Confused about DRK complaints

[Xenosan]

Yeah...dropping Darkside ever is a terrible plan. It's a 100 DPS loss every second it is down..

No need to fictionalize numbers to argue the merit of keeping Darkside up.

Dropping Darkside ever is poor practice simply because it's not necessary. Only exception being when there's downtime with nothing to attack (but still having In-Combat status) that's greater than 9 seconds.

[Kiteless]

End of the day, when you get low, the only viable option is to spam Syphon Strike->Delirium until Blood Price comes off of cooldown or you get back to appreciable levels. Cycling Grit/Blood Weapon gives dubious returns, and Carve and Spit's gains outside of darkside are an awful waste. If your MP gets low, you just have to live with it.

[Aeliott]

Am I playing the same job here? :S I mean, talking MP / threat management.

Even if I don't DA Power Slash I can hold hate for days afterwards. It'll get to like a minute later and I'll think "oh, hm, haven't used an enmity move in a while". These occasions are when the other tank is busy with something else, and if they're having a lot of OT uptime I'll use PS more, but all the same DRK seems to have the most "inate-hate". For single target I open with DA -> Unmend -> Hard Slash -> C&S (DA boost) -> Spinning Slash -> Salted Earth -> Power Slash -> Low Blow / Reprisal -> Scourge. Big initial spike of hate thanks to boosted C&S. Speaking of which, they desperately need to buff the non-DA version.

From there MP isn't that bad...most of the time using DA with Souleater, my go-to combo if I can afford the MP, if not Delirium (even if you have a MNK or the enemy doesn't use magic it's a more damaging combo than PS and unbuffed Souleater). Almost never use unbuffed Souleater, doesn't seem as worth it. Usually I'll try and buff C&S too as its MP return is pathetic - weaving it into a Delirium / Power combo. Sometimes single targets can be a pain as Blood Price isn't as effective (especially if they use cast bars a lot) but as long as you save enough MP for one emergency move (DA+DD/DM? AD?) I don't feel that crippled. If it really gets that bad which it rarely does, I'll just disable Darkside for a short while.

Some skills do need an MP rethink (passenger, returns on C&S), but I really don't see how management is as horrific as some are making it sound, at all.

Also, I realised earlier I can tank the entirety of Alex-1 without Grit on, and not take any more severe damage at all. Just use a CD if you get prey and it's easy. Granted this isn't the best example as the bosses spend a lot of time turning around projecting aoes and such, nor do they have big tank hits, but I wonder how many other fights we could get away with it on.

[Nico_Of_Awesome]

I'm sorry you all have me terribly confused here.. I mean I get I'm only 52 but I have no Mana issues on big pulls at all. Blood Price is your friend on trash pulls! Even when lining them up for a DA/DP as long as I popped Blood Price after the first or second Unleash my Mana just fills right back up to full. Also I rarely ever have to do my Threat combo, I've found Unleash, and Unmend hold threat really really well, and saves some TP usage for more Siphon Strike Combos, and DA/SEs

I don't by any means think I'm some phenomenal DrK, hell I'm lucky if I'm even considered just an ok DrK (IMHO) but some of the complaints in here just seem weird, and don't seem to make sense.
I'm also not saying we don't need some tweaks here because we could, I think our self healing should be more of a thing to make the class feel more unique along with a few other changes to cool downs that others have suggested. But I don't think we're anywhere near as bad as people using hyperbole are claiming we are. I have never once felt that me being a DrK was jeopardizing a run, or even making really that much harder, and I have asked my healers just to make sure.

So I'm very confused by people complaining about Mana Management? Are you guys like DAing every single rotation.. because I'm pretty sure that's not how it was intended to be used, or else the Mana cost would be lower. I use it every about third combo (sometimes every other if I feel it's needed.) Okay I just rambling now I'll shut up.

[spelley]

heresy

How DARE you! You are playing DRK all wrong.

