I’s really debating on be playing it wrong or VDH really being a subpar tank right now, here is my understanding of spec to see if im missing something or its user error pls help…
Playing fell scarred, weaving defensives or meta and fel dev for tank busters or shortly after pulls in M+ if needed, soul clever obviously as overall healing spell when having near full fury, spirit bomb generally at 4 or ideally 5 fragments for healing and AOE damage, I have opted into darkness to add another defensive which I cant imagine playing without as most of these tank busters go off more than 3-4 times such as first boss SV and after alternating fel-meta-fel or fel meta darkness if fel is on CD for third then fel for fourth, obviously trying to keep Demon spikes on CD and using as main defensive, fiery brand most pulls when possible and another main defensive, sigil of flame for healing boost and pull method, immolation for reduced magic damage (talented) I am generally talking about +6 and +7 nothing too high but at 618 I still get like absolutely 1 shot by guaranteed damage, i probably missed stuff that I do understand but any help is welcome, I know with tank changes and meta for TWW is a ton of pysical damage which is far better on things like warrior, druid, etc, but is anyone else feeling crazy squishy like having trouble progressing and being able to complete keys, disclamier im 2600 on brew, and 2100 on VDH but really couldnt imaging pushing much higher without another 10 itemlevels, also im sitting on about 21% crit, 24% haste, 14% vers, 27% mastery. EDIT: Prime example: I have actually been 100%-0% from SV first boss with defs up, DB first boss beam, in raid first boss tankbuster, queen liquify, priority 1st boss tank buster, necrotic TB’s, seige last boss, ara first boss tank buster, also im with very decents healers as well as forgot to mention frailty stacks for damage mit
VDH is a squishy tank outside of meta. It yoyo’s a bit too much.
However 21% crit is kinda low. VDH is a parry/leech tank. Since in M+ the majority of hits you take will be white hits from mobs and this makes crit more valuable as you gain passive parry. You should run illuminated sigils for more parry. Down in Flames is good but you will take more damage to gain another brand to spread. Just a different playstyle.
I run with between 30% crit to 40% crit depending on the dungeon (also 30% haste).
I will swap to more vers depending on the dungeon if its more magic heavy such as dawnbreaker.
Think of it like this
Haste > Crit = Vers > Mastery.
100 > 98 = 98 > 96
You do have to play better on VDH to be able to perform as well as guardian or prot warrior which kinda sucks but it is what it is.
A lot of people are stuck on fel scarred and like to play it for damage and lap cds and stuff to get damage. I’ve been playing aldrachi the last 2 weeks and it’s so much more Tanky once you learn to use the aldrachi buffs. You can check my profile, I believe I’m in the reaver build right now.
Aldrachi is much more punishing of poor play. but has it’s advantages. namely it lets you keep meta as a rotational defensive. and it it generates 17% or so more souls for healing and such. it definitely plays somewhat different than fel scarred. some people have picked it up because they just like how it plays better. But it definitely is down some in aoe dps but on boss fights it pretty equal if not a tiny bit better once you start playing it well.
Ya they over nerfed armor on tanks and veng was already squishy, still possible for most things but a lot less safe esp on hard fights or giant pulls. And apparently our dev doesnt play DH at least well lol. Real question how can other devs not say or try to fix anything, a dps on low end of logs and a tank that is more likely to be blipped. They definitely need love, never understood how 3 tallent spec classes can out dps a 2 spec DH have less choices to be raid or mythic viable tank or nothing, but there are better tank choices, and dps is ok for trash but not worth itabove other classes on global logs.
The entire demon hunter community agrees fel-scarred is tankier than aldrachi. Alrdachi generates more souls so there’s more self-healing but fel-scarred has more mitigation in keys because of illuminated sigils having proccing 2 charges + longer meta uptimes.
enduring torment is really the only thing adding any amount of pure tankiness to fel-scarred. Aldrachi has it’s own this talent that adds pure tankiness. with incorruptible spirit.
the main advantage is fel-scarred is less punishing and easier with better aoe.
reverse that, AR is tankier than felscarred. its just AR has a skill ceiling that most players wont be able to reach.
AR is literally just as low skill as FS. Trust me. I’ve played both in 12+ keys
then that tells me your just doing the bareminimum and living
Ah yes, the snarky remarks from Tyranis.
not really a snarky remark. its just true. reaver isnt as brain dead as felscarred and to say that it is just kidna tells me your not pushing it as much as you could/should
just the minimum amount to survive these high keys 
Yep. AR does have higher mitigation and a higher skill ceiling over FS. The problem is that AR is not fun to play (for most) and FS is braindead easy and feels more rewarding to play.
AR has been dead since beta, everyone complained because it was the better hero spec, by far, until they buffed FS last second. Still, no one likes AR and it needs to be redesigned but its not our turn for tuning/rework so we need to wait, unfortunately.
That’s what I said, ar better but higher skill ceiling. Whether or not it sucks to play is subjective. Feels neat as veng. Feels crud on havoc