The Definitive Dark Knight Guide

I use Dance to force proc reprisal. If i just used a reprisal -- and dance is coming off CD.. I'll sit on it for a bit... Reprisal CD at least at 9 o'clock or no Dark Dance

no Dark Arts, very rare

What are the best CC abilities to use? I have Provoke, Blood Bath, Foresight, Convalesce and Flash because it has a low MP usage. I could replace Flash for Awareness?

A useful piece of advice: While it can seem like a good idea to keep darkside up at all times, most trash mobs provide small breaks in between packs where darkside can be dropped temporarily to regain mana. The space between trash mobs is designed to give characters enough time to recover resources in between pulls, so it is to any dark knight's benefit to drop darkside after a battle if his mana is not topped off.

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Originally Posted by Arkista

What are the best CC abilities to use? I have Provoke, Blood Bath, Foresight, Convalesce and Flash because it has a low MP usage. I could replace Flash for Awareness?

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Replace Flash with anything, it's redundant. (Unless no damage enmity building is necessary)

I prefer mercy stroke to awareness, but it up to taste

Hey guys. Just started playing dark knight. Literally, only lvl 32 on it, but enjoying so far.

Question about Darkarts. Should I be keeping this up all the time? At the moment i'm in grit, building enemity, then switching to blood weapon + dark arts, continuing till blood cd is done and switching back to grit and switching off Dark arts.

I'm probably just misunderstanding things, but as i say, early days.

Awesome guide. Helps a lot, thanks!

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Originally Posted by Divine_Intervention

Hey guys. Just started playing dark knight. Literally, only lvl 32 on it, but enjoying so far.

Question about Darkarts. Should I be keeping this up all the time? At the moment i'm in grit, building enemity, then switching to blood weapon + dark arts, continuing till blood cd is done and switching back to grit and switching off Dark arts.

I'm probably just misunderstanding things, but as i say, early days.

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I think you mean Darkside. And yea, for now, the de facto rule is to maintain Darkside at all times.

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@everyone

For the MT role though, I can see 1 possibility where this could change:

From my testing, dropping Darkside for the 3 ticks of MP regen is enough to compensate for the cost of Darkside's degen & re-activation cost, and by doing so you're actually placing yourself a little bit ahead in regard to MP degeneration than the alternative of having just left Darkside on.

Coincidentally enough, the time it takes to do a Power Slash combo allows close to 3 server ticks.

I haven't tested much yet, but theorycrafting wise - if Power Slash is part of your rotation - dropping Darkside for it's 3 GCDs, and re-activating it before the next Hard Slash or Syphon Slash (depending on where your DS disabling lands between server ticks) - of the following combo may, over time, result in a DPS increase.

This is because, over time, the DRK toggling DS would have the resources for more Dark Passenger & Dark Arts that a DRK with the identical rotation (but no DS toggling) would not.

Dark Arts potency: (+100 (or +150/250 if no DP at all), +240, +350) is higher than Power Slash combo's +80 potency when left in Darkside. Blood Price is the wild card (if MP isn't needed to max oGCD use and Dark Arts buffs, toggling would serve no purpose, and be a straight -80 potency per PS combo).

Again haven't tested this yet, but if Power Slash is part of your rotation, eventually the MP-conservation of dropping DS for that combo would open up better potency increases through the oGCDs & DAs. Also consider: since Spinning Slash has no MP recovery, our Power Slash combo technically cost MP whilst DS is up - even without the Dark Arts buff for PS. The DS degen is ticking 2-4 times whilst performing a PS combo, but unlike Delirium/Souleater, there's no Syphon to counter-act that degen.

Of course straight Syphon combos and 100% Darkside uptime is absolutely better. And even with good DPS groups, as MT it's rare to have situations where a Power Slash combo is even necessary or at all that frequent.

So it's a long shot that such a rotation method is viable - let alone better.

Could use some testing,

My theorcrafting has shown that.

Assuming: 2.5s GCD, Dark Side Costs 2.5% MP / 3s

DA+SE Combo costs: 18.75% MP
Delirium Combo recovers: 6.25% MP
No Delirum Combo recovers: 8.33% MP

So the idea that 2 (Heavy Slash+Syphon Strikes+Delirium) = 1 DA+SE, is false.

It actually takes 3, since Dark Side keeps draining your MP during the time.

At 2.5s GCD you lose 2.083% MP every GCD.
A Scourge actually costs you 2.083% MP.

