[Opener/Tips/Advices] How to play Drk

[Syzygian]

Hey, and thx again for sharing your experience!

I was thinking at linking Syzygian's Youtube channel, + directly link this thread, and my buddy might have to take what makes sense to him, so keep posting your useful tips guyz! Really appreciate you guyz take some time to help me.

I started try gathering infos when i first saw how high are the Drk numbers on fflogs, sounds like i undersestimate something.

Then on my own, I've got a limited knowledge of this class, I got basics, but I do not know about the in-debth gameplay.

About our comp, we're running war/dk, whm/sch, mnk/nin/brd/blm. We're on A3 since ... close to 4 months now :/, so yeah tips for A3/A4 are welcome.

I'm a total scrublord, so I haven't cleared a3s yet (just now making it to final phase)... but here is what we do (we have a very similar comp to yours, drk(me)/war, whm/ast, drg/nin/mch/blm).

P1 - AST preps AoE Balance. I pull in Grit and drop it after completing my first Power Slash combo. NIN shadewalkers me and smokescreens the WHM. WHM solo-heals this phase while AST DPS and dumps cards on us. I've dropped most of my oGCDs by this point (Carve, Low Blow, etc.) and weave in Shadow Wall/Blood Weapon before/after the Grit GCD respectively. In the first phase my CD rotation looks like this: Shadow Wall > Foresight+Awareness > Dark Dance + Bloodbath> Dark Mind (before splashes, may as well). Its not perfect and there are alterations you can make but this is part of a strat I use to mitigate as much damage as possible while still having all my big CDs up for P3 (tethers).

P2 - Blood Weapon is up here if you dropped it after your first combo in P1. Pop it again here (it'll be up sooner, but your uptime will get interrupted if you pop it again before the end of P1). This is where the vast majority of DRKs pop Living Dead, I do as well. Healer's DPS the entire time until wash away (Bene right as that cast finishes). I also gauge my party's enmity at this point. With all the card buffs, battle litany, and trick attack, + me being out of Grit, a second Power Slash can help here. Weave DA Carve in, it should be back up. Avoid the temptation to Plunge after/during wash away, you can fuck up the digititis mechanic if you land on/cross paths with the wrong person. Here, I pop Shadowskin+Convalescence. If you're feeling squishy even after that, you can pop Dark Dance, it should be coming off CD soon.

When the hands split, my WAR-bro and I pull them to the ring approximately halfway between the outer edge and the inner circle. This leaves us enough room to move either way for fist/hand. Any time we get fist, we immediately move to the center as soon as it goes off to simplify the next mechanic. Drop Blood Weapon again here at the start of this phase, as well as Bloodbath and Dark Dance if you didn't need the latter before the split. Foresight+Awareness should be coming off CD here soon too. Do not underestimate Awareness in these first two phases. The hand's crits really hurt and can kill you if you aren't topped. For equal concentration, WAR-bro and I stand on A and B to either side of the inner circle while the party is at C to the north to avoid cleaves. Obviously no AoEs here, that means no Salted Earth, no Dark Passenger. We call A or B for the subsequent digititis. Dark Dance and Bloodbath come up again afterwards, and the tanks move apart for the next mechanic. Plunging will help your DPS uptime between repositionings for these mechanics, but it will not make the hand move any faster, just be warned. At this point, turn Grit back on. The last cleave with your stacks is going to REALLY hurt and you cannot spare a CD for it due to the P3 tethers, and the major DPS check has been met so there's not too much point to keeping it off here during progression.

P3 is still a bit of a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants affair, but best practice during progression in my opinion is keep Grit on until the 2nd tether goes off. Our group puts me and WAR-bro in charge of the first stuns, so that we are freed up afterwards to deal with tethers and such. For the teathers I use Shadow Wall+Convalescence for the first, and DA Dark Mind+Shadowskin for the second. You can alternate though. You can probably pop less than that (I've derped and managed to skim by with just Shadowskin for the first and Shadow Wall for the second), but during progression if you can provide extra wiggle room by using extra CDs that you don't otherwise need, you should. If your MP is okay, use Scourge liberally here as you move from add to add. Even if it only ticks for half of its total duration that's still 300 potency with no combo lock, and if you get to stay on a single add for more than 3 GCDs before having to move for something, consider yourself lucky lol.

Be careful with MP in P3. Keeping Grit on (you'll chew through your MP very quickly toggling it on/off for tethers) and not getting hit by anything (other than the tethers and a handful of "water balloons", as we affectionately call them) means you're limited to Syphon combos and a single cast of Sole Survivor for MP. This further illustrates why turning Grit on/off here is bad, you have very few ways to get that MP back in this phase.

For the fight I use HQ Kaiser Rolls and if I'm feeling frisky/have extra cash/mats, HQ Almond Cream Croissants.

I wear 2 melds and 3 slaying, putting me between 17-18K. I'm usually a few hundred HP above the generally accepted minimum of 17K needed to guarantee survival. If I'm feeling particularly aggressive and have some of those HQ croissants, I'll go 1 meld 4 slaying, and still be able to hit 17K. I'm full 210 left side with Thordan weap. If you and your WAR are geared similarly you should be able to outDPS him in these first few phases with Grit off. The extra combined MP from Blood Price+Blood Weapon and getting Reprisal/Low Blow procs without Grit adds up to a lot of extra DPS DRK doesn't get while simply OTing, so you should easily be able to maintain 8-900 even factoring in downtime.

Other than the tank busters, the majority of the damage is physical in the first 3 phases. Make sure you keep Reprisal up as much as possible, and if you're gonna squeeze in some extra DA Souleaters, make sure you know when to do it so you don't let Delirium fall before Splashes/Protean Wave, etc. Although you have a MNK now that I think of it so whatevs.