Complex Math Question

[SpookyGhost]

Confused why you're doing maths on NIN. Surely the NIN will use Shadewalker regardless of who pulls, thus resulting in a flat, equal enmity gain on both sides.

The argument in favor of WAR MT opener is that the DRK will never, ever need to use PS (among other factors). Accounting for only 1 PS in an entire encounter is realistically only going to work in something like A6S or A8S phase 1, because generally people will get a lot of uptime on the boss and therefore produce a lot of enmity.

Another thing to consider is that when a WAR pulls they're also going to use Vengeance with Berserk, IR, Bloodbath, etc. up because you're realistically not going to need Vengeance ever within 2 minutes of the start of a boss encounter - you have RI and Thrill + Convo available to you if you need a cooldown. I mention Bloodbath, because of my next point which is...

Healer DPS. By having a WAR pull, not only will you get tank stance's default "mitigation", you also get the 30% damage reduction which will presumably lead to more GCDs for both healers to use before needing to actually heal.

Basically, with DRK MT you gain 1 FC in place of a Maim (which you forgot in your WAR MT opener or maybe you were trying to use equal GCDs between both MT openers idk), lose Vengeance ticks vs 1 Reprisal + Low Blow reset, lose healer DPS, and also a bunch of enmity that will probably be needed on any encounter that doesn't disappear/die really quickly. Reprisals/Low Blow resets also will still actually exist since you'll swap after the WAR MT opener, but in the DRK MT opener the DRK just keeps MTing so you entirely lose the Vengeance ticks.

Anyway, it's really min/max and now that Gordias Savage has happened you probably won't need to min/max hard enough to meet any DPS checks. Just do whichever your group is comfortable with.

e: One more thing, encounters aren't all striking dummies that can have set in stone openers for every single one. Some times it's better for the DRK to pull, sometimes it's better for the WAR to pull. It really depends on what damage goes out at the start of the fight and who needs to end up tanking what when. Experiment and see what gives you the best results.

[Lyth]

If you're planning on swapping after Unchained, you would probably want to wait until after the swap to use Shadewalker on your DRK. Your WAR and DRK will come out of the swap neck and neck on enmity, which is going to put a cap on your WAR's ability to use BB. In addition, this approach still forces at least 1 PS on DRK following the swap (as a continuation to SpS), even if you sync up your combos and execute it flawlessly.

When you do comparisons like these, you're not really trying to maximise enmity. You're just trying to create a safe enmity gap between yourself and the next highest player. The problem is that this usually isn't a dps. It's your WAR.

I like the Unchained opener, but I'd rather see it used if the WAR is planning to continue tanking to the next natural swap. A5S is a good place for this, for example. Swaps, in practice, are associated with dps losses of their own that need to be offset, so it's probably better for most groups not to swap unless encounter mechanics force you to.

[SpookyGhost]

Shadewalker WAR on opening.

Smokescreen WAR after swap.

I've no idea how you're holding off against DPS/healers with just 1 PS and Shadewalker, without Grit, the entire time. If you are, keep doing what you're doing because technically that's optimal.

[Lyth]

I had a look how a few different groups set up their openers, back during the thread discussing the role of Plunge in DRK's opener. I noticed that a certain world-first progression group was doing exactly that on A5S-A7S, except with Grit on for the initial PS. It's going to be partly contingent on both you and your ninja, but it seems reasonably doable, even when playing with highly skilled and geared dps.

I don't really see the point in using Shadewalker on WAR during an Unchained opener. If anyone else is remotely close in enmity after that opener, your WAR really should reconsider their job choice. If you're going to swap in the first two minutes or so, you want that difference to be applied between your DRK and your WAR, not just between your tanks and the rest of the group.

[Chronons]

The reason I did the math on Ninja was because Syz was wanting to compare WAR(MT) - Unchained and DRK OT vs. a Gritless DRK(MT), a WAR OT, and a Ninja supporting. Option A doesn't have the Ninja at all according to my understanding.

As far as the rotations go - of course they are open for interpretation. Its really hard to gauge how many GCDs each one would get in the given amount of time because technically the puller gets extra uptime for being the first hit and the second may start the rotation before the pullers GCD reprocs. I just tried my best to find "basic" rotations and keep them pretty equal as far as GCDs went so we could get a rough idea of the numbers possible.

I agree with both of you that WAR would probably be the better option to try and tank stance-less Shadewalker, but for whatever reason the OP may want DRK in the MT slot and is just trying to find a way to maximize it as best as possible within that parameter.

I had a look how a few different groups set up their openers, back during the thread discussing the role of Plunge in DRK's opener. I noticed that a certain world-first progression group was doing exactly that on A5S-A7S, except with Grit on for the initial PS. It's going to be partly contingent on both you and your ninja, but it seems reasonably doable, even when playing with highly skilled and geared dps.

Thats funny, I did the same thing for that thread and noticed this group doing it as well. It very well could be the best option for the OP.

[SyzzleSpark]

I had a look how a few different groups set up their openers, back during the thread discussing the role of Plunge in DRK's opener. I noticed that a certain world-first progression group was doing exactly that on A5S-A7S, except with Grit on for the initial PS. It's going to be partly contingent on both you and your ninja, but it seems reasonably doable, even when playing with highly skilled and geared dps.

Thats funny, I did the same thing for that thread and noticed this group doing it as well. It very well could be the best option for the OP.

Yeah that's what my group defaults to, but we're experimenting with new things since we replaced our WAR with one who is... much more of a team player and willing to try things.

After testing it I could do the Gritless+NIN opener with 2 Powerslashes but not 1. And of course the Unchained opener works like a charm, we all knew that. I guess I just wanted to see what the bare minimum would be that I could get away with if I'm pulling enmity-wise, and if that would be more DPS efficient.

[Chronons]

Since you can reliably hold aggro both ways then the real question is just- which is more dps efficient? The Grit one PS or the Gritless two PS. What rotations do you use in each scenario?