"Dark Knight: Tanking On The Edge"

[Berzullha]

Whats the most optimal use of Reprisal? Obviously you want to use in on CD in order to maximize your dps, but in say savage Alex would you be better off holding the CD to better use the mitigation? Or is it still worth to just use it as soon as it procs every time?

[Donjo]

Whats the most optimal use of Reprisal? Obviously you want to use in on CD in order to maximize your dps, but in say savage Alex would you be better off holding the CD to better use the mitigation? Or is it still worth to just use it as soon as it procs every time?

In most situations, it's absolutely best to use it when it procs. In more tense situations it will be worth it to fish for procs at specific times with Dark Dance in order to provide mitigation against specific things(Tank Busters or raid AOEs). Still, the cooldown is a mere 30 seconds, so there's plenty of time to use it for DPS even in tense situations once you've got timing down.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

Excellent write up Szyzgian!

I wanted to ask you what your pecking order on the cross class skills is. I have gone with - Provoke, Convalesence, Foresight, Bloodbath and Mercy Stroke, leaving out Awareness. Would you have Awareness in your top 5 as a general rule, and if so, which skill do you remove?

If Awareness isn't in your top 5 presently- if/when another fight with a high crit chance returns, which of the other skills do you consider the most expendable?

[Syzygian]

snip

Awareness is in my top 5 for two reasons:

1. Mercy Stroke over the course of a fight is an EXTREMELY small DPS increase for a non-WAR; its cooldown is longer and DRK has no Berserk or FoF-style buffs with which to increase its damage. Its 200 potency which is the equivalent of a pair of auto-attacks. Lets take Plunge for instance, since it has the exact same potency. Assuming a fight where you have no adds to kill, you get 1/3rd of the DPS from Mercy Stroke as you do from Plunge (same potency, 1/3rd the recast) and then, only 1/5th of that because it is only useable when the target is under 20% HP. So if you gave Mercy Stroke Plunge's recast time and made it usable from 100% HP and below, it'd be the equivalent of a 13.3 potency oGCD (200/5/3). That's how little it helps.

2. 90% of the time you die and it wasn't the healers fault and it wasn't to a tankbuster, it was a crit. Oh, and then there's this:

-PLD-------/WAR-------/DRK
-Rampart/Inner Beast/Shadowskin
-Sentinel/Vengeance/Shadow Wall
-Bulwark/Raw Intuition/Dark Dance
-Sheltron/Thrill of Battle/Dark Mind
-Hallowed Ground/Holmgang/Living Dead
-Foresight/Foresight/Foresight
-Convalescence/Convalescence/Convalescence
-Bloodbath/Bloodbath/Bloodbath
-Awareness/Awareness/?????????

If you don't take Awareness on DRK, you have less cooldowns than the other tanks. This preys on my sense of OCD, personally. Awareness also synergizes very well with almost any native cooldown DRK has. If you feel that you need to bring Mercy Stroke to help with a DPS check, by all means knock yourself out. Just remember, its like a 13.3 potency oGCD on a 30 second recast. Either way, its not a huge difference.

[Cynric]

Nitpicking but... Living Dead isn't 17-18 seconds of Invulnerability if planned right. It's 17-18 seconds of healers being able to DPS freely if planned right. No matter how hard you plan you're only going to see 8-9 seconds of Invulnerability.

Living Dead- For 10 seconds if you die your hp won't hit zero instead you'll get walking dead debuff.
Walking Dead - For 10 seconds your HP will not hit zero if not healed for the maximum of your HP you will die.

The invulnerability is only part of Walking Dead. Living Dead is just how long you have to die to activate Walking Dead.

While healers can DPS freely during that 10 second activation time if you planned it very well(realistically I think you're only going to see about 7-8 seconds here maximum) You are not invulnerable. As in order for Walking Dead to activate you have to die.

[Kotemon]

Nitpicking but...
Living Dead- For 10 seconds if you die your hp won't hit zero instead you'll get walking dead debuff.
Walking Dead - For 10 seconds your HP will not hit zero if not healed for the maximum of your HP you will die.

I almost never bother to use Living Dead. It never works for me or I'm not grasping the concept. Every time I pop it at low hp say 300 to 800 left. I pop it and in a couple hits it drops to 0 and I just die. No window for "Help me I'm dying here", no "Brainnzz... (groan)" emote. It's right to 0 and into the grave. Double checking the timer its on recast so it had to have gone off. Used at half or full hp on chance and I'm still alive, and probably wasted the ability. I just don't know, for some reason I can find more use for Holmgang on war than figuring out when or how to get living dead to work.

[AriaEnia]

Yeah I have to be careful when playing as a WHM with DRK as the tank, I'm kinda holding back my holy spam.
I have to watch the DRK's mana first before spamming the holy, or otherwise I just use aero III.

[Awful]

I almost never bother to use Living Dead. It never works for me or I'm not grasping the concept.

For living dead there is a bit of an animation delay make sure you have a macro like "Living dead popped zombied!" something like that to give the healers a heads up, and due to the animation lock if you know that you're gonna die in the next 5 secs pop it accordingly. Usually when I have Whms in the group i'll pop LD at the start of giant pulls once the mobs are in position to let them get Holys going then when there's 3 secs left of walking dead they benedict, I pop Shadow wall and continue on from then. LD much like Soul Survivor takes some set up and time, but i've found great uses for both and they're REALLY great abilities when used to their full potential.

[alimdia]

Unmend plunge to pull is not always good.
There are openers for MT with ninja, MT without ninja, OT with ninja, OT without ninja instead of one for all.

[Syzygian]

Unmend plunge to pull is not always good.
There are openers for MT with ninja, MT without ninja, OT with ninja, OT without ninja instead of one for all.

If there are other openers please post them so i can include them. There are multiple openers/variations of openers listed in the guide.