Lvl 45 Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft

Demon Hunters are the kings of mobility in raids and dungeons. In general, they can move around more and more quickly than many other specs, thanks to Infernal Strike, as well as various talents that aid their mobility. Additionally, they excel at burst AoE damage, with many abilities dealing AoE and cleave damage. They also excel at dungeon utility with their sigils.

Vengeance Demon Hunter gameplay features a mix between healing and damage mitigation, with low-cost but low-uptime of active mitigation, the ability to mitigate magic damage well, and extremely high burst healing potential.

This is a compendium of information related to the niche of XP-locking a World of Warcraft character at level 45 (old 110 Legion characters) and is definitely the most complete and updated guide you will ever find on the Web, regarding this subject.

If you play a character that’s locked to a different level range (for example 19 or 20) you can still draw some hints from this guide, you just don’t have access to any raids.

This guide is updated with the latest changes of the World of Warcraft 10.1.7 patch (Dragonflight).

Some info will always be outdated because unlike in the old Blizzard days, when you farmed 6 months for a xp-locked character and you were done for at least a year, now the gear is useful until the next major change, which usually comes in a month or so. Gear gets nerfed, enchants get disabled, now you can do timewalking and the next week you can’t, legendaries are iLvl 400 this week, next 50, the next one they’re disabled. You get the idea, it’s a mess.

Also, if you find the information presented here useful, donate some Monero.

Legend

• Agi is Agility.
• Vers is Versatility.
• Has is Haste.
• Crit is Critical Strike.
• Sta is Stamina.
• Mas is Mastery.
• Arm is Armor.
• iLvl is the item level.
• HP is total Health Points.
• BiS, whether the item is Best in Slot.
• TBC is The Burning Crusade, WotLK is Wrath of the Lich King, MOP is Mists of Pandaria, WOD is Warlords of Draenor, BfA is Battle for Azeroth, SL is Shadowlands and DF is Dragonflight.

The countless nicks and gouges that mar the Aldrachi Warblades form a map of their violent history. These weapons have vanquished thousands of demons and absorbed their twisted souls. It is said that the warblades even drew the molten blood of the Burning Legion’s ruler, Sargeras.

Truly, there is extraordinary power in these otherworldly blades. In your hands, there is no telling what havoc they will wreak on the Legion.

Summary

• With proper gear a Vengeance demon hunter is really unkillable and self-sufficient, you won’t depend on healers and can solo all dungeons available at your level and even some raids.
• You can never have too many sockets!
• Dragonflight prepatch destroyed the old Azerite gear.
• Did I mention sockets? You want them!
• You have access to the Mage Tower challenges (tank and dps).
• All enchants should be +Agility when possible.
• Currently (as of Dragonflight but this was a problem in Shadowlands too) it’s impossible to get into PvP battlegrounds if you’re xp-locked, there are too few players playing lvl 45 xp-locked characters in the game.
• All gems should be +Critical Strike (Deadly Deep Chemirine or Deadly Lava Lazuli) when you dps or +Versatility (Versatile Labradorite or Versatile Dark Opal) when you tank, with three exceptions: one +12 Agi, one +9 Agi and one +9 Agi gems.
• If you are tanking, the secondary stat priority is Versatility = Haste, if you are dps the priority is Critical Strike = Haste. Agility is very important and so is Stamina.
• Highest iLvl items you will have are the Heart of Azeroth (100-150+), the three Azerite pieces of gear (they start at iLvl 59 and will go to iLvl 64), Warforged Relinquished/Dauntless/Unsullied tokens at iLvl 60, Legion legendaries at iLvl 59, Class Hall set can be upgraded to iLvl 54, Baleful tokens can proc up to iLvl 52, Legion crafted items can be upgraded from 50 to 60 not anymore. World green BoEs can be max iLvl 57 (and they can proc one socket AND tertiary stats), everything else will be iLvl 50. Old Mythic Antorus Titanforged items are now iLvl 55.
• Keep in mind that Azerite gear traits DO NOT WORK in Shadowlands zones, Dragonflight zones or PvP battlegrounds. For those you want another set of equipment.
• If you didn’t bother to enchant your gear until now, you won’t be able to do it except for weapons and rings (BfA enchants) because Blizztivision forgot to update enchants scaling.
• Farming Antorus Mythic (in a party with a higher level than you, of course) will render you iLvl 163 gear that it’s a good start but in the end you want iLvl 163 WoD warforged and socketed epics and/or iLvl 137 TBC dungeon multi-socketed gear.
• Heart of Azeroth is not that important irelevant now as it was during BfA or even Shadowlands. It provides 20-27 mainstat and 100-120 secondaries, split between Critical Strike, Haste and Mastery (no Versatility). If you are not using Azerite gear (or the traits are not enabled in that specific zone) you might consider using another necklace.
• The best legendary combo is: Prydaz, Xavaric’s Magnum Opus, The Sentinel’s Eternal Refuge and if you’re insanely lucky, Aman’Thul’s Vision.

Stats

Agility increases your Attack Power, Dodge chance, and Armor of Demon Spikes.

Stamina is found on every piece of gear and adds to your health. It is good as a baseline, but generally does not factor into consideration outside of item level.

Armor is also found on every piece of gear aside from rings and trinkets. It gives you physical mitigation up to a cap of 85% reduction. However, you cannot currently reach the armor cap. Every point of armor increases your effective health by the same amount, but gives less damage reduction.

Mastery increases your Attack Power, and the amount of damage reduction you gain from Demon Spikes based on your Agility. Will increase your armor by half the amount when Demon Spikes is not active.

Critical Strike increases the chance for your damaging abilities to be twice as effective. Your Critical Strike chance is also converted into Parry chance. Shattered Souls can not critically heal for twice the amount, but some other minor self-healing effects can. Critical Strike interacts with the talent Volatile Flameblood to generate extra Fury from Immolation Aura. There is a hard cap at 100%, but it is currently not achievable.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken. It works against all forms of damage, so it is the most effective general purpose stat for damage reduction.

Haste reduces the global cooldown (until you reach 100% Haste), and also reduces the cooldown of Demon Spikes, Immolation Aura, Felblade, and Fracture.

Leech grants you a portion of your damage and healing, excluding the healing from Soul Fragment as healing. It cannot crit and is not affected by Versatility.

Speed makes you run a bit faster.

Avoidance allows you to take reduced damage from AoE attacks. It has a cap of 20%. AoE attacks must be those which specifically deal damage to multiple players immediately, and not through a ticking debuff.

• Normal stat priority for a Vengeance Demon Hunter is Agility ➝ Haste ➝ Critical Strike ➝ Versatility ➝ Mastery but for this build we’re going for Agility ➝ Critical Strike ➝ Haste ➝ Versatility = Mastery because it is an offensive build.
• The main idea is to maximize Critical Strike, Haste and Agility and ignore everything else. You kill as fast as possible while not taking any real damage.
• ~550 Agility is +6.5% Dodge Chance.
• ~560 Critical Strike is +39% Parry Chance.
• ~50 Mastery is +12% Attack Power.
• You get plenty of Stamina normally from your gear (especially if you have Heart of Azeroth and Azerite gear) for PvP.
• Mastery is OKish, Haste is good, Versatility is very good for dungeon/raid tanking and solo challenges, Critical Strike is very good for actually doing dps.
• For a DPS set, the aim is to get ~60% Critical Strike unbuffed, and over 75% Critical Strike when the Azerite traits will proc.
• For a tanking set, stack Versatility and Haste.
• If you’re really lucky and you get tertiary procs (+Speed, +Leech), they are good. Indestructible and Avoidance are bad.
• Read more on diminishing returns on secondary stats or how mastery works.
• You can get a total of 375 tertiary stat if by any chance you happen to proc tertiary stats on all your iLvl 163 gear (34 on head, 17 on neck, 19 on cloak, 34 on chest, 25 on shoulders, 19 on wrist, 25 on hands, 25 on waist, 34 on legs, 25 on feet, 17 on each ring, 25 on each trinket, 17 on each weapon) or 269 if you proc them on all of your iLvl 137 gear (24 on head, 13 on neck, 13 on cloak, 24 on chest, 18 on shoulders, 13 on wrist, 18 on hands, 18 on waist, 24 on legs, 18 on feet, 13 on each ring, 18 on each trinket, 12 on each weapon).

Beginning

Start your own journey by leveling a demon hunter (blood elf or night elf for now) to level 45 and lock the xp at that level. Once you did that, if you have a friend that can run you through Antorus mythic each week you’re set. In about a month or two you will have almost BiS gear. Another thing to keep in mind is that in order to equip two Legion legendaries you will need to progress your Class Hall questline quite a bit, so make sure you start working on that. You might want to queue for The Burning Crusade dungeons when you have the time, so you can cash in on those sweet socketed items.

Basically you will want to switch between Legion and The Burning Crusade (and later Warlords of Draenor) Chromie Time for your gearing activities. Once you’re over 140 iLvl you can start soloing Warlords of Draenor dungeons for the socketed warforged epics to complete your Antorus mythic gear. Shadowlands rares give iLvl 130 items that can proc epic for iLvl 143. Make sure you get your Heart of Azeroth from the Battle for Azeroth Chromie Time.

There is no “best” profession but Engineering is always great for fun stuff. Make sure you don’t play on a dead realm else you will need to juggle lots of professions (you will need enchants, gems, consumables).

Equipment

Dragonflight prepatch changed a lot of gear, all Legion token pieces are now bad, so they’re crossed off the lists. If you want to sim your gear, use this tool. You get decide what’s BiS on your own, based on the secondary stat requirements for your play-style but you can look in the sets section for some tips.

✝ grandfathered item, no longer obtainable
✲ chance for socket
❖ meta and prismatic socket
✤ bind on equip

Head

Hood of the Slithering Loa is the only Azerite gear piece available at 45 that has the Swirling Sands Azerite trait.

Shoulders

Gorak Tul’s Mantle is the only Azerite gear piece available at 45 that has the Blightborne Infusion Azerite trait.

Chest

Wrist

Hands

Waist

Legs

Feet

Back

Weapon

Rings

Neck

Trinkets

Sets

Some of the items cross over into multiple sets.

Heart of Azeroth

As of Dragonflight patch 10.1, the Heart of Azeroth is not BiS anymore, Prydaz, Xavaric’s Magnum Opus is way better.

The Heart of Azeroth is still obtainable if you go into a BfA dungeon with someone who already has the necklace, kill the last boss, hope it will drop a piece of Azerite gear for that someone (Azerite gear only drops for characters that already have the Heart of Azeroth) and that you will get traded that piece. It doesn’t have to be leather, could be plate or cloth, it’s not important, you just need to have one piece of Azerite gear in your inventory. When you relog into WoW (and go into Boralus or Dazar’alor) you will get the starting quest to get your necklace.

A good rank to aim for is 89, that will give your Heart of Azeroth an iLvl of 143, there are few sources for Azerite so you can raise its rank:

• Zandalar Port/ Boralus ship mission table.
• Random daily BfA dungeons.
• Faction invasions world quests.
• Rares (once per rare except Mechagon and Nazjatar).
• Invasion war chests and supply chests.
• Island Expeditions and their related quests.
• Quests (once per quest).

You’re looking at maybe 1k-1.5k daily azerite if you don’t do Island Expeditions and don’t kill every rare in Mechagon daily (I sure hope you’re not). After rank 91 expect more than a month for one level and after 93 you should stop because it will take about half year for rank 94.

Item Level

CT means Chromie Time, you need to talk to Chromie and select an expansion. In Chromie Time you can’t enter any raids and you can’t enter dungeons with a difficulty higher than normal, to do raids or heroic dungeons you need to exit Chromie Time by talking to Chromie in Orgrimmar/Stormwind.

One very important thing to keep in mind: sometimes a 163 from Antorus Mythic is better than a multi-socketed 137 from Burning Crusade dungeons, BUT if that 137 is already enchanted then currently nothing beats it. On the other hand, a socketed 163 from Warlords of Draenor is probably better than a multi-socketed and enchanted 137 but the chance to get such a proc is so low it’s not even worth talking about it, unless you play WoW 24/7.

