Vengeance Demon Hunter always flipped a coin before the release of a new Season — whether it would be at tier F or S. There is no middle ground. In Season 4, one of the 6 tank classes was lucky — he was at level S, strong and confident. And it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to remove him from this position before the end of the fourth Season. In this Vengeance Demon Hunter guide, we’ll look at its strengths, how to properly mitigate its minor weaknesses, BiS gear, and overall look at its abilities and usefulness for raids and groups in Mythic+.
4.9Vengeance Demon Hunter Overview
Demon Hunters are highly mobile in raids and dungeons. They have superior movement abilities, such as Infernal Strike, and talents that enhance their mobility. They are also capable of dealing significant burst AoE and cleave damage through various abilities. Additionally, they provide valuable utility in dungeons with their sigils.
The gameplay of the Vengeance Demon Hunter includes a combination of healing and damage mitigation. It has low-cost but limited active mitigation, the capability to effectively mitigate magic damage, and a high potential for burst healing.
The latest updates have significantly enhanced the Vengeance Demon Hunter’s abilities. Their new tier set and talents greatly increase the effectiveness of Sigil of Flame, making them more resilient with continuous protection. Additionally, Fel Devastation’s cooldown is reduced to 24 seconds, and Metamorphosis now recharges in just 2 minutes, thanks to specific gear items. This change boosts their defensive capabilities.
Moreover, Vengeance Demon Hunters now have better utility tools. The Illuminated Sigils talent grants them two charges for each utility sigil, enhancing their control in group situations. This is particularly useful for managing multiple enemies with abilities like Sigil of Silence, Sigil of Misery, and Chaos Nova.
These improvements make Demon Hunters not only more robust and efficient in dealing damage but also significantly easier to play. They are now highly suitable for challenging content like Dragonflight Mythic+, especially against caster mobs, due to their enhanced interrupt capabilities with Sigil of Silence. Teams with many casters will find a Demon Hunter tank especially beneficial because of their Chaos Brand ability.
Vengeance Demon Hunter Strengths and Weaknesses
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Excellent mobility | Low Single Damage |
| High damage and simple rotation | Doesn’t forgive mistakes well |
| A huge number of utilities for the group |
Vengeance Demon Hunter Changes in Patch 10.2.7
There is no changes to Vengeance Demon Hunters in patch 10.2.7, but experienced notable improvements were added in patch 10.2. Changes include rearranged talents and reduced talent costs, enhancing versatility. Sigil of Flame is now a standard ability, and various abilities have been strengthened, improving overall damage output.
Furthermore, the new Illuminated Sigils and enhanced Sigil talents provide a solid base for build optimization.
How to Play Vengeance Demon Hunter
Vengeance’s primary mechanic revolves around the use of Soul Fragments. These fragments, generated during combat, heal the player for 6% of the damage received in the preceding 5 seconds. While Fury is also a resource for Vengeance, it’s secondary in importance compared to Soul Fragments. The focus is more on managing these fragments for healing rather than on Fury management.
Specialization Skills
This table will help you get acquainted with the important abilities of Vengeance Demon Hunter and better understand when to use them. Check out these defensive and offensive benefits.
Offensive Cooldowns
| Spell | Cooldown | Advices |
|---|---|---|
| The Hunt | 90 seconds | When using cooldown abilities, it’s optimal to do so with at least 3 stacks of Frailty (5 stacks on your primary target). This strategy ensures maximum effectiveness and damage output. |
| Fel Devastation | 40 seconds | For optimal performance, use cooldown abilities generally on schedule, ideally when you have at least 2 stacks of Frailty (3 on your primary target). If you’re equipped with Fiery Demise and Down in Flames talents, synchronize these with a Fiery Brand cast. This combination also triggers Metamorphosis through Demonic. Depending on the situation, you might want to delay using Metamorphosis for defensive purposes, but try not to hold it for more than 10 seconds to maximize its potential. |
| Soul Carver | 1 minute | On cooldown, with fewer than 3 souls and ideally at least 5 stacks of Frailty. If you have Fiery Demise talented, sync it with Fiery Brand. |
| Elysian Decree | 1 minute | Use your cooldown abilities routinely, aiming for at least 3 stacks of Frailty (or 5 stacks on your primary target). This approach ensures you leverage the full potential of your abilities in sync with Frailty’s effects. |
Defensive Cooldowns
| Spell | Cooldown | Advices |
|---|---|---|
| Metamorphosis | 2 minutes | Activate your cooldown abilities as they become available, but be cautious if you are already in Metamorphosis from a previous proc. If more than 5 seconds remain on your current Metamorphosis, using another cooldown might overwrite the existing duration instead of extending it. |
| Fel Devastation | 40 seconds | Same advice |
| Fiery Brand | 1 minute | Use your cooldown abilities as they come up. However, if you anticipate a significant tankbuster attack soon, it’s advisable to delay using your cooldown for up to 10 seconds to align with that incoming damage. |
Talents
Obviously, the talents for raid and Mythic+ differ, but not significantly, so the table below fully describes all the significant talents in both builds.
