DRK cross class skills

Hi All,

What are the must-have cross class skills for DRK? I'm new to tanking in FF XIV and am trying to get as much info as I can .

Provoke ...... outside of that Foresight and convalescense

just get a Mara to lvl8 and a gladiator to lvl22 and you have everything that worths something

Provoke + convalescence are the must-have. Then you can have either Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke and Foresight. Awareness is very circunstancial, sometimes you'll need it. I'm not sure for now because we have to see what's new with raid content.

You don't have TP to spend on Fracture.
Convalesence, Provoke, Foresight, Blood Bath, Awareness.

I need to get Gladiator to 22. I've got Warrior up to 26 for Mercy Stroke (had that for my DRG before anyway). I was using Fracture on my rotation, but you're right about TP... I keep running out

You need provoke. Then you'll really really want convalescense. Then you want awareness, bloodbath and foresight, but none of those are nearly as important as the first two.

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Originally Posted by Hundred

You don't have TP to spend on Fracture.
Convalesence, Provoke, Foresight, Blood Bath, Awareness.

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i would personally take mercy stroke to awareness, simply because awareness is too situational to deem worthwhile.

Crits happen all the time, there are just fewer fights where the bosses have VERY high crit rates (Shiva Ex). It's still a great cooldown for tankyness, cause if it even prevents 2 crits in its duration, its helped 'evened' your damage for healers.

VS Mercy stroke is something a DRK might use for soloing since with your cd, it might be used once...MAYBE twice in a raid?

Awareness has a chance it could prevent a crit, or a chance it could do absolutely nothing.

Mercy Stroke will always work, 100% of the time, and is especially useful on fights with adds.

There are fights where you'll want Awareness (Shiva EX, T11 Cube) but otherwise it's not that useful. However, these two skills are really at the bottom of the list, so if you do prefer Awareness over Mercy Stroke you're not really changing your effectiveness either way.

Mercy stroke will be useful in a generally meaningless way.
Awarness may be useless in a generally very meaningful way.

Your job is to not die, unless your soloing or dungeoning--pick powers accordingly.

The quicker things die, the less they hit you.

Awareness prevents crits on auto attacks if they even happen at all in the time Awareness is up. So Awareness is a preventative measure used when a crit auto could be life threatening. Normally, bosses crit very little. The only time Awareness really shines in non-crit heavy fights is when you're out of tank stance for a short period and want to keep the auto attacks you're taking from the boss smoothed out, or if you're tanking an add that mainly just auto attacks you for a short time. On the other hand, the quicker that add dies the less time it has to actually crit you.

Both are kinda not that great to begin with, it just really depends on how afraid of crits you are. If crits aren't going to kill you or cost your healer's GCDs they could be spending DPSing, then Mercy Stroke is best. But it's really just splitting hairs, both are fine and both have situations where you'll want one over the other.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hundred

You don't have TP to spend on Fracture.
Convalesence, Provoke, Foresight, Blood Bath, Awareness.

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This guy is correct. These are the best cross-class abilities. I use them myself for my drk and warrior. For my warrior I replace bloodbath with featherfoot. Anymove that gains enmity or increases mitigation should be in your cross-class. So I wouldn't go with fracture or mercy stroke. The awareness will help you avoid more damage than the mercy stroke will heal you. That's if you can even get it off.