Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 5. Contents
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics
  • 2. Talent Choice
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation
  • 5. Active Mitigation and Cooldowns
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resource
  • 3. Basic Abilities
    • 3.1. Movement
    • 3.2. Utility
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Active Mitigation and Defensive Abilities
  • 6. Cooldowns
  • 7. ChangeLog
• ×Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 99) Talents
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 100) Talents
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 102) Talents
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 104) Talents
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 106) Talents
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 108) Talents
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 110) Talents
  • 9. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression
  • 2. Relic Choice
    • 2.1. Survivability
    • 2.2. DPS
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice
  • 2. Tier 2 Upgrade Priority
    • 2.1. Survivability Priority
    • 2.2. DPS Priority
  • 3. Tier 3 Upgrade Priority
    • 3.1. Survivability
    • 3.2. DPS
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation
  • 3. Active Mitigation and Defensive Abilities
  • 4. Defensive Cooldowns
  • 5. Taunting
  • 6. Optional Read: Mastering Your Vengeance Demon Hunter
    • 6.1. Pain
    • 6.2. Mastery: Fel Blood
    • 6.3. Soul Fragments
    • 6.4. Pain Management
    • 6.5. In-Depth Ability Usage
      • 6.5.1. Artifact Ability
      • 6.5.2. Throw Glaive
      • 6.5.3. Consume Magic
      • 6.5.4. Sigils
    • 6.6. Advanced Active Mitigation Usage
      • 6.6.1. Demon Spikes
      • 6.6.2. Soul Cleave
      • 6.6.3. Empower Wards
      • 6.6.4. Fiery Brand
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
    • 1.1. Survivability
    • 1.2. Mythic+
    • 1.3. Damage Output
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems
  • 2. Enchants
  • 3. Consumables
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Demon Hunters
      • 1.1.1. Focus Interrupt Macro
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Vengeance Demon Hunters
      • 1.2.1. Sigil Macro
      • 1.2.2. Infernal Strike Macro
      • 1.2.3. Blessing of Protection Cancelaura Macro
      • 1.2.4. Mouseover Taunt Macro
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Demon Hunters
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.5. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.6. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 2.1.7. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Vengeance Demon Hunters
      • 2.2.1. Omen Threat Meter
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List
  • 2. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 3. Legendary Items
    • 3.1. Single Target Damage
    • 3.2. AoE Damage
    • 3.3. Single Target Healing
    • 3.4. AoE Healing
    • 3.5. Raid Survival
    • 3.6. Dungeon Survival/Utility
  • 4. Loot Competition
  • 5. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Vengeance Demon Hunters in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Vengeance Demon Hunter guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Greensprîng, one of the best Vengeance Demon Hunters in the world, who raids in untitled spreadsheet.

1. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
99	✔ Abyssal Strike	? Agonizing Flames	? Razor Spikes
100	✘ Feast of Souls	✔ Fallout	? Burning Alive
102	✘ Felblade	✔ Flame Crash	✘ Fel Eruption
104	✘ Feed the Demon	✔ Fracture	? Soul Rending
106	✔ Concentrated Sigils	? Sigil of Chains	✔ Quickened Sigils
108	? Fel Devastation	✔ Blade Turning	✔ Spirit Bomb
110	✔ Last Resort	✔ Demonic Infusion	✔ Soul Barrier

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Tier 1 (Level 99) Talents

✔ Abyssal Strike

? Agonizing Flames

? Razor Spikes

• Abyssal Strike increases the range of Infernal Strike by 10 yards and reduces its cooldown by 8 seconds.
• Agonizing Flames increases your movement speed by 30% while Immolation Aura is active, and also increases its damage by 20%.
• Razor Spikes causes your Physical damage to be increased by 30% while Demon Spikes is active, and also causes your melee attacks to snare targets by 50% for 6 seconds during this time.

Abyssal Strike is the go-to talent for single target damage at the moment.

Razor Spikes makes your active mitigation an offensive "cooldown". It provides good burst damage but lower overall damage than Abyssal Strike.

Finally, Agonizing Flames could be used for the extra mobility it provides.

