World of Warcraft Legion: Vengeance Demon Hunter Pre-patch Guide

Demon Hunters are the newest class coming to World of Warcraft in the Legion expansion. Vengeance is the Tank spec, which offers high mobility and Area damage. Since Demon Hunters are different from others classes and get most of their talents after 100, this guide will go over them for the pre-patch. Artifact weapons also change many things, as with other classes, so there will be a separate guide specifically for Legion.

In the meantime, people that pre-ordered Legion will have 3 weeks to play as a Demon Hunter before the expansion launches. They will still be viable in current content, so I’m going to go over all their details.

This guide will go over everything about Vengeance Demon Hunters in pre-patch including:

• Vengeance Playstyle – How Vengeance Demon Hunters play, and stats that help them the most.
• Talent Choices – Which talents are suggested and why.
• Vengeance Rotation – The suggested rotation of a Vengeance Demon Hunter.

Vengeance Playstyle

Vengeance Demon Hunters use Pain as their resource and mostly Fire attacks. They have good self-healing and damage mitigation. The main idea is to use abilities that generate Pain until you can use those that spend it.

As a Tank, you also have cooldown and active mitigation abilities you will want to use or keep up to lower the damage you take.

You also have a chance to generate Soul Fragments when landing killing blows. These can be consumed to heal yourself.

• Soul Cleave – Uses 60 Pain to strike all enemies with Physical damage and heals yourself for a high % of your attack power.
• Also consumes all Soul Fragment within 20 yards.
• Immolation Aura (15 Second Cooldown) – Deals Fire damage to all enemies within 6 yards every second for 6 seconds.
• Generates 20 Pain over 6 seconds.
• Infernal Strike (20 Second Recharge) – Leaps to the target location to deal Fire damage to all enemies within 6 yards. It has 2 charges.

• Shear – Generates 10 Pain and has a chance to generate a Lesser Soul Fragment that lasts for 20 seconds.
• Consuming the soul fragment heals you for a % of your maximum health.
• If the target is a demon, you also gain 20% damage for 20 seconds.
• Fiery Brand (60 Second Cooldown) – Deals Fire damage to the enemy and reduces the damage they do to you by 40% for 8 seconds.

• Sigil of Flame (30 Second Cooldown) – Places a Sigil at the target location that activates after 2 seconds and deals Fire damage to all enemies in the area for 6 seconds.

• Sigil of Misery (60 Second Cooldown) – Places a Sigil at the target location that activates after 2 seconds and disorients all enemies for 30 seconds.

• Sigil of Silence (60 Second Cooldown) – Places a Sigil at the target location that activates after 2 seconds and silences all enemies for 6 seconds.

• Demon Spikes (15 Second Charge) – Increases Parry by 20% and reduces the damage you take by 8% for 6 seconds.

• Empower Wards (20 Second Cooldown) – Reduces Magical damage taken by 30% for 6 seconds.
• Metamorphosis (5 minute Cooldown) –  Leaps into the air and transforms into a demon upon landing. 
• Strikes all enemies with Chaos damage and stuns them for 3 seconds.
• Generates 7 pain every second during the transformation.
• Torment (8 Second Cooldown) – Taunts  to target to attack you and increases the Threat you generate on that target for 3 seconds.

Stat Priority

• Agility
• Haste
• Mastery
• Versatility
• Critical Strike

Talent Choices

In the pre-patch, you will only have access to 2 talents. I’ll list all the talents in each tier, then tell you which ones are suggested.

Tier 1 – Level 99

• Abyssal Strike – Increases Infernal Strike’s range by 10 yards and reduces its cooldown by 5 seconds.

• Agonizing Flames – Increases movement speed by 30% when Immolation Aura is active and increases its damage by 50%.

• Razor Spikes – Deal 20% increased Physical damage while Demon Spikes is active. Also causes your melee attacks to lower target’s speed by 50% for 6 seconds.

Agonizing Flames is the best because none of them provide extra survival and this increases your damage the most. 

Abyssal Strike is best when you need extra movement.

Tier 2 – Level 100

• Feast of Souls – Causes Soul cleave to also place a HoT (Heal Over Time) on yourself for 6 seconds.

• Fallout – Causes the initial burst of Immolation Aura to have a chance to generate Lesser Soul Fragments.

• Burning Alive – Causes Fiery Brand to also tick every 2 seconds for 8 seconds and spreads from the primary target to a nearby enemy.

All 3 talents are good choices for different situations.

Feast of Souls is best for healing yourself on a single target.

Fallout is the best self-healing for multiple targets. The more targets there are, the better this talent gets.

Burning Alive is good if you need extra damage reduction and there are multiple enemies in the fight.

Vengeance Rotation

Single Target

• Soul Cleave to spend Pain
• Immolation Aura on cooldown
• Shear
• Infernal Strike if you have 2 charges
• Demon Spikes if near 2 charges
• Fiery Brand if you need to reduce Physical damage
• Empower Wards if you need to reduce Magical damage

Metamorphosis can be used in emergency situations, or if you anticipate big damage and need more health. 

You can also generate 50 Pain if you interrupt a spell with Consume Magic.

Throw Glaive is used to pull enemies from range without getting too close.

Multi-Target

Same as above, but use Sigil of Flame on cooldown.

That’s it for the Vengeance Demon Hunter pre-patch guide for World of Warcraft: Legion. Let me know if you have any questions!