"Dark Knight: Tanking On The Edge"

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

I used to play healer, now I wanna play DRK?

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Healing is the role that I have the least experience on. I believe the most accomplished thing I've done on a healer is solo-heal Titan HM on SCH in 2.2 lol. Even now I don't have one at 60, with closest being my SCH(read: SMN) at 54.

I took the liberty of checking your lodestone and seeing that DRK is the first tank you are leveling, or at least the one you have the highest.

My biggest recommendation to you is to level GLA/MRD at least to level 34/26 respectively to get all of your cross-class abilities and also get a feel for tanking on the two less punishing tanks. DRK is definitely more advanced in more ways than one.

As for experience brought from healing over to DRK, its not too dissimilar from that which would help you level any tank: "Did you hate seeing tanks do it on your healer? Then don't do it."

Additionally, I see SCH is your 60, I dunno if you toyed around with SMN at all, but it has a similar skill cap and some familiar aspects to it (priority system to the rotation, placed AoE, etc.)

But the TLDR of it is I would get your crash course in tanking by leveling GLA/MRD a bit first, as you'll want to do that anyway eventually. Doesn't have to be all the way to 60, but definitely to 34/26 respectively, to make sure you can handle tanking efficiently before you start messing with all the bells and whistles of DRK.

Best of luck!

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

As mentioned in the guide, I never recommend turning Grit off for trash in 4-man content. Just keep it on, pull more, and invest your DPS into AoE rather than Grit downtime/BW uptime. If you are the OT in 8-man content that is particularly trash-heavy, like A2N, rotate AoE bursts with BW and BP (depending on how much your MT is tanking/if you are tanking anything at all). Turning it off against 4+ mobs is inefficient as you're taking disproportionately increased damage with respect to the single-target DPS increase, whereas you could probably match yourself out of Grit in total AoE DPS by just keeping Grit on and AoEing larger packs. DRK's entire toolkit really lends itself to big pulls in 4-man content so I strongly recommend seizing the opportunity to push yourself to pull more to tap into the jobs potential (Getting thousands of MP back every couple of seconds, spamming AoE, being healed for it, and then when BP falls, blinding a pack of 10 mobs with a 250 potency AoE and then boosting your evasion with DADD. Its pretty godmode once you get a feel for the flow of it).

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Coolbeans.

Most of my problems come from the community:

- "Yo DRK, turn off GRIT for more damage!"
- "If you can't hold aggro with Grit off you need to git gud."

This lead to me getting the load screen (getting kicked from the group) because I chose to keep Grit up. Since that happened a lot (even as PLD I get booted due to Shield Oath), I'm TRYING to mix things up a bit. Sadly, this is why DF takes so long for tanks now, probably, because many of use just rather go/stay DPS.

I'll be the first to say that enmity generation with or without Grit is obscenely easy on DRK. But everyone starts somewhere and 6 months ago I was keeping Grit on plenty. But having it off, baring any adjustments we may see in 3.2 (honestly the whole vit/str ratio to AP is making it sound like it'll be even easier to forgo tank stance due to increased HP pools, unless they ramp up the mitigation checks in A5-9S considerably) is the final evolution so to speak, of being good at DRK. Its not something you can just do, it takes practice and a flawless knowledge of the rest of your tools and how to actively and constantly mitigate damage in Grit's absence while outputting maximum enmity with your spells.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I really haven't played SMN at all. I really want to give the rotation the time it deserves instead of just jumping in and being a fail DPS and I haven't really made time for that. I'm leveling the tank because I've had a bunch of IRL friends join recently: help with low-level stuff + them always needing a tank = I'm leveling a tank now. :)

I am really enjoying tanking and DRK in particular. I do have to stay in grit a lot right now, but if I do I don't have any issues with enmity. I can use provoke effectively. All this to say that I'm prolly not the best at tanking, and I could use some more practice, but I would say that I am proficient in the necessities of the role (relative to my level, of course).

I have GLD 23 + MRD 26, and I did that before I touched DRK; it was the last one I picked up. I still need awareness. At what point would you say that it's critical I go back for it?

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

"Did you hate seeing tanks do it on your healer? Then don't do it."

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Truer words have never been spoken.

Thank you!

ETA: Also, with the new changes coming in 3.2, you might want to mention under the Job Synergy section how much living dead is gonna suck for SCH. I'm still not sure how I'm going to deal with it. Sorry in advance if I kill you. :)

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Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

snip...

