Vengeance Vers Vs mastery

[Stacyrect]

So I keep seeing/hearing that lots of Vengeance Demon hunters are going Versatility over mastery now. Even with the nerf, I don't understand why you would still wanna go vers over mastery unless its a very magic heavy encounter? I spent the better part of an hour picking through google trying to find an answer but to no avail. Is their someone who can spotlight the logic behind this?

[Strawberry]

Because those who prefer Versatility are usually the same people who prefer Soul Rending. Unfortunately many guides point to Soul Rending and Charred Warblades instead of Feed the Demon and Painbringer.
It's funny how a lot of people whine about bear/warrior damage mitigation, but when it comes to their own class, they opt out of damage reduction abilities and instead focus on flat damage reduction and self healing. You need a shit ton of versatility to make it have an impact. So much that it actually means you have to sacrifice other stats. Current gear is too low ilvl to offer enough versatility without sacrificing other stats.
I can understand that a lot of players can go boast in mythics about how they don't need a healer. But it's fucking ridiculous when UrsocM starts raping your sorry ass and then people ask themselves "why are warriors and bears perfered tanks for high end content?".
Well I hope Soul Rending/Charred Warblades DH tanks are having fun with necrotic this week

Here's damage comparison between me, my DK co-tank and some random warrior who's about the same ilvl as me. All fights are Ursoc mythic:

[Bladeweaver]

Cos it improves healing, damage done and all damage mitigation.

Am running with 23% vers and 20% haste. Feels good so far

[Strawberry]

Cos it improves healing, damage done and all damage mitigation.

Am running with 23% vers and 20% haste. Feels good so far

Post your Ursoc mythic log please.

[Bladeweaver]

I think any self healing type tank will have challenges with necrotic regardless of vers or mastery paths

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Post your Ursoc mythic log please.

I just do dungeons and if what works for you in raids, power to you.

Do you have data which shows an apples to apples comparison in terms of stat priority and talents? Also, how does that apply to Dungeon mythic+ since some may only be keen on that? Very keen to understand.

[Deleted]

Post your Ursoc mythic log please.

I feel like a dumbass because I never actually thought about it but yeah it makes sense. Versa and such is great for 5mans or content where you don't get gibbed, but in raids mastery and getting as much demo spikes uptime as possible is probably the best. I mean, the guy writing the DH guide is not even a raider if you look at armory so I don't get why people actually listen to him

I've just been going mastery/haste since versa gear is so rare any way (from raids) but I swapped to guardian for progression because it's easier overall on the healers. I want to go back to vengeance as soon as reasonable though

[Orloth]

It's not really apples to apples. Mastery is our best stat for healing. It affects all our healing (rather than just rotational, like Haste) in a predictable manner (unlike Crit), and scales much better than Vers. On healing alone, Mastery is our best stat.

[Bladeweaver]

I tend to only use DS when I anticipate heavy damage and save one charge for an emergency. Currently I don't have an interest in raiding and profess not to know what works better in raids.

I can only share my own experiences for dungeons and feeling out what works best switching stats around. I'm pretty sure theres more than one way to skin a cat depending on the talents you pick and how you play.

[Munkky]

So I keep seeing/hearing that lots of Vengeance Demon hunters are going Versatility over mastery now. Even with the nerf, I don't understand why you would still wanna go vers over mastery unless its a very magic heavy encounter? I spent the better part of an hour picking through google trying to find an answer but to no avail. Is their someone who can spotlight the logic behind this?

Vers is DR across everything. It doesn't require an ability press and is always there for you. Mastery stacking was mostly just people going for DPS in higher end guilds. M+ is the only place that you generally Mastery stack. The more casual side of the community promoted Mastery due too lack of understanding of this as well as only being in Dungs at the time, where Mastery is good, which skewed their views.

