Getting refused to EX groups as a DRK

[Kiteless]

Running both DRK and WAR in a comp that has a NIN, the DPS is about the same between the two classes, BUT, DRK is higher in a purely MTing capacity. This is assuming the WAR stays in Defiance and uses Wrath for Inner Beast.

Honestly I still feel squishier on my WAR than my DRK, but DRK definitely takes way more focus. Since the other tank in my comp only plays PLD I've been going DRK since we have a NIN.

Since I've yet to perfect the rotation for DRK I'll probably go as WAR into Alex the first few times, but eventually swap to DRK once I know the setup.

Um... what? WAR is a far better MT than DRK in every capacity save magic exclusive foes, where even then, it's still quite close.

[Kaedan94]

Um... what? WAR is a far better MT than DRK in every capacity save magic exclusive foes, where even then, it's still quite close.

You keep saying this, yet it's not true.

DRK is a better MT than WAR... well, shouldn't say better, but has more overall mitigation. A good player of either job can perform well. Though most healers I've been with say they'd prefer to heal a DRK over a WAR because they think WARs feel squishy.

Maybe it's because those WARs are stance dancing and doing it poorly?

[dragoelete]

You keep saying this, yet it's not true.

DRK is a better MT than WAR... well, shouldn't say better, but has more overall mitigation. A good player of either job can perform well. Though most healers I've been with say they'd prefer to heal a DRK over a WAR because they think WARs feel squishy.

Maybe it's because those WARs are stance dancing and doing it poorly?

i can confirm this as i have played both DRK and SCH and as a SCH i tend to prefer healing the DRK more than the WAR because of the stance dancing at least with DRK they are pretty much always in grit when in a dungeon. but i have noticed DRK does still need to have a bit of attention on some aspects... like DA dark dance...

[Lorielle]

i can confirm this as i have played both DRK and SCH and as a SCH i tend to prefer healing the DRK more than the WAR because of the stance dancing at least with DRK they are pretty much always in grit when in a dungeon. but i have noticed DRK does still need to have a bit of attention on some aspects... like DA dark dance...

The bold! It explains why! I promise if DRK was able to stance dance effectively, we'd be the same as Warriors. :x

[BadRNG]

You keep saying this, yet it's not true.

DRK is a better MT than WAR... well, shouldn't say better, but has more overall mitigation. A good player of either job can perform well. Though most healers I've been with say they'd prefer to heal a DRK over a WAR because they think WARs feel squishy.

Maybe it's because those WARs are stance dancing and doing it poorly?

Better mitigation in what way? Nothing in DRK's toolkit compares to having IB up for every tank buster, the only real threat to tanks in the game. That is what people mean when they say WAR is the better MT, because as MT the only things that should be killing you are the big hits and WAR is incredibly good at eating those.

[Kiteless]

You keep saying this, yet it's not true.

DRK is a better MT than WAR... well, shouldn't say better, but has more overall mitigation. A good player of either job can perform well. Though most healers I've been with say they'd prefer to heal a DRK over a WAR because they think WARs feel squishy.

Maybe it's because those WARs are stance dancing and doing it poorly?

Aaaaaand it's time to bring this post out again. All you had to do was look back in the thread....

Comparing WAR and DRK mitigation:

1. Inner Beast: 20% reduction (also provides a 100% HP conversion rate as an extra effect). Usable pretty much every 15 seconds for 6 seconds at a time, with Infuriate allowing for more frequent use.

2. Vengeance: Strictly better than any mitigation skill that DRK has. Offers a shorter cooldown than Shadow Wall, with the same mitigation and a longer duration, a damaging secondary effect, and application of wrath stacks.

3. Raw intuition: 20% physical damage reduction from the front with a solid 20 second duration on a 90 second cooldown.

4. Storm's Path: 10% damage reduction with 50% HP conversion rate that is easy to keep up at all times when necessary, with no requirement other than being in a combo (that refreshes your 20% damage boost). Utility move that can be used from an OT or MT situation, if needed.

