Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Guide — Shadowlands 9.0.2
Welcome to our Havoc Demon Hunter guide for World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.0.2. Here, you will learn how to play as a Havoc Demon Hunter in both raids and Mythic+ dungeons: from the very beginning to maximizing your DPS.
Havoc Demon Hunter Overview
Havoc has not changed very much in Shadowlands, and the gameplay sticks to the same build and spend cycles. Survival is lower, but mobility remains intact and most player who have played it before will feel at home. The spec is mostly GCD-locked in almost all situations, making it quite a fast paced melee to play. Havoc also comes with a number of AoE burst tools for high-target scenarios, but it does suffer slightly from the new target caps.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Powerful cooldown options for high damage requirement moments.
Quite easy to pick up and play and grasp the basics.
Some strong survival tools.
Flexible mobility, allowing for great positioning control in encounters.
Can switch targets without any downsides, and can pool resources for instant burst.
Strong group utility, especially via
Chaos Brand.
AoE is tied to cooldowns, which hurts sustained damage.
Some RNG is built into the resource system, which can lead to starvation at bad moments.
Outside of cooldown windows, damage can be weaker.
Some talents have problems with certain encounter types, which can hinder options.
Shadowlands Changes for Demon Hunters
We are maintaining a list of changes for Demon Hunters, so you can see what changed between Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands. The new expansion also introduces new character customization options with Covenants and Legendary Powers, for which we have Demon Hunter-specific pages that you can access below.
Leveling a Havoc Demon Hunter
If you plan on playing a Havoc Demon Hunter but have not leveled one yet, you can take a look at our leveling guide for tips:
When you make it to max level, it can sometimes be hard to transition quickly to making use of the full suite of tools and abilities without having the help of some addons. We recommend getting used to some of these as you begin your journey rather than all at the end, making the process smoother and letting you get comfortable with your UI. You can check out our Addons page for some recommendations:
Basics of Havoc Demon Hunter Gameplay
Havoc has one of the smaller ability packages when it comes to DPS classes and,
because of that, has a fairly easy pick up and play aspect. Your core involves
generating Fury via Demon's Bite and pressing
Immolation Aura on
cooldown, and then using it on various spender abilities, such as
Chaos Strike,
Eye Beam, and
Blade Dance.
You will mostly be using each of these abilities on cooldown in the situations
they excel at - Eye Beam is used on cooldown in all situations,
Blade Dance in AoE, and
Chaos Strike in single-target. You also
have access to a very powerful cooldown in
Metamorphosis, which grants
a long window of empowered ability use and 25% Haste.
Havoc also comes with extremely potent mobility tools in Fel Rush and
Vengeful Retreat, allowing you to reposition yourself around the
battlefield extremely quickly to stick to your target or evade danger.
For more context on the details of each ability if you are new to the spec, we recommend looking through the Spell Summary first, as well as the Easy Mode page linked below.
How to Gear Up as a Havoc Demon Hunter
While it is hard to give a specific guarantee on what gear is best at this point, due to the number of systems at play in World of Warcraft, you can find some information and recommendations on the best direction to take your character on our dedicated gearing page. This also includes a basic Best in Slot list for this tier.
Once you have started to gear, you will need to make sure that you have the appropriate consumables, gems, enchants, and more. We have a dedicated page for exactly this, linked below. We also have a stats page, which provides more information on what each secondary stat does, and a general recommendation for what you should aim for.
End-Game as a Havoc Demon Hunter
Like all specs, Havoc looks very different when you move from open world and leveling into the realm of end-game and progression. Therefore, we maintain a Mythic+, Torghast, Raiding, and PvP guide for each respective content focus.
Improving as a Havoc Demon Hunter
If you are looking for an answer to a specific question, often these are common queries that many players have. We keep pages that cover the most frequently asked questions, and also mistakes players tend to run into.
Changelog
- 08 Dec. 2020 (gear page): Updated for Shadowlands Season 1 release.
- 08 Dec. 2020 (mythic+ page): Updated for Shadowlands Season 1 release.
- 08 Dec. 2020 (Castle Nathria page): Updated for Shadowlands Season 1 release.
- 01 Dec. 2020 (Castle Nathria page): Added placeholder Castle Nathria page.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (Torghast): Page added.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (this page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (how to improve page): Updated for Shadowlands.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (addons page): Updated for Shadowlands.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (enchants page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (stats page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (rotation page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch
- 24 Nov. 2020 (talents page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (spells page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (easy mode page): Page updated for Shadowlands launch.
- 24 Nov. 2020 (FAQ page): Updated for Shadowlands.
- 23 Nov. 2020 (Covenants and Soulbinds): Added Kyrian to Mythic+ recommendation.
- 21 Nov. 2020 (Covenants and Soulbinds): Page added.
- 20 Nov. 2020 (Legendaries): Page added.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (easy mode page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (spells page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (mythic+ page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (how to improve page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (rotation page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (simulations page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (gear page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (this page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (FAQ page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (addons page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (enchants page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (stats page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 12 Oct. 2020 (Ny'alotha page): Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 08 Jul. 2019 (The Eternal Palace page): Page added.
- 24 Jun. 2019 (Uldir page): This page has been reviewed for the release of Patch 8.2 and no changes are necessary.
- 24 Jun. 2019 (Battle of Dazar'alor page): This page has been reviewed for the release of Patch 8.2 and no changes are necessary.
- 24 Jun. 2019 (Crucible of Storms page): This page has been reviewed for the release of Patch 8.2 and no changes are necessary.
- 01 May 2019 (Crucible of Storms page): Updated with details for each boss.
- 15 Apr. 2019 (Crucible of Storms page): Guide added.
- 03 Feb. 2019 (Battle of Dazar'alor page): Page added.
- 10 Dec. 2018 (Uldir page): This page has been reviewed for Patch 8.1 and no changes are necessary.
- 12 Sep. 2018 (Uldir page): Updated following week 1 Uldir observations.
- 04 Sep. 2018 (Uldir page): Updated with initial tips for Uldir release.
- 09 Aug. 2018 (Uldir page): Page created in preparation for the eventual Uldir release (empty for now).
More Demon Hunter Guides
Guides from Other Classes
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.
- How to Loot Faster in World of Warcraft
- How to Fool Bots With Toys
- Patch 9.1 Will Be Released in Spring 2021
- Even More Fantastical Settings Coming in Shadowlands, Endgame Loot and More: Ion Hazzikostas PC Gamer Article
- Tarragrue Glitches Out and Does No Damage
- Patch 9.0.2 Hotfixes: January 14th
- The New Battle.net Is Almost Here, Going Live in NA
- Item Level 184 Trinket World Quest Now Up in Bastion on US Servers