Demon Hunter 8.0.1 PVP "Guide"

[hoss 0]

INTRO, that you dont have to read, but i'd advise you to read it anyway

I dont want to call it a guide, as i dont want to presume to mentor anybody on how to play. However thats a closest word to describe , so whatever.

Quick intro to myself - i main DK, my arena experience is ~2400 in 2x2, and ~2600 in 3x3 brackets. I dont want to share my character names, etc.

DH is my secondary class, played it for whole legion expansion, i hope thats enough credibility for my words.

Since launch of 8.0.1 , contrary to many fanboys, big youtubers , etc etc, i felt that DH was murdered as a class, especially in PVP.

We lost so much, its absolutely shocking. Traits and talents that were at our core - are now gone or locked behind azerite wall, which makes us handicapped at least until 8.1 release. We lost damage (no art, chaos strike has no double proc, no demon leap, mastery is nerfed, making it just a spell to dump fury) , we lost survivability (i was testing dueling with my pals, and i have never won a duel, unless luck was involved, dh is useless in duels), lifesteal in metamorph is redundant, and with gcd changes  - dh is super slow to start dishing out damage, compared to what he has been. We also lost a fair bit of utility, since we lose 1 row of PVP talents, and now have to choose between better CC or better utility, we lost blood elf racial, we lost our stun (Chaos Nova is now a 2 sec only stun, which technically becomes a ridiculous 1 second stun, due to GCD changes). 

However, i see youtubers with 1700 arena xp tops throwing out phrases right and left like "DH IS SO FUN TO PLAY NOW!!!!" , "WOW BEST TALENTS EVER". Complete BS.

Through frustration and pain i found the only way (IMHO) to build and play DH effectively in his current state. Keep in mind - everything is IN MY OPINION, you dont have to like it or agree with it, i just want to help those who feel same way, and are looking for some help and guidance, since i havent found a single comprehensive and helpful PVP guide online yet, that would make sense, in my eyes.

Also, i dont know nothing about fancy editing, and im kind of lazy anyway, so it will be just text, quick and simple and hopefully easy to digest.

 

CORE

Chaos Strike is just a dump ability now. Our biggest and best damage dealing abilities are Blade Dance and Eye Beam. Talents need to be built to empower these abilities. Talented Blade Dance is just a much much more superior ability to chaos strike. Less Fury cost, More dmg, AOE dmg, 100% dodge chance, applies heavy dot.

So talents : 

1. Blind Fury. Empowers your Eye Beam, gives u a full Fury bar during your burst window in meta.

2. Immolation Aura. Synergizes perfectly with Blind fury, allowing you to land an extra Chaos Strike + Blade dance during meta window.

3. Trail of Ruin. Empowers Blade Dance. Must have.

4. Netherwalk if you're on high lvl arena, and/or you trust your healer. Desperate instincts in random stuff like bgs and skirms.

5. First Blood. Empowers Blade Dance. Must have.

6. Unleashed power. I know a lot of ppl will be surprised probably, but again, after a lot of testing - i find this to be the best and most versatile. Since our Chaos Nova is trash now, this talent basically makes it another free spell interrupt, at least thats how i treat this ability atm.

Glave mastery is a better choice vs highly mobile enemies that you are planning to focus.

7. Demonic. Complements and completes the build, giving you a little more survivability, and a lot of sustained damage. I think 8.0.1 DH is all about sustained dmg, we are no longer heavy bursting class.  Momentum is a weaker option, since VR no longer gives u a proc, damage is 5% lower, etc etc.

 

PVP Talents

1. Medallion. Duh

2. Demonic Origins. Must have, self explanatory.

3. Cover of Darkness. Gives u a little more survivability, and an ability to save teammates.

4. Either Detainment or Reverse Magic. Depends on your team comp and enemy team comp. IF theres a heavy CC that u can dispell with RM - 100% take RM, it might be a win/lose situation.

