just reach 60 as DRK, have question about aggro skill

[gumas]

finally reach 60, and doing ok so far (at least for dungeon run), got several question mainly about aggro skill...

- using power slash + dark arts = bigger enmity right?

- should i use Abyssal Drain with or without dark arts for aggro? the combine of the two really drain my mp

- between unleash and Abyssal Drain, which one generate more aggro?

- if Plunge available, i take it that skill is better than Unmend for first hit?

- is Dark Passenger necessary? a little bit hard to aim but is the enmity worth the mp cost?

- i take it Carve and Spit always goes with dark arts? the non DA give me very little mp

- is there a detail guide about trial boss mechanic from tank perspective? my friend keep saying about preparing for tank swap yadayada but, so far DF trial goes, nobody ever does that. just one guy tanking and other switch to dps stance and pummel away. or is tank swap only come outside DF trial? only casual here so i think i will never touch raid or extreme duty and such.


thanks in advance, i finally reach the 60's dungeon and everyone start spamming heavy aoe and i dont know what to do aside from spamming unleash right now =/

[Seraphor]

1. Yes

2. You'd use DA with Abyssal Drain for the HP regen. With a big pull it's a substantial HP boost.

3. There's not much difference. I believe Unleash has slightly more enmity, but Abyssal Drain deals more damage, and damage = enmity.

4. Dark Arts Plunge, yes, that's a huge enmity boost.

5. Honestly, I've never factored emnity into using Dark Passenger, use it for the deeps.

6. There's no point in using C&S without Dark Arts.

7. Yeah, you won't find much need to tank swap in DF.
But it's not that difficult.
Generally you just Shirk the OT and move out of the way. Good communication is the hardest part.


It sounds to me like you may be getting a bit too hung up on enmity.
I've never needed to DA Power Slash for example.
The best thing you can do if you're struggling with enmity is to just stay in Grit. Then you can use your DPS combo to regain MP. More MP = more Dark Arts = more damage = more enmity.
And don't use Provoke/Ultimatum unless you've got a enmity booster to follow immediately after.

[shao32]

Well let's go by parts:

-the short answer is yes, DA+power slash it's your biggest single target enmity skill.

- you should if you need it, at level 60 you don't have many tools to sustain heavy use of this combo but that changes when you get Quietus and The blackest night.

- you mostly use unleash to gather all mods since it's more easy and have a bit more enmity that AD, when you have all of them gather you spam AD in the middle of the crowd to dealt more DPS and self heals if you need it.

- yes and not, plunge grant you a nice boost but plunge don't have more enmity that unmend, the thing is precast dark arts 9s before pull and then use unmend+plunge.

- yes it is, dark passenger is you most powerful aoe attack if you dark art it, consume to much MP yes but make you enemies get blind, it's more easy to use at lvl 70 and you have you full kit.

- normally it's going always with dark arts in single target but in mass pulling and aoe situations you can better get use of the MP gain to sustain you aoe skills.

Tank swap mechanics are more common on normal/savage raids and extreme primals, normally tied to tank busters so the best practice is see if you co-tank get a debuff in that situation.

Try to keep you gear updated so keeping enmity become far far easy and set all mods with unleash and burn then all with abyssal drain and dark passenger.

[OdinelStarrei]

I'll just go in order of your questions for simplicity.

Dark Arts Power Slash is the highest single aggro GCD in the game. The default Power Slash has an enmity modifier of 5.5X damage dealt, and DAing it will add additional enmity to that count. Which is also coming off Spinning Slash and Grit's innate enmity modifier. Opening with a DA Power Slash in Grit on the pull is often enough to keep enmity for a quite a long time, and even the entire encounter with enough gear and personal damage. At this point, I use it one time, and then never have to use any aggro tools again in a trial/raid based encounter, assuming Diversion and aggro dumps are used.

You can use Abyssal Drain as an unleash replacement once you get used to aiming it and have a feel for its radius. Unleash is pretty weak in comparison, and I only use it in low level content. It's difficult to manage MP on Dark Knight without having Quietus and TBN to fuel your MP regeneration, so feel free to be conservative with Abyssal Drain until those skills are acquired.

It doesn't matter. Both generate more aggro then you need, and I'd extend that with saying that Abyssal Drain is more bang for your buck in terms of damage and health regeneration. Unleash is really awful in comparison once you get used to Abyssal Drain.

