WoW Shadowlands Havoc Demon Hunter Guide Leave a comment

Pros:

• One of the easiest classes, perfect for beginners.
• Very durable.
• Good damage on 2-5 targets.
• High mobility.
• Great utility: Chaos Brand is irreplaceable in a raid.
• Lots of stuns and control abilities, which is useful in m+

Cons:

• Not very high damage to solo target.
• Metamorphosis cooldown is 4 minutes, which is sometimes not coincident with other classes cooldowns. So you have to hold it for the important moment of a boss fight. That makes you lose one Metamorphosis usage, which affects all incoming Demon Hunter damage.
• Ability to deal solo and AoE damage is limited by cooldowns and targets cap.
• DH is a melee class.

Basic information on the spec:

Demon hunter hasn’t seen a lot of changes in Shadowlands. The gameplay basis is still earning and spending our main resource – Fury. Main ability to generate Fury is Demon’s Bite, you spend them on abilities that provide the most damage – Eye Beam и Chaos Strike etc.

Unlike other addons, in Shadowlands, Demon Hunter talents are very competitive and have good synergy with each other, there is a variety of builds for different situations.

TIER 1 LVL 15 – DPS TALENTS

• Blind Fury – increases Eye Beam damage and generates Fury. Good synergy with Demonic and Cycle of Hatred
• Demonic Appetite – you no longer can reduce Eye Beam cooldown in Shadowlands with this talent, but it still is a great option to self-heal. Good synergy with Kyrian ability.
• Felblade – Good talent with Demon Blades

TIER 2 LVL 25 – DPS TALENTS

• Insatiable Hunger – increases Fury generation from Demon’s Bite
• Burning Hatred – Immolation Aura now generates 80 Fury instead of 20.
• Demon Blades – Replaces Demon’s Bite with passive ability. With Felblade you will gain the highest DPS to solo target.

TIER 3 LVL 30 – DPS TALENTS

• Trail of Ruin – useful only with First Blood. упрощает ротацию, подходит новичкам, но чуть-чуть проигрывает конкуренту. Your rotation will be simpler, good for new players, but a bit worse than other talents.
• Unbound Chaos – Very bad talent after rework.
• Glaive Tempest – Ability from Legion. Easy to use, deals decent damage in both AoE and ST.

TIER 4 LVL 35 – MOBILITY AND UTILITY TALENTS

• Soul Rending – Even after nerfs it’s still a good choice if you don’t need immune.
• Desperate Instincts – Useful only in cases when you need improved Blur
• Netherwalk – After cooldown was nerfed to 3 minutes, it’s still very strong talent. But you can’t use most of your abilities, and this talent will not purge debuffs.

TIER 5 LVL 40 – DPS TALENTS

• Cycle of Hatred – Talent with strong potential and synergy with other talents, passive effects and legendary item.
• First Blood – Talent focused to single target damage.
• Essence Break – Not recommended to use.

TIER 6 LVL 45 – CONTROL TIER

• Unleashed Power – Makes your stun cost zero and reduces cooldown. Use in cases when you need to stun more often, or you don’t need additional stun from Fel Eruption.
• Master of the Glaive – You can use it as a filler if you play with Demon Blades
• Fel Eruption – Low damage, useful in situations when you need additional stun.

TIER 7 LVL 50 – DPS TALENTS

• Demonic – Strong talent, good synergy with Blind Fury and Cycle of Hatred, which gains “mini-burst”.
• Momentum – Has huge potential, strong in both AoE and single target, but you have to be skillful to perform its best.
• Fel Barrage – This talent is worse than two others in all situations.

Here are your common builds:

Full ST

• Felblade
• Demon Blades
• Glaive Tempest
• Netherwalk / Soul Rending
• First Blood
• Master of the Glaive
• Momentum

AoE/M+

• Blind Fury
• Insatiable Hunger
• Glaive Tempest
• Netherwalk / Soul Rending
• Cycle of Hatred
• Unleashed Power / Fel Eruption
• Demonic

Disclaimer: Momentum will give you up to 10% additional DPS, BUT only if you use it perfectly. If you not sure about your abilities, your result with Demonic will be better.

There are 4 covenants total: Venthyr, Kyrian, Night Fae, and Necrolord.

You can change them once a week. Note that the covenant’s power depends not only on signature abilities, but also on available soulbinds.

Single-target: Venthyr = Night Fae >= Kyrian > Necrolord

Mythic+ / АоЕ: Kyrian > Night Fae = Venthyr > Necrolord

THE VENTHYR

Signature — Door of Shadows. Slow long-range teleport. Not a big gamechanger for a mage, but has its uses, making this class even more mobile.

Class – Sinful Brand. This ability got lots of nerfs, but still can provide decent damage. When you use Metamorphosis ability strikes all enemies, no target-cap, but have 4-minute cooldown, which is too long for AoE scenario.

How to use: nothing special, just use it every cooldown. Sinful Brand scale with haste ratio, so use it with Eye Beam buff.

