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it (read more Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (Legion 7.3.5)
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we list your Havoc Demon Hunter core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Havoc Demon Hunter.
The other pages of our Havoc Demon Hunter guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
About Our Author
This guide has been reviewed and approved by Kib, a lead theorycrafter for Havoc Demon Hunters, alongside playing in Strawberry Puppy Kisses in the world top 40. You can watch his stream on Twitch or follow him on Twitter.
1. Single Target Rotation for Havoc Demon Hunter
Havoc's single target rotation hinges strongly on the combination of
generation (either through active tools such as 
Demon's Bite or talents
like 
Demon Blades) and your main spender, 
Chaos Strike. Past this,
depending on talents, other spells enter into the rotation adding depth, making
it important to manage both your resource and your other spell cooldowns.
- Demonic
- Fel Eruption
- Bloodlet
- Cast
Nemesis on your primary target, synchronise with 
Metamorphosis and 
Chaos Blades if possible. - Cast
Fel Rush if about to hit 2 charges with 
Demon Blades or 
Momentum taken. - Cast
Fel Barrage if taken. - Cast
Fury of the Illidari. - Cast Metamorphosis if available and not active.
- Cast Chaos Blades.
- Cast
Blade Dance / 
Death Sweep with 
First Blood. - Cast
Felblade if available and more than 30 Fury from your cap. - Cast
Chaos Strike / 
Annihilation. - Cast
Demon's Bite if Demon Blades is not taken. - Cast
Throw Glaive if nothing else is available during empty Globals with Demon Blades.
Note that 
Eye Beam has since been removed from the Single Target
rotation as the damage per Fury of Chaos Strike / 
Annihilation
is much higher.
Also, when using 
Felblade, it can be used to quickly get back in range
after a 
Fel Rush cast if the target hitbox is too small to efficiently move
across it.
With regards to Fel Rush, it is a very valuable tool to generate damage
in the empty global cooldowns created by Demon Blades, but with a Tier 21
Demonic-oriented build, using this is considered a slight loss, as it
wastes global cooldowns that could be spent on generating or spending Fury.
2. Opening Rotation for Havoc Demon Hunter
- Use
Potion of the Old War just before the pull. - Cast Metamorphosis to engage.
- Cast Nemesis.
- Cast Felblade to generate burst Fury.
- Cast Chaos Blades.
- Cast Death Sweep with First Blood taken.
- Cast Fel Rush with Demon Blades taken.
- Cast Fel Barrage if taken.
- Cast
Fury of the Illidari. - Cast Annihilation.
- Continue with Single Target Rotation.
2.1. Demonic / Tier 21 Opener
- Use
Potion of Prolonged Power just before the pull. - Cast Nemesis on your primary target.
- Cast Fury of the Illidari.
- Cast Demon's Bite until you reach 30 Fury.
- Cast
Eye Beam to trigger Metamorphosis. - Cast Metamorphosis.
- Cast Annihilation until your Betrayer's Fury effect has ended.
- Cast Eye Beam to extend your Metamorphosis and generate Fury.
- Continue to cast Annihilation.
- Continue with Single Target Rotation.
Due to Demonic having different interactions with some spells, it warrants a
different opener. This utilises your Demonic activations with Eye Beam
for the longest duration, and makes use of your 
Demon Reborn reset,
alongside the large burst of Fury that comes from 
Blind Fury. Lastly,
it also wastes as little of the Tier 21 4-piece bonus haste as possible.
3. Multiple Target Rotation for Havoc Demon Hunter
Havoc in multiple target situations depends largely on the number of targets
and talent selections. 
Chaos Cleave largely fills your Fury spending
casts with Chaos Strike, but Eye Beam and 
Blade Dance
both enter into the rotation at certain target thresholds.
- Cast Fel Rush with
Fel Mastery taken at 30 Fury or lower from your cap, or if you are about to hit 2 charges at >3 targets, or to trigger Momentum if taken. - Cast
Vengeful Retreat at 85 or lower Fury if 
Prepared is taken, or to trigger Momentum if taken. - Cast Fel Barrage if taken, sync with Momentum if taken.
- Cast Fury of the Illidari, sync with Momentum if taken.
- Cast Eye Beam, sync with Momentum if taken.
- Cast Blade Dance / Death Sweep at 3 targets and above.
- Cast Throw Glaive with
Bloodlet, try to sync with Momentum if taken. - Cast Blade Dance / Death Sweep on cooldown if First Blood is taken.
- Cast Chaos Strike at 2 or more targets with
Chaos Cleave. - Cast Throw Glaive at 2+ targets.
- Cast Chaos Strike at 70 Fury or above, or 60 with Demon Blades.
- Cast Demon's Bite to generate Fury without Demon Blades selected.
