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Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Talents & Build Guide - Shadowlands 9.0.5
By Itamae
Last updated
2021/04/08 at 9:33 AM
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Talents are one of the core character systems in World of Warcraft, giving players the option to customize their character by choosing different abilities.
In this guide, we will explain how all Vengeance Demon Hunter talents work and what are the best Vengeance Demon Hunter talent builds to use in , including specialized content like Raids and Mythic+. We also highlight all the best uses for each talent, so you can confidently pick the right talent to use for every situation, as well as the best Honor Talents to use while you are enjoying the bonuses from
War Mode
.
Note that in order to change talents, you must be out of combat and either be in a rested zone, like a major city or inn, or under the effects of
Tome of the Still Mind
or
Codex of the Still Mind
.
Your rotation may be affected by different talent selections in this guide, and you can find explanations on all viable rotations on our Vengeance Demon Hunter rotation page.
Vengeance Demon Hunter Rotation and Abilities
Raiding and Mythic+ will usually require you to run different sets of talents. You can find the information about these combinations below, plus more details of when to use each in our Vengeance Demon Hunter Raiding and Mythic+ pages below.
Vengeance Demon Hunter in Castle NathriaVengeance Demon Hunter in Mythic+
In PvP, Vengeance Demon Hunter have different priorities when it comes to talents. You can learn more about PvP with your Vengeance Demon Hunter in our Vengeance Demon Hunter PvP Guide.
Vengeance Demon Hunter in PvP
Overview
NEW
NEW Best Covenant
Gear
Talent Builds
NEW Legendaries
NEW Twisting Corridors
NEW Conduits
NEW Kyrian
NEW Necrolord
NEW Night Fae
NEW Venthyr
Pre-Patch
Starter Guide
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
NEW Castle Nathria Tips
NEW Mythic+
Common Questions
NEW Simulations
About the Author
This guide is written by Itamae, Vengeance Demon Hunter TheoryCrafter and Moderator from the
Fel Hammer
Demon Hunter discord.
Best Vengeance Demon Hunter Talents
NOTE: 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 now have 3 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 be an unkillable wall, the
Fiery Brand
build is the way to go. The third build is a hybrid option for extreme situations where facetanking for extended periods becomes impossible, even with
Fiery Brand
build.
This build is the starter build, used when leveling and gearing up, in most raid situations, and in most early Mythic+ keys.
Some notable changes you can make are the following:
Quickened Sigils
instead of
Sigil of Chains
for extra cooldown reduction increasing damage at the cost of control if Kyrian.
Concentrated Sigils
instead of
Sigil of Chains
for extra duration increasing damage at the cost of control if not Kyrian.
This build is the most defensive option of the primary builds. You will use it on pushing Mythic+ keys where you need extreme survivability while facetanking(especially
Tyrannical
), or on raid encounters where you need extra uptime.
Some notable changes you can make are the following:
Fallout
instead of
Burning Alive
for more healing on ST fights.
Quickened Sigils
instead of
Sigil of Chains
for extra cooldown reduction increasing damage at the cost of control if Kyrian.
Concentrated Sigils
instead of
Sigil of Chains
for extra duration increasing damage at the cost of control if not Kyrian.
This build is the one you'll use for high
Fortified
keys where you are unable to consistently facetank and need as much control as you can get. You take
Infernal Armor
because the extra duration on
Fiery Brand
from
Charred Flesh
doesn't matter that much when you are kiting anyway.
Overall, this build provides a decent mix of survivability and damage while granting more control.
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 with
Flame Crash
for AoE 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
. However,
Abyssal Strike
is superior both in mobility and DPS.
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 Cleave
s 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, 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 talent and default in this row if not playing Kyrian. For Kyrian, it is one of the two primary default talents.
Tier 4 (Level 35) Talents for Vengeance DH
Soul Rending
: This talent grants you 5% leech baseline and causes
Metamorphosis
to grant 25% 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. However, you cannot dodge or parry during this cast. 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.
War Mode for Vengeance Demon Hunter
War Mode
is a World PvP system. You are now able to toggle War Mode while in Stormwind or Orgrimmar to gain access to PvP Talents in the outdoor world as well as other bonuses, like increased rewards from World quests and 10% extra experience. The downside is that you will always be in PvP combat mode, with the rewards counterbalancing that risk.
With that in mind, not all talents give the best throughput for your Vengeance Demon Hunter. We've selected the best options for you to use while doing outdoor content with this mode turned on. Keep in mind that these are the best options for PvE activities and may differ from those used when fighting other players.
War Mode bonuses may now scale up to 30%, based on how imbalanced is the PvP situation against your faction. On top of that, you will be able to turn off War Mode in any resting area, like smaller cities and inns, allowing you to leave unfavorable situations if you so desire.
For the 3 talents, if you are solo then take
Cleansed by Flame
,
Jagged Spikes
, and
Sigil Mastery
.
You can take
Solitude
,
Everlasting Hunt
for more movement, or
Tormentor
for more Single Target damage.
Note that
Jagged Spikes
will reduce in effectiveness as your ilevel increases due to lower damage taken, meaning lower damage done back to the enemy.
Our Vengeance Demon Hunter guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Vengeance Demon Hunter guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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