Dark Side basically adds a 2.5% MP * GCD time /3 cost to every single action you take.
The faster your GCD the less expensive a non syphon strike combo action becomes, and the more mana you regenerate from any comboes involving Syphon Strike.

At 2.0s GCD:
a DA+SE Combo now costs only: 17.5% MP
a Delirium Combo recovers: 7.5% MP
a No-Delirum Combo recovers: 9.167% MP

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Originally Posted by Daerthalus

My theorcrafting has shown that.

Assuming: 2.5s GCD, Dark Side Costs 2.5% MP / 3s

DA+SE Combo costs: 18.75% MP
Delirium Combo recovers: 6.25% MP
No Delirum Combo recovers: 8.33% MP

So the idea that 2 (Heavy Slash+Syphon Strikes+Delirium) = 1 DA+SE, is false.

It actually takes 3, since Dark Side keeps draining your MP during the time.

At 2.5s GCD you lose 2.083% MP every GCD.
A Scourge actually costs you 2.083% MP.

Dark Side basically adds a 2.5% MP * GCD time /3 cost to every single action you take.
The faster your GCD the less expensive a non syphon strike combo action becomes, and the more mana you regenerate from any comboes involving Syphon Strike.

At 2.0s GCD:
a DA+SE Combo now costs only: 17.5% MP
a Delirium Combo recovers: 7.5% MP
a No-Delirum Combo recovers: 9.167% MP

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So you're saying that we'd benefit from stacking skill speed if our TP issues weren't shit?

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Originally Posted by Daerthalus

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Assuming Rav Weap + fully upgraded tome gear (All VIT acc, 1 STR ring)

Natural MP depletion in Darkside is 265 MP per tick, natural regen is 138 MP, subtract the difference, you tick at a 127 MP loss (1.83%)
Dark Arts (1768) - Syphon Strike Recovery (884 : 12.76%) : 1768 - 884 = 884 MP spent DA + SE Combo (-12.76%)
3 GCDs @ 2.42 SS = 7.26s (2 Ticks) (2 * 127 MP loss = 254 MP : -3.66%)

1138 MP for a DA + SE Combo (-16.43%)
Syphon +884 MP - Darkside ticks (-254) = 630 MP (+9.09%)
Power Slash combo = -254 MP = (-3.66%)

Increasing skillspeed does not increase the potencies of your moves. Your're trying to outrace the depletion ticks to fit moves in before a tick. If we had a cap to meet like Berserk, it would be viable, but we have ways to replenish, so the cost becomes minor. And since DRK has no TP replenishment options, SS at the moment is the devil.

Dark Passenger worth using or too big of an MP drain?

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Originally Posted by Arasiel

Dark Passenger worth using or too big of an MP drain?

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Dark Passenger is always a DPS gain when there are two or more adds and should be used whenever it is up regardless if it has Dark Arts on it or not.

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Dark Passenger - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 150 to all enemies in a straight line before you. Can only be used when succumbing to the Darkside. Dark Arts Potency: 250. Dark Arts Effect: Blind Duration: 15s.

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150 pot x 2 enemies = 300 potency off GCD
250 pot x 2 enemies = 500 potency off GCD

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Originally Posted by Docfiord_Fowling

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Thank you for the correction. I forgot about the natural MP regen that we still recieve. :)

As for Skill Speed I was not suggesting it was a useful stat. I was simply saying that every tick you are losing MP, so the slower you swing the worse the overall MP drain is. Obviously if you optimize MP regen via Skill Speed you run into worse TP drain issues.

**3 GCDs @ 2.42 SS = 7.26s (2 Ticks) (2 * 127 MP loss = 254 MP : -3.66%)**

I disagree with your math here.

I believe 1 TICK is 3s, so 6s would be 2 ticks. At 7.26s per 3 Hit Combo, the 1.26s adds up to more MP loss than you state.

@2.42s GCD, cost is 1.4762% MP per GCD.
3 GCDs @ 2.42s = 4.4286%

Dark Arts (1768) - Syphon Strike Recovery (884 : 12.76%) : 1768 - 884 = 884 MP spent DA + SE Combo (-12.76%)
3 GCDs @ 2.42 SS = -4.43%
DA + SE Combo = 17.19% MP

3 Hit Syphon Strike (w/ Delirium or SE) = +8.33% MP
2 Hit Syphone Strike = +9,81%
Power Slash Combo = -4.43%

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Originally Posted by Docfiord_Fowling

Dark Passenger is always a DPS gain when there are two or more adds and should be used whenever it is up regardless if it has Dark Arts on it or not.

