How to Spooky Paladin - DRK Tanking Talk

[Steel Wolf]

I hate theorycrafting. But I love to talk shop on set classes. And I was just curious on the thoughts of my RPC Homies.

 

I should start off by saying that I am a filthy dirty casual who is only halfway to 54 and so should give up playing noob git gud. That said, I wanted to jaw about how I feel about tanking stuffs as a Spooky Paladin, what I feel I've learned, and what others think. Even if their thoughts extend no further than "dirty casual give up playing noob git gud".

 

In the few light party actions I've taken, I find the opening salvo of DRK to be involved but ultimately engaging. I toss out an Unmend, fire off Unleash, line up a Dark Passenger then tick off the Blood Price skill, usually followed by either my enmity combo or another Unleash to enmity combo. It's worked out reasonably well, though I still find myself outclassed by some DPS, either through a failure of rotation, personal positioning or a Ninja weilding a Zeta.

 

I recently got Salted Earth. Not sure how that ties in, but I wanna tie it in. Figure moar dots can only help my cause, no? Tied with Plunge Cut and I assume that I'll have some pretty well-established aggro before most can close distance.

 

Unless I'm wrong. See above.

 

Ultimately, though, I love the feel and how I kinda have to look out for myself in the process of tanking. I think I could stand to have some more HP so I feel like a reset of all points to VIT would be good as I find myself being gnawed on in sort of short order if I'm not caeeful. The class doesn't seem to lend itself well to speedrunning, which I don't mind. I'm not a speedrunner. Don't cry, little BLM, the Leave button will soothe your swift clear tears.

 

That's my think. What's yours? Let's discuss.

 

While looking menacing, natch.

[Leggerless]

Ah, Dark Knight; the tank class I've decided to play as in Heavensward.

 

Can't say I'm much of a specialist here; my work deals almost exclusively with ninjas. However, I can link you to this thread on the official forums instead for a reference.

 

As of posting this, I don't know any of the stat weights, otherwise I'd link them too

[Kurt S.]

Looks like that speed running blm could use some...salted earth hueh

[Nero]

I enjoy Dark Knight tanking greatly. It's hard to describe, but if I had to say it sort of feels like I'm "dueling" every encounter. There are just so many tools for a Dark Knight to use to adapt to a situation that it feels like a dance.

 

Lots of auto-attacks? Dark Arts + Dark Passage > Dark Dance with Dark Arts if mana is available (wow that's a lot of dark). Blind the enemy, then throw on that sweet parry/dodge bonus. Magic damage? Dark Mind. Do I feel pretty confident that I'll hold hate? Turn off Grit, throw up Shadow Skin, and hit Blood Weapon for some extra deeps and MP regen.

 

Of course, once the DRK's cooldowns are up then they're rather flimsy. They don't have the blocking or extra armor of the Paladin and don't have the bonus health and healing of Warrior. One thing that would help is making Reprisal refresh its cooldown on parry instead of activating on parry so we actually have control over our damage reduction debuff instead of being given to the dogs of RNG.

 

Also, the animation for Carve and Spit is amazing.

[CallmeYahweh]

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.

[Aaron]

I love DRK with a passion. It feels like im the one who's dealing all the damage with how aggressive it is to the point I sometimes forget its a dps job to kill everything, not the tank.

 

As for my opener? Mine really isn't all that special but its efficient. I Plunge into a single add out the mob, then stun the second ad that gets close to me before I spam unleash twice and then do my single target aggro combos, rotating between adds as I execute it.

 

Haven't had to worry about dps taking my aggro yet with how much I beat the crap out everything. In fact I consistently get complimented about how "fun" it is for the party to watch me tank.

 

I love the class.

[Uninstalldotexe]

I don't think I've had so much fun since I started with Black Mage when the game first launched.  I gave up BLM to main DRK and I haven't looked back since. I don't have extensive tanking experience as I only have a 35 WAR, 50 PLD, and now a 58 DRK. I sort of get the feel of being in the middle as I can see and feel some traits from both WAR and PLD that DRK picked up.

 

Im not a long time MMO gamer so I still fumble on the keyboard when doing my rotations but this is how I roll when I'm in the field:

 

Solo play: I don't use Grit as I don't see the need for it otherwise especially if you are a decent player. I've got my training wheel on so I went full VIT since I'm still getting gud but my rotation without Grit is:

 

Plunge > Blood Price > Salted Earth > Blood Sword > Scourge > Hard Slash, Spinning Slash > Dark Arts > Power Slash > Low Blow > Hard Slash > Siphon Strike > Dark Arts >  Souleater > Scourge > MP Regen Combo

 

I've found that is mucho bursty and mobs my level are down to 10% easily in which I'll use Sole Survivor when available. When I tank I follow mostly the same combo but include Unleash for mob hugs.

