Now That We Have Some Data It's Time To Talk About Nerfing VDH

Gameplay Dungeons, Raids and Scenarios
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VDH needs a nerf big time. It’s basically the only tank spec represented in high keys. Almost no other tanks exist past +12’s and as the season progresses it’s only going to get worse. What do they have?

The best passive mitigation of any tank, one of (if not the) best active mitigation of any tank by uptime, the best AoE interrupts and stuns of any tank, the best movement ability of any tank, the best “emergency run without showing my back to you” of any tank (brew being very close), they get an ability to group entire packs together (can be a liability too by syncing white damage, but they generally avoid and parry most white damage), and potentially the best damage of any tank, they can cancel knockbacks, they can buff party damage, have the best snap aggro, the best 4-set bonuses, and have excellent self-healing.

Unlike the other tank classes, there are NO drawbacks to bringing a VDH.

According to Raiderio, the breakdown of tank representation is:
+13 - VDH 63%, Prot Pal 17%, Prot War 6.5%, Guardian 4%, Brew 2%, DK 8%
+14 - VDH 72%, Prot Pal 13%, Prot War 5%, Guardian 2%, Brew 2.5%, DK 5.5%
+15 - VDH 70%, Prot Pal 13%, Prot War 7%, Guardian 4%, Brew 2%, DK 4%
+16 - VDH 70%, Prot Pal 5%, Prot War 10.5%, Guardian 13.5%, Brew 0%, DK 2%
+17 - VDH 100%

If you also pull out the data for the top teams, it gets even more skewed. VDH is about 90-95% of the tanks in the top teams.

I’m glad they made it so Prot Pally wasn’t the only dominant tank in top keys, but what blizz has done with VDH is insanity. I’d like to see EVERY tank spec viable in top keys. I’ve gone dps with my buddy tanking as VDH and it doesn’t even look fun or that challenging, he grabs packs of 12-15 in a 10 key and sits in one place while they wail on him, and his damage barely moves around, negligible amount of tiny spikes up and down.

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I think the extreme numbers are better representing how ridiculously much people follow what’s considered to be meta by the best players in the world, who plays in premade groups and uses voice coms for their runs.

I’m currently playing a prot warrior myself, it does more than fine in 12s at 653 ilvl. It does about 20-30% more damage than VDH, has a mass interrupt on 90 sec CD, knockup+stun on 20 sec cd, and a singular stun on 40 sec cd. It’s way tankier, but less self sufficient since it doesn’t heal back up as VDH does.

VDH dominating up to 14-15 keys is more likely to be because people are follow trends, not because it’s overperforming. Truth be told, most people even in that key range lack the skill to fully utilze veng DH’s kit to cheese mechanics the same way the absolute best does. And when we’re talking about the best of the best, it will always be an extremely one-sided comp, as every inch matters at that level.

It’s simply not as bad as those numbers make it out to be. Other tanks are more than viable. RIP brew though.

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You’re in another thread rambling about how easy tanking is and showing you know nothing about tanking. I will waste one breath and remind you that +12 and +13 keys are not the top pro players in the world. Also, in the same breath you accused pro players of playing FOTM based on hype… you think they would really do that?? In addition, FOTM doesn’t work in high keys btw. The high key statistics wouldn’t pan out like this unless there was some advantage gained by being a certain class. If all tank classes had the same balance, you might a variance of 5-10% over the other classes, but not a 70% representation…

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I know you’re an upset guy who dislikes being questioned, but I’ve not said that it’s easy. I’ve said that it’s easier this season, and that it seems to me like playing a DPS is more work than playing a tank (if we’re doing it at a decent level I may add). I played at 3.1k rating last season so I feel like I have a somewhat decent knowledge about tanking, being 0.5% and such. What are your credentials for sitting on that high horse?

Indeed they’re not, I haven’t said they were. I said that people in keys where meta doesn’t matter at all blindly follow the meta because they believe it gives them an advantage. It generally doesn’t, as those players aren’t using the toolkits well enough to benefit as much of it as those in higher keys do.

Once again, you’re not comprehending what you’re reading. Pro players, the ones doing world first keys (currently 16-17 keys) are using it because they benefit more from it. I’m saying that people doing up to about 15ish keys are using it because it’s hyped up. People doing 12-13s are definitely using it because it’s hyped up, if they were good enough to make full use of VDH kit then they would be doing higher keys.

Of course it does, that’s why the highest keys are played with a clearly defined meta (later in the season, too early to set a meta now when everybody is gearing). If it didn’t matter, you’d see way more variety of specs.

To have the same balance it needs to be 100% homogenous, and that’s never going to happen. Except for that your argument is true.

If there’s even the slightest imbalance between the tank classes you’ll see a skewed representation of them in higher keys, as those title player will use everything that benefits them. In keys as low as 12-13, it doesn’t indicate anything being off-balance, just that people follow trends.

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And in the stats for 14, 15, 16, and 17 keys?

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Don’t be lazy with your responses. Formulate the entire question, what is it that you’d like me to respond to?

