after leveling Paladin ... Dark Knight just feels really squishy

[Gemina]

Popping your defensives during a pull is actually very inefficient and tends to result in wasting most of the up-time on them. With all defensive cooldowns that are gated by a recast timer you want to maximize their effectiveness by timing them with the greatest periods of incoming damage. In a mass or long pull that tends to be approximately 2 or so seconds after you stop when all the enemies, including the stragglers, have caught up to you and are now attacking you.

I personally tend to queue up Salted Earth so that it is ready to be placed as I am getting near to stopping, place it where I will be tanking, spend approx. 1 or so seconds making sure positioning is good. At this point the enemies that were chasing me should be catching up so I pop whatever defensive I will be using for this pull plus Blood Price, throw out my initial burst AoE enmity to build my cushion and then start in on my AoE rotation.

I totally understand where you are coming from when it comes to uptime. Proper/optimal CD rotation is going to be efficient by pure happenstance. Using a CD during a pull is more aimed at Anticipation than Awareness. Being on a 60 second cooldown means that you are going to get more use out of it the sooner you use it. Depending on the groups DPS, you'll be able to use it multiple times during a large pull which entails the pull itself and the stopping point. Your stronger mitigative CDs should definitely be held until the stopping point to maximize how much incoming damage they shave off throughout their duration because every single hit is mitigated while they are active. For something like Anticipation, which only increases the rate at which you parry, you can be much more liberal with its use. This can also apply to Awareness because mob crits are also RNG dependent, but the two minute CD my advice and preference is to use it depending on the situation.

In terms of Salted Earth, the uptime is also a factor and because of this I prefer to weave it between GCDs. You want to maximize its damage along with how much it fills the blood gauge. Pre-casting before the pull is done is going to easily lose you 1-2 ticks, and the amount of damage you lose increases the more mobs you pull. We have to remember that bubbles now immediately activate upon their use making weaving them much more optimal.

Really one of the best "defensive" abilities to use during the actual process of pulling is Sprint. If you put enough distance between yourself and the mobs chasing you by outpacing them slightly, they can't hit you and you take little to no damage from them. Just keep in mind where the rest of your party is and ask them to use sprint as well if they keep falling too far behind.

While I do agree here somewhat, sprint isn't required to outpace mobs. There is no avoiding damage entirely during the pull no matter what you do because you're going to get auto attacked once you're in range, very similar to why you will always see your own auto attack in the log before your weaponskill in your opener. Also, using sprint in a PUG often has lead me to taking even more damage because healers tend to not even know it exists outside of sanctuaries. If you know you have a good group who is going to keep up, sprint can definitely be used to help create distance between you and the chasing mobs.

While you may mitigate a little bit of fluff damage by popping your weaker defensives during a pull, as you said, you should be using those weaker ones in your basic defensive rotation. As has been stressed before, while using these weaker defensives by themselves may provide little defense, stacking them together can pretty much make them just as effective as something like Rampart.
Anticipation is on a 60s cooldown and so can be used almost , if not every large pull. It's availability makes it good for popping after your main defensive has run out and you want a little more protection until the mobs have been thinned enough to where their damage is negligible.

I would not underestimate how much damage you take during a large pull. Yes, you want to rotate your CDs so you always have something to use when incoming damage is heavy, and use a strong CD in combination with a weaker one. Your strong CDs are Shadow Wall and Rampart, and the weaker ones I use are Convalescence and Awareness; throughout my days of pulling as DRK, Anticipation has been able to be used far more liberally than anything else because its CD is so short. Basically, pop it whenever it is up and you're also getting hit. Also have faith in your healer until they show otherwise, and don't forget you also have Living Dead.

Honestly, the biggest problem with DRKs mass pulling while not having TBN is that they don't have the necessary synergy of TBN and Quietus to fuel their basic AoE resource gain which is kind of necessary for taking on large groups.

Not true. I've been mass pulling with my DRK since lv50. After level 50, we don't get a single mitigative tool until lv70. You have to make use of your other abilities such as DA+Abysmal Drain, Sole Survivor and Blood abilities to either increase timers, replenish MP for more ADs, and kill things faster. Mass pulling as DRK is seriously a lot of fun even before TBN. Again, if you learn how to sustain yourself prior to getting it; it only makes it that much better because it essentially becomes a very fast way to fill the Blood gauge at that point while also reducing damage.

Overall the best thing any tank playing any of the jobs in any dungeon content can do to increase their survivability is to pay attention to and learn the dungeons so that they learn the pulls and what defensive cooldowns they can pair with them.
Learn and plan ahead and you should do fine, only play reactively and you're going to have a bad time.

