Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Mythic+ Tips — Shadowlands 9.2.5

In Mythic+ Dungeons, in particular at higher key levels, you will be presented with some of the most challenging and competitive PvE content available in WoW alongside Mythic Raiding.

Therefore, when playing Havoc your responsibility to contribute to the groups success will be higher than in most raiding groups due to the lower group size, so skill and execution of strategy is crucial. The importance of being versatile and able to adapt to any situation is a key factor here, and one of the main reasons that some talent choices are taken that differentiate from ideal raid selections.

Alongside damage, utility such as interrupts, dispels and control are vital to handling many of the challenges you will find. The more you can bring to the table, the more aggressively you can pull and move through the dungeon comfortably.

In this guide, we will be discussing the finer points of Havoc Demon Hunter and how to get the most out of it, how to gear and set up your character, and some tips to push yourself further.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our Shadowlands Mythic+ Season 4 page below.

If you want more information about all of the talent options and whether some could be useful in certain situations, you should use our dedicated Talent page.

Recommended talent choices for Havoc Demon Hunter in Mythic+ are as follows:

Level	Choices
15	✓ Blind Fury	✗ Demonic Appetite	✗ Felblade
25	✓ Insatiable Hunger	✗ Burning Hatred	✗ Demon Blades
30	✗ Trail of Ruin	✓ Unbound Chaos	✗ Glaive Tempest
35	✓ Soul Rending	✗ Desperate Instincts	✓ Netherwalk
40	✓ Cycle of Hatred	✗ First Blood	✗ Essence Break
45	✓ Unleashed Power	✓ Master of the Glaive	✓ Fel Eruption
50	✓ Demonic	✗ Momentum	✗ Fel Barrage

With everything that came in 9.2 it has mostly pushed Havoc strongly into a cooldown AoE oriented build with Venthyr with sustained single-target in between. This build strongly leans toward Eye Beam effects, with previous builds falling firmly behind because of weaker Legendary picks.

Blind Fury pairs excellently with Cycle of Hatred and Collective Anguish or Darkglare Boon if used, upping the frequency of your Eye Beam casts significantly. Felblade does provide extra Fury, but is less efficient with an Eye Beam focus so is generally not picked, similar to Demonic Appetite.

Insatiable Hunger works best for pure Fury generation consistently, and pairs best with other talents taken. Demon Blades is solid, but adds inconsistency and loses some strength from paused auto-attacks during Eye Beams, while Burning Hatred is simply too low generation to be worth picking.

Unbound Chaos provides extremely high on-demand burst AoE that is completely uncapped and has some synergy with Night Fae, slotting in regardless of build. Glaive Tempest also offers strong AoE with more consistency, but costs Fury so it can cause some disruption with Cycle of Hatred. Trail of Ruin is a very niche option, but not generally recommended because of the burst AoE lost.

Your choice here will come down to how high the key you are doing is, and how lethal the damage you are encountering is. The more dangerous a key, the more beneficial Soul Rending becomes, due to the sustain. However, if there is one shot potential that you can predict, Netherwalk will be invaluable.

Cycle of Hatred is the cornerstone of the build to get extra Eye Beam casts, and as such is the ideal pick in the majority of situations. There are fringe situations where First Blood can work, but the higher the key goes the less this provides. Essence Break simply does not contribute enough to justify the GCD in an already locked rotation.

Unleashed Power grants the most consistent access to additional crowd control in Mythic+ settings, making it easier to fire and forget Chaos Nova. Fel Eruption, on the other hand, grants an extra tool to lock down a target. Finally, Master of the Glaive helps the tank to kite enemies if necessary, so all are viable picks.

Demonic completes the Eye Beam focus and as such is the go-to pick alongside being extremely easy to get value out of. Momentum does provide burst windows and has niche value, but the execution requirements are much higher and prone to lose out, and Fel Barrage is not worth the channel time to be worth taking compared to what is lost.