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In a vacuum, yes, if the tanks were roughly equal that would happen. But in real life, top players leverage minute differences for maximum performance, and legions of followers who don’t even understand why decide that what those players are doing is the only way it can be done. So you get absurd numbers favoring the meta tank, no matter how close the other tanks are in actual performance balance.

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When looking at the extreme outlier level keys it’s always going to be heavily skewed. These are pro teams who meta swap for title. Even if they are within single digit percentage boosts over another, they will swap.

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Who cares about what happens at higher than 12.

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A very great many people, it turns out, which is why you see meta comps filtering down into lower keys. They’ll often justify it by saying if it’s best at 15, it’s best at 10, and I want the best chance at timing, or something to that effect. Even if they aren’t actively using, or even know, the tiny niche thing that makes it “best”.

I see it in raid strats all the time too. People actively making a boss harder trying to duplicate the way a WF guild did something, without understanding that they did it that way out of necessity in gear much lower. If they had the gear we have by the time we get there they would never have done it that way. It’s not everything, just niche little gimmicks that come out once in awhile.

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Oh, I know which is extremely unfortunate. People often try to imitate or copy what is mostly irrelevant to their skill level.

I seen MDI in 8-10’s a few times and it’s extremely annoying as a healer because you’re taking risks for irrelevant gains.

I just want a +1 I don’t care that you shaved 30 secs from this part of the dungeon by pulling more.

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The other tanks do just fine in the ranges you’re complaining about. The fact that you feel like VDH is over represented isn’t because other tanks can’t do the keys just as well, it’s because people are sheep. Truth is. Groups will generally take any tank in a pug, provided they have the gear an io for the key.

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I think maybe we should look to buffing other tanks rather than nerfing VDH. Brewmaster imo is definitely a tank that should be looked at, warriors and bears feel great to heal in keys. Blood dk is an anxiety attack, and honestly VDH health bars are starting to look more and more like blood dk. Paladin is paladin and will always be relevant because of interrupt and utility and are tanky if properly played. Warriors also seem to be doing a BUNCH of damage at the moment

Brew is the only tank right now that I actively dislike healing. Stagger just gets out of hand on some of these larger pulls and they don’t really offer utility or damage to compensate for the added stress and healing needed.

Best to call for buffs to classes and places its needed rather than for nerfs.

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I am definitely for that idea, it just takes blizz much more man power to buff up the others, they have to consider raid builds, pvp, etc for each of those classes then. Honestly if they nerfed the vdh tier set a bit and buffed the brew, druid, dk, and prot pally set it might be a little better. The last time vdh got the nerf hammer blizz did the same thing they did with this season’s buffs and had to knock them down. People in 16s and 17s are running vdh for performance and utility, not bc they are bandwagonning.

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This is a pointless thread. It doesnt matter, whichever tank is the best tank is whats going to be played at the higher levels. Regular players arent doing +13’s or higher in your example. They are players that are specifically playing the best comp to push keys. If the best tank was paladin, like it was last season, you would see the same metrics but for paladin. Just like last season. So what is the point of this post? This is how its always been, people will always chase the best class for whatever content theyre doing, and in this case there can only be one, AKA the tank, and therefore it will be dominated by VDH like paladin was last season. It also doesnt matter how large or small the gap between the best tank and 2nd best/the rest of the tanks is in terms of how good it is, everyone will STILL play the best tank whether its a lot better or barely better. Also some of your points are absolutely incorrect like,

when everyone who knows anything knows this is false. Paladins have the best aoe interrupts and stuns of any tank. And paladin utility is insane and outweighs the utility of the other tanks. Idk how anyone could even refute or make this claim that VDH is better in this regard than Prot pally. Thats insane.

Like we get it, you’re upset that the class you main is no longer THE premier spec that is being brought to keys like it was last season in the highest levels of play. I’m sure you were very happy and werent in the forums last season though, complaining about how paladin needed a nerf. Not that it matters though, because YOU can accomplish the key levels YOU play at just fine as a pally. Pallies are perfectly capable tanks.

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Yes, the 100 or so keys done at 16-17 running vdh are for performance and utility. The hundreds of thousands of keys nowhere near that level are bandwagonning if they’re insisting on vdh for reasons they probably don’t even know.

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Why does someone always say this when nerfs are being talked about?

No. You nerf the outliers at the top, you buff the outliers at the bottom. Buffing everyone requires rebalancing all the content. Nerfs are sensible.

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Im insisting on VDH because I do 5% more dam and that’s all I care about

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What if you’re in a group with a havoc dh?

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Players are responding to whats been happening for a while now.

  • M+ gets mechanically more challenging every xpac.
  • The increased workload falls disproportionately on tanks and healers.
  • Some tanks have a good toolkit meaning minimal disruption, others don’t, none of this is ever balanced.
  • DPS players don’t give a hoot about spec flavor, they don’t care that some specs needs more assistance to make pulls happen or some specs need more time to generate threat, all they see is with one or two tanks keys go broooooom and they will trash players playing a tank that isn’t on the same level.

Bliz has given players every reason to play meta and zero reasons not to!

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