[Opener/Tips/Advices] How to play Drk

[Freyyy]

snip

Flash is useless on DRK. Unleash is basically Flash with damage attached to it. DRK basically takes Convo, Provoke, Bloodbath, then there are 3 options left : Awareness, Foresight, and Mercy Stroke, and you can only take two of them. I most of the time personally take Awareness and Mercy Stroke, but for Thordan EX I put Foresight instead of Mercy Stroke.

Foresight is 20% defense, but 20% defense doesn't mean it's 20% physical damage reduction. It's far less from that. I don't know the exact maths about it, but if I can recall, Foresight ended up being 6-8% physical damage reduction.

[Kydi]

8% physical rings a bell.

Personally when I'm on DRK (rare I must admit) I usually take Foresight just to have an extra throwaway mitigation tool outside of grit. Whilst the difference isn't huge, the extra physical DR is handy to have on trash pulls. I also find that with mercy stroke, without the reduced cool down you get 1, perhaps 2 in a fight. Given DRK already has a plethora of oGCD damage so I don't feel that it really adds all that much to the class.

[Giantbane]

Flash is useless on DRK. Unleash is basically Flash with damage attached to it. DRK basically takes Convo, Provoke, Bloodbath, then there are 3 options left : Awareness, Foresight, and Mercy Stroke, and you can only take two of them. I most of the time personally take Awareness and Mercy Stroke, but for Thordan EX I put Foresight instead of Mercy Stroke.

Foresight is 20% defense, but 20% defense doesn't mean it's 20% physical damage reduction. It's far less from that. I don't know the exact maths about it, but if I can recall, Foresight ended up being 6-8% physical damage reduction.

Is awareness even all that good? I thought it was the weakest defensive move. Enemies only have a 5% crit rate for 50% extra damage (2.5% damage reduction, only on abilities that crit) and it has a 5s shorter duration than foresight. I prefer foresight, as it can help with DRK's overall weaker mitigation vs. physical damage. If i'm trying to maintain constant mitigation against physical damage, I try to pair Foresight + DD + Reprisal proc (may need to hold the reprisal to get them to all line up) and mix that in with your normal shadowskin/shadow wall usage, etc.

Bloodbath doesn't seem that special either, particularly since you can't pair it with a damage boost like berserk or FoF. I mean, I use it on the DRK, but I wouldn't consider it must have like Convo & Provoke.

[whiskeybravo]

I like awareness personally. Whether it's any good or not is subjective, but there is plenty of crit damage over the course of an encounter so it definitely helps in some regard, how much it helps we will never really know, since you don't know how many crits it prevented from happening. I usually just pair it up with Foresight. It definitely has more value for war, and pld since they have extended duration.

Is this normal? Thanks.

Grit is a blue icon, it kinda sticks out, most of the defensive cd's are purplish colors.

Grit -

Shadowskin -

Shadow Wall -

Dark Dance -

Dark Mind -


The AoE thing is Abyssal Drain, it's a pretty good attack for mobs, basically like their version of Overpower.

[Syzygian]

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

Greetings healer! Please don't judge us by that guy.

DRK can use the cross class skills of the other two tanks, and has 4 native cooldowns. Shadow Wall is a dark purple icon with a 3-point star-looking emblem on it. Its the big Sentinal/Vengeance equivalent. Shadowskin looks like Protect, but red. Its the Rampart/Inner Beast equivalent, slightly weaker. Dark Dance is a purple-white swirly icon, this is a parry or parry+dodge rate increase, depending on whether it is boosted. Dark Mind you probably will not see much in dungeons, but its a magic-only Shadow Wall, essentially, and is an odd pyramid icon with gold/black/purple-ish colors.

The pink icon is Blood Price. Your DRK is trying to regen MP from getting hit. If you feel like being a team player, don't stun if you see this. Most good DRKs will find a way to work around it if you decide to holy-spam or the like, though.

The red emblem is Darkside. If you see a DRK tanking something without this, promptly feel free to request they turn it on. Grit is a black figure surrounded by blue/flames/sword looking things. This is their tank stance. Do not be surprised if your DRK turns this off during boss fights, in fact, prepare for it. If you see a deep red sword icon, that's Blood Weapon. This can't be used in Grit and is essentially their DPS stance in the form of a cooldown.

In particular, look out for Living Dead, the Hallowed Ground/Holmgang equivalent. Its a red hourglass icon. When it triggers, it turns gray. This grey icon will kill the DRK if you don't heal them for an amount totalling their max HP. However, they are invincible for the duration of the red and gray icons, both of which last up to 10 seconds. A lot of DRKs have a macro for this.

