Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Havoc Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
Best War Within Pre-patch Talent Builds for Havoc Demon Hunter
Note that these builds are popular build recommendations for various different damage profiles. For more specific recommendations for the Raid and Mythic+, check out the dedicated pages below.
Talent Cheat Sheet for Havoc Demon Hunters
While Havoc had no major changes going into The War Within, it already had a
number of different talent builds that were played in Dragonflight. The most
popular remains a movement-heavy build focused around Inertia, though
there are some options for lower movement play:
- Ignition ST - CEkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYmZMmZGMzMjZmJzMzAAAAAAAmthxMMmZbmZ2mtxYgZYssBAAkYMzMGA
- Ignition AoE - CEkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYmZmxMzgZmZMmJDzAAAAAAAmthxMjZmZbmZ2mtBDY2MW2AAASMmZGDA
- Cycle ST - CEkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYGMmZGMzMjZmJzMzAAAAAAAmthxMMmZbmZ2YWmHYGzYYssBAAkgZmxA
The section below provides details on how each build is set up, what
it is strong for, and any potential swaps that can be made depending on
the situation. You can use each of the buttons to switch to information
about the respective build. Note that in the pre-patch the Season 4 Dragonflight
set bonus is still available, so all builds take supporting Throw Glaive
talents. If you do not have this, then the Cycle Single Target section has
alternative builds while you are gearing up.
War Within Pre-patch Talent Builds for Havoc Demon Hunter
Ignition Single Target
"Ignition" builds combine Inertia and
A Fire Inside to
create explosive burst windows that can be planned around. This provides
a strong Single-target and Cleave option, this is the strongest build
whenever extra targets or add waves are present. It is also recommended
in shorter encounters.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Single-target Ignition revolves heavily around the combination of
A Fire Inside,
Inertia and
Essence Break. It leverages
the condensed damage boost of Inertia much better than it does the alternative
Momentum, heavily empowering the strength of each Essence Break window.
It also allows it to set up and execute extremely powerful
Metamorphosis
burst via
Chaotic Transformation by using the two
Immolation Aura
charges to blanket the cooldown window.
No matter the variation on the build, whenever playing Inertia it requires
you to be using both
Fel Rush for
Unbound Chaos and
Vengeful Retreat for
Tactical Retreat. This means
planning and positioning is key, because your burst windows are so
short in the follow-up.
Ignition AoE
"Ignition" builds combine Inertia and
A Fire Inside to
create explosive burst windows that can be planned around. This is the best
option in fights that have high AoE requirements, or Mythic+.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
Similar to the single-target build, this leverages the powerful synergy
between Inertia and
A Fire Inside to set up strong burst
windows for AoE. It completes the
Immolation Aura path as well,
unlike in single-target, picking up
Ragefire to add even more AoE
damage to the package. The final talent point to bring everything together
in the final row depends on your preference:
Glaive Tempest - capped at 8 targets and gives an extra rotational AoE Fury spender that can more comfortably fit into the rotation. Particularly in Fortified weeks, this is a good pick when more AoE damage is required.
Essence Break - easier to execute and plan around due to only having a 40-second cooldown. It plays much more more comfortably when forced into single-target or dealing with priority enemies, but it sacrifices some AoE to do so.
Fel Barrage - this provides high burst on a 1.5-minute cooldown, but is target capped at 5. The build can sustain the resources to keep it up for the whole 8 seconds, and keep it buffed via double
Unbound Chaos to deliver a large amount of up-front damage. The limitation on targets paired with the resource drain and the current tuning point makes this hard to justify, but is still a niche option for specific scenarios.
Cycle of Hatred Single Target
Cycle of Hatred builds have an extremely high single-target potential,
but usually require longer encounters to make the most out of. These are
competitive and easier to execute, but slightly more limited than Ignition
alternatives.
