Too Squishy

Classes Demon Hunter
1

Hi. I’ve only recently started tanking on my demon hunter and learned the hard way that demon hunters are the most squishy tanks that are also FAR too dependent on CDs unlike say druids, warriors, paladins (To an extent because these classes have plenty of CDs to answer for boss mechs, unlike demon hunters which have two; Soul Barrier (Which is trash because it’s on the same tree as Last Resort and you should always take Last Resort because you can get Hour of Reaping), Demon Spikes which have a long CD (AND don’t even give you armour on par with that of a paladin, bear, warrior, etc), and Metamorphosis which is also on a VERY long CD).

I just feel like demon hunters are far too squishy to tank anything above mythic+ dungeons. Maybe I’m the only one that thinks this, maybe I need more time, but for now? I think I’m not going to be tanking on my demon hunter UNTIL they get armour on par with that of a warrior, paladin, or bear.

2

We don’t need to have the same armor as Warr, paly, bear as we have more self healing. Our big issue isn’t that spikes is weak, it’s that we have such low uptime. I would think a bandaid fix should be to reduce the recharge time/extend the duration of spikes.

Also fiery brand should be able to be a good Cd against multiple targets baseline. Have it where immo aura instantly spreads brand to all targets hit, but at half effectiveness (would like 40% on everyone, but blizz wouldn’t doesn’t like us that much). This would make it on par with Warr demo shout

3

Well, if you, a person professing no substantial experience playing the spec in meaningful endgame content believes this to be true, then it must be!

Your perceived differences in tanking ability:

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Actual:

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EDIT:

I do not think the spec is fine at the moment, but I don’t think it’s really bad. I think it will probably need a rework for reasons discussed in plenty of other thoughtful threads over the past half a year, but all content barring extremely high m+ that requires pretty specific comps is perfectly accomplishable with VDH without much additional hassle.

1 Like
4

One way to increase defensive uptime would be to use several of the bonuses from end of legion. T21 4pc (could be 2pc,cant remember) reduced meta CD every time you parried. I think spikes also gave more parry during legion so it helped reduce the Cd even more. One of the legendaries reset all sigils and gave 1 charge of DS every time you activated meta. With these 2 effects, I was able to maintain fairly high uptime on either spikes or meta helping to smooth out damage, especially in m+.

5

At the end of legion I fell in love with vengeance dh.

I went into bfa saying it would be my main. I hated it the moment I hit level 116 or so.

3 Likes
6

Well, I must admit, mobs in M+ hits like a truck and we do not really have an answer. It’s cool, that we can jump and make a big gap between us and target, but without fine slow it’s not really useful. And our selfheal is good, but not that ultimate to rely heavily. Tried to complete 8+ SoS yesterday and we just give up after 30 deaths on second boss.

I think I need to drop Last Resort for 6% more DR. Btw, do we have any kind of cap for vers or haste?

7

If your group is accruing 30 deaths on the second boss of a +8 Shrine, then there is a lot more wrong there than any perceived problems you may have with VDH. You have people missing interrupts on the caster boss, and probably melee standing in the Cleave and getting one-shot.

Everyone on an m+ team has a responsibility to manage trash mobs. In Shrine early on, there are tons of casters spamming water bolt, and if those aren’t regularly stopped through stun, silence, or interrupt, you are going to take a truckload of damage. Same in WM and other dungeons. Bad application of party interrupts and CC will cause any tank to take loads more damage than they should.

I am a tryhard, but nowhere close to the upper echelon, and I’ve timed an Underot+13 this week on my VDH, and will probably time our +14 Shrine without issue. I still have a ways to go before my limits as a player reach the limitations of the spec. The most important thing for you to do is play the tank spec you like best, work to improve there, and worry about the imitations later.

2 Likes
8

I’d like to add to Brujanna, that second boss in SOTS people seem to also forget they can clear their stacks by standing in the one ward. It’s ridiculous when people are bad at interrupting but then run around with 8-9 stacks constantly they could drop :frowning:

Sounds like a group issue, not a you (VDH) issue.

9

Well said!

10

Tnx for clarity!

11

When it comes to people complaining about not being able to chest their keys, people have a tendency to forget that we are technically undergeared for what we are doing. That 30% baseline buff to mythics + the new scaling system hurts like a truck. So there’s that to keep in mind.

I don’t think that DHs are too squishy compared to other tanks necessarily. I just feel like we are a lot more gear dependent than other tanks because of how our sustain works. Personally I think Last Resort is absolute garbage because of the long CD. Especially in M+ where it’s an oh crud I’m going to die button in niche situations. In say Atal’Dazar you would only get 3 uses of Last Resort throughout the entire dungeon. Where as Void Reaver is more consistent and will be used on each pack.

Though we do have a lot more utility compared to say a Druid or Warrior. There are a few pulls I can make in Tol Dagor that I wouldn’t be able to make on other classes due to the aoe fear that Vengance has. So I think that’s one of the trade offs.

12

I am comparably geared to you and swapped in for a warrior that was a bit under geared and not familiar with tanking that boss. I don’t even generally tank, so guessing for sure it was a group issue.