Do not use Plunge when engaging. It's a bad habit. Unmend is better for this purpose. Plunge is for movement and damage. You can jump to the next trash pull for speed, but ideally, you'd be using Plunge under Blood Weapon for more mana. Using DA on your Plunge is a small enmity boost, but it is not noticeable in the grand scheme if you are MTing. The enmity boost from Plunge is better used on an enemy that spawns in the middle of an encounter that needs to be picked up immediately. Otherwise, focus more on getting DA onto Carve and Spit(+350 potency), and the GCDs that benefit from DA(+140 potency). Which leads me to...

Dark Passenger excels in AoE pulls. The enmity and damage once everything has been gathered is good. The blind is helpful, works well when you are tanking trash pulls out of grit, and it is always worth using, even with Dark Arts, in situations where you are attacking more then one enemy at once. But it's half your mana, so make sure you plan when you use it. If you are fighting a boss, and you have no slashing from a Samurai or Ninja, it is also worth using. Otherwise, Dark Arts+Dark Passenger is a heavy mana investment that is mostly wasted on single target encounters. It's better to get +140 potency on two GCDs and/or Plunge or Carve and Spit.

I am going to go against the common perception that Carve and Spit is worthless if you don't DA it. Again, in a single target encounter, there is no point in not DAing, the free damage is too great to pass up. However, in a big trash pull, using Carve and Spit by itself is another abyssal drain into the mob, even without Blood Weapon. You mentioned your MP getting drained rapidly using Abyssal Drain? Neutral Carve and Spit is a way to mitigate that MP drain after you've dumped an Abyssal Drain, a DA Dark Passenger, and are attempting to regen your mana for a TBN break, which leads into a Quietus for more mana, and leads back to the Abyssal Drain HP stealing.
If Single Target: DA, always, no exceptions
If trash pull: Consider how that boost of MP might be useful over hitting just one mob for extra damage

There are resources available for people who move past the basic casual content in the game like Expert Dungeons and normal raids. If you aren't planning on doing EX or Savage, tank swaps don't exist outside of the death of the MT. If the indepth mechanics of the job and the game as a whole do not interest a casual player, youtube guides like mrhappy or MTQ are adequate enough for all casual content with a little bit of your common sense thrown in for good measure. The exception is basic tank etiquette, which pretty much boils down to:
1. Don't let the Level 60+ PLDs pull unless he's one of those people who spam Halone or he's way better then you.
2. If you are MT, stay alive, do damage as comfortable as the group will allow.
3. If you are OT, don't be THAT GUY who spams aggro combos, provoke+shirk the MT when it's up.

Tank swapping is just the other tank provoking, and you shirking them. That's it.

A note. DRK pre-70 is not complete. Without The Blackest Night, the job does not work as intended, so I would focus more on getting yourself to 70. After that, it'll bridge itself together, and AoE pulls will make more sense, as you'll have a consistent amount of blood gauge from TBN breaks to turn into mana via Quietus or single target damage via Bloodspiller, on top of heavily increasing your defenses.

Good luck. Getting and keeping aggro is easiest part of tanking, don't stress about it. Keep your gear up to date, and you'll have little issue.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

I've found the Blind from DA Dark Passenger to be incredibly effective at mitigating damage from large crowds. I've also normally found that you can usually use Unmend and Plunge together since you can animation cancel into Plunge and normally both moves deal their damage at about the same time once all is said and done. Like Shao says, you can actually cast Dark Arts before pulling since Unmend doesn't remove the buff.

When it comes to Carve and spit, a 350 potency loss from not using Dark Arts on it is pretty major, and is the biggest dps loss you can take by not using DA to enhance an ability. That's not to say it's completely useless without upgrading though since there will be situations where you're not just fighting one target or find yourself without enough mana to do something integral for the fight, like using Blackest Night to mitigate a tank buster. At that point, it would definitely be better imo to take the dps loss in order to mitigate more damage so that the healer can do more dps.

