New to DRK and Tanking in General, Looking for Some Tips.

[Ralliden]

Hey guys I've just come back to the game after a long hiatus of about 6 months and figured with my return it was finally time to start leveling another job. I really wanted to give tanking a shot and so wound up choosing DRK. Played to lvl 55 and loving it! But I've got three major concerns that stick out to me I really don't want to wind up as a guy that causes you all headaches in content.

1. How should I gear up at 60? I know our primary gear is Fending but I've read up and looked at other level 60 tanks and quite a few slide in a piece or two of Slaying right side gear. I'm scared I might over or under do it.
   
2. How should I spend my stat points I get from leveling up? As of right now I'm doing a 60%/30%/10% split between Vitality Strength and Piety respectively.
   
3. And my biggest concern. How to use which cooldowns/buffs and when. DRK's have a huge tool belt of buffs and damage mitigation that is rather daunting to look at.

Thanks for any help!

[Martin_Arcainess]

1. Gearing up wise you got a fair few choice. Make sure your doing Hunts as they can give you seals for iLV170/180.
Dungeons offer of course tomes and some gear as well. Midas gives you 220 and WC gives you 230. So there is quite a few ways and of course tomes.
also right side, vit gear all the way. VIT and STR both offer 0.45 in terms of AP but with VIT they have a few more points over STR when compared of the same iLV.
Also you can meld STR on VIT gear as well.

2. your bonus points should all be on VIT. VIT and STR effect your AP now *yes vit counts towards the amount of damage you do now* but given that vit offers HP as well all VIT. Piety never stack anything on that for DRK.

3. CD's it depends on the fight but general if your doing big dungeon pulls don't pop all your Def CD's at once.
I tend to pop shadow Skin and foresight then when they wear off shadow wall and then once that wears off but by then most mobs should be dead conv and dark dance.

[Ilan]

Hey guys I've just come back to the game after a long hiatus of about 6 months and figured with my return it was finally time to start leveling another job. I really wanted to give tanking a shot and so wound up choosing DRK. Played to lvl 55 and loving it! But I've got three major concerns that stick out to me I really don't want to wind up as a guy that causes you all headaches in content.

1. How should I gear up at 60? I know our primary gear is Fending but I've read up and looked at other level 60 tanks and quite a few slide in a piece or two of Slaying right side gear. I'm scared I might over or under do it.
   
2. How should I spend my stat points I get from leveling up? As of right now I'm doing a 60%/30%/10% split between Vitality Strength and Piety respectively.
   
3. And my biggest concern. How to use which cooldowns/buffs and when. DRK's have a huge tool belt of buffs and damage mitigation that is rather daunting to look at.

Thanks for any help!

1. Your gear is fending gear and nothing else. You can wear striking stuff but i wouldn't recomment it since vit boosts dmg the same way as str and gives hp bonus on top of it. And if you don't do savage raids you don't have to optimize your secondary stats.
2. All your stat points are going in vit and in nothing else.
3. How you use your cd's depends on the fights. Most common is that you use shadowskin, foresight and shadow wall, lowest cd time first. Dark dance doesn't hurt either.
4. Learn the fights and read guides for dark knights. That will answer more of your questions that a thread in the forum.

[DestroyerOfLargePlanets]

Full VIT all the way. As for secondary stat weights, prioritize CRIT > DET > SKILL SPEED. That is, Crit is more valuable than Det and so on. Drop grit when you don't need it, keep 100% uptime on Scourge and Salted Earth (Use them while out of grit for maximum potency).