3. Tier 2 (Level 100) Talents

✘ Feast of Souls

✔ Fallout

? Burning Alive

• Feast of Souls causes Soul Cleave to also place a 6-second HoT on you in addition to the instant healing it provides.
• Fallout causes the initial damage burst of Immolation Aura to have a chance of shattering Lesser Soul Fragments from enemies.
• Burning Alive causes your Fiery Brand to deal damage to the target every 2 seconds for its 8-second duration, and with each tick it spreads to another nearby target. Note that only the initial application of Fiery Brand can spread to other targets.

Fallout is the best talent for single target and AoE damage and for survivability. It is the recommended choice in this tier.

Burning Alive provides nice synergy with the Kirel Narak legendary boots, and with these boots it is a good option. It is also good if you need the extra damage reduction. That said, if you are using Spirit Bomb, you should probably not take this talent.

Feast of Souls is the weakest talent in this tier, and we never recommend taking it.

4. Tier 3 (Level 102) Talents

✘ Felblade

✔ Flame Crash

✘ Fel Eruption

• Felblade is an active ability with a 15-second cooldown (reduced by Haste) that charges your target and deals Fire damage to them. It generates 20 Pain, and using Shear has a chance to reset Felblade's cooldown.
• Flame Crash is a passive ability that causes your Infernal Strike to leave behind a Sigil of Flame at the location where you land.
• Fel Eruption is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown and which costs 10 Pain. It deals Chaos damage to your target, and stuns them for 2 seconds. Targets that are permanently immune to stuns (such as raid bosses) take 100% additional damage.

Flame Crash provides a single target and AoE DPS increase, and is our recommended choice.

Felblade should not be taken since you cannot afford the global cooldowns required to use this spell. Fel Eruption should likewise not be taken.

5. Tier 4 (Level 104) Talents

✘ Feed the Demon

✔ Fracture

? Soul Rending

• Feed the Demon is a passive ability that reduces the remaining cooldown of Demon Spikes by 1 second for each Soul Fragment you consume.
• Fracture is an active ability that deals Physical damage to your target and creates 2 Lesser Soul Fragments. Fracture costs 30 Pain.
• Soul Rending is a passive ability that grants you 50% Leech while Metamorphosis is active.

Fracture is the go-to talent for both Survival and DPS. For survival, you should use it to spawn Lesser Soul Fragments, exceed the cap, and automatically consume the new fragments (provided you are in range) for healing and Painbringer stacks. For DPS, it is great on single-target as well as for spawning Soul Fragments for Spirit Bomb in AoE situations.

Soul Rending is good for dungeons when your group or your healer are not very experienced. It is also good if you are pugging or when you are with a lower level healer. It provides less healing than Fracture, but it provides good burst healing.

Due to Metamorphosis having received a buff, this talent is not nearly as strong as the other two talents in this tier, and will see most of its use during Necrotic week of Mythic+ dungeons. This affects Metamorphosis, Fueled by Pain, and Last Resort.

Feed the Demon is not appealing for raids, and the benefit it offers is not really needed in dungeons, so we do not recommend taking it.

6. Tier 5 (Level 106) Talents

✔ Concentrated Sigils

? Sigil of Chains

✔ Quickened Sigils

• Concentrated Sigils passively causes all your Sigils to be targeted at your location, and increases the duration of their effects by 2 seconds.
• Sigil of Chains is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It places a sigil at the target location, which activates after 2 seconds. Any enemies located in the sigil area at that time are pulled to its center and snared, having their movement speed reduced by 70% for 6 seconds.
• Quickened Sigils passively causes all sigils to activate 1 second faster, and also reduces their cooldowns by 20%.

Quickened Sigils is a good choice if you want to lower the cooldown of your sigils or need extra crowd-control or silence. It is strong in Mythic+ when your group does not have enough interrupts available.

Sigil of Chains has decent utility and it can work well in large pulls in Mythic+ dungeons if you do not need Quickened Sigils.

Concentrated Sigils can be taken when you are only interested in your Sigil of Flame, and not in the utility provided by the other sigils.

