The Definitive Dark Knight Guide

[Allyrion]

I must be over-thinking this or missing something huge, but what in the world does DS stand for? If it means Dark Side than this makes no sense since Dark Side isn't a part of any combos at all, it being a toggled buff and all that.

Unless OP is simply stating Soul Eater without Dark Arts is not worth it most of the time, which perhaps could have been worded better imo. Anyone else have an idea?

It confused me a little too. It is Darkside.
It's more clear if you look at the part above it.

Hard Slash (150)
Syphon Strike (250)
Souleater (260, DA 400)
Delirium (280)

Souleater Darkside: 660 potency
Souleater Dark Arts: 800 potency
Delirium rotation : 680 potency

First and foremost, establish aggro with your Power Slash combo described above; afterwards, its all about using the right tools for the job.

1. The DA/SE combo brings MP replenishment, HP replenishment, and 800 potency to the table. I usually sneak in as many of these as possible while I have BP or BS up. This is your highest DPS rotation.
2. The DE rotation is your second highest DPS rotation at 680 potency. This should be used if you need to replenish some MP and/or if you need to keep the -10% INT buff up
3. The SE/DS rotation is your "I need some HP" rotation. Don't expect a lot of incoming heals from this, its more about maintaining. You'll rarely be using this rotation.

It's a bit weird to mention Darkside at all in this, since it should be a given as it is with DA/SE, otherwise it should be DA/SE/DS.
Adding DS to everything would be pretty redundant though. DS also isn't actually in the abbreviations so though it's pretty obvious, it was confusing in the context of 'why is it mentioned for this combo if active for all?'.

But yea, I'm pretty sure it's just a non-DA Souleater as they mention Darkside Souleater combo above it in comparison to 'Soul Eater Dark Arts' and Delirium.

[Docfiord_Fowling]

I must be over-thinking this or missing something huge, but what in the world does DS stand for? If it means Dark Side than this makes no sense since Dark Side isn't a part of any combos at all, it being a toggled buff and all that.

Unless OP is simply stating Soul Eater without Dark Arts is not worth it most of the time, which perhaps could have been worded better imo. Anyone else have an idea?

Yeah, I meant that to be a raw Souleater combo with Darkside up. Obviously it is not recommended, but I figured it would be a good idea to at least cover all the rotations available. I'll add Darkside to the abbreviations and clarify this rotation a little better. Again, it is not a recommended rotation, but if you don't have enough MP for a Dark Arts, and you need healing, it is better than nothing.

[Allyrion]

Yeah, I meant that to be a raw Souleater combo with Darkside up. Obviously it is not recommended, but I figured it would be a good idea to at least cover all the rotations available. I'll add Darkside to the abbreviations and clarify this rotation a little better. Again, it is not a recommended rotation, but if you don't have enough MP for a Dark Arts, and you need healing, it is better than nothing.

One more thing -
Salted Earth is always worth using, right? That's been the impression I've got.
Obviously not if the enemy has to be moved and such, but if it's stationary it's good for single target too, right?

It's mentioned in the AoE rotation, but not in the single target one. It's 525 potency and it's even off the GCD.

Just an aside, it's a little weird there's no debuff on the target when they're in Salted Earth. Only a buff on you.

[Docfiord_Fowling]

One more thing -
Salted Earth is always worth using, right? That's been the impression I've got.
Obviously not if the enemy has to be moved and such, but if it's stationary it's good for single target too, right?

It's mentioned in the AoE rotation, but not in the single target one. It's 525 potency and it's even off the GCD.

Just an aside, it's a little weird there's no debuff on the target when they're in Salted Earth. Only a buff on you.

Yes, Salted Earth is hella free damage. No MP or TP cost and it is off GCD. Even if they only take 1 tick, its worth it. (Provided there wasn't some other oGCD you could have used)

[Evantide]

Regarding Salted Earth: According to the ability description "dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 75 to any enemies who enter"

So is that just initial damage when they go in? Or do the enemies suffer from damage over time while immersed in the aoe also?

[Aerin92]

Thanks for clearing that up, and thanks for making this guide! It would have taken me a lot longer to figure DRK out without this guide.

