Drk opener as mt

[Chronons]

N E V E R pull with Plunge or use Unmend>Plunge under any circumstances ever

I think this is an interesting point, and for the sake of my own understanding i'd like to push back just a bit. Front loading potency while you are in Grit means two things: you get to get out of Grit faster, you reduce the probability that you have to go back into Grit.
You regard plunge as a potency loss for the melee dps as they must use their gap closers or sacrifice a sec or two to catch up, but do not address that plunge is an asset to DRK for holding enmity with ranged dps. You better believe as soon as you use Unmend your BLM is going to go ham. Plunge helps keep you ahead of the ranged dps in enmity. If they have to wait for you to run the rest of the way to the target that is a one or two second dps loss for them.
Your rotation has one Power Slash Combo. There is no way that is going to hold hate with any kind of competent dps. Ever since 3.2 changes it takes at least 2-3 before you should consider dropping Grit. If you have to go back into Grit or use a Power Slash combo after dropping Grit the first time its a huge dps loss. Much more than using Plunge on the pull. In principle I think you are spot on, save potency for when it is not going to be debuffed. However, experience tells me to do that you will be saving plunge for far longer than one PS combo.

[Kitfox]

You regard plunge as a potency loss for the melee dps as they must use their gap closers or sacrifice a sec or two to catch up, but do not address that plunge is an asset to DRK for holding enmity with ranged dps. You better believe as soon as you use Unmend your BLM is going to go ham. Plunge helps keep you ahead of the ranged dps in enmity.

WAR and PLD don't have Plunge and they can keep hate off ranged DPS just fine, why would you need to Plunge for hate on pull? You can use Plunge anywhere else in your opener for the damage/enmity/whatever, but using it on the pull is quite literally the worst option.

[JackFross]

inc wall because numbers

Personally, I start with unmend and plunge, followed by scourge.

I think this is an interesting point, and for the sake of my own understanding i'd like to push back just a bit. Front loading potency while you are in Grit means two things: you get to get out of Grit faster, you reduce the probability that you have to go back into Grit.
You regard plunge as a potency loss for the melee dps as they must use their gap closers or sacrifice a sec or two to catch up, but do not address that plunge is an asset to DRK for holding enmity with ranged dps. You better believe as soon as you use Unmend your BLM is going to go ham. Plunge helps keep you ahead of the ranged dps in enmity.

Couple things:
1. If you lead with Scourge, you're locking yourself to +1 GCD in Grit before dropping it, which is a much bigger DPS loss than saving it to use when Grit drops.
2. See: all of the reasons Plunge Pull is bad. Because these reasons are valid and outweigh any perceived gains in Enmity which are either nonexistent or negligible.
"How negligible are they?"
Consider two openers below the cut:

[Grit+Darkside] Unmend > Low Blow > Hard Slash > Spinning Slash > Power Slash
[Grit+Darkside] Unmend > Plunge > Scourge > Hard Slash > Low Blow > Spinning Slash
Same amount of time has passed. I even give you a Low Blow there, and count 1 Scourge tick per gcd.

We can ignore the Grit/DS mods, since multiplication is commutative, so you could factor it out and ignore those gains. Instead, just looking at raw potency and enmity mods.

Mine: 150*3 > 100 + 150 > 220*3.5 > 300*5.5
Mine: 450 > 250 > 770 > 1650
Yours: 150*3 > 200 + 100 > 100 + 40 + 150 > 40 + 220*3.5
Yours: 450 > 300 > 290 > 810

You are generating literally +50*2.7 = +135 additional potency of enmity in the second GCD compared to what my opener does.

Fire 3 - the second GCD from a BLM, which comes approximately 1s into the fight, is 396 potency. Coupled with the initial F1, it's 666 potency of damage (Less than this... I counted AF1 as 1.5? Might be wrong). Your initial Unmend is 1215 potency of Enmity. That's nearly double the BLM's first two GCDs in the single initial hit. If you need +135 enmity potency to hold against the following F4 (Which, admittedly, is 739 potency and will hit 6x in the next 25-30s), you're massively undergeared.

