Why Shirk?

[samanator13]

Technically? With Shirk, you don't even have to stay in Tank Stance. If Healers are on point, Both Tanks can be in DPS Stance and not have to worry about aggro, only needing to swap to Tank Stance for TBs. I know because I've done Susan EX and with my Co-Tank, shirking between us let me stay in Deliverance for almost the whole fight. He probably could've taken off Grit and be fine but one can never be too careful around unsuspecting Healers.

tl;dr Shirk could potentially be an overall DPS Increase, and

Shirk is how you high five the other tank for the tag out. They raise their hand up with provoke and you tag it with shirk. Don't leave them hanging.

[Yorumi]

The annoying thing about shirk is that it further trivializes tanking. It basically removes your enmity combo so now you just spam the same 3 buttons while tanking.

[DJMau]

So true. Especially since the dps and healers don't generate enmity and can run a risk of ripping aggro and having their faces eaten off in a heartbeat. Oh, wait...

[Falar]

The annoying thing about shirk is that it further trivializes tanking. It basically removes your enmity combo so now you just spam the same 3 buttons while tanking.

That's why I love it. It is great not having to use the enmity combo, at least for Dark Knight since it neither generates MP, Blackblood, and is a DPS loss.

Less Power Slash combos is a great thing for us.

[Hierro]

Shirk's awesome. You never ever have to worry any party member creeping up on you for aggro, ever. From a DRK perspective, it used to be that MTing meant that you would inevitably use your aggro combo at some point to hold the lead. Lost MP and DPS, who would want that? Now that shirk's a thing, everyone in the party is too far to even be a liability. As DRK, there's no reason to skip out on shirk. You must take rampart, voke, reprisal for 8-man content. That leaves you with two slots, and the only real candidates would be awarness, conva, and shirk. Conva helps with living dead, but what about awareness? Eh, shirk's much more practical and beneficial.

[Linx0r]

At the end of the day, it's a choice on how you tank. Personally I would rather keep my healers happy. If someone has numbers in Savage (not extreme primals) that show a huge increase in overall dps Between mt and ot I'd love to see. hardcores will be angry I'm sure. Whatever. I play how I want. If the other tank can justify why I need it then I'll use it. Otherwise it stays on my he shelf while I soak damage

[dragonseth07]

At the end of the day, it's a choice on how you tank. Personally I would rather keep my healers happy.

In my experience, healers(like everyone else) are happier the faster a fight is over. :P

[Lambdafish]

The annoying thing about shirk is that it further trivializes tanking. It basically removes your enmity combo so now you just spam the same 3 buttons while tanking.

You are wrong, it adds extra dynamics to enmity management, giving tanks a skill that both gives and takes away enmity. Lakshmi had my favourite interaction with shirk (especially pre enmity buff), where you needed to maintain second on the hate list. This is the most I have felt like a relevant offtank in a long time, needing to stay below the MT, but also outenmity that SAM that is going ham, use of shirk to lose enmity off myself was great.

[shao32]

actually i dont know what to think about shirk, i mean is a awesome skill for tank swaps the benefic is huge (even if my co-tank refuse to use it -.-) but on the other hand i find this skill crash against us in they way how make a entire combo and a stance almost more useless.

i love DRK with all my heart and i love tanking, but this desing choices are pretty damm weird sometimes, if make our skills become useless then is a bad desing.

dont get me wrong i love shirk but this tanks dinamics are pretty poor.

[Ekimmak]

I personally can't go without Awareness, it might be dumb but I get really salty when the boss crits, and will use awareness in response.

However, I'll always take Shirk into an 8-man, because it's a really good skill. Were tankswaps going well before 4.0? Yes, they were. But there were always those times, like when a tank use provoke too early, and ends up an entire Berserk - Butcher's Block behind you in enmity.

Really, I just exchange Shirk for Low Blow.