Opening Thoughts
Havoc Demon Hunter is receiving significant changes in Patch 10.2 Guardians of the Dream. Most of these changes come in the form of reformatting of both the Havoc specialization and the Demon Hunter class talent trees, however, some new and exciting talent additions are coming bundled with the changes.
In general, the changes open up the ability to take more talents and provide some important Quality of Life improvements as well as better access to general defensive options. Mobility is also improved significantly when accounting for talents such as the ability to choose
타성 over
탄력, or
혼돈의 질주 for players less used to the movement based rotation.
Havoc Tree Changes
Havoc Tree Change Thoughts
The changes are a significant buff for Havoc Demon Hunter through a mix of survivability, utility, mobility, and currently damage pending tuning. The changes to the first gate with the points in the area being freed up are great, allowing you to talent survivability such as
황천걸음 and
반사의 춤 while old options we couldn't justify taking such as
지옥 분출 went baseline. These changes feel better when choosing your talents while not feeling pushed into losing significant niche defensive options for damage.
The tree has some minor issues with pathing such as
내면의 화염 being on the opposite sides of the immolation aura talents, but being in proximity with
타성 and
풀려난 혼돈 makes sense.
내면의 악마 and
지옥 포화 also have frustrating counter-synergy which makes it difficult to utilize both together while sustaining your fury.
치명적 혼돈 is also an incredibly weak talent blocking off the new
혼돈의 질주 which is a great accessibility tool with a lot of cost to take as is.
What's Changed?
A significant amount of changes hit the tree, mostly opening up options with very few removals of talents. Two talents were outright removed in
지옥불 심장 and
불길의 양식, while
커지는 불지옥 was changed in functionality to work on the cast of
제물의 오라 to soften the lost. A couple of talents were shifted to be baseline in
악마의 식탐 which was reduced to 20 fury and
지옥 분출 to open up options in the first gate. These changes coupled with movement of nodes made it required to take
황천걸음 and a new talent in
반사의 춤 (or the other choice on both nodes) for pathing to get through the tree, forcing us to take survivability or utility in all situations to cause it to not be a choice of DPS or not. Many of our 2 point nodes such as
치명적 혼돈 and
톱니날 글레이브 have been changes from 2 point nodes to 1 pointers giving us the ability to take more options.
In the second set of changes, talent locations changes significantly and many nodes were combined to be choice nodes in the bottom half of the tree. Soulrend was renamed to
영혼 흉터 and made into a choice node with
무자비한 학살,
글레이브의 폭풍 and
혼돈 이론 were merged into a choice node, and lastly
잠들지 못하는 사냥꾼 and
내면의 악마 were put into a choice node. This shifted around how many points you needed in the bottom gate by pushing
톱니날 글레이브 up into the second talent gate.
자주성 was nerfed from 12% to 10%. Lastly,
지옥 포화 was reworked to drain 32 fury per second up to a max of 8 seconds requiring some effort to sustain it for its full duration and max damage.
What's New?
Plenty of new talents have popped up, which will be listed below going from the top of the tree and working down it.
- 혼돈의 질주: This talent allows you to 지옥 돌진 back to your starting position shortly after the cast, using the global and dealing damage.
- 악마의 가죽: Simply a 5% increase to magic damage dealt and a 5% decrease to Physical damage taken. This is an incredibly powerful node that puts a lot of work in against the complaints of Havoc Demon Hunters weakness to Physical damage intake, while being tied to DPS to not be a survivability versus damage choice.
- 반사의 춤: A form of 칼춤 dodge making a return, this is a short duration 15% max hp shield that works against direct damage. This talent is great that it allows you to save blade dance for a defensive option in expected and needed situations that Havoc previously lacked flexible survivability tools.
- 고통의 상흔: Another simple node, 4% versatility is enough power to almost always warrant a point on its own. The 8% threat reduction however is exceptionally welcome for Mythic+ where Havoc Demon Hunter is notorious for threat ripping issues.
