squishy aggressive dark knights, how do i heal these guys on aoe trash pulls?

I came back to the game a week ago and I'm leveling up my WHM and SCH. In general, I get "stuck" with Dark Knights as tanks as that is what everyone is leveling up. Their gear is okay, but they don't have vitality and they are consistently more squishy than I remember from tanks playing six months ago.

In Sohm Al in particular, it is common for the tank to grab both the first group of trash as well as the group of poison enemies up the hill and they'll do something similar after the first boss with the first set of enemies and the ones up the hill.

I haven't looked at DRK yet, but I know they are doing some AoE action. Their health drops like a rock as they get hit by five or six enemies at once. Sometimes, I save them, sometimes I don't, depending on cooldowns and luck. So, I'm either doing something wrong, don't understand the mechanic at play, Dark Knight tanks are largely idiots and I should drop group as soon as I see that is what I'm grouped up with, or some combination ;-)

This is really just a leveling thing. I'm not going to be a good dos'ing healer, so I'm not going to even bother raiding when I get to 60, but I would like to keep people alive while leveling up.

I notice it too, but it's obvious why when you consider the tank meta shuns tankiness. From what I've read (I haven't even unlocked any tank classes yet), tanks are told to shed any signs of vit from their accessories and run pure Slaying (DPS) gear. They also like to tank in DPS stance rather than tank stance. The DPS checks in savage Alexander raiding make it a huge boon for tanks to run like this, and because other content is easier, it's trickled down in to the leveling dungeons and such. Ultimately, if a tank doesn't have the good sense switch to tank stance/pull less, just be on your toes and keep em healed.

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Originally Posted by SkyBane001

I notice it too, but it's obvious why when you consider the tank meta shuns tankiness. From what I've read (I haven't even unlocked any tank classes yet), tanks are told to shed any signs of vit from their accessories and run pure Slaying (DPS) gear. They also like to tank in DPS stance rather than tank stance. The DPS checks in savage Alexander raiding make it a huge boon for tanks to run like this, and because other content is easier, it's trickled down in to the leveling dungeons and such. Ultimately, if a tank doesn't have the good sense switch to tank stance/pull less, just be on your toes and keep em healed.

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Yes and no. This is a bigger problem than gearing though. Gearing that way highlights faults in tanking instead of hiding them. It's as simple as rotating defensive cooldowns on trash pulls.

It's not the gear, its the miseducation on what a good tank is. That's the real issue at work with any squishy tanks.

This is leveling not end-game raiding that I'm talking about. In general, nobody is over-geared that I've seen. Every single dungeon has "walls" to keep you from running to the boss and skipping trash, so you aren't going to speed up a run that much compared to the slow down of a group wipe due to pulling too much.

Anyway, nobody knows what the AoE Dark Knight move is, how to identify that is what they are doing, and how to properly heal it? Is it like a Hallowed Ground or something where they can't die until the time is up, but then it is critical to give them the big heal just before it ends because they are probably at 1 HP?

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Originally Posted by kasplat

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Well living dead should really have some kinda of macro line to help you identify it. Basically it works like this: Living dead activates, if the DRK is knocked below 0 HP in that time he goes into the living dead state. You then have 10 seconds to heal them for 100% of their HP total to make them alive again.

Now if they have 10 k hp, all you have to heal is 10 k HP. Not heal them to full, it doesn't matter that they take damage in the time you are healing them. You just have to give them a total of 10 k HP gained over that 10 seconds. That removes the effect.

Regardless, if a DRK isn't using their defensive cooldowns on trash pulls then they are simply doing it wrong. There isn't any reason why any tank should be dying to trash mobs unless they are simply not using their defensive cooldowns.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

Yes and no. This is a bigger problem than gearing though. Gearing that way highlights faults in tanking instead of hiding them. It's as simple as rotating defensive cooldowns on trash pulls.

It's not the gear, its the miseducation on what a good tank is. That's the real issue at work with any squishy tanks.

