Defensive cooldown help

Hello, Ive been gradually leveling my dark knight and have been enjoying it and feel like i have a pretty good grasp on it so far but Im still not certain about proper use of defensive cooldowns, specifically on the trash between bosses and was looking for some advice on proper cooldown usage. Right now im only level 45 so I have shadowskin, dark dance, and dark mind with foresight, convalescence, and bloodbath cross classed. So far Ive been using 1 cooldown per pull with the exception of foresight and convalescence being used together because ive seen people talking about foresight not being strong enough on its own to be considered a defensive cooldown without being pared with something else. Some dungeons I can pop 1 cooldown at a time and do fine and other times i feel like my hp is on a perpetual yoyo even when using 2 cooldowns at a time that makes me question if its me or the healer struggling. Should I keep using cooldowns as I have or is there a more optimal way to use them? Ive also been using cooldowns in a similar way on bosses but should I maybe not use cooldowns at all until I see a big attack coming or use all but 1 for a backup for big hits? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not going to try and tell you the best use since I'm no DRK expert, but when tanking if you want to get the most out of your buffs, one of the most important factors is the CD times of each of your skills. For example, if you're saving a buff with a 90s CD so that you'll have it in >3 minutes, you just halved the amount of time it could have been mitigating damage for you.

Now taking CD times into consideration, simply cycling them from shortest CD time to longest (saving big buffs as needed) you'll be able to maximize the amount of time you spend buffed. As for Foresight, it's not great, but as your healer I'd be more appreciative of consistent buffing, rather than bursts of heavier buffing when it comes to trash because trash is consistent repetitive damage, and so you can make yourself more consistently manageable. Worry less about buffing as mobs start dying off and instead you can focus on reserving them for later, because your incoming damage has now decreased and you're less difficult to keep alive.

Like I said I'm not a DRK expert, you're not a pld and don't have as many CDs to cycle, so you'll want to take more advantage of breaks in damage, such as a WHM using Holy which stuns the mobs, etc. if you're able. And you may want to allow for breaks in between your buffs just to allow for more time spent on skills cooling down.

As for the healers part in this; that feeling of your HP rising and plummeting sometimes and not others is probably because your healer isn't utilizing their shields or Regens. On trash an AST is best off being in Diurnal stance, which allows him to keep up a regen on you, stabilizing your hp a bit and making up the difference with small or large heals as needed, and WHM does the same thing. SCH is a little more complicated and it has a variety of options, but it has a couple shields meaning you take less damage, and also has Eos and themselves healing you in rotation which can feel similar to a regen. There's also the odd thing like the ability to AoE stun--and then some healers DPS and others don't. And lastly if other things are going on, like DPS are taking damage, that takes away from a healer healing you.

Maximizing up-time is important on trash, but on trials and raids it's important to prioritize managing burst damage first and then you can think about popping buffs in between to make the overall experience smoother. Hopefully an experienced DRK will be able to post here with more specifics on how to mitigate AS a DRK, but ultimately the key is understanding healer strain (where the damage is coming from, how much and how consistent)

For the number of DRKs claiming "squishy" DRKs are people not playing the job well, I assumed there'd be an abundance of helpful tips here...
Weird.

Also, this is probably the most useful thread on this page (or would be if it saw use).

I'm still trying to figure out the optimal way to play DRK, but if I had to give a one tip, it would be to make full use of how often you can use DA + Dark Dance. Yeah, the evasion goes against a few DRK skills, but mitigation is mitigation when you have a lot of incoming damage. As for the other cooldowns, throw them on during Dark Dance's down time and/or when there's a big hit coming.

I've played DRK to 50 and I've healed DRKs in low level dungeons so I've got experience on both sides. Maybe someone is going to tell me I did it wrong, but playing DRK I staggered cooldowns and popped them whenever they were up. So I'd open with Shadowskin, then when it went down I'd use Foresight, then when it went down I'd use Convalescence or Bloodbath. Order would depend on what was happening with mobs and my health. I'd be more likely to use Convalescence if I was taking hard hits early in the pull. If not, then Foresight after Shadowskin. But I don't save cooldowns on trash pulls, I use them when they're up. I'll save cooldowns or time them differently for boss fights but again, don't just hang onto them. The heavy hits generally happen at predictable times so it's important to pop them as needed. But don't just hang onto one for the sake of hanging onto it.

Like so many before, I play a different tank (WAR), so can't go too much into specific skills. However, some things should be consistent between tank jobs.

The *when* is maybe the most important part of defensive cooldowns. For example, trash pulls the best time to use a Shadowskin or Foresight (or anything that reduces dmg for a duration) is about when you stop running, start fighting, and your healer may still need another second to get going. On the other hand, a self heal (DRK have those?) is best used to catch up after a big hit - just watch health bar. Bloodbath doesn't count since that's over a duration and puny amount anyways. Maybe pair Bloodbath with some offensive cooldown to increase the effect.


Foresight + Convalesence pairing is a good idea. Keep thinking along those lines.

Defensive cooldown use is something you'll find endlessly interesting I hope. You can have been doing it for years, but still find yourself reconsidering how to do it every time new encounters come out or skills get tweaked.

DRK has self heals in the form of using Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain (AoE damage heal + enmity) and Soul Eater (usually paired with Dark Arts to get a 400 potency attack with 100% damage healed). Which reminds me of another fun mitigation technique. If you're pulling a bunch of mobs, pop Blood Price and you'll have near infinite MP to abuse Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain for 15 seconds. When fighting one enemy, you should be using Dark Arts + Souleater as much as you comfortably can.