[DRK] Wanna know why Unleashed & Abyssal Drain are both needed?

Because while Abyssal Drain deal slightly more damages for a slightly higher mana cost...

...Unleashed:
- Doesn't consume your Dark Arts buff (that you'll most likely use for a Carve and Spit)
- Doesn't break your combos, and this is your only GCD having this property.

I've been wondering why people never mentioned that in any of these QQ-DRK-threads so I thought you guys just didn't know.
This is extremely helpful in A2S, where DRK is -spoiler alert- (once again since A1S) the best tank.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

This is extremely helpful in A2S, where DRK is -spoiler alert- (once again since A1S) the best tank.

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How do you figure that?

Depends on what you're looking for, but DRK offers some of the highest DPS a tank can achieve in A2S due to their abundance of AoE abilities. PLD is a much safer choice for Waves 7, 8, & 9 if your group prefers to alleviate pressure on healers.

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Originally Posted by Disc

Depends on what you're looking for, but DRK offers some of the highest DPS a tank can achieve in A2S due to their abundance of AoE abilities. PLD is a much safer choice for Waves 7, 8, & 9 if your group prefers to alleviate pressure on healers.

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Warriors do more AOE damage than Drk's, at no cost.

You try to capitalize on your AOE damage as a Drk and you'll have no MP left for the next pull and wont be able to control AOE enmity anymore. Thats sort of.. worse than doing mediocre at best AOE damage.

Much prefer having PLD over DRK for AS2(Assuming your OT is WAR anyway, normally is). For the mentioned already, just to help alleviate some pressure for the healers. But it more comes into play on Wave 9. PLD can HG at a certain point and I'd not have to worry about healing them and focus the Co-Tank versus 1 LD where it will more than likely cost me a Benediction after getting the most out of its function. Then there's just Paladin's overall mitigation.

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Originally Posted by Ditto

Warriors do more AOE damage than Drk's, at no cost.

You try to capitalize on your AOE damage as a Drk and you'll have no MP left for the next pull and wont be able to control AOE enmity anymore. Thats sort of.. worse than doing mediocre at best AOE damage.

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Could you... learn to play before spouting such nonsense?

I'm really getting tired of all this bullshitting from DRKs that can't even manage their MP/TP.

DRK isn't even that hard to play.

And yeah, 1020 DPS as a DRK in A2S for my very first down, having done a lot of mistakes due to pressure and yolo'd last wave. I've yet to see a WAR doing more than this, while I could've gone for 1050 (without any DRG or NIN in party) if not more.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

And yeah, 1020 DPS as a DRK in A2S for my very first down, having done a lot of mistakes due to pressure and yolo'd last wave. I've yet to see a WAR doing more than this, while I could've gone for 1050 (without any DRG or NIN in party) if not more.

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Congratulations, you used an ilv 200 weapon to pull 30 DPS lower than the WAR in my previous FC who used an ilv 190 weapon: Video here. I skipped to the end of the fight so you can see the parse.

It's a first kill video and neither of the WARs was "trying" to max DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Because while Abyssal Drain deal slightly more damages for a slightly higher mana cost...

...Unleashed:
- Doesn't consume your Dark Arts buff (that you'll most likely use for a Carve and Spit)
- Doesn't break your combos, and this is your only GCD having this property.

I've been wondering why people never mentioned that in any of these QQ-DRK-threads so I thought you guys just didn't know.
This is extremely helpful in A2S, where DRK is -spoiler alert- (once again since A1S) the best tank.

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DRK is the worst tank in A2S since almost all of their abilities that you would use while regularly AoE tanking are rendered useless. I am not sure where you're getting that but yeah you're wrong. I'd honestly much rather be a WAR or a PLD in A2S than DRK, which incidentally is why I am leveling WAR atm and why none of the top progression groups use DRK in A2S. The reason why it is used so often in A1S is due to the magical tank buster that DRK can effortlessly mitigate with DA Dark Mind + Shadowskin stacked with Delirium 100% of the time, guaranteed. You could apply the same logic to any of the other Dark Arts skills and claim that they need an equivalent in order to not consume the Dark Arts buff (which is stupid because you should plan around Abyssal Drain, knowing that it consumes Dark Arts. Both skills literally fulfill the same job and only one of them is needed. Saying that one consumes DA and the other doesn't is a flawed argument because there are 6 other Dark Arts skills that don't match that logic at all. That's like saying we should have another version of Powerslash in case I don't want to use Dark Arts on it (which believe me I don't want to, therefore I don't use it).