Vengeance Demon Hunter Talents
| Talent | Description |
|---|---|
| Fel Devastation | This ability is a channeled cooldown that unleashes significant fire damage to enemies in a cone ahead of you, simultaneously providing a moderate heal as it channels. When used in conjunction with the Demonic talent, it triggers a 7-second Metamorphosis phase. |
| Frailty | The ability causes enemies affected by the Sigil of Flame to receive a stack of Frailty. This stack enables you to heal for 10% of all damage dealt to those enemies for 6 seconds. It synergizes with various talents deeper in the talent tree, enhancing the effects of Frailty and making it a fundamental aspect of the Vengeance playstyle. |
| Fiery Brand | This ability brands your target with intense fire damage, and for 10 seconds, the target inflicts 40% less damage to you. |
| Fracture | Replaces Shear with a dual-charge, 4.5-second cooldown ability that generates 25 Fury and 2 Lesser Soul Fragments per cast. Essential for unlocking much of your class’s toolkit, acquiring Fracture is highly recommended for all content. |
| Deflecting Spikes | This enhancement adds 15% Parry chance to Demon Spikes for its duration, significantly increasing its defense against physical damage. It’s valuable in all relevant content. |
| Spirit Bomb | A Fury-spending ability costing 40 Fury, this skill uses up to 5 Soul Fragments to deal fire damage to all nearby enemies, based on the number of fragments consumed. It applies 1 stack of Frailty to each enemy hit, making it particularly effective in multi-enemy encounters. It’s especially powerful in Mythic+ dungeons |
| Void Reaver | Enemies affected by Frailty now inflict 4% less damage on you. Additionally, targets hit by Soul Cleave are afflicted by Frailty for 6 seconds. This becomes a highly effective defensive talent when combined with Soulcrush further down the talent tree |
| Fallout | The initial damage of Immolation Aura now frequently spawns a Lesser Soul Fragment for each target hit, with a cap of 5 fragments. This talent excels in situations with multiple enemies, gaining significant value |
| Vulnerability | This talent enhances damage against targets afflicted by Frailty by 2% per talent point and per stack of Frailty. It’s particularly effective when combined with the subsequent Soulcrush talent |
| Soulcrush | This talent enables Frailty stacks to overlap on targets, with each stack maintaining its effects and an independent 6-second duration. It also allows Soul Cleave to apply an additional 8-second Frailty stack to your primary target |
| Darkglare Boon | This talent reduces the cooldown of Fel Devastation by 10-20% and refunds 10-20 Fury per talent point after it’s cast. This significantly boosts your overall damage output, especially when used in tandem with talents like Collective Anguish and Stoke the Flames |
| Illuminated Sigils | This talent provides an additional charge for all your sigils and increases your parry chance by 20% against targets affected by your Sigil of Flame. It’s a powerful utility and defensive option for Mythic+ dungeons |
You can import Talent build right away with these codes:
Raid Build
BUkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiIJJikgkERISJJkolIRiESSkEtIhEEAAAAQSSAMythic+ Build
BUkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAiIRiQCSSQIJtkIiWiEJSQSaJJNJplEEAAAAQSiAVengeance Demon Hunter Rotation
For a Vengeance Demon Hunter, the approach to combat differs between single-target and AoE situations.
