Vengeance Tanking - Experience in being Generally Squishy

[MechaCThun]

I leveled as Vengeance from 98 - 110 (as soon as I was able to choose Vengeance spec in starter experience) and made it a habit of mostly pulling packs of mobs to learn the style of Vengeance tanking. I am well aware of balancing our active mitigation (Demon Spikes, Fiery Brand) with Soul Cleave heals as well as managing our Pain resource (saving for big damage and stuff) but I am still coming to the issue of being overall squishy.

Finally I am at a decent item level to do +0 mythic dungeons (841) and every healer says the same thing. The complaints of me being ''made of paper'' or that ''you clearly don't know how to play/gear correctly for a DH tank since I can't heal you'' and I am completely at a loss.

Some context,

At my current item level of 841:

(1.) I am prioritizing Versatility as my 1st main stat and Haste as my 2nd. With food buff I sit around 12% Versatility with about 6.30% reduce damage taken because of Versatility.

(2.) Can't really remember my Haste % but my Demon Spikes cooldown is at about 10 seconds right now.

(3.) My Artifact Weapon has been talented for survivability. I went Fueled By Pain route first into Charred Warblades for 15% healing done by Fire damage to be converted into self-healing.

(4.) I mostly have talented my Vengeance spec for survivability solely because of this issue. 99 = Agonizing Flames for speed increase + increased Fire damage for increased healing, 100 = Feast of Souls, 102 = Gluttony (when I end up feeling like complete s**t after dying so many times in dungeons), 104 = used to be Soul Rending but I've not switched to Feed the Demon, 108 = Blade Turning, 110 = Last Resort.

(5.) I have Fire damaging spells up about 95% of the time, and I have Demon Spikes up about 90% of the time (especially with Feed the Demon) and even so, I always keep 1 charge of DS ready while cycling Fiery Brand and heals from Fire damage. Since DS is our main mitigation, I feel as relying solely on that just isn't enough.

Is any other Vengeance tank having similar issues? No matter what you try you are just squishy?

I did a +0 Darkheart Thicket, was getting mollywhopped, and a paladin went tank spec who was 10 item levels under me but healer had no issues with.

[Myrryr]

You're not wrong. DH's are squishy. If you want to play a real tank, do a bear or warrior and laugh at the weak piddly boss cuddles that don't hurt you.

[Munkky]

A) VDH are Squishy. Its just the state of where we are. We were meant to heal back up like DK. Though they nerfed us. So it isn't just you it is the spec. not to say you can't improve, its just not all your fault.

B) If you are going to post numbers and percentages please be more accurate. You are stating a 10 sec DS CD. Which requires 50% Haste, which isn't attainable at this moment unless you have all TF/Haste/Socketed gear.

C)Talents wise: Gluttony does nothing for your Surv. It is only for dps. Felblade is your best bet for more Surv, unless you count the extra damage from Flame Crash as surv. If you are taking Feed the Demon, you pretty much have to take Fallout. Until you get painbringer I can't fully recommend this build as Soul Rending is so nice. IMO it is more of a learning/until you get Fueled by Pain. Blade Turning is the worst ability in the row for Survival. Fel Devastation gives you pretty much 2 second of invuln and does a ton of damage, Spirit Bomb gives a decent amount of Leech to where it smooths your health better.

D) Again, the numbers. 90% uptime on DS would require taking in more souls than you are able to generate with your build. Even at 50% health, you would need ~3 souls per cast of DS in order to give you that high of an uptime. All of this is for naught if you mean that you are keeping it up 90% of what you are capable of.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

They are squishy in mythic boss situations but they have the an amazing active mitigation that gets really really strong with gear. Don't forget it scales with both haste and mastery.

[the boar]

Finally I am at a decent item level to do +0 mythic dungeons (841) and every healer says the same thing. The complaints of me being ''made of paper'' or that ''you clearly don't know how to play/gear correctly for a DH tank since I can't heal you'' and I am completely at a loss.

it could be a combination of you pushing the buttons at the wrong time and the healer being pants, or if you are confident you're pushing the buttons, the healer is absolute pants. 841 is way over-geared for mythic0.. even with a pug you can do them fine at 810 provided everyone pulls their weight.

