The core of Havoc remains intact, however some small adjustments to the way some baseline abilities work have been implemented.

2.1. Existing Ability Changes

  • The Fury cap has been raised from 100 to 120.
  • Chaos Strike Icon Chaos Strike now has a fixed 40% change to refund 20 Fury, instead of being fueled by Critical Strikes.
  • Eye Beam Icon Eye Beam has been reduced to a 30 Fury cost baseline, its cooldown has dropped to 30 seconds, and deals 50% additional damage to your current target.
  • Chaos Nova Icon Chaos Nova now only stuns for 2 seconds, but has a 30% chance to spawn a Soul Fragment per stunned target baseline.
  • The Havoc interrupt has been renamed to Disrupt Icon Disrupt, which has a 15-second cooldown, 3-second lockout, but reduced to a 10-yard range. It also only generates 30 Fury now on a successful interrupt.

2.2. New Spell and Mechanic Additions

  • Consume Magic Icon Consume Magic is an offensive dispel that removes 1 beneficial Magic effect from your target with a 20-yard range and 10-second cooldown. Successfully removing an effect also generates 20 Fury.
  • Torment Icon Torment is a 3-second duration taunt with a 30-yard range and 8-second cooldown.
  • Demonic Wards Icon Demonic Wards reduces all Magic damage taken passively by 10% at all times.
  • Chaos Brand Icon Chaos Brand causes enemies hit by your Chaos damage to take an additional 5% Magic damage from all sources with an unlimited duration.

3. Havoc Demon Hunter's Strengths

  • Powerful burst single target damage
  • Extremely powerful cooldowns for high damage requirement moments
  • Flexible mobility allowing for great positioning control in encounters
  • Can switch targets without any downsides, and can pool resources for instant burst
  • Powerful, versatile cooldowns for different situations
  • Strong group utility, especially via Chaos Brand Icon Chaos Brand

4. Havoc Demon Hunter's Weaknesses

  • AoE is tied to cooldowns, which hurts sustained damage
  • Some RNG is built into the resource system, which can on rare occasions lead to starvation at bad moments
  • Outside of cooldown windows, damage can be lackluster
  • Some talents have problems with certain encounter types, which can hinder options.

5. Viability of Havoc Demon Hunter in the Current Patch

Due to the expansion having a lot of changes over the course of testing, and some of those being extremely recent it is difficult to gauge where it will land. The specialization comes primed with a lot of different tools and a talent tree robust enough to allow for flexibility, alongside powerful defensive and mobility tools. That said, it remains to be seen as to how far this will carry. All things point toward Havoc being a very powerful melee option currently, however.

6. Contents

To make it easy to navigate the guide, we have split it into 14 pages:

Easy Mode⋙

7. ChangeLog

  • 12 Aug. 2018 (mythic+ page): Page created for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (rotation page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (azerite traits and gear page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (talents page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (common mistakes page): Page created for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (gear page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (enchants page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (stats page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (FAQ page): Page created for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 12 Aug. 2018 (this page): Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 10 Aug. 2018 (azerite traits and gear page): Page created.
  • 09 Aug. 2018 (bosses page): Page created in preparation for the eventual Uldir release (empty for now).
  • 28 Jul. 2018 (addons page): Added Hekili to the list as a regularly updated rotation aid tool.
  • 22 Jul. 2018 (gear page): Altered trinket section to indicate direct damage trinkets are performing better.
  • 17 Jul. 2018 (this page): Updated for the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch.
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