Half-baked Thoughts of a Filthy Casual DRK

[Violette]

Don't forget we also got the "omg looks so cool" crowd of lolnins who were loldrgs.

But as Syzy said, most of my time on these forums (when not arguing with syzy or jack) is spent trying to dispel the "drk sucks" crowd.

We don't; you do. If you don't like having to keep track of multiple resources at once, 6 ogcds and then 2 generator ogcds, you will not succeed. The only class that has this degree of micromanagement is the machinist.

I recommend everyone who is having trouble with drk go learn to play mch at raid level.
It'll improve your ability to manage drk's resources.

[MagiusNecros]

DRK doesn't suck. I just have reservations about skills needing other party members to fulfill their function or you get nothing. Mainly SoSu and LD. But when they work it's great.

I play BLM so MP management is easy.

I don't raid so other then a bad vault run I will never need LD.

Fell Cleave? I have Scourge/Salted Earth.

[Falar]

syzz like the dark knight i am from 3.0 congratz for this post, you can't say it better.

Yeah, no need to comment. He said it all.

[Violette]

DRK doesn't suck. I just have reservations about skills needing other party members to fulfill their function or you get nothing. Mainly SoSu and LD. But when they work it's great.

I play BLM so MP management is easy.

I don't raid so other then a bad vault run I will never need LD.

Fell Cleave? I have Scourge/Salted Earth.

There are a lot of them on multiple classes but no one complains about those to the same degree as the LD whiners.

[MagiusNecros]

There are a lot of them on multiple classes but no one complains about those to the same degree as the LD whiners.

Probably because unlike Holmgang and Hallowed Ground Living Dead requires on hand Party coordination or in this case coordination between the Tank and the Healer for Living Dead to work properly.

With both HG skills they work by themselves by the PLD/WAR who triggered them and can enjoy their effects without need of another and still be perfectly fine. Point is they can synergize with these skills with shit in their own kit.

PLD can combine their Ult with Cover. WAR can get themselves back up by a decent margin with a plethora of self heals and ignore draw-in effects and chain something down. With DRK however it's a bit more limited and you really can't synergize it with anything in it's kit. And it comes with a very steep price unlike the other 2 where you need a full heal once you hit 0 HP. The other 2 do not have that stipulation and therefore the whining. And as I said for the most part you won't ever need to use it except in the case of "I blew all my defensive abilities like a dumb and none of them are up and LD is all I have left". Or maybe if someone screws up bad in the Vault's last boss where the DPS were just atrocious and killed the healer. Which in itself is baffling with everything DRK has for defenses which IMO is still a lot. More ingenious use of LD if you trust your healer enough is massive pull everything in a dungeon and just focus down the mobs and let the healer do some dps before popping a regen and emergency full heal button like a WHM can.

But in a dungeon it isn't even needed. It's always felt like a raid-centric skill if you ask me.

I do feel the whining about Living Dead has run it's course though. If the devs feel it is working as intended it won't change and if it does later on then that's great as well.

If I'd change anything about DRK it's some sort of Utility the DRK can offer in the presence of a Monk. Otherwise I'm fine with it.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

Even when going through dungeons on either of the other two tanks, I always let my healer know if I'm going to Hallowed or Holmgang. Its just courtesy. This lack of communication is really the only thing holding LD back in DF content. The only healer that remotely struggles with LD is SCH, as AST's Essential Dignity may as well be a bene, with regens and anyself-healing you're doing taken into account. But even then, I've never met one that couldn't do it if they knew it was coming. And if you pair it with Conva then all excuses go out the window. You'd have to be in cleric stance to not keep a DRK with LD+Conva from dying.

Raid-centric is honestly what matters. A high-end raid is where any jobs maximum potential and the fruition of their intended design shines brightest. You have to use all your abilities and you have to use them correctly. No one is going to care if some DRK popped LD in a dungeon and died because there are so many other questions to ask before even considering sympathizing with that plight. First, for them not to communicate I'd assume they are casual or new, and its just a hop/skip/jump from there to "Why are they not pulling smaller and if they are already only pulling 1 or 2 packs, how the hell did they need living dead?" If the healer was asleep/afk/eating sammich, they would have died regardless. If the DRK in question fancies themselves a badass, and are pulling OMG XBAWKS HUEG pulls, "Why didn't you blind everything/boost your evasion between Blood Price casts?" "Why didn't you self-heal to kingdom come if you had all that trash on you and were getting more MP than a BLM on steroids?"

Those were strats I outlined in my earlier post. I use them at the start of literally every large, worthy pull in a dungeon, which means I am, on average, about 30-40s into a pull before I even have to touch a genuine cooldown other than Dark Dance.

Frankly, there's a lot of creative tools you have at your disposal to survive big dungeon pulls outside of your garden-variety cooldowns. If I were to hazard a guess, that's probably why they didn't care if LD isn't dungeon friendly. But again, fault there lies with the player (either healer or tank or both), not the job or the ability. The ability is amazing if you ask me. ~15s of healers ignoring the tank and going caveman on a boss in a raid setting is a thing of beauty. I'm not bound in place, it doesn't need a target, and there's a good chance I can use it twice per pull unlike Hallowed. Not that HG/Holmgang aren't awesome abilities in their own right. But it basically boils down to this: Yeah, LD is mostly only awesome in raids. Its not so great in casual content, but in casual content you have DADP/DADD/DAAD+BP. I mean those are like having 3 extra cooldowns. So for a DRK to run out of ways to mitigate damage on a dungeon pull to the point where they have to even consider using LD is beyond me, unless the healer is, as I said, dead/afk/eating sammich.

I know you don't like it because you don't raid but... I mean I raid, and I never ever have to use it in a dungeon. Like, never. So just like its usefulness in raids is wasted on you, its lack of synergy with casual content is kinda wasted on me.

[MagiusNecros]

snip

I'll be perfectly honest in just dungeons I'm perfectly content with DADD + DADP and going gritless or just Abyssal Drain spam. Because 90% of the time LD is just simply not used or needed. Which you've already addressed.

And you are absolutely right by time you run out of defensive cooldowns your first one or at least Dark Dance is back up. Really no excuses. LD is more of a use this or you will die skill. Primarily in raids. Or use it to great effect in PvP.

Only issues I'll see if any with LD is people being bad and not knowing what it does, how it works, or just doesn't run with a DRK that often which by now should no longer be an excuse unless they are new to the game period.

And if I run DRK in anything I always have a "vocal" channel open since communication that way is more concise and exact.

[Ilan]

The Dark Knight is simply not a easy Tankclass and he is good how he is. If you don't understand how he works, practice instead of demanding changes.

There are lots of good DRK out there and they love their emo Tank exactly how he is!

[shao32]

TWINSISTER

offtopic i need to say ilan you are my lost twinsister XDDD

here my char ^^

[Ilan]

Well hello then.