The Hunt seems to be in the havoc demon hunter dps rotation, however very often they end up ripping aggro from tanks. It makes tanking with them in a key super sketchy. Have to run around re-aggroing everything, meanwhile they get destroyed. It seems the aggro it generates in Vengeance has been carried over to Havoc. Seems like a bug or oversight and needs to be addressed because there are soooo many DHs in keys right now.
2 Likes
Do more damage. It’s not bugged in any way, the hunt just do a fair bit of upfront damage and it’s buffed by their damage amps.
Pull faster or tell them to wait half a second more. I’m quite sure that tank threat is built into the tank specs these days, not individual abilities, so I reaaaaalllly doubt that Havoc’s The Hunt is getting the 500% threat modifier. I “grew up” in the days of waiting for a few Sunders, so waiting a moment more comes naturally to me. If someone is trying to maximize DPS on pull in a random PuG, they may run into trouble with high up-front damage abilities like Hunt/Bladestorm/etc.
3 Likes
Third option besides pulling faster or telling dps to wait
Is “press your buttons” and do more damage. If op post is about the “meta tank” which let’s be honest it’s about vdh. Then odds are they’re playing a build that has threat issues and the hero tree whose three first globals are ones that do 0 damage
1 Like
In general, threat feels a bit more spikey than last season for the beginning of fights. It could be just early season things, most of the time it’s people blowing cooldowns before the entire pack has been gathered, which communication has helped me mitigate.
80% of the time it’s just dps blowing their load, you can’t really fix stupid even after communicating. Other than that I don’t find aggro to be a issue
I am practicing the reaver build on my DH alt, but it’s super annoying to play. I have only 2 uncapped AoE abilities on long cd. Although I have no tier, my AoE dps on VDH is so low that I feel my agro will be shredded when I go higher keys.
the hunt is a single target ability. its use should not affect an entire pack.
yes, it does damage on the way in to mobs in its path, but it’s a DoT.
if they blow all their CDs at the beginning of a pull and you haven’t, or there is a big gap between your ilevels, and therefore your damage profile, then that is the problem, not the hunt ability itself.
have you watched any yodatv videos? not just on builds, etc, but watch his play in dungeons? he is running AR and doing big damage and doesn’t seem to have much in the way of threat problems.
he is running brand spread, no spirit bomb and spamming fracture/soul cleave.
I have been playing around with my own tweaks to the base build. I am only still figuring out the +2 content. I am playing around with spirit bomb without brand spread, which I have been told is suboptimal.
but I feel like spirit bomb helps at the beginning of trash pulls to get frailty and leech up while gathering lots of fragments, plus it does a lot of AOE damage. and since spirit bomb affects everything around me (rather than fracture and soul cleave being frontals), i don’t have to worry so much about positioning during the gathering part of the pull. of course immo aura, spikes and sigil of flame. once the glaive procs, then switch to fracture/soul cleave.
then again, I like to play around with builds that make sense for how I like to play. they certainly might not be the most optimal.
as an experienced tank, I am sure you will find the adjustments that make sense to you.
yoda plays the spec at a level that no newer players can play,. hes actively tab targeting so his soul cleave hits more targets. i highly suggest players not to copy yoda until they are way more well versed at the spec
thats putting it nicely btw
it will be, play spirit bomb and felscarred until you got vdh down to a T.
its a active spec that is more demanding than most tank specs. you have to actively cycle your defensives and use it offensively as well. since your damage is also your sustain and bulk. i cant stress this enough. vdh isnt warrior or prot. its more like bdk.
if you need help then i suggest to bring a log to the felhammer class discord to see where you need more help in or atleast read the wowhead and icyveins guides
i would also use immo aura on cd, cause fallout makes one immo generate 4-5 souls for a fatty spb.
in other words. for the love of all thats holy play spb
observing and learning is not copying.
what i learn from his VDH guides is different from watching actually play.
Then you haven’t played prot paladin. Prot is the highest skill cap tank bc it’s so fragile. Movement and cooldown timing is of utmost importance to prot pally mitigation, less so with vdh. VDH has so much passive mitigation and more active cooldown mitigation uptime than prot pally, that once you get your cooldown rotation down, it’s a lower skill cap spec.
you observe routes if anything, not rotational stuff cause again he does alot of things the average player shouldnt do. hes also playing key levels that no one in this thread wont do.
your probably better off reading icyveins and wowhead guides. his guides and videos is for a level of play your not doing. it will also actively harm your dps players who will die because you lack threat
you are assuming players will get that cd rotation down. most vdh fotmers dont even press meta more than once in a 30min dungeon.
both specs have a learning curve and it shows when you look at the average player log. it just while prot paladin has a higher apm, its mostly due to sotr being ogcd and if your smart enough you can macro it to weave with your other buttons. i didnt mean this as a term of offense and idk why we’re turning it into the pain Olympics on which tank spec is more “difficult”
vdh is more demanding cause it needs you to do damage and press buttons for that passive mitigation to work, for your sustain to work, for everything to work. people dont like pressing buttons for damage and thus the entire engine falls apart. we can spend ages talking about which tank is harder, i can say that prot paladin has more rotationally defensive buttons than vdh but that wouldnt change anything.
