DRK Advice and The Feast.

[Nidary]

Hello everyone, first of all id like to say i'm new to ffxiv pvp, but not to pvp overall. I'm a player that achieved diamond in league of legends and 2.1k rating in world of warcraft and if something i learned from these games is that does not matter your teammate, if you improve yourself, you can climb.
I come to ask some advice about how to play DRK, because seems like i'm doing something totally wrong so far. Basically my efforts are being meaningless. As for peeling, i use low blow on however the dpss are on together on a target of my team, and the blackest night on this teammate to peel. As for pressure, as soon as a notice they are on kill target, i lowblow the healer, bloodspiller, lowblow to try to lockdown while they do damage, and of course apply sole surviver if i see some damage is done. i also try to reapply powerslash`s effect when i see its about to drop.

But seems the efforts are meaningless.

thanks in advance to anyone that answers here.

[ManuelBravo]

For PvP tanks mainly keep on Healers as much as possible and collect coins up to a specific point. Know how your actions work can take some time to get use to. Tanks stun here and there and over all that it's it in a nut shell. They aren't that effective and yes it gets frustrating you just keep doing what you can.

[Marveth]

Tanks are very situational. Sometimes it feels like the team would do just as well without you but then sometimes you see an oppertunity that can score a kill or save a teammate.

Tanks can also be a very ungrateful job as most people in your party don't seem to get that you are running on limited reaources and don't start with full Bloodgauge so you just can't start silencing the healer right away.
Sometimes I swear the no-chat creates more toxicity than it prevents.

The most important thing is to learn all the skills and be quick to apply them when they are needed. Don't hold back on blackest night as it saves your healer mp even if it's not critical to use it.

I could write a ton about this but the best tip I can give is to PvP a lot. Unfortunately a lot hangs on your teammates as well and if the coordination is not there you will not win. Simple as that.

[Nidary]

I just wish my effort and my team's effort is not gone with a single heal. sometimes i feel like i already lost however i go against a white mage or scholar because i have no idea how to stop them. Astrologians seems to be okay, ccing them is enough to put them behind.

[Hyrist]

Keep in mind that just because the damage is gone, on your target, the impact is not.

Constantly having to heal high pressure situations wears out the Healer's focus and resources. That last burst they survived may have cost them a timely cooldown or their LB, your damage as a tank may cause them to have to split focus for a sec to try to shake you off or heal themselves. These things can give you kills.

A tank's role is to patiently be a complete nuisance to your opponent. Then, in a clutch moment, you interfere with the enemy healer, or finish off a weakened enemy target, or clutch save an ally that's being focused. It all happens quickly and it's the tanks that are best equipped to adapt to these situations on the fly.

As a Tank (I do play PLD aside from RDM), White Mages don't have much for off global cooldown skills. In this case you want to disrupt their normal casting, force them to use those time-costing cooldowns as early as possible to open up a damage window for your DPS.

For scholars, it's the opposite, press damage on them and cause them to focus more healing efforts on themselves, they can't effectively heal others if they have to broil-lustrate themselves. Remember you don't have to stay in Tank stance if you're not getting hit on or holding metals. Take advantage of that.

[Korihu]

I asked for someone to help give some advice for DRK stuff and a nice user, Digi Nation, from the pvp discord wrote this out for you! I hope it can help

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Offense
You probably already know how you would assist your team offense: Sole Survivor on target, LoS/CC Healer or Target, your assist skill is Bloodspiller it costs half your Blood Gauge but it's worth the damage.
Your CC comboon healer ideally would be: Unmend > Bloodspiller > Low Blow.

Defense/Support
So The Blackes Night use it, not when your friend is, or you are, at almost full HP, use it when the HP bar is something around 60% or lower, because it is pretty sure that your friend (or you) will recieve more damages, so you both save (hopefully) a party member and get 50 points of Blood Gauge .
Then Stop the enemy party, how? Stun, Silence, Pull, if you see a DRG glowing red: Stun; oh look bahamuth, fall back and LoS the enemy summoner; you can stun the enemy damage dealers, silence them.

Medals
Get max 189 medals as tank, 2 stacks, let your teammates get other medals, if you have already 1 stack or 2 stacks of vulnerability, do not get medals unless it secures you a win: for example when 30 seconds are left to end match, you get the medals and start playing super defensive mode (stun/silence the hell out of everyone).
If your teammates don't pick up medal when you already have 150-189 medals, don't pick em if it brings you to 3+ stacks, or you will experience a super fancy ping pong game.



Builds
Your character setup is yes important, but there is not a "BiS Build" since it is really subjective, so it is up to you to customize as you please and like your Additional Skills and Traits.
As Additional Skills I'd suggest Muse and Enliven to all new tanks (except Warriors), managing your resources is not easy, even if you are a veteran, this way you can use TBN/Unmend and Low Blow more during the fight. Then you got Safeguard which well you're a tank, you are the less preferred a party would attack unless to secure a win; Recouperate same reason as before but this one you can use really often; Bolt is an interesting skill, it allows you to chase, go back and forth faster, retreat faster, kite; Concentrate and Purify, I'm not sure about these two but tanks don't really have these as must have unless some super genius proves their a must.
As Traits there are some that work perfectly for your Role (Tank) and your Job (DRK), and these are Increased TP Regeneration and Increased MP Regeneration so you can spam your CCs when needed. Then you could use Increased HP, this one boosts your The Blackest Night by +150HP, it's something to consider; else Decreased Recast Time this fine with any additional skill.

Other tips
You have to adjust your HUD, this is important, the more comfortable you are while playing and better is your performance.
Find a way to improve your "targeting", what I mean is do what you can to react asap with "Target -> Action", make macros for your skills with <1>, <f>, <4>, or not, tab targeting/cursor targ eting, joystick targeting.
Keep playing, experience and training makes perfect.

Of course in the end as a tank you can't do much, the PvP mode of the game became a lot more reliable on team work, and we can't expect super teamwork, especially on lower tier matches, with no chat for example.

[Mirch]

Don't stay 100% on enemy healer. when a healer has CC resistances up you can't do much but unmend, in that case you should help out your dps

[Nova_Rox]

Everyone is making it seem complicated.

Tanks CC the healer when your DPS are going to burst. How do you know when they will burst? You don't because SE took away our chat so at best you need to guess it from experience. I suggest playing all DPS classes so you get an idea of their build up time.

Generally once the initial burst starts you do your CC then run to the main target and help burst/CC him.

If you failed you go back to building gauges/recovering resources while protecting your own team from being burst down.

Specifically for DRK:

TBN is OP. It's a HUGE shield and gives you a ton of gauge. Don't be afraid to use it.

Plunge resets on kills so if you get one kill it's easy to chain them by Plunging to another, Low Blow rinse and repeat.

Unmend is great for doing what I just said above.

Unmend healers behind walls to LOS them AND interrupt their current cast.

[Stormfur]

I like to Unmend the target (healer or DPS specifically) right before they finish casting their limit break -- it pulls them out of it and their LB gauge gets halved. #sorrynotsorry

[Nova_Rox]

I like to Unmend the target (healer or DPS specifically) right before they finish casting their limit break -- it pulls them out of it and their LB gauge gets halved. #sorrynotsorry

I find this VERY unlikely to be pulled off consistently, if at all.