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HAVOC DH ADVANCED TIPS
METAMORPHOSIS
In the next segment of our course, we're going to be meticulously dissecting each of your key offensive cooldowns, giving you a comprehensive breakdown on how they work and the rules behind using them. So starting off with one of the most recognizable cooldowns in the Demon Hunters Toolkit, Metamorphosis.
Metamorphosis, which is most commonly referred to as just Meta, transforms almost every ability for the entire class. When you activate Meta, you become a demon for 20 seconds, changing all of your abilities.
Chaos Strike becomes Annihilation, and Blade Dance turns into Death Sweep. Now, these abilities do function similarly to their unempowered versions, but they hit significantly harder.
If you're playing Felsgard, Demonic Intensity takes it further by empowering Eye Beam, Immolation Aura, and Sigil of Flame during Meta. As Elrachi, Meta doesn't necessarily change anything, other than we want to make sure to use our Reverse Glaive buffs during Demon form.
With the talent Inner Demon, we need to make sure that we hit Annihilation after entering Meta, whether it's through Eye Beam or the actual ability. If you use another ability to extend Meta without using Inner Demon, then you lose the Inner Demon procs since they don't stack.
Now, offensively, Metamorphosis is your most important burst cooldown. It supercharges your damage by empowering Death Sweep and Annihilation, making it very effective.
It's very difficult to heal through your damage, especially in deep dampening. The goal in PvP is to use Metamorphosis as often as possible.
Do not hold it for the perfect window. Every single extra cast you fit in across a match increases your overall pressure, and it gives you more opportunities to set up kills.
Now, ideally, you're going to want to pair Meta with an Essence Break combo. If the enemy has no Trinket or defensive cooldowns, this combo alone can absolutely secure the kill.
Metamorphosis isn't just an offensive combo. It can actually be used defensively as well.
When you're in the air after activating Metamorphosis, you become immune to all damage and crowd control. And if you time this correctly, it even cancels incoming damage that's already in the air.
This is especially useful against setup comps like Rogue Mage or Jungle, where you can use Metamorphosis to immune a stun or buy your healer enough time to get out of crowd control. A pretty niche use case on Z-axis maps is to Meta upstairs.
This is a good way to get a good amount of damage, making your opponents either swap or forcing them to burn a gap closer. You can also pair Metamorphosis with Blur or Darkness.
This makes you deceptively tanky, as many players expect you to only use Meta aggressively. You won't necessarily sit on Metamorphosis all game just to use it defensively, though.
It's one of your most important cooldowns, given that so much damage is packed into those Meta windows. However, if you know an enemy's go is coming soon, it might be worth holding onto Metamorphosis for 20 to 30 seconds to squeeze a bit of more value out of it.
This is a good way to get a good amount of damage, making your opponents either swap or force you to burn a gap closer.
ESSENCE BREAK & EYE BEAM
Welcome back to another installment in our Demon Hunter damage course. In this video, we're going to be continuing to break down our offensive cooldowns with Essence Break and Eye Beam.
It's going to provide you with a comprehensive breakdown on how these abilities work and the rules behind using them. Eye Beam on its own really isn't all that impressive.
It deals some damage on a 40 second cooldown. But what does make it truly powerful is its synergy with the Demonic talent.
With Demonic, casting Eye Beam puts you into Metamorphosis for 5 seconds once the channel ends. You're going to enter Demon form as soon as you hit Eye Beam, but the timer doesn't start ticking down until the channel ends.
This means you get all the benefits of Meta without needing to wait for your 3 minute cooldown. So there are a few key talents that interact with Eye Beam.
First, there's Cycle of Hatred, which reduces Eye Beam's cooldown by 5 seconds for every cast of Eye Beam, stacking up to 20 seconds. This is going to bring Eye Beam's cooldown down to 20 seconds fairly quickly.
Next, we have Furious Gaze. Fully channeling Eye Beam grants an additional 10% haste, so it's really going to be crucial not to cancel the cast early.
Finally, we pick up Looks Can Kill for some extra damage. We always want to pair Essence Break with Eye Beam.
Essence Break is a 40 second cooldown that amplifies the damage of your Blade Dance and Chaos Strike for 4 seconds. This is especially important for Eye Beam.