Collective Anguish provides the highest amount of extra uncapped AoE damage with unconditional power between Covenants. It is also the most consistent. Nothing else really compares to this currently especially considering Venthyr is the dominant covenant and the synergy with Agony Gaze.

For more information about different Havoc Demon Hunter Legendaries, you can look at our dedicated Legendary page.

Currently the strongest option is Venthyr, with all other options falling behind due to how much power can be leveraged by the mass Sinful Brand application from Metamorphosis. It also brings the strongest single-target damage thanks to the manual application for bosses, so is the go-to.

There are fringe situations where Night Fae could be considered, but its main issue is that the legendary it provides gets very little value at higher targets so is no longer recommended. Similarly, Necrolord and Kyrian simply do not provide enough damage to compete anymore.

• Venthyr — the way that this plays is mostly aiming to gain huge value out of each Metamorphosis cast for a large spread of Sinful Brand on multiple targets. The go-to Soulbind here is Nadjia the Mistblade, taking 3 Potency slots with a flex pick between Dancing with Fate and Increased Scrutiny depending on whether you need more AoE or more frequent single-target applications of Sinful Brand. (Sample Build).
• Night Fae — Korayn's First Strike is the crutch of the spec's burst damage paired with double Unbound Chaos triggers following a cast of The Hunt. (Sample Build).
• Necrolord — the gameplay of this Covenant is more volatile due to the nature of Fodder to the Flame procs. The lack of control over these hurt its overall value, but when used it will generally play with Plague Deviser Marileth (Sample Build).
• Kyrian provides the least benefit for Mythic+, due to the AoE burst provided by Elysian Decree being lower than all other alternatives over the course of a dungeon. That said, if played it will always take a build focused on Forgelite Prime Mikanikos (Sample Build).

Potency Conduit choices are more specific depending on the Covenant you are playing, and what your aim is within a dungeon:

• Growing Inferno should always be your first pick no matter what.
• Relentless Onslaught should also always be taken in any situation where you are playing Cycle of Hatred builds.
• Dancing with Fate should be taken in any situation where you are more concerned about AoE, or play First Blood.
• Covenant Conduits are more textured:
  • Repeat Decree should be avoided due to the use of Hammer of Genesis pinching Potency slots.
  • Brooding Pool should be taken due to the higher value of uptime on the buff during Mythic+ situations and weaker secondary Soulbind choices.
  • Unnatural Malice is a good option for burst, but Potency choices are pinched due to First Strike so is niche.
  • Increased Scrutiny is a good pick for Tyrannical or in dungeons that have frequent high priority targets.

Endurance Conduits should prioritize both Condensed Anima Sphere and Viscous Ink for the passive benefits, but Fel Defender is also an option if you feel the extra Blur uptime will be useful. Finesse options are entirely a personal choice as they provide no tangible benefits.

With that said however, Covenant and Soulbind selections have a lot of different factors, so we recommend looking at our page discussing them for more information.

Havoc's tier set bonus provides flat damage increases to both Chaos Strike and Blade Dance (and the respective Metamorphosis equivalents) which equate to passive benefits, but do not alter the rotation. The 4-piece bonus grants roughly 60 seconds of cooldown reduction (slightly lower in Mythic+ due to downtime) on Metamorphosis, which has some synergy with Venthyr but not enough to make it dominant. The only strong change here is it means you need to be more proactive than ever to keep it on cooldown and plan your uses accordingly.

This season's affix activated at key level 10 and above is Shrouded. This causes select packs in each dungeon to contain a Nathrezim Infiltrator that will trigger when engaged, turning into a small mini-boss with unique abilities. As each is defeated throughout the dungeon, you will gain a secondary stat increase of your choice selected at the start of the dungeon. Each time one of these is slain, you will also restore Health and Mana.

Your decision on secondary stats for offense is always Bounty: Haste. There is an argument for prioritising Bounty: Versatility for more damage reduction, but this is only granted at half the rate of the other effects so it is more of a personal choice for survival.

