Blood Weapon / other DRK suggestions:

[Granyala]

and that's with my DRK being my alt Job at ~i216 selling content with i230+ dps

Whelp try tanking experts in i203... :X

Burning expensive cooldowns on cooldown at the cost of more offensive might when the mitigation is NOT REQUIRED (i.e. small trash pulls) is playing poorly, even if you are a tank.

One DA'd hit more or less won't make the mob die notably faster. Tank DPS is not high enough for that.

[shao32]

Also the best mitigation is one more dead target.

if the target is dead you don't mitigate nothing at all, for mitigating first you need being hit, the best mitigation is use your cd properly, kill the target prevent more damage thats the diference.

[JackFross]

Whelp try tanking experts in i203... :X

I can definitely see that requiring more than one Power Slash, but it's not because DRK can't hold hate, it's because you're super low geared for week 10 of 3.2 progression. That's fair to an extent, but it's not a point where we can realistically criticize the Job or tell others that this is the "proper" way to play the class or that it's "okay" to miss a DA+CaS when trying to optimize the Job because of reasons that are honestly negligible in comparison. DA+DM and DA+DD offer marginally more mitigation in a single-target encounter than their non-DA counterparts, not least because of the short durations. You're wasting your most precious resource by spending it on these gains, rather than using it for significant damage boosts. Your tank somehow being behind the curve at i203 with 10 weeks of Midas doesn't negate this fact. On my alt character, I have i224 PLD and i220 DRG. My main is sitting on i231 DRG (lots of crafted/Savage drops, ignore this - would be i225-ish otherwise), i216 DRK, i213 SCH/BLM.

How many Jobs are you gearing that your DRK is so far behind? Why are you playing an i203 class in dungeons in the first place, if you have multiple Jobs above i210 (as should absolutely be the case with the Farthings from VA and Lore gear and weekly Midas Normal drops)?

One DA'd hit more or less won't make the mob die notably faster. Tank DPS is not high enough for that.

I don't disagree. All I was saying is that if you're gonna trade a DA'd hit for a DA'd CD, trade a DA+SE, not a DA+CaS. If you're trading the latter, you're wasting 350 potency for a marginal defensive gain that doesn't noticeably curb damage intake. That's an entire two hits of your main combo that you just opted not to do now. I don't care what nonsense someone is gonna spit about "low Tank dps" - DRK and PLD can pull upwards of 1000 right now without WAR/NIN out of tank stance and 850-900+ in tank stance. That's significant when the majority of DPS players you encounter in DF tend to barely crest 1k-1.1k, if you're lucky.

It comes down to: Why are you using DA to bolster your mitigation cooldowns in the first place in a single-target encounter? Every boss in every endgame dungeon can be healed 100% with passive heals (regens and fairies) outside of DPS taking stupid damage or tanks eating Vuln stacks. Avoid that and voila. You don't even need cooldowns while out of tank stance to survive easily with minimal healer investment.

I know this, since I often run Experts on my alt PLD with a SCH friend who does 700-800 dps on bosses and never once gives me a single heal outside of Embrace, and I do bosses in Sword Oath with no cooldowns outside of tank busters like Knockout.

if the target is dead you don't mitigate nothing at all, for mitigating first you need being hit, the best mitigation is use your cd properly, kill the target prevent more damage thats the diference.

Is Hallowed Ground mitigation? It prevents damage completely (within certain parameters). If you count that, you have to count killing a mob as an optimal form of mitigation.

