Dark Knight or Warrior?

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

At current gear levels (almost 15 ilvls overgeared from the i190 benchmark) no one tank is mandatory unless your group is bad. This guy can totally play whatever tank he wants and if he turns out to be skilled he'll get a group and clear content. What you do in your static is not the end-all-be-all strat, not even world 1st people make those claims.

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I never said that my strategy was the end all be all? But for any future raids WAR is almost 100 guaranteed to be mandatory unless PLD and DrK get some hefty buffs.

Also remember that this guy is gonna be making a tank from scratch... The only groups who are geared enough to carry a PLD/DrK tanking combo through A3S and AS4 most likely already have a static or are done raiding AS1-AS4.

Good luck clearing any higher (AS3-AS4) in PUG with people who still need drops from AS3 and AS4 when about 95% of the PFs I see are locked DrK/WAR.

Just giving the guy all the facts.

To all the people saying war has a higher skill ceiling than drk, are you kidding me?

Let's say for arguments sake stack management=MP management (though DRK MP is a hell of a lot more volatile)

That leaves wars with 1 ogcd to worry about to maintain their superior dps. As a drk I have 7-8 timers depending on the situation to keep track of all under a min cooldown, and all need to be kept on cooldown in order to even come close to war.

As a reference I got war to 60 a few days ago, was maintaining over 1100 dps on a dummy within 10 minutes of hitting 60, with DRK if I don't do my rotation damn near perfect on a dummy I'm not gonna break 1k. If I do everything perfect on DRK I can get 1050-1100 but it requires so much more effort than war it's crazy.

Wars have to plan out every stack in advance? For the 5 minutes or so before you actually need any of those CDs for a tank buster in A1S a war can just go balls out dps with resin bombs and a provoke being the only thing they have to worry about besides their incredibly simple rotation.

As far as prep time for inner beast before the buster, I time my shadowskin with prey and it usually has about 4 seconds left once buster hits, so just after resin seems like the optimal time to build stacks for IB, you could choose to save infuriate and do a double IB to help mitigate some of the cleave damage during preys as well like I do with shadowskin/convalescence. It's incredibly telegraphed once you have knowledge of the fight and saying that any 1 tank is harder because they have to prep stuff for a tank buster is, well wrong.

In that same time as a DRK I have to take a GCD to turn on tank stance, then while doing exactly what you are doing to build up your 5 stacks (aka using the GCD) I have shadowskin/conv/dark dance (hope to proc reprisal)/reprisal/dark arts (animation lock can screw 3 off globals during buster so I have DA pre-popped)/dark mind/shadow wall. So in that 15 seconds of tankbuster build up, you pop 1 2 3 1 4 5 vengeance>IB, I assume also thrill/conv in the middle there. 10 buttons tops, 11 if you need to use equilibrium. I have the same except 1 4 6 1 4 5 (IB/Grit use same gcd). Plus the off globals for cooldowns puts me to 14 buttons plus any offensive off globals that come up, could be as many as 19-20 buttons I have to push in the exact same time frame to maximize performance.

And let's not forget that most wars nowadays just HG the first buster and never even drop deliverance until the prey after first jump.

But wars skill ceiling is so high.

And as for the oh so clever "doesn't STACK up" comment you have a resource that you deplete for more dps or for defensive purposes that is built up by going through your basic rotation. DRK has a resource that they deplete for more dps or for defensive purposes that is built up by going through their basic rotation. Just cus my MP stacks up to 7k and your abandon only stacks to 5 doesn't make them all that different.

Warrior is pretty simple in concept and allows for growth without being overly complex - regardless of the encounter.

Dark Knight tends to require a bit more understanding of it's concepts - relies more on knowledge of the encounter to be effective.

Thanks for the responses everyone! There are many interesting points being made on this post. I've decided to go ahead with my Dark Knight and will be taking it to 60.

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Originally Posted by Gorlioliolio

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Again Warrior is harder to fully optimize. Stacks does not equal MP. MP is a resource you can use anytime, while Stacks you can only use when at 5 stacks, and better use it at 5 stacks too, because anymore build up leads to ineffecient use of warriors stacking mechanic. Drk you can control/maintain when to use your resource a lot more, while warrior has to plan it out...but sure if you want to waste stack build up to wait for a tank buster. That is fine, but it is not optimizing the job. If people do not see that idk what to say anymore. Wasted stacks equals wasted possible Fell Cleaves. I think I am done.

Wasting 1-2 gcds really shouldn't make or break the fight though, and unless killing the boss, then going back through the log to figure out exactly x amount of seconds from pull>buster and working through it gcd by gcd on a spread sheet to figure out exactly how much potency you can get in somehow = skill in playing the class instead of at spreadsheet use/memorization then yes I guess wars do have a much higher skill ceiling.

And you can't "use MP anytime". For instance, if DP or C&S is coming off cooldown soon you need to save for it, if it's part of the fight where you need to be in tank stance you need to save for even longer for it. And usually at the same time you need to save extra for a DA DM. all of this needs to be planned very far in advance or you find yourself starving during busters.

Learning the fight and when to pop things =/= class difficulty. Having roughly 40% more buttons to push per minute = class difficulty.

Comparing DRK's MP pool to WAR's stacks is extremely flawed. With WAR you earn 5 quantifiable blocks of a mechanic, spend them, get them back, spend them, get them back. Everything gives you the same amount of stacks, and everything costs the same amount of stacks. You do not lose stacks as the buff counts down, you simply lose the buff entirely if it falls off.

DRK, its a much more granular pool of a resource that is amorphously jumping up and down all the time. You don't wanna get a huge amount of MP back and top yourself off and then spend it, you want to be constantly hovering between about 15% and 75% MP, if you ever jump outside that range you could be playing better. Everything gives you different amounts of MP, everything costs different amounts of MP, and Darkside constantly drains it. Its a lot more to keep track of. I also find WAR a lot easier because almost everything is on the GCD, its much easier to mentally map out what you're going to do in advance and the only things you need to worry about weaving are Brutal Swing and various CDs, where with DRK, almost every other GCD some oGCD ability is coming off recast and needs to be woven in, and some like Dark Passenger and Carve you need to make snap decisions about. DRK's resource consumption/recovery/management is more of an art than a science like WAR's stacks.

And at any rate, you can't equate a WAR with 5 stacks to a DRK with full MP, and you can't equate a WAR with 0 stacks to a DRK that has MP floored. In both cases the WAR is just at different stages of doing their job, and the DRK has failed at doing its job. They're both a form of resource management but that's where the similarities end.

The only time I feel truly safe from worrying about my MP while playing DRK is while OTing (which I almost never do), since the DPS rotation pays for itself with Blood Weapon, and when I'm in a dungeon and puling 6-9 mobs (there's almost nothing you can do to spend MP as fast as you'll be getting it back with that much trash on you and Blood Price up).

DrK is undoubtedly harder to play than WAR. However I feel it is more so becuase of resource management than using oGCDs, everyone should be able to weave OGCDs and honestly of you cant then you need to learn your class better.

But at the end of the day a DrK will need to have more knowledge of a fight to preform at a high level than a WAR.

WAR has an answer for everything and the answer is never far off. You have 17 seconds to decided what to do with your stacks and really no matter what you choose wont be "wrong" just not optimal. A DrK however can choose wrong about managing his MP and totally fuck himseld and the raid (not being able to AoE to grab adds, can\\'t put grit up, ect.)

Additionally a WAR has unlimited TP and you REALLY need to suck to run them into a position where they can\\'t function. Hell even if you pop berserk too early and find yourself pacified when you need to pull a mob you still have flash. Literally we have an answer for everything.