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
This build focuses on maintaining an extremely high uptime of the
Metamorphosis effect, so requires extended uptime on targets to make
the most out of. It leverages
Cycle of Hatred to reset
Eye Beam
frequently while generating a huge amount of Fury to spend aggressively.
It takes the
Vengeful Retreat talents due both to their efficiency and
the additional resources it provides, and is much more open to timers rather
than relying on overlapping windows like other builds. This can also be played
without the set bonus if you are still gearing up by removing the
Throw Glaive and making the following talent swaps:
Accelerated Blade and
Furious Throws for a second point in
Blind Fury and
Looks Can Kill.
Soulscar switched out for
Essence Break
No Movement Build
In some encounters, it is not realistic to make use of the heavy movement talents, or simply your preference may be a more static gameplay loop. This is an alternative that, while behind top builds by roughly 5%, may be more comfortable for you to play:
Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the best build directly into your game!
In some cases, it is not only unsafe but simply unrealistic to keep full
uptime while using movement tools efficiently. When that happens, this is an
alternative that comes at a modest performance hit, removing the entire
Fel Rush and
Vengeful Retreat suite in exchange for the
strongest upfront damage tools we can get hold of.
It still goes for Cycle of Hatred as the central block of talents
have the least dependencies on other talents. Alongside this, it picks up
strong enabler talents for
Eye Beam and
Chaos Strike as they
form the bread and butter of the build's damage delivery.
Raiding
While the above builds can be slotted into most encounters depending on what is required, some more bespoke tools may be required on some bosses. You can check out specific tips and builds for current raid encounters below:
Mythic+
Mythic+ can potentially require a mix of specific AoE and Single-Target talents, depending on affixes and other variables. If you want more detailed advice about the selections (especially those relating to Utility), check out the dedicated page below:
Havoc Demon Hunter Talents Explained
Many Havoc talent choices add additional abilities into the rotation or alter how you would play due to shifted priorities and synergy between certain abilities. We recommend you look at our rotation page linked below for more details.
Below, we will explain each of the key talents that are present on the tree, and the reasons for taking them, but for a list of all of the abilities and effects available to Havoc, you can use our Spell summary page:
Havoc Demon Hunter Talent Details
Havoc Tier 1 Talents: Rows 1-4
Ability | Explanation |
---|---|
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Thanks to the other talents on the Havoc tree and the general leaning to
Critical Strike, this confers extra benefits to ![]() |
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Removes the need to actively generate via ![]() ![]() |
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Increases the damage and Fury generation of ![]() |
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Provides additional Fury from ![]() |
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Allows you to ![]() ![]() |
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Boosts the damage of ![]() |
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Only rarely taken, and even then only in single-target focused builds. It simply lacks the throughput and flexibility of alternatives at this stage in the tree. |
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Taken in every build and forms the core of keeping ![]() |
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Adds further damage to your ![]() |
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Provides a flat 3% increase to Magic damage done alongside 5% Physical damage reduction as well. Solid talent that is usually worth the point investment for its flexibility. |
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A potent defensive tool that allows you to immune all damage, but on
a long cooldown. This is mandatory pathing to reach higher value talents,
and is strongly recommended over ![]() |
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Another defensive tool that adds a modest absorb shield during your
![]() ![]() |
The first 4 rows have a handful of key talents, such as First Blood,
but mostly exist to set up the building blocks of where you will go
deeper in the tree and the abilities you focus on. The way you path
through here will always open up both the left and right sides of the tree where
high-value picks are available, so ideally you want to only spend 8 points
here.