It's especially powerful because Essence Break also enhances Death Sweep and Annihilation. By using Eye Beam into Essence Break, you can fit 2 Annihilations and 1 Death Sweep into the debuff window.
If Essence Break comes off cooldown before Eye Beam, you want to hold this cooldown, as there's no value in using it. We can see this in action with this clip here.
The Demon Hunter starts by using Eye Beam on the Paladin, followed by Essence Break. They quickly use Vengeful Retreat to avoid being crowd controlled, and then go into Death Sweep and 2 Annihilations.
Now, it's important to prioritize Death Sweep during your burst window, since it's your highest damage ability and, of course, applies our Mortal Strike. While it is possible to send an Eye Beam and Essence Break combo without a stun, it's generally not recommended unless you're confident it's going to secure the kill.
The moment the enemy sees Essence Break, their first instinct will likely be to kite or crowd control you, which can completely shut down your burst. So, if you do have an Eye Beam, you want to keep an eye on that, and you can do that by using Essence Break.
You can also use the E-Mode, which is the same as the E-Mode that I showed you in the beginning of the video. The E-Mode will not give you a lot of damage, so it's not really worth it.
Now, we have to hit the E-Mode once, and the time will be up to the enemy to get the chance to kill us. I'll try to do that, but I'll use the E-Mode again.
This time, the enemy is going to get the chance to kill us, and he can't kill us. So, the enemy's going to get the chance to kill us, which is a good thing.
Now, the enemy is going to get the chance to kill us.
BIG INCAP?
Now, you might have heard the term Big NCAP. There are some creative uses to this ability, making it an absolute game-changer in the right hands.
But what does it actually mean? So this refers to Detainment, arguably one of the most powerful crowd control abilities in the game.
Imagine having Cyclone as an instant cast. That's essentially what Detainment is.
Now, similarly, the imprisoned target can't be healed or take any damage. One of the most common uses of Detainment is to peel during an enemy's offensive cooldowns.
When you see an enemy player pop all their cooldowns, you can throw Detainment on them. It's undispellable, it's unbreakable, and it buys your team the time you need to recover, especially if you don't have any defensive cooldowns.
Another clever use is to stop incoming CC. For example, if a major warlock is casting crowd control on your healer, simply use Detainment on them.
Not only does this interrupt their cast, but it also prevents them from immediately recasting their cooldowns. So think of Detainment as the pause button in Arena.
You can also use it offensively too, especially when an enemy uses their defensive cooldowns. This works similarly to the concept of cloning a target low, where you prevent the enemy from stabilizing.
Detainment helps you maintain momentum, and it keeps the pressure throughout the match. So when using Detainment, you need to be careful when chaining CC.
Targets are immune to everything while they're imprisoned, so chaining CC like a stun or a fear, can be a good way to keep your team from getting caught. If you're not sure if you're into Detainment, it won't work if you don't wait until Detainment actually ends, giving healers a global.
Now for this reason, Detainment is best used at the end of a CC chain, rather than the beginning of a CC chain. This can be especially effective when used right after a healer trinkets.
DON’T BREAK THE COMBO
So did you know you have the absolute perfect combo that you need to focus on executing every single time? It's a little trick that's called up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, and start.
Wait a minute. That's the wrong game.
That's, that's not this game. For Demon Hunter, the key to success is going to be mastering the combo of I-beam, Essence Break, Death Sweep, and Annihilation.
This combo is how we're going to be landing kills, and it serves as the bread and butter of Demon Hunter Burst. Now that might sound straightforward, but let's be real here.
Games rarely go as planned. We're all used to this by now.
So you're probably wondering what happens if I get crowd controlled during I-beam or Essence Break. What if the target kites away from me?
What if my cooldowns are out of sync? That's exactly why we are here in this video with you right now on this day at this minute.
So let's start. Let's start with crowd control.
If you're worried about getting locked down during your burst, the key is to have glimpse ready. You can use glimpse mid combo to avoid CC, then quickly follow up with Fel Blade or Fel Rush to get back in position and keep your sequence going without any major interruptions.
Now to avoid getting kited, always make sure you have a stun ready before initiating your burst. If you go all in with I-beam and Essence Break without applying crowd control to your kill target, chances are they're just going to kite you.