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I agree, what I meant was that because people say stacking STR good, VIT bad for tanks, new tanks that don't know what their doing/don't have the skills unlocked to make this work yet go in to dungeons without the necessary health buffer to allow for mistakes. So ultimately yeah, it's an education thing exacerbated by a meta that demands every role maximize DPS.

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Originally Posted by SkyBane001

I agree, what I meant was that because people say stacking STR good, VIT bad for tanks, new tanks that don't know what their doing/don't have the skills unlocked to make this work yet go in to dungeons without the necessary health buffer to allow for mistakes. So ultimately yeah, it's an education thing exacerbated by a meta that demands every role maximize DPS.

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Yes, absolutely. It's why alot of higher level tanks will even tell leveling tanks to level in VIT til they are comfortable with the new role.

100% agree.

I don't pull lots of Trash, but when I have a lot, just before pulling or after my pull going there to aggro them, I'll activate Blood Price. We need to make a macro to tell everyone "don't stun the mobs, I need their dmg on me to receover MP for 15 seconds!"

Then once it's gone, I pop up my cooldowns. It enables me to maintain aggro with Unleash, and even moreso if I'm undergeared compared to Healers and DPS.

So yeah, DRK will get their HP down pretty quickly for the initial pull, then it stabilizes.

Once you know how it works, it's a bit easier. my GF keeps on telling me how squishy we are. She manage to heal me all through it so far. And she tries to keep Benediction up in case I have to use Living Dead (on bosses mostly)

But if we'd have problems, I wouldn't mind putting more fending gear, which can be done by anyone if after 2 attempts to kill simple trash, they fail..

True though, pulling more than one can chew, it's another thing ^^

and what SkyBane001 wrote ^^

Have fun in the game, thank you for covering our arses! ;)

One of the issues is that a few or a lot of DPS went to play DRK without a single Tank class leveled and thinking, oh we did big pulls with others tanks before when I was a DPS so I'll do it now but there is a few things about the LV50+dungeons.

1. Mobs hit harder in HW dungeons.
2. If you mained a Tank role before 3.0 you most likely have the iLV130 tank gear which is just started to be passed in terms of iLV by LV55.
3. Similar to 2 but if you mained a DPS role than your tanking gear may not be as high.
4. Doing big pulls myself I always stack on VIT to last longer.
5. Knowing your CD's, DRK has similar CD's to PLD and WAR so mind set wise you know when and how to use them correctly during big pulls. Some DPS to Tanks might not even use them as in there mind DPS DPS DPS let the healer worry about the amount of mobs i'm pulling.

For me If I do big pulls I tend to stack VIT. So it's all down to how the player plays DRK.
Also I notice alot of DRKs not using Dark Side during mob pulls which is weird since Dark Side is like the key role in being a good DRK.

All in all, DRk's are far from squishy, it's just players being not so good.

Nothing you can do but cure spam them. Those the ones I can't find time to DPS. *shrugs*

Okay, I can see one thing that I'm doing wrong, which is blowing my cooldown as their HP plummets rather than waiting. Next time I'm in a group I'll identify the icon or ground tell around them that makes it clear what they are doing and save the Lustrate spam or Benediction for when I need to get them up quick.

Sounds like a combination of bad tanking and healing tbh. If the tank is using cool downs or not and pull size is really the main factor that is going to make a difference here. If the rate of incoming damage is so high that you can't keep up, extra vit won't change this and the total vit difference at such a high rate of incoming damage won't allow for a single extra cast healing wise, it's more so a buffer against high damage single shot moves. If you were dying to trash it's likely a combination of the tank not using cooldowns and over judging (or not looking) at the healers gear or ability.

Also should be noted there is a bit of a shock in regards to coming from ARR endgame where you are insanely over leveled for every piece of content to HW leveling where you are at level for the intended content. The gear isn't going to carry you as much and planning and ability become more vital.

But it sounds like you got a bad tank. Bad tanks and healers in this game are a dime a dozen. On the flip side I've also seen healers complaining about "Squishy tanks" when the tanks has 50%+ worth of damage reduction cool downs up and the healer was just being incompetent, not using abilities properly, not using regen, casting in time, etc. Without seeing the run I typically assume it's a combination of both (helaer & tank) when I see posts like this as it is typically the issue more so than just one or the other.

