Vengeance Demon Hunter Primer

[Nomeansmaybe 0]

Hey Guys, I'd like to start off by saying this is mostly anecdotal, and definitely not complete. I simply saw a lack of guides online discussing this class and spec, so I thought I would share what I have learned. I plan to add more soon, this is sort of a place holder for now. I'm also going to clean it up a bit. Feel free to add comments. Also, I know I didn't discuss base abilities, rotation, or stat priorities yet, those will come next. Thanks.

 

 

Talents:

99 Tier:

Abyssal Strike: Strictly Mobility.

Agonizing Flames: Mobility, Damage, Mitigation through healing.

Razor Spikes:Damage, Crowd control.

 

Opinion: Abyssal Strike is the obviously weakest of the three. Agonizing flames would be most preferable in most situations, partially for its self healing (Charred Warblades) and for its increased mobility.Razor spikes doesn’t really compare, being the 20% increase is only to physical damage.

 

100 Tier:

Feast of Souls:Mitigation through healing.

Fallout: Resource Generation (Soul Fragment).

Burning Alive: Increased damage, Mitigation through healing, mitigation.

 

Opinion: Clear pick here is Burning Alive. The debuff spreads to up to 6 targets (Demonic Flames), decreases the damage they do to you by 40%, and increases the damage of your fire spells by 30% (Fiery Demise). All of this increased damage is turned to 15% healing (Charred Warblades).

 

102 Tier:

Felblade: Pain Generation, Damage

Flame Crash:Damage

Gluttony: Increased damage to soul cleave.

 

Opinion: Fel blade hands down; more pain generation and a pretty substantial amount of damage. Flame crash is good for AoE Dps, but serves no real purpose in terms of resource generation or mitigation. Gluttony is just a semi-random increase to the damage of one attack.

 

104 Tier:

Feed the Demon: Reduced cooldown on demon spikes.

Fracture:Damage, resource generation (Soul Fragments).

Soul Rending: 50% leech in metamorphosis.

 

Opinion: This is one tier where there are actual decisions to make. Reducing the cooldown on demon spikes is attractive at low gear levels against physical damage, but get’s worse as gear improves (Haste). Fracture is a nice way to increase soul fragment generation and do some extra damage, but it’s high pain cost, it could actually put you in some tricky situations. That withstanding, it does have good synergy with Soul Barrier and Fueled by Pain. Soul rending can be very good situationally, making metamorphosis much stronger, also having a good synergy with Fueled by Pain.

 

106 Tier:

Concentrated Sigils Crowd Control, quality of life

Fel Eruption: Damage, Crowd Control.

Quickened Sigils: Crowd Control, reduced sigil CD.

 

Opinion: Fel Eruption is leaps and bounds better than the other two. It is a HUGE hit that doubles as a stun. The sigil talents are at best situationally useful.

 

108 Tier:

Fel Devastation: Damage, Healing

Blade Turning: Resource generation (pain)

Spirit Bomb: Damage, Healing.

 

Opinion: General speaking, Fel Devastation is superior. It hits for a large amount of damage, which heals for a large amount as well. The only downfall is that it's channeled, and therefor stuns and knockbacks will cancel the effect. Spirit Bomb scales better the more targets there are, but depleting soul fragments to do damage can be a risky proposition. Blade turning is a nice, passive increase to your pain generation.

 

110 Tier:

Last Resort: Fatal Damage avoidance

Nether Bond:Ally cooldown.

Soul Barrier: Absorption.

 

Opinion: Baseline, Soul Barrier is the go-to talent.It does a decent, augmentable amount of damage reduction on a short cooldown. Last Resort is basically a passive Ardent Defender allowing you to survive one fatal hit every 3 minutes. Nether Bond is a spirit link for 15 seconds between you and another target. The latter two talents will certainly find their ways into raiding encounters.

 

Mitigation:

Demon Spikes: Increases your parry chance and reduces physical mitigation by a percentage based on mastery and artifact traits. Worth noting that the recharge scales with haste.

 

Empowered Wards: Magic reduction cooldown, artifact makes gives you agility based on the amount of spell damage absorbed.

 

Darkness: Reduces chance to be hit by 15% in an area of effect.

 

Fiery Brand: Reduces damage done to you by the target affected by it by 40%. Paired with Burning Alive,Demon Flames, and Charred Warblades, it is a very strong ability.

 

Sigils: While not percentage based mitigation, misery, silence, and chains can all be used to reduce your damage taken.

 

Talents for mitigation:

Soul barrier: A mid level absorption shield. This ability is very versatile and augmentable. First notable attribute is that it scales with health and attack power. This means on use trinkets that effect either will give you a stronger shield. This also works with metamorphosis. Secondly, you can add more absorption to it through soul fragments: This works very well with abilities like fracture and soul carver, which can quickly more than double your absorption. Finally, during the duration of the buff, the barrier can never be reduced below a certain amount, so it function as a sort of block mechanic as well.

 

Fel Devastation: While not a defensive cooldown in the traditional sense, this ability does offer a large amount of self healing (not to mention damage) in a short, consistent window of time. Further improved by Fiery Brand, Charred blades, and furthermore by Metamorphosis, this can work very well against flurry type attacks.

 

Special Mention: Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis increases your health and pain generation for the duration. Soul Rending gives you 50% leech in this form. Soul Barrier benefits from the increased health and your fired damage can do an absurd amount of healing with the leech (Charred Warblades).

Edited July 9, 2016 by Nomeansmaybe
Added more content