Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — Midnight Season 1

Core Goals For Vengeance Demon Hunter

Vengeance Demon Hunter, at the most basic level, plays like a very standard builder and spender specialization. Your core rotation centers around building Soul Fragment using builders such as Fracture or Immolation Aura with Fallout talented, and then spending them using Soul Cleave, and Spirit Bomb when it is available. Both of these spenders deal increased damage depending on the amount of souls you consume with them which rewards good soul management.

Beyond this, Vengeance has a very simple relationship with our longer, offensive cooldowns, such as Sigil of Flame and Sigil of Spite. We want to get as much out of these powerful spells as possible during an encounter or dungeon, which you most easily do simply by using them close to as soon as you are able to. While there are tools to amplify some of these abilities, such as Fiery Demise, the case is almost always that more uses beats out waiting for better uses.

Rotational Goals for Aldrachi Reaver

When you play Aldrachi Reaver, your goals shift a bit from the baseline version of Vengeance Demon Hunter to make better use of the core mechanic Art of the Glaive. To activate Art of the Glaive, you want to make sure to maximize your use of builders. This does not necessarily mean to use Fracture as soon as a charge is available, but you want to make sure it and other Soul Fragment generators spend as little time as possible without recharging cooldown.

Make sure to use your empower in the correct order, which thanks to the new talent Bladecraft is to always use Fracture first and Soul Cleave second, no matter the situation.

Since the main focus of Aldrachi Reaver lies almost entirely on generating souls it also means that spending them is more of a filler part of your rotation. Due to the large amount of damage amplifiers to Soul Cleave and Physical damage in general Aldrachi Reaver has slightly less incentive to use the new version of Spirit Bomb, and can choose to hold it to activate Soul Barrier defensively if desirable. If you do not need the defensive value it will be worth to press Spirit Bomb for damage, especially on large target counts.

Some other things to keep in mind is that Wounded Quarry makes it extremely important to spend as much time as possible auto-attacking any target since it increases the chances you have to generate Soul Fragments.

Thrill of the Fight increases your Haste by 6% and increases the damage of your next Reaver's Glaive by 30%. This buff lasts for 30 seconds and you should have 100% uptime once in combat. If you do not then it is likely a good indicator that you are doing something wrong in your rotation.

Rotational Goals for Annihilator

Annihilator at its core differs slightly in its goals from Aldrachi Reaver, but in practice it plays very similarly. You generate Voidfall through Fracture, which makes it one of your most important spells, and something you want to strive to keep on cooldown at all times. Once you reach three stacks of Voidfall you can spend them to release a burst of damage using Soul Cleave, or Spirit Bomb with Meteoric Fall talented.

Another core part of Annihilator is the ways it empowers Metamorphosis, through talents such as Mass Acceleration, Dark Matter, and World Killer. This makes Metamorphosis into a very powerful cooldown, with a large damage burst tied to it, which also applies to Metamorphosis casts you get from your Apex Untethered Rage. These things combined with the cooldown reduction through World Killer, which will lower the average cooldown of your normal Metamorphosis to somewhere between 60 and 80 seconds.

One important factor is that Voidfall Meteors deal Shadowflame damage, which is enhanced by talents such as Fiery Demise, which means there is a lot of damage to be gained stacking burst of Voidfall, and casts of Metamorphosis, with Fiery Brand for maximum damage. This means the spec is punished to some degree defensively if you want to deal optimal damage.

AoE Opener for Vengeance Demon Hunter

1. Pre-place Sigil of Flame 1 second before pull
2. Cast Metamorphosis and Infernal Strike
3. Cast Fiery Brand
4. Cast Immolation Aura
5. Cast Sigil of Spite
6. Cast Reaver's Glaive
7. Cast Fracture
8. Cast Soul Cleave
9. Cast Sigil of Spite
10. Cast Spirit Bomb
11. Cast Sigil of Spite
12. Cast Soul Carver
13. Cast Metamorphosis
14. Cast Fracture
15. Cast Spirit Bomb
16. Continue with your rotation

This priority list describes what spells to use in which priority to maximize damage. As a tank you have to consider the Defensive value of certain cooldowns, and if you need to save one for a brief period of time you simple follow the list without considering that spell.

