Vengeance Demon Hunter just got worse

In Development Shadowlands PTR
#1

I mean, Vengeance was far from being meta since early legion, and that’s fine.
it was the bottom tier tank all through BFA, with other tanks like druid, DK, warr, and pally getting their time in the spotlight, Vengeance was consistently low tier just as BM monk was consistently top tier, and I’m less fine with that, fact is, all throughout BFA Vengeance was never a pick for top m+ runs (not to mention mythic raiding where Vengeance tank was not even considered in the vast majority of progression guilds) , according to some of the world’s best tanks vengeance just hits a wall 2 keys sooner than other classes, and that’s just this season where we have 50% meta uptime due to borrowed powers like essences and corruption. In Previous seasons of BFA vengeance has sometimes hit a wall 5 keys sooner, and that was insane.

At the beginning when i looked at the shadowlands changes i was somewhat relieved, sure mitigation uptime was not optimal but at least now we could control our meta procs with fel devastation + demonic, and it was less random but with similar uptime as gluttony.
Things were looking good, with some top players placing Vengeance Demon Hunter as a decent, middle of the pack tank. Some mythic guilds have even recruited vengeance tanks to their ranks (finally).

But that was all over a couple of days ago.

  1. With Fel devastation cooldown increasing from 45 sec to 1 whole minute AND demonic duration reduced from 8 sec to 6 sec, our out of cooldown Metamorphosis uptime is actually WORSE than it was with gluttony at the start of BFA, glutonny gave us 2 RPPM which translates to a 10 second uptime every minute, and fel devastation + demonic now only gives us 6 seconds of metamorphosis every one minute.

  2. In addition, you stated you wanted vDH to use more soul cleave and less spirit bomb, and I’m all in for that, so why then, have you reduced soul cleave’s healing by HALF? Was capping it’s damage to 5 targets not sufficient? We struggle with keeping aggro as it is.

  3. And the final nail in the coffin: soul fragments now heal for 6% of damage taken instead of 8%, that is just… Why? I mean… Really?

And to sum things up:

After this week’s change pushed vengeance tanks back down to where we belong: as bottom tier tanks, and not only we wouldn’t be picked for both mythic raiding and high m+ keys yet again, our situation is actually WORSE than in was at the start of BFA.

So one question remains: What does blizz devs have against vengeance tanks that they won’t even let us have the middle spot for one lousy patch?

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#2

As of now, I only see two classes/specs shining for tanking: Blood DKs and Protection Paladins (with a bonus roll on Brewmaster Monks).

DHs have been very present in the past contents, it would not harm to see them a bit less :stuck_out_tongue: and I say that as a DH main who wanted to try something more dynamic than wheelchair Blood Death Knight. (I love it regardless)

I always felt that Vengeance is the least intuitive class for tanking, as it requires a fair amount of skills to be played at high levels in Mythic+, but not so much in raids, due to the higher heals and the astonishing mobility. As per the mythic raid compositions, I saw some pretty good vDHs doing their job and it really depends on the group, but yes, they were outperformed most of the times.

The threat generation is messed up, we agree on that. But we still have time to see more balance and adjustments on the tanks’ side, even because we can’t run a whole expansion with two classes leading and all the others being far down in the “tier list”.

Imagine being a Warrior in 9.0, PogU

#3

While i do agree on protection warriors having it worse, I really have to ask: do you really believe that ALL of these changes were warranted?
Fel devastation = 1 min
Demonic = 6 sec
Soul cleave = healing cut in half
Soul fragments = healing down to 6%

i mean, i can somewhat expect some nerfs, but every single good thing about DH tanking was gutted, even the infernal strike range…

As of now we went from being close to DK and Pala to being worse than both Druid and Monk, competing with warrior on last place, you said it yourself, there is somewhat a high skill ceiling to playing DH tanks, so why a Guardian druid, a 2 button tank with the easiest mitigation to manage, and the easier to play DK’s and Pally’s (with a crapton of utility they also have) be much much better than us in every aspect?

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#4

I cannot really agree with you on this one.
“Easier to play” DK and Paladin, not so sure: DKs are extremely basic, as there are mechanics that can be easily understood by the vast majority of the player base. At the same time, though, there’s a reason (that is not related to the meta whatsoever) for which there are very few DKs in high M+ or very, very few DKs who can play the class properly, making things easier for healers and doing a fair amount of DPS, too.

I agree with the Guardian being too easy, being fairly underpowered compared to the others is the fair punishment for dominating an expansion with a very stupid mechanical playstyle and ridiculous survivability.

I will repeat myself: these changes are not final. I want to remind you that they incorporated the effect of Dark Transformation to the Apocalypse ability for Unholy DKs and then reverted it back to being a separate spell. EDIT WITHIN 24 HOURS!!!

Give them some time.

Right now, anyway, I don’t see the vengeance DH as catastrophically nerfed as you are picturing it right now. While I acknowledge(d) the changes and I dislike the orientation towards Blizzard is pointing at, I am hopeful that there will be something that will make it worth of being picked.

As of now, it is the most mobile tanking class, that’s also a value which I would take into account. Also, selfheals in general have been reduced a lot, so that healers have to heal and tanks have to survive, so I see the nerfs as a way to improve the playstyle in a smart way. Imagine having to kite mobs in a dungeon/raid, because otherwise you get killed (just like you do at start in Tol Dagor +18 w/ Bolstering). With a DK, that’s DEFINITELY undoable, while a DH, with less resistances but way more mobility, can make it with some slows and CCs, without getting hit that much and letting DPS do their job. Profit for everyone.

I hope I was clear, I just finished my shift at work and I wrote in a rush!

#5

Well we’ll just have to wait and see then as we are still in beta.
But as you said, i don’t like the direction blizz is going with, and i have little hope that this direction will change.
It’s a shame as i really like this spec and i want to play it competitively, but if blizz will keep going in this direction (without further adjusting other tanks also) a lot of mythic rosters will again reject Vengeance Demon Hunters.

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#6

As I said, it’s unlikely that we will have only two tanking specs/classes throughout the whole expansion. :slight_smile:

I’m pretty confident that the work they are doing with Shadowlands will TOTALLY pay off in the end!

#7

Generally Blizzard tweak values in small increments until they find satisfactory balance. In this case they just mercilessly took a sledgehammer to Vengeance and spat on the remains.
Glad I stopped playing my VDH, because these changes have just ensured I don’t pick it back up again. What a waste of a potentially fun tank.

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#8

I’d like to see a buff to feed the demon talent builds, my idea, buff felblade to sometimes spawn a lesser soul fragment, bake the old razor spikes talent damage component into feed the demon and bump shear fury generation from 10 to 15 rage.

feed the demon can close fatal gaps in our mitigation but you lose too much damage by picking this talent as opposed to shear making it much harder to hold threat in large packs of mobs.

#9

“Glad I stopped playing my VDH”
Are you still happy about it? Everyone in this thread couldn’t possibly be anymore wrong. Absolutely hilarious to read these complaints today

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