[gumas]

Good communication is the hardest part

considering i play on jp server and mainly grouping with jp people, yeah its quite a challenge lol

youtube guides like mrhappy or MTQ

i kow MTQ, first time i heard mrhappy though (i see him mostly on twitch, didnt know he also give video guide)

If you are OT, don't be THAT GUY who spams aggro combos

so basically if iam going OT, i just stay on souleater combo?

turn into mana via Quietus

i can only access to delirium right now, this quietus skill, it fill more mana than delirium?


thankyou guys, yeah you could say that iam a bit fixated on aggro since (at my current level) i tend to lose / very close to lose my aggro, especially if my party is heavy aoe like BLM or RDM (and that whm holy spam), probably thanks to my equipment though, i never play tank so equipment wise i just use "whatever" most updated gear i can get, iam a bit stingy when it come to "leveling progression" gear, so anything above 30K on market price, i just skip it.

[OdinelStarrei]

I'm going to have to use Level 70 mana costs for these examples. Just know that MP costs will always scale with level, nothing should change.

so basically if iam going OT, i just stay on souleater combo?

This is correct. DRK only has one DPS combo, unlike PLD and WAR. Bloodspiller is also used as a damaging skill, and at higher levels of play has some nuance with GCD manipulation, but ignore that point. Even if you are MTing, there's no point to use Power Slash when you already have aggro. You're just denying yourself free mana and blood. The goal as MT should be the get a high lead with a DA Power Slash, and maintain it through your own damage output, aggro combo only when absolutely needed. If OTing, just Soul Eater combo, and shirk the cotank when available.

i can only access to delirium right now, this quietus skill, it fill more mana than delirium?

They both give mana, but for different reasons.
Delirium has two purposes. For 50 Blood, first, it works as a mana steroid. +2400, so it gives you a Dark Arts or TBN usage. Second, it extends the timer of Blood Weapon and Blood Price by a significant margin. Blood Price is hilariously useless in Stormblood, so using it on Blood Weapon gives you insane mana over time as you hit the enemy with your auto attacks, plunge, carve and spit, and GCDs.

Quietus is different though. For 50 Blood, it generates 480 mana per hit, the same amount as Blood Weapon. This doubles the mana gained under the buff. This means you should only be using Quietus in AoE pulls, but it has stellar synergy with Blood Weapon in those situations. I'll write out a little situation list to explain my reasoning here.

Quietus Mana Regeneration
1 enemy - 480 (960 with Blood Weapon) / Single target. Not worth using. You both do less damage then a bloodspiller, and don't regen enough mana.

2 enemies - 960 (1920 with Blood Weapon) / Boss + 1 add. Closer, but still not worth using. Same issue as before, with less damage and not enough mana.

3 enemies - 1440 (2880 with Blood Weapon) / Average small pull. At this point, using Quietus is a always damage gain, and returns a sizable amount of mana.

5 enemies - 2400 (4800 with Blood Weapon) / Free Dark Arts break point with no Blood Weapon applied.

8 enemies - 3840 (7680 with Blood Weapon) / Heavy mana regeneration. Spamming Dark Arts Abyssal Drain is the only way to avoid overcapping at these numbers under Blood Weapon.

10 enemies - 4800 (9400 with Blood Weapon) / At this point, Quietus with Blood Weapon completely fills your mana. Dark Arts and TBN as much as possible.

12 enemies - 5760 (11520 with Blood Weapon)

And so on. Hopefully that explains the overarching premise without making it too complicated.

Please read your tooltips if you have not done so already. Even for things you haven't unlocked yet.
These strategies may also be a little bit difficult to perform. Don't be afraid to use Grit and Blood Price instead if you are unsure of yourself. Until confidence is gained, there is nothing wrong with using Tank stance and playing safe.

equipment wise i just use "whatever" most updated gear i can get, iam a bit stingy when it come to "leveling progression" gear, so anything above 30K on market price, i just skip it.

Do not do this. Tanking gear is arguably the most important in the entire group. If you are running around with i260 Shire Gear or something, you are making your group suffer as a result, even with small pulls. Not only are you missing out on the damage needed to keep your enmity leads, you are also seriously killing your defense stat. If you don't want to spend your resources on gear, that is okay. But go to Heaven on High or something, or keep running the previous dungeon until you are fully equipped. Do not do leveling dungeons undergeared, you will make them harder then Expert roulettes and your healer, who is also probably leveling, will cry.

[gumas]

^i see, allright i think get the general idea to maintain DRK mp now, thanks =D