- 타성: Choice node directly competing against 탄력, focused in a stronger short-term buff for burst windows while also allowing significantly less movement in Havoc's rotation compared to the previous seasons of the expansion.
- : A significant damage increase to any ability dealing Chaos damage, it essentially has 7 rolls of a 7.77% chance per damage event and each roll separately will deal 21% damage if it hits.
- 내면의 화염: This talent turns 제물의 오라 into a 2 charge system, allowing you to overlap multiple Immolation Aura casts. This has good synergy with talents such as 풀려난 혼돈 and 타성 while also introducing some fun RNG to the rotation.
While many of the choices such as
악마의 가죽 and
고통의 상흔 are generic, they go towards fixing the issues Havoc has had in harder content such as Cutting Edge raiding or high end Mythic+ making them feel like great additions.
반사의 춤 similarly brings back one of the most loved mechanics removed from Havoc, allowing for skillful expression of
칼춤 as a defensive tool.
혼돈의 질주 is a good talent option making
탄력 significantly easier to play, as both the original
지옥 돌진 cast and the Dash of Chaos will proc momentum however due to it costing a talent point and triggering another gcd it seems it will not be optimal to run.
타성 is a personal favourite of mine, breaking up the
지옥 돌진 on cooldown playstyle that current
탄력 forces, allowing for a rotation with significantly less movement and powerful buff windows.
내면의 화염 has exceptional synergy with Inertia, causing you to be able to double cast
풀려난 혼돈 during cooldown windows by banking your charges and giving you about 40% more casts of Immolation Aura/Unbound Chaos by the RNG resets. Lastly, is a surprising new choice. The large RNG swings of the talent are mostly covered by the extremely high amount of damage events on Havoc which means it mostly ends up just being a large aura buff and requiring you to talent into
수단과 방법을 가리지 않고 if you have committed the points to Chaotic Disposition.
Slight Talent Reworks
There have been some minor changes and reworks to talents worth noting.
- 치명적 혼돈, 커지는 불지옥, 풀려난 혼돈, 톱니날 글레이브, and 영혼 흉터 were all changed to be 1 point talents with a large part of their power dropped to account for the free talent point.
- 글레이브의 폭풍 had its values pushed around, going from a 20s to 25s cooldown, increasing its damage by 15%, and changing it from a 5 target soft cap to 8 target soft cap.
- 지옥 포화 was changed in a similar sense to Frost Death Knight's 신드라고사의 숨결 - now draining 32 fury per second to continuously stream damage out to nearby enemies as a passive buff, capped to 8 seconds. This causes a large shift in playstyle during the window to be certain to maintain the buff until it times out.
- 톱니날 글레이브 received great changes, it now is both applied by and buffs 글레이브 투척 and 혼돈의 일격. This is a significant improvement over the previous iteration of being applied exclusively through Throw Glaive and buffing 안광.
- 산산이 부서진 운명 was nerfed, now taking 10 fury per 0.1s extension up from the previous 8 fury.
- is now triggered by 글레이브 투척 when talented into 격노의 던지기.
Demon Hunter Class Tree Changes
Class Tree Changes Thoughts
The Demon Hunter Class Tree received a significant amount of changes to pathing and talent placements. We gained multiple extra points from various sources,
주체할 수 없는 격노 being shifted to a one pointer,
불꽃의 인장 becoming baseline, while both
일리다리의 지식 and
일리다리의 의지 were turned from 2 pointers to 1 and buffed to 5%. In general many talents were removed or changed which I have listed below. The biggest change is
원한의 인장 being moved to the class tree as a keystone in competition with
사냥 and
집단 고뇌.
Overall the changes are extremely positive, it feels less punishing to take wanted talents or utility and there is wiggle room for a minor DPS loss if you for example need
칠흑 같은 어둠 by dropping stacks of .
What's Changed?
