On topic, no, Vengeance isn't particularly squishy on live. So far I've tanked 13/13 Heroic and 8/13 Mythic (3 left to kill this week and I decided not to use my DH for Manno/Archi) and a handful of Mythic dungeons without any issue. We one healed Mythic Zakuun while I main tanked it without getting blown up.
I think it helps understanding how all of the stats work towards mitigation as well as proper cooldown utilisation. If you're really struggling I would recommend stacking Versatility, use
Purified Shard of the Third Moon if you have it. If you've got some gold, get yourself a Stage 6
Knight's Badge. Those together will give you a big boost in Versatility as well as an extra mini-cooldown up your sleave.
Stats for Demon Hunters:
- Haste - Gives your more GCDs which means more Shears, more Pain and Soul Fragments for more healing through Soul Cleave. Haste also lowers the recharge time on Demon Spikes which is our Active Mitigation mechanic.
- Crit - The main defensive bonus from Crit is that it gives you a little extra chance to Parry. I'd say this is stat to avoid if you're having survivability issues.
- Mastery - Increases the Physical damage reduction bonus from Demon Spikes. Mastery also gives you some Attack Power which will increase the base healing of Soul Cleave.
- Versatility - Take less damage from all sources and increase the healing from Soul Cleave.
Current guides seem to be recommending going for Haste/Mastery builds as once you get to higher gear levels, they feed off each other quite well. I think this is the wrong way to go if you're under geared and why I recommended stacking Versatility. Tank deaths happen during spike damage or when Active Mitigation falls off. Having really high Mastery is great but as soon as
Demon Spikes drops off, you're going to get tanked. Stacking Versatility may not be optimal but it will smooth out those spikes while you're still learning and working out what stats are going to suit your play style.
Cooldown Usage:
- Fiery Brand - 40 percent damage reduction for 8 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. That's actually ridiculously overpowered if we're talking about single target situations. If you find that you're getting tanked on the pull by big bosses, just use this as you engage to give healers so time to get in position and to build up your Pain, etc.
- Empower Wards - Because our Active Mitigation is Physical only, they've given us this which is 30 percent Magic reduction on a 20 second cooldown. It's a short cooldown so use it liberally.
- Metamorphosis - This is supposed to be our major "oh shit" button but it's not really that special at the moment without talents and artifact traits. It's still better than nothing, pop it if you're low as it will give you an immediate health boost. The Pain generation will help with getting out Soul Cleaves to top you up.
- Purified Shard of the Third Moon - The absorb on this isn't nearly as powerful as it used to be (no resolve scaling). Think of it as a free Soul Cleave once per minute that can be used without any Pain.
- Demon Spikes - Our Active Mitigation mechanic. Because it has 2 charges the goal is to try and keep it up such that you've always got 1 in the bank and 1 recharging. If needed you can pop that banked one but otherwise try to maintain decent uptime casting only when the 2nd charge is about to come up.
Tanking Tips (for survival, not dps):
- You can generally have at least something up at any one time. Whether it's Fiery Brand, Demon Spikes, or a Soul Cleave cast.
- If you don't need the heal, don't cast Soul Cleave. Bank the Pain and build Soul Fragments. 90-100 percent health don't bother (or like 50+ percent health if Demon Spikes is up).
- You'll get into a flow along the lines of: Demon Spikes up, build Pain and Soul Fragments, Demon Spikes down, Soul Cleave, when you have run out of Demon Spikes pop Fiery Brand, etc, etc. You can keep this up for a large window of having some coverage and on most fights a tank swap mechanic will pop up and you can have a rest.
- If you're waiting for your turn to tank: Bank your Pain. You should have full Pain as you taunt + put up Demon Spikes so you can handle any spikes and give healers time to swap to you.
- This is minor but maybe not often thought about. Neither Sigil of Flame or Throw Glaive generate any pain but will take up a GCD (that could have otherwise been used to generate Pain with Shear). If you're really trying to push survivability, you may want to think about not wasting a GCD on either.
That's about all I can think of at the moment. Hopefully something here might help a struggling DH.