Now for the nerd math

400 Vers is 1% or 0.5% DR (0.0025% DR per 1 point (not %) of Vers)
466 Mastery is 1% DR on Mastery. (0.0021% DR per 1 point before calculating uptime)

You then have to divide that by your average uptime, if you have 50% uptime then it's 466 Mastery for roughly 0.5% DR. That is the very basic level of comparing Total Damage Reduction. You then have to figure out how much per point you get. The amount you get per point with 100% uptime is listed above in the parentheses. You cannot achieve true 100% uptime right now, even with Feed the Demon.

[Strawberry]

Vers is DR across everything. It doesn't require an ability press and is always there for you. Mastery stacking was mostly just people going for DPS in higher end guilds. M+ is the only place that you generally Mastery stack. The more casual side of the community promoted Mastery due too lack of understanding of this as well as only being in Dungs at the time, where Mastery is good, which skewed their views.

Now for the nerd math

400 Vers is 1% or 0.5% DR (0.0025% DR per 1 point (not %) of Vers)
466 Mastery is 1% DR on Mastery. (0.0021% DR per 1 point before calculating uptime)

You then have to divide that by your average uptime, if you have 50% uptime then it's 466 Mastery for roughly 0.5% DR. That is the very basic level of comparing Total Damage Reduction. You then have to figure out how much per point you get. The amount you get per point with 100% uptime is listed above in the parentheses. You cannot achieve true 100% uptime right now, even with Feed the Demon.

Yeah but DS also gives a rather large chunk of avoidance, 20% parry, 30% for first 3 seconds with artifact trait.
Versatility works all the time, constantly, but it can never get to the amount of DR/avoidance you can get while having DS Active. Bosses are almost all 2+ tanks where we have to taunt swap, so you don't need to constantly use DS and can save it and have nearly 100% uptime on DS when the boss is actually on you.

Of course, in m+ things change as you're the only tank and constantly have something hitting you, but then again, it seems the word is out that Vengeance should stack mastery in m+. To me m+ is no big deal, but then again I never tanked higher than +9 since I only do them for 3 or so hours per week.

[Deleted]

Vers is DR across everything. It doesn't require an ability press and is always there for you. Mastery stacking was mostly just people going for DPS in higher end guilds. M+ is the only place that you generally Mastery stack. The more casual side of the community promoted Mastery due too lack of understanding of this as well as only being in Dungs at the time, where Mastery is good, which skewed their views.

Now for the nerd math

400 Vers is 1% or 0.5% DR (0.0025% DR per 1 point (not %) of Vers)
466 Mastery is 1% DR on Mastery. (0.0021% DR per 1 point before calculating uptime)

You then have to divide that by your average uptime, if you have 50% uptime then it's 466 Mastery for roughly 0.5% DR. That is the very basic level of comparing Total Damage Reduction. You then have to figure out how much per point you get. The amount you get per point with 100% uptime is listed above in the parentheses. You cannot achieve true 100% uptime right now, even with Feed the Demon.

The argument isn't damage reduction overall. An important thing for tanks is that the damage they take is somewhat smooth so that you don't ping pong between 100% & 10% per hit. When you're looking at things hitting really hard that's where mastery gains relative value as with demon spikes you'll mitigate a lot more of that burst damage than compared to versatility. The question is whether or not there is enough bursty physical damage to justify more mastery over versatility especially as stacking mastery is effectively worse less the more you have since in terms of surviving burst you taking 50% or 55% less from things for the duration won't make that much of a difference as healers will easily prop you up.

For versatility you also need to account for the increase in healing done by Soul Cleave and the fact that it works on magical damage and smooths out all of the damage you take, not just burst.

Yeah but DS also gives a rather large chunk of avoidance, 20% parry, 30% for first 3 seconds with artifact trait.
Versatility works all the time, constantly, but it can never get to the amount of DR/avoidance you can get while having DS Active. Bosses are almost all 2+ tanks where we have to taunt swap, so you don't need to constantly use DS and can save it and have nearly 100% uptime on DS when the boss is actually on you.