[Docfiord_Fowling]

Regarding Salted Earth: According to the ability description "dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 75 to any enemies who enter"

So is that just initial damage when they go in? Or do the enemies suffer from damage over time while immersed in the aoe also?

Salted Earth deals 75 potency damage every 3 seconds for 21 seconds. So, (21/3) x 75 = 525 potency! Keep in mind, that's if they stay in there for the entire 21 seconds. Otherwise, 1st "tick" is 75, 2nd "tick" is 75, so now they have taken 150 potency damage. Make sense?

[AbandonHopeTD]

Can we talk def cooldowns? Im new to the tanking role, and with cooldowns I try to keep at least something up at all times and shadow wall if i know a big hit/s is coming. Is that what everyone else does? Other than that I'm loving dark knight, despite what anyone says about squishy and utility, its fun as hell to play!

[Docfiord_Fowling]

Sure! I'll add a detailed section to the guide on this later. Its all about counterbalancing the amount of incoming damage to make healing somewhat predictable for the healers. If there is no expected incoming damage, things like Foresight, Bloodbath, and Dark Dance are great to use in order to maintain mitigation and counter balance damage by self healing. Parrying will also proc Reprisal which is a nice -10% outgoing damage across the board while Souleater is a frequent 400 potency self heal. Your percentage based cooldowns should be used for big spikes in damage or if the healers need to turn their focus to other people for healing. In Alex Floor 1 for example, the first half of the fight there is only 1 enemy, so you should able to be get away with minimal cooldowns. Then, as more healing is needed, you can gradually use more cooldowns so the healers don't have to pay as much attention as they did to you before.

[Syzygian]

DRK requires very different cooldown usage from the other two tanks and that's why I think a lot of people are finding it squishy.

Basically the only two CDs you should be using for any reasonable amount of damage, by themselves, are Shadowskin and Shadow Wall. Everything else is something that should be stacked with something else. For example, in between Shadowskins and Shadow Walls, I mitigate damage with Dark Dance + 1 of Foresight/Awareness/Conva/Bloodbath.

Between DRK's surplus of cross class CDs and Dark Dance's brief 60s CD its good, consistent mitigation. And on that note, its worth saying that Foresight and Bloodbath scale in usefulness with your gear for defense and damage dealt/HP respectively, and particularly in Foresight's case, are only gonna become better and better CDs as ilvls rise.

That and then there's Dark Mind, also with only a 60s CD. If you Dark Arts this combined with Shadowskin or Shadow Wall for any magical tank buster like Discoid in A4 or even (sorta) the constant prey wave attacks in RavEx, you take a pitiful amount of damage. Even less with Delirium and Reprisal up. In RavEx I pop Shadow Wall for the first set of attacks, and after the orbs go out, try and see if i can have Reprisal and Delirum up, and pop Shadowskin + DA Dark Mind. I've taken under 1000K per hit without any mitigation from healers.

Basically DRK has two big mitigation cooldowns, two decent cooldowns with very short recast times, and 4 cross class abilities for seasoning.

As for DPS, people are getting too salty about C&S usage. Basically if you just Dark Arts'ed two SE combos in a row, and you follow it up with unDA'ed C&S, you've just bought yourself another DA SE combo. DA SE is only 50 potency less and is usable every 3 GCDs.

There will be situations where if you DA SE and then DA C&S before your next SE, you won't have enough MP to keep DA SEing. its really dependent on the fight, and fights are so varyingly mechanic-heavy in new content I never would claim something like C&S usage to have an end-all-be-all strategy uniformly across every encounter. It depends on a crap-ton of things, how much damage you're taking, how much your DPS aren't watching their hate, your MP, and so on. But essentially if all other factors are equal, there are times where I've been able to DA 4-5 SE combos in a row, while using unDA'ed C&S, whereas had I DA'ed C&S, would not have been able to get off more than 2 or 3. UnDA'ed C&S is like a free Syphon Strike. It has its uses. If you're ever hurting for MP bad enough to use unDA'ed C&S, it should be because you've been spamming 400 potency SEs and want to keep doing it. 50 potency isn't always worth it.