Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.1.0)

Havoc's single-target rotation is very closely linked to its build-and-spend Fury loop. This uses generation tools to fuel Blade Dance on cooldown and spend excess on Chaos Strike while also using its cooldowns.

1. Cast Death Sweep during the Essence Break debuff.
2. Cast Annihilation during the Essence Break debuff.
Cast Reaver's Glaive - Click for Rules
• The order does not matter, but aim to have 2 stacks of Reaver's Mark for burst by using Chaos Strike second.
Cast Felblade with Inertia active to trigger it - Click for Notes
• Avoid refreshing this if you trigger it back to back with Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt.
3. Cast Vengeful Retreat to trigger Initiative and Inertia and Exergy.
4. Cast The Hunt to trigger Inertia to trigger Exergy.
5. Cast Sigil of Doom during Metamorphosis.
6. Cast Consuming Fire during Metamorphosis.
7. Cast Essence Break with Metamorphosis active.
8. Cast Death Sweep.
9. Cast Immolation Aura / Consuming Fire if at 2 charges.
10. Cast Sigil of Spite to generate Souls.
Cast Sigil of Flame before Eye Beam to trigger Student of Suffering - Click for Notes
• Hold this for 10 seconds every cycle to align them with Cycle of Hatred.
Cast Abyssal Gaze with Demonsurge active - Click for Notes
• Avoid extending Metamorphosis through this outside of the Demonsurge proc, to avoid wasting extra triggers from Eye Beam.
11. Cast Eye Beam.
12. Cast Metamorphosis if Eye Beam and Death Sweep are on cooldown.
13. Cast Blade Dance.
14. Cast Annihilation.
15. Cast Felblade if under 80 Fury.
16. Cast Sigil of Flame if under 90 Fury.
17. Cast Sigil of Flame if under 90 Fury.
18. Cast Chaos Strike.
19. Cast Immolation Aura.
20. Cast Throw Glaive or Fel Rush to fill.

Havoc's gameplay loop is heavily influenced by your talent selections due to the number of rotationally warping effects. What you pick dictates what is important to prioritize, with the overarching goal of aligning buffs for big payoff moments. Some key details are:

• Reaver's Glaive is an extremely high priority press to make sure you can maintain Reaver's Mark. The order you consume Art of the Glaive does not matter much as the mark stacks. Aim to consume Chaos Strike second during burst windows to be sure.
• Use The Hunt to snap generate Reaver's Glaive at the start of the pull of whenever you need it. Additionally, you should use Sigil of Spite for a burst of 3 Souls to help cycle to your next cast.
• Fel-Scarred builds place a lot of emphasis on your 40-second and 2-minute burst windows, making sure to always consume available Demonsurge procs. Otherwise, it cycles Fury to get as much value out of Burning Blades as possible.
• With Student of Suffering taken as Fel-Scarred, you also ideally want to hold your Sigil of Flame to cast it just before each Eye Beam to enhance your burst windows.
• Eye Beam is still always used in single-target as an entry point into Demonic. The frequency will get faster as the encounter progresses due to Cycle of Hatred, down to every 20 seconds.
• With Tactical Retreat, when using your Metamorphosis cooldown you can use it to animation cancel the leap backward and stick to your target.
• Your Essence Break windows are a key burst moment. You should always aim to overlap this with your Metamorphosis effect alongside Initiativealongside Initiative / Inertia and fit in at least one Death Sweep and two Annihilation casts.
• Inertia provides extra burst windows to play around. These should always aim to be overlapped with your Eye Beam, Essence Break and The Hunt casts. Uptime is limited by Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt, but cooldowns will naturally align using Cycle of Hatred.
• When playing A Fire Inside, you want to make sure it is always under 2 charges to avoid wasting uses throughout a fight.