7. Tier 6 (Level 108) Talents

? Fel Devastation

✔ Blade Turning

✔ Spirit Bomb

• Fel Devastation is an active channeled ability with a 1-minute cooldown and which costs 30 Pain. It deals Fire damage to enemies in front of you over 2 seconds (reduced by Haste), and dealing damage also heals you.
• Blade Turning passively increases your Pain generation by 20% for 5 seconds after parrying an attack.
• Spirit Bomb is an active ability that consumes all Soul Fragments in a 25-yard radius around you, causing them to also explode and deal damage to nearby enemies, affecting them with the Frailty debuff for 20 seconds. You heal for 20% of the damage you deal to enemies affected by Frailty.

Spirit Bomb is probably the best choice in this tier in most situations. For up to 3 targets, Soul Cleave provides better burst healing than Spirit Bomb, though. Lesser Soul Fragments are capped at 5, so you want to press Spirit Bomb with 4 or 5 Fragments to get as many global cooldowns for other things as possible.

Blade Turning can be taken if you need the extra Pain to maintain more burst healing or to maintain your active mitigation. You can choose it in situations where you are not allowed to use AoE damage.

Fel Devastation can be useful if you need burst healing and DPS every minute; otherwise Spirit Bomb is just better.

8. Tier 7 (Level 110) Talents

✔ Last Resort

✔ Demonic Infusion

✔ Soul Barrier

• Last Resort passively triggers Metamorphosis and returns you to 30% health if you take fatal damage (up to 200% of your total health). This effect can only occur once every 8 minutes, and it is not affected by the cooldown of your Metamorphosis (it will still trigger if Metamorphosis is on cooldown, and it does not trigger the cooldown when it procs). If Metamorphosis is active when Last Resort procs, its duration will simply be refreshed.
• Demonic Infusion is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown that uses your Demon Spikes charges and then instantly recharges them, also generating 60 Pain in the process.
• Soul Barrier is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which costs 30 Pain. You place a damage absorption shield on yourself that lasts for 12 seconds. Taking damage cannot fully consume the shield (there is a minimum amount below which it cannot go), and each time you consume a Soul Fragment while the shield is active, more damage absorption is added to it. Using Soul Barrier consumes all Soul Fragments within 25 yards.

The choice in this tier is largely preference-based. Consider the following points before making your decision.

Last Resort is a strong choice for progression content. It can save wipes and avoid using a combat res. You can also use it to avoid abilities, in some cases. It is also a nice choice when you are not familiar with the content.

Demonic Infusion is great when used with the Oblivion's Embrace legendary legs. It is the best choice for Physical damage encounters, when you do not need the Last Resort proc.

Soul Barrier is the best choice against Magic damage. It should be used when you have 5 Soul Fragments active.

9. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 29 Aug. 2017: Reworked almost all talent discussions.
• 15 Jun. 2017: Removed a mention of Soul Rending being good against the Necrotic affix in Mythic+, since Necrotic now affects Leech.
• 13 Jun. 2017: Updated several talent sections to account for Patch 7.2.5 changes, as well as updating some talent descriptions.
• 02 Apr. 2017: Updated tier 1, 4, and 5 talent discussions slightly.
• 27 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
• 10 Jan. 2017: Changed Soul Barrier to a checkmark (no change to text) and added a mention that Abyssal Strike is a DPS increase when paired with the Flame Crash talent.
• 09 Jan. 2017: Updated the talent descriptions to account for Patch 7.1.5 and also made various major changes to recommendations.
• 06 Nov. 2016: Updated several talent evaluations (Soul Barrier, Last Resort, Spirit Bomb, Concentrated Sigils, Fracture, Agonizing Flames, Razor Spikes).
• 25 Oct. 2016: Updated the Agonizing Flames, Spirit Bomb, and Soul Barrier descriptions and the Soul Barrier recommendation (slightly) to account for Patch 7.1 changes.
• 19 Sep. 2016: Updated tier 7 talent discussion.
• 04 Sep. 2016: Updated some talent discussions (tiers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7).
• 01 Sep. 2016: Made a few tweaks to talent recommendations (most notably tier 6).
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.