"What!?"
One Power Slash in Grit is 1650*2.7 = 4455 enmity generated just from that single attack.
One Fire IV is 739. Six Fire IVs is 4434.
Oh. My one single Power Slash in the opener 3 gcds into the fight has already taken into account all six Raging Strikes Fire IVs in the Black Mage's opener, not counting Quelling Strikes or Silhouette.
Huh. It's almost as if I used two of those, there's no opener in the game that should even be teasing the 70% mark.

This is also all the more reason you should not be using Scourge there, but rather should be using your Power Slash combo first.

Not to say that yours isn't well thought through, but to say what I'm saying isn't bad either.

I know this is confrontational, but I am absolutely 100% saying that pulling with Plunge is bad, and that you should stop doing it. It does literally nothing positive for you on the pull, and it hurts the melee dps in your party quite substantially, especially in the floors of Midas, where bosses start at the far north.

For the record! Melee numbers below the cut.

Dragoon's Spineshatter Dive - a potency comparison!
Used on pull: 170 Potency.
Used in opener: 170*1.15*1.1*1.3*1.3 = 363 potency
With Hypercharge or Trick Attack: 400 potency
With both: 439

For comparison, my Spineshatter Dive on the pull in A5S (because it's optimal to use it there) did 1030 last week.
My Spineshatter Dive in my opener on A7S regularly does 2600+ when it doesn't crit.

Not counting SSD's animation delay when using it on the pull, that's 1500+ damage I'm sacrificing because you need to use Plunge to pull.

And that's just me. I dunno about other Melee and how much they lose. It's also important to note that running up to the boss is more than "1-2 seconds" - it's at least a full GCD. Especially in Midas floors 2 through 4. You lose 1-2 full GCDs and start that much slower when you have to chase after a Plunged boss being held North.

Important note I need to keep reposting:
It is never - never - never - never - never preferable to a significant degree to hold the boss north at the moment the fight begins outside of cases where the boss is fixed in that position.

Specific examples under the cut.

Every encounter in A6 benefits from being pulled closer to middle before starting the encounter.
Quickthinx in phase 1 can be anywhere with exactly identical handling of mechanics
-- (in normal - in Savage, middle is preferred because of hammers)
Onslaughter is optimally held middle cheating north, not far north like 99.9999% of tanks like to do.

The only boss that a case could be made for is the first boss of Amdapor City Hard Mode, however the first Neuro Squama doesn't come out for a solid 30s+ into the encounter - plenty of time to move the boss after the encounter starts.

So.

Please.

Stop using Plunge to pull.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. ♥

If they have to wait for you to run the rest of the way to the target that is a one or two second dps loss for them.

Spoken like someone who has never tanked in this game until they picked up Dark Knight.

How to pull a boss as a Tank:
Step 1: Press Unmend, Tomahawk, or Shield Lob once the boss is in range.
Step 2: Meet the boss before your GCD spin even fills up in order to press an Off-GCD skill, followed by the first hit of your Enmity combo.
Step 3: Press the second hit of your enmity combo.
Step 4: Drop the Hammer.
Step 5: ?????
Step 6: Profit.

Do me and yourself a favor and just try this, just once, before you sit here and try to cry wolf over something I have been doing since I started playing tank in 2.1. I know it works. I know it has worked since forever. I know it still works now.

Your rotation has one Power Slash Combo. There is no way that is going to hold hate with any kind of competent dps. Ever since 3.2 changes it takes at least 2-3 before you should consider dropping Grit. If you have to go back into Grit or use a Power Slash combo after dropping Grit the first time its a huge dps loss. Much more than using Plunge on the pull. In principle I think you are spot on, save potency for when it is not going to be debuffed. However, experience tells me to do that you will be saving plunge for far longer than one PS combo.

You need to carefully define "competent" in this situation:

My i216 DRK certainly has issues holding against an i230 BRD who actually knows what they're doing, using this strategy. I lost hate to one and let him die because I didn't look at hate bars and stopped pressing Power Slash for too long.
My i226 PLD has never had issues in any content holding hate solid with this strategy, even when encountering DPS with i240 Midan drops bursting for upwards of 2.3-2.4k. No Shadewalker.

