Vengeance Demon Hunter Tank Rotation & Cooldowns

Tank Rotation & Cooldowns

This rotation offers a general priority list for Vengeance Demon Hunter abilities, along with key cooldowns at the bottom. It's based on a standard build and is here to help while we work on a smarter, build-aware system. If you are very new to the game or this class, we added info on the new assisted rotation features at the bottom of this guide. Updated for the latest patch in World of Warcraft: Midnight (12.0.1).

Single Target

Ensure Sigil Of Flame is precast before engaging.

Use if at 2 charges and no immediate movement needed.
Avoid overcapping duration.
Use if at 2 charges.
Use with 4+ Souls if Fiery Brand is expiring.
Apply if debuff is inactive.
Use with 6 Souls.
Avoid overcapping Souls.
Use if Fury >= 50.
Spend Fury with 0 Souls.
Use as filler or while kiting.

Maintain Sigil Of Flame and Fiery Brand uptime while managing Souls and Fury. Use Spirit Bomb with 6 Souls and Fracture to generate resources efficiently.

AoE

Shift to AoE priority at 2+ targets.

Use if at 2 charges and no immediate movement needed.
Avoid overcapping duration.
Use if at 2 charges.
Use with 4+ Souls if Fiery Brand is expiring.
Apply if debuff is inactive.
Use with 6 Souls.
Avoid overcapping Souls.
Use if Fury >= 50.
Spend Fury and Souls.
Use as filler or while kiting.

Focus on Spirit Bomb with 6 Souls and Fel Devastation for AoE damage. Maintain Fiery Brand and Sigil Of Flame uptime while managing resources.

Cooldowns

Use on cooldown or sync with Fiery Brand if talented.
Use on cooldown with fewer than 3 Souls.
Use on cooldown, ideally synced with Fiery Brand.
Use on cooldown unless already active with >5s remaining.
Use on cooldown or hold briefly for tankbusters.
Use when no other defensives are active.
Use for group damage phases or pulls with many adds.

Use Fel Devastation and Soul Carver on cooldown, syncing with Fiery Brand when possible. Activate Metamorphosis strategically to avoid overwriting its duration.

New to Class? Try Assisted Rotation

Patch 11.1.7 introduced new features that make it eaiser to pick and play new characters. These new settings can be enabled from settings » gameplay enhancements:

Single-Button Assistant
Assisted Highlight
Cooldown Manager

If you are new to World of Warcraft or a certain class, enabling Assisted Highlight and Cooldown Manager can help you learn which abilities to prioritize and use.

While the Single-Button Assistant can be a much easier and more accessible way to play the game, it does come with a slight performance hit due to a small GCD penalty, as you will have to wait 25% longer in between spells and abilities.

To see which specs are best with the Single-Button Assistant feature, you can check out our DPS Rankings which uses SimC to sim every class using this feature.