The philosophy (mechanics ) behind DH / Blood DK tanking is simply wrong.

[Deleted]

I have a guardian druid 880 ilvl , a DH 874 ilvl and have had lots of experience in healing all tanks. In this post I want to clarify the flaws behind DH/DK tanking and see what could be done to improve on those classes. Let's first define what a "tank" class means. It's obviously a classs much more durable than any other class which can be on the front line and take the punishment while being healed and while DPS are bringing the target down. All tank classes are quite durable in the sense that they have high health, armor, reduction abilities but the issue is that some of these (DH,DK) are designed around sustainability rather than durability. What I mean is the following : A druid/warrior/paladin for example are sturdy classes able to take a beating and then receive healing to recover while DHs/ DKs are designed around taking A MUCH BIGGER BEATING for the cost of recovering easier.

The problem is that these 3 classes are PROactive tanks while DK/DH are REactive tanks. Which one do you think is the better mechanic? Take very little beating and slowly recover or take a huge beating and then pop back to full? I can tell you right away... the 1st one is the better case because when you are PROactive you do what you are supposed to and you know that there is no coming back and you've done your job. Your mitigation is ON and you just wait for the hit and move on while being REactive means that you must first take the big beating and only then (if you are still alive) you can make use of your tools to heal up by death strike,soul cleave, etc. Ok so lets have the scenario:

You are in a raid healing a warrior and a DH. You see the warrior's hp going down slowly and you know that you must heal it. It comes down gradually and it goes up gradually because of your heals. It's predictable and there is smoothness. You know that you will do it properly as long as you heal consistently enough. At the same time you see a DH tank taking a huge hit and dropping from 100% to 40%. You throw a couple of large heals to the DH but it turns out he has just used his 5-point soul cleave and there's been a ridiculous amount of overhealing. What do you think about that? How do you feel when you see the DH hp topped just before your heals land and you make 2 million overheal? Thats utterly WRONG! Healers never know when the tank will land a cleave or a death strike.... It makes healers life much harder and much more unpleasant. Then in 15 seconds you see the DH dropping to low again but you tell yourself that you ain't gonna do that mistake again and waste those heals. He seems to have not enough souls up to do a proper soul cleave and he takes 2 more hits and dies a miserable death.

I am saying all of that from the perspective of having done all raids in heroic as a tank on my DH and druid and having healed all tanking classes as a druid on heroic difficulty.

All of this results in Bears >Warriors > paladins being the best tanking classes by a wide margin. Logs confirm it, top guilds confirm it, tanking experience and healer experience confirms it and most of all and most importantly MECHANICS / class philosophy confirms it.

[pay928]

The most amusing thing to me about any tanking discussion is there's almost never a mention of Brewmasters. No wonder they drink so much.

On topic, agreed for most part but it can also be somewhat alleviated by better tank/healer communication and synergies in some situations. Not sure what constructive discussions this thread will bring though.

[MetalMusicMan]

This community's continued misconceptions about how "DH tanks are bad" baffles me.

DH is already the top tier tank for M+ Dungeons and they have no issues with raid tanking either. I think one of the first +20 Mythic+ dungeons was completed with a DH tank? In 7.1.5 later today, DH Tanks are getting ridiculously unnecessary buffs to make them even better...

Furthermore, regarding your stance on "reactive tanks", the best tanks for M+ are the self heal tanks. DH/DK/Paladin are the top 3 in that order imo.

[Deleted]

Yes it's true that in an irrelavant content (mythic+) self healing tanks are good but go solo tank Guarm on Mythic and then come back to talk?

DHs are receiving almost none mitigation buffs in 7.1.5. Yes they received a stamina buff which they clearly need as they are lowest in hp only 2nd to pallies but no mitigation buffs. The 10% reduced damage taken is compensated by 10% less damage reduction on demon spikes. Considering they will have 100% uptime on spikes it gives them 0 difference. Last resort got a signicant nerf and that's what will impact mythic + A LOT. For a 30 minute dungeon you can proc last resort 3 times (LOL)... Soul barrier received 0 buffs as it got it's value increased by 50% but cooldown too. (they wanted to give less buttons to press). If we talk about buffs we can say only Metamorphosis is the clear winner with 100% armor increase but these are 15 seconds every 3 minutes lol.

[MetalMusicMan]

Yes it's true that in an irrelavant content (mythic+) self healing tanks are good but go solo tank Guarm on Mythic and then come back to talk?

I mean I guess this depends on your priorities? Maybe M+ is irrelevant to you but there is a large community that focuses on M+ very seriously.

Certainly the 3x self heal tanks are worse for raid tanking, just as the three "proactive" tanks are worse for M+ due to lack of utility and self heals. But all six tanks can do both dungeons and raids proficiently.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes it's true that in an irrelavant content (mythic+) self healing tanks are good but go solo tank Guarm on Mythic and then come back to talk?

DHs are receiving almost none mitigation buffs in 7.1.5. Yes they received a stamina buff which they clearly need as they are lowest in hp only 2nd to pallies but no mitigation buffs. The 10% reduced damage taken is compensated by 10% less damage reduction on demon spikes. Considering they will have 100% uptime on spikes it gives them 0 difference.