[shao32]

Is Hallowed Ground mitigation? It prevents damage completely (within certain parameters). If you count that, you have to count killing a mob as an optimal form of mitigation.

oxfor diccionary: mitigation: Make (something bad) less severe, serious, or painful.

if you kill the boss-miniom fast you don't make the tank punishment less severe, you eliminate completely, so thats get out of the meaning of mitigation, you can push you dps to get the fight shorter but thats it, you are making the fight shorter, you don't go to take less damage for do that, in fact the best mitigiation is MT in tank stance 100% of the time and perfect control of you cds.

if you are tanking a pack of mobs and you kill 2 of 3 for example fast, yes you can use the word mitigating but only works on that, "dead target is the best mitigation" don't work with that meaning in most of the game and in raid more. mitigations means when you get something bad you try to make it less severe, but first you need that something bad happens, thats why that expresion is not correct at all and is use it by miss information.

so mitigating in this game means reduce the damage you taken and kill extra mods thats apear in a fight but no the boss himself.

hallowed reduce to 0 all damage taken so yes is mitigate because you need to get those hits 1º to reduce to 0.

killing a mob is not mitigating nothing, is end the encounter and you win because you don't get more hits that you need mitigate or make less severe.

killing a mod fast is a optimal form of win not mitigate.

[MagiusNecros]

Killing one enemy in a mob stops all outgoing damage from that enemy thus preventing more damage during that pull. It is still a form of mitigation. End of discussion.

[shao32]

Killing one enemy in a mob stops all outgoing damage from that enemy thus preventing more damage during that pull. It is still a form of mitigation. End of discussion.

you say it, preventing
for mitigate you need take damage fisrt, is a diferent concept.

[JackFross]

oxfor diccionary: mitigation: Make (something bad) less severe, serious, or painful.

Bringing a dictionary definition to a discussion is the fastest way to make me ignore your point. That said:

I wish I could write this in with a realistic approach, but instead I'll address it in a controlled, simplistic environment. For the sake of this argument, we'll be comparing two Dark Knights -

Tank A - DRK in Grit doing sub-optimal DPS so that they can use DA+DM on a boss who deals exclusively magic damage.
Tank B - DRK out of Grit doing optimal DPS and not burning DA, but still using DM since the boss deals exclusively magic damage.

Tank A can be assumed to dish ~650 dps, due to the sub-optimal situation. This is an over-estimation, because we're assuming 0 Power Slashes.
Tank B can be assumed to dish ~1000 dps, due to optimal damage output and not using Grit. This is an under-estimation, because we're assuming multiple Power Slashes to maintain hate.

Let's say the boss has 65,000 health and will deal 500 dps to the tank via their strictly magic damage offensive attacks. We're assuming health is a non-issue and just looking at "how much damage does my tank take before the monster dies."

Tank A will kill the boss in 100 seconds.
Tank B will kill the boss in 65 seconds.

Tank A takes 500*0.8 = 400 dps from the mob.
Tank B takes 500 dps from the mob.

We will assume a cooldown rotation as follows, for mitigation:
0-20s - Shadowskin
20-30s - Shadow Wall
30-40s - Dark Mind
90-100s - Dark Mind + Shadowskin

Tank A:
0-20s = 400*0.8*20 = 6400 damage taken
20-30s = 400*0.7*10 = 2800 damage taken
30-40s = 400*0.7*10 = 2800 damage taken
40-90s = 400*50 = 20000 damage taken
90-100s = 400*0.7*0.8*10 = 2240 damage taken

Tank B
0-20s = 500*0.8*20 = 8000
20-30s = 500*0.7*10 = 3500
30-40s = 500*0.85*10 = 4250
40-65s = 500*25 = 12500


Tank A takes 34240 damage before the boss dies.
Tank B takes 28250 damage before the boss dies.

Tank B mitigated 6000 damage by using an optimal rotation to pump out more offense compared to Tank A.
We can talk about DA+SE health leech, but health leech is not mitigation.

Shrug?

