I for the life of me cannot get the flow of combat with mine.i know its more of a priority rather than a rotation but to me it feels like I’m just hitting whatever isn’t on cd while not capping fury or soul fragments. Please help me and if it means anything I’m using the fiery brand build since thats the first leggo I made.
Demonic Fel Devastation is your first “o crap I’m dyin” button. I don’t use spirit bomb personally I just focus on fracture/soul cleave/infernal strike/immolate aura. I use immolate armor and demon spikes at the same time for a small defensive. I don’t use the firey brand build but it’s great. Sometimes you need to fit in throw glaive instead of fracture due to the cd. Also noteworthy is infernal strike doesn’t really incur the gcd
Ok so basically make sure everything is on cd and spam fracture/soul cleave while weaving in throw glaive? And I’m using fiery brand build cause I figured it would be better to learn with
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IMO Throw Glaive or sigil of flame is definitely a part of the rotation, but its only used when waiting for fracture/soul cleave/abyssal strike. it becomes more important when Bloodlust is active or using a haste trinket. abyssal strike usually isnt used for the firey brand build but infernal strike is still useful because you can squeeze its low global cooldown, just focus on spreading firey brand with immolate aura and lowering the cd asap with as many soul cleaves as you can
When to use spirit bomb or fracture?
SBomb at 4/5 Soul Fragments, Fracture you use when you need to generate souls, so try and keep the charges off cd without soul fragment capping.
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Ok so 2 to 3 days now I’ve hit 60, cleared normal dungeons, cleared heroic dungeons, and attempted 1st wing of lfr…and still don’t get it. Been called a few names on my lack of skill tanking but whatever, I’ll never see em again. Thinking vdh just isn’t for me at this moment as its just not clicking for me lol
It takes a little while to grasp, due to the nature of how the CD usage is meant to work. You don’t want to overlap your cds where possible, always try to have 1 charge of Infernal Strike and Demon Spikes on CD, and the same with fracture.
What part do you feel like you are struggling with the most?
All of it. I’m failing to understand it all. Most classes have rhyme or reason when to hit what but I just cannot grasp vdh. I keep everything on cd and spam fracture/soul cleave while trying to maintain fiery brand and demon spikes and it just feels im spamming everything and not healing back nearly what I see others capable of
Are you following a specific spec? This is what I do for a VDH with Fiery Brand build.
Talents: 2322221
Legendary: Fiery Soul
Covenant: Kyrian
When I’m going to engage a group I start by hitting Demon Spikes, Elysian Decree(if off CD, Fire Sigil if not). Leap in at the same time so I land about the time the Sigil pops. Then hit the primary target with Fiery Brand. Then Immolation Aura. Once all that is done Demon Spikes again and then I start spamming Shear/Soul Cleave.
Basically what’s happening is this. The damage from the sigil, leap, fiery brand and immolate should be more than enough to hold aggro. If we’re pulling mythic+ groups fast I’ll alternate between groups with Fiery Brand+Elysian and Fel Devastation. For longer fights and bosses I’ll save Fel Devastation for defensives.
Then I sparingly mix in Silence sigil or Fear sigil if need be to interrupt casts/abilities. Those have a decent CD on them so I try not to overuse if I can avoid it.
During big pulls, metamorphosis and spam Soul Cleave if you have fury and Shear if you don’t.
Some things to note:
Fiery Brand does a good amount of damage and provides a shield based on the damage you dealt while it was up.
Immolate extends the length of fiery brand and reduces the CD on Demon Spikes. Double win.
Haste is your primary stat as it reduces the CD on both Immolate and Demon Spikes. Very useful.
This is just what works for me. YMMV and you may find a different way works better for you. I’d say it took a good 10 dungeons before I really felt comfortable tanking and rotating my CDs. Demon Hunter tanks are a lot of short CD short uptime abilities. Hopefully this helps.
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Basically what everyone else has said here though I will add a few things.
As a tank it’s your job to know when big hits are coming, and as a vengeance demon hunter you don’t get many big defensives so it’s important you use them appropriately and don’t spam them.
Metamorphosis should really always be saved until you’re about to take big damage.
I use Fel Devastation with the Demonic talent as soon as I engage a tougher pull and save the cooldown on weaker ones.
Initial aggro is typically a Demonic Armor-> Infernal Strike that also leaves a Sigil of Flames-> Fracture, Immolation Aura, Fracture -> Fel Devastation. From there it’s just Fracture-> Cleave -> Throw Glaive(when waiting on cooldowns).
You can also initiate fights with Kyrian Sigil ability or just a regular Sigil of Flames. You’re always just weaving in demonic armor and cooldowns where you can and trying to never really stop casting.
I’ll try again tonight but last night I did a dungeon on an alt with a vdh tank and he made mine look like crap. I know it takes practice but dangit if others don’t make me look like crap lol. Trying and the feeling of not getting anywhere is demoralizing
Ehhh, wrong. They fixed its threat modifier.
Don’t ever play another tank spec. I literally have 1/3 of the spells on my bars than I have with almost every other tanking class, and I play them all.
It’s literally the easiest rotation of any tank, maybe any spec. The trick is to know “when” to push said buttons…
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I would suggest you spend some time at the group target dummies. One of the big issues is not having any CD’s and jumping into the next pack.
IMO, For beginners, the pull should be:
- infernal strike (leap) in on your main target,
- immolation aura instantly to solidify aggro. (don’t pull unless you have IA off CD)
- This is where the decisions come in, you can throw glaive incase you missed someone or Demon Spikes if it’s a big pull, or Fracture to get soul fragments out so you can collect them later. You need fragments to Spirit Bomb and Soul Cleave (these also heal you).
Once you have the initial pulls down, then you start working in logic. Below 60% health you need CDs, and what heals you (Fel Dev/Soul Cleave)? Do you expect big hits, what will mitigate it (Demon Spikes/ Fiery Brand)?
Then weave in spirit bomb, sigils, silence, chains, stun/fear, dmg.
Then weave in trinkets, cov abilities, racials.
I made the suggestions I did based on him saying he was Fiery Brand build. Spirit Bomb build is also good but I feel like it doesn’t scale as well for higher Mythics or Raiding. It’s more self-sustain but less flat damage mitigation. When you’re doing Mythic+ dungeons you can pretty much assume you’re always going to be taking big hits which is another reason why I encourage just use that fiery brand and have it spread and use that demon spikes or fel devastation. This is a good week to learn some tanking on M+ because the mechanics are pretty easy. Just make sure you move them out of the puddles when one dies and you’re gravy. Good luck out there!
God bless this response!!!.. brewmaster main here and ive been looking for like a more specific rotation since i may flip to VDH for 9.1… i barely need healing in my normals but pushing S2 ksm i feel like i need something more concrete