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

Congratulations, you used an ilv 200 weapon to pull 30 DPS lower than the WAR in my previous FC who used an ilv 190 weapon: Video here. I skipped to the end of the fight so you can see the parse.

It's a first kill video and neither of the WARs was "trying" to max DPS.

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Please. You don't pull out 1000+ DPS as a tank without trying to max out your DPS. He simply failed at maxing his DPS since it's a "first kill", which is my case and that's why I claim that I could've done more (even more than 1050 now that I think about it, 7% crit is really bad luck), but well, considering how low your healers' DPS is, I don't think it's worth it to push tank's DPS too far. Tank DPS is nice but if you're just pushing your DPS by sacrifying twice more DPS from healers, it's not worth it at all. My healers are just casual players without any 2.0 raid experience, yet 327 DPS from them against 240 from your healers. I think you got my point.
(I've seen healers doing more than 450 DPS with a WAR doing 1000 DPS, so... do the maths)


@LordHousewife,
Most servers first teams and even the world first party were using a PLD/WAR setup in A1S. But, PLD is extremely bad in A1S, while DRK is amazing. So, why were they using this setup? It's simple: they were too busy competiting for world/server first instead of trying to figure out whether or not new jobs are balanced enough to be played in savage. (*cough* AST *cough*)
They didn't bring DRK in A2S for this exact same reason. And also because PLD/WAR is perfectly fine in A2S. Not to mention that A2S isn't harder than A1S.
But as you might've been aware of, A3S is harder than A1S/A2S, therefore the world had time to investigate those new jobs, and guess what? World 1st & 2nd A3S teams both used a DRK/WAR setup (and one of them even used a MCH! *cough* still no AST *cough*)
So please, don't bring me this kind of argument. People just didn't know how to play DRK until now, and, hmm, well, most of them still don't know.

I've highlighted in red why Unleashed is good. Not consuming a DA is a thing, but my main point was that it doesn't break any combos, which allowed me to continue my combos from the last cleared wave on another mob of the next wave, thx to Unleashed, which is pretty much the same for WAR and their Steel Cyclone.
This, plus the fact of having a self-targeted Enmity AoE AND a ranged-targeted Enmity AoE being really helpful in A2S, led me to create this thread, because I couldn't have done things that easily if I had only one of those skills, so I believe they're both needed.

Also, it is very rare but WARs sometimes have to use Flash, just as rare as DRK sometimes have to use Unleashed, but since Unleashed is simply much better than Flash, DRK don't have to bother picking Flash in their cross-class skills, so why would you want to remove it? If you have a decent tanking experience, you should be aware of the fact that a ranged-targeted AoE isn't enough, neither is a self-targeted AoE. So what's so wrong with having a GOOD self-targeted AoE? Shall we remove WAR's Steel Cyclone?

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Snip.

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I'm not arguing over petty things though. The Pizwah wasn't paying attention to his DPS and he still managed to outDPS you, with a lower ilv weapon no less, when you were bragging about DRK being better than WAR... . That was what I was trying to point out.

Also you claim people still don't know how to play DRK, but DRK is really simple, it's a reskinned PLD with the same CD structure as PLD (1 CD with 90s and 1 with 180s and 1 uber long bad-version-of-I-won't-die CD + other CDs to cover gaps). DRK micromanagement of MP and oGCDs are mainly DPS things that don't contribute much for defense and there is no micromanagement mitigation (Like WAR's wrath and IB for example). Please let's stop pretending any of the tanks is "too hard" to play and people can't learn to play them. Hell it took me 30 minutes to read through DRK skills and understand that it's a PLD in a dark spiky suit playing pretend-WAR.

DRK is the worst tank in A2S because, out of the three tanks, it has the worst mitigation options while not bringing that much in terms of DPS compared to WAR (who has far superior mitigation options in this fight). PLD is king in that fight because of how well it mitigates damage in there and its ability to use HG on the toughest waves.