1. Cast Reaver's Glaive unless you are currently performing an Art of the Glaive combo already
2. Cast Fracture buffed by Art of the Glaive as the first ability in the combo
3. Cast Soul Cleave buffed by Art of the Glaive as the second ability in the combo
4. Cast Sigil of Spite on cooldown to activate Art of the Glaive if Reaver's Glaive is not available
5. Cast Fiery Brand when you are close to reaching two stacks of Fiery Brand, or you need a defensive for some mechanic
6. Cast Fiery Brand
7. Cast Fiery Brand spenders when any of the following criteria are met - Click for Full List

   • You need Fiery Brand defensively
   • You are about to cast Metamorphosis
   • You have 3 stacks of Voidfall
   • You are about to reach 2 charges of Fiery Brand
8. Metamorphosis unless you currently have 2 or more stacks of Voidfall
9. Cast Spirit Bomb with 5+ Soul Fragments if you have 3 stacks of Voidfall
10. Cast Soul Cleave with at least 3 Soul Fragments if you have 3 stacks of Voidfall
11. Cast Fracture if you have 2 charges, or you are about to reach 2 charges
12. Cast Soul Carver on cooldown
13. Cast Immolation Aura on cooldown, preferably without overcapping Soul Fragments from Fallout
14. Cast Immolation Aura on cooldown
15. Cast Fel Devastation, ideally with as many enemies affected by Fiery Brand as possible
16. Cast Spirit Bomb on cooldown with at least 5 Soul Fragments, hold shortly if you plan on using Fiery Brand within roughly 5 seconds
17. Cast Spirit Bomb on cooldown with at least 5 Soul Fragments
18. Cast Fel Devastation
19. Cast Soul Cleave if you have 5 or more Soul Fragments, and Spirit Bomb is on cooldown
20. Cast Sigil of Flame, ideally without overcapping Fury
21. Cast Soul Cleave with a least 3 or more Soul Fragments
22. Cast Fracture
23. Cast Felblade
24. Cast Soul Cleave with 2 or fewer Soul Fragments
25. Cast Throw Glaive as a filler or when you are not in range of your enemy

The Vengeance Demon Hunter Apex Talents have two functions, to empower our spenders in Soul Cleave and Spirit Bomb, and to make casting them have a chance to give us extra uses of Metamorphosis with slightly shorter duration. Below is a list of what each individual point does, followed by a section where we discuss how it will affect our gameplay.

1. Untethered Rage — Consuming Soul Fragments with Spirit Bomb or Soul Cleave have a chance to grant Untethered Rage, giving a second charge of Metamorphosis which will last 10 seconds. The chance increases with the amount of Soul Fragments consumed.
2. Untethered Rage — Two point node. The first point allows Spirit Bomb and Soul Cleave to consume an extra Soul Fragment. Each point further increases the damage bonus from consuming Soul Fragments by 5% per Soul Fragment, for 10% total.
3. Untethered Rage — When a cast of Spirit Bomb or Soul Cleave does not grant Untethered Rage, you gain 1 stack of Seething Anger, granting 1% Agility and a higher chance of activating Untethered Rage. The stacks last for 12 seconds and do not refresh duration after getting a Untethered Rage proc.

These are all strong effects, and generally recommended in all content forms once it is available. They have relatively passive, but yet noticeable effects on gameplay, with Untethered Rage and Untethered Rage giving us extra uptime on Metamorphosis which lets us use defensives for damage more liberally since we have much higher defensive uptime.

Untethered Rage is also very interesting since it increases the amount of Soul Fragments consumed by our spenders, which in turn increases the chance for Untethered Rage to activate.

For Annihilator the Apex nodes is especially interesting since activating Metamorphosis granted by Untethered Rage still activates effects like Mass Acceleration and Dark Matter. Making it an even more potent effect.