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Isn't it always a DPS gain even with one target? It's an instant ability and can be squeezed inbetween GCDs, much like you should be doing with Carve & Spit, Plunge, Reprisal when it procs, and Mercy Stroke when available.

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Originally Posted by Lawson_Grey

Isn't it always a DPS gain even with one target? It's an instant ability and can be squeezed inbetween GCDs, much like you should be doing with Carve & Spit, Plunge, Reprisal when it procs, and Mercy Stroke when available.

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The DRG is strong in this one.

I've been testing some Darkside-toggling rotations to see how possible it is to DA every C&S (60 sec), DA SE with every other DP (30 sec,), and DA as many Souleaters in-between(no CnS/DP available).

Also have to factor the DoT snapshot aspect. 30 second duration for Scourge (our highest WS).. 45 second recast for Salted Earth..

I stopped testing after the regen/degen bug, look forward to getting back to it Monday.

Back in the LLs before 3.0 they described DRK as having to know when to Darkside.. so far all that's been said is 'just maintain 100%,' I'm eager to see where the sweet spot actually is

Dark Passenger eats mana.

If mana isnt an issue---sure go nuts! Its OGCD

In most other cases, newp. Better to use it on enhancing another ability (another dark arts for instance). On the reverse, if its 2+ enemies, then id instead use it even at its base potency over a dark arted ability (100 potency * 2 targets vs say, soul eater going from 280 to 400 on one).

Thank you for this nice post!

Where do you put all your bonus stats? Strength?

Nice guide btw.
Would be nice if it had Cross class in the OP, but I found it within the thread anyway.

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Originally Posted by Faytte

Dark Passenger eats mana.

If mana isnt an issue---sure go nuts! Its OGCD

In most other cases, newp. Better to use it on enhancing another ability (another dark arts for instance). On the reverse, if its 2+ enemies, then id instead use it even at its base potency over a dark arted ability (100 potency * 2 targets vs say, soul eater going from 280 to 400 on one).

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Dark Passenger (no Dark Arts) is a gain of 150 potency on a single target for half the mp of Dark Arts Souleater (which only gains 120 potency over Delirium). If main tanking and you really want the HP restore then fine, but Dark Passenger even on single target is better than the enhanced Souleater for damage/MP efficiency.

I seem to be doing something wrong. My mp management isn't as good as other tanks of the same lvl/gear i've seen.

I'll try to have blood price up whenever it's available, but other than this, the only other mana option i can see is hard slash / syphon strike. Also tried switching out of grit, into blood weapon, but then the majority of what i gain back in mp is used reapplying grit.

Any advice please folks?

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Originally Posted by Daerthalus

@2.42s GCD, cost is 1.4762% MP per GCD.
3 GCDs @ 2.42s = 4.4286%

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Yeah, I should have divided it down to a per-second unit.

1 Tick (3sec) = 127 MP
(127/3) x 7.26 = 307.34 MP per 3 GCDs (-4.4375%) :)

Dark Arts Souleater : (-1768 + 884) - 307.34 = -1191.34 MP (-17.201%)
3 Hit Syphon Combo : 884 - 307.34 = +576.66 MP (+8.32%)
2 Hit Syphon Combo : 884 - 84.66 = +799.34 MP (+11.541%)
Power Slash Combo = -307.34 MP (-4.4375%)

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Originally Posted by Daerthalus

As for Skill Speed I was not suggesting it was a useful stat. I was simply saying that every tick you are losing MP, so the slower you swing the worse the overall MP drain is. Obviously if you optimize MP regen via Skill Speed you run into worse TP drain issues.

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I see what you are saying. Your argument for Skill Speed is to increase the ratio of GCDs to ticks so that it appears your time is used fitting in as many GCDs in as few MP ticks as possible. It is still a placebo effect. Until we know more about the DPS increase from the changes made to Skills Speed, it should only be used in two scenarios.

1. If you have a hard cap to meet to fit in an extra GCD (Berserk, Blood for Blood, Trick Attack).
2. If TP is not a concern.

SS results in a direct DPS increase; more moves, more damage. By my calculations, DRK is the worst job for TP management at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Divine_Intervention

I seem to be doing something wrong. My mp management isn't as good as other tanks of the same lvl/gear i've seen.

I'll try to have blood price up whenever it's available, but other than this, the only other mana option i can see is hard slash / syphon strike. Also tried switching out of grit, into blood weapon, but then the majority of what i gain back in mp is used reapplying grit.

Any advice please folks?