KYRIAN

Signature — Summon Steward — Call a steward to bring you a potion that restores health and removes most debuffs and bleed effects. Very useful.

Class – Elysian Decree. Good AoE damage, got synergy with Demonic Appetite. Unfortunately, due to its strength on beta it got nerfed and now this ability deals reduced damage if you use it at 5 or more targets.

How to use: Use it by its cooldown. If you play with Demonic Appetite try not to reach Fury overcap. Momentum increases the damage of this ability, so try to use it with buff.

THE NIGHT FAE

Soulshape – turn into a Vulpin, teleporting 15 yards forward and increasing your movement speed by 50%. You may reactivate Soulshape every few sec to teleport again. Lasts 12 sec, or indefinitely while in a rest area. Additional sprint and blink for the mobile class.

Class – The Hunt. Strong damage ability, because it applies strong DoT to enemies between you and target. But it has few problems, like with Felblade – if your target is in motion, you can miss your DoT. Ability hitbox is small. But overall it’s a strong ability.

How to use: Use it by its cooldown. DoT damage is scaling with haste, so try to use it with Eye Beam buff. If you want to deal AoE damage, check your position to catch as many enemies as possible.

NECROLORD

Signature — Fleshcraft — without soulbind bonuses it’s just a strong shield. With them — quite useful, since it gets stronger when cast near a corpse.

Class – Fodder to the Flame. Summon and kill a demon, which will provide buff. Even though it’s easy to kill a demon, you have to use 1-2 GCD, which is better to use when fighting normal enemies. The worst Covenant.

How to use: Use it before you start hitting priority targets. Kill a demon, get a buff, and go to a battle.

• Potency Conduit — improves your character’s efficiency in their main role. There are 4 in total plus 1 for each covenant.
• Endurance Conduit —  improves survivability. There are 4 in total.
• Finesse Conduit — enhances utility abilities, 4 in total.

POTENCY:

Relentless Onslaught – Good solo damage increase.

Dancing with Fate – Fine damage increase, especially with First Blood.

Growing Inferno – Strong increase of AoE damage.

Increased Scrutiny – Venthyr Conduit, reduces CD of Sinful Brand. Almost useless.

Unnatural Malice – Night Fae Conduit. Increases solo damage. If you don’t have any other Conduits, it could be a good choice.

Repeat Decree – Kyrian Conduit, good AoE damage increase.

The best synergy of potency conduits – Relentless Onslaught + Growing Inferno.

ENDURANCE:

Fel Defender – Reduces cooldown of an ability with low CD. Good choice.

Viscous Ink – Good conduit.

Shattered Restoration – Fine increase of HPS with Demonic Appetite.

Viscous Ink is your choice in most cases.

FINESSE:

Felfire Haste – Fine bonus after your dash. The only one finesse conduit that is helpful in PvE.

Best Soulbinds for PvE with the maximum level of Renown:

Venthyr – Nadjia the Mistblade/Theotar the Mad Duke

Night Fae – Niya

Kyrian – Pelagos

Necrolord – Bonesmith Heirmir

Collective Anguish – The most versatile Legendary, useful in all types of battles.

Chaos Theory – Best Legendary for single target.

Fel Bombardment – Strong Legendary when you have to cleave. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to use it at the moment due to bugs.

Legendary rating:

Single target:

Chaos Theory > Fel Bombardment = Collective Anguish

АоЕ/М+:

Collective Anguish > Fel Bombardment > Chaos Theory

It is worth noting that the choice of Legendaries can be influenced by your choice of covenant and talent set, as well as the overall gearscore of your character. We recommend using raidbots.com

1. Metamorphosis
2. Covenant ability
3. Glaive Tempest
4. Death Sweep if you choose First Blood talent
5. Eye Beam
6. Blade Dance
7. Immolation Aura
8. Annihilation
9. Chaos Strike
10. Demon’s Bite

Regular opener:

1. Cast Immolation Aura one second before engage
2. Fel Rush to the target
3. Demon’s Bite
4. Eye Beam
5. Death Sweep if you have First Blood
6. Metamorphosis
7. Death Sweep if you have First Blood
8. Annihilation and Demon’s Bite until you have 2 seconds before haste buff from Eye Beam
9. Eye Beam

If you play via Momentum, your objective is to play according to the following priorities:

1. Maximize buff uptime (It has to be 60% or higher)
2. Don’t use Fury generators with buff, don’t spend Fury without buff. Monitor Fury level and wait CDs.
3. Don’t fall from a cliff.

Agility> Haste> Versatility> Crit> Mastery

It’s always worth using the raidbots.com tool to prioritize your character.

GEMS

Quick Jewel Cluster (Haste)

ENCHANTS

Weapon: Celestial Guidance + Sinful Revelation в СТ / Lightless Force х2 на АоЕ

Boots:Enchant Boots – Eternal Agility

Chest: Enchant Chest – Eternal Skirmish / Enchant Chest – Eternal Stats

Cloak: Enchant Cloak – Soul Vitality / Enchant Cloak – Fortified Leech

Rings: Enchant Ring – Tenet of Versatility или на любой другой стат, в зависимости от веса.

