Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.1
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Havoc Demon Hunter in both single-target and multiple-target situations. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your DPS. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.1.
Havoc Demon Hunter Rotation
Welcome to the Rotation section of our Havoc Demon Hunter guide. If you came here without first checking over the Spell List/Glossary page, we recommend that you do so if you are new to the specialization. Understanding what your spells and abilities do will make it much easier to understand what is discussed on this page.
If you are looking for an introductory primer to get started and find the full breakdowns overwhelming, you can always start with our Easy Mode page to get yourself started with a close-to-optimal build and a more straightforward breakdown. While the recommendations on the page below are not strictly optimal for endgame, they provide an excellent springboard to get to grips with the core gameplay Havoc focuses on:
In addition to your rotation in general content, there is also a separate section of this guide devoted to how your playstyle may change in Mythic+ as situations are often less scripted and more hectic. Please take a look at the page below if you are looking for more tailored information for that content:
PvP
The content on this page is purely PvE-related. If you are looking for PvP Rotation Tips, please visit our PvP page below.
Single-Target Rotation for Havoc Demon Hunter
Havoc's single-target rotation in Dragonflight hinges strongly on two core loops:
- Fury generation and spending through tools such as
Demon's Bite (or
Demon Blades if taken),
Immolation Aura and
Felblade paired with expenditure on
Chaos Strike.
- Managing Fury around rotational cooldowns that need to be used
immediately such as
Blade Dance and
Eye Beam, and fitting those into cooldown windows.
Talents have a pick impact on how this plays out and dictate how many abilities you need to juggle that pull away from the core build-and-spend loop, so if you are new to Havoc, we recommend looking at the Spells page to get to grips with what is available. Due to the number of abilities that impact this, we have provided a rotation tool below that you can populate with talents taken to generate a bespoke rotation for your build:
- Cast
Metamorphosis on cooldown.
- Cast
Eye Beam, try to pool some Fury beforehand.
- Cast
Annihilation at 40 and above Fury.
- Cast
Immolation Aura on cooldown.
- Cast
Chaos Strike at 40 or more Fury.
- Cast
Demon's Bite.
- Cast
Fel Rush if nothing else is available.
- Cast
Throw Glaive if nothing else is available.
Bear in mind that no matter whether you take Demonic or not,
you will still be casting
Eye Beam in single-target situations.
It remains a highly efficient Fury spender but beware of upcoming add
spawns so as not to waste damage in AoE situations. Also, with
Blind Fury
taken ideally, you want to spend as it is coming off cooldown due to
its generation, while without it, you do the reverse and pool some Fury
slightly beforehand.
Essence Break should always be overlapped with your
Demonic
windows whenever possible, and you should also make sure to
have
Death Sweep ready to cast immediately after using it. Ideally,
the execution of this combo should involve
Eye Beam into
Vengeful Retreat paired with a mid-air
Essence Break as
you pass over the targets and finish with a
Death Sweep.
In 10.1, Serrated Glaive is used in single-target. While this
is a debuff you can maintain at 100% uptime; you only really need to
make sure to activate it just before
Eye Beam, as this is when
the majority of value is gained compared to the low damage
Throw Glaive
naturally does.
With regards to Fel Rush, it is a precious tool to generate
damage in the empty global cooldowns created by
Demon Blades, so long
as you can remain within auto-attack range. This is especially true if using
Isolated Prey in single-target situations, turning it into a strong
Fury generation tool. Otherwise, using this is generally considered a
slight loss, as it wastes partial global cooldowns that could be
spent on generating or consuming Fury.
AoE Rotation for Havoc Demon Hunter
For AoE situations, because the overwhelming majority of Havoc's toolkit
already comes with Cleave/AoE built into it and is cooldown based, the
rotation remains extremely similar to the single-target one, the only
thing that changes are the talents selected, so we recommend using the
above tool in the single-target section for a general priority to
work with. The one exception is Sigil of Flame raises to a higher
priority above your
Annihilation and should be kept on
cooldown.
One important note is, especially if multiple targets are spawning in
waves, making sure that you hold some of your AoE tools to hit the maximum
number of targets possible (e.g., Eye Beam,
Death Sweep and
Glaive Tempest). This is preferable to using it as it comes off
cooldown, so long as you do not lose an excessive amount of uses in doing so.