I should be playing more conservatively on my DRK, I don't deny that. I should probably throw up a second Grit PS before going full dps, but I'm a greedy bastard, so I don't. C:

Now, as for the dps loss part of this discussion.

Yes. You're right. Using Power Slash out of Grit is a DPS loss compared to using a Syphon Strike combo out of Grit.

(Ignoring the Darkside bonus, since it applies the same to either)
Power Slash out of Grit = 150 + 220 + 300 = 670 potency
DA+SE in Grit = 150 + 250 + 400 = 800 potency - you're in grit so it's 800*0.8 = 640 potency

"But what about the fact that it doesn't have Syphon Strike built in?"
Interesting question.
As I've stated in an earlier post:
1 cast of Blood Weapon affords you enough bonus Mana to use 6-7 Power Slashes before you see a net loss in Mana compared to Grit (6 combos is 45s).

However, it is definitely, 100% optimal to stay in Grit as long as necessary to maintain a string of SS combos without ever needing to touch PS again, within reason. Using 2-3 before dropping it (IF NEEDED) is for sure optimal compared to dropping it sooner.

Blah blah blah.
- Leading with Plunge is bad. Don't do that.
- Using Power Slash out of Grit isn't a dps loss compared to staying in Grit.

[tremor24]

[Grit+Darkside] Unmend > Low Blow > Hard Slash > Spinning Slash > Power Slash
[Grit+Darkside] Unmend > Plunge > Scourge > Hard Slash > Low Blow > Spinning Slash
Same amount of time has passed. I even give you a Low Blow there, and count 1 Scourge tick per gcd.

An alternative is unmend, wait about half a second, then plunge into hard slash. The boss will run to the position you plunged from, you will not clip a gcd, extra burst enmity, and you don't lose a fraction of plunge potency from waiting. The differences are very small obviously, but it is misleading to say that using plunge at the start is always wrong. From a melee dps perspective it is the same for the case I mentioned because the boss will move at the same speed and end up in the same location.

I agree about opening with scourge in grit being weaker; it is a mistake I make too often out of reflex because of its priority in general.

[Chronons]

snip

Hey, thank you for responding to my criticisms. I think only three of your point are related to me so I will try to only speak to them.
1. I don’t think I advocated the use of Scourge on the pull, I believe you are directing this at the other poster. Your math shows (Unmend > Low Blow > Hard Slash > Spinning Slash > Power Slash) is superior to (Unmend > Plunge > Scourge > Hard Slash > Low Blow > Spinning Slash). I was speaking to the viability of (Unmend > Plunge > Hard Slash > Low Blow > Spinning Slash > Power Slash). Using your numbers puts it at 450 > 350 > 870 > 1650 meaning it generates an additional 270 (+100*2.7) potency of enmity in the 2nd and 3rd GCD. I fully admit I could be mistaken on that math however. Regardless, your main point is that you should save potency for when you are outside of Grit. As I said I agree with this, however I disagree that gains from front loading potency are negligible in the fight long term. Extra enmity generated in Grit through potency will absolutely decrease the risk of having to waste MP reactivating Grit or to waste GCDs on Gritless Power Slash Combos.
2. I’m afraid you assume too much. I mained WAR throughout 2.0 and made the character attached to this account after taking a long break from the game. Also, I don’t use plunge on pulls. I tend to save it until I’m ready to apply Scourge because it helps me keep better uptime on my DoTs (using the Plunge ability as a sort of hotbar timer). As I said I was only pushing back against your claims to glean a better understanding. Thank you though for your constructive criticism and for not being condescending. The comment that you quoted was only a counter claim to what you said about the melee dps. You criticized Plunge pulling because it adds wasted time to the melee’s ability to do damage, but neglect any time wasted between using Unmend and reaching the target for the second GCD.
3. I guess instead of saying “competent dps” I should just say you will not always be able to get away with just one PS combo in Grit. If you don’t want to have to go back into Grit or use PS outside of Grit (and we seem to agree you shouldn’t) it is likely going to take more than that to ensure you do not have to.