Note that Chaos Cleave makes Chaos Strike more valuable than
Blade Dance until you reach 3 targets if taken. Fel Rush is also
still used rotationally in AoE regardless of 
Fel Mastery, though it is
even more important with the talent.
Aggressively using 
Fel Barrage whenever adds are active is a strong
recommendation so you can make use of the cooldown reduction aspect.
Momentum notes are a recommendation, and not a rule, if you cannot
adhere to them when a wave of enemies spawn, still follow the priority and
use the abilities.
4. Important Notes for Havoc Demon Hunter
4.1. Fel Rush Usage
Be aware that using this rotationally for damage to fill your empty Globals
with Demon Blades is dependant on how effectively you can maneuver
yourself around the boss' hitbox. Its strength is that it has a reduced Global
timer, but if any of that time is then wasted by you being out of range of the
boss and losing uptime, then that benefit is wasted and it becomes a relatively
average cast. Some bosses have small enough hitboxes that they simply prevent
you from using this (though when taking Momentum, as explained later,
this does not matter, as you have to use it anyway) and in those cases you
should forego casting it.
4.2. Demonic Build Explained
There are a number of details to the new Demonic build that warrant
explaining to prepare you for using it in dungeons due to its strength.
There are some synergistic effects that all work together to make it powerful:
Blind Fury allows for a full Fury pool when the 
Demonic window begins.
Demonic Appetite generates additional Fury to sustain resources during the window.
Feast on the Souls allows for a reduced Eye Beam cooldown via the cooldown
reduction.
These combined allow not only for the Demonic window to be very powerful,
but also for you to enter it consistently. During AoE when you will be spawning
frequent souls and reducing the cooldown, this is even better allowing you to
repeatedly enter into 
Metamorphosis.
In Mythic+ and in certain raid encounters, fragments generated via 
Overwhelming Power
can also help to fuel your Eye Beam casts. This can also open up using 
Unleashed Power
for more crowd control options without any loss. Finally, 
Raddon's Cascading Eyes can
cap this build off during large pulls to significantly reduce the cooldown without relying
on souls to do so.
4.3. Tier 2 Talents Explained
Prepared if taken adds 
Vengeful Retreat into the rotation on
cooldown, which has a significant effect on how frequently you are displaced in
a fight, and needs to be played very carefully to avoid extra danger from deadly
encounter mechanics. It also allows for an additional background source of Fury
which can be useful during burst periods on targets to still be generating
passively whilst spending, and additional activations of Momentum if
taken.
Demon Blades on the other hand slows down your pace by
removing your active generation tool Demon's Bite, and replacing it with
a 60% chance proc from auto attacks to deal additional Shadow damage and grant
12-20 Fury. This adds an element of reactionary play as you will no longer be
Global Cooldown locked, instead opting to wait for your Fury to passively generate
from auto attacks. This makes the playstyle more chaotic in practice compared to
the alternatives.
Finally, 
Demonic Appetite is the last option. This has the least
impact on your rotation. The unpredictability of the proc now it has no internal cooldown, and
the difficulty of reliably playing around the soul spawns hurts it a great deal
and cannot be understated. Whilst it is theoretically simulated as the top talent,
this effect makes it far less likely to be played optimally and as such is not
recommended.
4.3.1. Demon Blades Explained
With 7.1, Demon Blades had a big change to the under-the-hood mechanics
that make it work. The proc banking system is now gone, and replaced by a more
simple flat 60% chance to deal additional Shadow damage and generate 12-20 Fury
on each auto attack. This now happens regardless of whether you are or are not
currently waiting out a Global Cooldown, so is completely passive and relatively
predictable.
4.4. Tier 5 Talents Explained
This tier is very much a contentious point amongst players, so here I will
try to explain as succinctly as possible the situation between Momentum
and 
Nemesis. 
Fel Eruption will largely be left out, since it
performs poorly enough that it cannot content with the others.
4.4.1. Momentum
This talent is, without a doubt, a high skill cap talent and as such if you are not comfortable with Demon Hunter and raid mechanics in general, it will be very punishing. Knowing when to capitalise on your casts, and when to save them to use both in conjunction for the buff and to avoid mechanics or stay on targets is a skill that needs to be practiced. Below is an image to show the optimal paths to use your activation skills to stay on target and minimise possible displacement that can have a large knock on effect.
With momentum there are two activation spells that trigger the short 4-second window for increased damage:
- Fel Rush with two charges on a 10-second cooldown;
- Vengeful Retreat on a 25-second cooldown (or 15 with Prepared).
There are some fundamental rules when using Momentum to bear in mind
during combat. First, the spells that activate Momentum gain no benefit from the
buff they trigger (meaning a Fel Rush cast is not boosted unless it is already
active on you when it is cast). Regardless of this however, you should aim to
never clip a Momentum window, and instead aim for maximum uptime. You should also
aim to use your most powerful abilities during the window, so ideally you should
have a bank of Fury when it begins. Casting 
Throw Glaive with 
Bloodlet
is also of particularly high priority, as it snapshots the buff for the DoT effect.
