Question for Tanks.

[Cooperal]

To be honest, most of the combat I've done in this game has involved tanking. I just can't stay away from it for too long. In most of the content prior to extreme/savage content, the tank is the real initiative-driver of the party. Players (usually) let them take the front and their positioning tends to dictate the positioning of the rest of their party. They are charged with judging how much their party can handle.

In mid-early game you can get some plebs that will take pulling into their own hands without warning instead of throwing a suggestion your way (doesn't matter if you're learning the job or dungeon). At the top of the content you'll get a load of girly men swinging their handbags at eachother over how much DPS tanks can churn out. If you're with people that remember that they're playing to enjoy themselves, you're good. But those former-mentioned sorts can make you develop a sort of pre-queue anxiety which will only hurt your progress if you don't have thick skin.

That's right. You need to take the same personality towards queues as you do towards trash and bosses. Dive head first into danger. Tank personalities as well as mobs if necessary.

But seriously, don't start tanking at 30, even if you're a veteran of MMOs. You really need to get a feel for the potency of enmity-grabbing abilities and it is certainly best done while getting some of the necessary gladiator abilities. There are a ton of light-party dungeons where you won't need your provoke but if people find out you don't have it... boy that's embarrassing.

[karateorangutang]

Tank isn't a hard role to play, but it is the most transparent role. Since what you do affects the party in a more profound way, it makes the mistakes you make seem more glaring then if you were on DPS. That being said, once you understand a fight and its mechanics then generally it becomes a pretty easy thing to do.

BUT, the caveat for tank is that you have to have an awareness of whats going on around you. Mobs turn, tank busters need to be taken, mobs have to be move etc. This becomes second nature with time, but you have to lose the tunnel vision that sometimes comes with being a DPS.

[ElanVelius]

Any tips for DRK?

While leveling, keep your weapon upgraded at all times. Your damage output directly ties to your threat generation, as well as your MP recovery through Siphon Strike. Having a more powerful sword means less enmity combos to establish hate on bosses and groups, and having more windows to use your damage combo which, in turn, refills your MP and allows you to fight forever.

There's no need to break the bank doing this. Your GC offers top-notch green-quality greatswords for relatively few company seals that are far more damage and better stats than buying crafted gear every 2 levels at outrageous gouge-prices, and is your best resource for gear while leveling. There is also a chestpiece from your GC that requires level 30something that is useful well into your 40s and a worthwhile investment.

[Alahra]

Your damage output directly ties to your threat generation, as well as your MP recovery through Siphon Strike.

This is true for threat, but not for Syphon Strike. Syphon's Strike MP restoration is a flat percentage of your total MP, regardless of how hard you hit.

[Martin_Arcainess]

Sorry for late reply just been busy playing the game lol. Right.

So let's break it down bit by bit.

AT LV30 is your newbie DRK skills. You'll have your standard Aggro Combo for keeping Aggro on you from 1 enemy. Hard Slash -> Spinning Slash -> Power slash. Use this to keep Aggro on one of your enemies.

Now Grit and Darkside.


Grit is your Tanking stance and if your new to tanking I recommend you keep this on at all times. What Grit dose is reduce the damage received and delt while also increasing the amount of Aggro you emit with each hit on the enemy.

Darkside increases your Damage by 15% but drains your MP slowly, if your MP hit 0 it will be removed. Try to keep this one during Battle but in between mobs switch it off. Your MP will still be drained even outside of battle so it's a good idea to turn it off so by the next set of mobs you'll have a better amount of MP recovered.

Unleash is your AOE Aggro skill, cost MP so about 2-3 tries should help keep the mobs on you.


Put your Bonus points into STR, one of the DRK skills Souleater will transmit damage delt from SE and convert 50% of it into HP for you and later on you'll get a trait that converts 100% of it into HP so more STR = more HP restore per SE. Not to mention you'll keep Aggro easier with more STR.

That's pretty much DRK but once you get to LV45 on wards you'll learn Dark Arts and this will change how you play DRK in a good way.

[Ralvenom]

The nice thing about tanking is that it's hard to design a fight where the tank has to tank something and then also do some other extraneous thing. So for the most part, once you get over Tanxiety™ and embrace the responsibility that comes with it, it's mostly just standing there, watching out for the enemy's attack bar, using cooldowns in response, and moving when you need to. Tank combos are ridiculously easy to memorize by design, so that you can dedicate your free time to looking out for very time-sensitive things like that. Overall it can be intense, but it's not incredibly complex.

One thing that should be rather easy to do once you master that stuff (aka "the basics") is TANK dps. Any decent tank also does decent dmg.