Is TBN a DPS loss?

[TheMightyMollusk]

Ask yourself, do you lose more DPS from spending some mana, or from eating the floor?

[lulunami]

In an ideal scenario, you would dump all of your MP during raid buff windows as an OT. However, if your co-tank needs more mitigation or your own CD alignment would be better served with TBN in a certain spot, then use TBN. Like if you need magical mitigation, you can TBN with Dark Mind so you can save Shadow Wall and Rampart at another spot and Living Dead somewhere else. It is better than just face tanking stuff out of grit, dying and blaming your healers for letting you die.

[SwarleyMcSwarls]

Just tell him he's right and pat him on the back. Sounds like he's maybe not open to other information if he's refusing to use TBN in raid. Important thing is that you use your skills correctly and intelligently--and can take satisfaction in playing drk better than he does when you do

[Derio]

It Depends on if the usage is proper. If you using TBN allows the healer to get in 1-3 Stone4/ Broil 2/ etc, then its a group dps gain and a personal dps loss, but I remember people breaking it down like its 8 potency personal dps loss. So it really just depends on you.

[Lyth]

As was pointed out before, the value of any given TBN depends on what GCD you end a phase on. Ideally, you want to end any phase transition on Souleater, so if TBN helps you do that, it's a gain. If TBN interferes with that, it's a loss. On average, we're talking about very small potency differences per use. As long as you use it with a specific goal in mind (I want to mitigate this specific cleave or attack, as opposed to throwing it out against random autos), you'll probably benefit.

It's also worth noting that if TBN reduces an attack to zero damage, any attached debuffs often don't apply as well. A good example of this is Reset in O11S Level Checker. A central AoE forces you to move out to the edge. If you get hit by the AoE, you take a damage down debuff. But if you TBN + Dark Mind the AoE, you take zero damage from the AoE and can ignore it without penalty for full uptime. Likewise, you can also zero damage flamethrower dots to negate them after Update Program so that your healers can ignore you for a bit.

So while it's not something that you use on recast, and you generally don't throw it out just for fun, smart use of TBN is essential part of optimising.