 

ROTATION

 

This is where this build shines, imho. The only build that i tested that has a smooth, easy, reliable rotation with good sustained damage. Here we go :

Approach enemy (run up, charge in, throw glaive to knock someone out of stealth, w/e the situation demands) - the way you ENGAGE is irrelevant to the rotation mostly.

Opener:

1. Immolation Aura. Start receiving Fury right away, and put this spell on CD first, so it becomes available ASAP.

2. One Demonic Bite strike.

3. Blade Dance. Same reasoning - Put it on CD, deal good damage, apply dot, spend a little bit of Fury, so that Eye Beam Fury generation doesnt go to waste.

4. Eye Beam. Heavy Damage, while Trail of Ruin dot is ticking, Generate full bar of Fury and start metamorph.

5. During Metamorph you should be able to cast 3 Chaos Strikes, 1 Blade Dance, 1 Demon Bite, 1 more Chaos strike.

 

Sustained damage rotation :

- Immolation Aura should be used on CD

- Blade Dance on CD

- Eye Beam on CD, with a twist - make sure you are sitting at 30-40 Fury when Eye Beam is rdy, not more, just to be enough to cast Eye Beam and maximize the Fury generated from it.

- Chaos Strike to dump fury

 

There will be certain episodes when you are low on Fury and IA and EB are on CD. During that period, obviously, just generate fury with Demon Bites, and use it again on Blade Dance / Chaos strikes. However, in general, i get very little of those low-fury windows, rotation feels very smooth and has a good flow, once you understand it and get used to it.

 

 

 

 

Like i said, i dont presume to teach anyone how to play, however, if there are ppl who feel as i do, and think that DH is garbage at PVP - youre not wrong, however, these instructions may help you to perform better.

Sorry about my English as well. Cheers.

 

Edited July 20, 2018 by hoss

[AlexDanS 0]

Hello! Thank you for this guide, it's almost the same talents that I'm using. And I totally agree with you, DH is not good now, I was going to main my DH this expansion and I did some bgs, I was always dead, now I will probably main my DK

Edited July 29, 2018 by AlexDanS

[hoss 0]

Little update : apparently, Chaos Nova has a mistake in its description. It says the stun is only for 2 seconds, however, when testing  - players are actually stunned for 4 seconds, making Unleashed Power an undisputed best talent in that row.

[face2face 1]

I won't dispute much of what you're recommending cuz it really doesn't matter, it's pre-patch, tuning is ongoing and we'll see massive swings up until the season starts. But there's a lot of false information, inconsistent with reality. They all chip away at whatever credibility you're trying to create for yourself mentioning your experience *on other class* and not mentioning your character names.

Quote

Talents need to be built to empower these abilities.

This is not true. A demonic window with dark slash is a stronger single target window than a demonic window with first blood if you wish to play that way. Especially if you play unending hatred and get some passive fury income. First Blood is more damage throughout.
Also, a different build performs better in terms of sustained damage at the cost of the bursty windows that Demonic provides. That sim is in beta at base gear with no azerite traits on, same result happens with pre-patch characters, 321x222 is the stronger single target overall damage build.

 

Quote

We lost damage (no art, chaos strike has no double proc, no demon leap, mastery is nerfed, making it just a spell to dump fury) , we lost survivability (i was testing dueling with my pals, and i have never won a duel, unless luck was involved, dh is useless in duels), lifesteal in metamorph is redundant, and with gcd changes  - dh is super slow to start dishing out damage, compared to what he has been.

We lost damage? That is relative to tuning. We lost survivability? Other than the 16% magic resist becoming 10% magic resist, Havoc didn't lose anything specific to it. That was the only defensive trait in the weapon, and it was made baseline. GCD changes also mean nothing. The only spell that was put on GCD for Havoc is Nemesis, and you obviously don't mention running it in your guide.
 