Now, when that happens, you've not only wasted your cooldowns, but you also reduced your chances of securing the win. You'll always have I-beam ready before Essence Break thanks to the cooldown reduction from Cycle of Hatred.
Now as a general rule here, it's going to be better to use your in-between cast of I-beam, even if it means holding onto Essence Break for a bit to do so. And as we discussed earlier, make sure you have glimpse available and your target is stunned.
This way you can ensure your damage actually connects when the moment comes.
OUTPLAYING WITH GLIMPSE
What if I told you that the Demon Hunter has one of the hardest abilities in the game to truly master? Sure, we all know Demon Hunter is easy to pick up and anyone can play it, but truly mastering it?
That's on a whole different level. So let us show you what we mean here.
The Glimpse Talent is your ticket to outplaying any form of crowd control in the game. Picture this, the enemy team is setting up for the game-winning play, but you glimpse just in time to save the game.
When we use Vengeful Retreat, we become immune to crowd control while in the air. You can extend this immunity by using Glide, Ramps, or Fell Rush to keep yourself airborne.
Now when you see the enemy team setting up crowd control on your healer, be ready to Glimpse to avoid any stuns which allows you to kite and disrupt their setup. So we briefly touched on how Glimpse can be used to immune crowd control during your burst in other videos, and that's definitely a good practice.
But did you know you can also use Glimpse to help you land? If you just walk up to the enemy healer, chances are you're going to get crowd controlled on the way there.
However, if you use Glimpse to close the gap, you can reach the healer and land your crowd control without worrying about getting peeled. Now Glimpse isn't just crowd control immunity though.
It also provides damage reduction while you're in the air. If you spot something like Chaos Bolts coming your way, or you simply need to buy your healer some extra time while they're in CC, you can use Glimpse to reduce the damage, which effectively serves as another defensive on a short cooldown.
Glimpse can help you stay in the fight longer, so make sure to take advantage of this ability.
DON’T FORGET REVERSE
Reverse Magic is often overlooked by many a Demon Hunter. They see it as a waste of time because they tend to get crowd controlled on the go, never even getting a chance to use it.
But that's exactly why we take it. Reverse Magic changes the way the enemy team has to approach the game.
If they know you don't have this talent, they can funnel all their crowd control onto your healer, which makes it much harder for your team to survive. With Reverse Magic, it forces the enemy team to prioritize crowd controlling you first.
This gives you the opportunity to use your defensives. Reverse Magic isn't just for reversing crowd control, though.
It does have other uses, too. For example, if you see a Shadow Priest or a Balanced Druid pop all their cooldowns, you can reverse their dots, which is going to set them back several, several Globals, and this is especially going to be useful if you're trying to line and try to avoid getting redotted.
You can even reverse an Evoker's Oppressing Roar, which gives you a free CC extension. Now, a neat trick with Reverse Magic is that it's one of the only abilities you can use while in Netherwalk.
This means you can use Netherwalk to survive, then walk over to your healer and Reverse Magic their crowd control, giving them the chance to top you off. Make sure to talent into this powerful ability whenever you're facing a team with magic-based crowd control.
It's definitely going to be a game changer in those matchups.
HAVOC MOBILITY TIPS
So Demon Hunters can clear an entire map in just three Globals. With this much mobility, you'd think you can use it however you want, right?
Well, not exactly. There's actually a delicate balance here that we have to talk about.
Our mobility buttons, they aren't just for movement. They're also key for dealing damage and staying alive as well.
So take Vengeful Retreat, for example. It's our biggest defensive mobility tool.
But at the same time, it's also one of our most impactful offensive abilities. So let's dive in and explore why.
Vengeful Retreat works a lot like a Hunter's Disengage, but with some extra benefits. First, when you use Vengeful Retreat, you're going to generate 80 Fury over 10 seconds.
Second, it resets your initiative buff, giving you a significant increase to your critical strike chance. And finally, you get Glimpse, which provides immunity to crowd control and reduces damage taken.
And finally, you get the ability to use Vengeful Retreat for as long as you're in the air. Now, with all these offensive bonuses, you might be wondering, when's the right time to use Vengeful Retreat purely for mobility?
The answer is pretty easy. During your burst windows.