[Nako Vesh]

Lots of auto-attacks? Dark Arts + Dark Passage > Dark Dance with Dark Arts if mana is available (wow that's a lot of dark). Blind the enemy, then throw on that sweet parry/dodge bonus. Magic damage? Dark Mind. Do I feel pretty confident that I'll hold hate? Turn off Grit, throw up Shadow Skin, and hit Blood Weapon for some extra deeps and MP regen.

 

It of course depends on the healer and the encounter, you might have a part of an encounter with no damage going out, but otherwise, dropping Grit is nooooooot wise. I do tend to drop it in encounters like the last boss in Vault when there's fireballs to be killed. Just be careful and don't make your healers sad.

 

As to the rest of the thread, I'm really enjoying DRK tanking. As a career-ish tank, I find it to be an interesting mix that keeps me from getting bored. I don't quite understand the hype for Dark Passenger though, as I feel it's quite pricey for a Blind that other classes can easily apply with far more efficiency. It's likely a DPS increase though.

[Maveree]

I'm really relieved this thread came up. I've seen a lot of DRKs in LFD trying to level my lower level classes while the queues are quick, and I'm terrified of disappointing healers by doing some of the sillier things I've seen DRKs do. One thing I was told was that leveling the other two tank classes to 50 is a must for best use of the class (cross class abilities and what not), could someone confirm for me? If so, I got a loooot of leveling to do, haha

[Aaron]

I'm really relieved this thread came up. I've seen a lot of DRKs in LFD trying to level my lower level classes while the queues are quick, and I'm terrified of disappointing healers by doing some of the sillier things I've seen DRKs do. One thing I was told was that leveling the other two tank classes to 50 is a must for best use of the class (cross class abilities and what not), could someone confirm for me? If so, I got a loooot of leveling to do, haha

Only cross I have is provoke and I barely use it. And maybe convalescence or however you spell it.

 

The base abilities of DRK are perfectly fine for tanking. Anyone saying otherwise is just talking for the sake of sounding intelligent.

[FreelanceWizard]

Well, I'm only at 35 on DRK, but having Provoke, Bloodbath, and Foresight is quite handy. I'd also recommend Convalescence as you get higher up. Having a lot of defensive cooldowns for a tank is always a good idea to keep your healers happy.

 

With that said, cross-class abilities aren't strictly speaking necessary, but they are quite helpful, and Provoke is an extremely good "oh crap" button if burst damage breaks a mob loose.

[Uninstalldotexe]

Dark Passenger is only worth it when you have 3 or more enemies and you can line up your shot correctly which would increase your DPS.

 

As far as cross class skills, Freelance has the right of it with Foresight, Bloodbath, Convalescence, and Provoke. Though, most say Bloodbath is a waste but I liked it personally especially when you AoE with Unleash or even single target for burst heals.

[Gegenji]

As far as cross class skills, Freelance has the right of it with Foresight, Bloodbath, Convalescence, and Provoke. Though, most say Bloodbath is a waste but I liked it personally especially when you AoE with Unleash or even single target for burst heals.

 

At 51 DRK on Judge, I run all of these and Mercy Stroke as my fifth, and it works well enough for me. And means you DON'T need to level PLD/WAR to 50. I just had WAR at 50 so I could unlock DRK right away when HW dropped. I only leveled PLD enough to get Provoke, as has has been mentioned.

 

It's definitely fun - though the sheer length of the DoT makes me keep thinking it needs refreshing when it doesn't - and I certainly feel like I'm putting out substantial damage when tanking, even without dropping Grit. In fact, the only reason I could see dropping it at all right now is to pop Blood Sword if I need some MP fast and everything else is down. :blush:

[Melkire]

Haven't leveled DRK at all yet, but I have PLD and WAR to 50 and tank regularly on my WAR.

 

Question for DRK players: do you expect to replace Foresight or Bloodbath with Awareness at any point? I assume that Provoke, Convalescence, and Mercy Stroke are the "have these at all times" cross-class abilities for the job.

[Eve Malusion]

Dark Passenger is only worth it when you have 3 or more enemies and you can line up your shot correctly which would increase your DPS.

 

As far as cross class skills, Freelance has the right of it with Foresight, Bloodbath, Convalescence, and Provoke. Though, most say Bloodbath is a waste but I liked it personally especially when you AoE with Unleash or even single target for burst heals.

