Demon hunters, disciples of Illidan Stormrage, uphold a dark legacy, one that frightens their allies and enemies alike. The Illidari embrace fel and chaotic magics—energies that have long threatened the world of Azeroth—believing them necessary to challenge the Burning Legion. Wielding the powers of demons they’ve slain, they develop demonic features that incite revulsion and dread in fellow elves.
Welcome, Demon Hunters, to the Havoc thread. What's Havoc? The best melee in the game. We're the edgiest and if we've gotta rip out our eyes again to prove it we'll do it. This is the place to talk the DPS side of things, gloat about stealing meta, and otherwise hold discussions on how to be the best at what we do.
1.1 Stats
Stat Weights
Our current stat weights vary depending which final talent is selected. This means that you will likely have to run two sets of gear to be effective in all situations. If the choice is between two equal pieces the choice of the Fel Barrage piece will often be more beneficial, as pure single target encounters are far more rare than multi-target encounters.
Chaos Blades
Fel Barrage
A more in-depth look at these weights can be found here. Please remember, your individual stat weights will vary. For optimal damage
you will need to sim your own character.
http://downloads.simulationcraft.org...t_weights.html
Gems and Enchants
These will vary depending on your stat distribution. Crit will, in general, be a strong choice but diminishes in value if your haste or versatility lag too far behind crit or each other. For best results you should sim your character before gemming or enchanting in-game, as always. Food will follow the same pattern.
Havoc Demon Hunters will use the Flask of the Seventh Demon and Potion of Deadly Grace.
1.2 Gear and Artifacts
Gear Available to Demon Hunters (excluding trinkets):
Demon Hunter Gear Spreadsheet
BiS Pre-raid (non-final)*
* A perfectly rolled and upgraded crafted item can be slotted in for any of these pieces.
* A high war-/titanforged item will almost always be best in slot. Legendaries will also almost always be BiS.
BiS Emerald Nightmare Raid (trinkets non-final)*
* A high war-/titanforged item will almost always be best in slot. Legendaries will also almost always be BiS.
BiS Nighthold Raid (trinkets non-final)*
* A high war-/titanforged item will almost always be best in slot. Legendaries will also almost always be BiS.
Available Sets
Vestment of Second Sight – Tier 19
This is your tier set. You want it. Optimal pieces are listed above in the Best in Slot list.
March of the Legion
While appealing with the theme of “demons attacking everything” this set has very limited uses. Xavius (in The Emerald Nightmare) and Tichondrius, Krosus (in The Nighthold) are the only bosses that are classified as Demons. With high-level mythic rolls this set could become useful on those three bosses, but will be wasted elsewhere as the stats are suboptimal for havoc.
Jacin's Ruse
This set utilizes pieces that can themselves be swapped into our best in slot should you be in need of Haste rather than Versa. The set bonus is okay, but nothing special for Fel Barrage, and only mildly useful for Chaos Blades (depending on proc timers).
Journey Through Time
This set should only be used if Chrono Shard is in use, but is not an optimal set as neither item is a best in slot choice. Use if you happen to get both by chance, but try to upgrade trinket and ring ASAP.
Order Hall Set (Shattered Abyss)
While this set looks very good the cost (and time required to be eligible) to fully upgrade to 840 will be longer than the time between launch and the release of The Emerald Nightmare. This set would be good to pick up for the regen while starting to gear up, but should not be considered essential for pre-raid preparedness.
Rings and Necklaces
In Legion rings and necklaces no longer have a primary stat. That means that a higher ilevel piece will not automatically be better – look for pieces with high crit and haste/ versatility over a higher ilevel piece with mastery.
Legendaries
As Legendaries are restricted in how many can be used at a time, the optimal use can be found here:
Please keep in mind that legendary items themselves are a higher ilevel than other items, so using a suboptimal legendary that is not included in this list will be a greater benefit than no legendary at all.
Artifact - Twinblades of the Deceiver
"Make examples of those foolish enough to oppose you, and the rest of their kind will grovel at your feet."
Artifacts will be your primary weapon throughout the expansion. The ilevel of an artifact is increased by the relics that are slotted within them. Said relics will also provide another rank in a select ability, but relics should only be chosen based on their trait when of the same or very close ilevel. Relics work the same gems work, which means that swapping relic traits per fight is not a possible action.
Havoc's artifact relics are Fel, Shadow, and Fel. The second Fel is unlocked via our class campaign, which should be completed as soon as possible as the third relic is very important for damage.
Artifact traits are gained by using items that give Artifact Power. The cost for these traits increases with each one taken, with the 14th trait costing the same amount as the traits from 1-13. This means that picking trait order is essential, as there are some traits that are very important to gameplay and getting them later will result in a very long weight before you are able to get them.