Playing the recommended AoE build with Furious Throws and
Soulrend
also places a higher emphasis on making sure you keep
Throw Glaive
on cooldown and spend as little time sitting at 2 charges as possible. This extends
to single-target as well, thanks to
Accelerating Blade, where it takes
priority as your Fury spender so long as you are outside of an
Essence Break
window.
Opener for Havoc Demon Hunter
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- Cast
Immolation Aura on pull.
- Cast
Metamorphosis.
- Cast
Eye Beam.
- Continue with the normal rotaton.
The most warping effects on the initial rotation are Chaotic Transformation
and
Essence Break, which provide a small window to deal huge burst if
cycled correctly. The goal is to set yourself up in
Metamorphosis
via
Demonic, have
Momentum and
Initiative active,
and enter an Essence Break window where you can
Death Sweep,
reset with Chaotic Transformation, and
Death Sweep immediately after
to fit two inside the overlapping buff windows.
A minor note as well is to squeeze in an extra Annihilation cast
before beginning the above cycle if using
Inner Demon to consume
the proc, as the
Metamorphosis cast will overwrite it. You also
should aim to apply
Serrated Glaive if taken before entering into
the combo, as you will not have time to apply it after.
Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Set bonus for Havoc Demon Hunter
Season 2 introduces a Tier Set available from the new raid, Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. The bonuses granted by the Kinslayer set are:
Demon Hunter Havoc 10.1 Class Set 2pc - Every 175 Fury you spend, gain Seething Fury, increasing your Agility by 8% for 6 seconds.
Demon Hunter Havoc 10.1 Class Set 4pc - Each time you gain Seething Fury, gain 15 Fury and increase the damage of your next
Eye Beam cast by 15%, stacking up to 5 times.
Much like the previous bonus, these are passive boosts that happen in the
background that you do not need to pay much attention to. There is no reason to
game either effect, and they will trigger through natural gameplay (and very frequently),
boosting up your overall damage, and each Eye Beam cast through repeat
triggers.
You should aim to get this bonus as soon as possible and swap to the 2-piece once you have it, even if you are using the previous tier set currently.
Vault of the Incarnates Set bonus for Havoc Demon Hunter
Season 1 introduced a Tier Set available from the Vault of the Incarnates raid that is still available in Season 2. The bonuses granted by the Skybound Avenger set are:
Havoc Demon Hunter 2pc increases the Critical Strike chance of
Chaos Strike and
Blade Dance by 5%, and their critical damage by 10%.
Havoc Demon Hunter 4pc grants
Chaos Strike and
Blade Dance a 20% chance to increase all damage you deal by 8% for 6 seconds. Critical Strikes double the chance for this to trigger.
Both of these bonuses are flat boosts to all damage and further incentivize using Critical Strike - a stat Havoc already wants to stack. There is no reason to play around with the 4-piece; it should trigger naturally via gameplay, so treat them as extra damage.
Havoc Demon Hunter Cooldowns: Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is a 24-second duration buff on a 4-minute cooldown
(which can be reduced to 3-minutes with
Rush of Chaos), granting a flat
20% increase to Haste, and converting two of your primary abilities for
the duration:
Chaos Strike becomes
Annihilation
Blade Dance becomes
Death Sweep
Each of these new abilities replace their respective spots on your action
bars and deal significantly higher damage but behave the same and are affected
by all equivalent passives. Pooling 100 Fury or above before entering
Metamorphosis is extremely beneficial in allowing for a surge of
Annihilation casts. Similarly, you should also drain excess Fury in
the last 5 seconds of the buff before you lose the benefits.
Chaotic Transformation also causes the active cast to reset
the cooldown on
Death Sweep and
Eye Beam. We play around
with this, ensuring both abilities are on cooldown before casting it
to gain an extra use of each.
See our addons and macros page for a Metamorphosis macro.
Optional Read: Notes on Optimizing Havoc Demon Hunter
Notes on Build Synergy
Havoc has a lot of talents that link up with each other in a powerful
way, usually having one pick having a powerful interaction with another
elsewhere on the tree. Examples of this are Felblade paired with
Demon Blades;
Initiative,
Unbound Chaos, and
Momentum together; or finally
Furious Throws,
Accelerating Blade,
and
Soulrend. These packages often complement each other and
enable different ability uses when picked in tandem but are not strong
enough to incentivize them. For more information on the specifics,
please refer to our talent page.
