World of Warcraft Legion: Havoc Demon Hunter Pre-patch Guide

Demon Hunters are the newest class coming to World of Warcraft in the Legion expansion. Havoc is the DPS spec and offers high mobility. Since Demon Hunters are different from other classes and get most of their talents after 100, this guide will go over them for the pre-patch. Artifact weapons also change many things, as with other classes, so there will be a separate guide specifically for Legion.

In the mean time, people that pre-ordered  Legion will have 3 weeks to play as a Demon Hunter before the expansion launches. They will still be viable in current content, so I’m going to go over all their details.

This guide will go over everything about Havoc Demon Hunters in pre-patch including:

• Havoc Playstyle – How Havoc Demon Hunters play, and stats that help them the most.
• Talent Choices – Which talents are suggested and why.
• Havoc Rotation – The suggested rotation of a Havoc Demon Hunter.

Havoc Playstyle

Havoc Demon Hunters use Fury as a resource for their attacks. Some attacks generate Fury, while others spend it. The main idea is to use those abilities that gather Fury until you can use those that spend it.

• Demon’s Bite – Low Physical attack that generates 20-30 Fury.
• Chaos Strike – High Chaos attack that spends 40 Fury. Critical hits refund 20 Fury.
• Blade Dance (10 Second Cooldown) – Physical attack that hits all enemies, increases Dodge by 100% for 1 second, and spends 35 Fury.

• Eye Beam (45 Second Cooldown) – Spends 50 Fury to blast all enemies in front of you for Chaos Damage.
• This ability is channeled for 2 seconds, meaning you must not move, and is always a critical hit.  
• Fel Rush (10 Second Recharge) – Charges forward to deal Chaos damage to all targets in your path. It has 2 charges.
• Vengeful Retreat (25 Second Cooldown) – Attacks enemies with Physical damage and slows their movement by 70%, then vaults back 15 yards.

Havoc has great mobility with attacks such as Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat. If you time it right, you can use Vengeful Retreat to escape danger, then Fel Rush to get back into the fight. You can also use it as pure escape, or for crossing distances quicker.

They also have a big cooldown ability called Metamorphosis. This ability causes the Demon Hunter to leap into the air and land with area damage. After the landing, they transform into a demon for 30 seconds.

This empowers their Chaos Strike and Blade Dance abilities, and grants 25% haste. Chaos Strike becomes Annihilation and deals more damage. Blade Dance becomes Death Sweep and also deals more damage. The idea is to use as many Annihilations as possible during that 30 seconds,  and Death Sweep if there are many enemies.

Stat Priority

• Agility
• Critical Strike
• Versatility
• Haste
• Mastery

Talent Choices

In the pre-patch, you will only have access to 2 talents. I’ll list all the talents in each tier, then tell you which ones are suggested.

Tier 1 – Level 99

• Fel Mastery – Increases Fel Rush damage by 50% and grants 25 Fury when Fel Rush damages at least 1 target.

• Chaos Cleave – Causes Chaos Strike to hit an additional target for 50% damage.
• Blind Fury – Increases the duration of Eye Beam by 50%.

The best choice is Fel Mastery because it is great in all situations. Chaos Cleave is only good if there are 2 targets and no more.

Tier 2 – Level 100

• Prepared – Reduces the cooldown of Vengeful Retreat by 10 seconds and generates 40 Fury of 5 seconds if Vengeful Retreat hit at least 1 enemy.

• Demon Blades – Causes your auto attacks to have a 75% chance to generate 10-15 Fury and takes away your Demon Bite ability.

• Demonic Appetite – Chaos Strike has a chance to spawn Lesser Soul Fragments, which grants 30 Fury when consumed.

Currently, Prepared is the best choice. Demon Blades recently got nerfed so it isn’t the absolute best choice, but still good if you want a simpler rotation. 

Havoc Rotation

Single Target

• Vengeful Retreat if at 85 Fury or lower and you took the Prepared Talent.
• Fel Rush if at 70 Fury or lower if you took the Fel Mastery talent, or if you are about to hit 2 charges
• Chaos Strike at 70 Fury or above
• Demon’s Bite, or auto attacks if you took the Demon Blades talent, to generate Fury

Multi-Target

• Fel Rush at 2 charges
• Vengeful Retreat
• Fel Rush
• Eye Beam
• Chaos Strike if 3 or less targets, Blade Dance at 4 or more
• Demon’s Bite/Demon Blades to generate Fury

That’s it for the Havoc Demon Hunter pre-patch guide for World of Warcraft: Legion. Let me know if you have any questions!