Havoc Tier 2 Talents: Rows 5-7
Ability | Explanation |
---|---|
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Provides an additional (but short) burst window at the start of
an encounter and following ![]() |
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Grants a flat 4% increase to Versatility and reduces threat generated by 8%. A high-value stat node that has the added benefit of reducing the chance enemies turn around and kill you, so is always taken. |
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Causes your ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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The key building block to set up the ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Adds an additional Chaos damage DoT to your ![]() |
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Adds further benefit to casting ![]() |
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Provides a good path through to single-target options that further
improve ![]() |
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Causes your ![]() |
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Leans in further to ![]() |
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Causes ![]() |
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Adds benefit to each ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Adds a pure single-target component to ![]() ![]() |
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A strong follow-up Haste window for your ![]() ![]() |
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Causes ![]() ![]() |
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Adds a significant damage increase to ![]() ![]() |
Rows 5-7 form a lot of the core rotation, rounding out which abilities are essential to focus on and how the rotation cycle works with your mid-range cooldown abilities and effects. A lot of these talents are taken in blocks and dictate which of the final rows you have access to.
Havoc Tier 3 Talents: Rows 8-10
Ability | Explanation |
---|---|
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A powerful flat damage increase that can be easily maintained so long as you
are actively using movement abilities like ![]() |
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A stronger alternative to Momentum that requires additional gameplay to execute.
This also relies on ![]() ![]() |
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A strong AoE ability that goes up to 8 targets, but unfortunately has a lot of competition below the 20-point gate. |
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A solid boost to your ![]() ![]() |
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Powerful damage in all situations, adding bonus damage component to each
of your ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Increases the damage of your next ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Adds a Mastery scaling component to ![]() |
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While a good single-target node with better pathing than previously, it
struggles to justify a point compared to how strong alternatives are here,
especially in comparison to Soulscar when using ![]() |
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Deals excellent AoE damage, funneling your Critical Strikes into
a large explosion at the end. Works well with the other ![]() |
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Causes Critical Strike to scale significantly better, increasing the damage dealt when you do, and is taken in every build. Also extends to trinkets and unique item effects. |
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Strong enough that some builds are entirely focused around leveraging this
effect. Drastically improves your ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Adds a 7.77% chance to trigger damage events additional times whenever you deal damage. Think of this as just another form of Critical Strike and a proc that makes everything do a bit more, tuned very well. |
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Grants ![]() ![]() |
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A powerful AoE and single-target burst cooldown that can be overlapped
with the numerous other short-duration tools Havoc has. While short, there
is enough room to fit in ![]() ![]() |
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Spending Fury extends the duration of your active ![]() ![]() |
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Converts the majority of non-Chaos abilities into Chaos, allowing it to scale with 80% of your Mastery bonus. It works especially well in AoE situations, and makes Mastery one of the two dominant stats. |
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A potent 1.5-minute cooldown burst AoE tool, but is capped at 5 targets. This puts extreme strain on your Fury while active, costing 256 total to maintain for the full 8 seconds, but deals massive damage if you are able to last the entire time. Due to the additional planning required, the payoff is not really worth the investment, but has some niche uses in certain encounters. |
The final 3 rows contain some potent effects that increase Havoc's scaling potential, how the rotation fundamentally flows, and what target counts it is most effective at. You will almost always want a full 10 points spare to spend down here, as each point here is at a premium.
Demon Hunter Class Talents
Below, we will look at the Class tree talents, dividing them up between those that are used for Throughput (and the reason why), Defense/Mobility and finally, Utility:
Throughput Class Talents
Ability | Explanation |
---|---|
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Increases the Fury cap to 120, allowing more room to generate without overcapping and is always taken. |
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Increases the target count of ![]() |
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Pairs well with the other ![]() |
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Adds a high Fury generation tool that works well with ![]() ![]() |
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A flat increase to ![]() |
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Always taken, adding a follow-up ![]() ![]() |
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Adds a secondary damage (and healing) effect to your ![]() |
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Reduces ![]() |
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Significantly increases the damage of ![]() |
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Deals a heavy amount of burst damage to both your target and enemies around
it, alongside being a charge. It can also be converted to Chaos damage via
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The majority of these talents are always taken as there is a limited number of points that can be spent on the tree that purely affect damage - which is the aim of the game for Havoc.
