Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Dragonflight 10.2
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Vengeance Demon Hunter, depending on the type of damage you will be tanking. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to maximize your survivability and DPS. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.2.
- 1. Rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunters
- 2. Best DPS Rotations for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- 3. Single-Target Rotation Goals for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- 4. AoE Rotation Goals for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- 5. Defensive sidenote for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- 6. Extra use case for Infernal Strike
- 7. Single-Target Opener for Vengeance Demon Hunter in Dragonflight
- 8. Single-Target Rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunter
Rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunters
Welcome to the rotation guide for Vengeance Demon Hunter. Below, you will find the general priority of your abilities, as well as how your talent choices will affect the Rotation. Further down, you can find out how certain key talents interact with the rest of your toolkit, as well as how you best utilize them to their full potential. In the final section, you will also find advice on how to best approach your defensive toolkit.
If you are a beginner player or just new to Vengeance and want an easier guide to get started, please visit the Easy Mode page linked below. In it, you will find a more basic version of your Rotation. Once you are more comfortable with the spec and have a rough idea of how the abilities work together, you can review this page again for a more in-depth rotation.
Best Talent Builds for Vengeance Demon Hunter in Dragonflight
We highly recommend you go and see what talent options you have available over on our talent page. Check out the dedicated Talents page below for different talent builds:
Talent selection
Your Rotation will vary a lot depending on the talent choices you make. To start, select your talent choices below. If a talent is not presented below, it likely does not affect your Rotation enough to be mentioned. The links below will default the talent choices to those present in our recommended talent builds.
Active Talents | Passive Talents |
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Best DPS Rotations for Vengeance Demon Hunter
Single-Target Rotation Goals for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- Generating as much Fury as possible, in as little time as possible so as to be able to press
Soul Cleave a lot.
- Making sure you have a balance of not sitting at maximum Fury but also not wasting charges of
Fracture.
- Not letting any of your abilities with cooldowns sit available for any extended periods of time.
AoE Rotation Goals for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- Generating as many Soul Fragments as possible so to be able to spend them on as many
Spirit Bomb as possible.
- Making sure you are not going above 5 Soul Fragments intentionally too often, and to make sure to use
Spirit Bomb when at 4+ Soul Fragments.
- Keeping
Sigil of Flame and all your other abilities on cooldown.
Defensive sidenote for Vengeance Demon Hunter
The rotations will mention to use defensive abilities like Fiery Brand
and
Fel Devastation on cooldown. However, you will usually come across
situations when you need to save them for mechanics. In situations like that, you
skip past them in the Rotation until you will need them. Just make sure to try
to not waste any potential uses of the abilities.
Extra use case for Infernal Strike
In addition to your rotations, you can also make use of
Infernal Strike (which is off the global cooldown) to deal
additional damage. It is recommended to always keep at least 1 charge in reserve
, however, unless the fight requires no movement whatsoever, in which case you
can use up both charges.
Single-Target Opener for Vengeance Demon Hunter in Dragonflight
- Pre-place
Sigil of Flame 1 second before pull
- Use
Metamorphosis and
Infernal Strike
- Use
Fiery Brand
- Use
Immolation Aura
- Use
Felblade
- Use
Fracture
- Use 3x
Soul Cleave
- Use any Offensive On-Use trinket
- Use
The Hunt
- Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
Single-Target Rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunter
This priority list describes the optimal single-target Rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunter.
- Use
Fiery Brand when you are close to reach two stacks of
Fiery Brand, or need a defensive for some mechanic. .
- Use
Fel Devastation , when you have
Fiery Brand applied to the target and more than 2 seconds remaining on the debuff.
- Use
Sigil of Flame, ideally without overcapping Fury , unless if the target already has
Sigil of Flame applied to it.
- Use
Immolation Aura , when you have
Fiery Brand or
Sigil of Flame applied to the target, or when both have more than 5 seconds of cooldown remaining.
- Use
Soul Cleave to spend excess Fury and Soul Fragments.
- Use
Throw Glaive as a filler or when you are not in range of your enemy.
AoE Opener for Vengeance Demon Hunter
- Pre-place
Sigil of Flame 1 second before pull
- Use
Metamorphosis and
Infernal Strike
- Use
Fiery Brand
- Use
Immolation Aura
- Proceed with your normal Rotation according to the priority list below.
AoE Rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunter
This priority list describes the optimal AoE rotation for Vengeance Demon Hunter.
- Use
Fel Devastation, preferably when most enemies are affected by
Fiery Brand.
- Use
Sigil of Flame if the target already has
Sigil of Flame applied to it, unless you are about to reach 2 charges.
- Use
Immolation Aura , preferably without overcapping too many Soul Fragments from
Fallout.
- Use
Throw Glaive as a filler or when you are not in range of any enemy.
Talents that alter your rotation
Frailty
Dragonflight introduces a reworked version of the Frailty mechanic.
Depending on which talents are selected on the Vengeance Tree you it will be
applied to all targets hit by
Sigil of Flame,
Spirit Bomb, or
Soul Cleave.
With all related talents selected, each stack of Frailty will give
you 10% leech from all damage dealt to the target, 4% increased damage to the
target, and reduce all damage taken from the target by 4%. Talenting into
Soulcrush allows you to stack multiple stacks. The duration of
the stacks is independent of each other.