A socket upgrade means there is a chance the item can proc an extra socket, a tertiary upgrade means there is a chance for the item to get an extra tertiary stat, leech, avoidance, speed or indestructible, an epic upgrade means the item could upgrade to epic thus boost its iLvl quite a bit (more than 10 iLvls usually). Warforged upgrades are not available in every expansion and are similar to an epic upgrade (usually about 10-26 iLvls). When there is a chance for warforged or epic upgrade, I only wrote the iLvl for the Chromie Time.

As you can see, it’s a mess. Basically, once you’re in a Chromie Time campaign, all dungeons regardless of expansion will drop iLvl 137 gear, so obviously TBC stuff is BiS due to the huge amount of gem sockets.

Wrist, cloak, rings and trinkets can be Epic from CT Warlords of Draenor (iLvl 163) but the amount of RNG required to get the perfect proc (epic + socket + tertiary) for one item will be insane.

The highest iLvl available to a level 45 currently is 163, both from Antorus Mythic raid and epic procs inside Chromie Time WoD dungeons, but the gear can’t be enchanted and the rate of socket procs (for WoD dungeons) is ultra low. But that shouldn’t stop you to have a BiS set with the highest iLvl available.

To summarize a bit, Antorus 163 gear can’t proc sockets, some of the 163 gear from WoD dungeons can proc sockets (and other goodies).

Legendaries

At baseline, a character can only equip 1 Legion legendary. The Tier 6 Class Order Hall upgrade will allow you to equip 1 additional legendary (over and above the current cap).

At present, there is a two Legion legendary item equip limit. The one exception to this is the Aman’Thul’s Vision trinket added in 7.3.2, which can be equipped IN ADDITION to two other Legion legendaries, for a total of three. But the trinket’s drop rate is so low that you shouldn’t worry about it and just plan the other two (well, actually plan just one because the other one will always be The Sentinel’s Eternal Refuge due to its three gem sockets).

• If your Heart of Azeroth necklace is low level you can equip Prydaz, Xavaric’s Magnum Opus.
• If your Heart of Azeroth necklace is high-level (above 146) you should aim for a legendary ring, either Sephuz’s Secret or Insignia of the Grand Army, depending on the stats you need the most.

Legendary items effects are now (as of Battle for Azeroth expansion) disabled in any content, they are just stat sticks.

• Aman’Thul’s Vision, a trinket, is a legendary introduced in Patch 7.3.2 which has a chance to drop from Argus the Unmaker, the final boss of the Antorus, the Burning Throne raid, on Normal, Heroic or Mythic difficulty. This legendary is unique in that it can be equipped IN ADDITION to 2 other Legion legendaries.
• Insignia of the Grand Army, a ring, is another legendary new to Patch 7.3.2, and is rewarded from the quest Antorus, the Burning Throne: The Death of a Titan which requires that you kill Argus the Unmaker.
• The Sentinel’s Eternal Refuge, feet, can be created by a max Legion-leatherworker or bought from the auction house.

Legion legendaries used to have an iLvl of 910, 940, 970 or 1000 in Legion, that got reduced to 59 and got later (with Dragonflight 10.0.5 patch) bumped to 163 making them viable again.

The Warglaives of Azzinoth TBC legendaries now have an iLvl of 105, under certain circumstances they might be considered “okish”. Especially if already enchanted. Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker is iLvl 101 now.

Upgrades

All the runs are done in legacy mode (with a level 60 character).

Cataclysm

• 20 runs of the Temple of Atal’Hakkar dungeon.
• 160 items dropped in total (2 per boss, 4 bosses per run).
  • 6 Dragon’s Call, one with tertiary stat.
  • 5 Embrace of the Wind Serpent, one with tertiary stat.
  • 14 rare items with tertiary stat.
  • 5 rare items with socket (3 rings, one belt, one neck).
  • no items with both socket and tertiary stat.

Mists of Pandaria

• 12 runs of the Shado-Pan Monastery dungeon.
• 96 items dropped in total (2 per boss, 4 bosses per run).
  • 0 Ka’eng, Breath of the Shadow.
  • 9 rare items with tertiary stat.
  • 5 rare items with socket (2 necks, 2 rings, one belt).
  • 3 items with both socket and tertiary stat (one ring, one belt, one neck).

Warlords of Draenor

• 20 runs of the Auchindoun dungeon.
• 160 items dropped in total (2 per boss, 4 bosses per run).
  • 14 warforged (epic) items.
  • 2 warforged items with tertiary stat.
  • 0 warforged items with socket.
  • 13 rare items with tertiary stat.
  • 3 rare items with socket (2 belts, one ring).
  • 0 items with both socket and tertiary stat.

It looks as if the slots that could be socketed in Shadowlands with Spatial Realignment Apparatus (head, neck, wrist, waist, rings) are the only slots that can proc a socket EXCEPT for Battle for Azeroth items, any of them can proc a socket.

The Lottery

If you want to get BiS gear or close to BiS gear, you will have to play the World of Warcraft lottery. That means that you will need to buy Dauntless, Unsullied and Relinquished tokens and hope that you will get the perfect proc. The perfect proc would be iLvl 60 (Warforged), with one socket and of the Decimator suffix. The slots that will need this perfect proc are:

• Cloak
• Wrist
• Hands
• Rings
• Trinkets

Enchants

Weapons

• Force Multiplier (+33 Agi and +21 Crit)
• Dancing Steel (+37 Agi), grandfathered on weapons with iLvl higher than 50
• Naga Hide (+33 Agi and absorb shield for 1573 damage)
• Celestial Guidance (+5% Agi with is ~17 Agi) req. level 50
• Deadly Navigation (+6 Crit stackable to 5, then +75 Crit)
• Siphoning (+23 Leech)

If you want to go for the numbers, one Dancing Steel enchant on each weapon (they proc independently and you can have two buffs at the same time for 74 Agi together).

Actually, you should have 4 weapons, one with Force Multiplier, two with Dancing Steel, and one with Celestial Guidance, one with Naga Hide and rotate accordingly.

Armor

• Shoulder: Greater Tiger Claw Inscription (+5 Agi and +2 Critical Strike).
• Back: Enchant Cloak - Binding of Agility (+3 Agi) or Enchant Cloak - Minor Power (+7 Agi).
• Chest: Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats (+4 All Stats).
• Wrist: Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility (+6 Agi).
• Hands: Scroll of Enchant Gloves - Major Agility (+7 Agi).
• Waist: Living Steel Belt Buckle (+1 Socket).
• Legs: Shadowleather Leg Armor (+7 Agi and +4 Crit).
• Feet: Enchant Boots - Greater Agility (+4 Agi).
• Rings: Enchant Ring - Accord of Critical Strike (+14 Crit), Enchant Ring - Accord of Versatility (+14 Versatility), Enchant Ring - Accord of Haste (+14 Haste) or Enchant Ring - Accord of Mastery (+14 Mastery) depending on your stats budget.

Gems

• Deadly Deep Chemirine (Legion) and Deadly Lava Lazuli (BfA) both give +12 Crit. Deadly Jewel Cluster (SL) only gives +9 Crit.
• Masterful Argulite (Legion) and Masterful Sea Currant (BfA) give +12 Mastery. For Mastery fans.
• Deadly Eye of Prophecy gives +9 Crit.
• You can use Versatile Labradorite (Legion) or Versatile Dark Opal (BfA) for +12 Versatility.
• If you need Haste, Quick Lightsphene (Legion) or Quick Sand Spinel (BfA) both give +12.
• 1x Leviathan’s Eye of Agility (+12 Agi)
• 1x Saber’s Eye of Agility (+9 Agi)
• 1x Kraken’s Eye of Agility (+9 Agi)
• For other mainstat gems, Delicate Queen’s Garnet is +4 Agi.

Under no circumstances you should have less than 3 sockets in your equipped gear, one ring and the off-hand Claw of the Watcher should have the three Eye of Agility gems socketed.

Azerite gear

There are currently several “types” of Azerite gear in game available at level 45:

• Old (pre-SL) questing gear from finishing all the questlines in all the BfA zones (so 6 pieces in total, 12 if you want to change faction) that have amazing traits. They are stuck at iLvl 59 and useless now.
• Old (pre-DF) dungeon drops that require level 48 and are iLvl 59. Useless.
• Old (pre-SL) PvP drops from Secret and War Chests in BfA zones during a faction invasion. Stuck at iLvl 59 and useless but they have unique traits.
• New (post-DF) dungeon drops that are iLvl 137 but their traits are ok-ish. Look out for Swirling Sands, Blightborne Infusion, Blood Rite or Tradewinds traits.
• There might be another type of gear, new post-DF questing gear from finishing all the questlines in all the BfA zones. I can’t test what type of gear you can get and its iLvl.

Obviously, you should only use post-Dragonflight iLvl 137 Azerite gear with proper traits IF your Heart of Azeroth iLvl is high enough to offset Prizerock Neckband’s iLvl. Which means your HoA should be at least iLvl 137, if it’s lower than that, use Prizerock Neckband or another necklace.

Be aware of the fact that if you are using BiS dungeon gear + Prizerock Neckband versus BiS Azerite gear + Heart of Azeroth, you will gain about 10% Critical Strike but you lose traits. Also, can’t stress this enough, Azerite traits do not work in Shadowlands zones, Dragonflight zones and PvP combat.

Here is the list of all Azerite gear pieces available at 45 (for Horde, Alliance has a few different pieces):

Dungeon

• Mantle of Fastidious Machinations, shoulders
• Spymaster Wrap, chest
• Irontide Captain’s Hat, head
• Gold-Tasseled Epaulets, shoulder
• Cowl of Fluid Machinations, head
• Tentacle-Laced Spaulders, shoulder
• Hood of the Slithering Loa, head
• High Altitude Turban, head
• Venture Co. Plenipotentiary Vest, chest
• Shoulders of the Sanguine Monstrosity, shoulder
• Gore-Splattered Vest, chest
• Flashpowder Hood, head
• Pistoleer’s Spaulders, shoulder
• Gorak Tul’s Mantle, shoulder
• Raiment of the Blighted Tribe, chest

Questing

• Jambani Mask, head
• Jambani Hood, head
• Jambani Jerkin, chest
• Jambani Shoulderpads, shoulder
• Honorbound Outrider’s Faceguard, head
• Honorbound Outrider’s Mantle, shoulder
• Honorbound Outrider’s Vestments, chest
• Ritual Flayer’s Mask, head
• Ritual Flayer’s Jerkin, chest
• Ritual Flayer’s Spaulders, shoulder
• Scorching Sands Mask, head
• Scorching Sands Shoulderpads, shoulder
• Scorching Sands Shoulderguards, shoulder
• Scorching Sands Wraps, chest
• Cowl of the Champion, head
• Vest of the Champion, chest
• Shoulderguards of the Champion, shoulder
• Bartered Vyrkul Cowl, head

Rares

• Commodore Calhoun’s Tricorne, head
• Cursed Boarhide Helm, head
• Headtaker’s Helm, head
• Shadraspawn Shoulderpads, shoulder
• Parrot-Trainer Mantle, shoulder
• Master Dinomancer’s Tunic, chest
• Tidebound Chestguard, chest

Grandfathered

• Dread Aspirant’s Leather Helm, head
• Dread Aspirant’s Leather Tunic, chest
• Dread Aspirant’s Leather Spaulders, shoulder
• Sinister Aspirant’s Leather Helm, head
• Sinister Aspirant’s Leather Tunic, chest
• Sinister Aspirant’s Leather Spaulders, shoulder
• Notorious Aspirant’s Leather Helm, head
• Notorious Aspirant’s Leather Tunic, chest
• Notorious Aspirant’s Leather Spaulders, shoulder
• Corrupted Aspirant’s Leather Helm, head
• Corrupted Aspirant’s Leather Tunic, chest
• Corrupted Aspirant’s Leather Spaulders, shoulder

Consumables

• Food: Bountiful Captain’s Feast (+23 Agility), Mech-Dowel’s “Big Mech” (+21 Critical Strike) or Fragrant Kakavia (+46 Stamina).
• Augment Rune: Defiled Augment Rune (+7 Agility).
• Flask: Greater Flask of the Currents (+45 Agility) or Greater Flask of the Vast Horizon (+68 Stamina).
• Potion: Superior Battle Potion of Agility (+153 Agility), Abyssal Healing Potion (+6800 health) or Superior Battle Potion of Stamina (+187 Stamina).
• Scrolls: War-Scroll of Fortitude and War-Scroll of Battle Shout.
• Drums: Drums of the Maelstrom or Drums of Fury.
• Others: Draught of Ten Lands, Strange Glowing Mushroom (no CD, any outdoor zone only) and Shadowberry (any outdoor zone only).
• Special: Soul Flame of Rejuvenation, Soul Flame of Castigation, Soul Flame of Fortification and Soul Flame of Alacrity (Legion outdoor zones only), Pridehunter’s Fang, Orb of the Soulstealer and Plume of Celerity (Spires of Arak outdoor only, useful for Rukhmar).
• Valdrakken Ruby Feast: Aruunem Berrytart, Charred Porter, Coal-Fired Rib Rack, Azsunian-Poached Lobster, Rare Vintage Arcwine, Captain’s Caramelized Catfish, Seared Sea Mist Noodles, Fried Emperor Wraps, Ravenberry Panacotta Delight and Moira’s Choice Espresso (any outdoor zone only).