Quote

We also lost a fair bit of utility, since we lose 1 row of PVP talents, and now have to choose between better CC or better utility, we lost blood elf racial, we lost our stun (Chaos Nova is now a 2 sec only stun, which technically becomes a ridiculous 1 second stun, due to GCD changes). 

A lot is wrong here, in my opinion. The potential utility we have atm is definitely better than in Legion. Losing a row of pvp talents doesn't mean anything since there was only utility in 3 rows anyway (Cover of Darkness, Reverse Magic, Detainment). Detainment is stronger now, making Imprison last 5 seconds, and also relatively better in general since baseline cd is 45 and talented is 60 (33% cd increase as opposed to 200% in Legion). The nerf to Chaos Nova is offset by now having the possibility to talent into a second 4s single target stun, something we didn't have. Blood elf racial nerf is not inherent to DH. Imprison nerf is in line with Paralysis nerf. We got Consume Magic as a purge on a 10s cooldown that also generates resource for us. About Chaos Nova, I know you corrected the stun duration in the comment, but it took you 10 days after writing this post to stop and pay attention to the stun duration. Just one more thing that chips away at the credibility of your post.

You then also mention Momentum being 15 as opposed to 20% dmg bonus, but don't bat an eye at Demonic Origins being 5 instead of 10% now. Also much lower uptime since you're running Demonic and Eye Beam has a shorter cooldown now. You also say "Metamorphosis leech is redundant" but then say Demonic gives a little of survivability as a quality it has over Momentum. I thought that was redundant ?

Your talent suggestions, I can see those, and I can agree with them. I do not however agree that those are the only potentially good ones. I also do not share this vision that Havoc sucks atm. A full Fel Barrage does 20-22k damage, with Eye Beam doing like 10k as well. You can play a cross-cc setup based comp and delete people if you coordinate well. If you want to play a burst-heavy build, it's 100% there for you to try, and there's definitely comps to create space for it (Havoc Outlaw, Havoc Boomie).

Edited July 30, 2018 by face2face

[hoss 0]

5 hours ago, face2face said:

I won't dispute much of what you're recommending cuz it really doesn't matter, it's pre-patch, tuning is ongoing and we'll see massive swings up until the season starts. But there's a lot of false information, inconsistent with reality. They all chip away at whatever credibility you're trying to create for yourself mentioning your experience *on other class* and not mentioning your character names.

This is not true. A demonic window with dark slash is a stronger single target window than a demonic window with first blood if you wish to play that way. Especially if you play unending hatred and get some passive fury income. First Blood is more damage throughout.
Also, a different build performs better in terms of sustained damage at the cost of the bursty windows that Demonic provides. That sim is in beta at base gear with no azerite traits on, same result happens with pre-patch characters, 321x222 is the stronger single target overall damage build.

 

We lost damage? That is relative to tuning. We lost survivability? Other than the 16% magic resist becoming 10% magic resist, Havoc didn't lose anything specific to it. That was the only defensive trait in the weapon, and it was made baseline. GCD changes also mean nothing. The only spell that was put on GCD for Havoc is Nemesis, and you obviously don't mention running it in your guide.
 

A lot is wrong here, in my opinion. The potential utility we have atm is definitely better than in Legion. Losing a row of pvp talents doesn't mean anything since there was only utility in 3 rows anyway (Cover of Darkness, Reverse Magic, Detainment). Detainment is stronger now, making Imprison last 5 seconds, and also relatively better in general since baseline cd is 45 and talented is 60 (33% cd increase as opposed to 200% in Legion). The nerf to Chaos Nova is offset by now having the possibility to talent into a second 4s single target stun, something we didn't have. Blood elf racial nerf is not inherent to DH. Imprison nerf is in line with Paralysis nerf. We got Consume Magic as a purge on a 10s cooldown that also generates resource for us. About Chaos Nova, I know you corrected the stun duration in the comment, but it took you 10 days after writing this post to stop and pay attention to the stun duration. Just one more thing that chips away at the credibility of your post.

