DRK question: when to blood weapon?

Been enjoying drk. Its like pld, but with all the tricks that seemed superfluous now a core part of play. But I have some questions about it at level 37.

Right now I've been keeping Darkside and grit up all the time since finding I'm less squishy with them on. This keeps blood weapon disabled. In what situations other than not tanking can taking off grit for blood weapon work? Is there a similar situation for Darkside?

Not sure what you are asking for here. I'm sure you understand dropping Grit and using Blood Weapon is sacrificing defence for offence, it's up to you to determine if it's a good idea to do so based on the mob you're tanking and the ability of your healers. It's utterly dependent on your own circumstances.

As for Darkside keep it up 100% of the time you are engaged. Only drop it if you don't expect to be attacking anything for at least 6 seconds.

There are several times to use Blood Weapon. If you're main tanking, I'll use it if I'm running out of MP and there's 1-2 mobs left for a quick refresh. You can also pop Shadowskin right before dropping grit -- You're putting an active 20% mitigation buff and dropping a passive 20% mitigation buff, so you can use the 20 seconds to Blood Weapon too.

In raid situations, if you're the off-tank you can (and should) use Blood Weapon whenever you're planning on going balls out DPS.

I'd say it depends on how much you trust your healer. As my DRK in brayflox normal, after 2 power slash combos in Grit and Darkside, if my healer is an FC member I'll drop Grit and start juggling my power slash combo with siphon strike and keeping blood weapon on cooldown. If adds pop during the fight I'll turn Grit back on just for those. If it's a pug healer I'll never drop Grit and thus never Blood weapon, just to be on the safe side

Short answer, you pop that when you OT. Since you mentioned that it's like PLD, then you have some sort of mana management going on since Flash needs mana to activate and unlike DRKs, PLDs only have Sheltron and Riot Boade to regain mana. Although from my experience as a level 41 DRK, i sometimes rotate their riot blade counterpart more esp when i have a big threat lead. I just don't want my mana to dip below 50% and then keep that mana regen per hit received constantly on cooldown. That's my exp so far. Need to learn them more. Also, i dont drop grit for my and healer's sake.

It depends on the fight. Whenever there's phases of no-incoming damage & there are adds to attack, you can drop Grit for the extra MP replenishment of Blood Weapon & increased DPS.

The final boss in Neverreap, can almost do that boss entirely without Grit, due to the boss constantly switching to his race car mode. Same with the boss before him - who spends like half the fight doing long cast-time mechanics. Research Facility first boss, when the turrent adds spawn, another phase where dropping Grit for BW is fine because the boss is doing dodge-able AoE.

Pretty much just whenever incoming damage is reduced due to mechanics and burn phases etc you could sub out grit for BW.

And in similar situations - except instead where you have nothing to attack - drop Darkside instead, that way you're not bleeding MP for nothing. (Ifrit race car phase, divebombs, etc)

Not sure if that answers your question specifically - but this is pretty much the priority set I consider for dropping Grit, Darkside, etc

Don't be this guy

It's kind an old topic but here we go. In lvl 35+ dungeons your dark knight have Blood Price and Syphon Strike Combo to recover mp and it's your best friend.

Blood Weapon is useful for Off tank or go in dungeons below lvl 35 and its also good carry some Hi-Ether and Hi-elixir to recover a bit of mp, in case you need.

I never use blood weapon as main tank and never have mp issues on dark knight to keep darkside up and spam unleash. Even when the fight take so long due bad dps and my drk lose the effect of darkside i keep using Syphon Strike Combo and Blood Price if its ready to use, it's enough to recover a great amount of mp and turn on darkside again.

I've seem lots of garbage drk dropping grit to use Blood Weapon, they lose the aggro for dps and healer and things get worse.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShadowLilly

I never use blood weapon as main tank and never have mp issues on dark knight to keep darkside up and spam unleash. Even when the fight take so long due bad dps and my drk lose the effect of darkside i keep using Syphon Strike Combo and Blood Price if its ready to use, it's enough to recover a great amount of mp and turn on darkside again.

I've seem lots of garbage drk dropping grit to use Blood Weapon, they lose the aggro for dps and healer and things get worse.

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Blood Weapon is part of your tool kit for a reason, so you can get a solid aggro lead, drop grit, and use your dark arts abilities to their fullest. When the dps/ healer starts to gain on aggro put grit back on. dropping grit doesn't make you a garbage tank, and no tank should waste their potion cd on mp regen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShadowLilly

I've seem lots of garbage drk dropping grit to use Blood Weapon, they lose the aggro for dps and healer and things get worse.

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Tell that to DRK's maintanking savage without grit and with blood weapon. It is not for OT only and if the drk, healer and the dps can play he will never lose hate. Remember, its not always the tanks fault if he loses hate!

If you end up in a low level dungeon where you can use grit, use it no matter what.