Havoc's gameplay does not drastically change in AoE due to the large amount of passive AoE many of its rotational abilities do. Instead, it deals priority damage while cleaving from it:

1. Cast Death Sweep during the Essence Break debuff.
2. Cast Annihilation during the Essence Break debuff.
Cast Reaver's Glaive - Click for Rules
• Make sure to cast Chaos Strike / Annihilation before your next Blade Dance / Death Sweep to empower Fury of the Aldrachi.
Cast Fel Rush / Felblade with Inertia active to trigger it - Click for Notes
• Avoid refreshing this if you trigger it back to back with Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt.
3. Cast Immolation Aura if at 2 charges.
Cast Immolation Aura / Consuming Fire if at 2 charges - Fel-Scarred Notes
• If you are about to cast Metamorphosis, recast this until it reaches 0 charges.
4. Cast Vengeful Retreat to trigger Initiative and Inertia and Exergy.
5. Cast The Hunt and Inertia and Exergy.
6. Cast Immolation Aura / Consuming Fire.
7. Cast Sigil of Doom.
8. Cast Essence Break with Metamorphosis active.
9. Cast Death Sweep.
10. Cast Sigil of Spite to generate Souls.
Cast Sigil of Flame to trigger Student of Suffering - Click for Notes
• Hold this for 10 seconds every cycle to align them with Cycle of Hatred.
11. Cast Eye Beam.
Cast Eye Beam / Abyssal Gaze - Click for Notes
• Avoid extending Metamorphosis through this outside of the Demonsurge proc, to avoid wasting extra triggers from Eye Beam.
12. Cast Metamorphosis if Eye Beam, Sigil of Flame, Immolation Aura and Death Sweep are on cooldown.
13. Cast Blade Dance.
14. Cast Annihilation.
15. Cast Sigil of Flame if under 90 Fury.
16. Cast Felblade if under 80 Fury.
17. Cast Chaos Strike.
18. Cast Throw Glaive or Fel Rush to fill.

The majority of tools you make use of in single-target apply directly to AoE, with the exception of Annihilation / Chaos Strike which fall much further down the priority. Your focus depends on which key AoE talents you have taken, and notes based on your selection in the talent switches are:

• Reaver's Glaive is an extremely high-priority press due to the high damage and the need to maintain Thrill of the Fight. Make sure to always consume the Blade Dance buff second to empower it.
• Use The Hunt to snap generate Reaver's Glaive at the start of the pull of whenever you need it. Additionally, you should use Sigil of Spite for a burst of 4 Souls to help cycle to your next cast..
• Fel-Scarred builds deal extremely high 2-minute burst with Metamorphosis. Make sure to plan around these moments to maximize your burst with Demonsurge and empowered abilities.
• If you are playing Student of Suffering in an AoE situation, you should still be holding Sigil of Flame for 10 seconds each cycle to align it with Eye Beam.
• Immolation Aura is a core component of AoE. The biggest of these is Ragefire, and when playing this you need to be aware of the expiry time to make sure it hits targets. With A Fire Inside, your access to this is much higher and you should avoid ever hitting 2 charges. With Fel-Scarred talents, you also need to make sure it is at 0 chargeson cooldown before casting Metamorphosis to reset its cooldown.
• You should always aim to cast Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt on cooldown when playing Inertia, overlapping these buffs with your other cooldowns. Make sure not to overwrite an existing Inertia window if you cast these back-to-back.
• You should always aim to cast Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt on cooldown when playing Exergy. The buff has a 30-second max duration, so it should have 100% uptime if used correctly.
• Fel Barrage in AoE requires you to plan for the 256 Fury required to get a full 8-second cast. While it is active, avoid spending Fury on Annihilation and try to generate instead.
• Essence Break should always be layered over your Metamorphosis effect. Make sure to cast one Death Sweep, but the remaining time it is not as essential to cast Annihilations.