Soul Fragments are a core part of Vengeance Demon Hunters kit, being both our main source of self-healing, as well as fuel for increasing the damage of our spenders Soul Cleave and Spirit Bomb, and core to the entire design of Aldrachi Reaver. This section will describe how Soul Fragments work and some things to consider when playing to make your rotation smoother.

Soul Fragments spawn as small orbs around your character, and will expire after 30 seconds if not consumed. To consume a Soul Fragment you either have to absorb them with a spell like Soul Cleave or Spirit Bomb, walk over it manually, or generate enough Soul Fragments such that you go over 6 Soul Fragments. If you go over 6 Soul Fragments you will automatically consume Soul Fragments until there is only 6 left, starting with the oldest Soul Fragment, this is often referred to as "overcapping" Soul Fragments.

At a baseline consuming a Soul Fragments will heal you for 6% of the damage you have taken in the last 5 seconds, or 1% of your maximum Health, whichever number is largest. One noteworthy caveat is that damage that is not sourced to any particular enemy, usually referred to as "environmental" damage, does not count to damage you have taken in the last 5 seconds. This includes things like Fall damage and rarely certain abilities in Raids and Dungeons, often without any real logic.

In Midnight both our spenders Soul Cleave and Spirit Bomb deal increased damage based on the amount of Soul Fragments consumed, up to 2 for Soul Cleave and up to 5 for Spirit Bomb, further increased to 3 and 6 respectively if you talent into the second Apex Talent point Untethered Rage. This means that you ideally always consume the maximum amount of Soul Fragments when you cast these spells. To make sure of this you generally want to try and reduce the amount of Soul Fragments you overcap from different sources as often as possible without holding important rotational abilities and cooldowns. This might sound more complex than it necessarily is, usually keeping your builders on cooldown and using spenders otherwise will usually work out to overcap few souls while buffing your spenders most of the time.

Vengeance is somewhat unique in that almost all of our defensive cooldowns also have strong offensive value tied to them. Fiery Brand reduces damage we take by 40%, while also dealing a fair bit of damage, and buffs Fire damage through the Fiery Demise talent. This makes it a potent defensive and offensive cooldown, especially for Annihilator which deals a lot of Fire damage. This means that you generally want to align it with bursts of Fire damage, while also maintaining a high spread of defensive uptime alongside our other major defensive cooldown.

Metamorphosis increases your current and maximum health by 40%, and your Armor by 200% for 15 seconds, or 20 seconds with Vengeful Beast talented. Vengeful Beast also increases the damage of several spells during the duration of Metamorphosis. Alongside this it is also linked to several strong Annihilator talents, making it an even stronger cooldown which you want to at least partially align with Fiery Brand.

One thing to keep in mind with all this is that you need to consider how aggressive you can be in any one situation. In some situations you might not expect any high damage bursts for a while, and you can get away with some defensive overlap for more damage. In other cases you will need to save defensive cooldowns for dangerous mechanics to survive. Doing this is one of the hardest parts of playing Vengeance Demon Hunter to its fullest potential and unfortunately it is not possible to give an easy guide on what situation counts as which, it is something you will have to pick up with time as you get more and more experience tanking.

Voidfall is the new core mechanic for the Annihilator Hero Specialization and affects the way Vengeance Demon Hunter plays to a certain degree.

The way Voidfall works is that you have a 35% chance to get a stack when you cast Fracture, and when you reach 3 stacks you can spend those stacks to drop Meteors that deal damage on all targets near your active target. As a baseline you drop 1 Meteor per cast of Soul Cleave, but if you talent into Meteoric Fall both Soul Cleave and Spirit Bomb will spend all 3 at once.

There is one major part of Annihilator and Voidfall management that you generally need to keep in mind. You can only at most have 3 stacks of Voidfall, so whenever you reach 3 stacks you want to spend them before you use any spell that generates more, either Fracture or Metamorphosis with Mass Acceleration talented. This means that you do not want to use Metamorphosis offensively if you have 2 stacks of Voidfall, and should instead fish for 3 stacks by using Fracture on cooldown and spending the stacks before using Metamorphosis.