[shao32]

snip

ok is basic but good enough to make mi point.

lets see:
tank A 0-40 seconds: 12000 total damage taken
tank B 0-40 seconds: 15750 total damage taken

so tank B kill the add-boss-wathever and tank A still fighting lets say tank A get another hit

tank A 40-15 seconds: extra 2800 damage taken
tank B 40-15 seconds: zero, the damage wash preventby killing the boss.

thats the diference, if you compared a dps try or a full mitigation try the diference betwen both tank is the dps tank prevent all the extra damage that de other tank mitigatebecause he take the hits.

so best mitigation is killing the boss is incorrect, is more best damage prevent is killing the boss and the dps runs are not make to mitigate less or more because no matter you burst a boss if twintania for example dealts 2000 dps she dealt less dps in a full tank mode tank, dps runs are make the fight more shorter and skip mechanics to make the fights less stress, the same tame both tank take the same hits, when 1 tank kill the boss all the extra damage is prevent, not mitigated, is very simple.
Edit: i change mitigate for taken un the examples sorry for the mistake

[JackFross]

You're literally arguing semantics. It's the exact same concept, you're just dead-set on separating them with different terms.

Damage prevented is damage mitigated. Two terms for a similar concept.

[Granyala]

I can definitely see that requiring more than one Power Slash, but it's not because DRK can't hold hate, it's because you're super low geared for week 10 of 3.2 progression. That's fair to an extent, but it's not a point where we can realistically criticize the Job [...]
How many Jobs are you gearing that your DRK is so far behind?

I don't disagree. All I was saying is that if you're gonna trade a DA'd hit for a DA'd CD, trade a DA+SE, not a DA+CaS.

It comes down to: Why are you using DA to bolster your mitigation cooldowns in the first place in a single-target encounter?

1) Not my intent to criticize the class or anything. Merely trying to explain why people might act differently and why it's not automatically "bad play" as such.
I actively gear my White mage, since that is my main spec. However as of late I get pissed off by the 15min+ queue times, so I tend to just hop onto my Dork for instant expert access. While I definitely feel the strain of fighting for threat, so far it is doable in most cases. Since I don't do Alex and Lore is currently reserved for my WHM, my poor Dork will have to make do with soon to be upgraded 210 eso gear.

2) Sure, it makes sense to replace the lowest priority hit and I admit that I did learn some new things from reading your posts. So thanks. I never really used Dark Arts for offense except for DA-DP in order to blind trash groups because, to be frank: i really didn't give tank DPS much thought.

3) Well most dungeon bosses do hit like wet noodles, even in 200 gear. So it's probably not necessary to even stay in Grit (unless you need the +aggro boost). I mostly use DA'd cooldowns on trash, because I DO get hit by them like trucks due to my gear. When there are 4 Fire Exergons + other mobs chewing on me in Antitower, I do like to use DA+DM.
Again, I'm not mana starved single target because I use the blue one (dance?) with DA. I'm mostly mana starved because I can't continually spam osmosis combo due to threat. And in that regard, the 800+MP von CnS gets more important to me than the damage it would do.

We can talk about DA+SE health leech, but health leech is not mitigation.

While not mitigation in the strictest sense, it has the effect that the healer has to heal less. Which, frankly, is the whole point of mitigation.

Stunning AoE trashpacks with Holy falls into the same category. It's technically not a heal per se but if 7 mobs don't do any damage for 6 seconds, that's a lot of damage prevented. a.k.a.: damage I don't have to heal against.

To be perfectly honest: this whole discussion gets rather moot once the fight is over though. Finishing a mob faster only really matters if the incoming DPS is a large strain on the healers mana. If it is not, and in most dungeons healers can heal the incoming damage pretty much indefinitely, then it doesn't really matter at all in terms of "mitigation".

At this point mitigation is irrelevant and the much more noticeable boon is "get stuff done faster".

As a healer I'd always take the tank that does take a bit more damage in trivial to heal content but makes mobs die faster, which is kinda hilarious if you think about it, because I am the person that stated "It's the tanks job to take as little damage as possible".
But then again I'm a white mage. Our off DPS ability sucks outside of the Ermagawd Holy-Assize-Holy AoE burst.^^