This allows you to utilize frailty as a damage cooldown. Whenever you
are planning on using any of your strong offensive damaging abilities, you
can pool Fury and use it all up on Spirit Bomb and/or
Soul Cleave to stack
Frailty on your targets, increasing the
damage they take from your massive abilities by a significant amount.
Fiery Demise
If you talent into Fiery Demise your
Fiery Brand will
now be an offensive cooldown on top of being a defensive cooldown.
Several of your spells deal fire damage, and increasing the fire damage by up
to 50% is a massive bonus.
When using Fiery Demise, you want to make sure that all your strong
fire spells during the duration of your
Fiery Brand. This includes
Soul Carver if talented, and
Fel Devastation. Since
Fel Devastation is usually also used for its defensive value. Ideally,
you finish channeling it just as the initial
Fiery Brand expires.
The Hunt
The Hunt makes a comeback in Dragonflight after being a Covenant
ability in Shadowlands.
On paper, it is a very simple ability, press it, and you do damage.
However, due to pathing issues and inconsistencies in enemy hit-boxes, the
damage over time effect will sometimes struggle to apply to all enemies.
This can be managed by moving around for a bit after the initial hit of the
spell. There is a grace period of roughly half a second after hitting your
target when you can move through other enemies to apply the effect.
Active Mitigation for Vengeance Demon Hunter
As a Vengeance Demon Hunter, you have one active mitigation ability,
Demon Spikes.
Demon Spikes should be used frequently to avoid and reduce Physical
damage taken, even against simple auto-attacks. Always keep at least one of
its charges rolling.
Defensive Cooldowns for Vengeance Demon Hunter
As a Vengeance Demon Hunter, you have two defensive cooldowns in
Metamorphosis and
Fiery Brand, and two talents in
Demonic and
Illuminated Sigils,
which make
Fel Devastation and
Sigil of Flame
into defensive cooldowns.
Metamorphosis increases your current and maximum health
by 50%, and your Armor by 200% for 15 seconds. It also enhances your
Shear and
Fracture to generate 1 extra soul and
20 extra Fury. It has a 2-minute cooldown and no cost.
Fiery Brand should be placed on the target when you anticipate
that they will deal high damage to you or when you simply want to reduce the
damage you take (regardless if it is Physical or Magical damage). With
Burning Alive
you can spread
Fiery Brand to multiple enemies for a large amount of
damage and defensive value.
The talent Demonic will make
Fel Devastation grant
7 seconds of
Metamorphosis when you press it, making it a very
potent defensive cooldown. It has a 1-minute cooldown and a 50-fury cost.
Illuminated Sigils makes attacks from targets affected by
Sigil of Flame
20% more likely to be Parried. This gives you a large amount of damage reduction
against most physical attacks, which is usually the main damage source in
Mythic+ dungeons.
Metamorphosis works best proactively to increase your
health and armor in preparation for incoming damage and should generally
not be used reactively as an emergency cooldown if possible.
Taunting
Torment is your only taunting ability. It only works on a
single target and has an 8-second cooldown. It forces the target to attack you
for 3 seconds and also increases the threat you generate against that target
for the same duration.
Soul Fragments
Soul Fragments are a unique Vengeance Demon Hunter mechanic. The baseline
ability comes from the Shattered Souls passive.
When you kill a target, there is a chance that a Soul Fragment will be created. This is an orb that is placed on the ground at a nearby location and persists for up to 20 seconds. If you walk over it, you will consume the Soul Fragment, and be healed for a certain amount (348.075%% of your attack power in health). Only you can see and interact with your Soul Fragments.
Moreover, if a Soul Fragment comes from a Demon target, consuming it will also, increase your damage done by 20% for 15 seconds.
In addition to these Soul Fragments, there are also Lesser Soul
Fragments. These have a chance to be created when you damage targets with
Shear, or with
Immolation Aura (provided that
you have the
Fallout talent), and using the
Fracture
talent also generates 2 Lesser Soul Fragments each time it is used. They work
in exactly the same way, but they heal for 6% of damage taken in the last 5
seconds, or a minimum of 1% of your Maximum Health.
It is worth noting that each Soul Fragment or Lesser Soul Fragment you
generate, if you already have 5 active, will be instantly consumed. Moreover,
Spirit Bomb will consume all Soul Fragments within 100 yards.
Changelog
- 10 Nov. 2023: Updated so AoE Rotation now shows full rotation.
- 08 Nov. 2023: Updated Rotation Switches for the Heretic Build.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 19 Jun. 2023: Updated Tier set interaction.
- 01 May 2023: Updated with changes to rotation in patch 10.1
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Updated with minor changes to make things a bit more clear.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 10 Nov. 2022: Updated with minor changes for Dragonflight Pre-Patch.
- 24 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight Pre-Patch.
More Demon Hunter Guides
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This guide is written by Meyra, a Vengeance main with a love for pushing Mythic+ keys and showcasing Proof of Concept keys with 5 tanks or other non-standard group compositions. They are a distinguished member and frequent contributor to Vengeance theory in the Demon Hunter class discord who also occasionally streams Vengeance and other tank content on Twitch.
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