both tanks are difficult in their own way, prot needs movement and proper cd cycling along with proper usage of its ogcd spender. while vdh needs people to actually press buttons. the latter sadly has a misinfo problem which is leading to more vdhs doing 0 dam and having threat issue to the point they think its a bug. (its not a bug, theyre not pressing buttons, taking a hero tree that does 0 thread for its first 5 globals, and not taking spb even tho its a uncapped button that does more damage than soul cleave in aoe)
since you haven’t tanked an m+ as VDH in TWW, I think I will keep learning from him and not you.
if you are running fel scarred, hitting meta on cd is your rotation, unless you are nearly done with one pull and are saving it for the next one.
I now see why you were posting from your pally before. there you have m+ tanking experience. not much as VDH.
I am a very modest player, but I got 2k every season in DF and in TWW s1. I will get at least that far this season too.
I’ll stick to learning the way I do and sharing my experience where it might be helpful to other normies just trying to make some progress.
again, if you feel like im not a good source of info, ask tjuan or kira or anyone in the vdh classcord. they will tell you the same thing. stop making this about io when the people who made the icy veins and wowhead guides are rank1 players in the past and close to rank 1 players right now.
yes, your correct. 100% on the nose. yet people dont do it. your overestimating the average players capability. ive seen a vdh playing 10 keys log. who played felscarred. and only pressed meta once in the key.
this gets worse with AR, people are actrively not pressing meta and are legit not talenting into the talent that makes brand a 30% damage amp and a 40% aoe uncapped wall. for no legtiment reason.
again, when i have time to play my vdh i will. if you feel like my info isnt worth it. then by all means ask people in the vdh cord who have alot more io than my paladin and they will telly ou the same thing.
stop makign this amount skill, i dont care if your a modest player or a good one. just spread good info and not misinfo. you can give examples with how you learn and play thats fine. but make it good info.
your not gonna suggest players to not take spb despite the specs threat issues right? your not gonna suggest players to not take brand talents right? no? then we’re fine. just make sure you have the whole picture for the people you want to help. dont hurt them or yourself
with fel scarred, you have to take bomb because that is how you proc demonsurge, which is the whole point of the hero talent.
spirit bomb can be useful in aldrachi for threat generation. but my whole point about watching yoda play a no spirit bomb build was that you can see his key strokes and how he keeps threat without spirit bomb. somehow you thought that was bad advice, or something.
watching one of the best spec players in real time demonstrating how to keep threat without the high threat generating talent of spirit bomb is very useful.
I think spirit bomb can be useful at the beginning of a pull. it generates 360’ aoe threat (rather than frontal threat of soul cleave and fracture), builds frailty stacks quickly and boosts leech when you really need it , especially if you are picking up multiple packs. it also uses up fragments quickly to proc reaver. however, once you proc reaver, you want to be swapping over to cleave and fracture because they are physical damage and work directly with wounded quarry.
bomb is optional for alrachi VDH (and it costs 3 points to get it). yoda shows the viewer how he dances around the mobs, keeping them all in front, as he spams fracture/soul cleave through the pack.
I haven’t yet made up my mind whether I want keep bomb in aldrachi or not. I like to tinker with my own ideas. spirit bomb has just been iconic for VDH so it feels really weird to play without it.
at the very edge of the game - which neither you nor I are playing at - a min/max approach can all make a difference. in my 2-2.5k m+ world as VDH, this is all flavor and feel and preference.
again, you are overestimating the capabilities of the average player. alot of people dont take spb with fs and dont press meta. i can grab and past any log in the discord rn and you’ll see this. but i wont cause that will be giga mean. you are putting waaaay to much stock on players that dont read their talent trees
because it kinda is, yoda is playing at a level and plays vdh at a capacity that most players dont/cant. watching his keystrokes doesnt really help players either, cause it would be to much for them to keep up. also kinda int. tjuan who is currently the 2nd best vdh player int he game btw. uses spirit bomb and felscarred. yet no one talks about him because he doesnt stream…
mosty players who copy yoda end up losing threat because t heyre playing with a hero tree that generates very low threat and dont play spirit bomb for no legitament reason beyond preference. yoda tab targets his targets to let sc generate more threat and damage to more targets, he is also very agressive with his rotation. you cant expect players who barely know how to vdh be that agressive with vdh. its betetr for them to start slow and know the spec before copying the key strokes of better players
instead talkign about wounded quary, why not talk about the reason people can hold threat with ar. aka fury of the aldrachi. doing 6 uncapped additional slashes with soulcleave is actually very good and helps. the issue is people are pressing sc after fracture. they are pressing it before fracture. thus only getting 3 uncapped slashes instead of 6. this is also a very common problem with ar players and why their threat is abysmal.
