Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Talents & Build Guide - Shadowlands 9.2

Last updated 2022/05/01 at 5:05 AM View Changelog

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Tome of the Still MindCodex of the Still MindFel Hammer9.1.5 Changes to Vengeance Demon Hunter Talents

Spirit Bomb now deals reduced damage beyond 5 targets (was previously uncapped).

Spirit BombSoul CleaveBlind Faith9.1 Changes to Vengeance Demon Hunter Talents

Soul Rending - increases Leech by 10% (was 5%), and an additional 20% (was 25%) while Metamorphosis is active.

Best Vengeance Demon Hunter TalentsNOTE: This is simply a cookie-cutter Vengeance Demon Hunter build to start out while learning. Optimal builds will vary based on bosses/dungeons/affixes/player preference/group comp/etc.

Detailed Vengeance Demon Hunter Talent Builds

We currently have 2 primary builds that can be used in most content. Most players will be better served going with Spirit Bomb to begin with, as early content generally doesn't require extreme survivability. As you progress into higher and more difficult content, if you want to have better magical defense and more consistent defense in general, the Fiery Brand build is the way to go.

Note that for Vengeance, having Double Legendary and Tier set does not particularly affect your choice of talents, though the difference in defensiveness is much greater without them and you will likely want to go with the Fiery Brand build in any progression scenarios when you are not sure of your survivability, and then switch back to Spirit Bomb later.

This build is the primary build, used when leveling and gearing up, and in most content, as well as for maximizing damage in all situations.

Some notable changes you can make are the following:

Feed the Demon instead of Fracture in very large AoE situations for increasing defensive value at the cost of ST dps.
Quickened Sigils instead of Sigil of Chains for extra cooldown reduction increasing damage at the cost of control if Kyrian.

This build is the most defensive option of the primary builds. You will use it for most progression content where you want to maximize defensiveness, particularly against magic damage.

Some notable changes you can make are the following:

Vengeance Demon Hunter Talent Overview

Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Vengeance DH

Abyssal Strike: This provides 2 extra Infernal Strike per minute by reducing the cooldown to 12 seconds as well as casting a free Sigil of Flame. This means that you will have 5 total casts per minute of Infernal Strike. This provides the largest mobility boost. It is also the largest DPS increase for AoE baseline and is competitive on ST as well.

Agonizing Flames: This extends the duration of Immolation Aura by 50% and increases movement speed by 20%. This can be used for the movement speed and synergy with Charred Flesh. Comparatively, Abyssal Strike has higher mobility and DPS but less defensiveness.

Felblade: This single target charge can be used up to 15 yards away, generating 40 Fury. Each cast of Shear and Fracture have a chance to reset this cooldown. While this talent is the highest ST DPS increase option by a tiny margin, it is significantly worse in AoE. In addition, the mobility it provides is only available with an enemy to target, so it is far less flexible for mechanics. It does have some small synergy with the Sigil CDR build due to generating extra Fury, which leads to more cooldown reduction and higher DPS.

Tier 2 (Level 25) Talents for Vengeance DH

Feast of Souls: This talent causes your Soul Cleave to apply a healing over time effect on you, providing a consistent source of healing between casts. The overall healing on this is extremely underwhelming as it scales with Attack Power rather than damage taken, and it is never used.

Fallout: This talent causes each damage instance of the initial damage from Immolation Aura to have a chance to shatter Soul Fragments. It has an estimated chance of 60-70% to proc PER target. You can generate a max of 5 Souls with this ability. Compared to Feast of Souls, this causes much spikier healing, removing the consistent healing between Soul Cleaves that it offers, but making each Soul Cleave heal for more in bursts. This works well in conjunction with Feed the Demon , Shear, and Demonic for soul generation in Dungeons. If you have more than 5 souls, all extra souls generated by this talent are automatically consumed, so it is a huge survivability increase. This is the DPS talent of choice on this row when playing with Spirit Bomb.

Burning Alive: Spreads your Fiery Brand debuff from the primary target every 2 seconds starting with the 2nd second. You will have your primary plus 5 enemies, for 6 total enemies with the debuff. Every time it spreads, it gives the full duration of Fiery Brand. The DoT portion is applied to every enemy affected by Fiery Brand. The 40% damage reduction and Charred Flesh extension are also spread. It stops spreading if the primary target dies so it has some weaknesses, but is quite a powerful defensive overall as long as you have time to let it spread.

Tier 3 (Level 30) Talents for Vengeance DH

Infernal Armor: This causes Immolation Aura to give you a multiplicative 20% armor and do 5% of your Attack Power to melee enemies. It will not reflect damage if you dodge or parry. It is a weak option due to providing not enough armor when Active Mitigation is not up, and unnecessary armor when it is, but is a decent option overall when not playing Spirit Bomb.