Totally agree with you here.

[TouchandFeel]

In terms of Salted Earth, the uptime is also a factor and because of this I prefer to weave it between GCDs. You want to maximize its damage along with how much it fills the blood gauge. Pre-casting before the pull is done is going to easily lose you 1-2 ticks, and the amount of damage you lose increases the more mobs you pull. We have to remember that bubbles now immediately activate upon their use making weaving them much more optimal.

I think there was a misunderstanding on what I was saying I do; I don't precast it, I prep it. Because Salted Earth is a targeted ground AoE it takes two clicks to place it unless you are using a macro. So when I am getting close to where I am stopping my pull, I press Salted Earth to bring up the ground target and basically just have it moving along in front of me as I go. Then when I am going to stop I actually drop it right as I hit the point where I am stopping, basically dropping it right in front of me as I run through it to the far edge of its area. Within the slight delay of it registering and being placed, I should already be through it and all the trailing mobs should be just entering it. No ticks wasted, no GCDs or spaces for OGCDs wasted and it makes it very apparent when and where I am stopping.

While I do agree here somewhat, sprint isn't required to outpace mobs. There is no avoiding damage entirely during the pull no matter what you do because you're going to get auto attacked once you're in range, very similar to why you will always see your own auto attack in the log before your weaponskill in your opener. Also, using sprint in a PUG often has lead me to taking even more damage because healers tend to not even know it exists outside of sanctuaries. If you know you have a good group who is going to keep up, sprint can definitely be used to help create distance between you and the chasing mobs.

Yes, it is pretty much impossible to avoid all damage when pulling but with proper pathing (i.e. choosing the best route to run during the pull), not stopping or slowing down and proper utilization of Sprint you can negate most auto-attacks to where even in a long pull what damage you do receive is barely more than a tickle.

I have personally found the above to be far more effective for reducing damage during a long pull than popping defensives.
If I have the choice of using Anticipation while pulling but not having it available for when I stop to fight, or not having it available during the pull because I am using it while I am actually fighting the mobs, I will always go for the latter since it will prevent far more damage.

Also, your concern about using Sprint in PUGs is precisely why I said " Just keep in mind where the rest of your party is and ask them to use sprint as well if they keep falling too far behind." I have had very little trouble with PUGs keeping up when I hit sprint since even if they don't use it they tend to only be a few seconds behind and if it ever does become a problem I just communicate with them.

I will agree that using Anticipation while pulling could help a tank that is having trouble taking too much damage during that time, I just know that there are other ways to avoid damage during pulls that don't require using a defensive ability that could be better put to use elsewhere and that they will likely be better served simply getting better at making long pulls quickly and effectively.

The one time that I would maybe recommend using it during the pulling process would be when killing the packs of mobs is taking so long that it is available for both the pull and the fight, but if that is the case there are likely bigger problems going on with the group.

Not true. I've been mass pulling with my DRK since lv50. After level 50, we don't get a single mitigative tool until lv70. You have to make use of your other abilities such as DA+Abysmal Drain, Sole Survivor and Blood abilities to either increase timers, replenish MP for more ADs, and kill things faster. Mass pulling as DRK is seriously a lot of fun even before TBN. Again, if you learn how to sustain yourself prior to getting it; it only makes it that much better because it essentially becomes a very fast way to fill the Blood gauge at that point while also reducing damage.

What exactly isn't true?

While it sucks that DRK doesn't get any new defensive abilities between 50 and 70, they have more than adequate defenses to take anything the game is going to throw at them at that point, even when mass pulling.

If you mean that it isn't necessary to take on large groups, I meant more necessary to effectively take on big groups. Yes you can take on big groups and use AoEs without TBN but it feels terrible in comparison to when you have it. You of course need to use your other abilities to build resources without it but it feels like fighting in molasses.
The interplay between TBN and Quietus was obviously designed as the linchpin of the way DRK fights large groups, hence my opinion of the lack of that interaction being the worst part about not having TBN for mass pulls. The lack of extra defense is easily overcome with proper ability usage but having your resource generation slowed to a relative crawl just plain sucks.

[Gemina]

I think there was a misunderstanding on what I was saying I do; I don't precast it, I prep it. Because Salted Earth is a targeted ground AoE it takes two clicks to place it unless you are using a macro. So when I am getting close to where I am stopping my pull, I press Salted Earth to bring up the ground target and basically just have it moving along in front of me as I go. Then when I am going to stop I actually drop it right as I hit the point where I am stopping, basically dropping it right in front of me as I run through it to the far edge of its area. Within the slight delay of it registering and being placed, I should already be through it and all the trailing mobs should be just entering it. No ticks wasted, no GCDs or spaces for OGCDs wasted and it makes it very apparent when and where I am stopping.

