DRK AOE Damage

After some time i've decided to level up my DRK, in HW DRK had awesome AOE damage, perfect for roulettes, but now in SB, i'm feeling so weak when i have to AOE, quietus looks good, but it takes time to fill up the blood gauge. Is there any advice to improve my aoe damage as DRK? it's been very painful to level up him :(

DRK ramps up slowly as you level because TBN is core to the Blood Gauge generation. It's still not as bad though considering that in Grit you get a good amount of mana every Syphon Strike, you are pretty much spamming Abyssal Drain till OOM then cycle combo for mana. Be aware that you want to at least have 60% total mana for every pull at least so that you can smoothly do your aoe.

IMHO DRK is still the no.1 tank for 4man dungeons mainly because your mana is the least of your concern especially if you like doing big pulls, WAR has TP issues whenever big pulling (Overpower is huge TP dump) and PLD has the 'most' problems doing big pulls because you normally run out of CDs more easily than the other 2 (even more severe if your 2 DPS aren't doing huge damage off aoes). DRK just has more tools to survive big pulls (mainly TBN) while providing damage with lots of sustain via DAAD (VS Clemency that doesn't do any damage). A Quietus over 3 sets++ of mobs is basically full mana and you can get more Quietus via TBN while more mana means more HP sustain. And yes, I have tried all the 3 tanks on DREX. In Ala Mhigo for example, after the first boss I usually pull 3 sets of mob, 3rd set has a lot of mobs, sprinting helps while TBN softens the damage to give your healer a buffer time. You pretty much gain unlimited mana on this one so you can just keep sustaining, another example is Temple of the Fist after 1st boss that I usually pull 2 sets of mobs with 2nd being a lot of mobs, haven't done the pulling until the 2 Singhas.

It's going to be painful until you get TBN which is like your fuel for the whole class, before hand it's a bit incomplete until 70 also your gear at lvl 70 has the added strength so you will seem really weak until then

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Originally Posted by SirJefferson

After some time i've decided to level up my DRK, :(

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Simple use abysmal drain , blood price use delirium while blood price is up. Use salted earth on every pull. Drk aoe is stronger than its ever been actually

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

Simple use abysmal drain , blood price use delirium while blood price is up. Use salted earth on every pull. Drk aoe is stronger than its ever been actually

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Clearly not. The bp+bw ad spam was way stronger than now, and allowed us to top highest AOE dps jobs back then.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Clearly not. The bp+bw ad spam was way stronger than now, and allowed us to top highest AOE dps jobs back then.

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Ur joking right delirium plus bp works just fine. I'm not sure what ur doing exactly, I heart no problem spamming drain more than ever. Salted earth gives u plenty of blood for quitius for more drain spam. Before MP was alot bigger issue in hw doesn't even exist now

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

Ur joking right delirium plus bp works just fine. I'm not sure what ur doing exactly, I heart no problem spamming drain more than ever. Salted earth gives u plenty of blood for quitius for more drain spam. Before MP was alot bigger issue in hw doesn't even exist now

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Completely not. First the MP gain on BP has been cut by 4. Then, the necessity to remain in grit is cutting all damage by 20%, plus blood weapon allowed to increase the rate of AD spam by 10. Resulting of 37.5% more damage from AD, and 25% of Salted earth, plus the casual DP to add more into the mix.

Now if you want to use BP you need to remain into grit which basically lowers you damage, and you cannot continuously spam your AD due to MP restrains.

Even on the coblyn pack of temple of the fist, you will start with an uncontrolable gain of blood and MP, with even more lack of control due to TBN being used on cooldown for survival, and end starved like a noodle in plain sun when the mobs drops to 5 or lower, or BP fades out.

At the end of HW, with big pulls, you could wreck more than 6Kdps which was enough to break pretty much every other job due to how little you had to manage and carefully play in this situation. Now even if the AOE DPS of the DRK remains great, it's proportionally weaker.

So, on a semantic way : It is WEAKER now than what it used to be, but it should never have been a thing at the first time, hence the changes.

Thank you for your responses, guys!

DRK freaking sucks for AoE simply due to the fact of how much more complex it's become since HW. Back in HW you turn off grit and spam DA-AD and sustain so much because you did tons of damage.

Now? You better forget about spamming DA-AD more than twice or else you have to wait until your mana refills or wait for TBN/quietus, or god forbid actually have to interrupt aoe for syphon strike spam.
Also, to that comment about WAR having weaker AoE due to TP constraints, do keep in mind steel cyclone/decimate/equilibrium exists. Plus, there's a good chance you'll have a caster/melee comp, meaning you can tell that smelly good-for-nothing dps to at least goad you.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

DRK freaking sucks for AoE simply due to the fact of how much more complex it's become since HW. Back in HW you turn off grit and spam DA-AD and sustain so much because you did tons of damage.

Now? You better forget about spamming DA-AD more than twice or else you have to wait until your mana refills or wait for TBN/quietus, or god forbid actually have to interrupt aoe for syphon strike spam.
Also, to that comment about WAR having weaker AoE due to TP constraints, do keep in mind steel cyclone/decimate/equilibrium exists. Plus, there's a good chance you'll have a caster/melee comp, meaning you can tell that smelly good-for-nothing dps to at least goad you.

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DRK is best on dungeon, you just suck at it. Try sustaining as WAR now on big pulls, I dare you. Goad is fine and all until you keep spamming Overpower and your TP is pretty much very low every time, Overpower doesn't generate any gauge which means that you are already losing Steel Cyclone/Decimate and Equilibrium is not always up. Compare that to DRK where DAAD into Quietus into DAAD and so on, TBN is mainly used to get more Quietus while blocking some damage. DRK can keep AOEing while after WAR has no TP has to do combo to get gauge into Steel Cyclone/Decimate.