Talents

Pre-Dragonflight

• Abyssal Strike
• Fallout
• Spirit Bomb
• Fracture
• Quickened Sigils
• Demonic

Post-Dragonflight

• View talents

Loadout code:

BUkACnvaHJn8GSPD6tpaeczPTBAAIlQEQBRiIAgk0OARSA4AlkAQoEJBAAAAA

Rotation

1. Use Fel Devastation on cooldown.
2. Use Immolation Aura on cooldown if you will not cap on Fury, and when the risk of capping Soul Fragments is low if you are talented into Fallout.
3. Keep Fracture recharging if you will not cap on Fury and Souls. During Metamorphosis you may overlook wasting small amounts of Fury.
4. Use Sigil of Flame on cooldown as long as you will not cap Fury.
5. Use Spirit Bomb when you have 4 or more Soul Fragments ready, or when you have 3 or more Soul Fragments ready if you are in Metamorphosis.
6. Use Soul Cleave to spend Fury when you have no Soul Fragments available.
7. Use Throw Glaive as a filler when nothing else is available.

Macros

Focus interrupt:

#showtooltip Disrupt
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Disrupt

Infernal Strike:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:ctrl, @player] Infernal Strike; [nomod, @cursor] Infernal Strike

Mouseover taunt:

#showtooltip Torment
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][]Torment

Focus purge:

#showtooltip Consume Magic
/cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Consume Magic

Open mission tables for various expansions, regardless of your location:

# WoD
/run ShowGarrisonLandingPage(Enum.GarrisonType.Type_6_0)
# Legion
/run ShowGarrisonLandingPage(Enum.GarrisonType.Type_7_0)
# BfA
/run ShowGarrisonLandingPage(Enum.GarrisonType.Type_8_0)
# SL
/run ShowGarrisonLandingPage(Enum.GarrisonType.Type_9_0)

Fel rush macro:

/run f=CreateFrame("frame");f.d=0.5;f:SetScript("OnUpdate",function(s,e) f.d=f.d-e if f.d<0 then f:SetScript("OnUpdate",nil) f=nil elseif select(1,GetUnitSpeed("player"))>45 then local d=time()+0.3 while time()<d do end end end)
/use Fel Rush

Macro to get teleported outside dungeon (useful when soloing):

/run C_PartyInfo.InviteUnit("Aaa");C_Timer.After(1,function() C_PartyInfo.LeaveParty() end)

Havoc

“Okey okey, this is a Vengeance guide but how about those times when I really feel like I should unleash my Havoc side and wreak … havoc among my enemies?” nobody

In that case, let’s talk a bit about the Havoc (dps) spec of a demon hunter. Havoc gameplay mostly revolves around a build-and-spend cycle with some short cooldowns mixed in. Survival is good, and mobility is extremely flexible. The spec is mostly GCD-locked in almost all situations, making it quite a fast-paced melee to play. Havoc also comes with several AoE burst tools for high-target scenarios, but has no real tools to AoE outside of these.

Stat priority is: Agility ➝ Critical Strike ➝ Haste = Mastery ➝ Versatility. Same enchants, same consumables, pretty much similar Critical Strike/Haste-focused gear.

Talents

• View talents

Loadout code:

BEkACnvaHJn8GSPD6tpaeczPTplEQiASLSEJgEAAAAAAASAAJBkkkGARAA

Mage Tower

Restrictions

• All Battle for Azeroth Azerite effects (Azerite Gear and Traits) are disabled.
• All Legion Legendary effects are disabled.
• All Tier Set Bonuses are disabled.

Equipment

Overall, the main piece at play when picking a Mage Tower challenge set is to maximize the number of sockets present in the gear while avoiding to lose many base stats. Besides sockets, other important aspect is enchants. Items iLvl 50 or lower have access to all enchants from previous expansions, which increases the number of slots available to be enchanted. Having all your gear enchanted with optimal enchants is equivalent of having more than two extra pieces of gear worth of stats. All the items get scaled down to iLvl 120 inside the Mage Tower but lower iLvl items do not get scaled up so anything below 120 is not optimal.

Check out the Sets section for a Mage Tower set.

You should aim for 400+ Agi, 850 Sta, 500+ Armor, 35%+ Crit, 25%+ Vers. All gems should be +7 Critical Strike except for one +7 Agi, one +7 Agi and one +9 Agi. If you’re having survivability issues you can replace SOME of the +7 Critical Strike gems with +7 Versatility.

Consumables

Same stuff as in the Consumables section above.

Tactics

• It will be hard but it’s definitely doable!
• Don’t get more than 4-5 stacks of Aura of Decay.
• Always interrupt Drain Life
• Kill the Tormenting Eye while waiting for Aura of Decay stacks to drop.
• Stack the 4 Nether Horrors on the boss (away from Prophet Velen) and nuke them fast.
• The goal of this first phase is to kill Inquisitor Variss as quickly as possible in order to get to Phase 2, while handling all the mechanics properly.
• In Phase 2, you need to quickly burn down Highlord Kruul before you gain too many stacks of Annihilate, or you will eventually get one-shot.
• Nether Horrors will continue to spawn in groups of 4 during this phase, and you deal with them the same way as in Phase 1.

Timewalking

A lvl 45 demon hunter can participate in The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor timewalking, browse here for a set you can use.

Tips and Tricks

General

• No Brawl’gar Arena.
• No Proving Grounds.
• Can use Recruit a Friend ability to summon your level 45 to any zone.
• Can do Mage Tower Challenges (and a lvl 45 demon hunter xp-locked is very nicely tuned for that).
• If you’re a collector you should try and maximize your professions and get all the possible recipes for them.
• You can get the Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer buff in Orgrimmar/Stormwind when somebody kills Nefarian or Onyxia (and turns in their heads). This buffs your Critical Strike by 10% for 2 hours, which is huge (also buffs your Agi and Stamina by 10%).

Addons

• Bartender4, clean actionbars.
• DejaCharacterStats for detailed character statistics.
• AllTheThings addon for tracking collections.
• Deadly Boss Mods and all the expansion(s) extra packs.

Events

• All event dungeon bosses (Hallow’s End, Brefest, Midsummer Fire Festival), except Love is in the Air, drop iLvl 50 gear. Love is in the Air dungeon boss drops iLvl 137 necklaces.
• Brewfest boss drops iLvl 50 epic trinkets. Now Brewfest boss drops iLvl 50 Timewarped rare trinkets.
• Since Dragonflight, Brewfest boss drops iLvl 137 epic trinkets that can proc tertiary stats.

Chromie Time

• You have access to Chromie Time at 45 and while in any Chromie campaigns you are the apex predator (at least until Dragonflight, characters lose access to Chromie Time at level 50). No max-level characters to bug you. as of Dragonflight, the max level a character can have inside Chromie Time is 60, but you will still be a God.
• You cannot enter any raids or dungeons with a difficulty higher than Normal when in Chromie Time.
• If you Party Sync a character that is higher level than you, he can enter raids while in Chromie Time but the mobs inside are scaled to 63 (as of Shadowlands) 73 (as of Dragonflight). If you turn off Chromie Time while Party Synced, the higher character can kill the dungeon/raid boss (off Chromie Time boss will have normal expansion level) and not loot the corpse. Turning Chromie Time back again on will scale the corpse back to 73 and leaving the instance will mail the dropped items to the char that killed the boss (stats and iLvl are incorrectly displayed on the items). Keep in mind this does not affect your 45 in any way, you cannot enter the dungeons/raids, just the higher level character will get items. Besides, the lvl 45 needs to be in Stormwind/Orgrimmar to toggle the Chromie Time anyway.

• Darkmoon Island is on a separate shard while in Chromie Time, you can take advantage of that by doing the Darkmoon Deathmatch 13 times (12 for the achievement and once more for the heirloom trinket) and there will be nobody to bother you.
• If you party sync with a higher level character and you go inside a heroic or mythic dungeon and the higher level character turns on Chromie Time while you are inside the dungeon (remember that you can’t enter a heroic or mythic dungeon if Chromie Time is enabled but apparently can be enabled while you’re inside one), all the mobs and the bosses inside will get scaled (they will still show up as their normal level, for example, inside a Pandaria heroic mobs will be 35 but you will notice their HP and the fact that you can’t one-shot them anymore). You can still kill everything but it will be a bit of a challenge. Item drops do not scale, they’re still the same iLvl as if you weren’t inside Chromie Time. If you join a heroic or mythic raid and the other party-synced character turns on Chromie Time while you’re inside, the mobs and bosses will be scaled to level 73 and you will be one-shotted.
• 1: Party with a high enough character that can solo the dungeon you’re about to do. 2: While outside the dungeon, turn on Party Sync with the high level char. 3: Go inside the dungeon, once inside turn off Party Sync. 4: Proceed to one-shot everything using your high level char while your level 45 loots level-appropriate gear. The trick is that the dungeon is in Legacy mode so drops will be varied and the loot from your high level character is lower iLvl, but it’s the fastest way to gear a 45 inside dungeons.
• Being inside Chromie Times makes it very easy to win the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza because you’ll probably be the only one competing.

Professions

• Every recipe from expansions older than BfA can be learned; you cannot learn the recipes that drop in the BfA 8.3 patch (the ones that drop from Uldum or Vale of Eternal Blossom mobs).
• Some BfA recipes require crafty phase jumping (Nazjatar ones) so they are only available to Alliance characters (or you can get them as Alliance and switch to Horde after).
• You can learn any Shadowlands professions and most of the recipes (can’t get those that require any reputation above Honored, Korthia and Zereth Mortis ones).
• You can learn Dragonflight skinning by skinning any beast in the Dragon Isles and you can level it to max without getting any leather from it. Getting Knowledge Points is harder, Darkmoon Island skinning quest, one-time talking to Zenzi and using the Craft Orders system to get as many Draconic Treatise on Skinning as you can afford (need Artisan Mettle for it). You can pick specializations and talents for Skinning.

Raids

• All raids below Legion are soloable except some Warlords of Draenor mythic bosses (The Butcher in Highmaul, most of the upper Hellfire Citadel bosses) due to their raid mechanics.
• You can solo almost all Emerald Nightmare bosses on normal difficulty and some bosses in Nighthold normal. Heroic bosses will be a challenge and you cannot touch Tomb of Sargeras or Antorus raids solo, regardless of difficulty.

PvP

Blood Coins

• You and a friend from the opposite faction (or your 2nd account) go to the Spirit Angel at the Darkbrul Arena in Highmountain and have the other character stand where the Spirit Angel is. The Spirit Angel will automatically resurrect you every 30 seconds, bypassing the 2-minute resurrection timer entirely.
• Use your Fire-Watcher’s Oath in order to collect the Bloody Coins.
• Stand at max range (opposite to Brick, close to the exit sign) and kill the other character with ranged attacks (Throw Glaive, Fiery Brand, F.R.I.E.D.). Being at maximum range will prevent you from getting the “Sacrified to Ordos” debuff that prevents you from getting another Bloody Coin for 10 minutes.

