Hello, I started leveling a demon hunter as a tank and I’m interested in how he fares in the M+ (2-10 and 10+) keys. Or how it looks with him in the new season 11.1. Will he find a use, or will he be better off joining the never-ending ranks against paladins?
Hi,
Tanking overall is pretty bad now.
I’ve been playing dh tank since legion, this is the worst it has ever been. Most of the times you could sustain yourself if you were good at the spec, but now you desperately need a healer’s help. The auto attack dmg of the mobs are quite high compared to previous seasons, and that is one of dh’s weakness, if you are out of meta you can die easily. To be honest the spec needs a redesign, cuz the sigil one clearly failed.
In season 2 not much will change (if the dungeon profile stay similar), the 2p tier set is good, but the 4 set is quite horrible due to dmg and usage of the hunt.
The stops use to be massive in the previous expansion, now they are kind of useless due to how the mob casting works. (they just recast after pull, fear or stun).
Hero talents are both bad, Aldrachi is very clunky or even unplayable, and fel-scarred is boring and can be quite punishing because you need to press meta on CD if you want your dmg to be relevant and if you do so you won’t have a defensive when its needed.
So overall its the most fun tank and overall spec if you like high speed gameplay. I don’t think it will be top tier in the upcoming patch, but i hope blizzard will finally make some reasonable changes to the spec.
Its worth trying out.
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Thanks for the info. Primarily, I’m not looking for a meta to play with 19+ keys. It will be enough for me to reach at least 3k rio and not spend all afternoon looking for a party on M+. Of all the tanks I’ve tried, the Venge seems to be the most fun. Movement, simple playstyle, nice trans at NE, etc. those are the fun aspects of class for me. On the other hand, I don’t want to waste my time with a character that will have a hard time getting into the dungeon.
I’d definitely say give it a try! The meta isn’t as damaging as some might make it, and while it is problematic, its not like people shouldn’t play the classes they love or enjoy!
I’m on the same boat as you in fact. There’s no hiding the fact that it’s easier to tank keys in general when I tried paladin and warrior, but I quickly lose steam every time I try. It might be the way the class looks, how it functions etc. but I can never seem to make it ‘work’ in a way that I like DH and the other tanks work.
It’s quite true that DH won’t be able to compete with the head honcho’s, and that some pulls will be iffy-sticky due to its defs but honestly you can do just as fine in the content bracket you choose. Personally, I never move from 10+ if I can help it, but ofc there are other more high-key Veng enthusiasts that will know more on this front.
@OP Ive played mainly disc for a loong time, but usually dabble in some tank alts. Recently I picked up prot pala and veng dh (barely having tried dh before), and have had a blast so far. Tanking is very difficult atm, there’s a lot you need to know. Tank busters, patrolling packs, how to pull, boss positioning etc, so its a lot of effort if you want to get high keys done. But Ive been having so much fun learning veng, I highly recommend.
I know its not what guides recommend, but Ive been trying all kinds of builds while learning dh the past 2 weeks, and you should definitely try out this one:
https://imgur.com/a/KkciFKJ
I feel very tanky and self-sufficient. Almost like a proper version of a blood dk 
The changes in 11.1 look very promising, although its probably not enough to dethrone protpala as meta.