Having just hit 58 last night, I am definitely not 60 yet, so I can't confirm or deny the rumors that DRK is currently sort of 'middle of the road' when it comes to tanking.
I can say that our aoe aggro generation is insane; unleash is spectacular, doesn't interrupt combos, and is occasionally free to cast. Once you get abyssal drain, things get even more fun. Those big packs are now HP batteries for you to slurp up. MP drain is an issue -- but for smaller pulls, you don't need to even use your aggro generating combo usually, and are free to siphoning strike to your heart's content. In big pulls, blood price is your savior, and basically makes your MP infinite for its duration.
Rotating cooldowns, (even the bad ones like shadow wall. Eugh.) and self-heals means we're fairly hard to put down, even if living dead is kind of a buggy mess at the moment.
Our DPS seems on par with warrior, if slightly lower; they have more burst, and I can see them being taken over us for OT in hardline content, like pushing phases in Bismark Ex. Our mitigation is slightly lower than paladin, from what I've noticed.
Reprisal is a damn fine skill when we can use it, which means we want to get hit, which means, we're probably better as main tanks than off. And Scourge is the best god damn dot effect tanks have access to. It certainly makes fracture weep. Sole survivor is nice on trash, but otherwise fairly useless.
And don't even get me started on plunge. I love that skill to death.
Biggest issue atm, for me, isn't fucking up my MP and ending up with no way to hold hate, but rather, hitting the TP floor fairly fast. If you're OTing then you can spam unmend to let it recover.
As for rotations, abyssal drain if there are more than three mobs, otherwise unleashed twice (with blood price up) and then salted earth once everything is situated keeps me fairly well. Then I'll tab through and use the siphoning strike combo to maintain MP. Darkside should always be up. There's no reason not to have it running constantly -- MP regen is not an issue as it stands right now.
Single target, naturally you want to keep scourge up, and then I could see using the aggro combo to start off with, but frankly, I haven't had an issue. Generally I open with plunge over unmend just because I am fucken crazy about that skill. And since salted earth is ogcd, it will always be an DPS gain to weave it in between skills. Keep that fucker ticking.
Otherwise, yes, spooky paladin is best paladin.
I can say that our aoe aggro generation is insane; unleash is spectacular, doesn't interrupt combos, and is occasionally free to cast. Once you get abyssal drain, things get even more fun. Those big packs are now HP batteries for you to slurp up. MP drain is an issue -- but for smaller pulls, you don't need to even use your aggro generating combo usually, and are free to siphoning strike to your heart's content. In big pulls, blood price is your savior, and basically makes your MP infinite for its duration.
Rotating cooldowns, (even the bad ones like shadow wall. Eugh.) and self-heals means we're fairly hard to put down, even if living dead is kind of a buggy mess at the moment.
Our DPS seems on par with warrior, if slightly lower; they have more burst, and I can see them being taken over us for OT in hardline content, like pushing phases in Bismark Ex. Our mitigation is slightly lower than paladin, from what I've noticed.
Reprisal is a damn fine skill when we can use it, which means we want to get hit, which means, we're probably better as main tanks than off. And Scourge is the best god damn dot effect tanks have access to. It certainly makes fracture weep. Sole survivor is nice on trash, but otherwise fairly useless.
And don't even get me started on plunge. I love that skill to death.
Biggest issue atm, for me, isn't fucking up my MP and ending up with no way to hold hate, but rather, hitting the TP floor fairly fast. If you're OTing then you can spam unmend to let it recover.
As for rotations, abyssal drain if there are more than three mobs, otherwise unleashed twice (with blood price up) and then salted earth once everything is situated keeps me fairly well. Then I'll tab through and use the siphoning strike combo to maintain MP. Darkside should always be up. There's no reason not to have it running constantly -- MP regen is not an issue as it stands right now.
Single target, naturally you want to keep scourge up, and then I could see using the aggro combo to start off with, but frankly, I haven't had an issue. Generally I open with plunge over unmend just because I am fucken crazy about that skill. And since salted earth is ogcd, it will always be an DPS gain to weave it in between skills. Keep that fucker ticking.
Otherwise, yes, spooky paladin is best paladin.
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the one everyone fears: the monster in the closet, the witch at the stake – the devil, falling.
the one everyone fears: the monster in the closet, the witch at the stake – the devil, falling.
