World of Warcraft: Shadowlands pre-expansion Update 9.0.1 brings with it a bevy of various class changes, and the Demon Hunter was no exception. Many classes will find some of their more popular abilities that were removed many expansions ago returned, and their skill acquisition adjusted due to the massive level squish introduced in this same update.

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Leather wearer, adding Demon Hunters would create a big imbalance in the armor specialities in the class list. How the class would be introduced to races other than Night Elves and Blood Elves, and would it be tied to an Illidan return where he trains new Demon Hunters? That sounds like a waste of a character redemption to me.

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• General Information. Welcome to our Havoc Demon Hunter guide for World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.0.2. Here, you will learn how to play as a Havoc Demon Hunter in both raids and Mythic+ dungeons: from the very beginning to maximizing your DPS.

Not every class received massive adjustments, but Demon Hunter certainly saw a decent amount of class changes. Below is the full list of class changes to Demon Hunter in Shadowlands pre-expansion Update 9.0.1. For the full patch notes, be sure to check out the link here, where additional class changes are listed.

Demon Hunter – Shadowlands Update 9.0.1 Class Changes

GENERAL

• Newly created Demon Hunters now begin at level 8.
• Immolation Aura is no longer a Talent for Havoc and is learned by all Demon Hunters through their initial questing experience or at level 10.

HAVOC

• New Passive: Unending Hatred – Increases maximum Fury to 120.
• Blur now reduces all damage taken by 20% for 10 seconds (was 35%).
• Metamorphosis no longer provides 20% Leech. Soul Rending (Talent) will now return 25% Leech to Metamorphosis.
• Blade Dance and Death Sweep now capped at 5 targets.
• The following Talents have been adjusted:
  • New Talent: Burning Hatred – Immolation Aura generates an additional 60 Fury over 12 seconds.
  • New Talent: Unbound Chaos (replaces Fel Mastery) – Activating Immolation Aura will cause your inner demon to slam into nearby enemies at the end of your next Fel Rush, dealing Chaos damage.
  • New Talent: Glaive Tempest – Launch two demonic glaives in a whirlwind of energy, causing Chaos damage over 3 seconds to 5 nearby enemies.
  • Insatiable Hunger now causes Demon’s Bite to deal 20% more damage and generates 5 to 10 additional Fury.
  • Cycle of Hatred now reduces the cooldown of Eye Beam by 3 seconds when Chaos Strike refunds Fury (was Metamorphosis).
  • Soul Rending Leech increased by 5% (was 10%) and gain an additional 25% Leech while Metamorphosis is active (was 10%).
  • Netherwalk cooldown is now 3 minutes (was 2 minutes).
  • Dark Slash has been renamed to Essence Break – Slash all enemies in front of you for Chaos damage, and increase the damage your Chaos Strike and Blade Dance deal to them by 40% for 8 seconds.
  • Demonic now causes you to enter demon form for 6 seconds when using Eye Beam (was 8 seconds).
  • Nemesis has been removed.
  • Fel Barrage now capped at 8 targets.

VENGEANCE

• Vengeance Demon Hunters now use Fury as a resource instead of Pain.
• Demonic Wards increase to Stamina and Armor have been moved into a new Passive: Thick Skin which increases Stamina by 65% and Armor by 100%.
• Soul Cleave replaces Chaos Strike, Shear replaces Demon’s Bite and Infernal Strike replaces Fel Rush when selecting the Vengeance specialization.
• Fel Devastation is no longer a Talent and will be learned by all Vengeance Demon Hunters at level 11. Additionally, Fel Devastation now costs 50 Fury.
• Soul Cleave now heals you for an additional amount for each Soul Fragment consumed.
• Soul Cleave now capped at 5 targets.
• The following Talents have been adjusted:
  • New Talent: Infernal Armor (replaces Flame Crash) – Immolation Aura increases your Armor by 20% and causes melee attackers to suffer Fire damage.
  • New Talent: Ruinous Bulwark (replaces Void Reaver) – Fel Devastation heals for an additional 15%, and 50% of its overhealing is converted into an absorb shield for 10 seconds.
  • New Talent: Bulk Extraction (replaces Soul Barrier) – Demolish the spirit of all around you, dealing Fire damage to nearby enemies and extracting a soul fragment from the 5 closest enemies, drawing them to you for immediate consumption.
  • New Talent: Demonic – Fel Devastation causes you to enter demon form for 6 seconds after it finishes dealing damage.
  • Abyssal Strike now causes Infernal Strike to create a Sigil of Flame when you land and its cooldown is reduced by 8 seconds.
  • Agonizing Flames no longer increases the damage of Immolation Aura. It now increases its duration by 50%.
  • Feast of Souls healing increased by 25%.
  • Charred Flesh has been redesigned – Immolation Aura damage now increases the duration of your Fiery Brand by 0.5 seconds.