In addition to your Rotation, you can also make use of our movement cooldown Infernal Strike which is off the global cooldown to deal additional damage. The new talent First In, Last Out also adds a defensive aspect to Infernal Strike.It is recommended to always keep at least 1 charge in reserve, however, unless the fight requires no movement whatsoever, in which case you can use up both charges.

One way you can go about doing this without actually manually pressing Infernal Strike all the time is to create a macro to use it where you are standing and combining it with Immolation Aura, since they have a the same cooldown time, which is linked below.

Metamorphosis is our strongest defensive cooldown, as well as our strongest offensive cooldown, especially for Annihilator. This means that you want to use it as many times as you can, while making sure you cover important mechanics with defensives. Often this can mean that you use it close to on cooldown, but holding briefly to align it with a dangerous Boss mechanic in a Raid encounter, or holding it because the Mythic+ pack is about to die and you want it for the next set of enemies you are fighting.

For Annihilator you want to align at least a portion of Metamorphosis with Fiery Brand to maximize damage, which can mean using Fiery Brand 5-10 seconds before Metamorphosis comes off cooldown, which only causes some overlap while still buffing the Voidfall stacks you get from Mass Acceleration, and the damage burst from Dark Matter.

Fiery Brand works such that you apply a 12 second buff to yourself which reduces all damage taken by 40%, as well as applying a DoT effect to your target enemy. This enemy will be affected by Fiery Demise and spread the DoT effect to nearby enemies through Burning Alive if talented. It is still strong for Aldrachi Reaver, especially in large AoE situations where it will increase the funnel damage from Wounded Quarry by 30% making for a significant burst potential on priority targets paired with Fury of the Aldrachi.

If you play with the Down in Flames talent, you will also have two charges as a baseline, which means that you can to some extent use one charge offensively while holding the second charge in case of defensive needs. Juggling this alongside Metamorphosis will also allow far higher spread of cooldown uptime.

Finding a good balance of using Fiery Demise offensively and the damage reduction part defensively is something you will pick up over time and is a big part of mastering Vengeance Demon Hunter.

Sigil of Spite is a fairly straightforward ability, you place it on the ground and it deals damage to all enemies hit, and spawns 3 Soul Fragments should you hit at least 1 enemy. And for Annihilator that is all it does.

For Aldrachi Reaver it is a bit different, since it also activates Reaver's Glaive, as long as you do not have one ready at the moment. This means you want to use Sigil of Spite as close to on cooldown as possible, as long as you make sure you do not have a Reaver's Glaive available.

Vengeance is known for the efficient enemy control it can achieve through its sigils, with Sigil of Silence, Sigil of Misery, and Sigil of Chains. We will go through the use cases for all three in here as well as some things to keep in mind. All three sigils effects will be 2 seconds longer if you talent into Chains of Anger.

Sigil of Silence will do what the name suggests, any normal enemies hit by the sigil will be Silenced for 2 seconds, interrupt any spells being cast and preventing the enemies from starting new casts for the duration. Sigil of Silence only works entirely on normal enemies the same level as you, elite enemies of higher levels and bosses are immune to the Silence effect, however they can still be interrupted if they are actively casting an interruptible spell.

Sigil of Misery will Fear all enemies locking them in place for 15 seconds. It has the same restriction as Sigil of Silence and only works on normal enemies. One noteworthy feature of Sigil of Misery is that if you use it on enemies that are not in combat with anything, they will ignore any other players that run past them and only be in combat with you, which means if you use Shadowmeld as a Night Elf, or a Umbral Essentia potion your entire group can run past a full pack of enemies and drop combat with them to skip them. Outside of this it can be used to stop enemies from casting spells briefly, although it risks syncing up enemy auto-attacks which can be lethal in really hard content.

Sigil of Chains replaces Sigil of Misery and has a slightly shorter cooldown, instead of fearing enemies it will grip all normal enemies hit into the center of the Sigil and slow them by 70% for 6 seconds. It can be very useful to stack or slow enemies that either are hard to move or enemies you want to stop from reaching some area because of a mechanic. One minor risk in harder content is that Sigil of Chains risks syncing up enemy auto-attacks which can be lethal in really hard content.