you are again expect these beginner players to pick this up without issue. in a pug where everyone has sub 70 iq. its better for them to play spb in the long run. spb is also more damage than sc even with AR. you are eating 5 souls with spb and then spamming sc until you get more souls for spb. your usage of both spenders should be somewhat even by the end.
if we’re talking about min max approached then again. tjuan is accomplishing more higher keys and doing alot more damage and defensive power than yoda. by playing felscarred and spb.
both hero trees are viable as i stated in the beginning of this thread. you are free to play both. but felscarred is better for most players and they will perform way better and have a easier time surviving.
im sorry but im tired of stealling aggro from vdh players who dont run spb. after waiting 6 seconds to allow reaver to be at full strength. i am tired. im sure your different and ill love to see it one day, but until then im going to try and steer new vdh players to a different direction while theres still time before the community perception sets in. if its to late then ultimately ill stop inviting vdh to my meme keys. cause again its ridiclous how most vdh fotmers cant even do 8-10s without exploding or making me explode
except that isn’t how VDH works.
fracture and immo aura generate souls and fury. both soul cleave and spirit bomb spend them.
if you watch yoda play aldrachi, he is spammin fracture to generate souls which he spends on soul cleave. although he offers builds that includes spirit bomb, he doesn’t play it, as far as I have seen.
and because he is generating so many fragments, he get enormous uptime on demon spikes.
no one is giving a tank 6 seconds to build threat. we aren’t in the “wait three sunders” world with prot warrior.
and that isn’t how aldrachi works anyway. the reaver’s mark is a single target effect. the attack speed helps generate more fury, but melee hits are also single target.
But for aoe threat, VDH has immo aura, sigil of flame, sigil of spite, infernal strike, and fel devastation before even touching soul cleave or spirit bomb.
FWIW, I started playing VDH this season, the no spirit bomb AR build, and i love it. Im up to 2600 already, and very rarely do i have threat issues. The only time i do is if unexpected stuff gets pulled (happens), or i have a dps run in and blow their load on not even the prio target, then they might pull threat. As long as you plan to have some sort of AoE threat grab on pull, you’ll be fine. Fel Dev is the easiest, then NOT using sigil of flame until everything is stacked (if you pull with sigil of flame the initial hit doesnt count for threat ive heard, as opposed to already being in combat? Could be made up but its worked for me to hold it until the whole pack is grouped). Holding a reavers glaive for the pull so you can hit a quick fracture/soul cleave combo works well also, you have many choices. Hunt in and cancel the motion with infernal strike, free glaive etc.
I will however agree, that playing SpB would most likely be the play for most ranges of VDH. If i wasnt enjoying the no SpB AR build so much, i would probably be playing fel-scarred SpB
in aoe you generate ALOT of souls in general. this isnt a reaver only thing. while yes reaver does push soul generation ahead. vdh generating alot of souls in aoe isnt new. youd still spb to eat souls and soul cleave to dump fury unless your in constant 8+ target aoe. then you just spam soul bomb.
please please PLEASE realize that soul cleave is capped at 5, and almost each dungeon but TOP have massive plus 5+ pulls. yoda plays in a agressive way that shows hes somewhat capable with vdh. hell even noawh hates soul cleave spam. you cant expect the average play to be able to do what he does.
im using my own personal example, im waiting 6+ seconds for these tanks to build threat so i wouldnt rip it away as ret. but i still rip it away as ret cause those first 2 globals is something dumb like sigil of chains or silence then other things that generate 0 threat.
when you use RG you get a buff that lets your soul cleave do 3 more uncapped slices. this is one of the main form of aggro for the hero spec. 6 if you fracture before you soul cleave. this is why it takes awhile to get threat. if you do 3, then it does poo damage and you dont keep threat. do 6 uncapped slices and you keep threat. but to do that you have to do a opener so your basically doing the hunt, rg, fracture, soul cleave. thats the general idea without spb. if played well. so you got 3 globals that do 0 aoe threat before your first major aoe damaging ability.
but this is pugs and from my experience, its always gonna be precast sof so no threat due to bug, sigil of chains, meta cause they almost die from auto sync. the hunt, rg, soul cleave. then i die cause i would like to play the game
btw im also assuming you are saving souls from last pull for the next. cause its been years and people should have that as muscle memory.
please dont tell me how to play my spec
sigil of flame generates threat when your in combat, people pre cast this and since its also on a timer afetr cast, its usually to late when they try to cast it during combat, immoa aura does 0 damage its threat comes from pooping out 6 souls for a fat spb insta, sigil of spite is a 1min cd, infernal strike does 0 damage thus 0 threat and people launch to the middle and die from backshots, fel dev has a cd and while i love to use it offensively, you should use it proactively. ideally your meta and fd to extend it.
spb should always be your 2-3rd global pressed or first global pressed if you have souls from the last pull. (i do this and have 0 aggro in df runs, even said i was the best vdh they played with in df seasons 3)
if it works for you then it works, but it just tells me your very good at vdh or you played with people with 0 hands. which is also common