Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Spell Summary — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Spell Summary of Havoc Demon Hunter

Whilst Havoc is a relatively new specialization, it has now settled in Battle for Azeroth. This page is here to cover the tools available, how they work and their applications. This will cover synergies, cooldowns, and core concepts of the spec to get it working in Legion. If you already have experience and are very comfortable with Havoc it is recommended to skip past this. Otherwise, this is a great point to get a base understanding before moving onto later sections of the guide that covers nuances of gameplay.

2. Havoc Demon Hunter's Main Resource

The primary resource for Havoc is Fury, which fuels your strongest baseline abilities. It is generated predominantly through the active ability Demon's Bite, or alternatively Demon Blades, if taken, and as such you are limited by your use of generation tools rather than having any passive source. You will then be spending the majority of your Fury on Chaos Strike, Eye Beam, and in AoE situations Blade Dance for DPS. Managing your Fury to maintain the flow of your rotation is very important, focusing on the build/spend gameplay.

3. Basic Abilities of a Havoc Demon Hunter

These are the core skills that you will gain access to during the leveling experience on Mardum, and create the backbone of the gameplay for Havoc.

Demon's Bite is your primary generation tool, having no cooldown, dealing low Physical damage and generating between 20 and 30 Fury. This serves as your main method of actively generating your resource, and is cast very frequently in any empty global cooldowns to fuel your rotation.

Chaos Strike serves as the core spender for Havoc, dealing high Chaos damage at the cost of 40 Fury, with a 40% chance to refund 20 Fury. This is the main method of translating Fury into damage and has the added advantage of occasionally refunding itself partially, allowing your resource to have some overflow and lead into chains. Managing your Fury to minimize waste from those refunds is vital.

Eye Beam is a 2-second channel that deals high Chaos damage to all targets in front of you, and 50% increased damage to your primary target. This damage is guaranteed to critically strike, costs 30 Fury and has a 30-second cooldown. This is used on cooldown in the single target rotation, but is still ideal to try to line up for AoE situations due to its extremely high damage output; serving as a medium length burst cooldown for Havoc.

Your rotational AoE skill comes in the form of Blade Dance, dealing 4 quick strikes for moderate Physical damage, at the cost of 35 Fury. This has a 9-second cooldown, which is reduced by Haste, and grants 100% Dodge for 1 second after casting.

Throw Glaive deals light Physical damage to your primary target that also bounces to two additional targets. This mostly serves as a tool for pulling targets or dealing damage when out of range.

4. Movement Tools of a Havoc Demon Hunter

The first of the core movement tools is Fel Rush, charging you forward 15 yards, dealing moderate Chaos damage to targets in your path. This has 2 charges, and a 10-second recharge. It serves as a flexible tool to instantly reposition yourself, giving you a great deal of range to adjust around mechanics and targets. This can be leveraged for increased damage in AoE and with some talents, so becoming comfortable with both the distance traveled and the cooldown timer is an important skill to learn.

Vengeful Retreat provides an alternative movement tool that deals a small amount of Physical damage, slows targets by 70% for 3 seconds, vaulting you back 15 yards with a 25-second cooldown. This is a great instant tool to disengage from dangerous situations and, when coupled with Fel Rush, can create or cover a large amount of distance.

Glide alongside Double Jump allow you to double and triple tap your jump key to generate a second jump, and then initiate a glide, both removing downward momentum. These can be used as situational tools to generate forward momentum and have some uses in the open world. Bear in mind that Vengeful Retreat blocks from being activated for 1 second after a cast so you cannot link them together on even ground.

4.1. Movement Limitations

One point to note with both Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat is that both spells cause an internal movement cooldown of 1 second (which also includes Glide). This is to prevent interactions that cancel out the animation, which means that you need to precisely time your key presses if you are intending to link them together. With Vengeful Retreat this generally means as you land, your Fel Rush will be available.

5. Important Procs and Passives of a Havoc Demon Hunter

Mastery: Demonic Presence is the Havoc Demon Hunter Mastery, granting a flat increase to all Chaos damage dealt by 12%, which scales with Mastery rating, and an additional 4.8% passive movement speed, scaling at a lower rate. This gives Mastery a hidden value of additional mobility on top of a damage increase.

Shattered Souls causes your killing blows to create a Soul Fragment on the ground that is consumed when you walk over it. This heals you for 20% of your maximum health, and if the target was a Demon also grant 20% damage increase for 15 seconds (bear in mind this does not include lesser souls generated via the Demonic Appetite talent). There is a 1-second window for fragments to be spawned if you deal damage to targets before they die, rather than you strictly having to land the final blow providing some leniency.

Chaos Brand is newly added in Battle for Azeroth, causing all damage you deal to apply a debuff to the target, increasing Magic damage taken by 5% with an unlimited duration. This is an exceptionally powerful raid buff and makes Havoc a very desirable specialization in group content.

Demonic Wards causes you to passively take 10% reduced Magic damage at all times. Great for increasing your passive survivability and is a carry-over from the Legion artifact.

6. Offensive Cooldowns of a Havoc Demon Hunter

Metamorphosis is the main offensive cooldown for Havoc, causing you to leap up to 40 yards, deal light Chaos damage and stunning non player targets for 3 seconds. This activates Metamorphosis for 30 seconds and has a 4-minute cooldown. Whilst active, this provides:

• 25% Haste and 20% Leech;
• converts your Chaos Strike to Annihilation, dealing significantly higher Chaos damage;
• converts your Blade Dance to Death Sweep, dealing significantly higher Physical damage.

This provides you with a reasonably long window of much higher damage and a higher paced rotation due to the free Haste. Ideally, you should enter Metamorphosis with a bank of Fury to make the most of it.

7. Additional Utility of a Havoc Demon Hunter

Blur is Havoc's primary damage reduction tool, granting 35% damage reduction and 50% dodge for 10 seconds, on a 1-minute cooldown. Due to its low cooldown, this is a powerful defensive tool that should be used frequently and aggressively on raid mechanics to reduce the incoming damage.

Chaos Nova is a 2-second stun that deals low Chaos damage. This costs 30 Fury and has a 1-minute cooldown. Also has a 30% chance to shatter a Lesser Soul Fragment when it stuns a target, but is otherwise a point blank-AoE stun.

Disrupt is the Havoc interrupt, which has a 15-second cooldown, 3-second lockout and a 10-yard range. It also generates 30 Fury on a successful interrupt.

Consume Magic consumes 1 beneficial magic effect from your target and generates 20 Fury if successful. This has a 10-second cooldown, and a 30-yard range, serving a an offensive dispel for Havoc.

Imprison is a long form crowd control with a 20-yard range and 45-second cooldown. This incapacitates your target for up to 1 minute, but damage taken will break the effect. Can only be cast on Demons, Beasts and Humanoids.

Darkness is a unique Demon Hunter utility tool on a 3-minute cooldown. It allows all allies within 8 yards of the cast to have a 20% chance to avoid any damage from attacks, lasting for 8 seconds. This serves as an RNG-heavy raid utility tool, allowing you to provide additional survivability to the rest of your group.

Torment taunts your current target, causing it to attack you for up to 3 seconds. This has a 30-yard range, and an 8-second cooldown.

8. Changelog