Dark Passenger is actually worth it for DPS to keep permanently on CD, as long as you don't Dark Arts it. It has a very inefficient Dark Arts bonus unless you're going for the aoe blind (which is broken at the moment anyway, just like every other AoE dark arts combo), but is your second highest potency per mp spent if you just use the raw ability. At 60 the numbers for your MP damage spells are:

 

Dark Passenger: 0.169 pot per mp (a variety of other higher numbers depending on bard / MCH debuffing)

Carve and Spit:  0.1979 pot per mp (0.21 if slashing debuff)

Souleater:          0.0678 pot per mp (0.074 if slashing debuff)

 

The important thing to remember is that Dark Arts doesn't give you 400 potency if you use it on Souleater, it gives you the bonus of 140 over the usual 260, and that can further be lowered to 120 because without Dark Arts you'd the vast majority of the time be using Delirium, as it has a 280 potency without.

 

 

To get back to the topic of DRK as a whole, I am enjoying it immensely and it has reinvigorated my interest in tanking in this game, as up to now due to jobs I didn't like it has been the only MMO I haven't mained tank in.

 

Its a bit rough around the edges and could use some fine tuning, and still needs fixes for the myriad of bugs, but even still it should be good enough for me to head headfirst into Alexander with as is, and its the dreamtank for any AoE-enthusiast its large array of AoE skills.

 

 

Haven't leveled DRK at all yet, but I have PLD and WAR to 50 and tank regularly on my WAR.

 

Question for DRK players: do you expect to replace Foresight or Bloodbath with Awareness at any point? I assume that Provoke, Convalescence, and Mercy Stroke are the "have these at all times" cross-class abilities for the job.

 

Currently the debated two are Awareness / Mercy Stroke on a situational basis, Provoke, Convalesense, Foresight and Bloodbath staying on fulltime. I may end up having Bloodbath being the one I drop off when I get into proper 60 raiding, as well. Since all our AoE damage is magic it can't be utilised as well as on Warrior. I've never really been a fan of Mercy Stroke personally, so I might be slightly biased, I will admit.

[Melkire]

Currently the debated two are Awareness / Mercy Stroke on a situational basis, Provoke, Convalesense, Foresight and Bloodbath staying on fulltime. I may end up having Bloodbath being the one I drop off when I get into proper 60 raiding, as well. Since all our AoE damage is magic it can't be utilised as well as on Warrior.

 

Huh. I'm curious as to why MS is considered situational. Tanks (meaning PLD, WAR has it natively) and DPS mostly take it to help push phases by contributing more damage whenever the boss/adds get low on health. Getting the kill with it for some extra HP doesn't hurt either, but that never really comes into play in raid/endgame environments.

 

Foresight's also historically been considered a weak defensive CD to take, given how it's specifically a flat bonus to physical defense instead of percentage DR. I can see why DRKs would want Bloodbath at all times, though, I just wasn't sure that was the case given my lack of experience so far with the job.

[111]

Haven't leveled DRK at all yet, but I have PLD and WAR to 50 and tank regularly on my WAR.

 

Question for DRK players: do you expect to replace Foresight or Bloodbath with Awareness at any point? I assume that Provoke, Convalescence, and Mercy Stroke are the "have these at all times" cross-class abilities for the job.

 

I always liked bloodbath since it was a way to get room-wide aggro. You turn it on and shield lob with your pull, and then you get hard aggro on all of them (rather than the soft aggro of just being the first thing they see).

 

It was really useful for t5 pulls. I'm not sure what aggro tools DRK has, but I am sure it can be used for something.

[Eve Malusion]

Stopping myself from making a too large quoting tree.

Well I say those are the two debated but really its more: Vast majority of the time, Mercy stroke. The rare times when you're going to be aoeing and such a bunch or taking hits that can / should crit, Awareness.

 

Foresight is taken because we're honestly on the low-end of how many defensive CDs we have, and some of the more unreliable ones (Dark Dance) can use the slight buffer. It still comes out to ~5% reduction, and can also be stacked with Reprisal to deal with the smaller stuff.

[111]

Stopping myself from making a too large quoting tree.

Well I say those are the two debated but really its more: Vast majority of the time, Mercy stroke. The rare times when you're going to be aoeing and such a bunch or taking hits that can / should crit, Awareness.

 

Foresight is taken because we're honestly on the low-end of how many defensive CDs we have, and some of the more unreliable ones (Dark Dance) can use the slight buffer. It still comes out to ~5% reduction, and can also be stacked with Reprisal to deal with the smaller stuff.

 

Really? I thought it came out closer to around 15% I notice a substantial difference when using foresight on PLD.

[Eve Malusion]

Stopping myself from making a too large quoting tree.

Well I say those are the two debated but really its more: Vast majority of the time, Mercy stroke. The rare times when you're going to be aoeing and such a bunch or taking hits that can / should crit, Awareness.

 

Foresight is taken because we're honestly on the low-end of how many defensive CDs we have, and some of the more unreliable ones (Dark Dance) can use the slight buffer. It still comes out to ~5% reduction, and can also be stacked with Reprisal to deal with the smaller stuff.

