Getting refused to EX groups as a DRK

[Lorielle]

No, DRK actually ends up having lower DPS than PLD after about 2 minutes of fighting (as an OT, about 2 and a half as MT), thanks to its woeful TP issues

I'm really confused how this works. How is DRK parsing lower than PLD exactly? TP Starve? PLD has the same exact TP costs as DRK. They -should- be seeing the same point of starvation if they're doing the typical combos. 70 > 60 > 60. Now don't mind me, I'm just curious. I don't know what PLD's new Offensive abilities are if that should even factor into it.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I'm really confused how this works. How is DRK parsing lower than PLD exactly? TP Starve? PLD has the same exact TP costs as DRK. They -should- be seeing the same point of starvation if they're doing the typical combos. 70 > 60 > 60. Now don't mind me, I'm just curious. I don't know what PLD's new Offensive abilities are if that should even factor into it.

Paladin abilities have more potency. They also have Fight or Flight and SWORD Oath, which is more damage then darkside. None of these abilities have an MP penalty either. Although many seem to think they lack in AOE, they can now trigger their new high damage dots to secure aggro on multiple opponents.

You could say a Dark Knight's abilities have more potency, but realisticly how many times can you really use Dark Arts? without it several of your abilities are worthless. Compared to Paladin which needs nothing to enhance his abilities.

Shield Swipe is also a free big attack after a block. (VERY LOW TP COST!)

Shield Swipe is one of the big kickers, which would not show up on the parse.

[Faytte]

Paladin abilities have more potency. They also have Fight or Flight and SWORD Oath, which is more damage then darkside. None of these abilities have an MP penalty either. Although many seem to think they lack in AOE, they can now trigger their new high damage dots to secure aggro on multiple opponents.

You could say a Dark Knight's abilities have more potency, but realisticly how many times can you really use Dark Arts? without it several of your abilities are worthless. Compared to Paladin which needs nothing to enhance his abilities.

Shield Swipe is also a free big attack after a block. (VERY LOW TP COST!)

Shield Swipe is one of the big kickers, which would not show up on the parse.

Our Royal Authority combo has 30 more potency than a NON dark art'ed soul eater combo. If you DA every third combo, you are comftorably in the lead. Add in that you have over 2000 free off gcd potency (free) attacks per minute and have a constant 15% buff and I have no idea what you are talking about. And it doesnt do anything like heal us for damage dealt.

Shield Swipe is not free, it costs slightly less tp than you regen in the same time frame, only applies when you are tanking. Shield Swipe costs a GCD, its not free--its not a DPS increase (it is below the average damage of a RA combo (230). Shield Swipe is good because A) it helps slightly with our tp as a MT B) it lets you keep aggro up during goring blade combos, or as extra aggro during another combo. It is ~not~ a dps increase over doing your RA combo.

Paladins tanking cannot generally cast spells in raids--any hit over 20% of your health interupts a spell cast, which in raids means auto attacks from bosses. Given clemency is a 3 second cast and bosses auto about 2-2.5 seconds....yeah...

All this is a bunch of hooey. Your TP management is almost the same as a paladins, and while not as good--your off GCD offense is spectacular, your AOE is spectacular, you gain mobility and other features others would love.

[Kiteless]

Our Royal Authority combo has 30 more potency than a NON dark art'ed soul eater combo. If you DA every third combo, you are comftorably in the lead. Add in that you have over 2000 free off gcd potency (free) attacks per minute and have a constant 15% buff and I have no idea what you are talking about. And it doesnt do anything like heal us for damage dealt.

You do a great job of leaving out PLD's Fight or Flight, which adds +30% damage for 30 seconds, every 90 seconds. That's essentially a straight up 10% damage increase over time that applies to everything that PLD does, including auto attacks (Including Sword Oath's added 1400+ potency per minute, not restricted to any form of cooldown or resource), weapon skills, oGCDs, and DoTs. DRK's only damage increasing cooldown, Blood Weapon, increases our attack speed by 10% for 15 seconds every 40. That's overall a 3.75% increase in damage over time that only applies to weapon skills. Furthermore, that increase also costs us a lot more TP than PLD spends for the same damage. All those oGCD skills we have exist in an attempt to help us catch up to the raw damage output PLD can put out.

All this is a bunch of hooey. Your TP management is almost the same as a paladins, and while not as good--your off GCD offense is spectacular,

PLD beats DRK's entire oGCD offense with a single skill, and it doesn't even expend any resources of theirs.

your AOE is spectacular, you gain mobility and other features others would love.