Now on topic, Unleash is useful, Abyssal Drain is only a DPS increase if MP is not an issue (and in A2S it is). But there is almost no point in having both.

Yes, every tank class has 2 AoE skills that generated ~600 potency enmity. PLD with Flash (600 potency) and CoS (250 x3), WAR with Overpower (120 x5) and SC (200 x3.5), and DRK with Abyssal Drain (120 x5) and Unleash (100 x6). If you look at each class you see that their 2 skills work differently. PLD has a no damage MP PBAoE and a DoT PBAoE on a CD. WAR has a cone AoE that costs TP and a PBAoE that costs Infuriated. But AD and Unleash just don't function very differently from one another and that's why they feel redundant. Both use the same resource, both generate exactly the same enmity. One of them having an added effect at the cost of triple the MP (DA+AD is almost triple the MP of 1 AD) just doesn't cut it.

IMO, remove Unleash, give Abyssal Drain the ability to not break combos and add enmity to Salted Earth and give DRK 1 more CD or something in place of Unleash. Or make Abyssal Drain ALWAYS "Drain" 50% or even 25% of its damage and have DA up that to 100%.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

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I wasn't paying attention to my DPS either, that's just how it turned out to be while I was trying to do what I had to do for my team. I'm just saying that if I had paid more attention to enmity and incoming damages, to my DoT, without doing any mistakes, I could've done a lot more. Your WAR/WAR setup was so squishy that your healers had no choice but to go full heal thus having an almost non-existent DPS, resulting in an overall DPS lower than a PLD/DRK setup, numbers show it quite well. So yeah, don't bring your e-penis here if you don't have anything to back it up, just face facts.

Also I said on this very thread in my earlier post "DRK isn't even that hard to play" so why are you saying that I said the opposite?


Anyway, basically you're saying: DRK = A Dark Copy/Pasted PLD Wannabe-WAR.
Uh-uh. Well... Why even bother? You must be right.

Btw Abyssal Drain with always 25% drain would be absolutely OP. DRK lack self-healing abilities, yes, but a GCD-Free-Enmity-AoE-Damaging-Heal? 10/10 Square Enix needs you.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Snip.

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How am "I" stroking my e-peen by linking a video I'm not even in?

You said DRK does more DPS than WAR, I linked a video of a suboptimal setup with a WAR doing more DPS than your DRK with a worse weapon. That's all. I wasn't comparing group DPS. Had the group had a PLD MT, the healers would've done far more DPS, I agree. I'm not arguing that however.

You didn't say DRK is hard to play literally, but you said "People don't know how to play DRK". Hence, my whole thing about DRK being not hard.

I still think DRK is a reskinned PLD wannabe-WAR, yes. It is my opinion of the class I mained until this week.

Abyssal Drain giving a 25% heal is no more OP than WAR getting healed 25% with Overpower (same potency with stronger buffs from Maim) and Steel Cyclone (twice as strong as Overpower). AD already still costs a high amounts of mana and breaks combos.

1020 DPS? I smell a merged parse.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Btw Abyssal Drain with always 25% drain would be absolutely OP. DRK lack self-healing abilities, yes, but a GCD-Free-Enmity-AoE-Damaging-Heal? 10/10 Square Enix needs you.

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I am going to be blunt and say you have no idea what you are talking about at all. At a 25% drain rate, for this to hit as hard as a standard Non-DA Souleater, this would have to hit 9 enemies.

Is the skill broken? No.

Would it be better with this change? Yes.

Is it still trash? Yes.

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Originally Posted by Ditto

Warriors do more AOE damage than Drk's, at no cost.

You try to capitalize on your AOE damage as a Drk and you'll have no MP left for the next pull and wont be able to control AOE enmity anymore. Thats sort of.. worse than doing mediocre at best AOE damage.