Charred Flesh: This allows each tick of Immolation Aura to extend the duration of all Fiery Brand out by 0.5 seconds, for the first 9 seconds after Fiery Brand is cast. This talent's duration increase is minimal and generally not useful, except when playing the Fiery Brand Build. Since it takes time to spread with Burning Alive, each additional Fiery Brand gets 2 fewer extension ticks than the previous, with the final one getting no extension. This is required when playing the Fiery Brand build.

Spirit Bomb: This talent consumes all souls and explodes for 8 yards around you, dealing reduced damage beyond 5 targets and applying Frailty, a 10% leech type effect, (this doesn't actually give or affect leech) to those targets. It also makes your health spike a bit more as the healing comes in bursts rather than a consistent stream. It is the strongest offensive talent for damage when played with the Blind Faith Legendary.

Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Vengeance DH

Soul Rending: This talent grants you 10% leech baseline and causes Metamorphosis to grant 20% leech, increasing the total to 30% leech while Metamorphosis is active. The healing on this talent is incredibly underwhelming and it cannot compete with the other two talents in this row.

Feed the Demon: This talent causes each soul fragment you consume to also decrease the cooldown on Demon Spikes by 0.5 seconds. It works well with Fallout on AoE and provides a small uptime bump to Demon Spikes on ST. Currently, due to our legendaries requiring us to Soul Cleave often, this talent is never taken as it is a loss compared to Fracture.

Fracture: This provides the most DPS in the row and allows for spawning souls in bursts, which yields more on-demand healing and damage. It replaces Shear on your action bars as well, which means you do not have the option of going into extreme survival mode. This will be the primary talent to take in most situations.

Tier 5 (Level 40) Talents for Vengeance DH

Concentrated Sigils: This talent will increase your DPS by extending the duration of all Sigils, including those spawned by Abyssal Strike. On the other hand, it will remove some possible utility by removing the ability to target sigils. This is generally taken in raiding as it places the sigil on yourself and it provides a small DPS gain if not Kyrian. On raid encounters where you don't need the utility provided by Sigil of Chains, you would take this.

Quickened Sigils: This ability causes all sigils to activate 1-second faster (1-second delay instead of 2) and reduces their cooldowns. Our CC sigils aren't always needed in raids, while in M+ this provides more CC, though it competes with Sigil of Chains grip ability. It reduces the CDs to the following: Flame-24, Silence-48, Misery-72. It does allow for using sigils as a pseudo-interrupt, as many casts are 1.5-2 seconds and would not be interruptible without some good prediction timing. It is currently taken only for a DPS increase when not overshadowed by Sigil of Chains in utility as it provides an extra interrupt and repositioning, as well as slow.

Sigil of Chains:This talent gives the Sigil of Chains ability. This is an AoE grip to the center of the targeting circle. It is useful for grouping up ranged and caster mobs. The grip also cancels whatever cast the enemy may be doing, including spells that are normally not interruptible. This is the talent of choice in this row for most content.

Tier 6 (Level 45) Talents for Vengeance DH

Void Reaver: This is a general purpose talent. If the other two options are not viable or not required for a fight, this will provide a small amount of damage reduction. This is still viable with the talent Spirit Bomb, as you will still need to dump pain with Soul Cleave. It has close to 100% uptime and is a nice damage-smoothing option when you are confident that you won't die. However, it is weaker than Demonic.

Demonic: This talent provides you 6+ cast time seconds of Metamorphosis whenever Fel Devastation is cast. You are in Metamorphosis during the channel time as well. Due to providing uptime on mitigation that we desperately need as well as being the only talent that provides any sort of boost to DPS, this is the only talent currently viable in this row.

Soul Barrier: This ability gives you a small barrier that can block damage, scaling with number of souls consumed. If you consume more souls before it is depleted, the shield will gain strength. However, once the shield is depleted or 12 seconds have passed, it will disappear. There is a niche scenario in which this would be taken over Demonic, but currently none of those situations exist in the game.

Tier 7 (Level 50) Talents for Vengeance DH

Last Resort: A strong choice for all content. It can save wipes and save a battle res. You can use it to avoid a mechanic if needed. Once every 8 minutes, instead of taking fatal damage, this will heal you to 30% HP instead and activate a full duration Metamorphosis. Rather than extending Metamorphosis, it simply refreshes the duration of Metamorphosis if this procs while Metamorphosis is already active from either casting it or Demonic procs. The latter two do extend the timer rather than refreshing. You will always take this talent unless you choose not to play around it in lower keys.

Ruinous Bulwark: This talent causes Fel Devastation to heal more, and provide a shield if it overheals. However, the amount of healing provided is so small that it's never worth taking.

Bulk Extraction: This talent generates and immediately consumes one soul per nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 5 for an instant heal of 30% damage taken in the last 5 seconds. It also deals a small amount of uncapped AoE damage. The healing is on too long a cooldown to generally be useful, but the damage is better than nothing in trivial content. You would only use this for leveling or in content where you are sure not to die and want a small DPS boost.

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