Uhhhh, Demon Spikes is the best mitigation move in the game. They're balanced around it not being 100% up time, which is why it's so good. The 4-piece bonus in Nighthold is going to make it nearly 100% uptime and DH will be absolutely ridiculous. I can't believe it's even making it to live.

Metamorphosis now gives 100% more armor, which is why Last Resort is being nerfed to 8 minutes instead of 3 minutes. This is a huge buff, not a nerf. Also, you need to remember that Vengeance automatically procs Metamorphosis for free at a rate of 1 PPM.

Vengeance is also arguably the best or second best magic mitigation tank, with Empower Wards on such a short cooldown. With the Cloak legendary, even better. Fiery Brand with Burning Alive Talent gives them Shield Wall on a 1m cooldown... again, extremely strong.

[Firefly]

Yes it's true that in an irrelavant content (mythic+) self healing tanks are good but go solo tank Guarm on Mythic and then come back to talk?

Try telling that to a filthy casual raider like who kills 4-5 Mythic Bosses a week and still has over 75% of his gear from M+.

DHs are receiving almost none mitigation buffs in 7.1.5. Yes they received a stamina buff which they clearly need as they are lowest in hp only 2nd to pallies but no mitigation buffs. The 10% reduced damage taken is compensated by 10% less damage reduction on demon spikes. Considering they will have 100% uptime on spikes it gives them 0 difference. Last resort got a signicant nerf and that's what will impact mythic + A LOT. For a 30 minute dungeon you can proc last resort 3 times (LOL)... Soul barrier received 0 buffs as it got it's value increased by 50% but cooldown too. (they wanted to give less buttons to press). If we talk about buffs we can say only Metamorphosis is the clear winner with 100% armor increase but these are 15 seconds every 3 minutes lol.

So you say you are playing a Demon Hunter as a Tank? I mean... You might just want to get a little better at playing and understanding this game then.

To Add on this, from my experience as a healer in double-digit Keystones I will take a DH or DK tank over anything else most of the weeks, as they barely need any healing in comparison to other tanks. It's just a matter of adapting to the situation and knowing when you have to heal, when to use external DR and when to not heal at all to avoid wasting mana.

[Dareous]

I guess it comes down to trusting your tanks as a healer. If a DH takes a huge hit give them a second to self heal it all back. When I'm tanking my healers say I'm one of the easier tanks they've had to heal, as a DH we should be doing about 60-70% of our own healing. The only draw back, that I can see, is we have as reactive tanks is loss of control will destroy us (and well necrotic).

[Dazzy]

It's all subjective I suppose. I have healers every day tell me I'm the easiest tank to heal they've had in legion on my DH. There are enough abilities, on DH at least to put them easily in any mythic raid.

On the reverse side, the good DH's and DK's I'll take over pal/guard/warr because they require less healing (again, the good ones).

Try communicating with your dh/dk tanks beforehand, learn their abilities, teach them when and how to use cd's and abilities. Our rdruid has no problem healing my dh in mythic anything.

[Deix-EU]

It's the same since the introduction of Brewmaster who was VERY VERY hard to handle as healers. Only VERY GOOD Brew AND Their healers were outstanding for content. Now here is some other classes / template, nothing new. Fact is a mediocre healer can handle the pro-activeness of war etc. without much effort whereas this requires to play yoyo with cast bars perfectly for reactive tanks and this is not for every healers (class and player).

[Achie]

Just add a shield or a hot instead of instant healing imo

[Tinary]

Reactive tank doesnt mean we dont have mitigation. Yes we will heal ourselves up fast but we do choose what to mitigate and whatnot. Not to mention, if you could only play Druid/warrior, huge amount tanks would be gone from this game since their gameplay is too boring for them. Also about that "tank's job is to take a beating" or "tanks job is to be punished". That is all wrong. Tank's job is to control the fight and stay alive. Now please go back to your omgamguardiandruidsoopsoawsomeothertankssuck bear and leave DH forums alone. Ty.

[chooi]

The only 'problem' with 'reactive' tanks is that many healers never learned/understood how to heal them properly and some of the tank players simply suck. Of course you will fail if you're healing them like you would heal a guardian/warr/pally or if tank player is trying to play them like druid/warr/pally. Don't panic. Let the tanks do their job. Communicate. And if shit gets real both DH and DK got passive oh-shit talents. Also, some healer classes synergize better with certain tanks than others.

If played properly Vengeance DH is an absolute beast.

[MetalMusicMan]

The only 'problem' with 'reactive' tanks is that many healers never learned/understood how to heal them properly and some of the tank players simply suck. Of course you will fail if you're healing them like you would heal a guardian/warr/pally or if tank player is trying to play them like druid/warr/pally. Don't panic. Let the tanks do their job. Communicate. And if shit gets real both DH and DK got passive oh-shit talents. Also, some healer classes synergize better with certain tanks than others.

If played properly Vengeance DH is an absolute beast.

Wish more people understood this.

[Burnick]

Wish more people understood this.

This is what i tell people all the time! Its sooo true.