- See Warrior DPS and get mad salty about it
- Spam Dark Arts because loldmg "look I'm a WAR too!"
- Get more salty because your MP is gone because you wanted Big Numbers(TM)
- Complain on the forum

Do you even tank, bro?

EDIT: Note, I realize I'm not even 50 on DRK and my WAR is only 50. Just seen this so many times on the forum where I barely see any actual problems "in play" with other DRKs. Like most things, the forum exaggerates problems to the moon and back

[bettomendes]

Are you guys like DAing every single rotation.. because I'm pretty sure that's not how it was intended to be used, or else the Mana cost would be lower.

Yeah, i think SE will end up increasing DA's cooldown (maybe lowering mp cost?) because people seems to think it HAS to be used every time and then complain when they run OOM.

WAR and PLD were designed with a lvl 50 cap, so, they basically have all the tools they need at that level. DRK is designed for lvl60 content. (...) So, yes, maybe it's not as effective to speedrun lvl50 content as DRK since they're "incomplete"...

Yeah, that's what i'm getting, just wanted some opinions about it. Thank you.

[TouchandFeel]

Darkside should be kept up at all times during a fight because while it gives a dps boost it is also necessary to be able to activate a number of important abilities, so by having it off you are limiting your functionality.
The only time that I ever turn off Darkside is between fights to get better ticks of MP regen and sometimes if we are down to the last mob of a pack and I want to use them as MP generation to top myself off for the next pull (drop DS since I would be doing that anyways when they were dead, Blood Weapon, stun, Syphon combo spam and Sole Survivor if available).

As for DA usage, you should of course not be spamming it, unless you are trying to spike damage for something like a burn phase. During regular rotation, maybe every 2-3 combos toss in a DA+Eater for dps gains and self-heals and whatever OGCD+DA you have when available that fits the situation. That should keep you fairly stable with a steady drain that can be made up for with Blood Weapon or Price (most of the time, exception being some boss fights).

However that doesn't mean that DRK doesn't have issues with MP, they just tend to be more special case ones that don't happen all the time but when they do it can be nasty.
Mainly these situations all sort of boil down to something went/is going wrong and you need to fix it (the MT died and you need to take over, dps are being spazzes and spreading single target damage with no regards to aggro during mass pulls, healer thought med 2 during a pull was a good idea, etc.) Essentially anytime you need to make a quick unexpected adjustment that requires heavy ability usage. Since many of our abilities require MP, suddenly having to pump out a lot of MP draining abilities to fix a situation puts DRK in a bad spot where they will have their resource severely depleted leaving them somewhat struggling for a bit. While such situations can be frustrating for the other tanks, their lesser reliance on a resource to be able to use their abilities makes such situations more easily manageable and more adaptable to the unpredictable behaviour of other players in a group. The MP bug also just exacerbates this since in such situations a lot of heals/buffs are probably going to be tossed on you.

[Nico_Of_Awesome]

snip

Right but the aggro on Unleash and unmend are so high you can literally spend the next 3-4+ rotation getting back Mana, and popping out another unmend or unleash for good measure, and still be gaining Mana. I mean sure you can't DA for a few extra rotations, but resource management should take priority over dps gain.

[TouchandFeel]

^^^

Yes, Unleashed does good aggro and you can easily space them out as you said but that is under normal circumstances and not the type of circumstances that I explicitly called out as when problems can arise. While most of such situations are recoverable, in my experience I felt less behind and with less catch up to do with the other tanks.

p.s. you are really not going to be running into these types of situations with DRK until Vault. Fun dungeon but it really highlights and brings out the spastic nature of many players.

So summarization of the point I was making. Due to DRK's heavy and strict reliance on a single resource, MP, having to quickly and unexpectedly go all out results in a greater depletion of that sole resource which then results in a greater loss of functionality due to many of the job's funtions requiring that resource. The other two tanks are not so strictly tied to a single resource and because of that have more flex room to adjust to such situations.