Havoc Demon Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.0.2)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, damaging them, bursting them down, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilises your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Havoc Demon Hunter, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Havoc Demon Hunter PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Havoc Demon Hunters
The Havoc Demon Hunter has only one role when in an Arena match: do damage. Players should focus on maximizing their damage as much as they can. With strong mobility, you should be able to stay on a target for most of the game. Use your strong consistent damage to force cooldowns and then punish the enemy team by using your offensive abilities.
Before Gates Open
Have a plan for who you will be mainly using your crowd control on.
Although Havoc Demon Hunters do lack crowd control, they still have
Imprison and
Chaos Nova.
If the enemy team has a class that can stealth, use Spectral Sight
to see them in stealth and disrupt their opener.
The Opener
The opener refers to your team's opening crowd control chain and damage done as soon as you get out of the gates. The main goal in the opener is to force your enemies to use their cooldowns.
If the enemy healer uses their trinket in the opener, they are in trouble. In the opener, Arms Warriors should focus on sticking to an enemy and dealing large amounts of damage to the target.
This is the rotation you should use on your target at the beginning of the game.
- Use
Throw Glaive to slow the enemy and close the gap between you and the target (it will only slow the target if you are using the
Master of the Glaive regular talent).
- Make sure you are connecting to your target to take advantage of the
Demon Blades talent.
- Use
Fel Rush to gain
Momentum, if you are using this talent.
- Use
Immolation Aura if the enemy team is stacked.
- Use
Felblade to generate Fury.
- Use
Demon's Bite to generate Fury.
- Use
Blade Dance to spend your Fury.
- Use
Chaos Strike if you are about to cap your Fury.
- Use
Eye Beam when you have enough Fury.
- Use your burst rotation.
Burst Damage
When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.
- Use
Fel Rush to gain the
Momentum buff if you are using the regular talent.
- Use
Metamorphosis.
- Use
Chaos Nova to stun your kill target.
- Use
Death Sweep.
- Use
Immolation Aura if the enemy team is stacked.
- Use
Annihilation.
- Use
Eye Beam.
- With the
Demonic regular talent, this will extend Metamorphosis by an additional 6 seconds.
- With the
- Use
Felblade if the enemy team is running away and to generate Fury.
- Use
Annihilation for any Fury you have.
- Use
The Hunt if you are Night Fae to get to deal a large amount of damage and heal yourself.
Sustained damage
Sustained damage is damage you do when your burst cooldowns are not available.
- Generate Fury using:
Demon's Bite.
Immolation Aura. This should be used when the enemy team is stacked.
Felblade.
- Demon's Bite has a chance to reset the cooldown of Felblade. If you are not close to capping your Fury, use this as soon as you can.
- If you are playing the
Demon Blades regular talent, you want to make sure you have as much uptime on your target to maximize your Fury generation.
- Spend your Fury on:
Eye Beam should be the first ability. This will put you into Metamorphosis where you will deal even more damage with your other abilities.
Blade Dance/
Death Sweep. Depending on if you are in Metamorphosis or not, the ability's name will change, but still has the same effect.
Chaos Strike/
Annihilation if the other abilities are on cooldown and you are about to cap your Fury.
- If you are using the PvP talent
Rain from Above, you want to use it when the enemy team is in the center of the map and cannot get to a pillar quickly.
- Use
Consume Magic to dispel a Magic effect on the enemy target.
- Use
The Hunt if you are Night Fae to get to deal a large amount of damage and heal yourself.
How to Mana Burn
Although it seems simple, landing Mana Rifts, also called Mana Burn,
can be a difficult task. This can cause problems, especially if your win
condition is winning on Mana. Before you try to go for a Mana Burn, you need to
see what the enemy healer is playing:
- Is the healer Orc?
- This means that stuns will have a reduced duration on them.
- Is the healer playing the Relentless PvP Talent?
- This also means that stuns and your
Imprison will have a reduced duration on them.
- This also means that stuns and your
- If there is a Priest on the other team, they can use
Leap of Faith to pull their healer away from your Mana Burn.
Mana Burn Strategies
Here are some strategies that can be done to land Mana Burns:
- If the enemy healer is not Orc or Relentless:
- Use
Chaos Nova.
- Use
Mana Rift.
- Next time you have Mana Rift, do the following:
- Use
Fel Eruption.
- Use
Mana Rift.
- Use
Imprison. It is important that you are not using the
Detainment PvP talent or the Mana Burn will not take away Mana.
- Use
- Use
- If the enemy healer is Orc or playing Relentless:
- Use
Chaos Nova.
- Use
Mana Rift.
- Use
Fel Eruption.
- Use
- Next time you have Mana Rift, do the following:
- Use
Fel Eruption.
- Use
Mana Rift.
- Use
Imprison. It is important that you are not using the
Detainment PvP talent or the Mana Burn will not take away Mana.
- Use
Being consistent with landing Mana Burns is crucial for your team. Missing one could be the different between winning or losing a game. Use the strategies above to land as many Mana Burns as you can.
Defensive Techniques
Blur is your main defensive cooldown. This increases your dodge
chance and reduces the overall damage done to you. On a 1-minute cooldown,
this is very powerful and should be used when your healer is struggling to keep
you alive.
Darkness is a great defensive for not only yourself, but also for
your teammates. If the enemy team is using their offensive cooldowns on a
teammate that has no defensive abilities left, using
Darkness where
they are could keep them alive. This is even stronger if you have taken the
Cover of Darkness PvP talent.
Vengeful Retreat should be used to gain the
Momentum buff
for damage, but there will be times where you will need to run away from the
enemy team. This lets you get distance and you can still use
Throw Glaive so you do not waste the
Momentum buff.
Rain from Above can be used offensively to score a kill if you have
no cooldowns; but it can also be used defensively. Use this when melee on the
enemy team is focusing you and you need to avoid it.
Macros
It is advised to use Macros to use abilities on enemies or allies without having to target them. For this reason, we have a page dedicated to them.
Changelog
- 08 Jan. 2021: Updated Burst and Sustained damage rotations.
- 05 Dec. 2020: Updated Rotations to include Covenant Ability.
- 29 Nov. 2020: Removed outdated Traits and Essences.
- 14 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands pre-patch.
This guide has been written by Mysticall, a seasoned PvP player who has repeatedly achieved Arena Master and 2500 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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