 

Really? I thought it came out closer to around 15% I notice a substantial difference when using foresight on PLD.

I do not feel confident enough in this to say you should quote me on that, its been a long time since I looked at the numbers and I may have forgotten a 1. In addition my numbers are pre-HW, so they would be dubious at best regardless!

[Gegenji]

I never use Awareness on my other tanks myself, even if I have it slotted. I guess I just never figured out the proper time to use it... and no situation has really called out to me as "Awareness Time." I'd rather have straight constant mitigation or ways to heal/bolster healing over preventing a chance at a crit. Then again, I don't raid or anything of that nature, so it might not be that big of a deal for me - and makes my five cross-skills easy to pick.

[111]

I never use Awareness on my other tanks myself, even if I have it slotted. I guess I just never figured out the proper time to use it... and no situation has really called out to me as "Awareness Time." I'd rather have straight constant mitigation or ways to heal/bolster healing over preventing a chance at a crit. Then again, I don't raid or anything of that nature, so it might not be that big of a deal for me - and makes my five cross-skills easy to pick.

 

There is one time I've used it constantly, and that was in t11. The Sphere add... Or was it the square? Anyway, one of them Crits 100% of the time unless you have awareness. I think the AOE afterwards also crits as well.

 

There were a few other attacks in coil that could kill you in one hit if they critted, so awareness was just a safety net for those.

[Steel Wolf]

I do actually have Awareness slotted in my WAR and DRK bars, and I have had practically no use on it either.

 

Foresight I have used because, well...I figure some mitigation is better than none. It tends to be the first cooldown I would pop...and even then that would likely take a backseat to something else like Shadowall.

 

Bloodbath and Convalescence has always been a boon for me, either to pull me out of a near-fire when solo'ing, or to help take some pressure off of my healers while tanking. Tied with a well-placed Mercy Stroke in solo situations and I usually have found myself coming out of a fight that I probably should have died on otherwise. Admittedly, Mercy has been not terribly huge in group situations for its healing ability as I always seem to mis-time the thing...but I still find myself firing it off in order to just add a little extra bursty punch.

 

The pair of abilities I'm having difficulty working into my rotation is Dark Dance and the Parry Proc Skill Whose Name I Can't Recall Right Now. Obviously they pair off together, but...I'm just not finding a situation in which that is terribly helpful. It's like the Shield Swipe skill for PLD--it's there, I have fired it off when it procs because I'm trained to follow cues...but I just...I'm not sure.

 

Also, I'm having a helluva time mapping things comfortably right now. I've got a good rotational arrangement (and a SteelSeries keyboard with a gamepad, which is immensely helpful), but I just...I can tell it's gonna get really hairy, really fast.

[Gegenji]

I never use Awareness on my other tanks myself, even if I have it slotted. I guess I just never figured out the proper time to use it... and no situation has really called out to me as "Awareness Time." I'd rather have straight constant mitigation or ways to heal/bolster healing over preventing a chance at a crit. Then again, I don't raid or anything of that nature, so it might not be that big of a deal for me - and makes my five cross-skills easy to pick.

 

There is one time I've used it constantly, and that was in t11. The Sphere add... Or was it the square? Anyway, one of them Crits 100% of the time unless you have awareness. I think the AOE afterwards also crits as well.

 

There were a few other attacks in coil that could kill you in one hit if they critted, so awareness was just a safety net for those.

 

So, I suppose the recommended setup would be Bloodbath, Convalescence, Provoke, Mercy Stroke, and Awareness for raids (if Alexander too has dangerous crits that need to be avoided)? With Awareness being swapped out for Foresight in non-raid situations or when Awareness just isn't needed?

[Melkire]

So, I suppose the recommended setup would be Bloodbath, Convalescence, Provoke, Mercy Stroke, and Awareness for raids (if Alexander too has dangerous crits that need to be avoided)? With Awareness being swapped out for Foresight in non-raid situations or when Awareness just isn't needed?

 

Awareness generally gets swapped in if you anticipate a large swarm of trash (usually more useful in dungeons than in trials) or else need to guarantee that a really hard-hitting series of attacks DOESN'T crit (the T11 example that Nat referenced). As previously mentioned, it doesn't see much use in boss fight environments such as the Primal EX fights or the later Coil instances.

 

...that said, Physical Defense has always been linear ever since FFXIV 2.1, so I suppose Foresight sucking back THEN doesn't necessarily mean it sucks NOW that we have higher PhysDef totals. I'd still rather take DR-granting skills like Rampart over Foresight any day, but sadly we don't have that option.

 

Provoke and Convalescence are guaranteed must-haves for tanks in XIV. From input and Feedback here, it seems Awareness is left out and the other skills taken, with Awareness being swapped in and the skill being swapped out depending on what's needed for the fight at hand.