5. Holmgang: TO THE LAST, I GRAPPLE WITH THEE! 6 seconds of not dying. No Hallowed Ground, but it gets the job done.

This is in addition to Defiance, which grants a 25% health increase *in addition to a 20% increase in healing*. There's also the parry buff which increases with Wrath stacks, not particularly huge, but worth noting at least. While this isn't strictly mitigation in itself, it is a clear increase in EHP for when it's needed. Additionally, being off the GCD makes stance dancing not only a breeze, but encouraged for optimal usage in all forms.

DRK has:

1. Grit: Tank stance, 20% damage reduction. Its ridiculous MP cost and being on the GCD sucks, but it does what it needs to. Stance dancing is hard to properly encourage, since the MP cost makes it hard to justify switching back and forth, even with regen from Blood Weapon, and being on the GCD makes the actual switch without a DPS loss difficult.

2. Shadowskin: This is a reskinned rampart, 20% reduction, 20 seconds every 90. Good skill.

3. Shadow Wall: As noted above, this suffers from being the worst of everything between PLD and WAR cooldowns. WAR level mitigation, shorter duration, no secondary bonus, 180 second cooldown. Sucks, but we use it because we have nothing better.

4. Dark Mind: 15% magic damage reduction, 30% if using Dark Arts. Costly under DA, but extremely effective against magic tankbusters with a surprisingly short cooldown. The main problem is that most tank busters tend to be physical. That said, not bad.

5. Reprisal: 10% damage reduction, only applicable after a parry, meaning it can't be used against enemies that rely on purely magical damage (Ramuh) and only during an extremely short window. Should not be relied upon.

6. Living Dead: Similar to Holmgang, except you can cast it in advance, and it lasts a good bit longer. Major downside, in addition to have a way longer cooldown, however, is that once activated, it requires heavy healer attention to avoid dying, defeating a lot of its supposed utility as an "oh shit" button. Furthermore, in order to not die after its use, you must be healed for exactly your full amount of health. Because the skill leaves you with 1HP, you will die, even if you are healed to full. You must sustain further damage after Walking Dead activates so that it can be healed. This makes Living Dead not only incredibly unreliable, but also punishes smart play.

Dark Dance does not count as a viable damage mitigation skill outside of trash mobs, since it is in no way reliable (and 30% parry rate on a cooldown is terrible anyway). Dark Arts version should not be used because it is not only not reliable, but also interacts poorly with other skills, preventing their application. And with Living Dead, that evasion rate can end up killing you.
As for Delirium, if that 10% Int debuff is really that important, just get a MNK to do it for you.

So, if you're going to go out of your way to not include Defiance's HP increase as the quasi-mitigation skill and include Dark Dance as one (at which point, you might as well include lolForesight), DRK might have two more mitigation skills than WAR, but WAR's are substantially better, and capable of being kept up far more often, for a longer period of time, and far more reliably. It also doesn't count the inclusion of Equilibrium, which provides a stronger effect than DRK's closest equivalent, Sole Survivor, with half the cooldown time and no prerequisite for activation, and doesn't need to be applied in advance, allowing you to use it on demand.


Reprisal is the only mitigation skill that would be notable from DRK's point of view as a main tank, but it's unreliable for the purposes of mitigating tank busters, thanks to its extremely short activation period and parry requirement meaning you can't save it and guarantee its use when it's likely to be the most valued, and thus is not worth considering for the purposes of MT utility.

[Ditto]

You keep saying this, yet it's not true.

DRK is a better MT than WAR... well, shouldn't say better, but has more overall mitigation. A good player of either job can perform well. Though most healers I've been with say they'd prefer to heal a DRK over a WAR because they think WARs feel squishy.

Maybe it's because those WARs are stance dancing and doing it poorly?

No, it actually is pretty true. Inner Beast alone is a huge trump for a Warrior over a Drk. Warrior feels squishier overall simply because they don't have a raw mitigation tank stance like Drk does, they take more damage, but they get healed for more. Their HP is going to fluctuate a lot.

You can keep Storms Path going simply whenever, that's a permanent 10% damage reduction for everyone that doesn't rely on a parry to apply, meaning you can have it going when you actually need it most.