Legion Timewalking comes with a new Keystone level 10+ Seasonal Affix, Infernal, and will spawn an object that can be interacted with in front of each boss. This will either spawn a Legion Lieutenant with a wave of adds when interacted with, or will immediately trigger when the boss is pulled, so depending on which boss you are dealing with you may want to handle it on its own.

Havoc in Mythic+ deviates very little from the rotations covered in the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page we have listed, however there are some small nuances that are necessary to consider when it comes to cooldowns:

• Due to the long cooldown Metamorphosis has, and the flexibility of the cooldown reset on Eye Beam it gives, you should also know when this is going to be most valuable. This will depend on affixes and your group composition, varying between whether burst AoE for big pulls or boss damage is more desirable. This is especially true when playing Venthyr due to the AoE Sinful Brand.
• Death Sweep is worth using at 2 targets if using the Dancing with Fate Conduit even with a Cycle of Hatred build, while Blade Dance is at 4-5. This count is lower if you do not expect to get a reset on Eye Beam before a pack dies.
• You should plan out your uses of Eye Beam, while also considering the cooldown reduction granted via Cycle of Hatred if taken, to make sure you have a strong opening salvo for AoE packs.
• Try not to burn up short burst AoE cooldown tools like Eye Beam, Unbound Chaos and Glaive Tempest when packs are low health, they are better served to use on a fresh pack with more targets.
• You can use Immolation Aura to maintain Fury between packs, but remember this will waste the damage of the cast which is very relevant if it is not available when you pull next.

Just remember though that with all of these benefits that burst AoE grants for Havoc, it makes them very vulnerable to pulling aggro. There is often very little Havoc can do outside of an emergency Chaos Nova cast to give tanks a chance to catch up, but if you unload quickly, do not be surprised if some enemies turn to hit you.

For the details relating to the specific rotation rules Havoc operates by, use our dedicated rotation page.

Havoc Demon Hunter comes with a variety of tools that are useful in specific situations, alongside some universally powerful options. This covers AoE crowd control and offensive dispels, alongside group buff utility.

• Consume Magic is an offensive dispel tool on a 10-second cooldown, that also generates Fury when it successfully removes an effect. This has become increasingly useful, due to how many enemies have effects that demand dispels (see our Consume Magic macro on the Havoc Demon Hunter macro page).
• Disrupt is the Havoc interrupt tool on a 15-second cooldown that also generates Fury when used. This should be used as frequently as possible both to prevent dangerous casts, and also capitalize upon the additional off global cooldown Fury generation (see our Disrupt macro on the Havoc Demon Hunter macro page).
• Chaos Nova is an AoE stun tool available to Havoc, that stuns all nearby targets for 2 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown with a 30 Fury cost. This is great for disrupting large groups of enemies, and can also be made free with a reduced cooldown when using the Unleashed Power talent.
• Imprison can be used as a crowd control option if a target is too dangerous to engage in a group, or interrupt a high priority cast that is immune to interrupt effects. Enemies affected by this will also not aggro to your group, allowing you to use it to skip enemy packs if your route requires it.
• Darkness is a group defense tool that can have some fringe uses to reduce the risk of high damage AoE effects to your group. This does, however, have a random component which hurts its consistency, so should not be relied upon.
• Chaos Brand increases Magic damage taken by targets you deal damaged to, improving group damage in many compositions.

There are no significant alterations to the gear choices you should be making compared to normal single-target and AoE situations, however we heavily recommend simming your own character to make sure. Having Patchwerk, and then Dungeon Slice profiles to see what can be optimized are the ideal profiles to use. Dungeon Slice also allows for you to get a more accurate estimate of talents such as Demonic Appetite, simulating enemy deaths for Shattered Souls pickups.

Trinkets tend to lean toward on use or proc effects that are powerful in all situations rather than specific ones, so your mileage may vary compared to those that are picked in raids. If you want to know more about gear to aim for, you can look at our gear page.