Gate 1 Important Talent Notes
First Blood increases the damage
Blade Dance deals to your
primary target by 75% and converts it to Chaos damage, allowing it to scale
with Mastery. This significantly raises the priority of
Blade Dance
in all situations and makes it our high-priority rotational ability in
single-target.
Furious Throws makes
Throw Glaive throw 2 glaives but adds
a fury cost of 25 to the ability. Causes Throw Glaive to become a potent
spender.
Critical Chaos increases the chance for
Chaos Strike to
refund Fury based on your Critical Hit Chance. This is the first of several Critical Strike-related talents on the tree that significantly improve its
scaling, which is why it is so desirable for Havoc.
Felblade provides an alternative active Fury generation tool
that is proc related and fills in for
Demon's Bite with
Demon Blades
to maintain a steady flow of extra Fury. This is especially good, as
Demon Blades
allows us to generate Fury off the GCD so we can use those on more damaging
abilities.
Gate 2 Important Talents Notes
Demonic is a damage boost window effect. It will naturally be
triggered by your
Eye Beam casts rotationally; making sure to fill as
many Global Cooldowns during the 6 seconds as possible with Fury spenders is
crucial. Priming
Immolation Aura or
Tactical Retreat
if talented before you trigger the window is excellent for setting up
some background generation to fuel your
Annihilation casts. Try to
minimize the number of committal generation tools such as
Demon's Bite if
possible, but in some cases, RNG stops that happening.
Unbound Chaos provides a strong single-target option and good,
uncapped burst AoE assuming the encounter allows for its use. Due to the
positional requirements, this is not always realistic, but it significantly
increases your next
Fel Rush cast following each
Immolation Aura;
and is a great pick when played correctly.
Initiative gives a good amount of Critical Strike when fighting
new mobs or adds on a given fight. In cases where the movement allows,
utilizing it with
Vengeful Retreat provides a large boost of flat
Critical Strike chance that can be overlapped with other cooldowns to create
large damage windows.
Serrated Glaive causes
Throw Glaive to amplify
Eye Beam,
Chaos Strike and
Annihilation by 20%. While this boost is
strong, unless you have a large number of supporting talents, this only needs
to be applied before casting each Eye Beam. Do not invest too many globals
on empty Throw Glaive casts just to apply the debuff.
Burning Wound will passively be applied to your target when talented
into
Demon Blades or can be applied via
Throw Glaive. Either
works, but you should always attempt to maintain your maximum of 3 DoTs as
much as possible, especially when
Immolation Aura is active.
Gate 3 Important Talents Notes
Know Your Enemy increases your Critical Strike damage based on your
Critical Strike chance, significantly improving its scaling and also allowing
abilities that guarantee critical strikes (such as
Eye Beam with
Looks Can Kill) to still retain some boost from it.
Essence Break Does a heavy amount of Chaos damage to all enemies in
a cone in front of you and applies a 4-second debuff increasing the damage of
Chaos Strike and
Blade Dance by 80%. This is very short but
produces an intense burst window in all situations, which is almost always
taken because of it. The cooldown also naturally aligns with
Eye Beam
to activate
Demonic, you should ensure that when activating this, that
Blade Dance is ready to use immediately.
Shattered Destiny extends your active
Metamorphosis or
Demonic window based on Fury spent, letting you have more time with your
haste increase. This makes time with Metamorphosis active a race to spend
to keep it active, and provides a large single-target increase due to how
many extensions it provides.
Any Means Necessary converts all magic damage your abilities deal to
Chaos damage makes your Mastery scale up their damage. This is mostly beneficial
for AoE builds that have a more significant portion of its damage dealt by abilities
that otherwise do not scale with Mastery and is an excellent option to provide
a complimentary secondary stat alongside Critical Strike.
Soulrend, when taken with the other paired
Throw Glaive talents,
leaves a significant DoT tuning Throw Glaive into a rotational button on both
Single Target and AoE scenarios. This is taken in AoE scenarios or situations
where you have sustained cleave and caps off the Throw Glaive package nicely.
