How To Improve As Havoc Demon Hunter — Dragonflight 10.0.7

The first and foremost mistake that many Havoc players make is not adjusting their rotation to minimize empty Global Cooldowns as much as possible. Regardless of build, the rotation is constructed at its core to always allow for you to be pressing something actively, and as such, any time wasted is a loss of both damage and Fury. You also have a wealth of movement tools to stick to a target, as well as a small number of additional tools that extend past melee range, which can be used to fill downtime that should be used to cover those gaps.

The core of your Havoc gameplay will rely on your ability to dynamically react to different Fury situations due to the variance in income caused by the Chaos Strike refunds and Demon Blades generation. You should always be aware of your Fury with the assumption that you will get a refund so you do not accidentally cast Felblade in a period you could spend. You should also at all times make sure that you do not spend too much to block you from casting Eye Beam or Blade Dance on cooldown if needed. This also extends to planning your Global Cooldowns around these ability cooldowns appropriately.

Please refer to the Fury management section of our rotation page for more information.

This has two separate situations depending on the number of targets:

In single-target situations, making sure that you are ready to cast Eye Beam as it comes off cooldown is crucial due to it being the highest damage cast available in your arsenal. Making sure that you will be in range for the entire channel, especially when using Blind Fury, is very important, as is making sure you do not begin the channel in an area that could be dangerous before you complete the cast.

When it comes to AoE, however, it is very important to note that it is a big DPS loss to use Eye Beam against a single target if, during its cooldown, there will be a high number of add spawns.

Always remember: despite Eye Beam being a strong single-target tool, it still ultimately gains a great deal in AoE situations, so do not throw away that extra damage by rushing to cast it on cooldown in AoE situations.

Please refer to our rotation page for more information.

Metamorphosis forms a large portion of the Havoc damage toolkit due to just how much damage can be poured in during the cooldown, with multiple aspects of scaling. Due to this, you need to make sure that when you use this, you have as many opportunities to capitalize upon the effect. The easiest way to do so is to ensure you have a large pool of Fury available to instantly begin spending, and also attempt to dump all Fury available just before the effect ends. Making sure you use this in a window as well where you can effectively stick to a target, and aggressively attempting to do so is crucial.

When using Chaotic Transformation, you need to make sure as well that both Eye Beam and Blade Dance have been used and are on cooldown before activating it. If you do not do this, you will waste the cooldown refresh it provides and leave damage on the table.

Please refer to the Metamorphosis section of our rotation page for more information.

While it is an increase to keep this up all the time, it is not always necessary to do so. The most important benefit of this is during high cooldown events (such as Eye Beam and Blade Dance casts), so aiming to keep it up when these are being used is a good idea. Ideally, avoid using Vengeful Retreat to do this for Eye Beam if using Looks Can Kill, and instead use it for the follow up Essence Break. In many casts though, this talent will play itself to a reasonable it you play around effects such as Initiative, Unbound Chaos and The Hunt correctly.

When using Essence Break you need to keep in mind how it fits into the rest of your kit and what must be done to optimize it. In AoE builds it will naturally always line up with the same cooldown as Eye Beam, you will always cast Eyebeam first leading into Essence Break followed by a Death Sweep. If you have Metamorphosis for this window, it is often paired to cast Sweep, Meta, then Sweep with the Chaotic Transformation reset. Regularly beyond this, you will always just want to have a full Death Sweep fit into the 4-second amp window and Annihilation casts otherwise.

It is extremely difficult to accurately optimize your character without first using Raidbots to sim your own character to identify a static start point. This will allow you to quickly identify the ideal gear choices you have available to equip, and due to the variables of different gear interacting with each other, it should be the go-to tool to decide what you use.

On top of this, simming is now very easy with no need to understand SimulationCraft APLs or installation yourself. All you will need is the in-game SimulationCraft AddOn, and the Raidbots website. Below you can find a video on how to sim your own character using the website.