How To Improve As Havoc Demon Hunter — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Havoc Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.2. 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. The rotation is built 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.
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. You should always be aware of your Fury with
the assumption that you will get a refund so you do not accidentally
cast
Demon's Bite 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 on cooldown if needed. This also extends to when using
First Blood, as you should make absolutely sure that you have enough
Fury ready to keep this on cooldown as much as possible, and also plan your
Global Cooldowns around it appropriately.
Please refer to the Fury management section of our rotation page for more information.
Eye Beam
This has two separate situations depending on number of targets:
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 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.
Multiple Target
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.
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, with
multiple aspects of scaling. Due to this, you need to make absolutely sure that
when you use this, you have as many opportunities to capitalize upon the effect.
The easiest way to do so is ensuring 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.
Please refer to the Metamorphosis section of our rotation page for more information.
Momentum Windows
When using Momentum, not having enough Fury available to be
aggressively spending as much as possible following a
Fel Rush cast
is a major mistake. Trying to minimize your
Demon's Bite generation
casts during the buff will drastically improve your output, so having a large
pool available when you trigger it is ideal. This also extends to using passive
generation buffs such as
Vengeful Retreat with Momentum, or
Immolation Aura before activating to give you a background
source to fuel your
Chaos Strike uses.
Please refer to the Tier 7 talent section of our rotation page for more information.
Knowing How to Sim Yourself
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 (and the War/Titanforging system causing unpredictability) 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.
Changelog
- 20 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 28 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 24 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands 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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