The Havoc opener is a fairly rigid sequence depending on talents, specifically due to Chaotic Transformation. The goal is to get everything on cooldown and enter into Metamorphosis quickly. You can pick a fight style below:

1. Cast Immolation Aura 2 seconds before the pull.
2. Cast Sigil of Flame 1 second before the pull.
3. Cast The Hunt.
4. Cast Felblade to generate Fury.
5. Cast Immolation Aura until it's at zero charges.
6. Cast Felblade to trigger Inertia.
7. Cast Eye Beam.
8. Cast Felblade to generate Fury to trigger Inertia.
9. Cast Death Sweep.
10. Cast Annihilation to consume Inner Demon.
11. Cast Vengeful Retreat and immediately cast Metamorphosis.
12. Cast Death Sweep.
13. Cast Annihilation to consume Inner Demon.
14. Cast Felblade to refresh Inertia.
15. Cast Sigil of Doom.
16. Cast Abyssal Gaze.
17. Cast Consuming Fire, repeat if it resets.
18. Cast Felblade to refresh Inertia.
19. Cast Essence Break.
20. Cast Death Sweep.
21. Cast Annihilation until Essence Break expires.
22. Cast Immolation Aura 2 seconds before the pull.
23. Cast Sigil of Flame 1 second before the pull.
24. Cast The Hunt.
25. Cast Reaver's Glaive.
26. Cast Chaos Strike to apply Reaver's Mark.
27. Cast Immolation Aura until it's at zero charges.
28. Cast Felblade to trigger Inertia.
29. Cast Eye Beam.
30. Cast Annihilation to consume Inner Demon.
31. Cast Felblade to generate Fury to trigger Inertia.
32. Cast Annihilation to apply Reaver's Mark and consume Inner Demon.
33. Cast Essence Break.
34. Cast Death Sweep.
35. Cast Vengeful Retreat and immediately cast Metamorphosis.
36. Cast Death Sweep.
37. Cast Annihilation twice.
38. Cast Felblade to refresh Inertia.
39. Cast Sigil of Spite.
40. Cast Eye Beam.
41. Cast Death Sweep.
42. Continue with the normal priority list.

The most warping effect on the initial rotation are Chaotic Transformation, which causes your Blade Dance and Eye Beam cooldowns to reset. This means that you need to use these cooldowns first before entering into your first Metamorphosis.

• As Aldrachi Reaver, your opening cast of The Hunt will trigger Reaver's Glaive allowing you to very quickly set up Reaver's Mark and Thrill of the Fight before Metamorphosis. It will also give you your opening Inertia trigger, letting you set up immediately for on-pull damage.
• Before the full AoE burst combo begins, set up Reaver's Mark on your priority target using a Chaos Strike. This also sets up for Fury of the Aldrachi.
• We always follow the first Eye Beam in single-target with Annihilation to apply Reaver's Mark, consume Inner Demon and set up Fury of the Aldrachi.
• In AoE with A Fire Inside, burn our charges down to zero before starting your burst combo, as there are no free GCDs to efficiently squeeze in another Immolation Aura cast.
• In single-target you need to weave your Inertia triggers carefully with the first Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt. Consume it in the GCD before your biggest damage windows begin - that being Essence Break and the second Eye Beam.
• Sigil of Spite is cast quite late following the Metamorphosis entry when all other setup is done, getting you most of the way toward your next Reaver's Glaive.
• Fel-Scarred needs to activate Student of Suffering with a very early Sigil of Flame to overlap its burst, and then re-activate it with Sigil of Doom shortly after Metamorphosis begins.
• Fel-Scarred also delays its first Essence Break significantly to make sure it gets all of its Demonsurge procs out of the way, and can focus on filling it with extremely high value Annihilation casts.
• Fel-Scarred also delays its first Essence Break significantly to make sure it gets all of its Demonsurge procs complete, and Consuming Fire charges used.
• Fel-Scarred also needs to be aware of Inner Demon, making sure there is at least one Annihilation cast between each Metamorphosis trigger.

