Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within (11.0.7)
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Havoc Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.7). We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
Best War Within Talent Builds for Havoc Demon Hunter
Note that these builds are popular build recommendations for various different damage profiles. For more specific recommendations for the Raid and Mythic+, check out the dedicated pages below.
Talent Cheat Sheet for Havoc Demon Hunters
Havoc currently has two extremely different Hero Talents that have specialties in different situations, though there is a wide gap in how difficult they are to execute. Currently, Fel-Scarred is recommended in all content as it is either roughly equal or better than Aldrachi Reaver, while also being much easier to execute.
Recommended Build Import Codes:
Havoc builds have a good amount of Cleave in them regardless, but there is a lot of room to specialize in either single-target for Raids or AoE for Mythic+ with both Aldrachi Reaver and Fel-Scarred. Due to both Hero Talents having quite different loadouts and playstyles; we have a tool below to toggle recommendations based on your desired Hero Talent tree for each different content type. Note that whichever you pick will affect the entire page and information will be tailored to that selection.
Anywhere you see the icon on this page, this means it is the recommended choice
War Within Havoc Demon Hunter Talent Builds
Hero Talents | |
---|---|
Aldrachi Reaver | Fel-Scarred |
Fel-Scarred Raid / Single-Target Build
Currently, Fel-Scarred performs the best in single-target situations while also being easier to execute. Due to this alongside its excellent flexibility in different raid encounters, it is the recommended build in single-target.
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The Fel-Scarred focuses heavily on maximizing its burst windows with each Eye Beam cast, therefore it picks up movement talents to make use of Inertia. Each 40-second window overlaps Eye Beam and Essence Break with Sigil of Flame for an explosive burst window, made even stronger when paired with Metamorphosis. Outside of this, it simply focuses on cycling Fury as much as possible to maximize the damage benefit provided by Burning Blades. Some notes are:
- While the build does want to trigger Demonic frequently, the desync caused by Cycle of Hatred and the need to leave demon form to reset Demonsurge means it is avoided.
- Instead, the movement package is picked up to further amplify your Eye Beam cast windows alongside Essence Break while under the effects of Inertia.
- The remaining talents are taken to empower Chaos Strike / Annihilation as much as possible to leverage Burning Blades powerful damage amplifier.
Aldrachi Reaver Raid / Cleave Build
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Fel-Scarred AoE / Mythic+ Build
Currently, Fel-Scarred provides the highest burst and AoE potential. It also has talent options to add in additional priority target damage, so is our recommended AoE build
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Fel-Scarred deals extremely frontloaded 2-minute bursts around Metamorphosis, making it well suited for dangerous Mythic+ pulls. It also has a lot of additional baked in single-target to cover the gaps against bosses thanks to Burning Blades, while also being quite easy to pilot compared to the alternative. It picks up the "Ignition" set of talents to activate Inertia and amplify Immolation Aura as much as possible, but since there is no Throw Glaive does need to tab-target to apply Burning Wound to multiple targets.
- On the Hero Tree Fel-Scarred always picks up Student of Suffering as an additional AoE cooldown, syncing the Mastery buff with each Eye Beam cast.
- Due to the desyncs that can happen; while slightly unintuitive, it avoids Cycle of Hatred in favor of picking up more damaging talents to play into a fixed cooldown cycle with Essence Break.
- In the middle of the tree, you can switch out Dancing with Fate which is better for single-target and priority damage, to focus more on pure burst AoE with Blind Fury if needed.
Fel-Scarred Delves Build
For Delves, Fel-Scarred leans heavily into explosive bursts of damage for large groups of enemies, so for speed clearing them is suited perfectly. Due to the stronger leaning toward your Metamorphosis window as well, the additional sustain provided by that makes dangerous pulls almost trivial — so long as you have your cooldowns set up correctly.
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Raiding
While the above builds can be slotted into most encounters depending on what is required, some more bespoke tools may be required on some bosses. You can check out specific tips and builds for current raid encounters below:
Mythic+
Mythic+ can potentially require a mix of specific AoE and Single-Target talents, depending on affixes and other variables. If you want more detailed advice about the selections (especially those relating to Utility), check out the dedicated page below:
PvP Talents (War Mode)
"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 recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at the maximum level. 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.
If you are interested in doing PvP as a Havoc Demon Hunter or want to know the basics of Havoc PvP gameplay and decision-making, check out our dedicated PvP guide.
Havoc Demon Hunter War Mode Talents
In this section, we will rank the PvP talents for leveling and playing in open-world PvE scenarios.
Havoc Demon Hunter PvP Talents
Generally, the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.
- Chaotic Imprint will always buff Chaos damage dealt, such as Chaos Strike and Eye Beam. Also great to pair with talents such as Soulrend due to the conversion to magic damage, causing Throw Glaive to deal significantly more damage.
- Unending Hatred is just free additional Fury generation as you will frequently be taking damage in the open world.
- Sigil Mastery reduces the cooldown of sigils, such as Sigil of Flame and Sigil of Spite, which can be a small DPS gain if these talents are taken.
Alternatively you can take Blood Moon for a small bit of extra self-healing, or Rain from Above as an emergency disengage tool.
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.
Changelog
- 15 Dec. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.7, added recommended tags.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated to reflect new Fel-Scarred recommendations.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4 with new talent options.
- 21 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6, strongest builds remain the same but alternatives kept.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5, small recommendation cleanups around AoE final point choices.
- 13 Nov. 2023: Slight change to T30 AoE build tips and added low movement T30 single target.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7, changed AoE recommendation to Glaive Tempest/Ragefire, restructured page.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5, added individual sections and the No Movement build recommendation.
- 01 May 2023: Builds updated to account for Patch 10.1 changes, including Serrated Glaive as an option.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed and updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2022: Reviewed and updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-Patch.
More Demon Hunter Guides
Guides from Other Classes
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 also follow him on Twitter.
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