Dark knight rotations

[KorenA]

Anyone else having swapped to vit gear and losing a nice chunk of skill speed hate it or is it just me? lol anyway did anyone find good optimal rotation for mting? I find myself having to use power combo now, of course without dark arts, but I most def have to keep a eye on my mp more. If I'm with a good dps, I find that sometimes just one power combo isn't enough, it does rip but I most definitely don't have a lead like I used to pre patch, any other dark knights run into this? Or is it just me >.>

[Syzygian]

DRK's playstyle as it existed at the end of 3.1 has been turned on its head.

That being said, they didn't break it, and so much of our job is content-dependant and changes on a fight-to-fight basis, so there are workarounds for this.

What I've had to start doing is opening with Scourge - PS like always, following it up with DE and then another PS. This ensures that I'm getting a PS combo during my WAR's triple cleave opener and helps tame that a bit. Most DPS burst rotations are over by this point. Then after this I can move to regular DASE-DE etc.

Some general tips I have based on the new content:

1. Our out-of-tank-stance DPS is much lower now in relation to DPS jobs. You absolutely will not keep hate as a DRK out of Grit indefinitely anymore, even with a shadewalker, unless you are generating enmity which on DRK, as we all know, is a significant DPS loss.

2. If you're going to PS, do it in Grit. Don't waste the DPS gains of being out of Grit on PS.

3. If you need to manage your hate and you're out of Grit, just turn Grit back on, throw out a PS combo, and go back to your rotation until its safe to turn Grit off again. This is still a huge dps loss but the idea is that next time you'll keep Grit on for a bit longer so that you won't have to do this. PS combo out of Grit is now pathetic on hate compared to what it was, so it won't save you for long.

4. Bosses hit more often. A5-A8 bosses give you some pretty generous BP returns. While BP is normally less MP on average than BW, if you study the fight and time its usage correctly you'll never be wanting for MP as long as you're keeping an eye on it. We're learning new content now, so we're not sure of the moments when BP is going to be giving us the most bang for our buck yet. But we'll get there.

5. Content is harder hitting and turning Grit off to begin with is harder. After opening, as I said, follow every activation of Grit with a PS combo if people are really on your ass.

6. When learning fights, keep Grit on until you know what the TB is and when its coming. When you do, disable Grit after the TB lands and rotation cooldowns and see how long you can keep it off. If you can't keep it off long enough to get 2 full uses of Blood Weapon without putting your life in danger, I'd just keep it on until you're more geared.

7. The reason MP is tighter is because we can't hop out of Grit to use BW as much, or rotate BW and BP as much as we used to. However, there are extremely frequent tank swaps in the new content from what I've observed, you will not be MTing for the whole fight or even 75% of the fight, in most encounters.

8. Generally, if you need to sacrifice DPS in Grit to ensure that you can go ham once you drop Grit, DO IT. This goes for MP as well. If you need to use an extra DE combo instead of DASE while in Grit to maintain decent MP levels, that’s going to translate to a DPS gain once you get to drop Grit.

9. Watch the aggro meters in every encounter. Be aware of mechanics your DPS/OT have to handle and whether or not their uptime is sufficient to really threaten your enmity and warrant that extra PS.

10. I'm not certain what the cap is yet, but a SkS value that will let you hit a 8 GCD BW can help your MP a bit. TP should not be a factor, DRK has nearly the TP sustain of a DRG now, which is pretty impressive.

It can suck at times, right now in the new content, but it’s a learning process, and once we’ve got it down we shouldn’t have a problem.

Also – DADD is usable in some boss fights. You won’t be dodging any TBs but for example, in SephEx, DADD usually affords you 2-3 dodged auto attacks depending on when you pop it, which is around 15K of dodged damage.