Achievements

• You can easily get 14k achievements points, possibly going up to 20k.

Reputations

• You can get all reputations up to Legion expansion (included) to exalted.
• You can get all reputations from Battle for Azeroth to exalted, excluding Rajani and Uldum Accord.
• You can get Ve’nari reputation to “Appreciative” (included), and Court of Harvesters, The Ascended and The Wild Hunt to Friendly. The Undying Army reputation can be farmed up to exalted but it probably takes few years.
• In Dragonflight, all primary reputations can be taken to the max renown level (Dragonscale Expedition to 25, Iskaara Tuskarr to 30, Maruuk Centaur to 25 and Valdrakken Accord to 30). Taking Soridormi to “Legend” will take a while.

Legendaries

• The two Warglaives of Azzinoth, main hand and offhand.
• Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.
• All possible Legion legendary gear.

Currencies

• All currencies up to and including Legion expansion are available and obtainable.
• Legion:
  • Echoes of Battle: grandfathered, unusable.
  • everything else is obtainable, usable.
• Battle for Azeroth:
  • Coalescing Visions: grandfathered, unusable.
  • Prismatic Manapearl: obtainable, usable.
  • Seafarer’s Dubloon: obtainable, usable.
  • War Resources: obtainable, usable.
  • everything else is unobtainable, unusable.
• Shadowlands:
  • Cosmic Flux: obtainable, usable.
  • Infused Ruby: obtainable, usable.
  • Soul Ash: obtainable, unusable.
  • Soul Cinders: obtainable, unusable.
  • Stygia: obtainable, unusable.
  • everything else is unobtainable, unusable.
• Dragonflight:
  • Dragon Isles Supplies: obtainable, unusable.
  • Paracausal Flakes: obtainable, usable.
  • everything else is unobtainable, unusable.
• Player vs. Player
  • Honor: obtainable, usable.

WoW Anniversary

• You can enter Korrak’s Revenge but the scaling is not too good (my demon hunter gets scaled to level 60, iLvl 70 (while normal level 60s have iLvl 250-300), but with aprox. 35k health points versus 50k-100k health points for a normal-geared level 60; you will get almost two-shotted by a real 60).
• Even though you scale to 60 I haven’t found a single item that requires level 60 or 50 and can be used (for example Rustbolt Resistance Insignia).
• You can farm Alterac Valley reputation, Timewarped Badges, Honor and achievements.
• Gear from anniversary bosses is iLvl 50 and useless (it can proc socket and tertiary stats). As a cool “exploit”, you can get summoned via Recruit-a-Friend into BfA mythics and loot iLvl 85 gear that is useless. Not anymore, BfA mythics gear has a level 50 requirement.
• You can solo Kazzak and Azuregos and it will take a bit of time but people with watch you in awe and your name will be forever spoken in stories told at the fireplace.

Phase jumping

• You can use phase jumping to gain access to trainers or vendors that would be otherwise not accessible.
• What: Phase jumping is when your character is by default in a phase (let’s call it Phase 1) and when you get close to an area a new phase kicks in (let’s call it Phase 2) and selectively changes the area you are in. For example, vendors will disappear, hostile mobs might appear or disappear, etc. Notice that you can only jump from a phase where you can see the required vendors or trainers: the idea is that you need to see your target (must be preloaded by your client) before you do the jump. Sounds confusing, I know, but it’s pretty simple.
• How: You get to the border of the area where you can see the vendor (basically, when you take a step forward, the phasing kicks in and the vendor disappears). That’s your sweet spot. Turn off your network connection. Once you turn off your network connection, the new phasing won’t kick in until you restore the network connection, but now you have time to get close to the vendor (with network off still). Once you’re near the vendor, right click it and use an interact macro; turn your network connection on and keep pressing your macro. When the network connection gets restored, the vendor will phase out but you have maybe one second or two to buy/train from it. If you fail, go back to the start and retry. Remember that you need to see the vendor/trainer before you turn your network connection off because otherwise the vendor/trainer won’t get loaded while you are offline. That’s the reason you can’t use phase jumping for the Horde Nazjatar base (Newhome), the faction vendor is in the back of the cave.
• Where: Shadow Vault in Icecrown (not useful at 45, you already have access to the vendor), Mezzamere in Nazjatar and many other places.
• Useful macros in phase jumping:

Train all skills from trainer

/run LoadAddOn"Blizzard_TrainerUI" f=ClassTrainerTrainButton f.e = 0 if f:GetScript"OnUpdate" then f:SetScript("OnUpdate", nil)else f:SetScript("OnUpdate", function(f,e) f.e=f.e+e if f.e>.01 then f.e=0 f:Click() end end)end

Buy Y quantity of item X from vendor (where X is the position of the item in the vendor interface, 1, 2, etc)

/script BuyMerchantItem(X, Y)

• You can’t use phase jumping to get into Uldum or Vale of Eternal Blossom, even though you can get into the correct phase in the Uldum zone, the game kicks you out of it once the network connection is restored and there is no time to do anything useful.
• Usually you can buy about 2 items or train 2-3 skills in one try so be prepared to spend some time on it.
• To get a bit more time to use your macros, you can disable again the network connection and re-enable it (forces the game client to re-validate the data from the server and that one second of time to buy/learn becomes 2-3 seconds but it doesn’t work all the time). So, you move in the spot, network connection off, move near vendor, network connection on, network connection off, network connection on again and spam your macros.
• It can be called game exploiting and you can be banned for it but don’t let Actiblizzard call it illegal. There is nothing illegal in turning on and off your network connection.

Expansions

The Burning Crusade

• Wastewalker Armor is one of the few sets in game that didn’t had the set bonus disabled. It’s not something really strong but it’s a thing to keep in mind because you will probably be using at least one item of the set.
  • (2) Increase your critical strike by 16.
  • (4) Your attacks have a chance to grant you 30 Agility for 15 sec.

Wrath of the Lich King

• If you finish (just the last step) the Battered Hilt questline (for Quel’Delar) inside Chromie Time, you will get an iLvl 133 sword that’s not bad at all.
• You can solo the whole Icecrown Citadel raid if you use The Deceiver’s Grand Design to heal Valithria Dreamwalker during the bossfight.

Mists of Pandaria

• In Chromie Time, mainland rares are easy, Zandalari Scouts and Warbringers are always up (Scouts are nice and easy, Warbringers are harder to solo), if you’re bored try to solo Nalak (3952k HP). Or at least the Thunder Isle rares (90k-150k HP).
• You can get to Ordos (through one crafty method) and fight him, but inside Chromie Time he’s not soloable in any way. If you don’t have the MoP cloak (and you can’t have it as a demon hunter) you don’t get loot or achievement.

Warlords of Draenor

• (6.2) You can farm Baleful tokens (Baleful Armament for example) or buy them from Ravenspeaker Thelnaas. They can proc items that can have an iLvl from 44 to 52 but no sockets. Rings have Agi but lower secondary attributes. If you got a good proc but it’s iLvl 44 for example, you can use a Empowered Apexis Fragment on it to increase its iLvl to 49. Both Baleful tokens and Empowered Apexis Fragment cost Apexis Crystals (unless you farm them). Useful items can be rings, trinkets, cloaks (you will probably use an iLvl 50 cloak anyway because of the enchant), wrists. If you can do without sockets, weapons can be good too (and you can use Adamantite Sharpening Stones on them). If you use an Empowered Apexis Fragment on a iLvl 52 item, it gets “boosted” to iLvl 49, so don’t do that.
• (10.0) Baleful token gear is junk now.
• In Chromie Time, Tanaan Jungle rares drop useless iLvl 44 gear. The rest of the zones drop iLvl 123 equipment that might be useful.
• Quickest way to farm WoD dungeon gear solo is to enable Chromie Time and go inside Iron Docks (first three bosses drop weapons, head, chest, rings, necks, trinkets, wrist and belt).

Legion

• (7.3) The Relinquished tokens sold by Thaumaturge Vashreen on the Vindicaar (on Argus) can proc Legion PvP gear as well as normal iLvl 50 and warforged 60 gear.
• (7.2) The Dauntless tokens sold by Warmage Kath’leen on the Broken Shore cannot proc PvP gear, only normal iLvl 50 and warforged 60 gear.
• (7.3) The Unsullied tokens (Unsullied Trinket for example) dropped in Argus by various rares, treasures and invasions, can proc normal iLvl 50, warforged iLvl 60, one socket and tertiary stats. Perfect ones would be iLvl 60 WITH “of the Decimator” suffix WITH one socket AND WITH leech tertiary. And they’re Bind on Account so can be farmed on a higher level.
• Sometimes you want to be in Havoc spec (when buying Dauntless, Unsullied or Relinquished tokens) for some Critical Strike trinkets to proc.
• It will take a HUGE amount of armor tokens to proc something that is actually useful. Sometimes the Dauntless tokens will proc iLvl 50 and 55 gear (no 60) and I haven’t been able to figure out why that does happen. iLvl 55 gear is useless, cannot be enchanted and has lower stats than iLvl 60. When it does, stop using your tokens and wait 2-3 days (could be linked to one of the buildings on the Broken Shore? No idea). In approx. 1500 Dauntless tokens I’ve seen 6 of the Decimator procs, 2 of the Savant and 1 of the Adaptable.
• You can get Nethershards (to trade for Dauntless tokens) from the Legion Invasion world quests, Broken Shore caches, one special Broken Shore world quest (once every three days) and class hall table missions. It’s very slow and very painful.
• (7.3) Veiled Argunite (to trade for Relinquished tokens) can be found on Argus rares, Argus caches, sometimes Argus world quests, one Vindicaar weekly quest. It’s way slower than the Nethershard farm.
• If you want to cap your 15k honor you can do that with the Legion world PvP quests. It’s going to take a bit, though, and remember to go into Chromie time else max-level people will bug you.
• (10.0) All Legion token gear is junk now.

