Hey all, I’m revisiting my DH from years ago and about to hit 70 as Vengeance. So far, it seems pretty smooth, and I really enjoy the mobility options.
One thing I’m not super clear on is Spirit Bomb vs Soul Cleave. Specifically, how often am I hitting Soul Cleave relative to Spirit Bomb, and how much of a dps loss is using Spirit Bomb in place of Soul Cleave? (ie. mindlessly use spirit bomb as the near exclusive fragment spender)
As I understand, Soul Cleave is for dumping rage after spending 4+ fragments on bomb. I believe it’s also the priority for single target. Are there any other factors I should be aware of? For example, is there a notable difference in self healing between the two?
Sorry if these questions are a bit obvious or otherwise irrelevant. I’m once again taking a swing at tanking and trying to learn a few new things. Your guidance is greatly appreciated!
I think the best way to answer this question would be to just point you to the wowhead rotation for VDH so you can look at how both abilities are used in single/aoe situations.
If you want to get more of an understanding of WHY you are pressing those two buttons, then the “Advanced” section goes into some detail on that front.
You want to be pressing your spirit bomb first for damage + threat aggro and frailty build up and only 2 souls for cleave (that’s a self heal). It’s not worth using all your souls for cleave because it doesn’t do as much damage and if you’re healer is bad, you can’t fix it. Furthermore, you need to keep 4-5 souls for the next pack of mobs, don’t use spirit bomb when they’re dying because those souls can be used on the next pack.
Be ready to kite and call for slow CDs on most weeks; a lot of mobs with certain abilities will rip through all your damages and no amount of frailty or fiery brand will save you.
You have no rally cry
Last Stand
Shields
AMS/AMS, etc
soul cleave is for st and fury dumping while spirit bomb is for 2 target+ soul consumption. with spirit bomb you should find yourself healing more due to 5 soul ffrag consumption.
however in st with fiery demise talented, you wil lwant to spam spirit bomb along with all your fire source damage for maximum damage every brand/soul carver window. this is the only time you should be using spirit bomb on st
i 100% suggest you read the icy veins and wowhead guides, they are updated with the most recent info about vdh. i also encourage you to check in the felhammer discord for more veng dh help, we have a more indepth faq page/channel. finally if you still feel like you need to improve, you can always ask for a log check
lmao its literally maintained by the same people. additionally, both guides recommend the same. your uneducated bias is showing in every thread, just stop.
Spirit Bomb to consume souls in 2 and more targets
you can Spirit Bomb with 5 fragments in single target too when running the Soul Furnace talent but this is a very minor dps gain (~0.1%), just mentioning for the sake of completeness
(this is my personal recommendation) on 2 targets with miniboss character such as the 2 minibosses before last boss in Nokhud, or e.g. bolstered mobs, you can also Soul Cleave to maintain higher Frailty stacks on both
if you play Fiery Demise, then you want to Spirit Bomb in single target too while Fiery Brand is up
otherwise, avoid consuming souls with Soul Cleave and cleave off remaining Fury after Spirit Bombing
if none of above applies, you Soul Cleave only in single target
There is no notable self healing difference. Spirit Bomb inherently doesn’t heal, but you consume more souls, and since its fire damage it heals more from Leech & Frailty.
Soul Cleave inherently heals regardless of souls consumed but consumes only up to 2 and the base heal is rather small anyways. And of course still heals from Frailty & Leech but its physical damage and hard limited to 5 targets so its naturally less from that.
Thanks for the pointers everyone! Sorry for the late response. I realized it was a bit of a silly question going in, but I wanted those specific use cases spelled out for me since I wasn’t super sure.
They are not the same. Keep making things up though, as if you had so little reason for anyone to believe you already.
At this point I’m starting to think you’re just a troll. I thought you were just dumb at first.
Ok, so it’s not the same, glad you admitted it.
If you even looked at it before commented you would have known that.
Just because they might be using information that you discuss doesn’t mean the guide won’t be very different…
Personally I avoid wowhead for anything because it’s full of dodgy crap. The guide for vengeance isn’t as good as the one written on methods website, not sure why you bothered to insult me earlier when I wasn’t wrong.
my god, dude get it in your head, meyra and ita are friends who often double check eachs others work. both agree on the same things about vdh in their guides. they are vdh discord regulars and top helpers AND theory crafters. both of them maintain and update their guides together. just say you dont like wowhead as a whole, dont say that the wowhead gudie for vdh is seedy when it draws the same conclusions as the method and icyvein guides
Ok… But the guides aren’t the same… What else do I need to say for you to get it.
It’s baffling that you are arguing this statement, when it is 100% true and literally anyone can go and confirm it at any moment.
I didn’t say the wowhead guide itself was seedy? Learn to read, I did say wowhead as a whole was dodgy.
Xeph, I’d like to consult with you on the matter of my current vault options - I have yet to choose!
I don’t know what the current consensus is on the trink so was considering just going with the small upgrade on the cloak instead. What would you do?
raider io/characters/us/tichondrius/Bokoharambae
421 wowhead com /item=81084/cape-of-entanglement
421 wowhead com /item=193697/bottle-of-spiraling-winds
3rd item is not relevant - all totem is good(but let me tell you, it wiped me in HoV because I was facing a sapped target while running to gather all mobs in first pull(parry/trink proc))
Before your comment I was going to replace All Totem, and either go 415 Granyth/421 Bottle or 415 Hunger of the Pack/421 Bottle
I didn’t mention the hunger prior, but I kind of want to move away from Granyth because the defensive is just so random. I’ll never have high raid trinkets, and I have like all the m+ except for pages.
all totem procs on your current target, yea, only downside really. id play totem + bottle; feel free to jump on the dh discord fel hammer - discord .gg/zGGkNGC - and ping Xepheris if you need log reviews or something in the future
despite being perfectly readable in all 3 guides