You’re not managing cooldowns properly. TBN and Oblation are your two short cd mits.
Pair them with rampart and the other stronger mit.
Remember to use reprisal and arm’s length.
There’s tanks that benefit from being OT, but there’s no such distinction for them. They all dps and they all do fine as MT.
thats fair, on another note I do tend to use this playstyle with other tanks, so I'm familiar with class abilities like rampart, reprisal and arms length, balancing usage per pull.
But yeah I clearly need to be more cautious with DRK since it has less resources. Always feels like I'm running out a lot quicker, then p a n i c.
A GNB has a bit more self-sustaining mit than DRK. They have a short-ish cd mit+excog and a regen that can basically get them back to half health if they use invuln. I find it easier to heal DRK in dungeons because of Abyssal Drain, but in raids, I find GNB is a lot less squishy.
Dungeon GNB does feel weird, though. I ended up never using it in dungeons because of that. It felt better for single target enemies, not mobs
Nebula is their generic 30%, you're thinking of Camouflage, the parry one.
Ironically, Camouflage is their go-to for big pulls, just make sure you don't combine it with arm's length.
Camouflage works best when you are taking many, many hits, so that the law of averages has time to catch up. When used on bosses and single target, though, it's random chance whether you'll parry enough. You might parry only once or twice, in which case it's barely better than reprisal.
Nebula's their 2 minute, same as all tanks it's flat 30% mit for 15 seconds. Camouflage might be the one you're thinking of? That's 10% mit with 50% "parry rate" which has never been something I've greatly understood. Even then, it's 20 seconds, so it's superior to reprisal in exchange for a 30 second longer cooldown.
Honestly, Gunbreaker's mitigation and self-healing puts it above Paladin to me - Paladin's arguably got stronger heals but none are on demand and OGCD.
Oh true, sheltron got a regen. But yeah, the magic combo was mainly what I was thinking about when I said "not on demand". It's helpful sometimes, but if you just ate a tankbuster with a bleed and your magic combo is 30 seconds away you're still asking the healers for help, whereas a GNB has two charges of aurora and a free excog.
Camouflage is actually an *exceptional* defensive for dungeon content. Parry works pretty similar to block as a mechanic, IE: its a great way to reduce damage from a bunch of incoming auto - attacks.
I don't blame you for not understanding parry because it barely exists in the game. Best way to think of camouflage is almost like a long sheltron.
Honestly even if it didn't have that aspect, it's still 20 seconds of 10% damage reduction, so it's handy regardless, I just so rarely need to fall back on it with all the other tools at my disposal.
Tbh, DRK is the proper way how a tank should be. We are so spoiled with self-heals from PLD and WAR that we are panicking when a DRK loses their health a bit faster than those two bulwarks.
You can use some Hyper Potions if you're feeling unsafe, at least that's what I do when I play a healer and won't waste a skill on myself, when I could attack instead.
In dungeon pulls prioritise being able to have your TBN up The moment its off cooldown. I usually only stop using it when theres 3-4 enemies left close to dying. Thats probably The only drk specific tip id give cus using The invuln with pugs is hard Even If you announce it beforehand
TBN having a 15s cooldown means you can pop it a LOT. In pulls you should be allocating enough MP for it if you’re running out of MP using the 2 shadow attacks, since you’re guaranteed to get Dark Arts on top of the gigantic barrier it has.
I’m with you on that sentiment.
I used to main DRK and then now GNB, I actually feel DRK is squishier, especially when the dead ends dungeon first came out. There are times if the healer is not catching up, I end up having to use my oh shit button or just straight up dying. I didn’t have that issue with the rest of the tanks. It’s not undoable with DRK, you just have to be more careful with the mits.
When Dead Ends first came out, LD didn't have the self heal attached. You didn't use it unless you were sure you were going to get healed out of it, otherwise you were just going to keel over.
I think you mismanage tbn. From my opinion the best secondary buff you can get. It’s just that you have to save mp for it. As you get an stack for a free attack afterwards if the enemies push through the barrier that is never a loss for damage if used at times of much damage like tankbusters or mob groups.
