Havoc LF DPS advice.

[Lintbrush 0]

Hello,

I'm reaching out in hopes of identifying flaws/gaps in my Havoc play style that may be resulting in lower than expected DPS in ToS. Please see armory and log links below. I do my best to adhere to the Icy-Veins provided rotation, and my opening burst seems to be more than adequate for most pulls but the drop off is significant. I'm wondering if my movement is just too over the top/paying too much attention to mechanics or if it's more 'what I'm pressing when". I will also note I made the switch to DH about a month ago so it's still fairly fresh for me.

Some points I'll make in advance:

- I'm unsure if I should be holding my 2nd Chaos Blades & Nemesis until my 2nd Meta is available (seems like a waste)

- I have no 2nd DPS legendary options at this time.

- I'm considering obliterating the darkmoon card up to replace my 930 trinket.

- I do need to get more consistent with pre-pot and follow-up pot (is Old War still best pot?)

Armory: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/illidan/lintbrush

Logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/25042042/13/

 

Any assistance provided is most appreciated. I believe my DPS is low for all bosses given my current gear so I'm concerned across the board.

 

Update 7/11: I swapped out the 930 versatility/AOE trinket I had on for my available logs with an Agi/Crit world quest 890 trinket and switched from Old War to Prolonged power for some H Kil'Jaeden pulls and my DPS seemed a bit more competitive. Still looking for advice!

Edited July 11, 2017 by Lintbrush

[Tracing 2]

Former Havoc main here. So your gear definitely isn't an issue. Unless you know the fight has some sort of despawn on the main target (looking at you, Sisters), you should be using CB/Nemesis on CD and holding Meta for those to be ready, rather than the other way around, unless they're within 10 seconds of each other (allows for you to have some error with FotI cooldown). Otherwise you're losing out on 1 minute of 20% increased damage, with 18 seconds of that 1 minute being at 50% increased damage. For any fight where lust is on pull, Old War is going to be the best. Any time you're in Meta and lust is up you're going to want to be using Old War. I prefer Prolonged for stuff like Kil'jaeden on the entire fight, since you will be using meta on pull without lust, then having only CB/Nemesis for p2.

Looking at your highest dps on Goroth (since it's an easy fight to analyze because 0 mechanics):

Why did you wait to pop Meta? You should just prepot then cast meta on boss on pull. My opener is:

Pre-pot -> Meta -> CB/Nemesis -> Felblade+Arcane Torrent -> Death Sweep -> Fury of the Illidari -> Death sweep on cooldown/spam annihilation.

I can't stress enough how important the opener is as a Demon Hunter. DH is the single most frontloaded class in the game, so executing your Metamorphosis correctly is the most important part of playing a Havoc DH. Also, using Arcane Torrent on the pull allows you to get a fury spike to get the Annihilation spam going.

What I think might be hurting you is fury management. You're likely letting your fury get either too low or too high when you decide to use Felblade. Always remember that it generates 30 fury. Therefore, if you're at 110 fury or higher, don't use it. If you're at 40, you should probably use it. You're likely crunching Felblade procs by holding it too long as well. If you wait until you drop to 10 or less fury to use it, and Blade Dance/Death Sweep is on cooldown, you're going to be sitting there doing nothing instead of using Chaos Strike to potentially get some fury refunded, which is a 500k-1.2 mill damage loss every time it happens. Obviously, bad luck happens, but proper fury management goes a long way towards doing high DPS as a DH. In the same vein of thought for Arcane Torrent: don't use it when you're at 125 fury or higher, as you'll waste some fury generation. Generally, I don't Felblade if I'm above 90 fury though, as if I get 2 Demon Blades procs at the same time, I'm going to go over fury cap and waste some precious resource generation.

If you want to look at my logs/armory for proof (or to see what I do) that I know what I'm talking about, here's some links (RIP don't have much Mythic data because main swaps). Hope this helps!

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/character/us/thrall/tracing

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/thrall/tracing

Edited July 12, 2017 by Tracing

[Lintbrush 0]

Hey Tracing,

Thank you for the detailed reply. I was unable to find the log where I had a delayed Meta pop but I imagine it was accidental. My intended opener is Pre-Pot -> Meta -> CB/Nem -> Felblade -> Arcane Torrent, Death Sweep, FOTI. I have had a few pulls where my CB/NEM macro doesn't seem to fire the abilities and it takes me a second to notice. These are definitely huge mistakes that I tend to notice on a case by case basis and am avoiding with more frequency as time goes.

Your emphasis on fury management has been really helpful. I reworked my UI to have my Fury bar be the 'centerpiece', so to speak. In turn I'm keeping a closer eye on felblade procs and using the cut offs you provided as a guide line which seems to be helping  a lot. I also picked up the T20 4 set which has smoothed out fury build/spend.

Overall focusing on my Fury management has yielded sound improvements but I still have some distance to go!

Can you offer any insight for the 'bad luck windows' with no crits/felblade procs? Do you fill with fel rush charges or is throw glaive the priority? At the moment I'm filling with throw glaive and reserving fel rush for AoE/mechanics.

[Tracing 2]

So I'm an idiot and didn't see your reply, but I haven't been as active on the forums since these two posts. Just make your WAs (if you use them) really huge so you can tell. Usually they don't fire if you are spamming it because of the buffer time built into the game, or because of latency and the client getting spammed with multiple rapid actions. The bad luck windows never really go away, to be honest. They're something you just have to deal with, but if they're not in your burst windows usually it's not so bad. Fill with Fel Rush or Throw Glaive, whichever is at 2 stacks or about to hit 2 stacks. You have the right idea with those as the filler, just prioritize using FR if you know there isn't any AoE or mechanics coming up.