[JackFross]

An alternative is unmend, wait about half a second, then plunge into hard slash. The boss will run to the position you plunged from, you will not clip a gcd, extra burst enmity, and you don't lose a fraction of plunge potency from waiting. The differences are very small obviously, but it is misleading to say that using plunge at the start is always wrong. From a melee dps perspective it is the same for the case I mentioned because the boss will move at the same speed and end up in the same location.

I agree about opening with scourge in grit being weaker; it is a mistake I make too often out of reflex because of its priority in general.

Yeah, I mean - I don't see the issue with that, outside of the issue of the argument for doing it this way being really weak.

You're arguing, as I've shown, over amounts of enmity gain that are less than even the weakest attack from any DPS class going full tilt. +100, +200 - every basic skill from every Job beats these two numbers. It's not a notable gain, but it is a substantial loss of offensive potency. And that's basically the bottom line. It's for sure a personal preference choice in your suggestion and the other ones, but that personal preference is

1. Marginal hate gains that will have literally 0 impact on how long I need to use Grit
or
2. DPS gains by using my main dps off-gcd attacks after Grit has been dropped and Slashing debuff has been applied.

I personally think the cons of 1 are significant, where the cons of 2 are not, but meh. As long as you're not using Plunge to tank a boss at the far north of the map where it spawns, I ain't got anything negative to say about your choice outside of "I personally do not agree with that decision, but you are welcome to make it."

1. I don’t think I advocated the use of Scourge on the pull, I believe you are directing this at the other poster.

Nope, that was someone else.
Yes, it would be +270 enmity gain in the second GCD to do it that way, +540 overall gain before the end of the first Power Slash combo.

The thing is that the total enmity generated by the lesser rotation is:
(450 + 150 + 100 + 770 + 1650) * 2.7 = 8424
The modified would be 8424 + 540 = 8964 = +6% enmity generated in the first 4 GCDs.

AKA: Not a noteworthy gain. A gain, absolutely, but not a gain that I would sacrifice DPS for. Extra enmity frontloaded into Grit is good, but it's much more beneficial to do this by feeding a second Power Slash before dropping Grit than spending a Plunge on the pull. You absolutely /can/ use your other stuff in Grit to start, sure. It might not even be a loss, if you would end up seeing +1 of said skill in the fight over what the guy who holds them sees. However, Plunge still shouldn't be between Unmend and Hard Slash.

2. I’m afraid you assume too much.

I'm not neglecting that time. I'm saying that time does not exist. There's no delay at all between Unmend and Hard Slash, GCD-wise. When the GCD is re-filled, you're hitting Hard Slash and you're within range of the boss. Always. I mean, I do that on PLD all the time (and admittedly have not tanked much on DRK recently) and Shield Lob > Fast Blade is identical to Unmend > Hard Slash.

3. I guess instead of saying “competent dps” I should just say you will not always be able to get away with just one PS combo in Grit. If you don’t want to have to go back into Grit or use PS outside of Grit (and we seem to agree you shouldn’t) it is likely going to take more than that to ensure you do not have to.

Yup! And I agree with you. I think in even gear, you'd need so few additional PS out of Grit that it becomes a gain to drop after one initial combo, but I can't realistically test that with my current DRK.

Yes I am aware of that. I was only speaking about DRKs who were MT. Considering the first clear of the newest content came from Gilgamesh I started there. I looked at the top three DRKs for The Cuff of the Son: all MTs, all use Dark Passenger on the pull. Number one & three in Quickthinks Allthoughts: MTs, Dark Passenger on the pull. This and other trends followed throughout the data.

I will point out a few things here:
1. DP is 150 potency, Plunge is 200.
2. DP is not a gap closer - it doesn't modify the pull in any notable way other than injecting additional potency.
3. DP is a magic attack. It gets no bonus from Storm's Eye or Dancing Edge. Plunge does.