You should at the very least make sure you are not forced into casting Demon's Bite
for its duration, as it deals very poor damage comparative to other abilities.
Lastly, due to the rule of not clipping, it should be known that using the
Vengeful Retreat into Fel Rush combo is particularly bad now, as
you burn up a full window. That means that positioning for the cast is vital, and
using the diagram above should show where you should be aiming to move. Given that
you can strafe Fel Rush and reposition before a Vengeful Retreat, this should be
very doable with some practice, especially as most bosses now have quite large
hitboxes to enable it.
4.4.2. Nemesis
Your alternative to Momentum if you do not feel comfortable with it,
is Nemesis. This is a relatively simple talent, though there are small
things you can do to help it. Generally, you sync it with Metamorphosis
as that is your highest damage period, and if possible, try to apply it to targets
about to die in AoE situations so that you can gain the buff on all targets hit,
instead of the debuff on just your target.
4.4.3. Fel Barrage explained
With 7.2.5, Fel Barrage has been simplified, no longer having a charge
system and instead having a flat 1-minute cooldown, with its damage tuned accordingly.
All attacks have a chance to reduce this cooldown by 5 seconds, usually putting it
on roughly a 30-40 second cooldown on average. Try to line it up with short term
buffs such as Momentum, and be aware of the state of the cooldown in case
due to it having some variance in availability. Also note that whilst you are
channeling this, you can still cast other abilities without interrupting it.
4.5. Mobility vs. Damage
it is important to know that Fel Rush is still used in the Single Target
rotation when not needed for movement due to its high damage per cast. Knowing
when you need to move in a fight and saving charges pre-emptively however will
net far more DPS by virtue of sticking to your target than the additional damage
from using it on cooldown. This extends similarly to Vengeful Retreat
with Prepared, but this takes more planning as it has no charge system to
allow banking for future use.
Note as well, if you struggle to stay on a target with a small hitbox when using
either of these skills offensively, if Felblade is taken and available, this
can quickly move you back to the target efficiently whilst generating Fury in the process
to power your Momentum windows.
4.6. Eye Beam Explained
Using Eye Beam is based upon pressure points in a fight where a large
stack of enemies will be available for burst AoE. If there are no situations
within the cooldown timer that you would be able to take advantage, then
using it on cooldown in a general AoE circumstance is preferrable.
4.7. Fury of the Illidari Explained
Much like Eye Beam, 
Fury of the Illidari is an incredibly powerful burst AoE tool that
only gets stronger with Artifact traits. Due to this, you should be holding it
specifically for situations with extra targets if they are going to happen during
an encounter, but try not to hold it for more than its entire cooldown duration so
as not to waste uses.
5. Cooldowns
5.1. Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a powerful 30-second duration buff on a 5-minute
cooldown, with a flat 25% increase to Haste allowing for more ability
uses while active. Pooling 80 Fury or above before entering
Metamorphosis is extremely beneficial to allow for a surge of
Annihilation casts, and draining excess Fury in the last 5 seconds of
the buff gets the most out of the bonus damage.
5.2. Chaos Blades
If you have taken 
Chaos Blades as your 110 talent, try to sync this
up with your Metamorphosis whenever possible alongside Nemesis
if selected. Make sure to use this on cooldown, and it syncs up very easily once
you have 3 points in the Unleashed Demons trait.
6. Core Concepts for Havoc Demon Hunters
6.1. Movement Abilities and Talents
One of the unique features of Havoc is that it can leverage its movement tools
in Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat to increase its damage output and
Fury generation with certain talents. Managing these is important if using these,
and knowing whether it is safe to use them based on encounter types is
especially important.
You can maneuver with Vengeful Retreat in one of two different ways.
The first of these is a wall that you can consistently leap back into so
that the displacement effect is muted and you remain in melee range of
your target. Alternatively, the more consistent option is rotating your character before
casting 90 degrees, so that you will move across the back of the targets hitbox,
and remain in range upon landing. Do note at all times this spell will vault you
backwards so you need to be aware of that when casting.
Fel Rush in much the same way requires a similar awareness of your
environment to capitalise upon. Instead of focusing on moving backward however,
you need to face the direction you want to rush and then turn back to your
target when you arrive.
Also note that both of these spells incur a 1-second movement cooldown to prevent you using them to cancel each other out with the displacement, and as such you need to treat each cast individually and prepare for the movement to minimize the downsides.
6.2. Fury Management
With Havoc being so reliant on its resource, you need to be very aware of situations that encourage spending vs. the requirement to build. Depending on talents outlined above, that may be more or less active, and so you need to be planning around those.