Havoc's major cooldown is Metamorphosis, a 3-minute cooldown (reduced to 2 minutes with Rush of Chaos) that lasts for 20 seconds, and stuns targets at your location after casting. While transformed, it confers the following benefits:

• Your Haste is increased by 20%;
• Chaos Strike is changed to Annihilation, dealing significantly more damage;
• Blade Dance is changed to Death Sweep, dealing significantly more damage.
• With Chaotic Transformation — the cooldowns of Blade Dance and Eye Beam are reset.
• Fel-Scarred - with Demonic Intensity, also resets the cooldown of Sigil of Flame and Immolation Aura.

While this is active Havoc deals significantly more damage, and is usually flooded with additional resources to fuel these stronger casts. You should aim to enter with as much Fury as you can and leave with as little as possible. Try to plan these uses so you can keep it on cooldown, as it provides a lot of damage. While playing with Chaotic Transformation, you should make absolutely sure that both Blade Dance and Eye Beam are on cooldown before pressing it. You can also use the leap from casting it to cancel the Vengeful Retreat animation and stick to a target.

While playing Fel-Scarred, this also dramatically increases your Fury generation while active, meaning you need to be much more aggressive with spending.

While Eye Beam has a shorter, 40-second cooldown, it is still a powerful ability that does a lot for Havoc's damage profile. It has a variety of effects bolted onto it, making it a priority cast both in single-target and especially AoE situations. Some details are:

• Deals heavy Chaos damage over the duration, but you cannot move while channeling;
• With Looks Can Kill — always Critically Strikes;
• With Demonic — grants 5 seconds of Metamorphosis;
• With Collective Anguish — also causes an allied demon hunter to spawn and cast Fel Devastation, healing you based on damage dealt;
• With Blind Fury — generates a large amount of Fury while channeling;
• With Isolated Prey — causes it to deal 30% increased damage if it only hits a single target;
• With Furious Gaze — grants 10% Haste for 10 seconds after completing the channel.

You should aim to cast this as frequently as possible both for the damage it provides and in particular the Demonic triggers. Only hold it if you are in a single-target situation, but expect adds to spawn before it will be ready again. Also make sure to have it on cooldown before casting Metamorphosis, as its cooldown is reset by Chaotic Transformation.

Reworked in Patch 11.1, Cycle of Hatred significantly increases the access to Eye Beam and ramps up during an encounter. It begins at 1 stack, and each time you cast Eye Beam while in combat it gains another, up to 4, with each stack reducing the cooldown of Eye Beam by 5 seconds. This means after your opener it should be down to 25 seconds, and shortly after to 20, massively increasing the frequency and aligning it with a number of effects such as Inertia.

While playing Fel-Scarred, as this ramps up it becomes very common to extend Metamorphosis casts past the cooldown, giving you a chance at another Abyssal Gaze. Ideally, you should instead let Metamorphosis fall off before casting as this refresh does not trigger a new set of Demonsurge procs.

This effect persists through death, but after 1 minute spent out of combat you will revert back to 1 stack.

While The Hunt has a 1.5-minute cooldown, it is less of a high-impact effect and moreso just a large amount of direct damage. This charges your target after a brief 0.5 second cast and deals heavy Chaos damage when you arrive, applying a DoT for 6 seconds to your target and up to 5 enemies you pass through. Additionally, it applies a debuff for 20 seconds that causes you to heal for 10% of damage dealt to the target affected.

This is generally cast on cooldown as a large burst moment, aiming to overlap it with adds if possible. There is a small grace period after arriving where your hitbox remains active and will apply the debuff, if it has not already hit 5 targets.

When playing Aldrachi Reaver, it is also an activator for Reaver's Glaive. This means it can be used to quickly set up your Hero Talent mechanics on a pull, or when you need immediate access to extra burst damage.

