Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Guide — Dragonflight 10.2

Havoc gameplay in Dragonflight revolves around a mixture of a build and spend resource management system paired with some short cooldowns that need to be used efficiently within the rotation. This loop causes an ebb and flow of high damage windows and key presses in between filling global cooldowns efficiently, creating a fast-paced melee with an engaging damage loop that is mostly GCD-locked regardless of build. It has excellent mobility, relatively strong survival and a variety of damage profiles available, whether it be burst, cleave or AoE, making it a great all-rounder.

Strengths

• A variety of different damage profiles are covered across builds.
• Strong burst both in Single Target and AoE.
• Strong passive and active defense, making it very durable.
• Solid self-sustain to pair with the above.
• Access to a number of CC options.
• Flexible, instant mobility allowing for great positioning control.
• Good group utility and provides Chaos Brand.

Weaknesses

• AoE is tied to cooldowns, lowering sustained damage.
• Some RNG is built into the resource system.
• Best performance is very fast paced and requires heavy movement talents.
• Some builds require pre-planned buff overlaps that can be hard to execute.
• Movement related talent options can be dangerous in some encounters.

We are maintaining a list of changes for Demon Hunters, so you can see what changes with every patch of Dragonflight.

Patch 10.2 not only brings the release of Season 3, but also a relatively significant rework to the entire talent tree for Havoc Demon Hunters. Both the Class and Spec Tree saw a lot of node shuffling alongside some all-new options. Noteworthy changes include:

• Champion of the Glaive
• Fodder to the Flame, Felfire Heart, First of the Illidari and Misery in Defeat have been removed.
• Both Unleashed Power and Unnatural Malice have been removed and baked into the base abilities.
• Fel Eruption and Demonic Appetite have been made baseline.
• A number of new spec tree talents have been added, including Inertia (choice node with Momentum), A Fire Inside and Chaotic Disposition.
• New defensive talents have been added, including Demon Hide and Deflecting Dance.
• A large number of new links in both trees have been added, allowing you to path through them more freely.
• A number of 2-point talents have been reduced to a 1-point cost.
• Metamorphosis cooldown has been reduced to 3 minutes (2 minutes with Rush of Chaos), and duration reduced to 20 seconds.
• Fel Barrage has been reworked into a high Fury drain cooldown that deals massive Chaos damage over a short duration.
• Isolated Prey no longer grants Fury with Fel Rush.
• Felblade has been reduced to a 0.5sec GCD.

The tree and, by extension, the playstyle is seeing a fairly significant overhaul, pulling it away from the high uptime Fel Rush generation via Isolated Prey and opening up choices. With the reduction in Shattered Destiny duration, it no longer sees quite as extreme Metamorphosis uptime compared to before, but has much more potent burst for key moments both in single-target and AoE. The cooldown of the base Metamorphosis cooldown being reduced to 2 minutes as well makes it a lot more comfortable to slot into damage timers without having to micro-manage it for Mythic+.

The much broader pathing on the tree also allows for far more build combinations, with an easier route to every capstone talent past the third gate. The tree structure also brings more synergistic combinations to the table, reducing the number of "locked in" pathing choices. All of our pages have been updated to account for these changes, alongside new Season 3 builds and recommendations ready for you to jump into the new content.

Please have a browse and know that your feedback is welcome on our forum!

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 take effort to transition quickly to making use of the full suite of tools and abilities without having the help of some add-ons. We recommend getting used to some of these as you begin your journey rather than all at the end, making the process smoother and making you comfortable with your UI. You can check out our Add-ons page for some recommendations:

Havoc comes with a tight core ability package that gives it an easy pick-up-and-play aspect. Still, the core is expanded dramatically through talents that add great depth. The primary loop involves generating Fury via auto-attack procs from Demon Blades and active abilities such as Immolation Aura / Felblade, then spending these on various spender tools in Eye Beam, Blade Dance, and Chaos Strike. This is further expanded with certain talent selections, rewarding good GCD and cooldown management while staying active.

Strong spender tools are generally used on cooldown unless you save them for specific windows in an encounter. Eye Beam and Blade Dance are used regardless of target count on cooldown, and in between this, Chaos Strike is used to burn off excess Fury. It also comes with a long-duration cooldown in Metamorphosis, granting 20% Haste and empowering your two rotational spenders by converting them into Death Sweep and Annihilation, respectively.

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 avoid dangerous mechanics. Some of the stronger builds make use of these, converting them into damage tools, which means it has a very active playstyle, though these are not strictly mandatory to play the class at its basic level.

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.

While we always recommend simming yourself for ideal results, we do provide a dedicated Havoc gearing page that lists the Best in Slot items to look out for in the current season of Dragonflight.

Once you have started to gear, you should ideally have the appropriate consumables, gems, enchants, and more to go alongside your new items. We have a dedicated page for exactly this, as shown below, and the stats page, where you can find more information on our stat priority and any necessary changes you may need to make with consumables.

Like all specs, Havoc looks very different when you move from the open world and leveling into the realm of end-game and progression. Therefore, we maintain a Mythic+, Raiding, and PvP guide for each respective content focus.

If you are looking for an answer to a specific question, often these are common queries many players have. We keep pages that cover the most frequently asked questions and also mistakes players tend to run into.

The rework in Patch 10.2 does wonders for some of the worst pain points Havoc ran into previously, and it is looking like it will be a top contender in Season 3. Bringing potent damage and burst options both in single-target and AoE, a more flexible big cooldown, and better build options to tailor your profile means they are likely to be highly desirable. Alongside that, its worst issue of passive survival and the high talent point cost for utility has been mostly remedied through the new additions and placements, making them significantly more durable than before.

On top of all of that, it also brings Chaos Brand, which every raid needs at least one of, so it is pretty likely you will be seeing a lot more of Havoc compared to the previous Dragonflight season.