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Use less dark arts and mp abilities and more non da souleater/delirium. You don't need to do that many power slashes to hold aggro. I generally do one at the boss pull and just use souleater or delirium for the rest of the fight.

It seems that DA + Dark Passanger only blinds the first enemy hit.

Is this supposed to be as it is or a bug? The tooltip doesn't help either.

Otherwise, when do you recommend doing this? Its a huge mana drain and I usually have to switch off Darkside for a moment (2 SyS) before going back up again. Is this a huge DPS loss?

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Originally Posted by elemental10

It seems that DA + Dark Passanger only blinds the first enemy hit.

Is this supposed to be as it is or a bug? The tooltip doesn't help either.

Otherwise, when do you recommend doing this? Its a huge mana drain and I usually have to switch off Darkside for a moment (2 SyS) before going back up again. Is this a huge DPS loss?

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It's a bug that should be addressed by the next patch. And yes that is not my wishful thinking, it's been confirmed :-)

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Originally Posted by Divine_Intervention

I seem to be doing something wrong. My mp management isn't as good as other tanks of the same lvl/gear i've seen.
I'll try to have blood price up whenever it's available, but other than this, the only other mana option i can see is hard slash / syphon strike. Also tried switching out of grit, into blood weapon, but then the majority of what i gain back in mp is used reapplying grit.
Any advice please folks?

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Switching out of Grit is not recommended as the cost to go back in is tremendous. The basic rotation of DRK should go something like Power Slash combo > Dark Art Soul Eater > Delirium. If you are sub lvl 60, then keep rotating your Soul Eater combos. DRKs don't need to do their enmity rotation as often as a PLD or WAR traditionally did. You should be able to hold aggro for 4-5 rotations at least.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

Where do you put all your bonus stats? Strength?

Nice guide btw.
Would be nice if it had Cross class in the OP, but I found it within the thread anyway.

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Still looking for an answer for above.
There was a thread about the attributes on the front page, but it had mixed replies.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

Still looking for an answer for above.
There was a thread about the attributes on the front page, but it had mixed replies.

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Strength is the only way to go until bosses hit you harder than your healers can heal you for, and at that point you're just lacking defense. VIT is usually covered by the left side of your gear, if you want to be a bit more tank you can get a few tanking accessories. Most seem to go for 1 or 2 items. One out of them usually being a ring since you can't stack two strength rings anyway. (Without doing the 180+170 thing)

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

Still looking for an answer for above.
There was a thread about the attributes on the front page, but it had mixed replies.

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Bonus is the first place to add strength since it's a 1:1 exchange with vit. Accessories give more vit than strength so swapping those isn't as "strong".

The idea, since vit doesn't actually reduce damage taken, is that you want enough HP to take the hardest hit you'll encounter. Once you're at that level strength is more useful since it always give you more damage extra vit is just extra.

This is true for any tank class.

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Originally Posted by Falgern

Strength is the only way to go until bosses hit you harder than your healers can heal you for, and at that point you're just lacking defense. VIT is usually covered by the left side of your gear, if you want to be a bit more tank you can get a few tanking accessories. Most seem to go for 1 or 2 items. One out of them usually being a ring since you can't stack two strength rings anyway. (Without doing the 180+170 thing)

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Originally Posted by Rbstr

Bonus is the first place to add strength since it's a 1:1 exchange with vit. Accessories give more vit than strength so swapping those isn't as "strong".

The idea, since vit doesn't actually reduce damage taken, is that you want enough HP to take the hardest hit you'll encounter. Once you're at that level strength is more useful since it always give you more damage extra vit is just extra.

This is true for any tank class.

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Thanks!
That makes sense. I've just seen a lot of DRKs health ping pong and wondered if added vit would be better for DRK in particular.
But yea, new to tank meta in this game in general too so I guess I have to catch up on basic knowledge.

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Originally Posted by Felorr

I can't post my findings now, but keep in mind reapplying Darkside has an mp cost of roughly 12 seconds worth of uptime mp drain. Dropping dark side and reapplying it before 12 seconds is a loss of mp.

Fights like Ravana Ex seemed to have been designed with DRKs in mind. Lots of phases with no damage perfect for dropping grit and getting blood weapon time in to regrn MP to use.

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Still low level but reading things ahead. Your comment got me thinking. Sounds like blood weapon is perfect with living dead?

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Originally Posted by SpecialKK

Still low level but reading things ahead. Your comment got me thinking. Sounds like blood weapon is perfect with living dead?

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Blood Weapon replenishes MP, not HP ;) So... no, it would not work so well.