Using it then not only helps you stay on your target, but it also amps up your damage output when it matters most. And if you want to focus entirely on damage, try pairing Fel Blade with Vengeful Retreat to instantly leap back straight to your target.
We can see this in action right here in this video. Here, the Demon Hunter is in Meta and needs to maintain uptime on the Paladin.
To maximize damage and avoid CC, they use Vengeful Retreat, followed by Fel Blade to stay on their target. This combo helps us to generate a steady stream of Fury, which allows the Demon Hunter to focus on high impact abilities like Death Sweep and Annihilation during their Meta.
Now, speaking of Fel Blade, it's similar to a Warrior's Charge, but with a much shorter range of just 15 yards. When you use it, you leap to your target and you generate a solid amount of Fury.
Fel Blade does have a chance to reset with your auto attacks, so you want to weave it in whenever you need Fury or to close the gap on your target. But there's a neat trick you can do with Fel Blade.
If you're getting knocked back, you can use Fel Blade to cancel the knockback and instantly jump right back to your target. So now, let's talk about Fel Rush.
It dashes you forward and you've got two charges to work with. Well, that's pretty simple, right?
But here's where that delicate balance part we talked about really comes into play. With Unbound Chaos, Fel Rush is actually one of your highest damage abilities.
When you activate Immolation Aura, it boosts the damage of your next Fel Rush by a massive 250%. And consuming that buff doesn't just hit hard.
It also gives you a damage buff, depending on whether you play Momentum or Inertia. Now, it's always going to be a smart idea to save at least one charge, of Fel Rush, for movement.
If you use up both charges purely for damage, you're going to find it much harder to stay on your target when they start kiting. Balancing damage and mobility is going to be key to making the most out of this ability.
So now, let's take a closer look at the Demon Hunter's Fel Rush charges. You're going to notice they always try to keep at least one charge available.
Even when both are used, there's only a short gap of a few seconds where they're without a Fel Rush. The takeaway here?
It's almost always better to watch out for Fel Rush. It's a good way to block towards your target and save your mobility for when you really need it, rather than using it just because it's available.
BLUR TIPS AS HAVOC
In this course we are going to be diving deep into defensive play and cooldown management. Surviving is just as important as dealing damage.
Rotating defensives properly means more uptime, more pressure, and more chances to secure the win. Blur is the go-to defense cooldown for Demon Hunters.
It gives you a bit of damage reduction and a 50% chance to dodge attacks, making you much harder to hit. With just a one minute cooldown, you can use it more often than other defensives, but knowing when to use it is really going to be key.
So let's dive into the best times to use Blur. The first and most obvious way to use Blur is as a response to enemy cooldowns being used on you.
See a Hunter pop Trueshot? Blur.
See a Rogue use Shadow Dance? Blur.
See a Mage cast Icy Veins? You guessed it, Blur.
Since it gives you both damage reduction and a chance to dodge, you can use it to mitigate pretty much any major offensive cooldown. But before you see any of these, you should know that Blur is a very important skill to use.
It's a very important skill to use. If you start using Blur every time an enemy pops a cooldown, make sure you are actually the kill target.
If you hit Blur too early just because someone used a cooldown, you might become the kill target instead. Blur acts as a deterrent, especially against melee, so by using it wisely, you can really make the difference between staying in the fight and having to play more defensively.
Blur can also be used preemptively to shut down an enemy's kill attempt as well. If you see your healer get crowd controlled, popping Blur gives you that crucial damage reduction that you need to do to get the kill.
If you see your healer get crowd controlled, you can use Blur to get the kill. Blur is a very important skill to use, but it's also a very important skill to use.
Even better, you might dodge stuns like Kidney Shot or Leg Sweep entirely. That makes it nearly impossible for you to go down.
Blur is going to be best used though when you're at high health. If you wait until you're at 10, 20, or even 30% health, you're really going to risk getting stunned through Blur and dying, or just take a massive hit that goes through the dodge.
It's fantastic against melee, but it's not evasion, so don't treat it like one. Always assume some damage is going to land and use Blur proactively to get the kill.
If you're going to get stunned, use Blur proactively rather than as a last second cooldown. Blur should always be the first cooldown that you trade out defensively.
Darkness is great, sure, but it's a very long cooldown and can be used to save anyone on the team, whereas Blur only helps you. Netherwalk falls in the same boat of being a very long cooldown, so you may not get multiple casts of it.
