Dark Knight's should not use Darkness stance for pulls with 3 or more mobs.....

As per leveling my own Dark Knight, I burn through alot of MP keeping aggro from ranged AOEers and while having a High Damage Melee or Physical DPS in the group. As I have been leveling my 2nd job to 60 which is BLM, I have noticed so many bad Dark Knights in game more focused on acting like they are a DPS role and damage than actually a tank! Darkness is Dark Knights DPS stance while grit is our tank stance.....using it in boss fights is fine since most of the time there are little to no adds.....but during large pulls such as in level 53 dungeon...or the level 60 dungeons....it is so easy for a Dark Knight to lose hate with other geared players which easily wipe a party! Stay in grit stance and remember that Dark Knight is a tank...not dps. Focus on holding aggro and not on what your damage is!

Errr...You can have both Darkside and Grit on at the same time? Beyond that, it's up to the player to actually tank. Toggling Grit for any reason during trash will probably end poorly on the hate scale(Not counting times of Invulnerability)

What? I have dark side and grit on both at the same time I go in and and spam unleash like a mad man and turn on blood price and then I go afk. Problem?

You know, I had a rather scary run-in with someone who asked me

"Why do you use Darkside while in Grit?"


I didn't know what to say to him other than "Dark Arts". Much like I don't know what to say to the OP, so....

Dark Arts..?

Darkside is supposed to be on regardless of whether or not we're MT or OT. Dark Mind, Dark Dance, Dark Arts and the other moves that start with the word Dark can't be used if Darkside is off. I've never had a reason to turn Darkside off, if you're using syphon strike, blood price, carve and spit, and sole survivor as needed then you shouldn't need to turn it off either.

Testing is saying Drks have the highest Enmity Modifier of all tank stances.
Get better at holding aggro? You can run Darkside & Grit at the same bloody time and you should be dropping Salted Earth on them as well which only helps you with Enmity.

Solm Ai is nothing wtf.

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This is a troll thread right?

Been running dungeon since 51 to almost 59 (1 more vault run), full time darkside+grit w/o any mp and enmity problem and pulling non-stop w/o waiting for MP. The only time I'll have problem is when whm holy while I was using blood price.

I wouldn't say it's a troll thread since he does have a point about there being quite a few DK's not used to rolling a tank. I too run DS with grit and don't have any issues with holding hate. I'm only 55 atm, and I do turn off DS at times to conserve MP (I also momentarily turn off DS when I pop blood price just to get mp to fill back up quicker) but I'm a tank by trade so I'm used to having to adjust should the need arise. There's still a lot of new Dark Knights that don't assign enough keys to their keyboard so they're having to point and click their abilities which slows down their reactions and movements considerably. The new breed of tanks will get better with time. It just takes practice, like with all things.

On a side note, if there's only one or two enemies left I WILL turn off Grit and pop blood weapon to refill MP and burn the last remaining enemies quicker. I'll do it on bosses too, but I'll time it after I'm hit with the big attacks so I don't run the risk of being put down too low on my HP bar and I'll swap back to grit around the time that either another big attack is coming or Blood Weapon runs out. No need to take big risk if there's no real gain.

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

Errr...You can have both Darkside and Grit on at the same time? Beyond that, it's up to the player to actually tank. Toggling Grit for any reason during trash will probably end poorly on the hate scale(Not counting times of Invulnerability)

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And the fact grit cost MP to be turned back on.

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Originally Posted by Aedra

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This is a troll thread right?

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I don't think so because I had such a DK without Darkside (and ofc without using Dark Arts) and mostly using the enmity rotation. I was told to "stfu" when I asked him why and that this is "his way to play".
DKs without Darkside active should be kicked right away. They deal 15-25% less damage (due to Dark Arts and the 15% buff from Darkside) and don't have the massive selfheal and defensiv provided from it. And that with level 60. Such a DK is just a loss for the group. Gets much more damage and deals way lesser damage than he should. Who didn't learn BASIC class mechanics in 30 levels probably should play another class instead of being a burden for every group he joins.
Why doesn't some people learn that there is NO benefit from NOT using Darkside? And btw. DK can use his Syphon Strike Combo most of the time because the overall enmity is so good. Deals a bit more damage, restores MP and you can use Dark Arts more often. Using Dark Arts more often gives you massive self heals and damage and defensive abilitys.

