Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.2.5)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 4. Contents
  • 5. 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
  • 4. Important Procs
  • 5. Active Mitigation
  • 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
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation
  • 3. Active Mitigation
  • 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. Damage Output
    • 1.3. Dungeons
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Preface
  • 2. Gems
  • 3. Enchants
  • 4. Consumables
  • 5. 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. Blessing of Protection Cancelaura Macro
      • 1.2.2. 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
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List
  • 2. Tier 20 Set Bonuses
  • 3. Legendary Items
  • 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 7.2.5. 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 Munkky, a respected Vengeance Demon Hunter theorycrafter.

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 provides a large mobility boost, by giving you two extra Infernal Strikes per minute. This is a great option for fights where mobility is important, and it also provides a DPS increase (if you are using the Flame Crash talent). This is the talent of choice for AoE situations and dungeon content.

Razor Spikes is the best choice for burst single-target damage, but it requires proper management to obtain the best results. If you do not wish to bother with this, then simply choosing Abyssal Strike for the DPS component is viable.

Agonizing Flames can be used for the movement speed increase and for the DPS in dungeon content, where its cooldown lines up well with the timing of pulls.

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.

All three talents in this tier are viable, albeit in different situations.

Against multiple targets, Fallout can provide a strong AoE healing burst. If using Spirit Bomb or a non- Fracture build, this will be the best talent for DPS in this row. Note that Fallout becomes much more valuable once you unlock the Painbringer Artifact trait. Note that Fallout works well in conjunction with the Feed the Demon, Spirit Bomb, and Soul Barrier talents for Soul Fragment generation in dungeons, which makes it practically a must-have have when using any of these talents.

Burning Alive provides a very small DPS increase on single-target, but it is outshined by Fallout + Spirit Bomb. Bear in mind that since Fiery Brand reduces the damage the target deals to you, spreading Fiery Brand to other targets also causes the damage reduction to spread, which can be very useful in AoE situations.

Feast of Souls provides a small HoT to the player, which is not a reliable source of healing. It requires Soul Cleave, which is not something you will cast very much.

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.

Felblade is the best for learning and for survivability due to the Pain generation it provides. The charge is nice, however given that you already have Infernal Strike, it is not particularly impactful.

Flame Crash is an AoE DPS increase, and is preferable for AoE situations. When taking this,  Infernal Strike should always be used practically on cooldown, only saving charges for when movement is absolutely necessary. You will then continue to "weave" this with  Sigil of Flame in order to maximise the uptime of Sigil of Flame.

Fel Eruption provides the highest single-target DPS increase in this tier, and if you are interested in that as opposed to survivability, it can be a good choice. If using Fel Eruption, it is a good idea to use it on cooldown and always time it for when the target is debuffed by Fiery Brand (since they take increased damage thanks to the Fiery Demise Artifact trait).

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 40 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 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.

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.

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.

Feed the Demon is decent for survival in dungeons when using the Fallout talent, but it is overshadowed by Fracture in raids, as well as by Soul Rending when you lack healing.

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.

Sigil of Chains has good utility and it can work well to group up mobs for easier AoE damage. It is very strong in dungeons.

Concentrated Sigils can be the highest DPS option of the row when taken with Flame Crash, as it gives you an extra tick per Sigil of Flame. This should only be used when you do not need to place your sigils at range, generally only on bosses.

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 the highest damaging ability in this tier and is one of the two key abilities for Vengeance Demon Hunters. You should use it for DPS and for survivability. If there is more than 1 target active, you are better off using Spirit Bomb for the instant healing than Soul Cleave. For damage, if there are 5 or more Lesser Soul Fragments, use it. Otherwise, for survival, you simply maintain the Frailty buff.

Blade Turning provides Pain gain from all sources, however the overall Pain gain is not that high. This is meant as a smoothing talent, something which Spirit Bomb does better.

Fel Devastation provides burst healing and DPS, however it is weaker than the other choices in this tier.

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. 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 2-minute 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. Outside of progression raiding, however, you will not find much use for this talent.

Demonic Infusion provides a large gain to Demon Spikes uptime and is great for Physical damage-heavy fights or for a DPS gain when used with Razor Spikes.

Soul Barrier is viable and we consider it to be the best for fights with heavy Magic damage. For the best usage, you should use it in conjunction with Fracture, Soul Carver, and/or Fallout to build Soul Fragments beforehand, which you can then use during Soul Barrier.

9. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 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.