So I read the icy veins guide (PVP) and the meta notes on DH and the Meta notes say that DH is good damage but they die far too easy in comparison to other classes.
However The icy veins guide pretty much says go full Mastery.
If the primary complaint is how quickly DH dies shouldn’t you worry less about being a glass cannon and more about Survivability aka Vers gems?
Or am I missing something?
Depends on whether you’re talking about PvE or PvP.
Stacking Versatility is a mistake if PvE because the DPS gains are minimal in comparison to other secondary stats. Survivability is only an issue when compared to other specs. Havoc has no issues surviving “normal” content (a.k.a. 10s or so).
It’s when you get into high keys (13+) that you can very fast see how weak Havoc is.
About damage, Havoc is factually worse in terms of throughput than most of the specs atm. The only reason Havoc is sitting on the mid pack on All Bosses is because of padding in Ulgrax, Ovinax and Rashanan
From Icy Veins:
While playing Fel-Scarred, your stat priority is as follows in all situations:
1. Mastery = Critical Strike;
2. Agility;
3. Haste;
4. Versatility.
While playing aldrachi-reaver.webp) Aldrachi Reaver, your stat priority is as follows in all situations:
1. Critical Strike = Agility;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste.
The stat priority for Havoc Demon Hunter in PvP is as follows:
1. Agility;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste;
5. Critical Strike.
Agility is the best stat in all situations. Mastery ( [Mastery: Demonic Presence](https://www.wowhead.com/spell=185164)) is the strongest secondary stat at all times due to it increasing your Chaos damage and movement speed. You should also try to focus on getting Versatility. This will reduce the damage you take while increasing your overall damage.
Where does it say to go full mastery?
Guys…im talking about PVP. Maybe I shoulda stated that.
Get as much mastery as you can, and fill the rest with versatility.
If you can lay AR (I don’t), people say having a bit more haste is good. This would come at the cost of vers.
Mastery point for point contributes almost twice what any other stat does for havoc.
I have chosen to craft almost every piece to get more mastery as the PvP vendor gear leans more to vers than mastery.
In PVP I have 67% mastery and 22% versatility.
It actually comes at a cost of mastery. My plan was to replace a mastery, vers ring with a haste vers ring, because he is a little slow with full mastery.
If you’re talking specifically about arenas, the problem is that the longer the fight goes on the less you’re able to heal or be healed. DH has only one solid defensive (that doesn’t incapacitate you like an enemy’s CC. Looking at you, Netherwalk), so it’s generally felt for them that the best defense is a relentless offense. You can’t focus on defending yourself above attacking because it just gets harder and harder to do so as the fight goes on. You need to finish the fight asap while you’re still strong, and for havoc that means piles of mastery to increase your chaos damage and movement speed inside a meta where you manage to avoid being CC’d into a coma.
So its an all or nothing class basically. This makes a lot of sense. Thanks you for clarifying this for me.
Yes, all or nothing is a very good way of describing them. At least until, or if, they make changes. Even now DH are capable to puréing an enemy so fast they’ll open a ticket accusing you of cheating, but it takes frankly too much luck and not enough class ability for it to happen.
Ive beenplaying DH awhile now, so I know this feeling but agreed its rare atm
Fun in Blitz, especially team fights, pretty bad everywhere else. Our defensive’s are weak, low sustain our leech got nerfed too bad and there’s too much micro CC in the game fighting to leech to stay alive or full eye beams is hard.
You will get a much better support if you asked this in the Fel Hammer discord. The writers of those guides are also in there, so you will get all your questions properly clarified.
I would try to keep as much mastery as possible. The defensive bonus of versatility is not great and it only contributes half as much damage as mastery.
I prefer the full press W playstyle though.
so your saying you’d rather craft a haste mastery ring instead?
If you want haste, yes.
I did get my haste up to over 20%, but it didn’t impact as many abilities, nor did it impact each as much as I’d hoped. There are only a couple CDs that get reduced with haste and eyebeam was finished channeling 0.4 seconds faster or so. I was also able to get 9 fel lances out in a single rain from above, but I after my testing on the PVP dummy on PTR, vers turned out to be a better all around damage boost.
I had a bunch of hast/mastery gear that i have since recrafted to mastery/vers.
Used to be glass cannons… we’re now glass noodles outside of the meta window lol. Unless you play aldrachi which isn’t fun and clunky imo.
You are shooting yourself in the foot, yes. Can you do well with DH in pvp? Yes. Is it vastly more difficult against nearly every other class and spec? Also yes. Whenever I see a DH in WM or any form of pvp I just see them as a near guaranteed free kill which is sad because I love DH and wish I could play mine more without feeling like I was stepping on rusty nails.
There’s a reason you hardly see them in pvp. I leveled one myself to see how bad it is and they’re just in another league of bad, nothing a DH does stands out vs other classes.
Now that’s going too far. Saying nothing DH does stands out vs other classes is just untrue! We’re great at jumping.
Best jumpers! Look at us jump!! 