More than any other tank, DRK has a toolkit that lends itself to big pulls in dungeons (high MP returns from being hit repeatedly multiple times, being able to use that MP to self-heal proportionate to how many targets they can AoE on, and on that note, a ridiculously potent swiss-army-knife of AoE skills. Not to mention they can both blind and boost their own evasion when not regenerating MP), so a skilled DRK is probably going to see how far he/she can push you as far as large pulls. Just be ready for that.

Speaking of AoEs, the big spikey red thing (the sea urchin :P) is a targeted AoE called Abyssal Drain. Its a 120 potency enmity generator, and can be boosted to absorb 100% of the damage dealt to *each* target. This easily translates to 3-4K self heals on large pulls every 5 or so seconds, at the beginning when the DRK has Blood Price up. This is what most DRKs will be doing for the first 12-15 seconds of any big pull. If a DRK pulls a huge pack and spams this upon reaching their destination, they're doing it right. When they suddenly stop, it means Blood Price has fallen off or is about to fall off, and they're moving to a single target rotation, and will likely start using blind/evasion cooldowns at this point.

This is all assuming the DRK you got queued with is good, and sadly, not all of them are. But hopefully now you know what to expect a bit more =]

Is awareness even all that good? I thought it was the weakest defensive move. Enemies only have a 5% crit rate for 50% extra damage (2.5% damage reduction, only on abilities that crit) and it has a 5s shorter duration than foresight. I prefer foresight, as it can help with DRK's overall weaker mitigation vs. physical damage. If i'm trying to maintain constant mitigation against physical damage, I try to pair Foresight + DD + Reprisal proc (may need to hold the reprisal to get them to all line up) and mix that in with your normal shadowskin/shadow wall usage, etc.

Bloodbath doesn't seem that special either, particularly since you can't pair it with a damage boost like berserk or FoF. I mean, I use it on the DRK, but I wouldn't consider it must have like Convo & Provoke.

Here's the thing. If you do NOT take all of the cross class defensive cooldowns from PLD/WAR for your DRK, your DRK actually has less cooldowns than a PLD and WAR assuming they take eachother's cross class cooldowns.

Awareness pairs extremely well with Dark Dance, every crit you do not take is an increase in your parry rate and a direct boost to the effectiveness of that cooldown. Same goes for your dodge rate in dungeons, if you Dark Arts it. Blood Bath stacks well with DA Souleater in Grit, and synergizes well with Blood Weapon when out of Grit, as the increased attack speed=increased Blood Bath heals.

People have unrealistic expectations for cross-class cooldowns. Consider these 1/2 CDs, or 1/3 CDs. Combine them with eachother or your native CDs to boost their effectiveness. I don't consider any of them useless. Haymaker is useless. Cross-classing Skull Sunder or Savage Blade is useless. These CDs are not.

[VanilleFang]

Thank you for the information guys! The only icon I saw next to the DRK I was queued with in Sohm Al was Grit, so I was just curious about other buffs. I'll be sure to but all this info to good use! Thanks again.

[Giantbane]

Greetings healer! Please don't judge us by that guy.

DRK can use the cross class skills of the other two tanks, and has 4 native cooldowns. Shadow Wall is a dark purple icon with a 3-point star-looking emblem on it. Its the big Sentinal/Vengeance equivalent. Shadowskin looks like Protect, but red. Its the Rampart/Inner Beast equivalent, slightly weaker. Dark Dance is a purple-white swirly icon, this is a parry or parry+dodge rate increase, depending on whether it is boosted. Dark Mind you probably will not see much in dungeons, but its a magic-only Shadow Wall, essentially, and is an odd pyramid icon with gold/black/purple-ish colors.

The pink icon is Blood Price. Your DRK is trying to regen MP from getting hit. If you feel like being a team player, don't stun if you see this. Most good DRKs will find a way to work around it if you decide to holy-spam or the like, though.

The red emblem is Darkside. If you see a DRK tanking something without this, promptly feel free to request they turn it on. Grit is a black figure surrounded by blue/flames/sword looking things. This is their tank stance. Do not be surprised if your DRK turns this off during boss fights, in fact, prepare for it. If you see a deep red sword icon, that's Blood Weapon. This can't be used in Grit and is essentially their DPS stance in the form of a cooldown.