Almost every DRK would happily give those "bonuses" up for the ability to actually be valuable in a raid situation. Our AoE weapon skills are only as powerful as WAR's Overpower at best (the circular pattern is certainly nice, but no WAR should have difficulty getting mobs lined up for Overpower), with a much harder to manage MP cost associated. Salted Earth is one of the best AoE DoTs in the game, but in our context, only makes up for the fact that WAR can get a sizeable amount of AoE damage out of Steel Cyclone, Decimate, and its myriad of offensive buffs.
DRK's mobility skill is a good one, but also a fundamental part of its damage output, and can't really be afforded to be left unused without a very large drop in DPS, meaning that most any real benefit of this mobility is based on luck.

[Reynhart]

DRK's only damage increasing cooldown, Blood Weapon, increases our attack speed by 10% for 15 seconds every 40.

Hmmm, Darkside, maybe ?

[Agrieus]

Hmmm, Darkside, maybe ?

Yup. Dark Arts as well. And Drk has also has quite a few OGC attacks to use even while in it's tanking stance. It's got a lot to do with why Drk dps is higher than War dps while the two are in their respective tanking stances. Kiteless...you also forgot to mention that all attacks that hit the War from the side or rear will be crits while Raw Intuition is up, which is kind of a big deal....especially when tanking two large enemies or many small to mid sized enemies because some of them WILL be flanking you so you've got to be careful when using raw intuition. You CAN combo it with awareness to help with the crit thing but having to pop another CD to counter the negatives of another could be considered a disadvantage. This is also assuming that the two can be used at the same time, which I'm sure they can be.

[Kiteless]

Hmmm, Darkside, maybe ?

Darkside isn't really a cooldown. You should always have it turned on unless you're bad. It's closer to a weaker, MP draining Shield Oath in that comparison, even if you can keep it on during Grit (at the cost of losing Blood Weapon, which evens things out with Keen Flurry).

Yup. Dark Arts as well. And Drk has also has quite a few OGC attacks to use even while in it's tanking stance. It's got a lot to do with why Drk dps is higher than War dps while the two are in their respective tanking stances.

DRK does have quite a few oGCD attacks, but that does not mean that they'll do more damage than WAR. Considering their major offensive buffs, DRK will generally be dealing 92% damage (Darkside at all times), WAR 90% (Maim at all times), and PLD 88% (Keen flurry a third of the time) while in their tanking stances. Then you factor in things like Unchained, Eye of the Storm and Berserk, and WAR's damage starts to soar. Furthermore, WAR has the ability to stance dance freely. Even if DRK can manage to outDPS WAR in Defiance, that doesn't really matter, since good WARs should be freely switching throughout the fight, outputting massive damage with Deliverance, and then switching to Defiance to use Inner Beast and eat any big hits.

Because of the massive MP cost and GCD attached to Grit, DRK doesn't really have this luxury. WAR has changed quite a bit with 3.0, and you're not giving it the credit it deserves.

Kiteless...you also forgot to mention that all attacks that hit the War from the side or rear will be crits while Raw Intuition is up, which is kind of a big deal....especially when tanking two large enemies or many small to mid sized enemies because some of them WILL be flanking you so you've got to be careful when using raw intuition. You CAN combo it with awareness to help with the crit thing but having to pop another CD to counter the negatives of another could be considered a disadvantage. This is also assuming that the two can be used at the same time, which I'm sure they can be.

Okay, bad WARs will be hurt by Raw intuition. But we don't care about bad WARs. And yes, Raw Intuition can be used with Awareness, and that's not a disadvantage.

@Adventica6

First, it's been said to death, the Darkside MP bug is not an actual bug it's just a graphical glitch, you gain the MP back in the next ticks, but yes if you don't manage your MP and let yourself get low enough where the glitch drains you to zero before the next tick, Darkside falls off, but that's just bad DRKing.

Um... no. Any MP you don't spend is wasted output or mitigation. Managing your MP is all about letting it get as low as possible without actually reaching zero. If you're not letting your MP get low enough to the point where you're being affected by the MP bug, then you're not playing DRK efficiently enough. But if you have MP randomly dropping for no reason, there's nothing you can do about that except lower your own efficiency.

[Kaonis]

I'm really confused how this works. How is DRK parsing lower than PLD exactly? TP Starve? PLD has the same exact TP costs as DRK. They -should- be seeing the same point of starvation if they're doing the typical combos. 70 > 60 > 60. Now don't mind me, I'm just curious. I don't know what PLD's new Offensive abilities are if that should even factor into it.

DRK has no way to manage TP, so we hit 0 far faster. PLD has some useful spells to take up a GCD and give them another tic or 2 of TP every once in a while, plus Shield Swipe procs. DRK could be amazing at DPS, but it means nothing if you hit empty on TP after just 2 minutes.

[Xenosan]

I'm really confused how this works. How is DRK parsing lower than PLD exactly? TP Starve? PLD has the same exact TP costs as DRK. They -should- be seeing the same point of starvation if they're doing the typical combos.

Blood Weapon's 10% +SkSpd with 36% uptime may have something to do with it.

Given a slashing debuff, I wonder where things stand.

Sword Oath has always been a silent but deadly factor