You can have Inner Beast on standby for when you need it consistently.

Raw Intuition is a 100% parry rate from the front, essentially a Rampart for physical damage. (You should never be getting hit from the back or side in a raid anyway)

Equilibrium is is a crazy strong potency heal they can use every 60 seconds which does exactly what self healing needs to do for it to matter; burst heal. And in Deliverence, well, good luck making a Warrior run out of TP.

Then you have Vengeance which that has a SHORTER cooldown and a LONGER duration than Shadow Wall.

And then the usual cross class stuff that all tanks have. Not to mention, a lot of their cd's generate wrath, meaning even more IB uptime.

So when it comes down to it, Warrior feeling squishier than a Drk is an illusion. Their HP fluctuates, they get hit harder outside of their cd's, but get healed by more per heal, they've always been like that. Any Warrior that feels squishy with his cd's even, is likely not a very good Warrior, because with a CD up they essentially have a Drk's passive mitigation, with more damage, that also receives more healing, for their cd's duration. Thing is however, a Warrior can keep things in cycle almost like a Paladin can at this point, and when there are downtimes, Wrath is a static thing so long as you are in Defiance, and failing to have Inner Beast when you need it is a sign of a bad Warrior.

Warrior is far more 'developed' than Drk is. And that makes them very efficient OT's, and MT's for many fight. Any fight a Drk can MT, a Warrior can do better while bringing far more to the table in what they can do for both themselves, and the others in the raid group. Hell even Paladin as well, because neither of them are selfish tanks by poor design.


But even still with all of that aside, Drk can do many things, I have all of Alex down as a Drk, and even did the last floor with 2 Drk's. Sure it was hell, but an all magic fight like that is where it feels as if Drk is suppose to shine. Yet they don't, because in an all magic fight, you may as well take Reprisal off of your hotbar. If you have a monk, well there goes the only other thing you actually contribute to the group with.


tl;dr: Warriors being squishier than Drk is an illusion, or a sign of a very bad Warrior.

[Giantbane]

Warrior feels squishier overall simply because they don't have a raw mitigation tank stance like Drk does, they take more damage, but they get healed for more. Their HP is going to fluctuate a lot.

No, that's not how math works. Healers don't look at numbers, they look at a bar and your % of the HP you have left. Between DRK & PLD with grit/shield oath vs. WAR with defiance, it's mathematically almost the exact same. All 3 tanks take the same amount of damage to die, exactly the same amount. The only difference is that the WAR requires about ~4% more healing than the other two tanks. With all the over healing that goes on in raids, in addition to the self heals from frequent inner beast usage, that 4% is pretty negligible.

WAR can feel a little squishy compared to PLD because they don't have a shield, and don't get free blocks. But other than that, a WAR should only feel squishy if they're not using their strong and relatively low cooldown mitigation abilities (inner beast, ToB, vengeance, storm's path), or not using them effectively. It's probably a bit more prevalent than it used to be due to easy stance dancing and using fel cleave instead of inner beast for MOAR DEEPZ! There's no reason a WAR concentrating on mitigation should feel squishier than a DRK.

[dragoelete]

snip

which is the problem out of every 10 wars i have healed only 1 yes 1! has focused on mitigation...

[Kaedan94]

No, that's not how math works. Healers don't look at numbers, they look at a bar and your % of the HP you have left. Between DRK & PLD with grit/shield oath vs. WAR with defiance, it's mathematically almost the exact same. All 3 tanks take the same amount of damage to die, exactly the same amount. The only difference is that the WAR requires about ~4% more healing than the other two tanks. With all the over healing that goes on in raids, in addition to the self heals from frequent inner beast usage, that 4% is pretty negligible.

This is no longer correct, as far as I've seen. I have yet to see a WAR with more than maybe 5% more HP than me, and most of the time they've been about equal with Defiance on. Of course I'll need to find a WAR with the exact same gear as me to test it accurately.

If WARs did have 25% more HP than PLDs or DRKs, then you'd be correct that it all "comes out in the wash" mathematically. But that doesn't appear to be the case.