[Opener/Tips/Advices] How to play Drk

[LuceliaUltima]

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.

[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.

[whiskeybravo]

dye all your gears into black.

reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q1cr5udb-8

Just made my day! That's hilarious xD

[Freyyy]

I have cleared A3S and I can give you tips for the full fight to complete Syzygian.

What he said is for the most part accurate. I just have a different CD management for P1 and 2 because I don't have Foresight cross-classed, I kept Mercy Stroke because it can help on P3, and Foresight is garbage anyway. What I do is :

P1 : I drop Grit exactly like on my first post, which is after my 3rd combo (I do Power Slash - Delirium - Power Slash), then I pop Shadow Wall for the incoming cleave, Blood Weapon and stuff. I pop Dark Mind + Shadowskin for the splashes + the last cleave.

P2 : I pop Living Dead for the very first cleave, then I totally Plunge the Wash Away and never had any problem doing that even with DRG jumping and NIN Shukuchi-ing. We have fixed placements for Digititis so us 3 don't interfere in any way. When Digititis finishes casting and the hand does the animation, I pop Awareness + Dark Dance, then Convo. I generally have Reprisal right before the first cleave, or right after. After that, Shadowskin becomes available again during Equal Concentration, with Dark Dance. I use them both, then Reprisal mostly for deeps here. I use Dark Arts + Dark Passenger on both hands right during Equal Concentration's cast (Dark Passenger becomes available again at this precise time), then it becomes available again right at the end of the Hands of Pain cast, so I do it again here. I totally use Salted Earth during Equal Concentration tho because "don't AoE" is a bad advice. You hit both targets anyway, so their HP difference doesn't change at all. AoEing the two hands when they are close to eachother is a very very very good thing to do because it helps pushing the boss's HP when both hands reunite. You want the boss at ~66% when he transforms into a tornado between P2 and P3. I put Grit back on right before the very last cleave, going into P3. I also drop Darkside as soon as the boss is untargettable.

P3 : I'm very very low on MP at the beginning of P3 because I DA SE the living shit out of the boss + DA DP twice during P2. I start with a Hard Slash on the boss before the water puddle spawns, this way I can directly Syphon Strike the first add. I put Darkside back on right before this Syphon Strike also. I use Blood Price because there is a lot of very tiny raid-wide damage + the little water bubbles hitting random people, and Blood Price slowly helps refilling my MP and wouldn't be used anyway, so it's basically free MP even if it's not a shitton. I seriously recommend doing that. I Shadow Wall the first Tether, then DA + Dark Mind the second tether, and drop Grit instantly when I take the tether's damage. You should get a second Blood Price before the second tether explodes if you used it at the very beginning of the phase. I use Blood Weapon after the Ferrofluid symbols have spawned on everybody's head so that way if I have it, I don't waste my Blood Weapon and only use it after Ferrofluid. I use DA Carve & Spit for the last add wave (the 4 big ones).

