[Opener/Tips/Advices] How to play Drk

[Syzygian]

You need some reading comprehension and bad.

We're talking STRICTLY about the cross class abilities, which ones are must have, which ones are optional. You don't take the cross class abilities and then let them sit there. Who the hell does that? It's just a choice of what to use. In the grand scheme of things, they're not that powerful, so if you want to trade off ONE of them for mercy stroke, it's not that big a deal. Mercy stroke is also weak, as you point out, so you're perfectly fine going the defensive route if that's your preference with very little lost.

Blood Weapon having a 40s cooldown is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I'm ONLY talking about blood bath here, and when you use blood weapon and blood bath at the same time, it's a lot weaker than blood bath and berserk or blood bath and FoF. Who cares if you can use it again in 40s? Can you use Blood bath again in 40s with it? no. Is it going to give you any more healing from Blood bath by using it 40s later? no. So it's pointless to mention.

Several thousand HP over a low damage phase? It's a low damage phase. Who cares? What are you trying to save your healer 1 GCD to throw regen on you? Is it useful? Sure, mildly. I use it when it's up, and try to pair it with Blood weapon whenever possible. Is there something wrong with using it? no. Is it a huge deal if you want mercy stroke instead? Honestly, it's probably not going to change healer behavior that much unless you're talking a dungeon run where you're over geared.

I feel I read and comprehended you just fine. And I'm sorry if I came off strong but I did specify that its not just you, I see this everywhere, and its just tiresome to see people calling buttons on their hotbar useless, especially in a thread started by someone asking for tips/advice, when you know damn well that they're still pushing them. It feels hypocritical.

Low damage phase is a relative term. Low damage phase in savage still means several thousand DTPS. And if you're doing huge speed run pulls in a piddly dungeon, its not far off from that either. I'm not thinking about saving healer GCDs, I'm thinking if something stupid happens, how long will I be able to survive without their intervention if they have to go tend to some dumbassery on the part of someone else in the party? Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one not living in this fantasy world that people seem to make their arguments based on, where every party is a farm party, DPS never fuck up/take unnecessary damage/die, and the healer is 100% focused on you.

I see people quote math on Foresight and Awareness all the time, but people just give Mercy Stroke the benefit of the doubt because "mah deepz, bruh" (not referring to any one particular person in particular here). What's the actual percentage increase on a DRK (who can't Zerk or IR it) for personal DPS assuming they get to hit Mercy Stroke twice in a boss fight? Not trying to be sassy, I'm genuinely curious, and Mercy Stroke seems to get a free pass because its deeps and we're in a dps focused meta. How much does it *actually* increase DPS?

I just feel like it deserves the same scrutiny, and it doesn't get it because its an offensive ability rather than defensive. We will take time out of our days to math a defensive cooldown to death for the sake of discounting/devaluing it but if its a DPS increase it could be .00000001% and we'd still take it. =/