Battle for Azeroth

• (9.0) Since Shadowlands, there is CURRENTLY no way to get into the 8.3 patch Uldum or Vale of Eternal Blossom.
• Buy contracts (Veteran Rajani Sparkcallers Contract for example) from the Auction House and level your BfA followers so they can bring a steady passive income of Azerite daily.
• (8.2) You can get summoned into Nazjatar and have some fun there. You can kill normal mobs and all of the rares solo but there is not really much stuff to do there. No inn, no fly points.
• (8.2) If you want Nazjatar reputation (Unshackled or Waveblade Ankoan) you can send Waveswept Abyssal Conch from another character and get to exalted “pretty easy”. If you want to purchase stuff from the vendors there, now that will be a challenge. There is no way for Horde characters to phase into Newhome but the Alliance characters can train professions and buy stuff with some smart phase jumping in Mezzamere.
• You can only get inside the Chamber of the Heart once when you get your Heart of Azeroth. Once you get out you can never return unless you get summoned inside but then again, there’s nothing to do in the Chamber.
• (8.2) You don’t have access to Heart of Azeroth essences.
• (8.3) No Horrific Visions access.
• You can’t get paragon chests from any BfA faction at 45.
• (8.2) You can’t phase into the Mechagon Horde/Alliance base and you can’t see the vendors there. No fly point either, but you can kill all the mobs and rares solo. Two of the Mechanized Chests cannot be opened (req. level 50). Since patch 10.1.7 Mechagon scales to 45 and you can do all the quests, events, reputation farms there.
• You can get exalted with Honorbound/7th Legion very easy (complete faction invasions); Voldunai, Talanji’s Expedition, Storm’s Wake, Order of Embers, Zandalari Empire and Proudmoore Admirality easy (quests and mission table), Champions of Azeroth very hard (only mission table, missions are rare, maybe one every 3-4 days).
• It’s very hard to get exalted with Tortollan Seekers, you need to do a huge amount of Island Expeditions because there are too few quests even if you switch faction (you won’t even get to Honored).
• (8.2) It’s impossible to get exalted with Rajani and Uldum Accord.
• (8.2) Rustbolt Resistance Insignia requires level 50. You can get exalted with Rustbolt Resistance if you do a lot of Island Expeditions for Layered Information Kernel of E-steam (on your 45, item is BoP) and Transferable Kernel of E-steam (on a max level char, item is BoA). Or just quest in Mechagon after patch 10.1.7.
• If you already have the Heart of Azeroth but no Azerite gear yet, you can still get the gear. You get two pieces of Azerite armor per zone questing (so 6 pieces per faction, you can switch faction for another 6).
• Alliance characters have a small advantage in gearing, they have access to the Azerite trait Blightborne Infusion that is a bit better than the Horde counterpart (Swirling Sands), +265 Critical Strike versus +199 (but they still can only get two pieces with the trait so it’s +530 Critical Strike versus +398 really. If you can tolerate being Alliance that is.
• Azerite gear that drops in dungeons is useless, requires level 48 (even if it has the same base iLvl as Azerite questing gear, 59). Not anymore, Azerite gear that drops in dungeons is iLvl 137.
• If you don’t have Heart of Azeroth you will not get any Azerite gear (from quests, rares or dungeons) but the same item without traits and with secondaries. Some of them are good.
• You can use Cache of War Resources to transfer War Resources from your main character to your 45 to farm ship missions for Azerite (leveling your Heart of Azeroth).
• There seems to be an exploit that allows you to enter BfA mythics at 45 and they will drop iLvl 85 gear but the difference is too small to matter; usually you gain +3-5 Agility, +8-10 Stamina and +6-12 Secondary stat but you lose way too much Critical Rating. Not worth it unless you like to pump up the general iLvl.
• (8.2) Nazjatar armor tokens (Benthic) can’t be used (req. level 50).
• (8.2) You can’t get Nazjatar Battle Commendations.
• (8.3) Uldum/Vale of Eternal Blossom armor tokens (Black Empire) can’t be used (req. level 50).
• If you turn War Mode on, Secret Supply Chests that spawn during the Zandalar and Kul Tiras invasions give 350 Azerite (and 10g) daily but no more Azerite gear.
• You cannot loot the War Mode bounty bag that you get from killing an Alliance/Horde Assassin, req. level 58 (for some reason, probably it’s the same bag the level 70s get for killing bounties in DF zones?).
• You can get the The Alliance Slayer/The Horde Slayer quest and finish it, getting the respective title (that is not account-wide) but you will not be able to use it on your 45 (req. level 50) and since 10.0.5 you can use it on your 45 too.
• (8.3) The quest Servant of N’Zoth is not obtainable since Shadowlands but the title is account-wide.
• If you turn War Mode on, War Supply Chests give 30 Azerite (and 12g) daily but no more Azerite gear. The War Supply and Secret Supply Chests used to give Corrupted Aspirant Leather gear that was iLvl 50 or 59 and could proc socket and tertiaries but that was removed with Shadowlands prepatch. If you already got the gear it can be used (it got scaled to iLvl 137, except the Azerite gear that is still 59).
• (8.3) No corruption procs, ever.
• You can earn the Tour of Duty achievements (Zuldazar, Nazmir, Vol’dun, Tiragarde Sound, Stormsong Valley, Drustvar, Nazjatar and Mechagon).
• (8.2) Scrying Stone makes Glimmering Chests appear but they cannot be opened (req. level 50).
• (8.2) You can’t enter the zone north of Mezzamere (Spears of Azshara) or fight Wakemara because you will be teleported at the Nazjatar starting place and you can’t leave except using a hearthstone. Actually, if you’re going along a pre-set path you can enter it from Tide’s Fall (though Gorm’s Den phasing), but all the rares will despawn from Spears of Azshara, including the world boss Wekemara, because you will be in the Nazjatar starting quests phase.
• (8.3) It’s impossible to get Ashjra’kamas, Shroud of Resolve at 45.
• (10.0) You no longer can open the Fight Club Treasure Chest inside the Bloody Grotto on Mechagon Isle, req. level 50. Now you can again, since patch 10.1.7.
• (10.1.7) Since Mechagon is now available and scaled, you can use Pascal-K1N6 to craft a Extraordinary Adventurer Augmentation which has no level requirement to open and will create a random trinket or ring with no level requirements either, but a low iLvl of only 80.
• (10.1.7) The Pocket-Sized Computation Device trinket you get from questing in Mechagon is iLvl 72 but requires level 50, so it’s unusable. You can’t socket punchcards in it at level 45 either because all of them require level 50 (even the ones you can randomly craft at Pascal-K1N6).

Shadowlands

• (prepatch) Absolutely nothing for level 45s.
• (10.0) There is a Chromie timewalking campaign now for Shadowlands so you can do all the main campaign quests, kill all the rares, open all the treasures.
• You still can’t mount up in the Maw.
• You can explore all the zones except Korthia (actually you can explore one subzone in Korthia), some require flying.
• You can kill the world bosses (not solo, ofc) but you won’t get any loot.
• While you can get summoned inside Torghast, you can’t queue for any of the wings.
• Cannot enter any raids.
• Can’t join a covenant.
• You can get summoned into the Runecarver’s room but there is nothing useful to do there.
• You can get to friendly reputation with Court of Harvesters, The Ascended, The Undying Army and The Wild Hunt.
• You can do the quest Callous Concoctions weekly for 135 rep with The Undying Army, which means you might be able to get to exalted in a decade.
• You can get max reputation with Ve’nari by completing Beastwarrens Hunts (525 rep each time, once per week).
• You can earn the Tour of Duty achievements (Ardenweald, Revendreth, Bastion and Maldraxxus).
• If somebody in your party opens a Rift Portal in the Maw, you can enter it but 99% of the mobs inside are not scaled.
• Mobs and rares inside the Maw will drop Maw Lore items (they’re very rare, though) and you’ll be able to turn the quests to Ve’nari for 100 rep each.
• No reputation or loot from Wrath of the Jailer or Tormentors of Torghast Maw events.
• If you enter Beastwarrens in the Maw, be quick about it, when you will get feared you might die. You can use Shadowberry or The Deceiver’s Grand Design trinket to heal every few seconds, negating all the damage from the Otherwordly Screeching.
• You can open Helsworn Chest in the Maw, daily, for some Korthian relics, one 250 BoA Stygia token and Researching Korthian Relics which req. level 60. You can also collect Jeweled Heart of Ezekiel in that area, an iLvl 220 necklace that you can’t use.
• There is a safe place in the far east of Desmotaeron (in the Maw), up on a ledge, where you can RaF summon a lvl 1 char who will later summon your 45 whenever you need to do stuff in the Maw. From that ledge you can glide to the Helsworn Chest, Korthia entrance or the main Beastwarrens zone.
• If you are waiting for something in the Beastwarrens (Hunt to start, for ex.), you can use a Darkmoon Seesaw and sit on it. It lasts for 3 minutes (with a 3 mins CD) and you will not get feared while you are sitting on it (if you add The Deceiver’s Grand Design trinket in the mix you are very safe). Remember to put it down again after it expires. The Otherwordly Screeching fear will be cast every 30 secs.
• (9.1) Tazavesh dungeon is off-limits. You can get summoned in the Tazavesh area with the fly master and activate the fly point.
• (9.1) You can’t get into Korthia because you will be ported back to Oribos.
• You can’t jump into the Maw from Oribos. You can’t go into Oribos upper ring (the one with the flight master) unless summoned there. You can’t see the flight master in Oribos, which means you can fly to Oribos from other zones but once you get to Oribos upper ring you can’t fly out (you’re basically stuck in there until you use your hearthstone).
• (9.1) Packaged Soul Ash has no level requirement and gives you 250 Soul Ash, so you can send some from your main character but you can’t do anything with it. Same for Stygic Cluster and 250 Stygia. Same for Packaged Soul Cinders that cost 300 Soul Cinders and will give your 45 250 Soul Cinders. Nothing to do with them except collect.
• (9.1) You can use Research Report: Relic Examination Techniques but it doesn’t do anything significantly (except what it says it does).
• (9.1) Korthia armor tokens (Korthian Armaments) can’t be used (req. level 60).
• (9.1) Broker Mark of Distinction requires level 50 and you can’t have a covenant at 45.
• (9.1) Traveler’s Anima Cache is usable too but the Anima does not show in the currency tab, maybe because you don’t have a covenant? Not sure it’s even added to your currency. Now you need a covenant to get Anima from that item.
• (9.2) You can get into Zereth Mortis, explore it all and “kill” rares for achievement. No looting, no skinning/herbalism/mining, no treasures can be opened. No inn available in Zereth Mortis and no “The Enlightened” quartermaster. You have access to the Creation Catalyst but can’t do anything useful there except upgrade Sepulcher BoEs to tier pieces.
• You can kill most of the rares solo.
• (9.2) You can get Pouch of Prodigious Wonders from your main (vendor is in Zereth Mortis), costs 1500 Cosmic Flux and your 45 gets 1250 of it when opened (it’s Bind on Account). There is nothing to do with it at the moment.
• (9.2) Zereth Mortis armor tokens (Broker) can’t be used (req. level 60).
• (9.2) Can’t use Certified Vouchsafe, req. level 50.
• You can buy 5 conduits from the Oribos PvP vendor Zo’sorg in exchange for 200 Honor each, but you can’t actually apply them since you don’t have access to a covenant’s Forge of Bonds. The Forge of Bonds in Zereth Mortis doesn’t work for a lvl 45 character.
• You can get Shadowlands tier gear but you cannot equip it. You can access the Creation Catalyst in Zereth Mortis and upgrade Sepulcher BoEs (that you buy from the AH) to tier pieces using Cosmic Flux.

Dragonflight

• (prepatch) Elemental invasion bosses and minibosses drop iLvl 50 gear (that can proc tertiary stats) and Primeval Essence but you can’t use them to buy iLvl 252 gear (req. level 60).
• (prepatch) Elemental invasion bosses drop iLvl 50 gear which is junk but useful for transmogs.
• (prepatch) You can get the pet and the heirloom trinket.
• You can use Dragonriding on your favorite drake. You can collect dragon glyphs.
• You can learn Skinning by skinning one beast and later at Skinning 25, 50 and 100, unlock specializations. Level skinning to 100 outside of the Broadhoof Outpost in the Ohn’ahran Plains, there is an endless stream of wolves coming into the outpost and getting killed by npcs just so you can skin them. You get no leather for skinning, though.
• You can’t learn the primary professions, nor Cooking or Fishing (req. level 58).
• Every sub-zone in the Dragon Isles can be explored.
• You cannot open any treasures (req. level 58-60).
• You can kill rares (for achievements, for example) but you will get no loot.
• Warmode War Supply Crates cannot be opened (req level 58).
• Can fish up Draconic Recipe in a Bottle and open it for some recipes that you cannot learn.
• Cannot enter any raids.
• Can fish up Copper Coin of the Isles, Silver Coin of the Isles, Gold Coin of the Isles and turn them in to The Great Swog.
• You can participate in the Siege on the Dragonbane Keep event, get the achievements, 50 reputation with Valdrakken Accord and a Dragonbane Keep Strongbox that you can’t open (req level 60) EACH time. Considering you have 30 Renown levels, each with 2.5k rep, you will need to complete 1500 events to get max Renown. The event starts every 2 hours.
• A level 70 character with max Dragonscale Expedition renown can send Dragonscale Expedition Insignia to a level 45 for 2.5k reputation that doesn’t require level 60+ (unlike the other three insignias, Iskaara Tuskarr, Maruuk Centaur and Valdrakken Accord).
• You can participate in the Iskaara Community Feast event and get 25-40 rep with Iskaara Tuskarr EACH time you complete a request from Big Kinook. You can get about 500-1000 reputation each event if you’re lucky with the requests (some cannot be completed, like the anchoovies and leviathan bone, because they can’t be looted below level 58 but if you get those two requests you can relog and Big Kinook will ask for another thing). This is the only way to raise your Renown with Iskaara Tuskarr. The event starts every 3 hours and 30 mins.
• You can participate in the Grand Hunting Party event and get 15 rep with the Maruuk Centaur in each stage, for a total of 90 rep for EACH event, plus a Grand Hunt Spoils that you can’t open (req. level 60). Considering you have 25 Renown levels, each with 2.5k rep, you will need to complete 4167 stages or 695 full events to get max Renown, prepare to destroy a lot of Maruuk Hunt Spoils. The event is up at all time in one of the Dragon Isles zones, rotating through them all.
• If you have another character already at Renown 10 with any of the four main factions, your 45 will get 100% more reputation while below Renown 10. If that character is at Renown 20, your 45 will get 200% more reputation while below Renown 10 and 100% more reputation while below Renown 20.
• There is no way to gain reputation with Cobalt Assembly, Sabellian, Wrathion, Winterpelt Furbolg or Artisan Consortium.
• If you managed to learn a Dragonflight profession, completing Darkmoon Faire profession quests will give you Knowledge Points in that profession and Artisan’s Mettle.
• You can send Small Expedition Shovel and Iskaaran Harpoon from your main but for now you can’t do anything with them.
• (10.0.5) You can complete most of the activities linked to the Traveler’s Log and Trader’s Post and get your monthly Trader’s Tender.
• (10.0.5) You can no longer enter The Primalist Future (you can’t kill Liskanoth anymore), the portal req. level 60.
• (10.0.5) You can buy Satchel of Coalescing Chaos with a lvl 70 character, from Rabul in Valdrakken, costs 80 Primal Chaos and it will transfer 60 Primal Chaos to your 45. Nothing to do with it except collect it. In patch 10.1, Primal Chaos turned into vendor trash.
• (10.0.7) You can now explore the Forbidden Reach zone, kill rares and collect all the Dragonriding glyphs there.
• (10.0.7) You can do all the activities related to the Zul’Gurub secrets added in this patch, including getting the initial achievement.
• (10.1) You can fully explore Zaralek Cavern, collect all Dragonriding glyphs, kill rares and get some achievements.
• (10.1) Talking to Tzurok in Ruby Lifeshrine gives you 275 reputation with Artisan’s Consortium and 3 Dragon Shard of Knowledge. Just one time.
• (10.1.5) You can participate in Time Rifts (not the phase 2) events and get Paracausal Flakes and reputation with Soridormi and you can send Soridormi’s Letter of Commendation from a level 70 character too.
• (10.1.5) You can send Paracausal Cluster from a level 70 character and your 45 will get 1000 Paracausal Flakes.

