Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Tier Set Bonuses for Havoc Demon Hunters
The Havoc Demon Hunter tier set bonus is a simple agility proc on high uptime, with a bit of bonus fury generation and a stacking increase to
Rayon accablant. The only real reason for the stacking damage bonus is to balance the CDR of
Cycle de Haine by making builds including it get less of an increase to Eyebeam.
The season 2 tier set for Havoc Demon Hunter doesn't do anything to change the playstyle of spec, except for the minor increase of fury generation from the tier. However, our single target builds are already flooded with fury causing extra over-capping while our AoE builds only gain extra single target damage via
Frappe du chaos from the fury. The 4-pc bonus has multiple positive interactions due to
Rayon accablant talents like
Furie aveugle and
Regard meurtrier. This shifts our builds around and makes them a bit less flexible to include the talents to further buff up Eyebeam.
How Powerful is the Havoc Demon Hunter Tier Set?
The tier set is frankly weak. If the intention was to provide more power than the previous tier set, they have missed the mark with the current Havoc set. While the power level is similar between different content types and damage profiles, it is punished by downtime which is a hit to the mythic+ performance. It's around a 7% DPS increase on ST and AoE scenarios using the values currently live on PTR, however with the values included in the post announcing the tier set this drops a moderate amount closer to 5.5%. The tier doesn't do anything interesting to change how we play or excel in any scenarios while feeling like it is incredibly under tuned.
Feedback
While I am not unhappy with the current tier sets design, the numbers seem to have missed the mark. It doesn't typically hit 5 stacks in our raid build and has no interaction with
Transformation chaotique causing an entirely unbuffed
Rayon accablant with
Métamorphose. The one positive is that the stack system is a cool workaround for
Cycle de Haine existing to increase the damage of Eyebeam without forcing Cycle of Hatred into all forms of content. As it currently stands this set sits moderately behind the Season 1 Havoc Tier Set in power level; while it's very slightly more interesting it requires 4pc buffs near doubling the values to be competitive with the Season 1 set.