Turning Grit on and Off

So I am at the point now where I am comfortable with DRK tanking and want to max out DPS when possible. I have started turning off grit when I have stable hate in bosses and am using cooldowns to cover the lack of -DMG. Mostly been doing this in dungeons, and trials with friends.

In general when grit is off do people pop cooldowns automatically to have some buffer or do you wait for mechanics where you need extra -dmg? Ive had to turn grit back on mid fight in DF groups because healer was not keeping up etc. is this to be expected? I.E use grit like an expensive cooldown?

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Originally Posted by Rampage

So I am at the point now where I am comfortable with DRK tanking and want to max out DPS when possible. I have started turning off grit when I have stable hate in bosses and am using cooldowns to cover the lack of -DMG. Mostly been doing this in dungeons, and trials with friends.

In general when grit is off do people pop cooldowns automatically to have some buffer or do you wait for mechanics where you need extra -dmg? Ive had to turn grit back on mid fight in DF groups because healer was not keeping up etc. is this to be expected? I.E use grit like an expensive cooldown?

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It's pretty much dependent on your healer and group in df. As a rule of thumb I generally pop a cooldown when i drop it so that can use blood weapon. Once the cool down drops off then I usually play it by ear to see if the healer is keeping up. From there I might rotate a couple cool downs or save them if there is a big hit coming but typically if I start getting low and the healer is struggling I'll throw grit stance back up.

Something I usually do also is if there is a guaranteed living dead use (like tank buster in sword oath knights in throdan ex) then I will drop grit while using LD then also as you can't die while in living dead and the healers will be healing to remove the debuff so it's a good time to get some extra mp back or dps in when you can with no risk. Just make sure you have grit back up before the next TB or cleave comes.

General rule is to pop a cooldown. This can be skipped if you also happen to be entering a weak damage phase (Arboretum 1st boss where it centers and spins aroung)

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In a question related to turning on/off tank stances, I am looking for some advice:

Our group has brought in a new healer for content going forward, but this healer has not frequently dealt with one tank stance dancing, let alone 2. (#smallserverproblems) Do any of you have any ideas to help ease the transition and get the healer up to speed? Or is this answer simply that they need time for the adjustment?

For the record- I don't believe this is an individual skill issue, they just haven't paired with tanks who stance danced regularly.

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Originally Posted by AlexiIvaniskavich

In a question related to turning on/off tank stances, I am looking for some advice:

Our group has brought in a new healer for content going forward, but this healer has not frequently dealt with one tank stance dancing, let alone 2. (#smallserverproblems) Do any of you have any ideas to help ease the transition and get the healer up to speed? Or is this answer simply that they need time for the adjustment?

For the record- I don't believe this is an individual skill issue, they just haven't paired with tanks who stance danced regularly.

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Honestly, just give em time to adjust and possibly run some various content with them to help get them used to it. I run daily roulettes and some Alex normals with a WAR friend on SCH, and both of our stance-dancing games have improved by miles with the daily practice. Yeah it's not nearly the same difficulty level as Savage, but to me it's more an issue of getting familiar with certain situations and building up some muscle memory on stance swapping (and healing someone that's doing the same) than it is about specific encounters. Honestly, I think it's just something that most people never really work on because you don't need it outside of endgame. I always hate when my static has to pug a healer for Savage, cause odds are it'll go something like this:

*spectacularly awful wipe*
WHM: "Were you tanking in Sword Oath?"
Me: "I've been doing that for a long time now..."
WHM: "Can you... just... please not? Not tonight. This healer..."
Me: "Okay... -.-" *falls asleep tanking Oppressor*

I turn Grit off when Shadowskin and/or Reprisal are up.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Honestly, just give em time to adjust and possibly run some various content with them to help get them used to it. I run daily roulettes and some Alex normals with a WAR friend on SCH, and both of our stance-dancing games have improved by miles with the daily practice. Yeah it's not nearly the same difficulty level as Savage, but to me it's more an issue of getting familiar with certain situations and building up some muscle memory on stance swapping (and healing someone that's doing the same) than it is about specific encounters. Honestly, I think it's just something that most people never really work on because you don't need it outside of endgame. I always hate when my static has to pug a healer for Savage, cause odds are it'll go something like this:

*spectacularly awful wipe*
WHM: "Were you tanking in Sword Oath?"
Me: "I've been doing that for a long time now..."
WHM: "Can you... just... please not? Not tonight. This healer..."
Me: "Okay... -.-" *falls asleep tanking Oppressor*

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Thanks! I figured it would be an experience thing, just wanted to cover my bases and see if I was missing the forest from the trees.

I have been leveling my first real healer,SCH - I spammed fates/pre Haukke dungeons on conjurer to get stone skin, never bothered even doing the level 30 class quest- lately to try to get a view from their aspect. I just hit HW content, though I haven't seen much in the way of stance dancing at this stage.

