Vengeance Demon Hunter Mythic+ Dungeon Guide

Vengeance Demon Hunter is a dynamic and highly reactive tank specialization, requiring a balance of resource generation, Soul management, and cooldown juggling. With the two dominant talent builds — Aldrachi Reaver and Fel-Scarred — your playstyle and priorities shift slightly depending on your talent choices and the encounter type. Let’s walk through how to play each effectively, from single-target to AoE, and highlight how to maximize your cooldowns and defensive uptime.

Aldrachi Reaver: The Soul Machine

When playing Aldrachi Reaver, your number one priority is maintaining Thrill of the Fight — specifically, the 10-second damage and healing buff, not the 20-second attack speed bonus. This buff is sustained through constant generation and consumption of Souls. To do this, place Reaver’s Mark on the target that will live the longest and keep attacking it to benefit from the buff window. Managing cooldowns on Soul-generating abilities is crucial here, even if it leads to occasional resource overcapping. The flow of Souls matters more.

In single-target encounters, especially when using Focused Cleave or trying to funnel with Wounded Quarry, you’ll want to avoid Fury waste. Soul Cleave is one of your most powerful rotational abilities, so your gameplay should revolve around casting it as often as possible without delaying other abilities. You should hover near your Fury cap to make the most of every opportunity to use it.

However, in AoE or when Focused Cleave is not selected, Spirit Bomb becomes the preferred spender. Your goal shifts to generating 4+ Souls quickly and spending them efficiently. Soul count becomes a key resource to monitor, and every couple of globals should bring you back to that 4+ mark to optimize damage. Fury is secondary here and only spent when Souls aren’t available or overcap is imminent.

Fel-Scarred: Balanced and Resilient

For Fel-Scarred players, the philosophy is slightly more defensive in nature. In any scenario where you’re anticipating significant damage intake, Soul generation remains the top priority, even over avoiding Fury overflow. From 1 to 5 targets, your approach resembles Aldrachi Reaver — keep Soul Cleave at the forefront without letting generators sit idle. Hovering around your Fury cap ensures you don’t waste potential damage.

At 6 or more targets, the priority shifts just like it does for Reaver: build to 4+ Souls and drop a Spirit Bomb for major AoE output. Once the Souls are spent, burn off excess Fury to prevent capping. Since Fel-Scarred does not rely as heavily on Reaver’s Mark, your gameplay can stick closer to a standard rotation, but optimization through resource control remains essential.

Single-Target Flow and Priority Targeting

When opening in single-target as Aldrachi Reaver, the ideal sequence begins with Reaver’s Glaive, followed immediately by Soul Cleave, and then Fracture. This doubles the damage benefit from Reaver’s Mark. After establishing this two-stack sequence, you can refresh the mark by using Fracture first, as long as the mark hasn’t expired. Every time you let it fall off, you’ll need to reset the stack order with the opening combo.

For Fel-Scarred, the rotation doesn’t require as much precision upfront. The standard rotation gives full value, but those seeking to optimize can refer to advanced tips like Demonsurge alignment and Demonic uptime.

Regardless of build, your single-target goal is to keep Souls and Fury flowing without any downtime or overcapping. Use cooldowns as they become available, then build and spend Souls, and finally dump Fury.

AoE Prioritization

The fundamentals of AoE are similar to single-target, but Souls and Spirit Bomb take precedence. Your goal is to hit 4+ Souls in as few globals as possible and immediately spend them. If this isn’t feasible, spend Fury via Soul Cleave, but try not to burn Souls below the optimal 4-count if it can be helped.

The rotation in AoE is highly fluid and dependent on your pull dynamics. Abilities may come off cooldown at awkward times, or enemies may not be grouped ideally — so think of it as a priority list rather than a fixed sequence. If you’re playing Aldrachi Reaver and want to focus down a specific target, consider ignoring Spirit Bomb in favor of Soul Cleave to maximize damage on your mark.

Burst Damage and Frailty Stack Management

Your burst isn’t front-loaded like many DPS specs. Instead, it comes from stacking Frailty before you unleash hard-hitting abilities. To optimize this, pool Fury and Souls roughly 5-10 seconds before your major cooldowns — The Hunt, Fel Devastation, Soul Carver, and Sigil of Spite.

With any recommended build, Soul Cleave, Spirit Bomb, and Sigil of Flame apply a stack of Frailty to all damaged targets, with Soul Cleave granting a second stack to your primary target. Aim for 3-4 stacks in AoE, or 6-8 on your main target for big cooldown windows. Because Frailty lasts only 5 seconds, you may need to stagger your cooldowns or invest in Haste to make this burst window effective.

Cooldown Usage and Syncing

Proper cooldown usage is key to your success as a Vengeance DH. Your cooldowns are less about nuking enemies and more about enabling burst windows or increasing uptime on Demonic procs and Frailty application.

The Hunt: Use on cooldown, ideally alongside Fiery Brand if using Fiery Demise. With 4-piece tier, you can delay up to 10 seconds to align them.
Fel Devastation: On cooldown unless saving for defense. Sync with Fiery Brand and Demonic when possible.
Soul Carver and Sigil of Spite: Use freely, or sync with Fiery Brand if possible.

When used in sequence with proper Frailty stacks and procs, these spells create powerful burst moments.

Defensive Toolkit and Mitigation Management

None of your defensive cooldowns are individually strong, so the best strategy is to keep them rolling.