Single-Target Rotation Goals:
- Fury Generation: Focus on generating Fury quickly to frequently use Soul Cleave.
- Balance Fury and Fracture: Avoid maxing out Fury while also not wasting Fracture charges.
- Cooldown Management: Use abilities with cooldowns promptly without letting them sit idle.
AoE Rotation Goals:
- Soul Fragment Generation: Aim to create many Soul Fragments to use Spirit Bomb effectively.
- Soul Fragment Management: Try not to exceed 5 Soul Fragments and use Spirit Bomb when having 4 or more.
- Cooldown Utilization: Keep Sigil of Flame and other abilities active without delay.
Defensive Play:
While rotations suggest using defensive abilities like Fiery Brand and Fel Devastation regularly, it’s crucial to adapt based on the fight’s mechanics. If needed, conserve these abilities for specific moments, ensuring you don’t miss potential uses.
4.9How to Gear Up a Vengeance Demon Hunter
For Vengeance Demon Hunters in Dragonflight, obtaining the absolute Best in Slot (BiS) gear from various sources can be challenging. To help, we’ve created a BiS list tailored for Vengeance Demon Hunters, with a focus on gear from Mythic+ Dungeons and Awakened raids. This guide will assist you in making informed decisions about your gear priorities. However, you may encounter challenges, particularly when attempting to complete endgame content. During these instances, our skilled players are available to provide assistance especially in Awakened Heroic.
Vengeance Demon Hunter BiS Gear
| Slot | Item | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Screaming Torchfiend’s Burning Scowl | Raid/ |
| Neck | Amulet of Eonar’s Chosen | Nymue: Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope |
| Shoulders | Screaming Torchfiend’s Horned Memento | Raid/ |
| Cloak | Voice of the Silent Star | Sarkareth: Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible |
| Chest | Screaming Torchfiend’s Binding | Raid/ |
| Wrist | Life-Bound Bindings | Crafted |
| Gloves | Screaming Torchfiend’s Grasp | Raid/ |
| Belt | Cinch of Forgotten Duty | The Azure Vault |
| Legs | Loathsome Thunderhosen | Raszageth: Vault of the Incarnates |
| Boots | Life-Bound Boots | Crafted |
| Ring | Seal of Diurna’s Chosen | Eranog: Vault of the Incarnates |
| Ring (Single Target) | Onyx Impostor’s Birthright | Neltharion: Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible |
| Ring (AoE) | Seal of Filial Duty | Broodkeeper Diurna: Vault of the Incarnates |
| Trinket | Cataclysmic Signet Brand | Smolderon: Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope |
| Trinket | Elementium Pocket Anvil | The Amalgamation Chamber: Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible |
| Weapon | Thorncaller Claw | Council of Dreams |
| Weapon | Stormslash | The Nokhud Offensive |
When gearing your Vengeance Demon Hunter, it’s essential to balance the need for high item level gear with the benefits of secondary stats. Here are key guidelines to consider:
- Item Level Importance: Always prioritize improving your item level, as it generally has a greater impact on performance compared to minor differences in secondary stats.
- Secondary Stat Benefits: While focusing on item level, don’t ignore the advantages of secondary stats. Choose gear that offers beneficial secondary stat gains, but avoid over-focusing on these stats.
Remember, Agility, Stamina, and Armor are also crucial on your gear. Maintaining a balance among these factors ensures peak performance for your Vengeance Demon Hunter.
Regarding the Screaming Torchfiend’s Brutality tier set bonuses for Vengeance Demon Hunters:
2-Piece Tier Set: Fiery Resolve — When you attack a target afflicted by Sigil of Flame, your damage and healing are increased by 2% and your Stamina is increased by 2% for 8 sec, stacking up to 5.
4-Piece Tier Set: Sigil of Flame‘s periodic damage has a chance to flare up, shattering an additional Soul Fragment from a target and dealing (60.72% of Attack power) extra damage. Each 40 Fury you spend reduces its cooldown by 1.0 sec.