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Salted Earth alone is a massive DPS boost for DRK at no additional cost. Unleash/Abyssal drain will be spammed often just for hate, and see extra AoE damage put out for DRK just because that's part of what it does. If you attempt to approach A2S as a single target fight you're going to have terrible hate, MP issues from lack of Blood Price returns, and terrible damage.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

Congratulations, you used an ilv 200 weapon to pull 30 DPS lower than the WAR in my previous FC who used an ilv 190 weapon: Video here. I skipped to the end of the fight so you can see the parse.

It's a first kill video and neither of the WARs was "trying" to max DPS.

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Looks like 23DPS lower to me, and over 350DPS higher than the second WAR. You’re right though. DRK is garbage only pulling 97.7% of the DPS an OT WAR pulled in an entire encounter.

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Originally Posted by LordHousewife

The reason why it is used so often in A1S is due to the magical tank buster that DRK can effortlessly mitigate with DA Dark Mind + Shadowskin stacked with Delirium 100% of the time, guaranteed.

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That's a terrible reason to use it considering it's the weakest actual mitigation combo of all 3 tanks. The benefit of DRK over PLD is mainly in phase 1, before you see the tankbuster.

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Originally Posted by LordHousewife

1020 DPS? I smell a merged parse.


I am going to be blunt and say you have no idea what you are talking about at all. At a 25% drain rate, for this to hit as hard as a standard Non-DA Souleater, this would have to hit 9 enemies.

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Souleater is the closer on a three part combo. Hitting nine would allow you heal just as much in a single GCD, or three times as much in three GCDs. That would be a very significant heal without DA requirements.

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Originally Posted by Disc

Souleater is the closer on a three part combo. Hitting nine would allow you heal just as much in a single GCD, or three times as much in three GCDs. That would be a very significant heal without DA requirements.

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Yeah if you have 9 enemies it's really efficient. If you hit 3 in 3 GCDs you just spent more mana than you would have on DA Souleater and healed for less overall. I don't see the problem with it either because it's not significant enough to be considered broken.

tank preference is always subjective to your group's play style. my particular static plays better with a pld mt and interchangeable ot.

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Originally Posted by Nomad-phx

tank preference is always subjective to your group's play style. my particular static plays better with a pld mt and interchangeable ot.

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Real talk. Better is an opinion. People act like their personal opinions are fact and situational contexts exit in vacuums and are correct 100% of the time. The player > the job.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

snip.

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I'll give you two scenarios:

Three mobs spawn together. But you are currently tanking some enemies already Do you:

a. Unmend one by one to get aggro.
b. Run up to them and use unleash a few times
c. Use Abyssal Drain.

If you chose c. Congratulations you just learned how to use your abilities as DRK. If you keep pigeon-holing skills into just one-use scenario uses then you will never realize the full potential of the tools that you have at your disposal. A skill can always be used in most situations you just have to be creative with it.

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Originally Posted by LordHousewife

Yeah if you have 9 enemies it's really efficient. If you hit 3 in 3 GCDs you just spent more mana than you would have on DA Souleater and healed for less overall. I don't see the problem with it either because it's not significant enough to be considered broken.

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If you used three Abyssal Drains in a row on three enemies you also did an average of 360 potency per GCD, a net gain of something like 280 potency for a total expense of 1148 more mp than you would lose with DA+Souleater. The MP cost of each GCD would be completely negated by a single round of Blood Price from those three mobs. That's basically a worst case scenario, the strength increases exponentially with each mob added to the pack. On a group pull you could go from 1000-full MP while doing significant AoE damage and basically giving yourself a free Cure every GCD.

It's not a big deal because this sort of thing would never happen, but developers do have to consider these scenarios to maintain balance. Why would I ever bring a WAR or PLD to a dungeon if DRK is invincible while doing high AoE damage? Dark Arts is our limiter.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Because while Abyssal Drain deal slightly more damages for a slightly higher mana cost...

...Unleashed:
- Doesn't consume your Dark Arts buff (that you'll most likely use for a Carve and Spit)
- Doesn't break your combos, and this is your only GCD having this property.

I've been wondering why people never mentioned that in any of these QQ-DRK-threads so I thought you guys just didn't know.
This is extremely helpful in A2S, where DRK is -spoiler alert- (once again since A1S) the best tank.

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It comes down to most people not believing this to be enough to differentiate between the two skills. There are differences, but they're too subtle to feel like the choice is adding much to the gameplay.

