Havoc Demon Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — The War Within (11.0.5)

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.
3. Cast Reaver's Glaive -
   • Make sure to cast Blade Dance / Death Sweep before your next Chaos Strike / Annihilation to empower Reaver's Mark.
4. Cast Fel Rush with Unbound Chaos active.
5. Cast Immolation Aura / Consuming Fire to trigger Unbound Chaos.
6. Cast Vengeful Retreat to trigger Initiative.
7. Cast The Hunt.
8. Cast Sigil of Doom during Metamorphosis.
9. Cast Consuming Fire during Metamorphosis.
10. Cast Essence Break with Metamorphosis active.
11. Cast Death Sweep.
12. Cast Sigil of Spite to generate Souls.
13. Cast Sigil of Flame before Eye Beam to trigger Student of Suffering.
14. Cast Eye Beam / Abyssal Gaze.
15. Cast Metamorphosis if Eye Beam and Death Sweep are on cooldown.
16. Cast Blade Dance.
17. Cast Glaive Tempest.
18. Cast Annihilation.
19. Cast Felblade if under 80 Fury.
20. Cast Sigil of Flame if under 90 Fury.
21. Cast Sigil of Flame if under 90 Fury.
22. Cast Chaos Strike.
23. Cast Immolation Aura.
24. 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 a big aim on aligning buffs with 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. Make sure to always consume the Chaos Strike 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 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 depends on if you are playing with Cycle of Hatred.
• If playing 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 one Death Sweep and two Annihilation casts. Cast it following Vengeful Retreat as you pass over, unless you have Metamorphosis ready.
• 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 when possible. Uptime is limited by Immolation Aura, but A Fire Inside grants more flexibility to plan around with the second charge.
• When playing A Fire Inside, you want to make sure it is always under 2 charges to avoid losing activations of Unbound Chaos.

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.
3. Cast Reaver's Glaive -
   • Make sure to cast Chaos Strike / Annihilation before your next Blade Dance / Death Sweep to empower Fury of the Aldrachi.
4. Cast Fel Rush with Unbound Chaos active to trigger Inertia.
5. Cast Immolation Aura / Consuming Fire if at 2 charges.
6. Cast Vengeful Retreat to trigger Initiative.
7. Cast The Hunt.
8. Cast Fel Rush with Unbound Chaos active.
9. Cast Immolation Aura / Consuming Fire.
10. Cast Fel Rush with Unbound Chaos active.
11. Cast Fel Rush if Momentum has less than 2 seconds remaining.
12. Cast Sigil of Doom.
13. Cast Essence Break with Metamorphosis active.
14. Cast Death Sweep.
15. Cast Sigil of Spite to generate Souls.
16. Cast Sigil of Flame to trigger Student of Suffering. Hold to use with Eye Beam.
17. Cast Eye Beam / Abyssal Gaze.
18. Cast Metamorphosis if Eye Beam, Sigil of Flame and Death Sweep are on cooldown.
19. Cast Blade Dance.
20. Cast Glaive Tempest.
21. Cast Annihilation.
22. Cast Sigil of Flame if under 90 Fury.
23. Cast Felblade if under 80 Fury.
24. Cast Chaos Strike.
25. Cast Throw Glaiveor 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 to the bottom of 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 3 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.
• Similar to in single-target, Sigil of Flame should be overlapped with Eye Beam when playing Fel-Scarred to benefit from Student of Suffering.
• Immolation Aura pulls a lot more weight in AoE due to the number of talents focused around it on the right side. 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.
• You should always aim to spend Unbound Chaos procs both for the damage and to trigger Inertia. Try to overlap this with other damaging cooldowns.
• 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.
• Glaive Tempest is cast on cooldown as a rotational high damage Fury spender, but not above other, bigger cooldowns.
• 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 Immolation Aura 2 seconds before the pull.
4. Cast Sigil of Flame 1 second before the pull.
5. Cast Felblade to engage your target.
6. Cast Eye Beam.
7. Cast Immolation Aura on pull.
8. Cast The Hunt.
9. Cast Sigil of Flame to trigger Student of Suffering.
10. Cast Felblade to generate Fury.
11. Cast Reaver's Glaive.
12. Cast Felblade to generate Fury.
13. Cast Fel Rush to consume Unbound Chaos and trigger Inertia -
    • If an Immolation Aura reset from A Fire Inside occurs, cast Immolation Aura into Fel Rush one more time.
    • Repeat Immolation Aura and Fel Rush regardless of A Fire Inside resets, due to the upcoming Metamorphosis reset.
14. Cast Fel Rush to trigger Inertia.
15. Cast Fel Rush to trigger Inertia.
16. Cast Eye Beam.
17. Cast Eye Beam.
18. Cast Essence Break.
19. Cast Annihilation.
20. Cast Fel Rush to trigger Inertia.
21. Cast Annihilation to trigger Demonsurge and Inner Demon.
22. Cast Essence Break.
23. Cast Death Sweep.
24. Cast Annihilation to consume Inner Demon.
25. Cast Annihilation.
26. Cast Essence Break.
27. Cast Sigil of Spite to generate Souls.
28. Cast Vengeful Retreat and immediately cast Metamorphosis.
29. Cast Death Sweep.
30. Cast Sigil of Spite to generate Souls.
31. Cast Annihilation.
32. Cast Annihilation to consume Inner Demon.
33. Cast Consuming Fire.
34. Cast Sigil of Doom to activate Student of Suffering.
35. Cast Consuming Fire.
36. Cast Abyssal Gaze.
37. Cast Fel Rush to consume Unbound Chaos and trigger Inertia.
38. Cast Abyssal Gaze.
39. Cast Essence Break.
40. Cast Death Sweep.
41. Cast Annihilation until Essence Break expires.
42. Cast Glaive Tempest.
43. Cast Eye Beam.
44. 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, meaning that you need to set up for the Metamorphosis cast before immediately entering into it.

