Havoc Demon Hunter PvP Rotation and Playstyle (Shadowlands / 9.0.5)

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.

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 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.

1. 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).
2. Make sure you are connecting to your target to take advantage of the Demon Blades talent.
3. Use Fel Rush to gain Momentum, if you are using this talent.
4. Use Immolation Aura if the enemy team is stacked.
5. Use Felblade to generate Fury.
6. Use Demon's Bite to generate Fury.
7. Use Blade Dance to spend your Fury.
8. Use Chaos Strike if you are about to cap your Fury.
9. Use Eye Beam when you have enough Fury.
10. Use your burst rotation.

When you have the enemy healer in crowd control and you are trying to kill an enemy, you use your burst damage.

1. Use Fel Rush to gain the Momentum buff if you are using the regular talent.
2. Use Metamorphosis.
3. Use Chaos Nova to stun your kill target.
4. Use Death Sweep.
5. Use Immolation Aura if the enemy team is stacked.
6. Use Annihilation.
7. Use Eye Beam.
   • With the Demonic regular talent, this will extend Metamorphosis by an additional 6 seconds.
8. Use Felblade if the enemy team is running away and to generate Fury.
9. Use Annihilation for any Fury you have.
10. Use The Hunt if you are Night Fae to get to deal a large amount of damage and heal yourself.

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:
  1. Eye Beam should be the first ability. This will put you into Metamorphosis where you will deal even more damage with your other abilities.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

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.
• If there is a Priest on the other team, they can use Leap of Faith to pull their healer away from your Mana Burn.

Here are some strategies that can be done to land Mana Burns:

• If the enemy healer is not Orc or Relentless:
  1. Use Chaos Nova.
  2. Use Mana Rift.
  3. 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.
• If the enemy healer is Orc or playing Relentless:
  1. Use Chaos Nova.
  2. Use Mana Rift.
  3. Use Fel Eruption.
• 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.

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.

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.

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.