NETEHRWALK TIPS
Welcome back to another installment in our Demon Hunter course. In this video, we're going to be continuing to break down our Defensive cooldowns with Netherwalk, providing you with a comprehensive breakdown on how this ability works and the rules behind using it.
But before we get into Netherwalk, let's clear something up here. Netherwalk is pure damage immunity.
That's it. You're not immune to crowd control.
You can still be stunned, cycloned, sheeped, feared, and really anything else. This is important to really grasp because just pressing Netherwalk doesn't mean you're untouchable.
Now what does it actually do? It grants 100% damage immunity for 6 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown.
The catch is that you can't attack while it's active. While you can't attack during Netherwalk, there is one ability that does still work, Reverse Magic.
You can use Netherwalk to survive the go, then follow it up with Reverse Magic to clear any crowd control on your healer. This combo is especially useful against classes like Affliction Warlock, which is a very useful combo to use against the opponent.
Now, if you're a DPS, you can use Netherwalk to survive the go, then follow it up with Reverse Magic to clear any crowd control on your healer. You can use Netherwalk to survive the go, then follow it up with Reverse Magic to clear any crowd control on your healer.
You can pop Netherwalk, then use Reverse Magic to clear your dots without having the backlash from Unstable Affliction. There are definitely a few situations where you want to push Netherwalk.
The most straightforward use is when you're low on health. If you're sitting at 20% or lower, it's usually best to just pop Netherwalk, especially if your healer is in crowd control.
And at this point, your other defensive cooldowns like Blur and Darkness likely won't even be enough to save you, so Netherwalk becomes your best bet to survive until you can get topped off. The second key situation to use Netherwalk is in response to massive bursts that you know you won't survive no matter what.
This is commonly done against Subtlety Rogues with a tactic known as Trinket Nether, so here's how it works. You immediately trinket out of a stun from a one-shot class that's popped all their cooldowns, then use Netherwalk.
The immediate trinket is important because if you hesitate, you're going to get re-stunned on your trinket. The reason we want to use Trinket and Netherwalk while you're still at high health is simple.
There's a good chance you won't survive the burst. If you do, you're going to be so low on health that your healer will have to use their cooldowns just to keep you alive.
The final situation is known as a pre-Nether, and it's an absolute last resort. If you know your healer's about to get crowd controlled, you can use Netherwalk right before you get stunned.
This is only ever done when you have no trinket, your healer has no trinket, and there's no other way you're surviving. A pre-Nether is incredibly risky because if the enemy team doesn't commit damage, you've effectively just wasted the cooldown, but sometimes it's going to be your only option.
Just because we can use Trinket, Nether, pre-Nether, or even just Nether in general, you shouldn't use it if you have other cooldowns. Sometimes it is better to trade out a Darkness or a Blur early on cooldowns to avoid having to Nether.
This is because you can't do anything to peel in Netherwalk, with the small exception of Imprison. You also can't counter pressure like you can when using Blur and Darkness.
DARKNESS TIPS
Welcome back to yet another video in our Demon Hunter course. Today we're going to be taking a closer look at Darkness.
We're going to walk you through how it works, when to use it, and the strategies to ensure you're getting the most out of this ability. Darkness is one of those abilities that can be a love-hate relationship.
It gives you a 50% chance to completely immune a hit, meaning you either take the full hit or dodge it entirely. This randomness can be pretty frustrating because you could drop Darkness at 100% health and still die if all the big hits manage to go through it.
As annoying as it sounds, Darkness is truly a game of chance when it comes to survival. It has a base cooldown of 5 minutes, and unless you're taking Pitch Black, expect to get only one use per encounter.
Against Priest, you need to be extra careful as well. If you get mind controlled, Darkness is no longer going to protect you.
It'll actually affect the enemy team instead of yours. So to avoid this, you can use abilities like Glimpse to avoid the mind control, or simply toss out some CC or a kick to stop the Priest from getting hit.
You can also use the ability to avoid the Priest's attack, or simply toss out some CC or a kick to stop the Priest from getting hit. You can also use the ability to avoid the Priest's attack, or simply toss out some CC or a kick to stop the Priest from getting hit.