Havoc comes with a handful of unique talents that make use of some of its high movement tools to gain additional damage. In Patch 11.1, some of the strict requirements and positioning needed has been softened, with additional ways to activate them, but being aware of how to manage movement during an encounter is a key skill for Havoc. The key talents that make use of this type of gameplay are:

• Initiative + Tactical Retreat
• Exergy or Inertia
• Unbound Chaos

Patch 11.1 has added a new effect to Vengeful Retreat, putting Felblade on a brief movement cooldown after casting it and causing it to charge your target. This means you can always use this to immediately re-engage after casting it, and now that it has been added to both Inertia and Unbound Chaos, is the ideal single-target activator for it.

For Unbound Chaos you will generally be using Felblade to consume it for additional damage in single-target, and Fel Rush in AoE.

Inertia provides a short-duration, high-intensity burst window. This pairs extremely well with a number of Havoc's tools, and with Cycle of Hatred perfectly aligns Vengeful Retreat for every Eye Beam. You should ideally be timing your Vengeful Retreat casts around these windows, and make sure to have Felblade available to get back onto your target quickly. For Aldrachi Reaver, you have the advantage of Unhindered Assault that makes this consistent. Note as well, Evasive Action does not give additional triggers, even if you trigger Inertia in between.

Exergy is the new form of Momentum in Patch 11.1, causing both Vengeful Retreat and The Hunt to grant 5% increased damage for 20 seconds, which can be extended up to 30 seconds. This should generally be 100% uptime throughout an encounter, as the additional time granted by The Hunt will give you room to drift Vengeful Retreat slightly. This is a less involved, consistent option compared to the extra damage windows of Inertia.

With Havoc being so reliant on its resources, it is important to identify situations where you need to aggressively spend Fury vs. what your expected generation rate is. Your main goal is to avoid any waste due to overcapping with a generation tool, which often means your spending breakpoint is roughly 90 Fury 120 with Fel-Scarred. This is due to the volatile nature of Demon Blades paired with the generation from Felblade being 40. Your rotation will also be adjusted around Chaos Strike casts that grant a 20 Fury refund, as it may shift your upcoming plans when they trigger.

Some basic rules to follow when it comes to thinking about how your Fury management plays out in practice are:

• Cast Chaos Strike / Annihilation as frequently as possible unless pooling for burst windows.
• Cast Felblade as frequently as possible, as long as you are below 80 Fury110 Fury with Fel-Scarred as your active generation tool.
• Cast Sigil of Flame as a backup generation tool if you fall behind on Fury.
• Wait and allow Demon Blades to generate Fury again to continue the cycle, or collect any Demonic Appetite orbs.
• Cast Throw Glaive or Fel Rush if out of range of any targets or during empty Globals.

Essence Break is an additional high-value damage window, but only lasts for 4 seconds, so needs all of your setup to be done before casting it. You always want to be in Metamorphosis form when activating this, ideally via Demonic due to the benefits of layering this with Chaotic Transformation to get two Death Sweep casts during it. Starting already in Demon form, your goal with each cast should be:

• With Metamorphosis ready: Death Sweep into Metamorphosis into Death Sweep, finish with Annihilation.
• With Metamorphosis ready: Fel-Scarred would prefer to get all of its setup complete and use Essence Break after this, and use Death Sweep into 2-3 Annihilation casts.
• Without Metamorphosis ready: Death Sweep into 2-3 Annihilation.

Depending on your Haste and whether you are affected by Bloodlust this can be extremely tight to fit in, but is absolutely worth the payoff. In AoE situations, you instead only need to fit in as many Death Sweeps as the above shows, ignoring the Annihilation recommendations.

Fel-Scarred deviates from the double Death Sweep cast using the Metamorphosis reset however, as the value of Annihilation is so high thanks to Burning Blades that it wants to avoid "wasting" a GCD on the Metamorphosis entry cast. Instead, it sets itself up fully before casting Essence Break into Death Sweep, and then as many Annihilation casts as possible before it expires.

