Getting wrecked in m+ DH tank

[Deleted]

I am not an experienced tank by any means.. Did some of the BFA mythics at start of expansion.. But mainly DPS.. My friend has a warlock/DK (he tanks on this).. all 4 of us have a couple classes we regularly do m+ with..

Wanted to get my friend +10 key this week.. so we did our Freehold 9

I am just shocked at the dmg i am taking.. i don't understand it.. i have high uptime on demon spikes.. use my sigils.. and kite/jump

On bosses (i know it's fortified this week) my HP barely moves in comparison even when i did tyrannical keys

I have the traditional build with spirit bomb.. maybe i should switch up and take gluttony? or fel devestation?

Could really do with some tips cause i feel kinda useless atm

[Tech614]

If you play like you say you do, and you're not undergeared then your group likely isn't pulling their weight with dps, helping control packs and what not or the healer is an issue and slacking.

Unless you're way undergeared you shouldn't have much issue tanking a freehold 9, freehold is one of the easiest M+ there is to tank.

[1hqtiny]

VDH seems to spike a bit more than other tanks which puts a bit more pressure on your healer but it is completely doable. When you say that you have high up time on your demon spikes, i sort of question that because it's nearly impossible. With 17% haste, they are 17s recharge, your going to have a lot of time without demon spikes up. One of the biggest mistakes I see myself making is using demon spikes poorly and and not having DS for spikes of damage or mitigation checks.

Other than that, use spirit bomb or whatever your fragment spender is with a bit better timing with how your taking damage.

Also, last week was bolstering, was that a problem possibly? If your group is focus firing to much, or CC'ing, but killing within range, most with 80% hp/dmg will hurt any tank.

[Tech614]

mitigation checks

These don't exist in BFA.

While there are abilities mods will tell you to have a "defensive" up for they no longer punish you further for not having your AM up. Skewer for example... just high physical damage you want DS up for but Brand or Meta would work just as well, no added punishing effect for it not being DS.

[bmjclark]

From what I've seen from our VDH tank, kite when mitigation is down or fall the fuck over.

[Deleted]

VDH seems to spike a bit more than other tanks which puts a bit more pressure on your healer but it is completely doable. When you say that you have high up time on your demon spikes, i sort of question that because it's nearly impossible. With 17% haste, they are 17s recharge, your going to have a lot of time without demon spikes up. One of the biggest mistakes I see myself making is using demon spikes poorly and and not having DS for spikes of damage or mitigation checks.

Other than that, use spirit bomb or whatever your fragment spender is with a bit better timing with how your taking damage.

Also, last week was bolstering, was that a problem possibly? If your group is focus firing to much, or CC'ing, but killing within range, most with 80% hp/dmg will hurt any tank.

2 of the group were friends (not in usual group) who are not the best.. stuns and silences may not have been done as much as needed

My ilvl is 371.. Friends dk is like 355.. I have done higher keys this week with him and he has no problem for the most part.. I was absolutely getting destroyed the first part of freehold.. I used mobility as much as possible..

Probably I handled DS badly.. I was just getting smacked around so much..

So DH has to really use his mobility in M+? Tbh that's not how I really want to play tank.. I understand all tanks need to kite at some points especially with certain affixes.. but it felt like way too much jumping/running for my liking.. meanwhile my so buddy can stand still most of the time

[ReD-EyeD]

If you're as 371 dh feeling worse than 355 dk then you're doing something fundamentally wrong or in absolutely different situations.

No, you don't need any kiting as 370+ tank in sub 10 dungeons. Unless your dps friends roll with their faces on keyboards and bolster mobs to 20 stacks. I would bet on the last part.

[Puupi]

If you are actually TANKING and not kiting, fuck Spirit Bomb - it's a huge survivability loss. It's a nice dps upgrade, but your own survivability comes first. I prefer Fel Devastation to bring the nice burst dps on pulls, Gluttony is way too RNG and tanks don't want RNG.

Get as many Gaping Maw's in your azerite items as you can, spam Soul Cleave, profit.

[Tech614]

371 need to kite in a +9 freehold?

Yea something is incredibly wrong there, and it's not the spec.

[Taladendren]

Since you mentioned the "first" part of freehold - do you mean the Corsairs? What healer did you have? If you're running a priest and don't have poison dispel, those are going to be cancer no matter what you do. You'll want to invis or get a rogue to shroud past them if you're running with a priest.

[Deleted]

Since you mentioned the "first" part of freehold - do you mean the Corsairs? What healer did you have? If you're running a priest and don't have poison dispel, those are going to be cancer no matter what you do. You'll want to invis or get a rogue to shroud past them if you're running with a priest.

Yeah it was a priest healer.. Tbh after the first boss it was a lot easier.. but at times I was still spiking up and down like crazy

- - - Updated - - -

If you are actually TANKING and not kiting, fuck Spirit Bomb - it's a huge survivability loss. It's a nice dps upgrade, but your own survivability comes first. I prefer Fel Devastation to bring the nice burst dps on pulls, Gluttony is way too RNG and tanks don't want RNG.

Get as many Gaping Maw's in your azerite items as you can, spam Soul Cleave, profit.