Also not to mention were not overgeard for these dungeons as we was for the LV50 ones.

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Originally Posted by kasplat

This is leveling not end-game raiding that I'm talking about. In general, nobody is over-geared that I've seen. Every single dungeon has "walls" to keep you from running to the boss and skipping trash, so you aren't going to speed up a run that much compared to the slow down of a group wipe due to pulling too much.

Anyway, nobody knows what the AoE Dark Knight move is, how to identify that is what they are doing, and how to properly heal it? Is it like a Hallowed Ground or something where they can't die until the time is up, but then it is critical to give them the big heal just before it ends because they are probably at 1 HP?

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Once they hit 1 hp they go into Walking dead, during this you have 10 seconds where they can't die and you have to heal them for their total hp. It doesn't have to be a full bar, just your heals have to add up to their total health. So if they are getting hit it doesn't count against you while doing this. If you don't heal them for the total amount of their health during wlking dead they will die. Another thing that should be noted is that if the tank is full vit you will need to heal more to get them out of this state due to the incresed hp pool.

Hope that helps

Went to a dungeon with a tank from my FC once and he asked how he was doing.. I think he expected me to shower him with complements? I recommended using CDs and he started arguing with me that they were useless. I've also dpsed with tanks in DPS stance doing large pulls.. Because fairy + a few adlos every now and then helped.

Sounds like it could be a mix of healer inexperience plus questionable tanks? Tanks don't need to stay at 100% HP. I don't step in to help my fairy until 25-50%, depending on the situation. I only need to chain spam heals when at low levels/undergeared situations (or really dumb tanks).

Can't edit since I'm on my phone.. Are you precasting shields as well? I start casting stoneskin right before the last mob dies, before the tank takes off for the next. If I'm hyper cautious, I follow with an adlo. Gives more of a cushion on the initial pull.

My main is Astrologian, but recently I've been leveling Dark Knight and it has helped to get a better understanding of how that job works. There is a reason why a Dark Knight could be considered "squishy" even when well geared and it's tied to their ability usage. A Dark Knight has plenty of sufficient cooldowns for trash pulls, but they may choose not to use them for a specific reason and that is Blood Price. Blood Price restores HP proportional to the damage sustained during its duration. If a Dark Knight had their own Hallowed Ground and they used that with Blood Price they would gain no MP. The use of defensive cooldowns can be perceived as "bad" as reducing the damage sustained means reducing MP gained. This is where experience and skill, or general knowledge, can separate a bad Dark Knight from a good one.

As for how to heal them, assuming you are leveling Scholar it may help to apply Adloquium before the tank goes to pull to give them an HP buffer. Don't forget about Eye for an Eye because if the tank isn't going to reduce the damage they sustain, you can. If you have the time to drop Shadow Flare that will slow them down. If you have Eos at your side those healing cooldowns will come in handy.

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Originally Posted by Blueyes

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A thing about Blood price it restores MP as a % based on your level and not the amount of damage you sustain. There is no reason whatsoever for even a half decent tank not to use there Def CDs, it's off there OCD and if they're worried about it interfering with their DPS there playing the wrong role.

Rouse + Whispering Dawn works wonders. Eye for an eye is really helpful as well, although I try to use it on bigger pulls since the cooldown is longer. I usually keep Fey Illumunation in the back pocket for if WD is gone and I'm still not able to keep up with the incoming damage.

Leveling dungeons in HW get pretty tough to heal. Mobs hit pretty hard, tanks can't be overgeared, and faeries get nerfed hard by the level scaling. If you haven't noticed, your faerie actually heals less now than she did when you were level 50. I remember watching in disbelief while my heals went up, Eos went from healing over 1000 down to 900 something as I was leveling. By 60, She loses about 1/3 of her potency.

Faerie nerf does require a different approach. If you played SCH pre-Heavensward, you can't rely on faerie heals the way you used to. I found myself having to use Rouse+WD, E4E, and Adlo to buy time to throw up DoTs.