P4 : As soon as the boss becomes targettable again, the very FIRST thing I do is FUCKING DELIRIUM combo because the boss immediatly starts casting Cascade. Your team has a MNK if I can recall, so he should be form-shifting to Coeurl before the boss becomes targettable, to refresh GL3 ASAP then immediatly Dragon Kick since he'll be in Opo-Opo.
Blood Weapon is available again here, I use it asap during my Delirium combo : It will end very precisely during the Ferrofluid. I stay out of Grit for the first 3 stacks, I take the first cleave naked, then pop Shadowskin + convo right during the protean waves, this way I have them for the next two cleaves. For the last cleave, I put Grit back on during Digititis and I generally also have a Reprisal proc'ed from Dark Dance. Cascade immediatly follows, my WAR bro Provokes, so I immediatly drop Grit. Grit is used like an Inner Beast here. I also make sure to keep a Low Blow for the Living Limb; I stun him ASAP, DA Carve, DA Dark Passenger on both boss + Limb, Sole Survivor, do one DA SE, and he's dead. It's generally time to reapply Scourge on the boss when the hand dies. I use Blood Price right after Digititis, because there is 6 Splashes incoming, so it's nom-nom MP and helps because it's time to re-activate Grit in order to Provoke the boss back during Cascade which comes right after this. I have my tanking stance for the first cleave here, then drop it ASAP and pop BW and stuff. I take the 2nd cleave with Shadow Wall, and my WAR bro Provokes the boss back, this way we take one tether each and have only 2 stacks, which permits us to tank out of tanking stance more. I follow the move for Embolus; the second tether happens after the cleave. I have the time to dish out a bit of DPS, get that Delirium on the boss, put Grit on, then the tether spawns, I get it, DA + Dark Mind GG2EZ. You'll take a shitton of damage here tho, because you have a Sluice + Drainage exploding at the same time, so your SCH should adlo you, even with Grit + DA DM. If you don't have an Adlo, you might wanna add Shadowskin, but it will force you to tank with Grit later. I take the boss back during Cascade, and the phase restarts in the exact same way. I just don't have the exact same CDs available at the same time, but it always comes up nicely so I don't die. If necessary, I stay in Grit for an extra cleave or so, it depends. Anyway, you have DA DM for tethers; you can use everything else for the cleaves. You have an incredible freedom in terms of CD management as a DRK MT here. If needed, don't be afraid to use Living Dead a second time during phase 4.

So, here it is. I don't know if it's the most efficient way to tank A3S, but it's how I got used to it with my team, it works very nicely and we get some gud tank DPS numbers. I generally end P2 at ~1150-1200 DPS, and the whole fight at ~950. We got our clear pretty recently tho, we sure have a lot of improvements to make (and gear to get).

My gear is : Thordan EX Claymore, 210 Eso head, 210 Eso chestpiece, 210 Eso hands, 210 Eso belt, 200 Void Ark pants (need dem Gordian pants bruuuh), 210 Eso boots. For accessories, I use 2 i150 pentamelded STR accessories which are the neck and one ring with the STR Gordian earrings, the STR i210 Eso bracelets, and the STR Gordian ring.

[saber_alter]

dye all your gears into black.

reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q1cr5udb-8

It's true.

everything in this video is 100% true.

this post is definitely not BSing you.

absolutely not.

[CoolCat]

It's true.

everything in this video is 100% true.

this post is definitely not BSing you.

absolutely not.

No way I been playing the job wrong this whole time. No wonder things die so slowly. SE should have been more clear.

[Syzygian]

snip.

Freyyy, can you outline or post a screenshot of how your group does digititis to allow for gap closer use? In my group if you get knocked back to the opposite side of the room from the person/marker you need to get to and somebody jumps/plunges at the wrong time, you crash into eachother, so we've been avoiding that. Curious to see what you do though.

And lol, you always say "Foresight is garbage" (specifically "garbage" its that word every time) in here. It scales with gear unless they changed, so its not a horrible cooldown. Just not something I'd raw-dog with on a tank buster...

As I understand it stuff like Shadowskin/Shadow Wall give fixed returns based on the damage dealt to you and this percentage and thus the total damage you mitigate actually get worse as your defense goes up (20-30% of a lower value due to progressively higher defense due to gear progression) whereas Foresight actually gets progressively better as you gear up in progression on an encounter, albeit not enough to get anywhere near the kind of mileage on something like Shadowskin, I think calling it universally garbage is a bit misleading, unless they've changed the way it scales with your stats recently and I'm not aware.

Example from Thordan: On heels, with no other mitigation present, I take only marginally more damage (a few hundred HPs) with Shadowskin+Foresight than I do with Shadow Wall.

OP my personal recommendation (opinion) is to stick with Foresight during progression and toggle over to Mercy Stroke once cleared, unless you're struggling to meet DPS checks. I never use Foresight by itself, but without it I find that there are situations where I'm popping a weaker non-Shadowskin/Wall cooldown by its lonesome where Foresight would have paired with it and provided a pseudo-complete cooldown.