Of course, in m+ things change as you're the only tank and constantly have something hitting you, but then again, it seems the word is out that Vengeance should stack mastery in m+. To me m+ is no big deal, but then again I never tanked higher than +9 since I only do them for 3 or so hours per week.

Yes but that's going to work in only some circumstances. While DS offers some very good avoidance mastery only boosts the physical damage taken part. For any magical damage or periods where you need to tank for an extended period of time mastery becomes worse as it only mitigates physical burst really well. Versatility on the other hand works in all cases(and increases your healing) and the base Demon Spikes + whatever mastery you get on your gear should be enough for physical burst.

[Munkky]

Yeah but DS also gives a rather large chunk of avoidance, 20% parry, 30% for first 3 seconds with artifact trait.
Versatility works all the time, constantly, but it can never get to the amount of DR/avoidance you can get while having DS Active. Bosses are almost all 2+ tanks where we have to taunt swap, so you don't need to constantly use DS and can save it and have nearly 100% uptime on DS when the boss is actually on you.

The stat prio being Vers > Haste partially due too that. Parry also isn't guaranteed and only works on melee/some parryable abilities.

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The argument isn't damage reduction overall. An important thing for tanks is that the damage they take is somewhat smooth so that you don't ping pong between 100% & 10% per hit. When you're looking at things hitting really hard that's where mastery gains relative value as with demon spikes you'll mitigate a lot more of that burst damage than compared to versatility. The question is whether or not there is enough bursty physical damage to justify more mastery over versatility especially as stacking mastery is effectively worse less the more you have since in terms of surviving burst you taking 50% or 55% less from things for the duration won't make that much of a difference as healers will easily prop you up.

For versatility you also need to account for the increase in healing done by Soul Cleave and the fact that it works on magical damage and smooths out all of the damage you take, not just burst.

Huh? You're saying that the arguement isn't damage reduction overall, then talk about how you need to work on smoothing and not burst. Overall DR is part of smoothing. Also as stated previously, Soul Cleave healing is AP based, so Mastery is better for that.

[Strawberry]

The argument isn't damage reduction overall. An important thing for tanks is that the damage they take is somewhat smooth so that you don't ping pong between 100% & 10% per hit. When you're looking at things hitting really hard that's where mastery gains relative value as with demon spikes you'll mitigate a lot more of that burst damage than compared to versatility. The question is whether or not there is enough bursty physical damage to justify more mastery over versatility especially as stacking mastery is effectively worse less the more you have since in terms of surviving burst you taking 50% or 55% less from things for the duration won't make that much of a difference as healers will easily prop you up.

For versatility you also need to account for the increase in healing done by Soul Cleave and the fact that it works on magical damage and smooths out all of the damage you take, not just burst.



Yes but that's going to work in only some circumstances. While DS offers some very good avoidance mastery only boosts the physical damage taken part. For any magical damage or periods where you need to tank for an extended period of time mastery becomes worse as it only mitigates physical burst really well. Versatility on the other hand works in all cases(and increases your healing) and the base Demon Spikes + whatever mastery you get on your gear should be enough for physical burst.

Yeah but with that reasoning then versatility also only works on some fights, even less than mastery, since most bosses don't cast spells.

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The stat prio being Vers > Haste partially due too that. Parry also isn't guaranteed and only works on melee/some parryable abilities.

Yes however when things hit for a ton and there's an unavoidable attack incoming, then avoidance can save a lot of headache after the big unavoidable hit has landed, while smoothing out 1.500.000 hp hit to 1.350.000 is still not that much.
It's a risky game but I have favored avoidance over DR since vanilla and never had any issues tanking.

[Deleted]

The stat prio being Vers > Haste partially due too that. Parry also isn't guaranteed and only works on melee/some parryable abilities.

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Huh? You're saying that the arguement isn't damage reduction overall, then talk about how you need to work on smoothing and not burst. Overall DR is part of smoothing. Also as stated previously, Soul Cleave healing is AP based, so Mastery is better for that.