While they are generally a supplementary set of talents, there are a number of options on the tree that lift Throw Glaive up into a relevant rotational ability:

• Accelerated Blade — causes Throw Glaive to deal 60% increased damage, reducing by 30% each bounce.
• Furious Throws — adds a 25 Fury cost to Throw Glaive, and causes it to throw a second glaive when cast.
• Serrated Glaive — causes Throw Glaive and Chaos Strike to increase the targets damage taken by Throw Glaive and Chaos Strike by 15% for 15 seconds.
• Soulscar — causes target hit by Throw Glaive to take 80% of the damage dealt as Chaos damage over 6 seconds.
• Screaming Brutality — each cast of Blade Dance automatically consumes one charge and casts Throw Glaive on your primary target. Each additional slash also has a 50% chance to throw an additional glaive at 35% effectiveness.

These are often taken as a package, and uses Screaming Brutality as an activator to avoid requiring extra rotational GCDs to capitalize upon. This makes them a lot more passive than they look on the surface, and is used in a variety of builds.

While playing Aldrachi Reaver, these are regularly taken as they also affect your casts of Reaver's Glaive. Note however, Screaming Brutality does not cause Blade Dance to trigger it. Instead, it always needs to be manually cast to activate.

Immolation Aura has a full section of the tree on the right side dedicated to improving it:

• Burning Hatred — generates an additional 24 Fury over 6 seconds when cast.
• Growing Inferno — deals 10% increased damage each time it ticks.
• Burning Wound — causes Demon Blades and Throw Glaive to apply a 15-second DoT that deals Chaos damage. Targets affected by this take 40% increased damage from Immolation Aura, but only 3 wounds can be active at once.
• Ragefire — 30% of damage dealt by up to 3 Critical Strikes of Immolation Aura is accumulated as Ragefire. When it expires you explode, dealing damage equal to the stored amount to nearby enemies.
• Flamebound — increases the range of Immolation Aura by 2 yards, and its Critical Strike damage by 30%.

This forms a strong core in AoE that pairs with the talent discussed below, A Fire Inside, that is cast as frequently as possible. Screaming Brutality should also naturally apply the maximum number of Burning Wound effects in AoE, but if you are not playing this you may need to tab-target to make full use out of it.

Ragefire is a key mechanic to be aware of, and tracking when each instance of Immolation Aura is expiring is very helpful due to the amount of damage that the talent often accumulates. You need to be aware of your positioning leading up to this moment and avoid using movement tools, or risk the detonation exploding into thin air.

When playing A Fire Inside, your Immolation Aura gains a second charge alongside the ability to overlap with itself, allowing for multiple auras to be active at once. It also has a 30% chance to reset the cooldown instantly when cast, significantly increasing your access to the ability. This is generally paired with other Immolation Aura talents to maximize its damage.

It is crucial when playing this to make sure you never leave it at 2 charges, and react to resets by pressing it repeatedly until it actively goes on cooldown - you lose nothing due to the buffs overlapping. As Fel-Scarred, Demonic Intensity will refund two charges when cast, giving you a full refill to double up on Consuming Fire. This means before Metamorphosis, you want to be drained to zero charges to get the most out of it.

While generally a weaker option, this does require specific gameplay setups in the event it is played. Fel Barrage is an extremely potent AoE burst cooldown, but drains an extremely high amount of Fury every second while active. To get a full duration cast off and get the most out of its long cooldown, you need to generate a total of 256 to break even from start to finish, meaning that it is generally required to pool to achieve this.

Before casting, you want to make sure you have all of your maintenance buffs prepared (in particular Inertia and Initiative) and avoid spending excess Fury while it is active. Active generation tools such as Felblade and Sigil of Flame take priority during the Fury drain, especially if you fall behind. This extends to refilling via Blind Fury as well if taken.