The small things

So I'm looking for a bit of...let's say advice? Info from other players? Yeaaaah...anyway I main drk, I'm not bad at the class but I of course am looking to improve dps for my raid group and overall self. My current dps in a9s fluctuates around 1100-1150 w/ grit on, 10s 1150-1200. Of course this all depends on if there are deaths in my group or not, whether I have to pop grit back on. But a couple of questions...

Is waiting a gcd for plunge or scourge to be used with blood weapon worth it?
Example of blood weapon has about 5-10 seconds left, but scourge is about to fall off is it worth it to wait? Same goes for plunge and even salted? From my understanding BW does affect them both.

My group comp by the way is war/drk/whm/sch/brd/mnk/nin/smn

So far from experience, you should use Plunge whenever it is on CD except for when Faust spawns where you can cheese Scrapline and do some damage on it rather than stay on boss and do shit damage. Scourge should be used whenever you need to reapply it again. I haven't seen/felt much difference if any, so you should just use dots whenever you need to. The big thing is all OGCDs except for DP (edit: dots dont count) can net mana return when used with Blood Weapon, so you do want to get into that.

I did 1370dps with 91% grit uptime in A9S without AST comp for 4:14 duration btw, about 3 weeks ago date 27 October. Your bulk damage comes from DASE so you want to look into getting more mana. Once you get into Gritless tanking, you want to be able to spam more DASE and IMO it's easier for mana because you do get BW to facilitate that. Did 1.8k with ~10% Grit uptime and AST, gonna try to push for more these few weeks as well.

Do Salted Earth ticks really give you BW mana ticks? I imagine the initial potency on Scourge would give you a return, but it never really felt like I was getting mana ticks from DoT damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Do Salted Earth ticks really give you BW mana ticks? I imagine the initial potency on Scourge would give you a return, but it never really felt like I was getting mana ticks from DoT damage.

---

Dots not included ofc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KorenA

Is waiting a gcd for plunge or scourge to be used with blood weapon worth it?
Example of blood weapon has about 5-10 seconds left, but scourge is about to fall off is it worth it to wait? Same goes for plunge and even salted? From my understanding BW does affect them both.

---

If I remember correctly, Blood Weapon gives you 238 MP every time that you "cast" a physical auto or ability (DoT ticks not included). You need 1768 MP in order to generate one additional DA usage (I'll double check the numbers and edit this if need be when I get back in game, but I think these are correct), so you need 7-8 physical "casts" to generate one DA, which in turn usually translates into an additional 120 potency (DASE vs. Delirium). I think the reason why you may be interpreting DoT ticks (i.e. Scourge/Salted) as generating MP is because your autos proc MP regen (you'll see an unlabelled +238 MP in floating text, while the other abilities will have the skill name next to it). So it may give the illusion that a DoT tick is generating the MP. Test it out by using Salted or Scourge with BW up and stand outside of auto range: I'm fairly certain that you won't see any MP procs.

It doesn't matter if you apply Scourge during BW or not, as it's a GCD ability and only the initial attack gives you MP. Dropping Scourge for one tick is a 40 potency loss, so you shouldn't do this. In fact, you should probably not let Scourge drop off at any point unless you're expecting the mob to become untargetable or die within the next 15 seconds. You'd have to clip Scourge fairly liberally to generate a loss in excess of 40 potency.

As a physical oGCD, Plunge will give you additional MP if you use it within BW. Is it worth it to hold on to it? Depends on whether it costs you a usage of Plunge, really. If you kept holding Plunge by 5 seconds, you would need to do this 7-8 times to gain 120 potency. But Plunge has a 30 second recast and doing this 6 times would cost you one usage of Plunge, or 200 potency. I wouldn't worry about trying to do this, as it seems like you have a much higher chance of incurring a loss by holding oGCDs for BW. Also, Plunge is essential as a melee uptime tool in A10S, so many of your Plunge uses in that fight are tightly locked.

I think the most important thing about BW is that you get all of your hits in and you try to have continuous melee uptime when it's active.

Have anyone of you guys tested if clipping scourag early is a dps lost vs letting it fall and reapply the next gcd u can apply it again?

If you're mid combo and Scourge drops, last I checked, it's a dps loss to abort a combo early. AFAIK.

"Scourge is your most important GCD ability, and maximising its uptime is essential. If you refresh it too late, you lose DoT ticks at 40 potency each"

Scourge is reapplied like clockwork every 4 combos. It shouldn't need reapplying sooner or later than that, iirc.

The only time I reapply Scourge early is if a mechanic causes me to need to run away from the mob, or the mob is about to become un-targetable or is far away for me to hit (Alexander Prime, for example, when he is about to freeze time). I will hit Scourge during the time even if it still has 20 ticks left.