Defense/Mobility Class Talents
Ability | Explanation |
---|---|
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Adds an additional charge to ![]() ![]() |
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Additional passive healing for a single point that is generally worth grabbing on top of Havoc's other good self-healing options. |
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Passive Leech that is enhanced during ![]() |
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While Armor only reduces Physical damage taken, the high uptime on
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Strong passive magic damage reduction that is also required pathing to get to throughput talents, so it is always taken. |
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Flat additional max Health that is a strong boost to passive survival. It can be awkward to access the tree, but it is recommended in all situations when possible. |
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Causes Mastery rating to increase your movement speed, providing free additional, passive movement at all times. |
Havoc has some good options for both Mobility and Defense on top of its baseline toolkit within the tree, and as these are usually recommended to grab alongside the throughput talents in most of your builds.
Utility Class Talents
Ability | Explanation |
---|---|
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Provides an AoE stop for enemy crowd control and is usually a good pickup if you have the points spare. |
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While niche, has some applications in certain dungeons as enemies will not engage in combat while under the effect. |
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Additional range on your interrupt is a nice quality-of-life boost. |
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Should the content you are doing require a dispel, this is a good
pickup both being at range and having the option to take ![]() ![]() |
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AoE stun that is taken in any situation where they are needed (for example Mythic+). |
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A quality of life talent that allows you to fire Sigils at your target instead of aiming them, alongside a duration increase to the effects. This can be useful if you need help to use them efficiently. |
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Powerful point-blank group cooldown that is almost always taken. |
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Reduces the cooldown of ![]() |
Many of the above tools are niche enough that they are selected based on the content you are doing if they are deemed necessary. The tree is flexible, has enough extra points to access most of these without much issue, and can tailor your build based on your group composition or needs.
PvP Talents (War Mode)
"War Mode" is an optional feature that enables open-world PvP encounters that confer some benefits when active:
- Grants access to PvP talents in the open world.
- 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
- 10% more experience gained while leveling.
- Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.
With the benefits of War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at the maximum level. However, you will open yourself up to open-world PvP, so be aware of hostile enemy players who could interfere with you; this is a risk you will have to decide on your own if you want to take.
If you are interested in doing PvP as a Havoc Demon Hunter or want to know the basics of Havoc PvP gameplay and decision-making, check out our dedicated PvP guide.
Havoc Demon Hunter War Mode Talents
In this section, we will rank the PvP talents for leveling and playing in open-world PvE scenarios.
Havoc Demon Hunter PvP Talents
Generally, the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.
Chaotic Imprint will always buff Chaos damage dealt, such as
Chaos Strike and
Eye Beam. Also great to pair with talents such as
Soulrend due to the conversion to magic damage, causing
Throw Glaive to deal significantly more damage.
Unending Hatred is just free additional Fury generation as you will frequently be taking damage in the open world.
Sigil Mastery reduces the cooldown of sigils, such as
Sigil of Flame and
Sigil of Spite, which can be a small DPS gain if these talents are taken.
Alternatively you can take Blood Moon for a small bit of extra
self-healing, or
Rain from Above as an emergency disengage tool.
Reverse Magic,
Detainment,
Cover of Darkness,
Cleansed by Flame and
Glimpse all have minimal uses in
PvE, due to it being very focused on crowd control tools or pressuring
enemy players into spending more resources than they would otherwise want
to.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4 with new talent options.
- 21 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6, strongest builds remain the same but alternatives kept.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5, small recommendation cleanups around AoE final point choices.
- 13 Nov. 2023: Slight change to T30 AoE build tips and added low movement T30 single target.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7, changed AoE recommendation to Glaive Tempest/Ragefire, restructured page.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5, added individual sections and the No Movement build recommendation.
- 01 May 2023: Builds updated to account for Patch 10.1 changes, including Serrated Glaive as an option.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed and updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2022: Reviewed and updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed 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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