Would have been better if they just merged the benefits into a single skill, or to have done more to differentiate the two abilities.

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Originally Posted by Disc

Looks like 23DPS lower to me, and over 350DPS higher than the second WAR. You’re right though. DRK is garbage only pulling 97.7% of the DPS an OT WAR pulled in an entire encounter.

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Eh? Why does my point fly over everyone's head or the comparison is taken out of context?

Kleys claimed, and in absolute terms no less, that DRK is the best tank in A2S because it beats WAR in DPS giving an actual DPS number. I wanted to point out that it is a baseless claim by linking a video of a WAR, with a weaker weapon, doing more DPS. Even if it is 2, not 23, not 40, DPS more, it's with a weaker weapon.

So if DRK isn't doing "more" DPS than WAR, and its physical damage mitigation is far worse, in a heavy physical damage fight no less, how is it the best tank? Hence, my point. Numbers can be found in my other posts.

Let's not turn this into "my shlong is bigger than yours" because that's not my intention.

What is the deal of this thread?
Is there an issue with these two skills that I don't know about?

I've been using both frequently and dont see any issues with any of them.
Unleash is amazing for snap aggro on newly spawned mobs or any mob you need aggro on that is close and you do not have target on.

Abyssal drain I use mostly once I got everything clumped together so the mp cost is no longer an issue. Then I spam it and weave in dark arts depending on my hp.

I use abyssal drain instead of unleash due to the extra damage and mp should not be of issue anyway. When mp starts to dwindle I have plenty of hate and can start to focus one mob at a time.

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Originally Posted by Marveth

What is the deal of this thread?
Is there an issue with these two skills that I don't know about?

I've been using both frequently and dont see any issues with any of them.
Unleash is amazing for snap aggro on newly spawned mobs or any mob you need aggro on that is close and you do not have target on.

Abyssal drain I use mostly once I got everything clumped together so the mp cost is no longer an issue. Then I spam it and weave in dark arts depending on my hp.

I use abyssal drain instead of unleash due to the extra damage and mp should not be of issue anyway. When mp starts to dwindle I have plenty of hate and can start to focus one mob at a time.

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It is not that either spell is bad. It is just that they feel redundant. And if you lost one or the other it wouldn't matter as long as you had the other.

I honestly am not seeing the point of abyssal drain at this point in time except for an aoe type heal when im getting hit by 4 or more mobs.

It seems like it could be somewhat useful for big pulls as a self heal other than that I use it because hey it's there.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Could you... learn to play before spouting such nonsense?

I'm really getting tired of all this bullshitting from DRKs that can't even manage their MP/TP.

DRK isn't even that hard to play.

And yeah, 1020 DPS as a DRK in A2S for my very first down, having done a lot of mistakes due to pressure and yolo'd last wave. I've yet to see a WAR doing more than this, while I could've gone for 1050 (without any DRG or NIN in party) if not more.

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Maybe you should go play with good Warriors first? And while you're at it, learn how to play Drk yourself if you honestly cant see the usefulness in the two different abilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6cqbBWBhpA

Go ahead. Just watch his parse. And that's with an i190 weapon. This is all while bringing better mitigation than Drk brings.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

I'll give you two scenarios:

Three mobs spawn together. But you are currently tanking some enemies already Do you:

a. Unmend one by one to get aggro.
b. Run up to them and use unleash a few times
c. Use Abyssal Drain.

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D) Unmend one enemy, Plunge, use FREE mp unleash from proc on unmend :cool:

Of course I understand you don't want to drag the DPS over to the new spawns and potentially ruin their combo's so I can see your point.

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Originally Posted by Firepower

D) Unmend one enemy, Plunge, use FREE mp unleash from proc on unmend :cool:

Of course I understand you don't want to drag the DPS over to the new spawns and potentially ruin their combo's so I can see your point.

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Assuming Unmend procs the free Unleash.

That's relying on chance. And then as you already mentioned, moving around.

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Originally Posted by Firepower

Of course I understand you don't want to drag the DPS over to the new spawns and potentially ruin their combo's so I can see your point.