In particular, look out for Living Dead, the Hallowed Ground/Holmgang equivalent. Its a red hourglass icon. When it triggers, it turns gray. This grey icon will kill the DRK if you don't heal them for an amount totalling their max HP. However, they are invincible for the duration of the red and gray icons, both of which last up to 10 seconds. A lot of DRKs have a macro for this.

More than any other tank, DRK has a toolkit that lends itself to big pulls in dungeons (high MP returns from being hit repeatedly multiple times, being able to use that MP to self-heal proportionate to how many targets they can AoE on, and on that note, a ridiculously potent swiss-army-knife of AoE skills. Not to mention they can both blind and boost their own evasion when not regenerating MP), so a skilled DRK is probably going to see how far he/she can push you as far as large pulls. Just be ready for that.

Speaking of AoEs, the big spikey red thing (the sea urchin :P) is a targeted AoE called Abyssal Drain. Its a 120 potency enmity generator, and can be boosted to absorb 100% of the damage dealt to *each* target. This easily translates to 3-4K self heals on large pulls every 5 or so seconds, at the beginning when the DRK has Blood Price up. This is what most DRKs will be doing for the first 12-15 seconds of any big pull. If a DRK pulls a huge pack and spams this upon reaching their destination, they're doing it right. When they suddenly stop, it means Blood Price has fallen off or is about to fall off, and they're moving to a single target rotation, and will likely start using blind/evasion cooldowns at this point.

This is all assuming the DRK you got queued with is good, and sadly, not all of them are. But hopefully now you know what to expect a bit more =]



Here's the thing. If you do NOT take all of the cross class defensive cooldowns from PLD/WAR for your DRK, your DRK actually has less cooldowns than a PLD and WAR assuming they take eachother's cross class cooldowns.

Awareness pairs extremely well with Dark Dance, every crit you do not take is an increase in your parry rate and a direct boost to the effectiveness of that cooldown. Same goes for your dodge rate in dungeons, if you Dark Arts it. Blood Bath stacks well with DA Souleater in Grit, and synergizes well with Blood Weapon when out of Grit, as the increased attack speed=increased Blood Bath heals.

People have unrealistic expectations for cross-class cooldowns. Consider these 1/2 CDs, or 1/3 CDs. Combine them with eachother or your native CDs to boost their effectiveness. I don't consider any of them useless. Haymaker is useless. Cross-classing Skull Sunder or Savage Blade is useless. These CDs are not.

We only really have 6 cross classes to choose from. I was responding to a post about which ones to choose.

Convo is strong, and should be taken. Provoke is mandatory on a lot of content.

The other 4 just aren't that strong. Definitely not as strong as Convo or Provoke. Of the remaining set, I prefer Foresight because I think it's the strongest. At ~8% reduction you are looking at a 1/3 strength cooldown. Awareness is specifically good for enemies that have high crit % phases. But that's not very many. Outisde of that, enemy crit is very low, I've heard it's around 5%. So the overall mitigation provided is very weak (2.5%). On its own, you're looking at something like a 1/8th strength cooldown. With DD in the same circumstance, you're only losing 5% of your parries to crits. If you had a base parry rate of 20% (which is high unless you've got parry on your gear), then DD brought it up to 50%, then you're only losing around 2.5% of your parries to crits. Since parries are only 20% reduction, it's still not a noteworthy difference.

Bloodbath, I think is probably weaker on DRK than on PLD or WAR. I wouldn't really consider bloodbath & DA+SE to stack "well". They both restore HP, but there's no multiplicative effect of one with the other. And Blood Weapon represents the weakest damage boost of the 3 jobs. Berserk at 50% and FoF at 30% are much stronger, and that directly multiplies the bloodbath heals. When you're looking at total portion of incoming damage, I think the % returned isn't going to be that high, and probably not all that effective, even when compared to something like Foresight.

It doesn't mean these cooldowns are useless, it's that they're all kind of meh. In my opinion, none of them really stand out (unless you're talking about awareness vs. a boss with a high crit phase) and I don't think (aside from Foresight) even measure up as 1/3CDs.

So, anyway, Convo & Provoke are mandatory. Pick 3 of the last four, they're all somewhat mediocre.

[bounddreamer]

don't slot points into strength, your not a dps that is all I have

You need to stop, you don't know what you're talking about.

The only reason NOT to allot points to strength would be if Square Enix changes it so our enmity and self healing scales off VIT rather than STR. Currently it scales off STR and your argument is invalid.

