Vengeance Demon Hunter Playstyle and Rotation Guide

Patch 12.0 Last Updated: 20th Jan, 2026
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Meyra

Playstyle & Rotation

Vengeance Demon hunter is at its core built as a standard builder/spender spec. Focusing on generating Soul Fragments and Fury through Generators like Fracture and Immolation Aura, and spending them with Spirit Bomb or Soul Cleave for damage, healing as well as several passive talent effects you may choose to talent into.

This makes Vengeance a fairly aggressive tank since the defensive kit is built around staying near enemies to generate resources to heal and mitigate further damage.

General Rotation

As of current tuning the rotation priority stays relatively fixed regardless of target count.

Aldrachi Reaver

  1. Use Reaver's Glaive if you do not have empowered spells available
  2. Use Sigil Of Spite, if talented
  3. Use Fiery Brand, if no targets have Fiery Brand on them currently.
  4. Use Fracture Empowered by Reaver’s Glaive before using the Empowered Soul Cleave.
  5. Use Soul Cleave Empowered by Reaver’s Glaive after using the Empowered Fracture.
  6. Use Soul Carver, preferably when you have Fiery Brand applied to the target and more than 3 seconds remaining on the debuff.
  7. Use Immolation Aura.
  8. Use Fracture if you have close to 2 charges.
  9. Use Soul Cleave with 2 souls.
  10. Use Fel Devastation when you have Fiery Brand applied to the target and more than 2 seconds remaining on the debuff.
  11. Use Sigil Of Flame.
  12. Use Fracture to generate Fury and Soul Fragments.
  13. Use Felblade as a filler.
  14. Use Soul Cleave with 1 or fewer souls as filler.
  15. Use Throw Glaive as a filler or when you are not in range of your enemy.

Annihilator

  1. Use Reaver's Glaive if you do not have empowered spells available
  2. Use Fiery Brand, if you have 3 stacks of Voidfall, Metamorphosis available or are about to reach 2 charges.
  3. Use Spirit Bomb, ideally with 5 souls, if you have 3 stacks of Voidfall.
  4. Use Soul Cleave, ideally with 2 souls, if you have 3 stacks of Voidfall.
  5. Use Fracture if you have close to 2 charges.
  6. Use Immolation Aura.
  7. Use Soul Carver, preferably when you have Fiery Brand applied to the target and more than 3 seconds remaining on the debuff.
  8. Use Sigil Of Spite, if talented
  9. Use Soul Cleave with 2 souls.
  10. Use Fel Devastation when you have Fiery Brand applied to the target and more than 2 seconds remaining on the debuff.
  11. Use Sigil Of Flame.
  12. Use Fracture to generate Fury and Soul Fragments.
  13. Use Felblade as a filler.
  14. Use Soul Cleave with 1 or fewer souls as filler.
  15. Use Throw Glaive as a filler or when you are not in range of your enemy.

Opener

Aldrachi Reaver

  1. Pre-cast Immolation Aura on single target
  2. Pre-place Sigil Of Flame
  3. Cast Fiery Brand
    1. Immolation Aura if multiple targets
  4. Cast Sigil Of Spite
  5. Cast Reaver's Glaive
  6. Cast Fracture
  7. Cast Soul Cleave
  8. Proceed with regular rotation

Annihilator

  1. Pre-cast Immolation Aura on single target
  2. Pre-place Sigil Of Flame
  3. Cast Fiery Brand
    1. Immolation Aura if multiple targets
  4. Cast Metamorphosis
  5. Cast Fel Devastation
  6. Cast Spirit Bomb
  7. Proceed with regular rotation

Playstyle

General Playstyle

Vengeance Demon hunter is at its core built as a standard builder/spender spec. Focusing on generating Soul Fragments and Fury through Generators like Fracture and Immolation Aura, and spending them with Spirit Bomb or Soul Cleave for damage, healing as well as several passive talent effects you may choose to talent into.

This makes Vengeance a fairly aggressive tank since the defensive kit is built around staying near enemies to generate resources to heal and mitigate further damage.

Cooldown Usage

Vengeance has several cooldowns that can broadly be divided into two categories, rotational and defensive cooldowns.

Rotational cooldowns include spells like Immolation Aura and Sigil Of Flame, shorter cooldowns that mostly function as damage spells baseline but that have talent interactions that make them valuable defensively as well. These spells should as a rule be kept on cooldown as often as possible since reducing usage of them will have compounding negative effects on your damage, healing and damage mitigation.

Defensive cooldowns such as Fiery Brand, Fel Devastation and Demon Spikes mostly follow the same rules.

Fiery Brand and Fel Devastation, especially the latter as Fel-Scarred, offer significant offensive power on top of their defensive benefits. Therefore your goal should generally be to use them as often as possible.

This also fits in the defensive plan of Vengeance, where you want to cover damage events with strong defensives as often as possible, and use your lower value defensive Demon Spikes to cover situations when Fiery Brand or Metamorphosis are not available.

If talented into Illuminated Sigils you can choose to cover the times with only Demon Spikes with Sigil Of Flame to increase the weakest moments of your defensive coverage.