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Having all 3 tanks at 60, I would recommend that you get awareness right around the time you are starting to enter the "Qarn" part of the dungeon grind. It isn't that this dungeon needs this skill in particular, but I have always grouped dungeons in difficulty as Pre- Brayflox, Brayflox to Cutter's Cry, Stone Vigil to Aurum Vale. The more tanking experience you have up to this point, the stronger your foundation will be.

Of course, If you are very confident in your abilities presently, I can't think of a very needed use on awareness until 50.

I'm guessing that Living Dead will have some sort of adjustment - otherwise you may wanna clench up....

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

This lead to me getting the load screen (getting kicked from the group) because I chose to keep Grit up. Since that happened a lot (even as PLD I get booted due to Shield Oath), I'm TRYING to mix things up a bit. Sadly, this is why DF takes so long for tanks now, probably, because many of use just rather go/stay DPS.

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Who kicks a tank in the middle of a 4 man run? If true, those are some dumb randoms.

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

Who kicks a tank in the middle of a 4 man run? If true, those are some dumb randoms.

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I've never encountered or heard of in-game, anyone getting kicked from a DF run simply for having their tank stance on. Unless it was 8-24 man and they were the OT.

No Darkside, that might be another issue, but easily fixed without kicking.

I think people that choose to main DRK should really explore the AoE tanking possibilities and expand outside of their comfort zone when it comes to pulling bigger in 4-mans. The job is built for it in so many ways (AoE Blind and Evasion boost, high damage AoEs in general, MP per target hitting you and HP per target you hit). I think people do have this expectation of DRKs in the duty finder. I feel that as far as aggressive DRK tanking goes, you should be pulling enough that nobody else in your group wants to risk you dropping Grit.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

I think people that choose to main DRK should really explore the AoE tanking possibilities and expand outside of their comfort zone when it comes to pulling bigger in 4-mans. The job is built for it in so many ways (AoE Blind and Evasion boost, high damage AoEs in general, MP per target hitting you and HP per target you hit). I think people do have this expectation of DRKs in the duty finder. I feel that as far as aggressive DRK tanking goes, you should be pulling enough that nobody else in your group wants to risk you dropping Grit.

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You must be getting really good healers a lot or are running with one, cause I can't even drop Grit even on boss fights with the majority of the DF roulettes i run because of under-skilled and under-geared healers. It actually makes me super cautious and I just can't pull big in anything I'm doing which frustrates me to no end cause I know I can pull more. To top it off, I also get crap DPS who decide that single targeting in a mob of 10 is a super great idea and it takes longer pulling bigger packs than the normal 3-4.

I generally grab about 5-6 mobs at the start of the dungeon and use that to gauge the rest of it. Healer keeps me healthy while dropping dots or Gravity or Holy, fantastic. I pull all the way and rotate everything I have. I dip a little bit too low too often, or the DPS are slow, I stick to 5-6 mobs. It's only when I outright melt that I resign myself to single pulls.

Don't be afraid to make things interesting for your healer. That having been said, you had better be hitting at least two minor mitigators or one major mitigator per pull.

Not to blow my horn, but I receive many comms in 4 man content and rarely drop grit, the only time i do is on the boss fights after my aggro rotation (if i have high aggro pulling dps) its as someones said previously aggro generation is super easy, Especially with grit, as well as having grit allows you to pull more than usually and abuse the hell out of Blood Price + Dark Arts Abyssal Drain, The mitigation that grit brings and hp recovery of the combo itself is so much better than droping Grit for the sake of a blood weapon, not to mention your healer will more times than not not have to worry about healing you for a good 15 - 20 seconds. so even they can dps. and you can still drop grit for blood weapon once the majority of the mobs are dead if you so wish to get your mp back up for the next pull, (which personally i don't bother unless my carve and split or Sole survivor is on CD)


Only time i would say its fine to run the whole thing without grit and i can kinda understand would be if you are only pulling single trash mobs at a time. (which as a Drk doesn't compliment your Aoe rotations very well) but your going to be doing that when you have dps that either refuse to Aoe or simply don't have any decent Aoe on their class. I've only had a few cases where ive had to do this but its always been to players not understanding their classes very well. which is fine because i really don't want to be in a daily roulette for an hour and a half XD

If a party is getting mad at that they simply are either stupid or just plain lazy and expecting a tank to do unrealistic damage to make up for that. XD