DRK Grit Mana Cost Too High

[Ladon]

Wanted to call out this out as this isn't something I specifically haven't seen called out as an issue by other DRKs, so I would like to see the opinions of other experienced DRKs.

In my experience as a DRK off-tank I feel a major issue with the class is that Grit MP cost is prohibitively expensive. I get that on paper the 1326 MP cost is designed to be in line with the double 884 cost of switching from Paladin Shield and Sword Oath and back. The problem is that mechanically it is far more taxing on Dark Knights to switch in and out of tank stance compared to Paladin and of course Warrior.

The first problem is that generally switching into Grit is commonly followed with a DRK being in damage mode meaning they had been fueling their attacks with mana. Staying above 1326 mana is critical in a lot of situations were you will need to quickly get into Grit to either take some damage or to quickly pick up and add or tank swap. The difficulty of this is just magnified with the constant MP drain of Darkside and without a decent buffer, you risk wiping the raid by not having enough mana for Grit.

The second problem is when you actually do switch into Grit. Much of the time you either need to move right into the power slash combo meaning you aren't making progress on restoring your massively depleted mana by using Grit. You can of course pop blood price but with a single target attacking you, you usually only get a little over half of the mana grit cost you to begin with in the 15s duration. This of course is the best scenario here. A lot of times you need to just pop on Grit and absorb some damage; orbs in Alex4 for example. It's just a huge overall cost of mana in this situation to try and dance in and out of Grit AND fuel your attacks.

I would really like to see the cost of Grit halved to closer to 600-650 MP at level 60. This would make Grit dancing a lot more viable and bring the switching mechanics in line more with PLD who doesn't have a huge reliance on MP to begin with and WAR which of course became stance switching masters post level 50. Keep in mind that when enabling Grit, it is still on the GCD and breaks combos.

[Twilite]

Because se thought mp costs scaling with mp was a good iidea. Have 5k mp, spell cost 1.5k
Yeah baby!

[VisRalis]

Maybe SE wants DRK to stack Piety now? =.=

[The_Last_Dragoon]

You could always just use Hi-Elixirs. It would allow you to gain 460/580 mana back when you use it.

[Ditto]

You could always just use Hi-Elixirs. It would allow you to gain 460/580 mana back when you use it.

And miss out on 84 - 105 STR for 15 seconds.

At level 60, Grit takes 20% of your MP when used.

[Bustaperizm]

Or we were never meant to stance dance grit. If you're mt, grit is on and you're managing mp with cs, syphon, and ss. Maybe if there is a boss mechanic like ravex lib you can pop it off and use blood weapon. Other wise its staying on and worse comes to worse you take off dark side. Your mp will come back fast without the constant drain.

If you're ot you're not putting on grit till mt death or a swap. Dont know what situations you're in where you need to stance dance grit to the point you're mana starved. You mention a4. But you dont need to put on grit to take an orb or three. Shadowskin or shadowwall should be enough

[Windklinge]

take bismarck ex as a good example why grit mp costs and shared global gdc is crap by design :

first 2 adds. you tank one in grit while the other tank takes the other. your add dies first. you turn off grit to dps second add and then shell. then after returning to island after shell went down or not you NEED to retrigger grit. if you let grit on during shell dps youre lowering your groups chances at the dps check for no reason. sadly you need grit back on for the big serpent add. bye bye 1500 mana for no reason. this is punishment for the way a fight or skill is designt which is VERY bad design by itself to begin with.

grits mp cost shouldnt be that absurd. 500mp? yes totally ok. 1500 not. also it shouldnt be on a gdc. the other tanks stances arent either. some fights require stance dancing to put max out. even for drk. so your argument is moot mate.

[Kiteless]

You shouldn't be using your tank stance for the first add phase in Bismark Ex, no matter what job you're playing as. Also, PLD's stances are also on the GCD (not necessarily a good thing though).

That said, you're completely right about the rest. The opportunity cost of being on the GCD, combined with the insane MP cost attached is absolutely awful. Whenever I play DRK, any point in a fight where stance switching is required or optimal ends up feeling like an absolutely cringeworthy moment.

[Kiteless]

If you're ot you're not putting on grit till mt death or a swap. Dont know what situations you're in where you need to stance dance grit to the point you're mana starved. You mention a4. But you dont need to put on grit to take an orb or three. Shadowskin or shadowwall should be enough

Having done A4 OT as both DRK and WAR, the ability to freely stance change on WAR without such massive costs attached is such a massive boon. It allows you to save cooldowns for Quarantine, it puts less burden on the healers, who are already spread pretty thin for that fight. It allows you to maintain a much higher reserve of HP if you get sucked into Quarantine before you have a chance to get properly healed. And the ability to eat an extra orb or two can mean a hell of a lot of the DPS aren't pulling their weight.

With WAR, I can eat 5-6 orbs, no problem, if I absolutely have to. With DRK, that's just not happening without some serious losses taken.

[pandabearcat]

grits mp cost shouldnt be that absurd. 500mp? yes totally ok. 1500 not. also it shouldnt be on a gdc. the other tanks stances arent either. some fights require stance dancing to put max out. even for drk. so your argument is moot mate.

Uh have you played any of the other tanking classes...?

Tank stance (and sword stance too, so take your spoiled DRK butt elsewhere...) takes a GCD AND wipes combo for palies. Thats 2 GCDs per swap.

Plus it costs less than palies does. Even OP acknowledges that.

I think the MP cost could be reduced to 15% base mp, maybe 10%, since MP is a resource for DRK.

At least you have a fallback resource. Ever tried to stun things as a paladin? Yikes.