Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Stat Priority — The War Within (11.0.5)
On this page, you will find out the optimal stat priority for your Havoc Demon Hunter. We first present the stat priority, before delving into more complex explanations. Our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (11.0.5).
The Basics of Stats for Havoc Demon Hunters
Havoc Demon Hunter has slightly different stat priorities depending on whether you are focused on single-target or AoE scenarios. We recommend the AoE priority for open-world gameplay and dungeons as it can fit into more encounter types.
Stat Priorities
Fel-Scarred Havoc Demon Hunter Stat Priority
While playing Fel-Scarred, your stat priority is as follows in all situations:
- Mastery = Critical Strike;
- Agility;
- Haste;
- Versatility.
Due to the strength of both Know Your Enemy and Any Means Necessary, both Mastery and Critical Strike are roughly equal in value, and slightly above Agility per point. Aim to stack these two stats as much as possible.
After that, Haste provides additional resources and cooldown reduction, making it more realistic to cycle through Fury. It is the third stat to consider.
Versatility simply has lower bonuses per point than other options, so is generally avoided, but not completely neglected due to the proc damage scaling.
Aldrachi Reaver Havoc Demon Hunter Stat Priority
While playing Aldrachi Reaver, your stat priority is as follows in all situations:
- Critical Strike = Agility;
- Mastery;
- Versatility;
- Haste.
Know Your Enemy keeps Critical Strike as the focus due to the additional multiplier it provides, alongside working with strong Season 1 trinkets. Any Means Necessary puts Mastery close behind, making it the second-best stat to focus on thanks to the Chaos damage conversion for most of the kit.
Haste is slightly behind due to the lack of cooldown reduction on some key abilities such as Essence Break and Eye Beam. Alongside this, there is also no strong hook elsewhere in the kit compared to the above options with additional scaling multipliers.
Versatility falls behind the above two stats but still outperforms Haste due to its lack of strong interaction with the AoE build's toolkit.
Diminishing Returns on Stats
Every stat has a limit where they will begin to offer less increase per point gained, which are known as the points of diminishing return. Once you have reached these amounts, stats will become progressively less valuable and may fall behind other options. Due to us being very early in the expansion, this is less of an immediate concern for gearing and more one to be aware of. The current breakpoints are:
- 21000 Critical Strike Rating
- 19800 Haste Rating
- 23400 Versatility Rating
- 21000 Mastery Rating
How To Choose Gear For The Havoc Demon Hunter
If you are ever in doubt about what items to wear for any given situation, the only way to truly figure it out for your character is to use Raidbots. This website allows you to easily compare gear you already have, as well as gear you do not have.
Due to every character being unique with variables based on your current gear, racial bonuses and effects you have active, it is much easier to trust its bespoke output rather than a general priority if you are looking to min-max your damage potential.
Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
The gems, enchants, and consumables you will use are directly derived from your stat priority. You can find our advice on this topic on our dedicated page.
Understanding Havoc Demon Hunter Stats
Agility is your primary statistic. You should look for it in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Attack Power, which determines the damage your abilities do.
Critical Strike increases the chance for your attacks and abilities to critically strike, dealing double damage, and has several supporting talents that grant it additional scaling. In particular, Critical Chaos, Ragefire and Know Your Enemy amplify their value beyond the raw effect, keeping it relevant.
Mastery increases all Chaos damage you deal through Mastery: Demonic Presence, and also increases your passive movement speed. The value per point is already quite high, and the variety of talents on the tree improve its value even further when taken, making it a good all-round pick. In particular, First Blood converts Blade Dance/ Death Sweep to Chaos for your primary target, Any Means Necessary does the same for your remaining abilities such as Immolation Aura and The Hunt, and Soulrend covers Throw Glaive.
Haste increases your auto attack speed, reduces the Global Cooldown recovery time down to a minimum of 0.750 seconds, and reduces the base cooldown of Blade Dance/ Death Sweep, Immolation Aura, Glaive Tempest and Throw Glaive. The value of Haste rises due to some talent interactions, such as Cycle of Hatred and Shattered Destiny, increasing the uptime of Metamorphosis giving a Haste feedback loop, contributing greatly to Single Target DPS. It also leads to higher Fury Generation through Demon Blades via auto-attacks, but in AoE situations, many of the key burst tools such as Eye Beam and Essence Break have no scaling with this, reducing its value.
Versatility provides a flat boost to damage dealt and reduction to damage taken, with no other interactions.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5 to separate Fel-Scarred and Aldrachi Reaver weights.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4.
- 21 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5, added note that Crit stays good even during diminishing returns.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7, no changes necessary.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5, moved up Haste in single-target.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1, no significant changes needed.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 31 Dec. 2022: Raised the priority of Mastery in single target.
- 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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