Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Stat Priority — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. The Basics of Stats for Vengeance Demon Hunter

The stat priority for Vengeance Demon Hunter is as follows:

1. Agility;
2. Haste;
3. Versatility;
4. Mastery;
5. Critical Strike.

For DPS, you will follow the above priority for stats, and the below for item level. You can also opt to go purely for item level. You will not prioritise Critical Strike, as the actual DPS gain on it is extremely miniscule, and you lose more survivability than you gain in DPS by going for Critical Strike. This includes gear, gems, and enchants.

You cannot simply go based on the stat priority above; instead, here are a few general rules for stats versus item level.

1. You cannot get stat weights for survivability.
2. A 15+ item level increase almost always means the new item is worth equipping.
3. At a 10 item level difference, look at the itemization of the pieces, but in general higher item level items are better.
4. At a 5 item level difference, choose the item that better fits the stat priority.
5. Rings/necks, tier sets, and trinkets do not follow these rules outside of big gaps in item level.
6. Always gem/enchant for your best stat.

These statistics have been obtained by combining common sense, in-game testing, and simulations using SimulationCraft.

2. Getting a Better Understanding of Vengeance Demon Hunter Stats

Agility increases your attack power, dodge chance, and self-healing (since your healing scales off of your attack power).

Mastery: Fel Blood increases your attack power, and the amount of damage reduction you gain from Demon Spikes based on your Agility.

Critical Strike increases the chance for your damaging abilities and your heals to be twice as effective. Your Critical Strike chance is also converted into parry chance.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.

Haste reduces the global cooldown (until you reach 50% Haste), and also reduces the cooldown of Demon Spikes, Immolation Aura, Throw Glaive, and Felblade.

Most encounters have abilities that cannot be mitigated or avoided. Also, you need to have a decent amount of health, in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. As such, you need a minimum amount of Stamina. This amount will, in most cases, simply come from the Stamina found innately on your gear. Therefore, item level is the determining factor in keeping your health pool growing.

3. Changelog