CONSUMABLES

Oils: Shadowcore Oil

Pots: Eternal Cauldron / Spectral Flask of Power

Potions: Potion of Spectral Intellect / Potion of Phantom Fire / АоЕ: Potion of Empowered Exorcisms

Healing: Spiritual Healing Potion

Food: Feast of Gluttonous Hedonism (+20 agility) / Spinefin Souffle and Fries (+30 crit) / Steak a la Mode (+30 versatility)

Armor kits: Heavy Desolate Armor Kit

Neck – Gaiazelle’s Spiked Collar  – BoE

Shoulders – Wicked Flanker’s Gorget – Stone legion generals

Cloak – Crest of the Legionnaire General – Stone legion generals

Chest – Miasma-Lacquered Jerkin – Hungering destroyer

Запястья – Precisely Calibrated Chronometer – Artificer Xy’mox

Кисти рук – Bleakwing Assassin’s Grips – Sun King’s Salvation

Пояс – Heedless Pugilist’s Harness – Sludgefist

Ноги – Volatile Shadestitch Legguards – Hungering destroyer

Ступни – Enchanted Toe-Tappers – Council of Blood

Кольцо 1 – Ritualist’s Treasured Ring – Lady Inerva Darkvein

Кольцо 2 – Most Regal Signet of Sire Denathrius Sire Denathrius

• Macro to save space on the panel. Uses Demon’s Bite, if the Felblade talent is not taken and vice versa.

/cast [talent:1/3] Felblade; Demon’s Bite

• Macro for Metamorphosis by the player’s location (In this case, you can move a little while being invulnerable) and the same macro at the cursor, which saves time.

/cast [@player] Metamorphosis

/cast [@Cursor] Metamorphosis

Stun / dispel / kick macros at your focus

/cast [@focus] Disrupt

/cast [@mouseover] Disrupt

/cast [@mouseover] Fel eruption

/cast [@focus] Fel eruption

/cast [@mouseover] Consume magic

/cast [@focus] Consume magic

• Macro to attach the target under the mouse cursor and put a purple mark on it.

/focus mouseover

/run SetRaidTarget(“mouseover”,3)

• Cancelaura macro for preventing pull through walls.

/cancelaura Immolation aura

• For almost every offensive and utility ability, I have written a macro with the startattack and cancelaura netherwalk commands, for example:

/cast Chaos Strike

/cancelaura Путь пустоты

/startattack

• Interruption Eye Beam before you get haste buff will lead to major DPS losses, so if you like to spam your skills, my advice is to make such a command with Chaos Strike and Blade Dance: /stopmacro [channeling:Eye Beam]

I can recommend the following:

Bartender4 – panel addon with great customization

Chatter – chat customization addon

Deja Character stats – even more info on your character

Sexy map – makes your minimap sexy!

Shadowed unit frames – ElvUI alternative, unit frames only

WeakAuras – possibly the most important in modern WoW. You can tune almost anything with it, and at wago.io you can find hundreds of useful auras and import them within a few clicks. You also can find a special aura pack for your spec, here’s a link on WW auras.

BigWigs/Deadly Boss Mods – timing and warning addons for the raid and m+ bosses, pick one of them. It’s also very useful for PvE in general. If you want instance warnings for your BigWigs addon – get a LittleWigs addon.

ElvUI – a global “all-in-one” addon, makes your interface very neat. Replaces dozens of addons at once. You can also find a lot of profiles for it on wago.io.
Details! Damage Meter – the most modern and popular DPS meter atm.

Plater Nameplates – addon comes from Details author, it changes enemies nameplates. It is fully customizable with a lot of features and profile import from wago.io – what else do you want?

Pawn – helps you on improving your gear. Requires Simcraft string for usage.

SimulationCraft – Makes your character simulation easier by creating an in-game Simcraft string for import to Raidbots or SimCraft.

Exorsus Raid Tools – raiding addon with tons of useful features.

Move Anything – this addon resizes and moves any part of the user interface.
World Quest List – Organizes your world quests to the left of your map and sorts them by zones.

1. With Metamorphosis, you can avoid almost any mechanic in a game,prevent the debuff or even death.
2. Try to immediately identify the moments where and in what situation you will need to use defensive abilities and be ready to quickly react correctly to what is happening.
3. If you run out of Fel Rush charges, but you need to quickly cover the distance – use Vengeful Retreat. To do this, you need to quickly turn the character with his back in the direction of movement and use the ability. Using this ability, you can also climb into places inaccessible to other classes in combination with Glide and Double Jump.
4. It is necessary to maximize mobility of the most mobile class in the game via Glide.

• If you use it just before landing after a jump, the character will be pushed forward a little. When used correctly, it gives a good and free boost to movement speed.
• If you need to reach long distance before Glide, use Vengeful Retreat backwards before. This will allow to start flying from the higher point and you will fly faster.