Opening as a Dark Knight?

[Amagiri]

Hi everyone! Amagiri Yanagi here, and I have a question about openers in general as tanks.

I'm a Dark Knight and my friend is a Warrior. The way we've been pulling so far is having the Warrior start off the pull and then we tank swap where I become the MT shortly after openers. Our Black Mage is disputing this method, saying that I should start off the pull and that the Warrior should just remain the OT the whole time, and that this would net us more damage overall in comparison. I don't know which is actually better, so I was wondering if you all could help me with this issue.

My concerns in particular fell to enmity, loss of mana, and DPS, by having me open. Our War tank is capable of switching into Deliverance pretty quickly even while acting as the temporary MT during openers, and when we tank swap, the advantage I feel is greater from doing that than the DPS lost from our WAR tank doing an Unchained into 3 Fel Cleave opener rather than a 4 Fel Cleave opener.

[FallenWings]

Your black mage is silly and seems to be giving advice on classes he has no clue about.

Best raid gain is always WAR pull.

The war loses 1 fell cleave and 5-7% DPS loss for the first 15-20 seconds for the fattest aggro start and the DRK/PLD getting 20%+ Damage for the first 30 seconds.

Remove these silly notions of always MT/OT. You work with your co-tank to maximize defensive CD uptime and maximum DPS output from both.
End of story.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Warrior loses a smidgen of dps at the beginning to Unchained opener, farm up a ridiculous aggro lead, and let the MT sit in dps stance for a ridiculously long period of time. I'm not sure how a tiny dps loss from one outweighs the dps gain from the whole.

[SyzzleSpark]

If you can pull it off, you can top the Unchained opener if you pull out of Grit, but only if you have a NIN that is willing to Shadewalker you at least twice. You may have to Powerslash a few extra times but that loss is paltry compared to having Grit on.

If you have no NIN or your healers don't like the idea, then yeah I'd default to the Unchained opener. Or your WAR could just pull in Deliverance with Shadewalker since BB is part of their DPS rotation.

Basically you take a big loss pulling in Grit, your WAR takes a small loss Unchained pulling, and you both take almost no loss at all with a Gritless pull. You'll just need an industrious NIN to pick up that slack with Shadewalker and possibly Smokescreen.

[Jim_Berry]

If you can pull it off, you can top the Unchained opener if you pull out of Grit, but only if you have a NIN that is willing to Shadewalker you at least twice. You may have to Powerslash a few extra times but that loss is paltry compared to having Grit on.

If you have no NIN or your healers don't like the idea, then yeah I'd default to the Unchained opener. Or your WAR could just pull in Deliverance with Shadewalker since BB is part of their DPS rotation.

Basically you take a big loss pulling in Grit, your WAR takes a small loss Unchained pulling, and you both take almost no loss at all with a Gritless pull. You'll just need an industrious NIN to pick up that slack with Shadewalker and possibly Smokescreen.

To be honest, while people are against it, I use Dark Arts + Power Slash, then continue on my way, rather than a couple of Power Slash spams.

[Lyth]

To be honest, while people are against it, I use Dark Arts + Power Slash, then continue on my way, rather than a couple of Power Slash spams.

This caught my interest. The consensus is that DAPS isn't particularly useful, but I've never sat down and figured out what the trade-off actually was. If we compare the amount of enmity generated by a combo over Delirium to the potency loss (again, compared to Delirium), we should be able to measure its efficiency.

Grit: 2.7x
SpS: 770 enmity potency (3.5x)
PS: 1650 enmity potency (5.5x)
DAPS: 1950 enmity potency (6.5x)

Already you can see that DAPS isn't a great deal, as you're spending one DA usage to gain 300 enmity potency. This becomes slightly better in Grit, where you spend one DA usage to gain 810 enmity potency.

There are two costs for using PS. One is the potency loss, and the other is the MP loss from a missed Siphon Strike, as well as potentially the cost of one DA usage. One DA is equal to two Siphon Strikes, so PS costs 1 SS, and DAPS costs 3 SS. One DA usage is equal to 120 potency (DASE over Del), so these are 60 and 180 potency losses, respectively.

Note: These are net potency values, made in comparison to the potency and enmity generated from the Delirium combo.

PS:
Net Cost: 70/combo
Net Enmity Gain: 1890/combo
27 enmity per potency lost

DAPS:
Net Cost: 190/combo
Net Enmity Gain: 2150/combo
11 enmity per potency lost

Grit + PS:
Net Cost: 204/combo
Net Enmity Gain: 6259/combo
30 enmity per potency lost

Grit + DAPS:
Net Cost: 324/combo
Net Enmity Gain: 7069/combo
22 enmity per potency lost

The short of it is DAPS is always less efficient than PS, both with and without Grit. Enmity combos are always more efficient when performed in Grit. DAPS would have a role in the opener if the extra 800 enmity potency prevented a second PS combo, but if you need more than one combo, chances are that you'll need to progress to a second full PS anyways. Unfortunately, proceeding to a second combo has some pretty poor synergy with other jobs' opening raid buffs, so it ends up being a sizeable dps loss.

The cost of a missed GCD on DRK varies between 150 and 280 (227 on average). If you have to turn on Grit to do PS or DAPS, the efficiency drops to 15 enmity per potency lost and 11 enmity per potency lost, respectively. So turning Grit back on just to build more enmity isn't particularly efficient. Always better to get the enmity correct at the start.

Most of this is probably common sense, but that's the math.

[SpookyGhost]

Pros of WAR pulling with Unchained:
- Highest possible enmity lead over DPS and healers
- Gain a BB combo (+20 potency)
- Gain Berserk'd Vengeance procs (+50 potency for every hit you take while under the effect of Vengeance)
- Gain healer GCDs due to popping all defensive and self healing CDs
- DRK will only have to do 1 PS the entire fight, barring tank swaps (possibly 0 PS if you Shade the DRK during the swap)

Cons:
- Lose a Berserk'd FC (bare in mind that since FC is on the GCD, it merely replaces your 9th Berserk'd GCD and isn't a flat 500 potency loss)
- Delay Reprisal
- Possibly lose a Low Blow proc depending on RNG

Pros of DRK pulling, with or without Grit:
- Reprisal up ASAP
- 3x FC WAR opener
- possibly proc Low Blow

Cons of DRK pulling:
- No more Berserk'd Vengeance procs
- Actually takes damage and therefore will cost healers DPS GCDs
- Have to PS more
- Lose BB combo

WAR pulling w/o Unchained means they lose Equilibrium and the extra cushion health, which could potentially mean lost healer GCDs depending on the encounter.

If anyone can think of any other pros/cons lmk.

[Gildarts]

.

even with war pulling he can do 3FC opener, thats what most top groups do, they only have Defiance for tomahawk or overpower hate would be close however its best overall DPS for MT/OT, also would require nin shade ;3

[aleph_null]

even with war pulling he can do 3FC opener, thats what most top groups do, they only have Defiance for tomahawk or overpower hate would be close however its best overall DPS for MT/OT, also would require nin shade ;3

Is it worth it though? You'll miss a huge part of litany, trick and hypercharge during your berserk. I have heard some good wars say that it's not worth holding berserk that long just for the third berserk cleave.

[Gildarts]

Is it worth it though? You'll miss a huge part of litany, trick and hypercharge during your berserk. I have heard some good wars say that it's not worth holding berserk that long just for the third berserk cleave.

huh you won't be holding it for long, you will pop zerk after second heavy swing would still get 2FCs in trick and have most of buffs up

its highest hitting opener was it you on MT or OT