Tanking with style

If you're gonna play all tanks at the basicl level, you'll get bored.
Trying to optimize your gameplay will make all tanks interesting. Regardless of what people say about DRK, I actually enjoy playing it.

DRK is more about managing both MP and blood gauge to maximize your damage rather than Bloodspiller spam.
Do not overcap MP and blood gauge. It's a DPS loss. Doing this is easier said than done.

You need to know how much MP and Blood your abilities generate and how far you are from overcapping them.
Which phases are you going to hold your resources and which phase are you going to spend them for maximum dps gain (Burst/Buff windows).
Also, keep in mind that you need your resources for The Blakist Night and Living Shadow.

DRK also has a tight Blood Weapon window in which you need to land 5 weapon skills while it's up in order to maximize your MP and Blood gain, else you'll be generating less MP and Blood which will lead to lower DPS. Doing this might require you to have a certain amount of skill speed.

If DRK was just about 1-2-3 and hit Delirium followed by Bloodspiller spam, the job is going to be brain dead easy but it isn't.
DRK is more about resource management and deciding when to spend them for benefit.

I would recommend reading in-depth guide about all tanks before deciding which one to play :)
Here is a website to help with that: https://saltedxiv.com/

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

You'll get bored of it Bloodspiller spam really fast, along with Souleater spam... only to realize that no fun is allowed when trying to play as DRK, and are forced to play as the devs want you to play with DRK...

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Dude, come on. Not every single thread that even mentions DRK needs to immediately transition into a "DRK sucks now" diatribe. This is a thread about aesthetics, don't come in here and bring everybody down in a thread that isn't even relevant to DRK specific gameplay complaints. This is why "People complaining about people complaining about DRK" is becoming a thing now. If the OP wants to play DRK and enjoys it, let him actually do it and make that decision himself on whether to drop it at it's skill ceiling (if he even wants to reach it) instead of pushing torwards negativity on the outset of his experience, the guy doesn't even have TBN yet. I don't even agree with many of the things the person above me is saying about resource management, and probably hate DRK more than anyone on Earth, but this isn't the thread to talk about it in.

Sorry stuff isn't going well for you. Don't think it is for many people right now. World's not going too well atm.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

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actually you don't manage you resources at all or better say everything is so scriped that it's not real management, MP generation is so low you end throwing all your MP under raid buffs every 60 seconds and blood have no management whatsoever since you use bloodspiller as soon you hit 50 blood and that's it.
DRK gameplay and optimization is reducen on use all your MP and oGCD that have a convenient 30/60s recast under raid buffs every minute and then you spend around 50s doing 1-2-3 and bloodspiller delirium spam with a borderline salted heart that have laughable impact right now, so ppl are not wrong when they say DRK is mostly only that, a job how spend large amounts of time doing absolutely nothing but soul eater and bloodspiller waiting to trow all his oGCD every 60 seconds and repeat, true management was in the past right now it's just load and shoot.

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Originally Posted by shao32

now it's just load and shoot.

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That is almost very FFXIV Job now. Each jobs just does it differently.

DRK 2nd combo gives MP, 3rd combo gives Blood. Blood weapon gives both MP and Blood.
If you are not keeping uptime as DRK you lose two resources not one.
If you can't constantly hit 5 GCDs in blood weapon, your are losing two resources not one.
and once that happens, almost your entire MP and blood need to be recalculated for the entire fight.

Because you missed a couple of hits before boss jumped away or missed few hits inside blood weapon, you will not be spending as much MP and blood inside raid buffs. You'll not have enough MP for TBN in some phases. Your living shadow will get delayed by and an extra combo or two, and it gets out of sync from raid buffs. Bye bye DPS.

Once you mess up, you have to keep in mind to not spend everything when they are available. You have to check if TBN is needed soon or if living shadow is coming off CD. This is the recalculation part i'm talking about. Even the duration of the fight affects the way you generate/spend your resources (example: killing ads faster)

All jobs in the game get punished. People tend to think low of DRK because of "just load and shoot" mentality. Until they realize they did less Bloodspiller and EoS in the fight.
They cared more about spending than generating. Since current DRK MP and blood generation is low, making mistakes makes it even lower.

Hmm in terms of aesthetics, i think war/dk, in terms of performance, i think pal/gun. gl hope u enjoy the game

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Originally Posted by Yeol

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Every single job in the game is afected with the rule of always be casting, hit all your GCD under your buff windows and keep everything on recast, DRK is not special just bcs he have 2 resources in 1 combo, if you mess up you need to recalculate for the next buff window not the entire fight at all, thats with all respect a over exageration considering how little resources generate right now and how wide the downtime is, you have plenty of time to know if you should use a edge early or not depending of your resources aviable.