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yes that was the point. Why move and have the melee dps drop a positional just so you save a few mp with Unmend when you can do the same thing with Abyssal Drain with far less effort?

Abyssal Drain is a ranged unleash and useful in situations where you have mobs spawn in groups. The self heal you get from DA is debatable as I never, if rarely use it unless I'm holding 5+ mobs like the opening trash in the vault to give the healer some time to dps. However I feel that this thread is getting to defensive for no reason so you all have a good day. /leave

Target-less vs targeted is sort of a big deal as stated already. The fact that one radiates from you and the other from the target also makes them very mechanically different.

Remember that the radius might be 5y on both but the effective range of Unleash is 10y since you can position the diameter. I run into situations all the time where an Abyssal Drain will not hit everything where you can place yourself in the middle of the pack and an outer mob and hit everything with Unleashed.

This generally results in Unleashed being used to gather enemies and then moving to Abyssal Drain when everything has been grouped.

So I just don't see the redundancy at all when there are key mechanical differences of the two skills.

Unmend Procing Unleash is a waste of a trait in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Unmend Procing Unleash is a waste of a trait in my opinion.

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Its a free attack, usually at a time when you are building hate. What are you on about?

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Its a free attack, usually at a time when you are building hate. What are you on about?

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It's also usually when you have blood price available, so it's not great by any means. And if your group threat pull is supposed to be abyssal, it becomes even more niche/not terribly useful @60.

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Originally Posted by Giantbane

It's also usually when you have blood price available, so it's not great by any means. And if your group threat pull is supposed to be abyssal, it becomes even more niche/not terribly useful @60.

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How often are you effectively pulling groups with Abyssal Drain? Most groups are still clustered well beyond 5y to hit them all and even then I wouldn't really want to spend 970 mana to hit 3 or so enemies. A few well placed Unmends and a well timed Unleashed or two is going to almost always give better results when pulling.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

How often are you effectively pulling groups with Abyssal Drain? Most groups are still clustered well beyond 5y to hit them all and even then I wouldn't really want to spend 970 mana to hit 3 or so enemies. A few well placed Unmends and a well timed Unleashed or two is going to almost always give better results when pulling.

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Yes, it does "something" sometimes. But because you have blood price and we're talking AoE (where you get a lot of mp back) it usually doesn't really matter much anyway. It's pretty lackluster @ 60.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

How often are you effectively pulling groups with Abyssal Drain? Most groups are still clustered well beyond 5y to hit them all and even then I wouldn't really want to spend 970 mana to hit 3 or so enemies. A few well placed Unmends and a well timed Unleashed or two is going to almost always give better results when pulling.

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Abyssal Drain is 15y.

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Originally Posted by Ditto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6cqbBWBhpA

Go ahead. Just watch his parse. And that's with an i190 weapon. This is all while bringing better mitigation than Drk brings.

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I'm almost always using Xeno's videos to clear endgame content since T10 so ofc I know this video and what a very good WAR is.

But I was talking about DRK vs WAR, not me against good WAR players. Xeno is a much better WAR than I am as a DRK, but at least I know how I could've done things better if I was just as good as him (and had larger hands), and that's what leads me to say that DRK is able outDPS WARs in A2S while mitigating damage well enough to all healers to have a very high DPS. Not by much, of course.

I don't get what's so wrong with DRK's mitigation in this encounter. It's not that different from PLD, and WAR is rarely using Inner Beast or Storm Path in this fight so how is he providing "better" mitigation than DRK? I didn't felt squishy and my healers didn't have much troubles keeping me alive.
One thing for sure, Abyssal Drain with always 25% drain would be much stronger than a WAR with Berserk & Blood Bath on, because it would be always 25%, could be stacked with Blood Bath, and Abyssal Drain doesn't consume TP. WAR may have Equilibrium, they can't spam Overpower while DRK can spam Abyssal Drain. I'll still try today with Blood Bath instead of Awareness (since none of the mobs ever crit in this fight), just to have a taste of what it could've been if Abyssal Drain actually constantly drained HP.

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Originally Posted by LordHousewife

1020 DPS? I smell a merged parse.

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I don't know what you mean by "merged parse", but here is my first-down run with my parse if you're interested:
http://youtu.be/utU-iZqURAc?t=615



Anyway back to the Unleashed & Abyssal Drain topic...

