Can I play drk like I play pally

[KrenianKandos]

Well the basis of this thread is pretty simple folks: the OP is asking if he can tank the same way he does as his Paladin, which seems to be single target focus plus Flash spam to keep the others on, with his Dark Knight.

The answer to that is pretty simple: Yes. You can. Simply do your threat attack over and over, use Unleash like flash, ensure you use Blood Price to keep your mana up, and by all means, have at it.

Now, the proper question that you should have asked, OP, is the following: Is it the most efficient way to tank?

And safe to say, that's a resounding no.

Simply put: Even with Darkside up, unless you colossally fail at your rotations and keeping your mana up, Darkside mana use should not be an issue. At all. You can easily tank with Darkside up and still only do your basic rotation, albeit you're kicking your mana rotation out the window which will make things more complicated.

Let's go into detail here:

It is entirely feasible for you to go in like this:

Run in, throw your ball of hate and darkness (Unmend), Unleash to your heart's content, Blood Price, and do your basic rotation of Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, Power Slash.

You keep that on one target, and you'll be king of keeping threat on that one target. You'll even hold your adds fine.

Ultimately? The idea is to actually reduce the amount of damage you will take in order for your healers to not have to heal you as much and keep you up and going and their own mana pull. This means, as a Dark Knight, due to the fact you have far less mitigation than your Paladin counterpart, that you want to kill things faster. And that's where it becomes a bit different as to how you want to play.

What's missing from the above rotation? Siphon Strike. This is your mana regenerating ability. Without this, you're going to run into mana issues if you keep using your other attacks. So then, you are needing to change your tactics in fighting:


Run in, throw your ball of hate and darkness (Unmend), Unleash to your heart's content, Blood Price, and do your basic rotation of Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, Power Slash, THEN do Hard Slash, Siphon Slash and Souleater combo.

This allows you to not only steal health, but regen mana as well, and keep Darkside problems to a bare minimum. This also allows you to get mana back to activate your Unleash skill you want to use so much initially. Without this rotation, you're going to run out of mana quickly during your first rotation and lose out on damage as well as some defensive cooldowns that are only present during Darkside.

Now, with that in mind, yes, your job is to mitigate damage. So now, you can throw Souleater out of the window and decide that you want to hit the casting mobs with Delirium instead. This removes the healing component of your rotation but adds a 24 second debuff on the boss which reduces the INT of an enemy by 10%.

So, now we're at a point where our rotation is far more complex.


Run in, throw your ball of hate and darkness (Unmend), Unleash to your heart's content, Blood Price, and do your basic rotation of Hard Slash, Spinning Slash, Power Slash, THEN Hard Slash, Siphon Strike, Delirium, THEN Hard Slash, Siphon Strike, Souleater.

Phew. Long rotation, right? Well now, two out of your three rotations are pretty much your DPS rotation. At some point, you have to wonder: Why would I go and do my threat rotation when the two other rotations seemingly do enough threat on my targets, and I'm still attacking the main target and keeping it on him, but he's dying faster? Well now you see how some tanks just forego that rotation after maybe one application on a boss:

So you're back to only doing HS, (Hard Slash), SS (Siphon Strike), SE (Souleater) when having to reapply Delirium on every third rotation.

At this point, you realize: Well damn. I'm only doing a DPS rotation. At this point, what could help out with threat? Why yes, more damage!

And that's where Darkside comes all the way back to play: The more DPS you throw out, the more damage you are throwing out for threat and the less need that you have to do your threat attack, which does not give you mana in order to use Unleash as often as you want. Everything is intertwined into the logic of how to play a Dark Knight.

I hope this clarified what people are trying to explain to you, OP.

[Zumi]

DRK doesn't really play like PLD much at all. The rotation on DRK is much more complex then PLD. You have to micro manage your MP a lot which can be hard. You have to evaluate if you have enough MP to use dark arts or not a lot of the time.