My bad on the Soul Cleave healing.

As for the rest i might be bad at explaining what i mean. More or less you can sum it up as

The effectiveness of your mitigation options (flat % with vers & a % increase in physical damage taken during a period of already reduced physical damage taken) depends greatly on the encounter. If you're looking a physical burst that lines up with your demon spikes then that is the best option. Since that is not the case in raids versatility is better since it works on magic damage, doesn't rely on DS uptimes, and is more useful than taking less damage in a period where you're already taking reduced damage. Even if overall demon spikes would mitigate more damage than versatility mastery would still be worse since it's use is situational and it leaves you vulnerable to magical damage & damage taken outside of the uptime. DS is sufficiently good at smoothing out burst physical damage with the little mastery you'll have on your gear.

[Munkky]

@Strawberry
You can really run whatever you want and do fine. Stat prios and guides are just suggestions in the end. The issue with avoidance is that it works sometimes, DR works all the time.
@AnoExpress
So TLDR, Mastery is good for burst, Vers is better for smoothing. The scenario you are in changes the prio. Which is part of the reasoning for the various prios.

[Nahela]

The reasoning that Mastery is better because of the Parry on spikes seems a bit silly. It's not like you stop using Demon Spikes if you're focusing on Versatility and that doesn't scale with Mastery. I feel like both stats are very close right now after the nerf. It's going to vary on playstyle, talent choices, and raid comp. We're in a fortunate place where stats are pretty even across the board, you have the option to choose without seeing a large swing in either direction.

EDIT: And Munkky beat me to it

[sosleapy]

IDK if it is just me or something but this is something i noticed the other day....i am only a normal raider as i just like to play how i like to play but as for my expierence, when i am stacking mastery over vers i feel alot squisher in raids but when in mythic + i feel great. I run 25% mastery 9% vers 8% haste and 25% crit. Now for my raid build i am sitting at 18% crit 19% haste 17% mastery and 19% vers, i feel so much more comfortable and i am not squishy as much. my healers and i both noticed this when i forgot to swap my gear over.
Now yall be saying that aint possible you was doing something different, which i wasnt i play the same either damn way. This is just my expierence is all with the stats..

[Deleted]

Now for the nerd math

400 Vers is 1% or 0.5% DR (0.0025% DR per 1 point (not %) of Vers)
466 Mastery is 1% DR on Mastery. (0.0021% DR per 1 point before calculating uptime)

May i ask where you took this information from? especially the Diminishing Return values are very interesting for me but i couldn't find them.
I realized there is DR going on with crit but i was not aware it was also affecting versatility and mastery.

[Munkky]

IDK if it is just me or something but this is something i noticed the other day....i am only a normal raider as i just like to play how i like to play but as for my expierence, when i am stacking mastery over vers i feel alot squisher in raids but when in mythic + i feel great. I run 25% mastery 9% vers 8% haste and 25% crit. Now for my raid build i am sitting at 18% crit 19% haste 17% mastery and 19% vers, i feel so much more comfortable and i am not squishy as much. my healers and i both noticed this when i forgot to swap my gear over.
Now yall be saying that aint possible you was doing something different, which i wasnt i play the same either damn way. This is just my expierence is all with the stats..

You are following the stat prios as they are listed. That's what you are supposed to be doing.

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May i ask where you took this information from? especially the Diminishing Return values are very interesting for me but i couldn't find them.
I realized there is DR going on with crit but i was not aware it was also affecting versatility and mastery.

Dr in that but was damage reduction not diminishing returns. As far as the math, i was mathing it as i typed it, just using a calculator on my computer.

[Deleted]

May i ask where you took this information from? especially the Diminishing Return values are very interesting for me but i couldn't find them.
I realized there is DR going on with crit but i was not aware it was also affecting versatility and mastery.

DR means "Damage Reduction" in this context, not "Diminishing Return".