Soloing

I like soloing difficult fights because they test your reflexes, analytical thinking and capability to understand what went wrong and adapt accordingly. Always use your best gear, best consumables, those are not trivial soloing fights and “easy” means it’s not something that took 50 attempts; read on tactics and be aware of the combat mechanics. All the fights are done inside Chromie Time so the bosses are scaled to level 45+ (except Battle for Azeroth world bosses who are 50+).

Difficulty goes like this: Trivial ➝ Easy ➝ Medium ➝ Hard ➝ Hardcore ➝ Insane. Keep in mind that Easy in BiS gear is not the same thing as Easy in questing greens.

Here is a video of a Julak Doom world boss kill (no sound because I like silence).

World bosses

Graph legend

The x-axis is the time axis, you get one plot of data for each time my demon hunter’s HP changed so the length of the x axis is dependent on the length of the fight. Unless specified, the fight is done in full tanking gear.

The z-axis is the health points axis, as you can see it should oscillate between two values, one for normal HP (~26k) and one for demon form HP (~40k). Keep in mind that I am using the Demonic talent, which gives me 6 seconds of demon form after each Fel Devastation finishes channeling.

There are two layers on each of the chart images, one blue   that represents my demon hunter’s current health points and one red   that represents the max possible health points; to simplify, red means the amount of HP that is missing at Y time, if all is missing = dead. Too much red means my demon hunter spends way too much time below optimal HP and will probably die. The ideal outcome is both layers overlap perfectly such as no red is visible, which means no damage taken.

Click on the graph image to get a higher resolution one.

Xariona

Level: Cataclysm World Boss
Location: Deepholm, circling the Temple of Earth, high above in the sky.
Health Points: 847k
Fight duration: 8m23s
Difficulty: trivial
Tank her in a fixed position (do not move under any circumstances) because the Twilight Zones can bug. Basically you need to have a debuff called Twilight Zone (stand in a white swirling area on the ground) else her Unleashed Magic ability will one-shot you. Keep Fiery Brand for when she casts Unleashed Magic so in case something bugs you will not die. Stand still and use defensive CDs when you get a Twilight Fissure placed on your position.

Julak-Doom

Level: Cataclysm World Boss
Location: North-east of the Maw of Madness in Twilight Highlands, Eastern Kingdoms
Health Points: 847k
Fight duration: 8m10s
Difficulty: medium
He does a good amount of damage with Black Breath so you need to move constantly. Avoid the Massive Shockwave or it’s a graveyard run, you need to plan your defensive cooldowns or it’s not going to work. Keep Demon Spikes always up, use Fiery Brand when you need 2-3 seconds to breathe, save Metamorphosis for the moment when the shit hits the fan and you’re really low on HP. Save Fel Devastation for when your health is below 50%.

Garr

Level: Cataclysm World Boss
Location: Mount Hyjal, patrolling west of the Sulfuron Spire, Kalimdor.
Health Points: 847k + 8 adds each with 45k
Fight duration: 9m40s
Difficulty: easy
Pull each add away from the boss (adds are not linked with the boss but for the love of all that is holy, do not use Throw Glaive to pull the adds) and kill it first, once there are no more of them you can start pulling the boss. It’s a tank and spank with a twist: when he casts Massive Eruption, you use Infernal Strike to get away from the boss, after he finished casting you Infernal Strike back to the boss. Rinse and repeat until he’s dead, if you fail to move away from the boss you will be one-shotted (or close to that, see below in the graph what happens when you lag during the Massive Eruption and get caught in it).

Mobus

Level: Cataclysm World Boss
Location: Circling around Abyssal Breach, Vashj’ir.
Health Points: 847k
Fight duration: 16m42s
Difficulty: hard
Very buggy fight, you can’t move too much else the boss will reset. Move from Algae, move up a bit from the boss on Wake and Ram, both abilities will kill you (Ram will one-shot), you will take HUGE amounts of damage because it’s an underwater fight and the boss being so huge makes you fight in the middle of his model and not seeing much stuff.

Supreme Lord Kazzak

Level: Warlords of Draenor World Boss
Location: Throne of Kil’jaeden in Tanaan Jungle, Draenor.
Health Points: 2117k
Fight duration: 11m51s
Difficulty: hardcore
The amount of damage taken during the fight is crazy but you will heal yourself alot due to Mark of Kazzak, biggest danger is Fel Breath (can one-shot you) and you need to manage your cooldowns during the Supreme Doom-Fel Breath waves because Supreme Doom will take you below 20% and Fel Breath will one-shot. I suggest some Versatility trinkets, like this for example, so you have an extra CD to manage. You will Fiery Brand 2-3 secs before Fel Breath, Metamorphosis the next Fel Breath, trinket the third and hope for the best. There is still a bit of RNG involved but it can be done.

Doomwalker

Level: The Burning Crusade World Boss
Location: Outside the Black Temple in Shadowmoon Valley, Outland.
Health Points: 1185k
Fight duration: 12m38s
Difficulty: medium
80% of the time it’s a snoozefest, but at 20% he enrages and he hits harder than a pimp from Augusta (hey Drake). You know how I said you need to manage your cooldowns perfectly on Supreme Lord Kazzak? Well, from 20% to 0% health is exactly like that, he melees for 4-7k. You lose, you go to jail and get 15 minutes of timeout.

Nithogg

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Nastrondir in Stormheim, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1919k
Fight duration: 19m40s
Difficulty: medium
For a Legion world boss he’s quite tame, he does a Storm Breath that does about 60% of your health points, mitigated by Fiery Brand and your demon form, avoid all the Crackling Jolt and the Electrical Storms (U2 sucks but the song is good). Save Fel Devastation mid-cast of Storm Breath so you can heal right up, have demon form up (you did take the Demonic talent, did you?) when Storm Breath hits and buckle up, it will take a while.

Niuzao, The Black Ox

Level: Pandaria World Boss
Location: The Celestial Court on the Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 1270k
Fight duration: 13m42s
Difficulty: easy
Use Infernal Strike to get back to the boss when he Headbutts you, it’s just a tank and spank while not taking any serious damage (but look at the health you will have during the fight, it will go over 120k in demon form).

Chi-Ji, The Red Crane

Level: Pandaria World Boss
Location: The Celestial Court on the Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 1129k
Fight duration: 15m59s
Difficulty: easy
ALWAYS interrupt Inspiring Song, it will heal the boss, kite around the Firestorm circles that will spawn on the ground. You can’t move the boss out of the Beacon of Hope so just stay in there together (makes it take 90% less damage too) and this will make the fight go a bit longer than usual.

Yu'lon, The Jade Serpent

Level: Pandaria World Boss
Location: The Celestial Court on the Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 1199k
Fight duration: 13m58s
Difficulty: hard
Move from Jadefire Bolt zones on the ground, it hurts a lot, and prepare to have about 40 stacks of Jadeflame Buffet. You will take a lot of damage but that is nothing if you don’t find the hole inside the Jadefire Wall (spoiler, sometimes there is no hole). One very chaotic fight.

Xuen, The White Tiger

Level: Pandaria World Boss
Location: The Celestial Court on the Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 1164k
Fight duration: 12m25s
Difficulty: hard
Almost 80% of the fight you will have 10 stacks of Spectral Swipe on you, which means you have 0 armor. The other abilities are nothing to worry about (you will still want to move when he casts them), but the Spectral Swipe HURTS and the damage can and should be mitigated by Versatility trinkets, Fiery Brand and a lot of self-healing. Also, remember to Consume Magic his Agility buff else you will die in 2 seconds.

Darkmoon Rabbit

Level: Boss
Location: Darkmoon Island.
Health Points: 2259k
Fight duration: 26m5s
Difficulty: trivial
Tank and spank for a very very long time.

Malificus

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Wrynnfall on Broken Shore, in the Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1041k
Fight duration: 18m43s
Difficulty: hard
This is the most annoying boss in the whole World of Warcraft, every 10 secs he will fear you around for 4 secs while placing Pestilence zones at your feet. If you get feared across two Pestilence zones your health points will drop below 30%. He doesn’t melee for very much but the constant fear is very very VERY annoying and you need to watch your health when running across Pestilence, try to plan the placement (Pestilence always comes on your current position) and Infernal Strike away from them. Also, be careful not to be feared too far away from his spawn point or he might reset; keep up Demon Spikes up at all times.

Akma'hat

Level: Cataclysm World Boss
Location: East of Ruins of Ammon, Uldum.
Health Points: 847k
Fight duration: 94m35s
Difficulty: hard
Yes, you read it right, it took 94 minutes to down him because there is a simple catch: when he casts Stone Mantle he gets an absorb shield of 159k and unless you can do over 5k dps (you can’t and you never will) you can’t break it. The shield is up for 1 minute and will be recast 2-3 seconds after it’s expired (with a cast time of 2 seconds). So, basically, you have 3-5 seconds to do damage to him, so save your biggest damage abilities for that ultra small window (hint, Fiery Brand, potions, drums). Realistically, you should be able to do about 10k-15k damage to him during that time. Dodge the Fury of the Sands zones on the ground and beware of Shockwave, it’s the biggest source of damage on you. Bonus points, while Stone Mantle is up he will gain a stacking damage multiplier, at 7-10 stacks you will get quite a bit of damage and Shockwave could kill you. While Stone Mantle is up don’t bother with your abilities, just Fracture and Soul Cleave to heal up, with occasional Fel Devastation so that Shockwave will hit you when you’re in demon form.

Drov the Ruiner

Level: Warlords of Draenor World Boss
Location: Dronn Canyon in Gorgrond, Draenor.
Health Points: 2117k
Fight duration: 31m2s
Difficulty: hardcore
Avoid Colossal Slam because you’ll be thrown high up in the air (even though you can glide safely you will still take a bucket-load of damage), hardcore dps when he casts Call of Earth (you have 20 secs of getting low damage on you and can focus on damaging the boss or healing yourself up), try not to fight more than 3 adds at a time. Adds will despawn after a bit, you can time your Infernal Strike to jump away from one of their spawning places and the Frenzied Rumbler will just stand there looking stupid. Fight is chaotic and intense, you need to manage cooldowns when you are on low health points and move constantly, the only time to breathe is during Call of Earth when you’ll be thrown around like a puppet.