Metamorphosis: Don’t overwrite active effects. Use on cooldown, unless a proc is active with more than 5 seconds left.
Fiery Brand: Use on cooldown or hold briefly for tankbusters. Spread it with Burning Alive.
Demon Spikes: Use proactively, don’t cap charges. Aim for ~30% uptime. Benefits from Haste and Mastery.
Darkness: Best saved for group damage. Use proactively when many adds or major AoE is incoming.

With Illuminated Sigils, spacing out Sigil of Flame casts ensures constant uptime on your bonus parry buff. The synergy with Fiery Brand and Fel Devastation can lead to near-continuous mitigation.

Advanced Optimization for Fel-Scarred

Maximizing Demonsurge requires awareness of Soul timing and transformation windows. Ideally, cast Fel Devastation right after a Soul generator that will push you over 4 Souls — that lets you immediately follow with a Spirit Bomb inside your transformed window, and a Soul Cleave soon after to double-dip on the Demonsurge procs.

If using Metamorphosis hard cast, spend both charges of Sigil of Flame before casting, then follow with Fel Devastation and Immolation Aura. After that, use each ability to consume the empowered procs within the window before going back to your standard rotation.

Rotation Priority

Single Target

Use Infernal Strike off-gcd if you are at or near 2 charges and will not need it for movement soon.
Use Metamorphosis.
Use Soul Cleave with Glaive Flurry to proc Fury of the Aldrachi if the target has less than 2 stacks of Reaver’s Mark.
Use Fracture with Rending Strike to debuff the target with Reaver’s Mark and trigger Thrill of the Fight.
Use Soul Cleave with Glaive Flurry to proc Fury of the Aldrachi if the target has 2 stacks of Reaver’s Mark and trigger Thrill of the Fight.
Use Fracture if you are at or near 2 charges.
Use The Hunt to activate Art of the Glaive iff you do not already have a Reaver’s Glaive available.
Use Reaver’s Glaive to activate the Rending Strike and Glaive Flurry buffs if you do not have Thrill of the Fight active or have less than 4 seconds remaining on it.
Use Immolation Aura.
Use Fiery Brand if the debuff is not currently active.
Use Sigil of Flame if the debuff is not already active or you have 2 charges available.
Use Sigil of Spite.
Use Fel Devastation if you have at least 50 Fury.
Use Fracture.
Use Felblade if you won’t cap Fury.
Spend Fury with Soul Cleave.
Use Throw Glaive for filler or when kiting.

AOE

Use Infernal Strike off-gcd if you are at or near 2 charges and will not need it for movement soon.
Use Metamorphosis.
Use Fracture with Rending Strike to debuff the target with Reaver’s Mark.
Use Soul Cleave with Glaive Flurry to proc Fury of the Aldrachi and trigger Thrill of the Fight.
Use Fracture if you are at or near 2 charges.
Use The Hunt to activate Art of the Glaive iff you do not already have a Reaver’s Glaive available.
Use Reaver’s Glaive to activate the Rending Strike and Glaive Flurry buffs if you do not have Thrill of the Fight active or have less than 4 seconds remaining on it.
Use Immolation Aura.
Use Fiery Brand if the debuff is not currently active.
Use Sigil of Flame if the debuff is not already active or you have 2 charges available.
Use Sigil of Spite.
Use Fel Devastation if you have at least 50 Fury.
Use Fracture.
Spend Fury with Soul Cleave.
Use Felblade if you won’t cap Fury.
Use Throw Glaive for filler or when kiting.

Tier Set

Fel-Dealer’s Contraband

2-Set – Demon Hunter Vengeance 11.1 Class Set 2pc: Each time you take damage you have a chance to cast Metamorphosis for 4 sec and gain Luck of the Draw! which increases your damage dealt by 15% for 10 sec.
4-Set – Demon Hunter Vengeance 11.1 Class Set 4pc: The Hunt has a high (75%) chance to refresh its cooldown when you gain Luck of the Draw!

General Tips

Soul Generation

Soul generation takes priority: Especially with Aldrachi Reaver and Thrill of the Fight, always keep Soul-generating abilities on cooldown to maintain buffs and manage defensive needs—even at the risk of overcapping Fury or Souls.

Balance Resources

Balance resource use based on target count: For 1–5 targets or single-target (Focused Cleave), avoid Fury waste by casting Soul Cleave often. For 6+ targets or 2+ without Focused Cleave, prioritize building to 4+ Souls for Spirit Bomb and manage Fury after.

Use Cooldowns

Use cooldowns effectively: Maximize the value of all cooldown abilities by using them as they come up. Holding them briefly for defense is okay, but delaying too often reduces overall output.

Stat Priority

Haste: Increases attack speed and spell casting speed. This also applies to pets.
Critical Strike: Chance for extra effectiveness on attacks and heals (double damage/healing).
Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of Mastery: Fel Blood.
Versatility: Increases damage and healing, and reduces damage taken.

1. Agility- As with all specs, main stat will be top priority.

2. Haste – improves ability cooldowns (e.g., Immolation Aura, Fracture, Demon Spikes), reduces the global cooldown to a minimum of 0.75 seconds, and continuously boosts proc rates without diminishing returns.

3. Critical Strike – increases damage and healing by doubling their value on crits and also boosts Parry chance, enhancing melee avoidance. It has a theoretical hard cap at 100%, but it’s not currently reachable.

4. Versatility – provides a flat increase to damage and healing, while also reducing incoming damage by half the offensive gain. It’s the most universally effective defensive stat.

5. Mastery – Enhances Mastery: Fel Blood, boosts Attack Power and armor gained during Demon Spikes. Its value is low due to Demon Spikes‘ limited uptime, though it improves slightly with Feed the Demon, but still lags behind other secondaries.