Really? I thought everyone ran Spirit bomb.. guess I could try that

[Puupi]

Really? I thought everyone ran Spirit bomb.. guess I could try that

Well most people do, but it's still a survivability loss. It's good for kiting and overall dps, but facetanking - nope. Of course you can take the talent and not use it for the most time, but... I rather go with FD instead.

[Taladendren]

Well most people do, but it's still a survivability loss. It's good for kiting and overall dps, but facetanking - nope. Of course you can take the talent and not use it for the most time, but... I rather go with FD instead.

What's your IO score or do you know of anyone actually using FD for higher keys? Both from experience and from the community, spirit bomb seems better for both survival and dps. For me, a 5 fragment spirit bomb does 7k, FD does 12k and heals for 32k. The ~15% heal is worth something? Really? Whereas on a large pack, spirit bomb is 2k hps is you're doing 20k dps, which isn't that much for AoE. You're talking 120k healing per minute vs 32k, and everything will die faster with spirit bomb. Can't see how FD would help. He just needs a different healer or to skip the corsairs.

[Puupi]

What's your IO score or do you know of anyone actually using FD for higher keys? Both from experience and from the community, spirit bomb seems better for both survival and dps. For me, a 5 fragment spirit bomb does 7k, FD does 12k and heals for 32k. The ~15% heal is worth something? Really? Whereas on a large pack, spirit bomb is 2k hps is you're doing 20k dps, which isn't that much for AoE. You're talking 120k healing per minute vs 32k, and everything will die faster with spirit bomb. Can't see how FD would help. He just needs a different healer or to skip the corsairs.

FD is only for the burst damage, not for the healing.

The survivability loss from Spirit Bomb comes from not using Soul Cleave instead of Spirit Bomb. Each Soul Cleave heals for 10k non crit (+ 10-20k if you have 3x Gaping Maw). So every time you are pushing Spirit Bomb, you are losing a 20-40k heal on yourself. The 10% leech Spirit Bomb gives is nearly meaningless, as 10% leech is in a standard 10k dps 3 target scenario 1000 hps. Leech as a stat got nerfed by roughly 75% from Legion due to the difference between your DPS vs your own healthpool-ratio.

[Tech614]

FD is only for the burst damage, not for the healing.

The survivability loss from Spirit Bomb comes from not using Soul Cleave instead of Spirit Bomb. Each Soul Cleave heals for 10k non crit (+ 10-20k if you have 3x Gaping Maw). So every time you are pushing Spirit Bomb, you are losing a 20-40k heal on yourself. The 10% leech Spirit Bomb gives is nearly meaningless, as 10% leech is in a standard 10k dps 3 target scenario 1000 hps. Leech as a stat got nerfed by roughly 75% from Legion due to the difference between your DPS vs your own healthpool-ratio.

If you're only doing 10k dps on a 3 mob pull you're playing terrible. That's easily 15k. Even still a 3 mob pull is horribly conservative for high M+ play, and you should probably be going faster then that.

Most pulls have more then 3 mobs in them as well and you should be doing 20k+ on average per pull and spiking 25-30k+ on the bigger pulls you can handle.

How high is your actual experience in M+ if you don't mind me asking?

[Puupi]

If you're only doing 10k dps on even a 3 pack pull you're playing terrible.

What an excellent comment to make, you clearly got the point I was making /s

You won't find any top VDH in M+ running FD.

Obviously not, because high keys are done by kiting, and SB is better in that.

And it's not exactly about FD vs SB. It's about NOT using SB (even when talented) instead of Soul Cleave. If you press SB instead of SC, you are trading off survivability for damage.

- - - Updated - - -

If you're only doing 10k dps on a 3 mob pull you're playing terrible. That's easily 15k. Even still a 3 mob pull is horribly conservative for high M+ play, and you should probably be going faster then that.

Most pulls have more then 3 mobs in them as well and you should be doing 20k+ on average per pull and spiking 25-30k+ on the bigger pulls you can handle.

So you still didn't get the point. I'll highlight it for you: 10% leech is nothing.

How high is your actual experience in M+ if you don't mind me asking?

In BfA 10-13's with 8 characters. In Legion, 20+ somewhere in the middle of the expansion.

[Exkrementor]

I play mostly healers and I have to say that healing DH tanks is the second hardest, after druids.

I really dont want to have DH or Druid Tanks in my groups.

DK is kinda spikey too, but they dont die for some reason.

Warriors and paladins are fine but Monks are the shit. When I have to heal a monktank I know that I am in for a treat.

[AgilityTank]

Well most people do, but it's still a survivability loss. It's good for kiting and overall dps, but facetanking - nope. Of course you can take the talent and not use it for the most time, but... I rather go with FD instead.

Everyone does run spirit bomb. He is so wrong it's not even funny.

[Tech614]

In BfA 10-13's with 8 characters.

I was looking for a VDH without spirit bomb with 13s done in time but got bored after pages of pages of you being wrong...

You're giving terrible advice if you suggest not using SB in M+.

Raiding, yea that is questionable on a boss to boss basis but M+ has a meta of SB for a reason.

[boz0]

DK is kinda spikey too, but they dont die for some reason.

Kinda OT, but that reason is very likely the talent that gives them 35% damage reduction below 35% life.