Azurethos, The Winged Typhoon

Level: Battle for Azeroth World Boss
Location: Splinterbark Roost in Tiragarde Sound, Kul Tiras.
Health Points: 1334k
Fight duration: 14m37s
Difficulty: easy
Avoid his abilities especially Azurethos’ Fury (will kick you up so high that you’ll meet Elvis) or his Gale Force that might punt you all the way into Boralus Harbor. Melee damage you take is meaningless, just focus on dodging everything and go into full dps mode.

Nalak, The Storm Lord

Level: Pandaria World Boss
Location: The Foot of Lei Shen on Thunder Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 3952k
Fight duration: 40m13s
Difficulty: hardcore
Lightning Tether and Arc Nova is a really nasty combination but with good gear you can ignore Arc Nova, you will get knocked back but can Infernal Strike back to the initial floor tile. The amount of damage taken is insane, plan your Metamorphosis, Fiery Brand and Versatility trinkets. Might not be doable unless very close to BiS gear.

Ji'arak

Level: Battle for Azeroth World Boss
Location: Rootway in Zuldazar, Zandalar.
Health Points: 1579k
Fight duration: 42m12s
Difficulty: easy
Unscaled boss. Stay away from Hurricane Crash, get closer when she Storm Wings, you will get no adds if you are solo. Expect lots of missing attacks and because of that the fight will take a while. Nothing special really, just rotate your defensive cooldowns and you’ll be good.

G'nathus

Level: Mists of Pandaria World Boss
Location: North of Shan’ze Dao in Townlong Steppes, Pandaria.
Health Points: 564k
Fight duration: 5m12s
Difficulty: medium
Lightning Breath strikes for 7.5k on full tank armor (about 27k health points total, so 28% of your HP each hit) so it’s just a matter of killing it before it kills you. You need insane healing and every bit of Leech helps, don’t even think about going in with anything else but BiS tanking gear. You can pull it close to one of those ledges so you can orient yourself better and time your Infernal Strikes so you can get back when it uses Arc Nova to knock you around.

Hailstone Construct

Level: Battle for Azeroth World Boss
Location: Iceveil Glacier in Drustvar, Kul Tiras.
Health Points: 2684k
Fight duration: 54m42s
Difficulty: easy
Unscaled boss. Hide behind a Permafrost Spike when he casts Freezing Tempest.

Flotsam

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Shipwreck Cove in Highmountain, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1919k
Fight duration: 22m50s
Difficulty: easy
The only danger during this fight is that you might fall asleep but make sure you move when the boss casts something at you.

Drugon the Frostblood

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Snowblind Cliffs in Highmountain, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1919k
Fight duration: 24m11s
Difficulty: medium
Basically the Jeremy Renner special: you MUST dodge the Snow Crash, you MUST dodge Avalanche and you can’t do anything on Snow Plow so hang tight and let him do his thing. Snow Plow won’t kill (or maim, unless you’re the aforementioned Jeremy Renner) but if you are caught in an Avalanche (polymorphed) and get hit by a Snow Crash it’s game over. It’s a bit messy since you will lose many self-buffs (popping Meta and getting Snow Plowed is fun) because you will be either sitting in Snow Plow (and unable to do anything) or moving around ALOT to dodge his various attacks. He does hit for quite a bit, though.

T'zane

Level: Batte for Azeroth World Boss
Location: The Dreadmire in Nazmir, Zandalar.
Health Points: 5980k
Fight duration: 67m10s
Difficulty: hardcore
Note: T’zane is scaled now, way easier since it has only 2592k HP.
Wow, this is how a world boss should feel. The fight is all about surviving between his two long-cast abilities, he melees for 3-6k each second and without the timeout during the casting of the two abilities (Coalesced Essence and Terror Wail) you will die, undoubtedly. You need to master your defensive abilities and keep in mind there is not much room for mistakes: move from Terror Wail, use Infernal Strike to get back to the boss when he uses Crushing Slam and pray a lot. The boss has a huge amount of health points and you probably need BiS or really close to BiS tanking gear to have a chance. Leech helps a lot and so does Versatility (but I did mention BiS tanking gear, didn’t I).

Apocron

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Coast of Anguish on Broken Shore, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1041k
Fight duration: 11m35s
Difficulty: medium
Use Infernal Strike to return to the boss after Quake, nothing special but you will take lots of damage from Felfire Missiles.

Calamir

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Isle of the Watchers in Azsuna, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 2258k
Fight duration: 23m32s
Difficulty: medium
He melees for 3k so it’s a damage-intense fight, don’t stand in anything and stay away from the pulses during Arcanopulse. On another attempt he didn’t do any of his special abilities and just did melee attacks until the end, so it was even easier.

Warbringer Yenazj

Level: Battle for Azeroth World Boss
Location: The Precipice of Oblivion in Stormsong Valley, Kul Tiras.
Health Points: 1184k
Fight duration: 24m25s
Difficulty: insane
Unscaled boss. Because of that all of his melee attacks will be Crushing Blows and it hurts alot (about 5k each second). Biggest problem is that you have to move constantly or you will get stunlocked by Reality Tear and you will die. There is no room for mistake, if you get hit by the Tear it’s death. So, don’t stop moving, circle the boss around, ignore his Endless Abyss cast because it hits for less than 2k (just be careful because during Endless Abyss cast the Reality Tear void zones on the ground are hard to see). Expect lots of 5% wipes because that’s when (about 20 minutes in the fight) the brain gets foggy, fingers get numb and somebody calls you on the phone. This is the hardest fight I have encountered so far, just because of the fact that you can’t make even a single mistake (you can use an Insignia to remove the stun but it’s once every 2 minutes and you can’t afford losing a mitigation trinket or the boss will pound you into the ground). Definitely not doable without BiS tanking gear, specific mitigation trinkets and all the consumables possible.

Omen

Level: Classic World Boss
Location: Barrow Dens in Moonglade, Kalimdor.
Health Points: 282k
Fight duration: 3m4s
Difficulty: trivial
Tank and spank, can ignore every ability.

Withered J'im

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Small cave on the Isle of the Watchers in Azsuna, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 222k
Fight duration: 20m53s
Difficulty: hard
Avoid swirly purple zones on ground, kill the small Unstable Resonances fast if you damage him during Resonance (and you should). Oh, small caveat: he will spawn clones of himself and they will overwhelm you when above 6 and you will die, there is no way to avoid that. The cool thing is that after resurrecting yourself the boss doesn’t regenerate health and you can continue from where you left him, no clones. You will die about 4-5 times, there is no way to avoid that, the clones just melee very fast and for quite a bit of damage. It’s a cheese mechanism but who cares.

Dunegorger Kraulok

Level: Battle for Azeroth World Boss
Location: The Bone Pit in Vol’dun, Zandalar.
Health Points: 2638k
Fight duration: 28m17s
Difficulty: hard
He melees for 4k-5k and that adds up to quite a bit in the end, dodge the sand zones from where spikes will erupt. Also, never have more than 2 Ravenous Ranishu up, if you accomplish this task the boss will be doable.

Levantus

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Lithduin Reef in Azsuna, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 2117k
Fight duration: 24m22s
Difficulty: easy
Circle the boss when he does Massive Spout, try to dodge the Turbulent Vortex if you can, nothing in this fight can actually kill you.

Doom Lord Kazzak

Level: The Burning Crusade World Boss
Location: Throne of Kil’jaeden in Hellfire Peninsula, Outland.
Health Points: 227k
Fight duration: 16m44s
Difficulty: hardcore
Twisted Reflection seems to be cast randomly, once removed it is sometimes re-cast on the next second, you need to have Warmode enabled so you can pick two PvP talents: Reverse Magic and Cleansed by Flame. Reverse Magic and Immolation Aura will remove the Twisted Reflection debuff, so use them and pray; if sometimes the debuff is up on you and there is a CD on your two cleanse abilities, don’t be discouraged because he will heal a lot: cleanse AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. His Cleave hits for 5k-22k, so you must never be below 70-80% health. You definitely need Stamina Flask, Stamina potions, Stamina food.

Si'vash

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Strand’s End on Broken Shore, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1041k
Fight duration: 14m33s
Difficulty: easy
The constant Submerge stun is very annoying but that’s all there is.

Na'zak the Fiend

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Falaanar Tunnels under Suramar, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1016k
Fight duration: 11m23s
Difficulty: easy
If you time your Immolation Aura well you can free yourself from the web, else it will be a bit annoying with the 10 second stun.

Ana-Mouz

Level: Legion World Boss
Location: Felsoul Hold in Suramar, Broken Isles.
Health Points: 1016k
Fight duration: 10m20s
Difficulty: easy
Interrupt Gaseous Breath and try not to fall asleep, no Mind Control if you’re alone.

Raid bosses

Emerald Nightmare

Nythendra

• LFR
• Normal
• Heroic

Health Points: 375k
Fight duration: 4m1s
Difficulty: trivial
Tactics: Just a Patchwerk-style of fight, you can ignore all of her abilities.

Health Points: 535k
Fight duration: 5m47s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: Move a bit during the Heart of the Swarm phase to avoid the exploding bugs.

Health Points: 696k
Fight duration: 7m29s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: Don't stand on the Infested Ground under any circumstances, the Infested stacks will reset during the Heart of the Swarm phase.

Dragons of Nightmare

• LFR
• Normal

Health Points: 349k
Fight duration: 3m25s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: If both Taerar and Rothos are active, Rothos will spawn Seeping Fog, avoid the green clouds since they will put you to sleep for 6 secs. When you accumulate ten stacks of any dragon's Mark debuff you will fall asleep for 30 secs due to Slumbering Nightmare, try to pop defensive CDs or Metamorphosis when you hit nine stacks and you will survive.

Health Points: 466k
Fight duration: 4m22s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: When you accumulate ten stacks of any dragon's Mark debuff you will fall asleep for 30 secs due to Slumbering Nightmare, try to pop defensive CDs or Metamorphosis when you hit nine stacks and you will probably survive, depending on your gear.

Elerethe Renferal

• LFR
• Normal
• Heroic

Health Points: 306k
Fight duration: 4m10s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: In Roc form, stay away from purple Twisting Shadows zones, in Spider form stay away from green Necrotic Venom zones. Save cooldowns for Raking Talons and remember to use a feather to move to the Eye of the Storm during Dark Storm. Oh, and don't get kicked off the platforms under any circumstances. Chaotic but fun.

Health Points: 409k
Fight duration: 6m02s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Same thing as LFR difficulty, only more damage taken.

Health Points: 510k
Fight duration: 8m18s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Bucketload of more damage taken.

Il'gynoth, Heart of Corruption

• LFR
• Normal

Health Points: 106k
Fight duration: 7m41s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: An add fight where you have two burn phases, nuke tentacles and horrors, prioritize the Corruptor Tentacles because they drop pools of nightmare on the ground and you can't dps while standing in them. Every time you kill an add (tentacle or horror) Nightmare Ichors will spawn, they need to be kited to the Eye of Il'gynoth and killed near, it's the only way you can damage the Eye. Once the way to the boss is opened, you have about 55 secs to kill it or damage it as much as possible, leave the room when the boss' cast is nearly done. If you didn't kill the boss you will have one more chance to do it, this time it takes 90 secs and the health you removed the first time is not healed. Good luck, you're going to need it.

Health Points: 145k
Fight duration: 7m25s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Same thing as LFR difficulty, only more damage taken.

Ursoc

• LFR

Health Points: 333k
Fight duration: 3m36s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Roaring Cacophony stacks quite high but you should be able to mitigate 10 stacks.

Cenarius

• LFR
• Normal

Health Points: 274k
Fight duration: 3m29s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: Kite him around the room to avoid getting rooted in place by the Nightmare Brambles, you will get lots of stacks of Creeping Nightmares but it's manageable. Once Cenarius is at 30% he will attack you with Spear of Nightmares which makes you drop pools of Nightmare on the ground.