That's not quite what I am misunderstanding. What I am misunderstanding is if you are using sprint to create distance between you and the mobs to avoid auto attacks and it takes them a couple of seconds to catch up to you, how are you not wasting ticks from it by placing it at your stopping point instead of weaving? I could possibly see this if you are not using sprint, but then we're back at using Anticipation to reduce some damage during the pull. Which again, it is on such a short cooldown, and you have no other strong mitigative CDs to combine it with as a DRK. It's also a preference to ask your group to sprint with you. You are the only tank I've ever heard of doing this, as I have never had a tank ask this of any group I was a part of. They either use it, or don't and the same applies to the group following him.

We'll probably just have to agree to disagree or chalk it up to our preferences on large pulls.

What exactly isn't true?

That TBN and Quietist are necessary to take on large groups. That is what you stated before changing your statement to effectively. That I will not argue with because there is no question that TBN+Quietist makes pulling large groups a lot easier to handle for the DRK and the healer.

Sure, it can be a drag being synced below 70, but prior to getting there you don't really know what you're missing from your toolkit because you have yet to obtain it. This is true for just about all jobs in the game, not just DRK. It's why so many players dislike having to re-run lower content because they can feel less effective without their entire kit. It makes sense. No doubt there, and I feel the same way. However my initial statements to the OP was to address the 'squishiness" of DRK. And I would much rather advise him on how to make it feel less squishy than to simply say, "suck it up until level 70 when you get TBN."

[OcieKo]

That's not quite what I am misunderstanding. What I am misunderstanding is if you are using sprint to create distance between you and the mobs to avoid auto attacks and it takes them a couple of seconds to catch up to you, how are you not wasting ticks from it by placing it at your stopping point instead of weaving? I could possibly see this if you are not using sprint, but then we're back at using Anticipation to reduce some damage during the pull. Which again, it is on such a short cooldown, and you have no other strong mitigative CDs to combine it with as a DRK. It's also a preference to ask your group to sprint with you. You are the only tank I've ever heard of doing this, as I have never had a tank ask this of any group I was a part of. They either use it, or don't and the same applies to the group following him.

We'll probably just have to agree to disagree or chalk it up to our preferences on large pulls.

Generally speaking you stop just past the last group, so if you say pull 3 groups, sprint is only getting you substantially ahead of the first, slightly the second, and is just getting you to the far side of the third. Since most dungeon/raid trash mobs produce group aggro rather than individual aggro, the first mob initiates all of them, and by the time they begin moving your generally very close to the furthest down mob of the pack.
In his example (using a 3 group pull), by the time he hits Salted Earth Group 3 is on him, Group 2 is probably just outside of the range, Group 1 is probably going to take a second to get in range regardless because of object occlusion at that point. So if every group has 4 mobs for example, by the time that Salted Earth starts ticking probably 6-8 mobs are in range, 4-6 will be there by tick 3, delaying it til you hit all 12 will likely be more detrimental for cooldown alignment than it will for loss of aoe dmg.

~snippet~

Pretty sure this was the general principle of where you were going with it, correct me if I'm wrong.

[TouchandFeel]

Pretty sure this was the general principle of where you were going with it, correct me if I'm wrong.

Pretty much.

I didn't go much into it previously but you also need to account for the fact that Salted Earth is a two-click free roaming/free target cast which, while ogcd, still can take longer to get out than many realize.
Every time you use it you need to click once to activate it, check for the location of the ground marker, adjust the ground marker as necessary and then click again to place it. Even if you are very practiced in doing this it can easily lead to clipping your other attacks and abilities during a period of high activity such as the first few seconds of stopping to fight in a big pull where you are trying to establish your group aggro lead and use your defensives since that is the period of highest incoming damage.

In addition to the potential of clipping or delaying abilities, the couple ticks missing a few mobs at the very beginning is often, if not always, made up for by increasing the amount of time Salted Earth is affecting the mobs before they start getting killed off.
You are going to lose ticks of Salted Earth on some mobs, whether at the beginning or later as the mobs die while Salted is still running. Prepping the cast and getting it out at the beginning just shifts where that happens and frees you up to utilize your time and attention to the myriad of other abilities you want to get out as soon as possible.