I do speedruns in Level 60 dungeons without the usage of any defensive cooldowns. Having Darkside active is mandatory since it grants access to your dark abilities which are crucial for big pulls ♡

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Originally Posted by Zhane

I do speedruns in Level 60 dungeons without the usage of any defensive cooldowns. Having Darkside active is mandatory since it grants access to your dark abilities which are crucial for big pulls ♡

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You should probably be using defensive CDs, even if you're staying alive it likely means the healer isn't DPSing because you're spiking too hard.

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Originally Posted by Madruck

snip

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Yea, you have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry, pal. I tank on my DRK with 100% uptime on Darkside and I have no issues keeping hate or managing MP. And, my mitigation is just fine. Thanks, though.

You do realize you actually LOSE mitigation and self-healing with Darkside off, right?

Isn't there an issue with Regen eating up MP with certain DRK abilities? I know MP management got better with our DRK tank when healers stopped putting Regen on him. He was starving for MP before we did the switch (after reading it in the forums) and now there's no problems at all, healer has to pay more attention though lol.

I didn't read anything about it in the hotfix patches from last night - not sure if working as intended.

You do know you need dark side on for dark dance and other stuff
Right.

Dark side should be on majority of the time the only time you should switch it off is if your mp is low. I still feel SE should take off the mp cost on grit though.

As a DRK there's never a time to turn off Darkside.

Ever.

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Originally Posted by Madruck

Focus on holding aggro and not on what your damage is!

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Darkside boosts damage by 15% and can be used with Grit.
So, pop Grit, pop Darkside, run into mobs with Unleash, pop Blood Price and spam Unleash for higher enmity due to the boosted damage without caring for your MP pool.

tl;dr: Bad advice.

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Originally Posted by Madruck

As per leveling my own Dark Knight, I burn through alot of MP keeping aggro from ranged AOEers and while having a High Damage Melee or Physical DPS in the group. As I have been leveling my 2nd job to 60 which is BLM, I have noticed so many bad Dark Knights in game more focused on acting like they are a DPS role and damage than actually a tank! Darkness is Dark Knights DPS stance while grit is our tank stance.....using it in boss fights is fine since most of the time there are little to no adds.....but during large pulls such as in level 53 dungeon...or the level 60 dungeons....it is so easy for a Dark Knight to lose hate with other geared players which easily wipe a party! Stay in grit stance and remember that Dark Knight is a tank...not dps. Focus on holding aggro and not on what your damage is!

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please never tank for me or my family

Why on earth wouldn't we have Darkside on? When you get Blood Price, suddenly MP conservation becomes child's play. And in Darkside we get access to some important cooldowns, like increased parry and increased magic resist. Not to mention the applications that Dark Arts bring to the table. No, no. Grit is the stance a DRK shouldn't really drop, unless there are specific phases in the fight, such as Bismarck, when you DPS his back. At the end of the day, though, it's up to the individual to take the risk.

Maybe the OP didn't mean Darkside, but meant Blood Weapon? I know there's some DRK players who will drop out of Grit in order to use Blood Weapon. Generally not a good idea due to the high cost of turning Grit back on after you use Blood Weapon.

However, I'm only giving the OP the benefit of the doubt here... it does honestly sound like either trolling or complete lack of paying any attention to the job.

Turning off Grit to activate Blood Weapon is needed sometimes. In combination with the 20% damage reduction cooldown ofc. Some bosses will not hit you often, so Blood Price will not procc that much. But this moments aren't that often.

And btw trolling or not I already got such a DK in a dungeon as tank and he didn't seem like he was trolling also, he seems to have no idea how to play his class (a bit late with 59).