If some people still don't understand that Abyssal Drain can't solve every situations and that every tanks needs at least 2 different AoE in this game, there is nothing we can do about it, experience will teach them.
Now I also believe that SE could've done things slightly differently to prevent these skills from being so redundant, but as of today I've yet to see a good suggestion that isn't gamebreaking. DRK doesn't need to be "better".

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Abyssal Drain is 15y.

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Radius is 5y.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

..
I don't get what's so wrong with DRK's mitigation in this encounter. It's not that different from PLD, and WAR is rarely using Inner Beast or Storm Path in this fight so how is he providing "better" mitigation than DRK? I didn't felt squishy and my healers didn't have much troubles keeping me alive.
One thing for sure, Abyssal Drain with always 25% drain would be much stronger than a WAR with Berserk & Blood Bath on, because it would be always 25%, could be stacked with Blood Bath, and Abyssal Drain doesn't consume TP. WAR may have Equilibrium, they can't spam Overpower while DRK can spam Abyssal Drain. I'll still try today with Blood Bath instead of Awareness (since none of the mobs ever crit in this fight), just to have a taste of what it could've been if Abyssal Drain actually constantly drained HP.
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http://youtu.be/utU-iZqURAc?t=615

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DRK has ONLY 2 CDs that "reliably" work for physical damage. Shadowskin and Shadow Wall. Compared to WAR, which has at least 5 CDs that "reliable" work in there, you can easily see the difference. IB, ToB, Vengeance (Far better than Shadow Wall), Raw Intuition, Bloodbath. PLD has passive mitigation with shield, this alone makes it enough but for completion sake: Rampart, Sentinel (Better than Shadow Wall) and Bulwark. Let's not ignore how a PLD can cheese any wave with Hallowed Ground. All three tanks have access to Foresight but WAR's CD is 30s shorter, even if it's a shite CD.

None of the tanks is squishy. But you don't compare them to DPS, you compare them to other tanks. A PLD and WAR will HEAVILY and RELIABLE mitigate more physical damage than DRK ever will.

A WAR will use Overpower + SteelCyclone/Decimate as much as you will use any of your AoEs. You ARE gated by MP and Blood Pact just as much WAR is gated by TP. WAR also has Equilibrium and SC/Decimate are 0TP.

DRK's AoE are spells, spells do NOT benefit from Bloodbath. So no, DRK cannot benefit from Bloodbath in AoE. So "because it would be always 25%, could be stacked with Blood Bath, and Abyssal Drain doesn't consume TP." is just so wrong on so many levels. Abyssal Drain is not free either, it costs MASSIVE MP. It having a base 25% drain barely puts you on equal footing with the other two tanks. Let's not forget WAR's Bloodbath lasts twice as long and WAR's AoE is the same base potency with a stronger damage buff with Maim, add Deliverance for more power! (20~26%).

In your parse, you were OT most of the fight. In Xeno's parse he was MT for the last 3 waves. Xeno pulled hardly 20 less DPS with an ilv190 weapon compared to your ilv200. If you "still" refuse to see how your DPS is not better than WAR's, then you're just being stubborn.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

In your parse, you were OT most of the fight. In Xeno's parse he was MT for the last 3 waves. Xeno pulled hardly 20 less DPS with an ilv190 weapon compared to your ilv200. If you "still" refuse to see how your DPS is not better than WAR's, then you're just being stubborn.

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"MT" and "OT" is absolutely meaningless in this fight.
That aside, wtf. I did everything like Xeno but as a DRK during the whole fight, except the very last mob at the very end where I asked for a switch, but that was absolutely not needed and wouldn't have changed my tanking or my DPS.

And once again (2nd time you conveniently misread to turn this into a contest for some reasons), it's not about my dps against others dps, it's about DRK's DPS against WAR's DPS. I did 1020 by doing way more mistakes than Xeno or that other 1050 DPS WAR in your video. I'm just simply being realistic considering my mistakes about the DRK performance if played properly. Hopefully I'll be able to raid soon and perform better so I can bring up more accurate numbers.