- This article was updated on:October 9th, 2020

“It takes a big man to admit his mistakes, and I am that big man. – Michael Scott” — Michael Mitchell

Last time we talked about Demon Hunters, discussed Vengeance Artifact traits and ended with the recommendation that you not level in Vengeance spec. I’m willing to admit that advice may have been wrong. In the time since I last played Vengeance while leveling, it appears to have received a bit of a buff to its damage output. Previously, you sacrificed everything, what have you given significant damage output for survivability. But now, it seems, Vengeance leveling may be more viable.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the pros and cons of leveling as Vengeance versus Havoc.

Damage output and survivability

This is going to be the biggest difference by far, but as I said, that surprise won’t come from the survivability portion. If you’re soling as Vengeance, it’s hard for things to kill you. I went out and did a little experimenting and found that the only time I wasn’t able to keep myself alive was when an enemy used Curse of Doom to remove a significant portion of my health at once. It’s worth pointing out, most of this testing was done between levels 100 and 102. On my Priest, there seemed to be a significant increase in mob health/damage around level 104.

As far as the speed at which I killed enemies, that’s the part that surprised me. In a totally scientific and definitive analysis, I did several pulls of between 4 and 6 satyrs out in Val’sharah both as Vengeance and as Havoc. Between Immolation Aura, Sigil of Flame, and Soul Cleave, I was able to take down all the enemies fairly quickly and ended with full health most of the time. As Havoc, the enemies seemed to take longer to kill — that is, until I remembered to use Fury of the Illidari.

The combination of Fury of the Illidari and Eye Beam meant that groups of normal mobs fell over with ease, often dying before both abilities had ended. Again, this will likely change a bit at higher levels, but when all your cooldowns are up, Havoc is going to tear through groups of enemies faster than Vengeance can. However, the downside is that burst damage won’t help as much against rare mobs with more health and higher damage output. This I found to vary — in some cases I could kill enemies just fine as Havoc, in others I couldn’t — but overall it seemed like a safer bet to kill these as Vengeance.

Verdict: Vengeance is going to keep you alive through everything except burst damage, while sustained damage should be completely survivable. You’re not going to have the same burst as Havoc’s Fury of the Illidari plus Eye Beam combo, but your AOE will still be strong enough to take on just as many mobs.

Mobility

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Demon Hunter Chaos Dmg Go Through Armor Mod

This one isn’t as big of an issue and will completely depend on how you play out in the world. As we’ve gone over before, Demon Hunter mobility is pretty insane. That’s still true of Vengeance, but not as true as it is of Havoc.

With Havoc, you’re able to Fel Rush up the sides of cliffs/hills that Vengeance sometimes can’t because of limitations on Infernal Strike. Not only that, but Vengeful Retreat adds a very strong mobility cooldown that works amazingly well with Fel Rush and Double Jump — provided you actually know how to use it (coughLiz cough).

Verdict: If you like exploring or enjoy using Demon Hunters’ unique mobility tools often, Havoc tops Vengeance.

End-game preparation

This one is harder to quantify, but it’s worth discussing. When you level as a particular spec, you tend to get a good feel for that spec’s rotation and talent synergy. This is especially true for Demon Hunters, who earn talents all the way through level 110. Blizzard has even said that part of the reasoning behind giving early access Demon Hunters only two tiers of talents and gating the rest behind leveling was because developers wanted players to get a feel for the basic rotation before complicating it with talents.

If you’re working toward something like the Momentum build for Havoc, it will absolutely help to get an idea of how your rotation evolves as a result of talents earned over the course of leveling. Vengeance, in my experience, has less of an issue with this but that’s because tanking is also a different game.

It’s not necessary to tank dungeons while leveling, but it certainly helps, since your rotation doesn’t change so much as the way you play does. Knowing when to use cooldowns, how to pull the right amount of mobs, when CC is necessary, and all other manner of tank-y things isn’t something you can really get a feel for while solo leveling. It’s not entirely the same, but if you’re nervous to PUG while leveling, you can always try pulling stronger rare mobs to practice using your cooldowns at the right time. If you really want to make it fun, pull them with some extra adds — it’ll give you a good feel for what your limits are while soloing and help prepare you for Halls of Valor pulls that inevitably end up grabbing the whole room.

Verdict: If Vengeance tanking is your end goal, solo leveling alone won’t always give you the best idea for how to play. It’s still solid, but I’d throw in some dungeons.

The final call

If you’re leveling as Havoc, well, you probably don’t care about what it’s like to level as Vengeance — but maybe you should. Not only is the damage output comparable to what Havoc can do, it’s also an invaluable tool if you ever find yourself up against more than you bargained for. Even if you don’t play Havoc flawlessly, the basic rotation of Shear, Soul Cleave, and Immolation Aura should be enough to keep you alive through most enemies.

And if you were planning on tanking as Vengeance at max-level, then I say go for it. Vengeance soloing offers a solid experience and leads to fewer moments of panic thanks to defensives and the ability to draw in Soul Fragments. You do lose out on mobility and AOE burst, but not enough to significantly slow down your leveling experience.

Ultimately, it’s your call. There are ups and downs to leveling as both specs and it really depends on what you want to get out of your experience as a Demon Hunter. If you were on the fence about it before, though, hopefully this has assuaged any fears about Vengeance’s leveling viability.