At my current item level of 841:
(1.) I am prioritizing Versatility as my 1st main stat and Haste as my 2nd. With food buff I sit around 12% Versatility with about 6.30% reduce damage taken because of Versatility.
(2.) Can't really remember my Haste % but my Demon Spikes cooldown is at about 10 seconds right now.
(3.) My Artifact Weapon has been talented for survivability. I went Fueled By Pain route first into Charred Warblades for 15% healing done by Fire damage to be converted into self-healing.
(4.) I mostly have talented my Vengeance spec for survivability solely because of this issue. 99 = Agonizing Flames for speed increase + increased Fire damage for increased healing, 100 = Feast of Souls, 102 = Gluttony (when I end up feeling like complete s**t after dying so many times in dungeons), 104 = used to be Soul Rending but I've not switched to Feed the Demon, 108 = Blade Turning, 110 = Last Resort.
(5.) I have Fire damaging spells up about 95% of the time, and I have Demon Spikes up about 90% of the time (especially with Feed the Demon) and even so, I always keep 1 charge of DS ready while cycling Fiery Brand and heals from Fire damage. Since DS is our main mitigation, I feel as relying solely on that just isn't enough.

Is any other Vengeance tank having similar issues? No matter what you try you are just squishy?

I did a +0 Darkheart Thicket, was getting mollywhopped, and a paladin went tank spec who was 10 item levels under me but healer had no issues with.

1. perfectly viable
2. i'm at 864 and my haste is only 10.05% and my cd's are 13.6 seconds so i'd love to know how much haste you have right now (this is not sarcasm)
3. could you fill it out on the wowhead calc
4. gluttony is awful, well, maybe awful is harsh. but at any rate it doesn't do anything to help you survive, it is purely dps. i'll recommend felblade for the pain for now
5. you have fuelled by pain.. take soul rending. if you have 10s CD on demon spikes you have 100% up time anyway, right? fuelled by pain / soul rending combo is pretty cool to me anyway. oh shit yeah, fel devastation is awesome little cd.


i've not had many issues tanking any dungeons, mythic 10 with bolstering (is it bolstering? the buff on death one) was a pain, but that was mostly dps killing stuff wrong.. and i never actually died.
honestly i've died so little in dungeons that i have been thinking of speccing out of last resort to try soul barrier..

can you show us your artefact using wowhead? give these talents a try, http://www.wowhead.com/talent-calc/d...vengeance/Myx0

[Absintheminded]

Is this not cause for concern? Also, has anybody been giving this feedback on the beta forums? I've had beta, too, but I haven't done much other than a few short videos for the spec redesigns and what not.

[Munkky]

Just gonna leave this here.

[Absintheminded]

Awesome thanks!

[Munkky]

Yup, was literally in the QnA last week.

[Absintheminded]

Yeah I read it, but probably overlooked it, dragged my phone screen too far, glanced over it, etc. who knows. Anyway, appreciation.

Guess it appears that there won't be any changes for a while if they are squishy.

[Deleted]

Are you kiting at all? I'd build threat then kite mobs, especially when the affixes come into play. You should try and get out of the stand still and eat damage guardian druid mindset.

It's one of the best tanks for mythic because of its mobility, you can rotate active mitigation with your groups stuns/cc and kiting making you take no damage in some cases.

It's kind of hard to deal with and they SHOULD be brought up to be more durable baseline but played well, VDH is almost broken for dungeons.

[Absintheminded]

Is kiting raid bosses going to be feasible? Cheesing mobs because of stuns and snares is one thing, being unable to actually tank hits with the toolkit given is a whole different story.

[Shirofune]

Is kiting raid bosses going to be feasible? Cheesing mobs because of stuns and snares is one thing, being unable to actually tank hits with the toolkit given is a whole different story.

If you're kiting a boss around the rest of the raid is gonna ask for your head. You've no idea how annoying it is to chase a boss a tank is moving 24/7.

[Beastyn]

Do you have logs FunctionalSTR? You shouldn't be having any issues with Mythic 0, please take a screenshot of your gear to see your trinkets and stats.

[Deleted]

Isn't Mythic 0 dropping 840 gear itself? Which means it should be doable in gear from previous tier, i.e. Heroic dungeons?

[Absintheminded]

If you're kiting a boss around the rest of the raid is gonna ask for your head. You've no idea how annoying it is to chase a boss a tank is moving 24/7.

I totally agree. I meant the question to be more rhetorical. I remember as a tank in vanilla how annoying bosses were that would constantly adjust themselves for no reason (until that was fixed)