The changes to the class tree were not as significant to Havoc, and for the most part new talents were avoided except for a couple.
- 패배의 불행, 일리다리의 정점, 방출된 힘, and all removed.
- 혼돈의 회오리 reduced from 60s to 45s cooldown and 30 to 25 fury cost.
- Choice node including 기이한 악의 was removed from the tree, putting the DoT increase baseline into 사냥's damage.
- was moved down into the final gate of the tree, and increased to a 2 pointer to significantly increase the cost of the talent to be in line with the power.
- 원한의 인장 moved from the spec trees to replace 촉진된 인장 keystone spot.
- 촉진된 인장 nerfed and no longer reduces sigils cooldown.
- 집중된 인장 and 정밀 인장 no longer increase the duration of your sigils by 2 seconds.
- nerfed and reduced from 20% to 15% at rank 2.
- 악마성 nerfed from 6s to 5s per window.
- 으스러진 회복, 주체할 수 없는 격노, 일리다리의 지식, and 일리다리의 의지 all changed to 1 point talents.
What's New?
Very few new things were added, however
전투검에 의지한 삶 was added in the position of
패배의 불행, mostly a tank or pvp focused talent that Havoc is unlikely to run in PvE content. was added which massively increases the damage of
불꽃의 인장 making it an important rotational button.
글레이브의 용사 was added on a choice node with
글레이브의 대가, giving increased range instead of a movespeed snare which seems to also be for Vengeance instead of Havoc.
Gameplay & Problems
With the rework of the talent trees Havoc Demon Hunter has had a pretty large shift in its fury economy.
고립된 사냥감 no longer giving fury on fel rush,
악마의 식탐 being nerfed from 30 to 20 fury while becoming baseline, and
치명적 혼돈 becoming a 1 point node from talent changes significantly nerf the fury coming in. Additionally, with the loss of our season 2 tier set another minor fury source is lost. With these changes,
지옥칼 was changed to be a shortened 0.5s global to have significantly more impact by easily fitting in the rotation and
불꽃의 인장 was made baseline with supporting talents increasing its damage output. After all the changes typically Havoc still always has fury to spend and use globals, however moments of running dry on fury can happen much easier than before and the playstyle feels less frantic and spammy compared to the Season 2 iteration.
The fury changes coupled with the nerf of
악마성 from 6s to 5s and the nerf of
산산이 부서진 운명 from 8 fury per 0.1s extension to 10 fury allowed for
탈태 to be shifted to a 2 minute cooldown. This feels smoother due to our cooldown cadence of 40 seconds from
정수 파쇄 and
안광 causing everything to line up properly, while resulting in Havoc having reduced uptime on Metamorphosis which was a major complaint due to the feast or famine nature requiring uptime.
Problems
There are still some issues that remain despite the rework being largely positive that I would like to highlight however.
- 내면의 악마 while being a significantly powerful AoE talent feels awful in many situations. Due to Inner Demon being fired on 혼돈의 일격 you typically only have the choice to stop spending fury to hold it casting it. Inner Demon takes too long to land and explode at the target location, causing it able to miss the target it was fired at if they are moving while you cast. The hitbox is also quite small which causes it to have issues hitting all mobs in large AoE scenarios.
- 사냥 is still hard target capped at 5 and requires stepping through mobs to apply the DoT debuff when used in melee. Ideally having it apply in an AoE around the target or some similar workaround could feel significantly better to play with.
Closing Thoughts
With the changes Havoc Demon Hunter appears to be in a great spot moving into Patch 10.2 Guardians of the Dream. The options to reduce movement requirements in the rotation are incredibly welcome, new talents are exciting, and bugs/issues are not rampant. Unexpected changes like 2 minute
탈태 are largely enjoyed while talents like
고통의 상흔 and
악마의 가죽 help to cover our pain points high end Mythic+ content. The buffs to the tier set round out everything to put Havoc in a powerful and exciting position heading into the next tier.