For optimal performance, equip set pieces for the head, chest, gloves, and shoulders. This approach is in line with the Dragonflight Tier Sets Guide, offering strategies for effectively acquiring these items and maximizing your character’s capabilities in gameplay. And to obtain Bis Gear without any effort use our WoW Tier Sets.
Stats
The stat priority for a Vengeance Demon Hunter is as follows:
- Item Level — the main source of Agility
- Haste > Critical Strike > Versatility > Mastery
Vengeance Demon Hunter have several secondary stats to consider:
- Critical Strike: Critical Strike doubles the effectiveness of your damaging abilities and adds to your Parry chance. While Shattered Souls can’t critically heal for double, other minor self-healing effects can. Critical Strike, through Volatile Flameblood, generates extra Fury from Immolation Aura and synergizes well with flat Parry effects like Demon Spikes and Illuminated Sigils.
- Haste: Haste lowers the global cooldown (up to 100% Haste) and also shortens the cooldowns of abilities like Demon Spikes, Immolation Aura, Felblade, and Fracture.
- Mastery: Fel Blood boosts your Attack Power and enhances the damage reduction buff from Demon Spikes, scaling with your Agility. It also increases armor by half the amount when Demon Spikes is inactive.
- Versatility: Versatility enhances all your damage and healing output and reduces damage taken.
Best VDH Consumables for Season 4
In Dragonflight Season 4 Dungeons and Awakened Raids, several consumables are particularly beneficial for Vengeance Demon Hunters. These consumables can enhance performance significantly in these specific environments.
- Phial: Iced Phial of Corrupting Rage or Phial of the Eye in the Storm
- Combat Potion: Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power
- Health Potion: Dreamwalker’s Healing Potion, Potion of Withering Dreams
- Food: Grand Banquet of the Kalu’ak/ Deviously Deviled Eggs
- Weapon Buff: Howling Rune /Buzzing Rune
Best VDH Trinkets in Dragonflight
| Trinket | Drop Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cataclysmic Signet Brand | Smolderon, Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope | Deals increasing damage to you and your target with each activation, culminating in area damage after 15 stacks. Ideal for sustained combat scenarios. |
| Pip’s Emerald Friendship Badge | Council of Dreams, Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope | Passive trinket cycling through Mastery, Critical Strike, and Versatility bonuses. Provides consistent damage bonuses, particularly effective against multiple targets. |
| Fyrakk’s Tainted Rageheart | Fyrakk, Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope | Initially defensive with a shield mechanic, transforms into offensive potential due to passive damage effect. Suitable for Mythic+ dungeons with large pulls. |
| Elementium Pocket Anvil | Amalgamation Chamber, Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible | Offers significant single-target damage during raid encounters where Soul Cleave is frequently used. Less effective in Mythic+ dungeons with reduced Soul Cleave usage. |
| Storm-Eater’s Boon | Dathea, Vault of the Incarnates | Powerful against multiple targets but comes with a 10-second root, requiring careful usage to avoid fatal interruptions during mechanics. |
| Prophetic Stonescales | Dawn of the Infinite | Provides Cheat Death mechanic, granting survival upon death every 8 minutes. Also boosts Haste and reduces damage taken from enemies that caused death. |
| Treemouth’s Festering Splinter | Brackenhide Hollow | Absorbs damage for 15 seconds or until a massive shield is depleted, functioning as a substitute for defensive cooldowns. Enhances survivability in challenging content. |
Best Crafted Gear for Vengeance DH in Season 4
To begin with, crafting gear in Dragonflight Season 4 requires Spark of Awakening, a vital resource. You’ll initially receive a Spark of Awakening at the start of the season and subsequently every other week while the season is active. This resource empowers you to create formidable gear pieces to bolster your character’s strength. When deciding on crafting priorities, consider focusing on the following items:
- Life-Bound Boots or Life-Bound Bindings: Opt for these items adorned with Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch for enhanced defensive capabilities. This combination stands out as one of the strongest for Season 4.
- Elemental Lariat: This item can replace one Shadowflame-Tempered Armor Patch in situations where you’re at maximum sockets. It offers minor DPS gains in extensive AoE scenarios.
Leveling a Vengeance Demon Hunter
Leveling as a Vengeance Demon Hunter, like other tank classes, involves gathering numerous enemies and using area-of-effect attacks to defeat them simultaneously. Their effective self-healing allows handling large enemy groups for quests or grinding.