You then also mention Momentum being 15 as opposed to 20% dmg bonus, but don't bat an eye at Demonic Origins being 5 instead of 10% now. Also much lower uptime since you're running Demonic and Eye Beam has a shorter cooldown now. You also say "Metamorphosis leech is redundant" but then say Demonic gives a little of survivability as a quality it has over Momentum. I thought that was redundant ?

Your talent suggestions, I can see those, and I can agree with them. I do not however agree that those are the only potentially good ones. I also do not share this vision that Havoc sucks atm. A full Fel Barrage does 20-22k damage, with Eye Beam doing like 10k as well. You can play a cross-cc setup based comp and delete people if you coordinate well. If you want to play a burst-heavy build, it's 100% there for you to try, and there's definitely comps to create space for it (Havoc Outlaw, Havoc Boomie).

I started reading your post and soon realized its pointless.

Just few points that i've read at the start :

 

1. Demonic  + Slash is indeed a better dmg. ON PAPER. It is not a PVE build. Its very unlikely that you will be able to land a beam + slash + chaos spam reliably on high rate arenas. So , your argument is invalid.

 

2. U said we lost damage jut cause of tuning. False. Mastery got nerfed, hence lower dmg of chaos strike, regardless of tuning. No double proc on chaos strike until azerite talents - nothing to do ith tuning again. No demon leap out of chaos strike until azerite talents - nothing to do with tuning again.

We lost chance to lower fel barrage's cd, its locked to a 1 min cd now - hence, lowering our potential dmg output.

We also lost a strong dot from our glaive throw.

So, once again, your argument is invalid.

3. You said we didnt lose survivability? We lost 70-80% lifesteal in demon form, which was the pillar of dhs survival.

So, since the first 3 things u have said are false, sound toxic, and it looks like you just came to cause drama - i didnt even finish reading, and i will not respond to your posts any further, so dont bother.

And lastly, i dont want to share my character names just.. cause i value my privacy. Not cause im trying to hide or fake my credibility (once again , thats what you were implying im doing, #passiveagressive).

You dont like my build suggestion? Click on another post and enjoy your time on forums.

Edited July 30, 2018 by hoss

[face2face 1]

It's all tuning. Losing spells/effects doesn't = losing damage. It'd be like saying we lost damage cuz we were doing 300k dps before and now it's like 4k. Saying we lost damage makes no sense.

"Lowered mastery" = tuning

Fel Barrage cd = tuning, if it was 40s cooldown it'd be lower than most cases with cd reduction before.

About the lifesteal nerf, it's just another thing that goes to show you have no idea what you're saying. There was a leech modifier in the stat template since the very beginning of Legion for Havoc, and it was never changed until they removed templates, so it's not in place now. Effectively we have better leech now since it applies partly outside of demon form as well. We never had 100% leech in pvp, the most we had was 40%, which is the same as current.
 

Quote

Havoc
Spell Multipliers

• Metamorphosis leech reduced by 60% in PvP

It's not about liking your build or not. It's about trying to educate others with misinformation. You don't just ignore misinformation, I'm trying to help you and correct your mistakes/misunderstandings. You're refusing to read cuz you think you dislike my tone. You're being ignorant on purpose and that's just really sad.

Edited July 31, 2018 by face2face

[AdolfMaas 0]

On 7/30/2018 at 4:54 PM, face2face said:

GCD changes also mean nothing. -ok- The only spell that was put on GCD for Havoc is Nemesis, and you obviously don't mention running it in your guide.

?

 

> Says only spell put recently on GCD is Nemesis

> Links towards a Momentum build

> fails to mention that Vengeful Retreat has now GCD

> Spews lowkey insults

> Take your own medication son.

On 7/31/2018 at 5:07 AM, face2face said:

it's just another thing that goes to show you have no idea what you're saying.

 

oh and before I forget, winkyface ? ?

Edited August 2, 2018 by AdolfMaas