Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Talent Choices for Vengeance Demon Hunter

Level	Choices
99	✓ Abyssal Strike	✗ Agonizing Flames	? Razor Spikes
100	✗ Feast of Souls	✓ Fallout	✗ Burning Alive
102	✓ Flame Crash	✗ Charred Flesh	✗ Felblade
104	✗ Soul Rending	✓ Feed the Demon	✓ Fracture
106	✓ Concentrated Sigils	✗ Quickened Sigils	✓ Sigil of Chains
108	✗ Gluttony	✓ Spirit Bomb	✗ Fel Devastation
110	✓ Last Resort	✓ Void Reaver	✓ 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. Suggested Talent Builds for Vengeance Demon Hunters

2.1. Survivability

1. Level 99: Abyssal Strike
2. Level 100: Fallout
3. Level 102: Flame Crash
4. Level 104: Feed the Demon
5. Level 106: Sigil of Chains
6. Level 108: Spirit Bomb
7. Level 110: Last Resort (all 3 options on this row are viable and will be taken on a per-fight or dungeon basis)

2.2. Mixed DPS & Survival / DPS / Questing / Dungeons

1. Level 99: Abyssal Strike
2. Level 100: Fallout
3. Level 102: Flame Crash
4. Level 104: Fracture
5. Level 106: Sigil of Chains
6. Level 108: Spirit Bomb
7. Level 110: Last Resort

3. Tier 1 (Level 99) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✔ 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 15% while Demon Spikes is active, and also causes your melee attacks to snare targets by 20% for 6 seconds during this time.

Abyssal Strike is the go-to talent for all situations at the moment. It provides the highest amount of DPS and mobility for pulling trash or kiting.

Agonizing Flames is the lowest DPS option in this row, as well as the worst for mobility and kiting.

Razor Spikes makes your active mitigation an offensive "cooldown". It provides good burst damage but lower overall damage than Abyssal Strike. This may see some use as Haste improves and sims better than it actually is in practice.

In summary, Abyssal Strike will be taken in every situation currently.

4. Tier 2 (Level 100) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✘ 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 generally the best talent in this tier. It provides the most healing and DPS out of the row, as well as scaling with mob count.

Feast of Souls provides a very small amount of self healing, as well as not having an amazing uptime due to Soul Cleave being used only as a Pain dump.

Burning Alive is too slow to be effective and is overshadowed by the other options.

In summary, Fallout will be taken in every situation currently.

5. Tier 3 (Level 102) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✔ Flame Crash

✘ Charred Flesh

✘ Felblade

• Flame Crash is a passive ability that causes your Infernal Strike to leave behind a Sigil of Flame at the location where you land.
• Charred Flesh causes enemies with the Fiery Brand debuff to take 20% more fire damage from you. This is spread with Burning Alive.
• 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 30 Pain, and using Shear or Fracture has a chance to reset Felblade's cooldown.

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

Charred Flesh is worse for DPS than Flame Crash and provides nothing else.

Felblade provides less damage than Flame Crash, and grants no noticeable defensive increase.

In summary, Flame Crash will be taken in every situation currently.

6. Tier 4 (Level 104) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✘ Soul Rending

✔ Feed the Demon

✔ Fracture

• Soul Rending is a passive ability that grants you 5% Leech passively and 25% additional Leech while Metamorphosis is active.
• Feed the Demon is a passive ability that reduces the remaining cooldown of Demon Spikes by 0.5 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 generates 25 Pain and has 2 charges, with a 4.5-second cooldown. (Reduced by Haste)

Fracture is the go-to talent for DPS as well as being decent for survival. It is very good at on demand Soul and Pain generation, providing slightly more "control" to your gameplay.

Feed the Demon is the best for overall damage reduction and if you need more Demon Spikes uptime. This is the go to pick in Raid for survival, but is lackluster in dungeons compare to Fracture.

Soul Rending is the weakest option in the row and will never see play.

In summary, take Feed the Demon for raid survival, otherwise use Fracture.

7. Tier 5 (Level 106) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✔ Concentrated Sigils

✘ Quickened Sigils

✔ Sigil of Chains

• Concentrated Sigils passively causes all your Sigils to be targeted at your location, and increases the duration of their effects by 2 seconds.
• Quickened Sigils passively causes all sigils to activate 1 second faster, and also reduces their cooldowns by 20%.
• 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.

Sigil of Chains is a very strong utility for Mythic+ as well as certain raid encounters. It is the go-to in Mythic+ and any boss where the grip can be utilized. It allows you to group up enemies and can be used to interrupt casts, including some of those you cannot interrupt with Disrupt.

Concentrated Sigils is taken when you want to maximize DPS with Sigil of Flame, and are not interested in the utility provided by the other sigils. This is for Raid DPS.

Quickened Sigils is not a bad talent, however it is overshadowed in strength by the other talents in the row.

In summary, take Sigil of Chains for dungeons or bosses where you want to utilize the grip. Otherwise use Concentrated Sigils for DPS in raid.

8. Tier 6 (Level 108) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✘ Gluttony

✔ Spirit Bomb

✘ Fel Devastation

• Gluttony gives a chance to proc 5 seconds of Metamorphosis when consuming a Soul Fragment.
• 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 10% of the damage you deal to enemies affected by Frailty.
• 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.

Spirit Bomb is the best choice in this tier. 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 as possible over the course of an encounter. This provides the highest amount of DPS for the row for both single target and AoE. It is also the best defensively, as you can use it to consume 5 souls for the lesser soul fragment healing.

Gluttony has a chance chance to proc a mediocre cooldown. It is decent when it procs, but the random nature makes it unpredictable and unreliable for a tank.

Fel Devastation is the lowest DPS gain and lowest survival of the talents in the row.

In summary, Spirit Bomb will be taken in every situation currently.

9. Tier 7 (Level 110) Talents for Vengeance Demon Hunters

✔ Last Resort

✔ Void Reaver

✔ 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.
• Void Reaver provides a 6% damage reduction for 12 seconds when you hit an enemy with Soul Cleave.
• Soul Barrier is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. You place a damage absorption shield on yourself that lasts for 12 seconds. 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.

Void Reaver is a generic go-to pick. It provides damage reduction on an enemy and is always useful. If you do not require a cheat death or an extra cooldown, this talent is useful.

Soul Barrier is the best choice against Magic damage or when an extra cooldown is needed. It should be used when you have 5 Soul Fragments active, and ideally, at least 1 charge of Fracture off cooldown.

In summary, take Last Resort for pulling large packs in Mythic+ or for progression/when you are not comfortable, Soul Barrier when you are comfortable with an encounter or the cooldown lines up well with an encounter, and Void Reaver when the other two options are lackluster or not needed, and you have high tank uptime.

10. PvP Talents (War Mode)

In Battle for Azeroth, there will be the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• Grants access to PvP talents in the open world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.
• Earn Conquest Points which can reward gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will enable yourself for open world PvP and the possibility, so be aware of hostile enemy players who could interfere with you, and this is a risk you will have to take.

10.1. Vengeance Demon Hunter PvP Talents

Generally, the selections are made to optimize your ability to kill enemies faster, increasing your pace when moving through content.

1. Jagged Spikes turns your Demon Spikes into an offensive cooldown. Note that this is nerfed with gear due to less damage taken.
2. Solitude is a great choice if doing solo content, boosting your resource generation.
3. Demonic Trample allows for running through buildings faster and for speed-pulling multiple packs.

If you are in a group that you will be within 15 yards of often, you can replace Solitude for either Everlasting Hunt for more movement or Tormentor for more single target damage.

11. Changelog