Demon Hunter Tanking - Squishy as hell?

[yarafx1]

Is it just me or is tanking as a Demon Hunter feeling miserable?

We're either great and self healing as much as the healer is or we are dependent on the healer to not die.

Given I haven't had much issues with bosses but trash mobs just seems to wreck my health bar.

[Marhault]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the either or statement. Do you mean that either you are playing well and are completely self-reliant or you are playing bad and it's up to the healer to live, or that you find yourself on both sides randomly?

I find them pretty strong myself, and was able to self-sustain on the first boss of CoS from the start as our healer lagged out and died in the very first aoe thing you avoid on a +10. At times in a raid, sure it seems squisher but even on M Ursoc my health seems more controlled than my co-tank.

I do think it comes down to realizing your health will fluctuate and to time your Soul Cleaves to hit right as you take that big hit. And you're right about trash will be harder, but I think that's going to be common for any tank, as dungeons seem more designed around the trash being the challenge.

[yarafx1]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the either or statement. Do you mean that either you are playing well and are completely self-reliant or you are playing bad and it's up to the healer to live, or that you find yourself on both sides randomly?

I find them pretty strong myself, and was able to self-sustain on the first boss of CoS from the start as our healer lagged out and died in the very first aoe thing you avoid on a +10. At times in a raid, sure it seems squisher but even on M Ursoc my health seems more controlled than my co-tank.

I do think it comes down to realizing your health will fluctuate and to time your Soul Cleaves to hit right as you take that big hit. And you're right about trash will be harder, but I think that's going to be common for any tank, as dungeons seem more designed around the trash being the challenge.

My point being, we seem fine on bosses. Healer can stay focused if needed and everything is a bit smoother.

When running dungeons though pulling 4-5 adds and getting melee'd by them all with out the ability to self heal (proc reliant on soul shards) it seems just kinda. I've noticed I can often times take 1-2 million damage over the course of a few seconds before Demon Spikes can even come online. Given I'm 847 it just seems pretty hard to contend with. I see warriors and Bears tanking trash mobs like a boss with out taking much damage and sustaining a steady high health percentage.

[Varmin]

Make sure you DS any casted melee skills. DS early on pulls can be useful on some pulls. If you are leaping into a pack, consider not leaping directly into melee range of melee mobs so they don't all swing at the same time.

[sosleapy]

Are you sure you are stated correctly? For me i run two sets of gear one fore mythics and another for raiding. my mythic set in mythics seems to outshine my raid set and my raid set seems to outshine my mythic set in raids lol . i know it is weird but that is what i ahve found. i can easily at 848 in mythics handle 5-6 melee mobs with little to no issues.

[yarafx1]

Are you sure you are stated correctly? For me i run two sets of gear one fore mythics and another for raiding. my mythic set in mythics seems to outshine my raid set and my raid set seems to outshine my mythic set in raids lol . i know it is weird but that is what i ahve found. i can easily at 848 in mythics handle 5-6 melee mobs with little to no issues.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...arabane/simple

Thats my toon and probably not as I've not found definitive answers to how to gear for dungeons.

[sosleapy]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...arabane/simple

Thats my toon and probably not as I've not found definitive answers to how to gear for dungeons.

this is my mythic gear http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...s/Cacus/simple and i tank mythics and even up to +4 just fine as i haven't tried any higher yet
dungeons: Mastery>crity>vers>haste there is guides out there on here for dungeon and iceyveins and noxxic.

get rid of your trinkets for dungeons...use something like i am using more imo.

[Marhault]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...arhault/simple

The stat stick trinkets are strong, so if you get lucky on the stats go with them. I used two Agi/Vers trinkets for all tanking until this week where I got both the Nature's Call and Arcanocrystal. This is the same gear I wear in both M+ and M Raids.

My view of tanking on the DH has come down to how well does it feel rather than putting a high priority into only specific secondary stats. Haste is useful but only to a point, I will be trying to keep at least 30% crit because the self-heal crits from Soul Cleave are huge. Soul Cleave's base heal will always be more important than the soul fragments on the ground by the way. Don't worry if those haven't really spawned, a single Soul Cleave can heal you for 700-800k on a crit without needing to have a single soul fragment. I expect my health to dip at the start, and the healers I run with simply know that they don't need to overreact as I will self-heal back up with a cleave. I make sure that on the start of a pull if I know it'll be higher damage I will have Fel Devastation ready for it. On some pulls I'll do a quick fear while jumping in to give myself a little bit of pain before I break the fears, but even on the +11 we finished, we didn't CC in Maw. Your stats overall are not terrible. When possible, I'd recommend dropping some of your crit for other stats but until that gear drops it won't be fully feasible so you will just need to make due with what you have.

I wouldn't really worry that you don't see warriors health dropping, as that is their design. Yours will drop, just know you can heal it back up.