This image shows the optimal path for Artifact progression:
image courtesy kib
1.3 Abilities and Talents
Abilities
Cooldowns
Damage
Movement
Utility
Talents
Unlike other classes Demon Hunters will not get access to their full talent set-up until level 110. With this in mind please remember that this guide is meant for 110 content, and pre-110 content may require a different setup due to synergization and gear that occurs only at 110.
1.4 How to Kill
A momentum build prioritizes the upkeep of the momentum buff. While holding a charge of Fel Rush or Vengeful Retreat for the perfect time is very tempting every second spent not off cooldown reduces the amount of total momentum uptime. Optimal use of Momentum with Demon Blades will result in about 55% uptime, while Prepared pushes this up to 67% (this
does not account for use of blur to increase fel rush charges). This should be the goal for every Demon Hunter. Paths for Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat should also be used with care for maximum melee uptime. This illustration shows how this can be done for most bosses (master the camera turn!):
images courtesy kib
By far the most important thing about Momentum is
you need to know your raid encounters. Momentum is not a build you can stroll up into a fight without having done any research as you will be moving in and out of tank and other melee space.
Do your research. You should always be doing your research anyway but in this case your ability to be an effective DPS will depend on knowing when you can and cannot use Momentum without causing your death or a raid wipe.
Chaos Blades should be used at full fury and in Metamorphosis to provide the most benefit from the talent.
Fel Barrage and Throw Glaive should be used with Momentum in all cases. Other abilities should be used with Momentum when at all possible.
Blur is, when combined with the Artifact trait "Demon Speed", a dps increase. If your raid does not require you to use CDs at specific points to survive the encounter using Blur on cooldown for the extra two Fel Rush procs will be a net DPS increase. This should only be done when you do not have something that Blur will be essential to surviving
so make sure you know your raid encounters.
A Note on Fel Barrage
Optimal use of Fel Barrage will be using it at 5 stacks (on a 5-stack proc) or 4.5 (to prevent overcapping from procing at .1s of the natural charge). However, in heavy AoE situations it can be better to use Fel Barrage at 3 stacks instead, as you can very easily instantly gain five stacks with a Eye Beam + Fury of the Illidari combination. This is up to your personal judgement, and may not be optimal in every situation. This cannot be effectively mathed out for every situation, so keep an eye on charges, likely charges, and how long adds will be up.
A Note on Fel Rush
Fel Rush does not benefit from the Momentum buff it puts up. This means that, in an AoE situation, clipping a prior momentum buff can be a dps increase, but only if every other AoE has already been placed on cooldown. In normal use you should never clip the momentum buff in any way given that Momentum is not pandemic, and will overwrite your buff rather than add to it.
Priority List, Single Target
Priority List, Multi-Target (2+)
Priority List, Multi-Target (4+)
Suggested Opener:
1.5 Resources
WeakAuras
If you're not using WeakAuras… now is a perfect time to start. You'll want to use them (or some sort of buff tracker) for Momentum and Fel Barrage at the very least. If you're unfamiliar with WA (or don't care to make your own!) you can find a great many for both Demon Hunter specs here:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...k-Auras-Thread
Discord
https://discord.gg/0enuZ4FBFlxVCokS
Guides
Courtesy Wordup – Includes Demon Hunter Videos
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...VTm2HjHiA/edit
Simcraft (by Pawketz / Aggixx)
http://downloads.simulationcraft.org/aggixx/havoc/
Sims linked belong to Pawketz / Aggixx
1.6 FAQ
Should I roll Demon Hunter?
Yes. Also, order a salad from pizza hut.
Do I have to take <momentum / demon blades / other talent>
For optimal damage, yes. For most players the difference will be negligible, as momentum requires high maximum uptime to perform better than nemesis. Prepared is an option for Momentum builds over Demon Blades as well, though it may not be the absolute best. In short, if you're not in a top 100 guild.. pick what you want and what you can play. A Nemesis build will outperform a Momentum build for a player if they are not able to maintain correct Momentum uptime, which is an important consideration.
Should I learn Nemesis and Momentum?
Yes. For fights like Star Augar (particularly on mythic) Momentum becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain optimal uptime without causing raid wipes. Knowing how to play Nemesis will help greatly before you pull the boss. This may also come in handy on Krosus, as it is quite possible to fling yourself from the ledge – though the wise Demon Hunter will position themselves to rush sideways rather than forward.
What can I transmog glaives into?
You can transmog your warglaives into one-handed axes, swords, and glaives.
Changelog
Recent Blue Posts
Mount Up for the Northrend Cup!
Mount Up for the Northrend Cup!
Could use good seasonal affixes again
MMO-Champion
Originally Posted by aGit
Recent Forum Posts
I cant find it anywhere 
I like that guide you made is very nice should be sticky'd so everyone can see it.
Science the shit out of it!
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