How To Improve As Havoc Demon Hunter — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Havoc Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft — The War Within Pre-Patch. We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.
Optimizing your Global Cooldowns
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. Even with Demon Blades taken, the amount of filler and
generation tools between
Felblade,
Sigil of Flame,
Throw Glaive
and even
Fel Rush means you are rarely truly out of things to press.
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.
Correctly Managing Fury
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
so aggressively that it blocks 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.
This also has additional things to keep in mind for Blind Fury,
as each
Eye Beam cast will fully cap your Fury bar if completed.
This means any Fury above 30 (or 70 if only one point is taken) will
effectively be wasted, so planning your resource so you have just enough
as this becomes available is ideal.
Eye Beam
Depending on if you are in single-target or AoE situations this has two different rulesets:
Single Target
In single-target situations, making sure that you are ready to cast
Eye Beam, as it comes off cooldown, is crucial due to it having
a number of effects tied to it, alongside its strong damage output. 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.
Multiple Target
In AoE situations 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 just due to hitting extra targets. Do not
throw away that extra damage by rushing to cast it on cooldown when you know
there are going to be multiple enemies soon.
Please refer to our rotation page for more information.
Cooldown & Burst Window Management
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis forms a large portion of the Havoc damage
toolkit due to just how much damage can be poured in during the cooldown, as it
amplifies your main rotational toolkit alongside providing bulk Haste. 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.
Momentum
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 cases, though, this talent will play itself to a reasonable degree if you
play around effects such as
Initiative,
Unbound Chaos
and
The Hunt correctly.
Inertia
Inertia is similar to the older versions of
Momentum that were attached to a cooldown locked effect. This means you need to
be planning around periods that you deal the most damage to consume the
Unbound Chaos effect and activate the window. Playing this effectively
mandates
A Fire Inside as a supporting talent as well to add the
second charge of
Immolation Aura to activate it.
Generally, you want to make sure you never leave a charge on the table
and waste a window. After that, overlap your key moments based on your
talent picks, such as Eye Beam,
Essence Break and
Fel Barrage
with at least one application (if not 2, depending on your cooldown state).
Fel Barrage
Fel Barrage is a Fury drain window
that means you need to be aware of your current resource state when you activate it.
When using this, you really want to get the full use out of it, which
means you need 256 total Fury to complete it (as it drains 32 Fury per second).
The best way to accomplish this is having a full Fury bar pooled while still having
Fury-positive abilities ready to go in
Felblade and
Sigil of Flame
if you fall behind, with
Blind Fury being very powerful as a "reset" point
if taken. When playing this, you need to watch your resource when spending to make
sure you do not push yourself too low and cause it to end early, ideally having
a buffer of 40-50 Fury to stop it falling off within a GCD.
Essence Break Windows
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 Eye Beam first, leading into
Essence Break, followed by a
Death Sweep.
If you have
Metamorphosis for this window, you instead cast Sweep, Meta,
then Sweep with the
Chaotic Transformation reset. Beyond this, you
always want to have a full
Death Sweep fit into the 4-second amp
window and
Annihilation casts for the remaining GCDs.
When paired with Initiative, you should use your
Vengeful Retreat
to trigger this immediately following your
Eye Beam channel, aiming
to pass over the boss hitbox and cast
Essence Break so you hit your target
mid-air, and follow up with a
Death Sweep. There is an art to aiming
this to avoid downtime and get the combo off comfortably, but mastering this
is a key aspect of Havoc when playing these talents.
Knowing How to Sim Yourself
It is challenging to optimize your character without first accurately using Raidbots to sim your own character to identify a fixed 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 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 is a video on how to sim your character using the website.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4.
- 21 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5, no changes necessary.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2, added Inertia and Fel Barrage sections.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7, no changes necessary.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5 adding in extra notes about Essence Break windows and Fury management.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1, no changes necessary.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-Patch.
More Demon Hunter Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Wordup, a frequent theorycrafter involved in a number of class communities. He is also an experienced player who has been in the world top 100 since the days of Sunwell, currently raiding in Echoes. You can also follow him on Twitter.
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