You can also use the ability to avoid the Priest's attack, or simply toss out some CC or a kick to stop the Priest from getting hit. You can also use the ability to avoid the Priest's attack, or simply toss out some CC or a kick to stop the Priest from getting hit.
Because of Darkness's random nature, it's incredibly versatile in how it can be used, but whenever you do decide to drop it, you always want to make sure to use it at high health to give yourself the best chance of surviving. The simplest and most effective way to use Darkness is on the opener.
This means you use it once, it saves the day, and then you don't have to worry about it again. It's especially valuable against high burst cops like Turbo, where the first go is often going to be the most terrifying.
However, don't just hit Darkness on your first global, make sure the enemy has actually popped their cooldowns before you use it. Darkness can also be a lifesaver when your teammate is stunned.
In solo shuffle this is often the best option because, let's be real here, everyone runs out of Darkness instantly. If you notice a stun, the enemy's pop cooldowns, and your teammate doesn't have a trinket, just toss out Darkness to give them the best chance of surviving.
And just like with Blur and Nether, you can also use Darkness preemptively. A pre-Darkness does tend to be better than a pre-Nether when you're stacked with your teammate.
This way the enemy can't just swap to your teammate. If you use pre-Nether, they're free to swap to your teammate and potentially force more cooldowns.
Darkness, in this case, helps to keep both you and your teammate safe for just a little bit longer. While it's never going to be ideal to use Darkness at low health, you definitely don't want to die with it off cooldown.
If you notice that your healer has no way of topping you up, and you're at a point where you might not survive, throwing out Darkness at low health is a better option than just dying.
Now, of course, it's still a gamble, and if you're unlucky, you might still die, but it's better to give yourself a little bit of a chance.
USING CC DEFENSIVELY AS HAVOC
The last topic we're going to be diving into in our defensive play course is how to use crowd control to peel for your team and stop enemy goes. Crowd control is hands down the best way to peel for your team, and luckily, Demon Hunters come with a solid set of tools, two stuns, an end cap, and a fear.
But out of all your CC, Imprison is by far the most versatile. When you see an enemy team popping all their cooldowns, toss Detainment on them.
It's undispellable, it's unbreakable, and buys your team the time you need to recover, especially if you don't have any defensive cooldowns. You can also use Imprison if you notice the enemy team targeting your healer with CC.
You can throw Imprison on the DPS right after they CC your healer, preventing them from following up with any damage. If they shrink it out of it, you can immediately re-stun them and maybe even fear off.
Chaos Nova is an incredible cooldown, allowing you to stun the entire enemy team. While it is fantastic for offense though, it can be just as effective defensively.
If you need some breathing room, a quick-dive, or a quick-dive, you can use it to get your team to pull off a good fight. Stun can give you the space that you need.
It's also great for stopping pets from Demonology Warlocks and Beast Mastery Hunters. Since Chaos Nova only lasts for 3 seconds, do be mindful not to waste it when the enemy is already on stun DR.
You can follow up Chaos Nova with Sigil of Misery to peel, as it'll fear any enemies caught in the Sigil. Since it's undispellable, the only way out would be through a Trinket, Berserker Shout, or Tremor Totem, making it incredibly effective for peeling.
A well-timed fear can stop a go without having to burn any of your enemies. If you're a DPS, you can use it to get your team any of your defensive cooldowns.
Since Fel Eruption is a ranged stun, it is perfect for stopping CC on your healer. It's especially useful against high-mobility casters like Mages and Devastation Evokers who may try to chain CC your healer.
However, you do not want to use this randomly, as it could waste DRs, but when you know you absolutely need to interrupt a CC chain, it's going to be your go-to when you can't kick.
You can even use it on a Rogue or any Melees who are about to CC your healer, helping you keep your distance and preventing them from landing that crazy damage. If you're a DPS, you can use it to get your team to pull off a Trinket, which is a crucial crowd control.
You definitely do not want to waste your CC. Just because you can stun or imprison something doesn't mean you should throw it out immediately.
It's all about balance. Your CC is a valuable tool for both offense and defense.
Using it wisely means you can peel for your team when needed and also set up your own damage. Ideally, after using defensive CC, you want to follow up with your offensive cooldowns to keep the pressure on the enemy team.
That way, you're not just reacting, but also doing it. Also, doing your own go.