The Definitive Dark Knight Guide

[stoxastic]

In every savage fight outside A2S, our group has the WAR pull in defiance as opening out of grit and with blood weapon and ootnis really strong.

Because of all the oGCDs, potting prepull is optimal IMO because it won't delay your other moves and you get a potted scourge.


3s prepull: Dark arts
1s prepull: pot
Pull: plunge > scourge > BW + C&S > hard slash > salted earth > siphon strike > DA > Soul eater > dark passenger > repeat DA SE combo...

As MT I would still prepull DA, pull with unmend > pot > scourge > CS > power slash combo with oGCDs.

If you want max damage as MT and don't need grit mitigation you can do unmend > power slash combo > pot + drop grit > scourge > DA Soul eater combos with oGCDs.

[Aiurily]

if you pot>plunge you're gonna miss a GCD for your pot because of plunge animation delay

if your MT is pulling with tank stance/shadewalker then might as well do something like this

da>unmend right after your MT tomahawks>str pot>scourge>salt+bw>1>c&s+da>2>plunge>3>dp>1>low>2>da>3>pot off>1>bw off

[stoxastic]

I always have trouble fitting salted earth plus another skill in the same GCD window. I also have trouble fitting 2 skills between gcds with BW up without delaying. I mean it might be lag but i find it really hard to not delay skills doing this.

I'm also super patient on my salted earth because I'm afraid I'll put it behind me or something silly like that. But yeah I can see how plunge messes with your pot timing.

But I started playing DRK so I didn't need to walk up to the boss, lol.

[DMARX7]

Congratulations for your post, it is very helpful. Well, I'm still a newbie at tanking (DRK is my first tank job) and never OT before, so I have a very "newbie" question (xD): as OT, would it be better to keep Grit off since I could steal aggro from MT or whatever?

[Kiri_Tqnikaze]

Congratulations for your post, it is very helpful. Well, I'm still a newbie at tanking (DRK is my first tank job) and never OT before, so I have a very "newbie" question (xD): as OT, would it be better to keep Grit off since I could steal aggro from MT or whatever?

That's where the cross class skill "Provoke" comes into play. As OT, you should be in Darkside (without grit). If a tank swap is needed or if the Mt derps and dies, thats when you'll turn on grit, provoke the target, follow up with unmend/unleash/abyssal drain (unleash is what I use as it casts really fast compared to abyssal drain).

[Syzygian]

Here is an OT rotation that I've found very effective:

-pre-cast DA
-Salted Earth
-Plunge
Scourge
-Carve
Hard Slash
-Low Blow **
-Dark Passenger **
Syphon Strike
-DA
Souleater
-Blood Weapon ***
Hard Slash
Syphon Strike
Delirium

**you should be able to weave two oGCDs very easily as long as neither of them are Plunge, which has an animation that can't be clipped by other skills.
***this is popped here since a decent hole has been made in your MP at this point, as opposed to popping at full MP and wasting the returns.


From here you alternate between Delirium and DA Souleater. Yes you can DA every single one when rotating like this. Use all other abilities on cooldown, including Dark Passenger (yes you'll have the MP for it). Regardless of the attack speed increase of Blood Weapon, every other Delirium, you'll reapply Scourge, and every other Scourge, you'll weave in DA Carve.

So not factoring in off-GCD abilities not named Carve and Spit, the rotation looks like this:
Scourge-DA Carve-DA Souleater-Delirium-DA Souleater-Delirium-Scourge-DA Souleater-Delirium-DA Souleater-Delirium--->repeat
-off-GCD cooldowns allowing, you'll pre-cast DA before the Hard Slash leading into Souleater, and pre-cast it either before or after the Delirium immediately before Carve comes off CD.

This rotation bursts to 1.4-1.5K and settles at about 900 and some change with full uptime at about 910 STR, 550 crit, 550 SS, and 250 det. You will TP-floor before you MP floor with 100% uptime, even with DAing every SE and Carve, and Delirium and Scourge will have 100% uptime (Scourge can sometimes fall off if you have a minimum of BW uptime between applications, but it should only be for about 1 second maximum).

As an MT, you can follow a very similar rotation, however, you'll likely have to use an extra Delirium combo if the boss isn't hitting you enough. Blood Price returns 115 more MP than Blood Weapon per trigger to try and mitigate this discrepancy but it often isn't enough.

[DMARX7]

Got it. Thank you for the tips.

[Ladon]

Here is an OT rotation that I've found very effective:

-pre-cast DA
-Salted Earth
-Plunge
Scourge
-Carve
Hard Slash
-Low Blow **
-Dark Passenger **
Syphon Strike
-DA
Souleater
-Blood Weapon ***
Hard Slash
Syphon Strike
Delirium

This is way too late for Blood Weapon. Something like this would be more effective:

-pre-cast DA
-Salted Earth
-Plunge
Scourge
-Carve
Hard Slash
-Dark Passenger
-Blood Weapon
Syphon Strike
-DA
-Low Blow
Souleater

This will give you more mana with Syphon Stirke after using Dark Passenger so you won't top yourself out, and then you will also get blood weapon mana back from the Low Blow after DA.

Even then, in most fight I will use Blood Weapon before the first plunge because you still will not cap yourself on mana after pre-casting DA and you get 238 manax3 back from Plunge, Scourge and C&S and I have been finding by doing this, later Blood Weapon use aligns much better with the OGCs coming off of cooldown to be used with Blood Weapon up.

[Freyyy]

snip

^ this. I use this exact opener when OTing and it's the best I got so far.

[Syzygian]

This is way too late for Blood Weapon.

Perhaps. But the point is you still get the same degree of uptime and still maintain sufficient mana to TP floor long before you mana-floor, while DAing everything you need/want to DA, casting DP on CD and keeping full uptime on Scourge/Delirium which was my main point. Its actually a pretty minor difference as BW's main DPS value is the MP returns to sustain continued DA SE/Carve usage more than the attack speed increase, which is a pittance compared to the DPS cooldowns of other tanks. I'll test this though and see if there's a noticeable difference.