[bswpayton]

DRK doesn't really play like PLD much at all. The rotation on DRK is much more complex then PLD. You have to micro manage your MP a lot which can be hard. You have to evaluate if you have enough MP to use dark arts or not a lot of the time.

that was my arguement is if how i prefer to use dark side as needed instead of 100 percent of the time more, like 50 percent of the time for me because of the mp issues

[bardaboo]

I don't think i saw anyone mentioned this as i skimmed. Buuut darkside also has half of your defensive mitigation moves locked behind it. So even though it might feel a little awkward to learn to keep it up, if you're serious about tanking you'll need to learn. It's just one of those things.

if you want a simple tank to play go war. Overpower is a lot like unleash, (frontal only) aoe damaging agro. Spam that a few times (plus you can flash) and then single target.

[Truefaith87]

Since it seems to be a hot button topic in this chat wave, I do NOT keep up Darkside 24/7, I drop it BETWEEN long run pulls so my MP has a fraction of time to recover. It only costs about 400 to reapply at 60, and in those long runs between pulls sometimes you have 20-30 seconds with no mobs. If your MP is low from a boss prior or a stunlocked Holy-happy WHM messing with your Blood Price on a big pull, just let it refill a bit. Some MP is always going to be better than no MP. Does it play similar to PLD? To an extent, but at the same time not at all. Group emnity skill is still a full radial, unlike Overpower, but having to maintain 2 different "Stances" at the same time does take practice. Like any tank in any MMO, it is definately a learning experience. I would recommend picking it up and running the 51-60 dungeons, in order, 2-3 each dungeon at a time. This gives you a gentle curve to learn what the comfort level YOU have is with the class, and the 50+ skills allow for a lot of freedom and learning chances. If it is already 60 and halfway decent geared, take it through the early 60 dungeons to learn the finer points of it. Several small tips? Don't underestimate Sole Survivor, esp. if you can combine it with a kill shot Mercy Stroke. Also don't be afraid to embrace some SS, it actually improves your potential VASTLY.

[Kosmos992k]

Since it seems to be a hot button topic in this chat wave

"chat wave"?

Do you mean 'thread', or perhaps 'topic'?

::

[ErdrickLoto]

that was my arguement is if how i prefer to use dark side as needed instead of 100 percent of the time more, like 50 percent of the time for me because of the mp issues

You can use Darkside just as needed!

As needed is any time you get in a fight.

The higher damage backs up Grit's increased aggro generation. The MP drain is entirely inconsequential, unless you absolutely refuse to use Syphon Strike or Blood Price. Those two skills should alleviate literally any MP drain from using just Darkside; using Dark Arts, Dark Passenger etc. just means that you won't be at 100% MP. And that's fine! No one's going to judge you for not having a full MP bar. They will judge you for not using a bonus to damage where the only downside becomes relevant only if you spam Dark Arts without letting your MP take a breather.

[Lan_Mantear]

So if I just stay in grit and turn on blood price and don't use dark side I can use unleash for a really long time and keep hate. So my question is, is this wrong if so then why is it wrong because dark side drains mp Id rather save for bosses and Im a tank and I thought my job was to hold hate not to out dps.

While it is not technically wrong to do what you propose, keep in mind that you are only level 40. At end game, if you try this strategy, you will run out of MP before the trash mobs are dead. Try to break your bad habits early on, otherwise it'll just be harder for you later on.

So is it acceptable for pali to do single target damage and hold hate but not ok for a drk or are they forced to maximize dps more so than a pally.

It is actually not acceptable for Paladin to do single target damage. Paladin especially needs to rotate their targets much more frequently than WAR or DRK to due to lack of AOE damage beyond Circle of Scorn. Flash is helpful, but it can only do so much. You need to do damage, if you want to keep hate away from those high iLevel DPS.

I,m seein no issues holding hate at all with drk and wondering if they are expected to do more?

Keep in mind, you're only level 40. Things change @ 50 and even more so at 60 once you finally have the entirety of your toolkit.

[Lan_Mantear]

<TLDR>: Try to keep Darkside up 100%.

[bswpayton]

So I just did brayflax in a roulette I did it yesterday also I tried the ,darkside and also blood weapon more this time and keep up darkside more and I did lose hate once and the problem I hated was I felt like a pali all of a sudden with no flash, I had no mana to reuse unleash while I used provoke it could be sitiuations when thats on cooldown, but tbh the time fram was still exactly the same when i did it in grit the whole time yesterday. Literally no difference in time.