I am pretty sure that is almost the exact conversation I had with my Co-tank, several months back when some raid members were changing their raid class.

From a healer's perspective, sometimes I can or can't keep up with DRK (or any tank) that is not in tank stance for a number of reasons:

- That stance gives you a defense buff. Without it, you'd sometimes take more damage than necessary.

- Some tanks want the healer to be included in fast runs. Tanks turn off stance, healer does a dps spell one time too many, tank falls. Some tanks forget that Cleric Stance has a CD.

- The tank's HP is lower than it should be. No tank stance, all STR Attributes, STR accessories. I'm out of MP because of the tank being an MP sponge.

So, yeah... That's why I'll NEVER dps as my healer. Nope. Too many times where I failed to keep the tank healthy because of it.

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Originally Posted by Dante_V

Something I usually do also is if there is a guaranteed living dead use (like tank buster in sword oath knights in throdan ex) then I will drop grit while using LD then also as you can't die while in living dead and the healers will be healing to remove the debuff so it's a good time to get some extra mp back or dps in when you can with no risk. Just make sure you have grit back up before the next TB or cleave comes.

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We were watching LS mate via Twitch, and he encountered this. The DRK used LD and dropped Grit. There was some arguing because the DRK still died since Benediction wasn't up. The WHM mentioned that the DRK was taking more damage due to the loss of the Defense bonus that Grit normally gives. Of course, the DRK called the WHM a bad healer, so the WHM left. This was within the first pull.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

We were watching LS mate via Twitch, and he encountered this. The DRK used LD and dropped Grit. There was some arguing because the DRK still died since Benediction wasn't up. The WHM mentioned that the DRK was taking more damage due to the loss of the Defense bonus that Grit normally gives. Of course, the DRK called the WHM a bad healer, so the WHM left. This was within the first pull.

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You don't have to actually hit max HP to be cured of the debuff from Living Dead. You just have to be healed for the equivalent of your max HP. Taking more damage during a pull doesn't affect whether or not you're healed enough for the debuff to be removed.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

- The tank's HP is lower than it should be. No tank stance, all STR Attributes, STR accessories. I'm out of MP because of the tank being an MP sponge.

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Tank HP is literally the same as DPS HP. They either have enough, and you can heal it, or they don't, and they explode. Having more than 14.5k HP is sufficient for anything that doesn't end in "savage", even stretch pulls like the honey wall in arboretum. Of course, Sentinel makes life so much easier on those big pulls, but that should go without saying, right?

just remember grit uses one gcd to activate. so you need 5 gcds just to compensate this one gcd for reactivating dps-wise.

This might be a silly question but does turning grit off actually increase dps output in darkside? I only ask because i play with both stances on nearly all the time by default, the only exception being if im OT, or if i need blood weapon for mp regen.

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Originally Posted by JoelStrife

This might be a silly question but does turning grit off actually increase dps output in darkside? I only ask because i play with both stances on nearly all the time by default, the only exception being if im OT, or if i need blood weapon for mp regen.

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DRKs have 3 DPS ceilings:

1. MT w/Grit
2. OT
3. MT w/o Grit

MT w/o Grit is the highest as you have all the benefits of OTing, and then Low Blow/Reprisal Procs and even more MP from Blood Price.

Darkside is always 15% in or out of Grit. But you can do more DPS on DRK when you're actually tanking something, regardless of stance.

Keeping Grit on is responsible but if you rotate CDs most of the time you don't need it. Darkside is not a stance, its more of a buff, like Maim for WAR, that you keep on all the time. It should always be on.

The only issue with it all to me is. Turning off Grit and turning it on takes 1 GCD. Which means your losing that much potency. However your only leaving it off temporarily, not forever. You also lose mana for turning it on too, a LOT of Mana.

So, wouldn't just burning a Dark Arts (near the same mana cost as turning the stance on.) and using Soul Eater, with the potency of the stuff you missed be near the same DPS? I mean, it WILL be less. However, you still keep the same protection and enmity.

You can just use that GCD to turn grit back on where you would be using a Hard slash and still weave in your oGCDs so you really arent losing anything, maybe delaying the potency of a Hard slash but thats made up for with an out of Grit DASE.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

The only issue with it all to me is. Turning off Grit and turning it on takes 1 GCD. Which means your losing that much potency. However your only leaving it off temporarily, not forever. You also lose mana for turning it on too, a LOT of Mana.

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Blood price and sword makes managing MP easy to deal with. Ummm I think its useless to stack them for the reasons of needing grit and not having mana. On top of that blood price and sword cd are extremely low. So if this is a problem the player is tunneled vision on dps and burnt out mp or went all out trying to clear faster. I speak on this because there's been times where I lost mp focus burnt out and almost wipe.