• 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.
• Sigil of Spite is cast very early after consuming your opening Reaver's Glaive to quickly help cycle Souls to your next cast.
• 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.
• Setting up for Essence Break happens immediately following Eye Beam with a Death Sweep followed by Metamorphosis.
• Setting up for Essence Break happens immediately following Eye Beam with a Death Sweep followed by Metamorphosis.
• It 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.
• Inertia is triggered very early from your pre-cast of opening Immolation Aura cast. With A Fire Inside taken, if a reset occurs repeating this 1-2 ability cycle should be done once. With A Fire Inside taken, Fel-Scarred repeats this 1-2 ability sequence once to make sure it is on cooldown before the Metamorphosis reset.
• Make sure if playing Inner Demon to consume it with Annihilation following your opening Eye Beam before entering into Metamorphosis.

Havoc's major cooldown is Metamorphosis, a 3-minute cooldown (reduced to two 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.

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.

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 Blind Fury — generates a large amount of Fury while channeling;
• 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. While playing Cycle of Hatred, its cooldown will be roughly cut in half based on how active you are with spending Fury, meaning that you will be casting this more frequently with builds that take it.

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, while 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 dealing with a particularly dangerous trash pack.

Havoc comes with a number of unique talents that leverage its high mobility for additional damage. These are generally higher skill cap options, and require comfort to execute properly. Knowing when you need to commit your tools to amplify upcoming damage versus when you need to hold them to deal with mechanics is a skill that comes with experience. The key talents that build it up are:

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

The first two are relatively intuitive in that it encourages you to cast Vengeful Retreat on cooldown for the high Fury generation, and Fel Rush to consume the buff. The final choice node however requires more explanation. To start with, below is an image that shows the optimal pathing around bosses to maintain uptime without being forced out of range as much as possible:

Inertia provides a short duration, high-intensity burst window. This pairs extremely well with A Fire Inside, giving extra charges to add some flexibility to your activators. You should make sure when using this to not waste any Unbound Chaos activations, and aim to overlap all of your high damage moments (such as Eye Beam and Essence Break) pro-actively to get the most value out of it.

Momentum can be refreshed for the full duration, adding onto your current buff up to 30 seconds, acting as a maintenance buff. This is generally something that gets activated throughout the rotation via the base priority. It is important to make sure you have it active for high-damage events such as Eye Beam, Essence Break and Fel Barrage, but most of the time the natural gameplay of Initiative will do this for you. Do not overcommit to maintenance over spending Fury, but do aim for as high of an uptime as possible.

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 (or 120 as 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 Fury 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 and Fel Rush if out of range of any targets or during empty Globals.

Adds in 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.
• 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 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.

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, and Unbound Chaos / Inertia to make it easier to plan out your buff windows.

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. When playing Inertia, you also ideally want to spend the Unbound Chaos triggers in between these casts in single-target, but in AoE, hitting the resets is slightly more valuable.

While not strictly rotationally altering, Havoc has two very specific talents that significantly alter the way it handles secondary stats, explained below:

Know Your Enemy increases your Critical Strike damage based on your Critical Strike chance, significantly improving its scaling and also allowing abilities that guarantee critical strikes (such as Eye Beam with Looks Can Kill) to still retain some boost from it. This also includes all item effects and trinkets, so is always taken.

Any Means Necessary converts all magic damage your abilities deal to Chaos damage, causing your Mastery to also affect them. This is extremely good for overall scaling, and due to how easy this is to access it is taken in the majority of builds.