Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Stat Priority — Season 4

Havoc Demon Hunter has different stat priorities depending on whether you are focused on single-target or AoE scenarios. We recommend the AoE priority for open-world gameplay and dungeons as it can fit into more encounter types.

Note that secondary stat diminishing returns kick in after reaching roughly 5100 rating, meaning that stacking all of one stat can mean that it falls in value due to the penalty above this threshold. This generally does not impact Havoc very much, as Critical Strike is just that strong. That said, you should always simulate your character with specific gear upgrades to see if you neglect a stat too much.

The gems, enchants, and consumables you will use are directly derived from your stat priority. You can find our advice on this topic on our dedicated page.

Agility is your primary statistic. You should look for it in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Attack Power, which determines the damage your abilities do.

Critical Strike increases the chance for your attacks and abilities to critically strike, dealing double damage, and has several supporting talents that grant it additional scaling. In particular, Critical Chaos, Ragefire and Know Your Enemy amplify their value beyond the raw effect, keeping it relevant.

Mastery increases all Chaos damage you deal through Mastery: Demonic Presence, and also increases your passive movement speed. The value per point is already quite high, and the variety of talents on the tree improve its value even further when taken, making it a good all-round pick. In particular, First Blood converts Blade Dance/ Death Sweep to Chaos for your primary target, Any Means Necessary does the same for your remaining abilities such as Immolation Aura and The Hunt, and Soulrend covers Throw Glaive.

Haste increases your auto attack speed, reduces the Global Cooldown recovery time down to a minimum of 0.750 seconds, and reduces the base cooldown of Blade Dance/ Death Sweep, Immolation Aura, Glaive Tempest and Throw Glaive. The value of Haste rises due to some talent interactions, such as Cycle of Hatred and Shattered Destiny, increasing the uptime of Metamorphosis giving a Haste feedback loop, contributing greatly to Single Target DPS. It also leads to higher Fury Generation through Demon Blades via auto-attacks, but in AoE situations, many of the key burst tools such as Eye Beam and Essence Break have no scaling with this, reducing its value.

Versatility provides a flat boost to damage dealt and reduction to damage taken, with no other interactions.