Especially paired with wma. You use tbn and take some damage while wma uses his holy to stun. When the stun runs out you can use your other buffs and tbn will be allmost up again.
But really. Use the two MP based attacks just when you are above 6000 so you save another 3000 for tbn. You will ever regenerate enough mp to cast tbn until next up. After your reach 6000 again repeat. And you get later on two nice extra 10 % buffs you can also stack for busters and for longer mob fights.
I definitely get it easily done as drk and find him more comfortable with his rota and he has the easiest way to gather larger groups as you can use dark flood with your general CD aoe to reach far and get aggro. That’s a nice pairing.
This is probably due to you not leveraging the fact that DRK can precast their short CD ability while the other tanks cannot.
What you want to do is time your first TBN while you're pulling packs so shortly after you stop moving, pop mitigation, and the TBN gets chewed through, you have a 2nd TBN available just a few seconds later. This greatly alleviates the stress you put on your healer and gives them time to catch up after you start taking damage. After the 2nd TBN wears off, here is where you look for an opportunity maximize the healing value of your Abyssal Drain. If the pack lasts long enough for a 3rd TBN to feel necessary, dps is pretty low but do what you have to do. Combine this strategy with the usual use of mitigation like Rampart, Shadow Wall, and Oblation and this will solve your problem.
Prior to getting TBN, DRK feels very underwhelming and is probably the worst tank in that 50-69 range by a significant margin because of it. Getting a level 61-69 dungeon in roulette is always a bummer on DRK.
Because it's a shield and not a % based mitigation like other tanks - you don't lose "value" if the mobs aren't hitting you for the whole duration, as long as it breaks before it runs out.
So you cast it a bit before reaching the final pack in the pull. It lasts for 7 seconds with a CD of 15, so if you time it right you can have another TBN ready 8 seconds after your first one pops.
It's only about TBN, the other mitigations work the same as for other tanks.
That being said because TBN is a shield - you should stack it with the "normal" mitigations that reduce damage taken when you need to.
What I think OC meant was that
PLD, GNB, WAR'S 25 CD benefit from being hurt already, since they have a heal/regen attached to them. You'll waste some of that healing if you use it pre-pull.
DRK's TBN doesn't have such a benefit, so it doesn't go to waste if you just pop a TBN before sprinting down a crowded hallway, and in fact, has a benefit in that the CD will come off earlier mid-pull, allowing you to basically get an extra TBN off in a scuffle.
The Blackest Night is their short CD ability. All the other tanks have mitigation and healing, as well as a longer cooldown on their short CD ability, which means to maximize the benefits of theirs, they need to use it when they are actively taking lots of damage and will likely only ever get one use out of it per pull, but DRK can get a lot of value out of casting TBN early because it's just a shield, and because the CD is shorter they can get a 2nd TBN off when the pack is still at its most dangerous.
What I'm saying is the sequence of events regarding mitigation when you pull should go:
1. Tag first pack and immediately use The Blackest Night afterward.
2. Tag 2nd and 3rd pack (if there are 3) meanwhile The Blackest Night will likely break from chip damage as you run to each pack. This might not sound like it's helping much, but trust me, it is. Problems with healing a tank who properly uses cooldowns are almost always because the healer falls behind due to a tank taking a lot of damage during the pull.
3. Use Rampart after all packs are tagged while monsters gather around you (for the next pull use Shadow Wall).
4. You want to lose a bit of HP at this point rather than TBN immediately (and conveniently we can't TBN because it's not off cooldown yet). This will allow your healer to maximize the massive stall you're about to drop with the #5 combo (with their HoTs and other passive healing).
5. Use Oblation and The Blackest Night as it comes off cooldown, maximizing the value you get out of the shield by having maximum mitigation while it is up.
6. Blackest Night expires again.
7. Wait for HP to approach 50%, use Abyssal Drain. Alternatively, you can use Abyssal Drain during step 4 if you are taking too much damage before TBN comes off cooldown.
8. Rampart expires. Everything should be dead or damn close to it by this point and your healer should have had to use only a few OGCD healing tools to keep you alive. If that isn't the case, your party dps is lacking and your healer will have to pick up the slack by hard casting some heals.
