Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.0.5

In Midnight, Havoc has had some restructuring when it comes to its ideal picks, and also needs to specialize a little more than previously when it comes to both single-target and AoE. The addition of the new Apex Talent - Eternal Hunt - cements The Hunt as a major cooldown, and is present in all builds.

• Raid - Fel-Scarred has the edge, bringing more potent burst tools alongside additional cleave, making it the most consistent flexible choice.
• Mythic+ - Fel-Scarred provides frequent burst AoE while still retaining a good single-target toolkit so is recommended, but Aldrachi Reaver brings powerful funnel for priority targets.

Both Hero Talents share similar damage profiles, with Fel-Scarred leaning more into the frequent burst AoE provided by Eye Beam and Demonic windows, while Aldrachi Reaver brings some additional funnel with Wounded Quarry. They each gain significant benefits from the addition of the Eternal Hunt Apex Talent, augmenting the strongest parts of their respective damage profile, and turning The Hunt into a key cooldown moment. Due to both the encounter styles present in Season 1 raids and the cadence of Mythic+ currently, Fel-Scarred is the general recommendation

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The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

The Havoc Apex Talent, Eternal Hunt, focuses on both The Hunt and Eye Beam, adding in additional combo potential to each cast. All four points are extremely powerful, with each node having strong use cases for both Aldrachi Reaver and Fel-Scarred:

• Eternal Hunt first point - causes The Hunt to empower your next Eye Beam cast, increasing its damage by 100% and increasing the range of the beam.
• Eternal Hunt second and third point - reduces the cooldown of The Hunt by 15 seconds and increases the number of targets hit by the DoT effect by 2 for each point.
• Eternal Hunt fourth point - increases Blade Dance damage by 20%, and fully channelling Eye Beam causes your next Blade Dance cast to reset its own cooldown.

This turns The Hunt into a 1-minute burst cooldown, dealing high AoE damage on its own, while also causing each follow-up Demonic window to guarantee two Death Sweep casts. This significantly improves 20-second burst cycles for each tree, though leans more toward Fel-Scarred due to its already high focus on these moments. Aldrachi Reaver instead benefits greatly from the reduced cooldown, giving more frequent guaranteed activations for Reaver's Glaive.

Havoc has two distinct Hero Talent choices available that, as covered in the above sections, drastically alter your gameplay goals depending on which you pick. These two Hero Talents are Aldrachi Reaver and Fel-Scarred.

This tree grants access to Reaver's Glaive, which is triggered via consuming Souls and replaces your next Throw Glaive, dealing significantly more damage. Specific mechanics are:

• After casting Reaver's Glaive a combo sequence is initiated. Depending on the order of your next Chaos Strike and Blade Dance, a bonus effect will occur and you will gain Thrill of the Fight.
• Reaver's Mark is applied via Chaos Strike from this combo. This causes all Physical damage you deal to duplicate a portion as Chaos onto the affected target through Wounded Quarry.

This makes Aldrachi Reaver a potent bringer of funnel, while still having flexible single-target and cleave tools regardless of build choice. The addition of Bladecraft in Midnight causes Blade Dance casts to deal significant damage through this effect to the target suffering from your mark.

Fel-Scarred focuses purely on your Metamorphosis windows, both via the 2-minute cooldown and Demonic. It comes with a number of buffs and effects to your core abilities, and some specific mechanics:

• After entering Metamorphosis via any means, your next Annihilation and Death Sweep will trigger Demonsurge, dealing high AoE Chaos damage.
• After casting the Metamorphosis ability, this also extends to your next Eye Beam and Immolation Aura, which are also both empowered into Abyssal Gaze and Consuming Fire.

This orients Fel-Scarred around a 20-second burst cycle with Cycle of Hatred, improved even further every 2 minutes during Metamorphosis. The up-front damage provided by Demonsurge is great in both single-target and AoE, giving it good cleave flexibility regardless of build.

"War Mode" is an optional feature that enables open-world PvP encounters that confer some benefits when active:

• Grants access to PvP talents in the open world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is an optional way to maximize your leveling speed and reward potential. However, you will open yourself up to open-world PvP, so be aware of hostile enemy players who could interfere with you; this is a risk you will have to decide on your own if you want to take.

Here, we'll only be looking at PvP talents that have use cases for aiding with leveling or open-world PvE scenarios, as their PvP benefits are discussed on our PvP page. Generally, the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.

1. Unending Hatred is just free Fury generation as you will take damage in the open world.
2. Rain from Above can be helpful to deal with dangerous enemies while staying safe, though it's not as strong as simply using your abilities.
3. Blood Moon can provide a small amount of extra healing and Soul generation

Reverse Magic, Detainment, Cover of Darkness, Cleansed by Flame and Glimpse all have minimal uses in PvE, due to it being very focused on crowd control tools or pressuring enemy players into spending more resources than they would otherwise want to.

Wordup

Guide Author

Follow Wordup

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 follow him on Twitter.