When would you take DRK over PLD or WAR?

[Tila]

I've still yet to see anyone prove that DRK mitigates magic on a level high enough over others to warrant their being taken. DRK no doubt does mitigate more, but so far it only seems to matter on fights that are hugely magical, since this ability isn't all that above the others.

[Giantbane]

Probably DRK as MT over PLD for magic heavy fights. DRK MT + WAR OT providing SP is likely to be your strongest form of magical mitigation.

I'm thinking the best progression tanking pairing will be WAR + PLD/DRK where the 2nd player will swap between PLD & DRK depending on the fight. WAR is, of course, always wanted as OT for SE/SP being so helpful. It's not that WAR shouldn't be able to fill in as MT for any fight, but why bother when they're so good at OT and you don't have to worry about disrupting their SP/SE debuffs.

Since at high end your never going to use Dark Arts for Soul Eater, I would rather it do something else besides heal. Or the heal modified to be a lot more and not require Dark Arts.

I'm sort of disappointed that you can't use dark arts for more active defense vs. physical attacks. Right now you can only use your MP to defend against physical for blind (dark passage), evasion (dark dance), or a 160 potency heal (soul eater). All of which haven't been all that useful in a raid setting if past raids are any indication.

[Reynhart]

The answer today is the same as yesterday, its called Dark mind.

Does Dark Mind really makes the difference ?
Let's put aside every pure physical skill and compare WAR and DRK.
Shadow Skin mitigates every damage by 20% every 90s -> Inner Beast does the same, more often. Not for the same duration, true, but we don't know for now if we'll be free of tankbusters-based fight in the future.
Shadow Wall mitigates every damage by 30% every 180s -> Vengeance does the same, more often and for longer duration
Dark Mind mitigates magical damage by 30% (With Dark Arts) every 60s -> WAR can easily pop Inner Beast each time DRK has either Shadow Skin or Shadow Wall. It's only 20% but WAR can add Thrill Of Battle once every two Dark Mind to increase its eHP and heal at the same time.

Add to that that WAR can put a constant debuff reducing all damage by 10% while DRK need to parry before...which is useless on a magic-focused foe.

[Giantbane]

WAR can add Thrill Of Battle once every two Dark Mind to increase its eHP and heal at the same time.

for all intents and purposes, thrill of battle, when paired with convalescence is exactly the same as shadowskin/rampart in terms of mitigation. It's only slightly less effective in terms of HP restored. But as raids will tend to err on the side of over healing the MT, it's a trivial difference.

[Hypie]

With all this thinking you forget that DRK was intentionally weaker and will be bumped here and there with the massive feedback and data they gathered in these 2 first weeks. lets talk about this when drk is not in "beta" anymore.

[Kaedan94]

I've been trying to find an answer to this. Simply put, if you had two people, both have all three tanks at 60 with equal gear. You know they're both good players. For what reasons would you want a setup other than PLD MT and WAR OT? What is it that DRK brings that would make you want it over either of the other two?

With these conditions, the only definite you'd want is one of them to WAR OT. It wouldn't matter if MT was DRK or PLD, they are equally good at MTing. The DRK has enough CDs to mitigate tank busters, and he trades shield mitigation for extra damage... which is a wash, basically. Faster fights means less damage taken overall. And since tank busters are the only real deciding factor, and DRK has enough CDs to cover them, they are essentially equal.

[Hundred]

Does Dark Mind really makes the difference ?

It naturally does. 30% magical for 10s, every 60s. Vs a Block against physical, every 30s.
Different skills as they cater to different damage types in different ways, but are guaranteed mitigation options against their respective damage type either way.

.

Let's put aside every pure physical skill and compare WAR and DRK.

Stopping you right there.


We're going to look at Dark and Paladin.
Rampart and Shadowskin are the exact same skill.

The difference between Sentinel & Shadow skin is that Sentinel is 40% to Shadow Walls 30%

Dark dance vs Bull wark. Block is more powerful mitigation then Parry, Bullwark increases the block rate substantially. Magical attacks cannot be blocked or parried, however magical attacks can be evaded. Dark Dance offers minor defense against magical where Bullwark does not, while Bullwark is good at covering physical hits. Dark dance has a third of the cool down. Both skills are at their most consistent against adds.

Str down vs Int down. A wash, however there are currently no other producers of Str down, so Pld is the sole contributor of the effect in the game when it is desired.


Shell tron vs Dark Mind: Shelltron has half the cooldown, but is good for a single hit which must be physical. Dark Mind is good for any magical hit within a 10s period.

Shield Swipe vs Reprisal - Both cut into the power of the opposition however relevant enemies ignore Pacification, Reprisal is not ignored.
Outside of TP demands, DRK is poised to do more damage Main tanking with their higher potency and off-gcd options.

If we like pre 52+ Drk has 1 more mitigation option via Dark Mind than Paladin. With shelltron the option spread is the same. It later delves into all 3 Tanks getting a sustain option (Clemency, Equilibrium, Sole Survivor), where Clemency has its cast time and costs a large sum of mana, Equilibrium has its cooldown and must choose health or tp to be restored. Sole Survivor requires something dies but requires Health & Mana both (albeit on a longer CD). Plunge gives means to sticking which the Drk lacks @ 50 compared to Tempered Will & Holmgang.

Like how many ways is there to put it.
Drk goes for Magical mitigation and add control, PLD excels at Physical mitigation and defensive team support. Except for Raw Intuition, War will basically mitigate anything indiscriminately, while providing some defensive support (Storms path) and some offensive.

Question is how potent everyone is at their job, and how valuable these things all are. Add controls value depends on how they set up Alexander. Magical Mitigation again depends on how they set that up.

To use a dungeon as an example given I heard someone speak of Dark Knights dealing with it. Sanctification and Unholy are magical, you can deal with this through Dark Mind, Shadow Wall and Rampart. Alternative you can DA Soul eater after the sanctification that will be about 3.2k and heal back 800-1100 non crit with general equipment depending on your set up reimbursing you for ~25-34% of the damage non-crit.

Now as I've mentioned before to someone the problem with Soul Eater is something 2.0 Warriors have also seen with storms path. Content will get stronger, and Soul eaters heal will be less relevant. You basically have to know the encounter well enough to have Soul eater set-up to respond after the hit which isn't as intuitive as popping CD's or inner beast.


I am fully aware of Drk requiring tuning and debugging but the bulk of their kit is conceptually sound. The reasons to take a Dark are fairly clear so long as their numbers are potent enough. Its odd for someone to make the first comparison Warrior when their defensive options are closest to Paladin. Darks ideally hold an advantage against magical opposition that the Paladins do not, and can handle adds better which may or may not be relevant in Alexander.

[Adventica6]

As a nin I don't like playing with drks, also warriors have way more hp.

[Tila]

snip.

So we're just going to ignore hallowed ground and divine veil?

[SpookyGhost]

As a nin I don't like playing with drks, also warriors have way more hp.

That's an illusion. WAR's have 25% more HP (and 20% more HP recovery from healing spells), but take 20% more damage. Everyone takes the same % amount of damage, but WAR's get healed for slightly less %-wise.