Health Points: 391k
Fight duration: 4m21s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Getting rooted by the Brambles inside a Nightmare pool will be the death of you.

Nighthold

Skorpyron

• LFR
• Normal

Health Points: 391k
Fight duration: 9m10s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: Just nuke boss when his Chitinous Exoskeleton stacks are below 3, so you do the most damage during his Exoskeletal Vulnerability phase of 15 seconds.

Health Points: 851k
Fight duration: 9m25s
Difficulty: hardcore
Tactics: The problem on Normal difficulty is that there is an enrage timer set at 9 minutes and you will die shortly after that. You will need a mix of DPS and tanking gear to beat that, don't forget the proper consumables.

Chronomatic Anomaly

• Normal

Health Points: 656k
Fight duration: 7m24s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Kill the initial adds and keep him in his Power Overwhelming phase until dead. The damage ramps up quite high in the end.

Trilliax

• LFR

Health Points: 597k
Fight duration: 7m21s
Difficulty: easy
Tactics: Survive! The whole room will be filled with Arcane Seepage pools at one time and you will just have to stand still and rotate cooldowns. Stand near the center of the room when Trilliax jumps in the middle to channel Annihilation so you can dodge the beams.

Apellblade Aluriel

• LFR

Health Points: 759k
Fight duration: 9m10s
Difficulty: medium
Tactics: Pop defensive cooldowns for her Annihilate which will deal more damage each time she executes it, cleave down adds, and stay out of stuff on the ground. Annihilated stacks will reach new heights and the damage you take near the end is HUGE.

Rares

Zandalari Warbringer

Level: Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: Various fixed places in the Mists of Pandaria zones.
Health Points: 282k
Fight duration: 3m44s
Difficulty: easy
Keep Demon Spikes up before he finishes casting Horrific Visage (if it’s a boss that does that, they have random abilities) because it cannot be interrupted. Drag him back to his starting point after fear else he might reset, make sure you dodge Meteors and stay away from the Vengeful Spirits (with proper gear you don’t even have to move).

Deathtalon

Level: Warlords of Draenor Rare Elite
Location: Ruins of Kra’nak in Tanaan Jungle, Draenor.
Health Points: 451k
Fight duration: 4m51s
Difficulty: trivial
Headbutt will toss you around so be careful not to pull the whole Tanaan Jungle.

Doomroller

Level: Warlords of Draenor Rare Elite
Location: In front of the Hellfire Citadel, Tanaan Jungle, Draenor.
Health Points: 508k
Fight duration: 5m25s
Difficulty: trivial
Absolutely nothing important, tank and spank.

Vengeance

Level: Warlords of Draenor Rare Elite
Location: Temple of Shanaar in Tanaan Jungle, Draenor.
Health Points: 395k
Fight duration: 3m58s
Difficulty: trivial
Absolutely nothing important, tank and spank, don’t bother interrupting anything.

Terrorfist

Level: Warlords of Draenor Rare Elite
Location: Rangari Refuge in Tanaan Jungle, Draenor.
Health Points: 564k
Fight duration: 5m41s
Difficulty: easy
He is the most dangerous of the four rare elites in Tanaan Jungle, the Enrage could take you below 70% HP but it’s a really easy fight with nothing important to remember.

War-God Dokah

Level: Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: On a boat near the Isle of Giants, Pandaria.
Health Points: 564k
Fight duration: 7m12s
Difficulty: medium
He’s like a Zandalari Warbringer on steroids, will use Horrific Visage, Meteor, Vengeful Spirit, Scarab Swarm, Thunder Crush, the whole shebang. There is a very high chance (read 100%) that he will fear you into the nearby packs of Zandalari Dinomancers who will be very happy to play along, increasing the fight’s difficulty by a lot (they can heal themselves and do quite a bit of damage). Even if you clear them before, they will respawn during the fight so you will need to adapt, it’s a really good boss to test your skills when you are under pressure in an aggressive environment.

Death Metal Knight

Level: Rare Elite
Location: Darkmoon Island.
Health Points: 1694k
Fight duration: 3m31s
Difficulty: trivial
Tank and spank, nothing to worry about.

Kosumoth the Hungering

Level: Legion Rare Elite
Location: Eye of Azshara zone (not dungeon) in the Broken Isles.
Health Points: 423k
Fight duration: 4m11s
Difficulty: easy
Tank and spank, his melee does a bit of a damage though.

Shiz'narasz the Consumer

Level: Battle for Azeroth Rare Elite, lvl 52
Location: Chitterspine Caverns in Nazjatar.
Health Points: 599k
Fight duration: 13m47s
Difficulty: easy
You can afford to miss interrupting one or two Conductive Spittle, he hits like a truck and with that debuff on he will kill you.

Oronu

Level: Battle for Azeroth Rare Elite, lvl 52
Location: Highborne Estates in Nazjatar.
Health Points: 713k
Fight duration: 20m15s
Difficulty: medium
You must interrupt all Coral Growth casts or you start from scratch. Biggest danger of the fight is to pull more mobs close to the rare. Dodge Ocean’s Call and prepare to Infernal Strike on the rare when he knocks you back with Angry Stomp.

Arachnoid Harvester

Level: Battle for Azeroth Rare Elite, lvl 52
Location: West of Bondo’s Yard, Mechagon.
Health Points: 571k
Fight duration: 11m48s
Difficulty: medium
Dodge Capacitor Discharge because it will stun you, melees for about 2k each hit, you need to time Immolation Aura just before he Web Wraps you else you’ll be lower than 50% health once Web Wraps expires.

Huolon

Level: Mists of Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: Around The Blazing Way on Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 204k
Fight duration: 3m02s
Difficulty: easy
His Lightning Breath hits for over 8k, make sure you use the Timeless Isle buffs and stay away from Storm Blossom.

Cinderfall

Level: Mists of Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: Bridge on Firewalkers’ Path on Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 169k
Fight duration: 2m01s
Difficulty: easy
Dodge the Molten Inferno as much as possible, some can be dodged, some can not.

Flintlord Gairan

Level: Mists of Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: Outside the Ordon Sanctuary on Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 152k
Fight duration: 2m02s
Difficulty: easy
He’s the boss of the Eternal Kilnmasters (uses their abilities with more damage), his melee is weak but his Blazing Blow hits for over 10k. Just move around him constantly and beware when he has the Kilnfire buff up because stuff really gets serious.

Urdur the Cauterizer

Level: Mists of Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: Outside the Ordon Sanctuary on Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 141k
Fight duration: 1m20s
Difficulty: easy
He’s the boss of the Blazebound Chanters (uses their abilities with more damage), don’t interrupt his Cauterize (it heals him for 25% but he gets 30% damage over the next 30 secs) and just tank him and his two Golems.

Archiereus of Flame

Level: Mists of Pandaria Rare Elite
Location: Ordon Sanctuary (or summoned on Three-Breeze Terrace) on Timeless Isle, Pandaria.
Health Points: 508k
Fight duration: 5m57s
Difficulty: hard
He’s the boss of the High Priests of Ordos (uses their abilities with more damage) which means he has access to all the abilities of Blazebound Chanters AND Eternal Kilmasters while doing a bucketload more damage. Don’t interrupt his Cauterize (it heals him for 25% but he gets 30% damage over the next 30 secs), move away from his Golems, move from Blazing Blow because it will one shot you with Kilnfire buff up. He hits mega hard.

Colossus of Ashi

Level: Classic Elite
Location: Hive’Ashi in Silithus, Kalimdor.
Health Points: 3727k
Fight duration: 42m30s
Difficulty: easy
It might be easy but hits quite hard in melee, does a Colossal Smash that will send you flying so prepare to glide down to safety.

Necromantic Anomaly

Level: Shadowlands Rare Elite, lvl 61
Location: House of Rituals in Maldraxxus, Shadowlands.
Health Points: 367k
Fight duration: 15m42s
Difficulty: medium
Miss, miss, miss, rotate cooldowns on Deathbolt Rifts (can be interrupted) and Death Sweep.

Crazed Trogg

Level: Battle For Azeroth Rare, lvl 50
Location: Cave in Sparkweaver Point on Mechagon, Kul Tiras.
Health Points: 142k
Fight duration: 2m3s
Difficulty: trivial
Avoid the Bonk.

The Scrap King

Level: Battle For Azeroth Rare Elite, lvl 51
Location: The Heaps on Mechagon, Kul Tiras.
Health Points: 228k + 142k
Fight duration: 6m55s
Difficulty: easy
Avoid Mind Slice, hits for 4.5k and stuns.

Borr-Geth

Level: Shadowlands Rare Elite
Location: Zovaal’s Cauldron, The Maw.
Health Points: 338k
Fight duration: 5m20s
Difficulty: easy
Avoid Magma Wave and prepare to be stunned by Gauntlet Smash.

Dungeons

Not soloable

• Sha of Anger - mind control.
• Galleon - too much damage, too many adds.
• Oondasta - Crush stacks too high (at 4 stacks you have 0 armor), Frill Blast and his 10k melee hits will screw you hard.
• Tarlna the Ageless - too many adds, you need to step on the lashers during Genesis but that’s kinda hard when you are rooted in place.
• Brutallus - Meteor Slash needs to be shared with more people (at least one), else it does 30-35k damage on you, one-shotting.
• Rukhmar - Sharp Beak applies Pierced Armor and beyond 10 stacks it’s just not manageable, at 14 stacks of Pierced Armor, Sharp Beak hits for 25k. You need a way to reset aggro and the Precious Bloodthorn Loop ring has a 5 min CD, it’s impossible to survive to Rukhmar for 5 minutes.
• Humongris - no way to reset the Charred stacks from You Go Bang!, at 4-5 you really go Bang.
• The Soultakers - I wouldn’t know where to start.
• Ursoc - dps race and the damage is just too much.
• Xavius - very tight dps race that ends with you mind-controlled, even with DPS gear best attempt was 35% (Normal difficulty) and 18% (LFR difficulty).
• Ordos - has a cleave-like ability that one-shots you, besides that the damage he does is a bit too much. And he enrages after 5 minutes.
• Ulmath the Soulbinder - unscaled, it’s not doable under any circumstances, ever.
• Wekemara - you cannot enter the zone where it resides (Spears of Azshara).

Charts

Below are some charts I generated using exported data from my WoW client via Combat Logging.

Legend

The x-axis is the time axis, you get one plot of data for each time my demon hunter’s HP changed so the length of the x axis is dependent on the length of the fight.

The z-axis is the health points axis, as you can see it should oscillate between two values, one for normal HP (~26k) and one for demon form HP (~40k). Keep in mind that I am using the Demonic talent, which gives me 6 seconds of demon form after each Fel Devastation finishes channeling.

There are two layers on each of the chart images, one blue   that represents my demon hunter’s current health points and one red   that represents the max possible health points; to simplify, red means the amount of HP that is missing at Y time, if all is missing = dead. Too much red means my demon hunter spends way too much time below optimal HP and will probably die. The ideal outcome is both layers overlap perfectly such as no red is visible, which means no damage taken.

Click on the graph to get a higher resolution image.

World Bosses

Below are some charts for various incomplete fights, they end at 0 HP for my demon hunter.

Rukhmar

Difficulty: insane Gear: tank Duration: 9m15s Best attempt: 85%

Ordos

Difficulty: insane Gear: tank Duration: 0m29s Best attempt: 99%

Oondasta

Difficulty: insane Gear: tank Duration: 1m3s Best attempt: 97%

Dungeons

Iron Docks

All the trash mobs were skipped using Precious Bloodthorn Loop, took 17 minutes because I have to wait for the cooldown on the ring between the bosses (enter instance, run to first boss, vanish, kill boss, wait for ring CD, run to second bosses, vanish, kill bosses, wait for ring CD, run to third boss, vanish, kill boss, run to last bosses, kill bosses). Boss kills took 1m52s for Fleshrender Nok’gar, 2m27s for Grimrail Enforcers, 2m27s for Oshir and 3m04s for Skulloc, the rest of the time is wasted running, vanishing and waiting for vanish CD. The run was done in full DPS gear.

Iron Docks

Split into separate graphs for each boss.

Fleshrender Nok'gar

Grimrail Enforcers

Oshir

Skulloc