This is splitting hairs though, and Freyyy has cleared and I haven't so there's that.

[Freyyy]

Freyyy, can you outline or post a screenshot of how your group does digititis to allow for gap closer use?

We use our gap closers as soon as the knockback begins, thus we don't move at all. We then have the time to very quickly move out of eachother's hitboxes before digititis becomes pass-able; there is a little delay between the time you get the digititis "Marked for [...]" debuff and the time it becomes pass-able (basically the time of the animation surrounding your character). This delay is meant for the cases where two people are randomly pushed-back in the exact same spot. Since we don't move thanks to our gap-closers, we use this delay to get on position. It requires precise timing of your gap-closer but it works everytime. If you use your gap-closer after the full knockback, then yeah, you have a very high chance to screw everything up.

As for Foresight, I'm not really good at all these maths stuff so I can't really do the maths myself to verify if it really scales better with gear than the other pure damage reduction CDs, but most of the time I see a very very tiny difference between when I use Foresight and when I don't use it. The only fight where I'll recommend using it is Thordan EX as you mentionned; DRK can get very squishy with Heels, Foresight is actually noticeable there when complementing other CDs. Other than that, I rather take Mercy Stroke. I'm exaggerating a bit when I say it's "garbage", it's not that bad, but it's still a shitty CD. I can understand cross-classing it on DRK tho because of the lack of physical mitigation we have, and as I said, on Thordan EX I recommend taking it. Really for A3S, when it comes to choosing between Mercy Stroke and Foresight, it's personnal preference. I will never blame you or anyone for using Foresight there, because the boss hits full physical, so it IS useful. It's just that me and my healers didn't notice anything when I removed it.

[Kotemon]

dye all your gears into black.

reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q1cr5udb-8

Sometimes I'll put flames along side my chocobo so it'll run faster.

Foresight.

Foresight.

I had to contemplate cross skills until I got to lv58 last weekend. While Awareness is a lot more useful on Warrior (if it stacks with Raw Intuition), given the choice between Flash and Mercy Stroke. I chose to go with Awareness for when I'm in the middle of a dog pile and there is a lot of incoming auto attacks for a increased chsnce of Critical damage. I'm not sure on the potency between flash and DA+Passenger or enmity/mp used between it and Unleash. Mercy stroke would be great in my opinion if we could access the 40 second recast. However after getting to lv58 its a lot easier to use Sole Survivor instead. Even though its 30 seconds more on the recast, you have a window of 20 seconds to kill the target and regain 20% of your total HP and MP. Anyone can kill it, as long as it dies while Sole Survivor is still active on it. So targeting a close trash mob that the dps are killing in the last 5% ~ 10% has a better chance of a return than timing 1 hit.
Although if you can land Mercy stroke as the kill shot on top of it you might get 20%x2 on the HP restored. Personally Shadow skin is -20% damage taken and Foresight is +20 defense, all at 20 seconds. Tanks should have higher Defense totals on gear than DPS. So if Foresight includes magic defense then they both should average out to about the same amount of damage reduction give or take . Personally I tend to lean more on the defensive. So two abilities to reduce total incoming damage has more practical up time for mitigation than trying to time the last hit for a 20% HP restore. Then again that's just my opinion.

[VanilleFang]

I'm still getting use to healing DRKs (took a 5-ish month hiatus until recently) so I'm wondering what kind of buffs I'm looking for in the party window. I was just in a run with a DRK and I couldn't tell if he was using his CDs properly or not (I'm mostly looking to know what the icons are, but if I knew the names I could find them myself). I never saw any CDs from other tank classes and he seemed as squishy as a wet sponge... Also he was spamming this weird AoE spike-thingy against like 2-3 enemies. Is this normal? Thanks. Sorry if these are dumb questions. :P