The general rule is you never want to go into range of wasting Fury due to
going over the cap with a generation cast. This means the spend breakpoint is 70
Fury before traits, due to Demon's Bite having a potential 30 per cast. With
Demon Blades this is more flexible, but given how fast multiple procs
can happen after you leave the Global Cooldown, it is safe to stick to the same
rule.
Also be aware to adjust your rotation based on critical strikes from
your Chaos Strike casts that refund 20 Fury due to the unexpected
additional resources in your pool. In the same vein, successful interrupts
through 
Consume Magic that grant 50 Fury can also increase your pool and
trigger a spending sequence, so keep that in mind.
6.2.1. Fury Management with Demon Blades
When using Demon Blades, your Fury management is altered to account
for the more sporadic nature of the generation. In single target, more appropriate
rotational rules to adjust the original rotation look like this:
- Cast Fel Rush with Fel Mastery taken at 30 Fury from cap or lower, or if you are about to hit 2 charges.
- Cast Chaos Strike/ Annihilation at 30 Fury from cap or above, and drain Fury until unable to cast.
- Wait and allow Demon Blades to generate Fury again to continue the cycle.
- Cast Throw Glaive if out of range of any targets, or in empty Globals.
It is optimal to always attempt to initiate a Momentum window before
you begin dumping your Fury into Chaos Strike in this way, but as it is
now very predictable how much Fury intake you have, you can generally anticipate
one to two Global Cooldowns before when this will happen and look to trigger the
cycle.
7. Tier 19 Set Bonuses for Havoc Demon Hunter
Both of the bonuses from the Tier 19 set are are relatively simple, impacting your
Fury generation directly or indirectly, and enhancing the power of Chaos Strike.
- 2-piece: Increases your Fury generation from all abilities by 10%.
- 4-piece: Increases your Chaos Strike critical strike chance by 8%.
The 2-piece bonus interacts with all sources other than the Legendary ring effect from
Anger of the Half-Giants. This is a flat 10% increase to all resource gain
and as such increases the uses of spenders such as Chaos Strike. The 4-piece bonus
enhances Chaos Strike even further, increasing the frequency of refunds and
playing into talents such as Chaos Cleave even further.
8. Tier 20 Set Bonuses for Havoc Demon Hunter
Both bonuses in the Tier 20 set orient themselves around Blade Dance, increasing
both single target and AoE damage, and granting an additional source of Fury, making them very
powerful.
- 2-piece: Blade Dance gains 20% increased Critical Strike chance.
- 4-piece: Blade Dance refunds 20 Fury if it hits at least one target.
Both of these bonuses effectively lock in 
First Blood as a talent choice in all
situations, and when you pick them up you should make sure to switch to this. They are also
powerful enough that you should neglect all Tier 19 bonuses as soon as possible at equal Item
Level, and aim to complete this bonus as soon as possible due to how powerful it is.
When using this bonus, regardless of talents taken you will be using Blade Dance
on cooldown, due to the additional bonuses and resource generation it provides.
9. Tier 21 Set Bonuses for Havoc Demon Hunter
Both of these bonuses are focused on Eye Beam, not only increasing
its damage but turning it into a powerful single target cooldown, lending itself
very well to Demonic builds.
- 2-piece: Eye Beam damage increased by 30%.
- 4-piece: When Eye Beam finishes fully channeling, your Haste is increased by 15% for 8 seconds.
Neither of these bonuses require specific additional gameplay improvements to
make use of outside of simply playing Demonic as normal, and making use
of the short burst of Haste that comes with activating it with your Eye Beam
casts.
10. ChangeLog
- 07 Feb. 2017: Updated and clarified some notes regarding Fel Rush rotational usage.
- 02 Dec. 2017: Added section for Tier 21/Demonic openers.
- 28 Nov. 2017: Updated for Antorus launch. Added Tier 21 section.
- 28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
- 12 Jun. 2017: Updated for Patch 7.2.5 with Tier 20 set bonus information.
- 27 May 2017: Added note regarding Overwhelming Power with Demonic.
- 09 May 2017: Added note regarding using Felblade for movement.
- 19 Apr. 2017: Tweaks to Fel Barrage notes.
- 28 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
- 10 Jan. 2017: Updated for new information following Chaos Cleave change in 7.1.5, added Demonic section.
- 09 Jan. 2017: Patch 7.1.5 update.
- 25 Oct. 2016: Several adjustments to account for the changes of Demon Blades in Patch 7.1.
- 28 Sep. 2016: Updated opener.
- 05 Sep. 2016: Simplified rotation by adding checkboxes to hide or reveal specific lines (cooldown, talents, AoE, etc.).
- 02 Sep. 2016: Moved Fel Barrage up in the multi-target rotation.
- 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
- 05 Aug. 2016: Added Throw Glaive to Demon Blades rotation.
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