Momentum is a sometimes contentious, high-skill cap option, so if
you are not comfortable with Havoc gameplay and raid mechanics in general,
it can be very punishing. Knowing when to use your charges and when to spend
them in conjunction with your burst windows, alongside avoiding mechanics, is
a skill that needs practice. Below is an image showing optimal pathing around
bosses, as maintaining uptime on a target is a significant DPS gain when
triggering the effect:

With Momentum, three different abilities can activate it. These
are usually taken in tandem with other movement talents ( Initiative and
Tactical Retreat), and start the following effects when used:
Fel Rush has two charges and a 10-second recharge that grants 5 seconds of 8% increased damage;
The Hunt has a 90-second cooldown and grants 5 seconds of 8% increased damage;
Vengeful Retreat has a 20-second cooldown, generates 80 Fury over 10 seconds and resets the ability to proc
Initiative on any target you have previously activated it on, granting 12% Critical Strike the chance when you trigger it again. It also grants 5 seconds of 8% increased damage.
There are fundamental rules when using Momentum to bear in
mind during combat. First, the spells that activate Momentum benefit
from the buff they trigger. The effect does pandemic, so a portion of
the remaining duration will be added to your current buff if you activate
it a second time while active. You should ideally attempt to spread
your windows out to ensure you are spending as few Global Cooldowns as
possible on generation during the 5 seconds it is active. This means
you should aim to enter a window with 80-120 Fury. You can also
trigger passive Fury generation tools, such as
Immolation Aura
before triggering the damage window to sustain yourself during the 5 seconds.
Core Concepts for Havoc Demon Hunters
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 your
damage output and Fury generation with certain talents. Managing this is
important if these have been selected, and knowing whether it is safe to use
them based on encounter types is especially important.
You can maneuver with Vengeful Retreat in 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 the 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 target's hitbox and remain in range upon landing against any
reasonably sized target. Do note that at all times, this spell will vault
you backward, so you need to be aware of that when casting. It can
also be animation canceled by immediately casting
Metamorphosis
after pressing to land back on the ground.
Felblade can
re-engage a target if you wait briefly until you are out of
the melee range, which will charge you back.
This movement tactic is used frequently, especially when playing with
Essence Break due to it being a point-blank AoE in front of you.
This means while in the air from the initial Vengeful Retreat cast, you
can cast this on desired targets while traveling and immediately enter
into the combo cycle.
Fel Rush, in much the same way, requires a similar awareness of your
environment to capitalize 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.
Both of these spells incur a 1-second movement cooldown to prevent you from using these to animation cancel each other. As such, you must treat each cast individually and prepare for the movement to minimize the downsides.
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. The
general rule is you want to avoid going into the range of wasting Fury due to
going over the cap with a generator cast. This means the spend breakpoint is 90
Fury without talents, due to Demon's Bite having a potential maximum
of 30 per cast. With
Demon Blades, this is more flexible, but given
how fast multiple procs can happen, it is preferable to be spending more
aggressively when not pooling for burst windows.
When playing Demonic Appetite or
Fodder to the Flame,
orbs will often spawn outside the close range of your character,
meaning that you can hold them until you are at a point where Fury
starvation sets in or you need the
Demon Soul buff. This means
you can have a good catch-up tool, assuming that there are no dangerous
mechanics that would prevent you from grabbing the orbs at a later moment.
Remember to adjust your rotation based on refunds from your
Chaos Strike casts that grant 20 Fury, as it may shift your upcoming
priority when they happen. Similarly, when talented successful interrupts
through
Disrupt and dispels using
Consume Magic that
grant 30 and 20 Fury, respectively, can also provide extra resources that you may
need to spend aggressively to make use of. For Consume Magic and Disrupt macros,
please refer to our macro page.
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 priority look like this
(keep in mind these are un-ordered notes and simply small things that can help
to improve your gameplay):
- Cast
Chaos Strike/
Annihilation as frequently as possible unless pooling for burst windows.
- Cast
Felblade as frequently as possible, as long as you are below 80 Fury as your active generation tool.
- Wait and allow
Demon Blades to generate Fury again to continue the cycle.
- Cast
Throw Glaive and
Fel Rush if out of range of any targets or in empty Globals.
It is optimal always to attempt to initiate a Momentum or
Demonic window wherever possible before you begin dumping your
Fury into
Chaos Strike in this way.
Changelog
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1 with Serrated Glaive and notes added, and extra Essence Break combo notes.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5, rotation tool refined.
- 01 Jan. 2023: Updated Opener.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-Patch.
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.
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