I won't bother debating about the mitigation, you didn't read what I said about IB & Storn Path and you seem heavily biaised anyway (PLD's Shield and Bullwark is "reliable" but Dark Dance isn't even worth mentionning, 'k).

You're right about Bloodbath, doesn't work on spells. Too bad.

However we're talking about DRK in A2S. So, a DRK that is getting hit a lot. Blood Price give more MP than you can consume by spamming Abyssal Drain during its entire duration, so you can manage the fight in a way that will allow you to always be able to AoE whenever it's worth it, unlike WAR, thus Abyssal Drain is free.

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Originally Posted by Kleys

Stuff.

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When I said "Xeno MT'd" I wasn't talking about where he stood or who the mobs faced, Xeno was in Defiance instead of Deliverance. Losing 30% DPS potential for that entire time. During that time, you turned off Grit. Don't tell me that doesn't affects its overall DPS now. Also you ignore that he had a worse weapon! Weapons are a VERY big deal when it comes to DPS performance.

I am not talking about "your" DPS vs Xeno/Pizwah. Though in both cases they performed slightly better/worse with a worse weapon! I'm saying WAR vs DRK, WAR has more AoE potential.

As for Blood Price, there is only so much MP you can recover before MP gained becomes higher than MP spent and you "cap" at MP recovery. Considering you're almost never hit by more than 5 mobs (most of the time 2~4) at any point in A2S, Blood Price recovery isn't as huge as you make it. Blood Price is also time gated. Up 15s and down 25s. If you are not careful, you WILL floor your MP and lose Darkside. So Abyssal Drain is not free.

Also when I first tanked in A2, my WAR friend thought it was funny that he would zerk Steel Cyclone + overpower the adds I gathered to rip hate off me leaving me MP starved after the few Abyssal Drains used didn't get me the hate back. Though I'm not saying there is a reason for WAR to do it or a it is a weakness of DRK. Just the possibility of it happening makes me sad. :p

When WAR is taking heavy damage (tanking 1 big mob), it will use IB over Steel Cyclone. It's not like WAR is gonna keep it up 100% and spend every infuriated buff on it, but ignoring that it IS there for when the WAR needs it is fallacy. I didn't mention Storm Path in my post at all, but Xeno used it for added mitigation when he MT'd the last 2 waves. So you can't deny its usefulness and reliability. Just the fact that the option exists makes WAR mitigation "better" than DRK.

Bulwark > Dark Dance for the time it's up. In a stream of attacks, Bulwark is twice as reliable as DD. Not to mention Shield Block in general is twice as reliable as Parry since it scales better. Lastly, with a tower shield, shield blocks ~50% more damage than a parry. So even though DD and Bulwark will probably average the same amount of parries/blocks, damage mitigated by Bulwark is higher. Since A2S does not have tank busters but instead is filled with streams of high incoming damage, you can see how average mitigation provided by shield is more reliable than whatever pity parry DRK/WAR have in their "let's-avoid-parry-because-it-sucks" gear.

I am not saying DRK isn't viable, however, I am just saying that out of the three tanks, it's possibly the worst.

I barely use it but I sure know what it's for. Big pulls. Not for bosses. Not for dungeons where more than 5 trash will push you into a reasonably serious risk. Places that you're very well geared for like Fractal/Neverreap trash.

If you use it where you're supposed to be using it, the self-heal will actually be significant (gaining hate from one enemy for every extra enemy that's hit) and blood price will be at its most effective, erasing the cost of DA and AD in pretty short order. I'll typically use it near the front-end of a battle with the weaklings, before a single one has fallen. In a lower gear case it's helping you when the hoard of enemies is at its strongest, in a higher gear case it's allowing a healer to branch further out of healing.

There's really nothing critical about it. It makes larger groups more bearable where someone would be a little worse off if unleash was their only instant AoE and a time-consuming soul-eater combo was their best self-heal. It's like it was designed to be awful in serious content, while it's true purpose lies in making speed runs accessible slightly earlier.

It's just one of those things. Every job has a few abilities that just shouldn't used for comparisons when facing elite content, because they're openly tailored to something other than that. I am saddened to have stained my eyes with such a discussion.