[Syzygian]

We only really have 6 cross classes to choose from. I was responding to a post about which ones to choose.

Convo is strong, and should be taken. Provoke is mandatory on a lot of content.

The other 4 just aren't that strong. Definitely not as strong as Convo or Provoke. Of the remaining set, I prefer Foresight because I think it's the strongest. At ~8% reduction you are looking at a 1/3 strength cooldown. Awareness is specifically good for enemies that have high crit % phases. But that's not very many. Outisde of that, enemy crit is very low, I've heard it's around 5%. So the overall mitigation provided is very weak (2.5%). On its own, you're looking at something like a 1/8th strength cooldown. With DD in the same circumstance, you're only losing 5% of your parries to crits. If you had a base parry rate of 20% (which is high unless you've got parry on your gear), then DD brought it up to 50%, then you're only losing around 2.5% of your parries to crits. Since parries are only 20% reduction, it's still not a noteworthy difference.

Bloodbath, I think is probably weaker on DRK than on PLD or WAR. I wouldn't really consider bloodbath & DA+SE to stack "well". They both restore HP, but there's no multiplicative effect of one with the other. And Blood Weapon represents the weakest damage boost of the 3 jobs. Berserk at 50% and FoF at 30% are much stronger, and that directly multiplies the bloodbath heals. When you're looking at total portion of incoming damage, I think the % returned isn't going to be that high, and probably not all that effective, even when compared to something like Foresight.

It doesn't mean these cooldowns are useless, it's that they're all kind of meh. In my opinion, none of them really stand out (unless you're talking about awareness vs. a boss with a high crit phase) and I don't think (aside from Foresight) even measure up as 1/3CDs.

So, anyway, Convo & Provoke are mandatory. Pick 3 of the last four, they're all somewhat mediocre.

Mobs crit rate isn't the worry, its bosses. In A1S and A3S, during progression anyway (not overgearing) those boss' crits can 1-shot you or finish you off. And if you're in a dungeon tanking 11 mobs the chances of you eating a crit go up exponentially.

You're severely underselling Blood Weapon. First off, Berserk and FoF are 90s recasts, Blood Weapon is 40. Blood Weapon's attack speed increase is also only part of the DPS increase it grants. In its duration you can spam DA Souleater, and if you applied Delirium immediately prior, you'll only have that fall off for a few seconds due to the attack speed increase. The increased attack speed directly compliments healing from Bloodbath. And yes, if you're in Grit, rotating DA SE with Bloodbath up is good healing, so I'd say that yes, they do synergize. Its like saying Second Wind and ToB don't synergize. They do. If its a low damage phase with mostly auto-attacks you can recover several thousand HP between the two.

These are oGCD cooldowns... they cost you no DPS other than the .01% you can gain in the course of a fight with Mercy Stroke. Its not like folks are asking you to stack all vit and glue your face to your tank stance. Why not pop them if you have them? They DO have uses, USE them. Why discourage people from doing everything they can to mitigate damage?

I do not understand why tanks get on here and shit on cooldowns. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they aren't the tanks that just don't pop cooldowns. Its not just the quoted poster, its everywhere on the tank forums. "Foresight is shit, Bloodbath is meh, Awareness is useless..." What is there to gain from constantly shit-canning untraited cross-class abilities other than trying to look like a badass that's too good for a cooldown that isn't a clear tank buster CD? People get on here and talk like they've got too much swag for Awareness/Bloodbath/etc. but if they are a decent tank they're still popping those cooldowns if nothing else is up or they're saving bigger CDs for bigger hits. The only thing this does is encourage new tanks to not push any cooldown that isn't fucking Sentinel or Shadow Wall and then wind up on the floor 10 seconds later.

[Freyyy]

I do not understand why tanks get on here and shit on cooldowns. [...]

You're overreacting here dude. Foresight is a shitty CD, Awareness too, and Bloodbath could be better. It's a fact. Does that mean that we shouldn't use them ? Of course not, they still do their job, and we are not sacrificing anything for popping them. So indeed, we use them, and they do help. It's still shitty cooldowns and we were just comparing their benefits because we have to sacrifice one anyway since we only have 5 cross-class slots. I just think that they could be a lot better for their recast timers, especially when you look at some DPS incredibly powerful cross-class abilities like Raging Strikes, Hawk's Eye, Invigorate and stuff. Tanks only get shitty stuff except for Convo, Voke and Bloodbath (and this one is 'meh' but still better than Awareness and Foresight IMO).