Note that I never once said "do not use Dark Passenger on the pull" - it is significantly less of a loss to use that as an additional off-gcd Enmity boost in grit than to burn Plunge there.

[Chronons]

Note that I never once said "do not use Dark Passenger on the pull" - it is significantly less of a loss to use that as an additional off-gcd Enmity boost in grit than to burn Plunge there.

Oh, I did not mean to imply that you did. Apologies if it came off that way. Its just something I noticed when I dug into fflogs. I am thankful for the discussion as it is what lead me to seek out this information. Also, thank you for all of the good info on Plunge pulling. As I said I don't typically do it, bc I like having it for DoT management, but I know a lot who do. Will be directing them here in the future so they may benefit from your wisdom as well.

[tremor24]

Yeah, I mean - I don't see the issue with that, outside of the issue of the argument for doing it this way being really weak.

You're arguing, as I've shown, over amounts of enmity gain that are less than even the weakest attack from any DPS class going full tilt. +100, +200 - every basic skill from every Job beats these two numbers. It's not a notable gain, but it is a substantial loss of offensive potency. And that's basically the bottom line. It's for sure a personal preference choice in your suggestion and the other ones, but that personal preference is

1. Marginal hate gains that will have literally 0 impact on how long I need to use Grit
or
2. DPS gains by using my main dps off-gcd attacks after Grit has been dropped and Slashing debuff has been applied.

I personally think the cons of 1 are significant, where the cons of 2 are not, but meh. As long as you're not using Plunge to tank a boss at the far north of the map where it spawns, I ain't got anything negative to say about your choice outside of "I personally do not agree with that decision, but you are welcome to make it."

I do not believe it is as much of a dps loss that you think for a couple of reasons. You are front loading an off-gcd attack by at least 4 gcds during a time you won't be doing anything else anyway. Which is at a minimum 1/3 of a plunge wasted, and it can not reliable fit with any other off-gcd's due to jump delay so other abilities are being delayed, at a minimum blood weapon is delayed. So, 0.8 damage due to grit vs. 1.21 from slashing debuff and trick attack minus 1/3 of a 1.1 potency later assuming just slashing debuff is about 0.84 compared to using it right after unmend. Yeah, you may also get litany, but the damage difference is negligible and at the cost of delaying another off-gcd. Overall it seems to be a wash and front loading plunge after unmend in this way is practically unnoticeable. I simply disagree that it is a substantial loss of dps potency as you mentioned.

It is approximately equal damage if delayed by four gcds, and if you end up even delaying it one more than four gcds then you are losing dps.

[ruskie]

You regard plunge as a potency loss for the melee dps as they must use their gap closers or sacrifice a sec or two to catch up, but do not address that plunge is an asset to DRK for holding enmity with ranged dps. You better believe as soon as you use Unmend your BLM is going to go ham. Plunge helps keep you ahead of the ranged dps in enmity. If they have to wait for you to run the rest of the way to the target that is a one or two second dps loss for them.

If you pull with plunge - one thing and one thing alone will happen... aggro yoyo vs ranged... If you pull with unmend - you get to keep your aggro and keep going with your combo.

Each time I had a DRK pull with plunge that happened. When your first hit crits for 3k+ a plunge won't do anything vs it. Another factor that nobody I think mentioned.

Dragoons have battle litany, bards have foe requiem - a bard positions somewhere such that they can sing foe before pull in such a way that when the boss is pulled and positioned properly it gets in range without the bard needing to move. This also should ensure dragoons are in range of the whole party for battle litany. If you on the other hand pull with plunge... boss won't get foe up and most likely half the party won't get battle litany as well unless you run near the now oddly positioned boss.

[Chronons]

If you pull with plunge - one thing and one thing alone will happen... aggro yoyo vs ranged... If you pull with unmend - you get to keep your aggro and keep going with your combo.

When I say say pulling with Plunge I am referring to using Unmend>Plunge to reach the target as opposed to Unmend>run to the target. It was in response to JackFoss' post that challenged what seemed to be conventional wisdom among DRKs in general. I, and I hope nobody else, would never advocate using Plunge as a replacement for Unmend.