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Originally Posted by Docfiord_Fowling

Blood Weapon replenishes MP, not HP ;) So... no, it would not work so well.

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I was thinking more along the lines of grit doesn't matter while in living dead, so why mitigate? Just pop BW, get MP back and dps hard. If you survive, turn grit back on with a healthy pool of mp

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Originally Posted by SpecialKK

I was thinking more along the lines of grit doesn't matter while in living dead, so why mitigate? Just pop BW, get MP back and dps hard. If you survive, turn grit back on with a healthy pool of mp

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Walking Dead lasts for 10 seconds. You can get 3 out-of-grit GCDs in that time. The 4th would be to turn Grit back on for 1326 MP. If you can generate more than that amount of MP in 3 GCDs, then yeah, its worth. Otherwise, the slight DPS increase seems like a much bigger hassle than it is worth.

It would be situation, but in that amount of time you can easily get back to full.

However Living Dead has never worked for me. Not that its bugged, but that I can never get back because the healer isn't able to, or is already dead. As it is right now, Living Dead is sadly more of a "How can I best leave my party" state. I've used it to set up the aoe blind, to stun and get Salted Earth and Scourge on everything I can, or to hold the ground and tell the dps (friends at this instance) to run back to the healer. Oh, or at the end of a fight because I'm trying to hold the boss for the DPS for those precious ten seconds (mostly level 50 EX fights)

One day it'll be in a better state =;[

We're doing some confirmation testing right now, but here's all the requirements we know about Living Dead

You must receive heals equal to your total HP amount. (10,000 HP needs 10,000 points of healing)
Benediction alone does not work. Over heals do not count, so a Benediction will restore 100% -1 HP. You need to then take damage and heal up via a healer, self healing, or the natural HP tick.

We just did some testing and got some very interesting results.

1. Aggro a mob
2. Active Living Dead
3. HP drops below 0 - Walking Dead is up
4. Kill the enemy
5. Benediction

SUCCESS

1. Aggro a mob
2. Active Living Dead
3. HP drops below 0 - Walking Dead is up
4. Have an off tank provoke the enemy and establish aggro
5. Benediction

SUCCESS

1. Aggro a mob
2. Active Living Dead
3. HP drops below 0 - Walking Dead is up
4. Stun the enemy
5. Benediction while enemy is stunned

FAILURE

1. Aggro a mob
2. Active Living Dead
3. HP drops below 0 - Walking Dead is up
4. Stun the enemy
5. Have an off tank provoke the enemy and establish aggro
6. Benediction while enemy is stunned

FAILURE

It seems whenever stun is involved, it does not work. What the hell?

Thats because you need to heal up to your maximum health.

Once you go living dead, you have 1 hp left. If you get benediction right then, you will heal up to your max hp minus 1.

So, if you don't take damage and recover back that 1 hp, you're dead. Thats why when you stun the mob and proceed to kill it, you will not get damaged but you will be at full health BUT you still need that 1 hp heal back. I take it from your tests that once you go full hp, any overheals will not be considered as gaining that 1 hp back and that includes any healing spells, self-heal or the natural regen.

I think SE should look into overheals as counting towards the max HP heals because that would solve the problems of a lot of Living Dead failures, i.e. Benediction + any kind healing (even when at HP bar is full) should do the trick. Also, I think it would be good if instead of us dying at the end of Living Dead, we could be penalized by having a status effect where we cannot do anything at all for a certain amount of duration. It will make it less risky, up to par with Holmgang at least.

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Originally Posted by elemental10

Thats because you need to heal up to your maximum health.

Once you go living dead, you have 1 hp left. If you get benediction right then, you will heal up to your max hp minus 1.

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That's the theory, but if that were the case, how was I able to live with a Benediction after the other tank provoked it? There's no more incoming damage and I went from 1 to full HP with Benediction. Shouldn't I still need that 1 HP? It appears not. Try it out, it's weird.

UPDATE : This has since been patched. Benediction is enough to cleanse the debuff.

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3. The SE/DS rotation is your "I need some HP" rotation. Don't expect a lot of incoming heals from this, its more about maintaining. You'll rarely be using this rotation.

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I must be over-thinking this or missing something huge, but what in the world does DS stand for? If it means Dark Side than this makes no sense since Dark Side isn't a part of any combos at all, it being a toggled buff and all that.

Unless OP is simply stating Soul Eater without Dark Arts is not worth it most of the time, which perhaps could have been worded better imo. Anyone else have an idea?