If you missed a few hits before the boss jump thats nothing compared to start no mercy window with GNB and miss everything with no return or inner release Window that cost WAR more dps and infuriate CD reduction, DRK mistakes are way less severe than the other tanks due how the job have no inner mechanics whatssoever to keep in check, resource generation and spending and keep GCD always runing is a norm for everyone as you say and at contrary than others jobs like the rest of the tank who have to delay the whole burst window or lose it complety DRK biggest mistake is only not having living shadow have his full duration uptime since everything else can be recolocated easily after and prepare your resources for the next buff window resulting in mimnimun loss compared to the other tanks mechanics, there is a reason why is so easy archive high score with DRK on certain web.

DRK basic (and mostly advanced) optimization is reduced on hit 5 GCD under BW and Delirium and keep everything on recast wich thats a task that only happens during 10s every min, not in vain DRK is considering with WAR the most brain dead jobs of the game right now by the raiding comunity due the little requeriments of optimization and the absurd amounts of downtime to do whatever you need, in fact DRK is picked bcs TBN is just to strong and you have so little to do with the job you can complete savage on easy mode focusing way more on combat mechanics at the same time many says the job is boring to play when you master it.

That is what i’m trying to point out here.

All jobs have different ways to optimize and all jobs get punished. I wish people would stop acting as if DRK does not have anything to worry about and you can just face roll with it.

It does not matter which job gets punished most or which job requires more work to optimize. What I tried to show in my previous post is that DRK has it’s own challenges too. But people seem to always want to brag that they are playing the more punishing/harder job and making the less punishing seem bad while in reality it isn't. All jobs have some sort of mechanic to handle.

Finding a job boring or fun is subjective and not a fact.
The fact is all jobs have ways to optimize and things to look out for.

If anything, the real problem with some tanks is their identity and being very similar in terms of tanking.

Thank you for clearing my point even better.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

That is what i’m trying to point out here.

All jobs have different ways to optimize and all jobs get punished. I wish people would stop acting as if DRK does not have anything to worry about and you can just face roll with it.

It does not matter which job gets punished most or which job requires more work to optimize. What I tried to show in my previous post is that DRK has it’s own challenges too. But people seem to always want to brag that they are playing the more punishing/harder job and making the less punishing seem bad while in reality it isn't. All jobs have some sort of mechanic to handle.

Finding a job boring or fun is subjective and not a fact.
The fact is all jobs have ways to optimize and things to look out for.

If anything, the real problem with some tanks is their identity and being very similar in terms of tanking.

Thank you for clearing my point even better.

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My point is indeed every job have to optimice something but DRK kit it's so poor made due lack of sinergy with his own kit and having dead mechanics wasting space that the job have way less things to optimice and fail compared to the other 16 jobs of the game no matter how you look at it making it the most easy job of the game.

not trying to make you feel bad or something like that but DRK have no defense posible in terms of skill required to archive his maximun potential, it's saddly just an easy job to run with now and that's it.

Can someone do a compensation between hw drk and shb drk? Or just link a video explaining the key differences?

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Originally Posted by Spartan_Aoues

Can someone do a compensation between hw drk and shb drk? Or just link a video explaining the key differences?

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here is a guide of the job then back in HWhttps://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...k-Knight-Guide

to make a resume DRK was a tactical job with sustained dps, back then DRK generate way more MP and his APM (actions per minute) was way higher with blood weapon uptime being more bigger and ofering a skill speed buff.

the job work witha priority system on both his MP usage and his GCD usage, on MP was:

1º dark arts + carve and spit
2º dark passenger
3º dark arts + soul eater

and for his GCD considering the MP one first was:

1º dark arts + soul eater
2º if not enough MP for dark arts + soul eater then delirium

darkside use to consume your MP by ticks when activated making his MP management constant and dinamic and on top of all that DRK have the parry mechanics, if DRK parry an attack have the chance to reset low blow and reprisal amking it alwyas being in the MT spot.

it use to have scourge wich was a dot that you always keep on apart of salted heart, in resume DRK use to have 2 combos, 2 priority systems on resources usage manipulating his GCD, a dot to manage and parry mechanics all in a constant management of his resources to never run out of MP or darkside will fade off or overcap it, very dinamic and very DRK theme for no mention his aoe rotation was so satisfactory.

correct me someone if i miss something.