The main challenge lies in managing enemy positioning, ensuring they don’t return to their spawn points during large pulls.
For efficient leveling, combine questing with dungeon runs. Focus on quest hubs where multiple quests converge in one area. Do dungeons en route to these locations, complete the quests there, and then return to more dungeon runs.
As a tank, Vengeance Demon Hunters benefit from short dungeon queue times. Since many quests require defeating groups of enemies, your AoE capabilities as a Vengeance Demon Hunter make this task more efficient, accelerating the leveling process. You can always get any level you want with pro players with our Power Leveling Dungeons.
Vengeance Demon Hunter Leveling Tips for Dragonflight
Leverage the high mobility offered by your talents as a Vengeance Demon Hunter to swiftly gather enemies. The most significant advantages come at higher levels when abilities like The Hunt and Soul Carver become available, enhancing your combat and movement capabilities.
Vengeance Demon Hunter End-Game
End-game content mainly includes Awakened raids, Mythic+, and PvP, each presenting unique challenges and varying class performance. To excel in your preferred area, especially PvE, explore our detailed guides:
- Mythic+ Dungeons
- Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope Raid
- Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible Guide
- Vault of the Incarnates Guide
These guides provide essential tips and strategies to improve your gameplay. Adhering to our expert recommendations will help you maximize your performance and master these challenging aspects of the game.
Best Races for Vengeance Demon Hunters
In World of Warcraft, Demon Hunters have limited race options due to lore constraints. For the Alliance, only Night Elves can become Demon Hunter, while for the Horde, this class is exclusive to Blood Elves. This restriction means there’s no variation in racial benefits for Demon Hunters; your choice is solely based on faction allegiance.
Improving as a Vengeance Demon Hunter
For Vengeance Demon Hunters (VDH), here are some tips and tricks to enhance your gameplay and make your experience more efficient.
Frailty Stack Management
For optimal impact, aim for at least 3-4 stacks in multi-target scenarios, or 6-8 stacks on a single key target. Consider accumulating resources for each cooldown and using them sequentially. It’s important to note that three specific spells – Soul Cleave, Spirit Bomb, and Sigil of Flame – apply a Frailty stack to all targets they hit, as per most recommended talent configurations. Furthermore, Soul Cleave provides an extra stack on your main target, resulting in two stacks per use.
Maximize AoE
Begin by deploying a pre-gathered Spirit Bomb, immediately followed by activating Immolation Aura. If additional Souls are required, use Fracture, then swiftly cast another Spirit Bomb. Continue this sequence with alternating uses of Fracture and Spirit Bomb. Insert Soul Carver into the rotation after the first set of Fracture and Spirit Bomb. This method creates a rapid succession of high-threat actions, ensuring a strong initial control over multiple enemies, which is crucial in high-level group content like Mythic+.
Use Macros
Macros are in-game tools that enable you to chain spells, customize names and icons, cast abilities based on the target’s hostility, set targeting conditions, and perform various other actions to streamline gameplay.
Sigil Macro
- #showtooltip
- /cast [mod:ctrl, @player] Sigil of Flame; [nomod, @cursor] Sigil of Flame
The suggestion to use a macro for your Sigils in gameplay is focused on streamlining their deployment. Macros can be configured to cast Sigils either at your character’s location (@player) or at the cursor’s position (@cursor), depending on your personal preference. This technique allows for quicker and more efficient placement of Sigils, which can be crucial in fast-paced scenarios.
Raise Ally
- #showtooltip
- /cast [mod:ctrl, @player] Infernal Strike; [nomod, @cursor] Infernal Strike
Focus Kick with Regular Kick Override
- #showtooltip Mind Freeze
- /cast [@focus,harm,nodead][] Mind Freeze
You can replace alt with ctrl, or shift for a different modifier key.
4.9Vengeance Demon Hunter is a unique tank in its speed, and its ability to move around the battlefield is the envy of any class. In this comprehensive guide, we have collected all the important information so that you can confirm in any group or raid that Demon Hunter is indeed an S tier class.