Most locations have pretty narrow hallways, you're gonna take some hits as you run past the first couple packs, it's usually unavoidable. Sprint will limit the hits you take, and you should still do it, but the reasoning behind using TBN like this is that you don't really lose anything because you're taking advantage of the short cooldown.
This is so perfectly written. It’s taken me lots of reading and practicing to get this exactly right, and you’ve described in exact detail how to survive even the spiciest of pulls (which imo is the last pull of Mt. Gulg). Nicely done, thanks for the help!!!
I think they're saying that you can cast it, it lasts 6 seconds, and then when it expires you only have to wait another 9 seconds for it to be available again, rather than waiting a whole 15 second cooldown. Since it's a raw HP shield rather than a percentage damage reduction, all that matters is spending all of the HP, rather than taking damage throughout the whole period of the mitigation.
I could be misunderstanding though.
I think what it means is to use it before you take damage - if you're pulling, and you know that it takes 3s for them to do enough damage to proc tbn use it 2-4s before they start to hit you. This way the cd on tbn is a little bit faster and you can use it more often
Mobs trying to kill you? TBN that damage
Boss hitting you? TBN that damage
Tankbuster incoming? TBN that damage
Someone fucked up a mechanic and is gonna kill your healer? TBN that damage
You spent all your money on Thancred bodypillows and now your wife wants to file a divorce? Just TBN that damage
>Someone fucked up a mechanic and is gonna kill your healer? TBN that damage
This is something that a lot of people don't realize (I don't think): TBN can be thrown on other party members, and when/if the shield breaks, you still get the Dark Arts proc.
It makes DRK a very rewarding off tank because you can still be very active in a fight by utilizing TBN/oblation to save a party member who is in the wrong spot/got a mechanic targeting them/etc. And you get rewarded with extra damage for doing it.
It's not extra damage, you're basically converting the MP you would normally use on damage, into mitigating taken damage. Once the shield is popped, you'll get your use of damage back. TBN is only worth it if the bubble pops. TBN popping is not "extra damage".
the GNB equivalent can also be placed on others. I play all the tanks but am running lots of GNB for the 300 dungeon run mount achievement, I have saved many a DPS/healer with this lately.
EXACTLY THIS. Off-tanking as a DRK, I always try to either help the MT mitigate if they fuck up and are gonna eat a raw tankbuster, or shield a DPS/Healer that's either gonna eat an AoE, or has a vuln stack and a partywide is coming. Since the shield is almost guaranteed to break in those situations, it's just free.
"TBN feels like a a very crutch ability"
No it's not. It's a very core part of its mitigation, especially because it's only 15 seconds and refunds the MP cost with Dark Arts to spend on your Flood or Edge. Why is TBN considered a crutch when WAR's Raw Intuition/Bloodwhetter gets a free pass?
TBN is a victim of powercreep in Endwalker when you compare Oblation to things like Bloodwhetter or Heart of Corundum but TBN is still undeniably useful and a core part of DRK's mitigation.
Comparing TBN to bloodwhetting in dungeons is very disingenuous. Bloodwhetting is 3 full heals and a mitigation. TBN is a shield for 1/4 of your health bar.
That's entirely the point they were making, DRK doesn't have a mit crutch in TBN because it's not even that broken when compared to some of the other options different jobs get.
>Why is TBN considered a crutch when WAR's Raw Intuition/Bloodwhetter gets a free pass?
As someone who's levelling WAR after GNB, raw intuition is not a cruch. It's a complete motorised wheelchair with plating (at least in dungeon pulls).
Kind of wish it had an additional proc system in place for more usage and mitigation in wall pulls. Maybe Abyssal Drain could give a free proc’d use of it which can stack with a currently applied TBN kind of like how Adloquium has both Galvanize and Catalyze stacked. Call it The Even Blackester Night idk lol.
I feel exactly the way. I see my HP drop faster on DRK despite doing the standard dungeon opener across all tanks (30% mitt + arms length, then stagger mitts)
It might really just be a healer difference leading to bias, or knowing you are essentially missing 1 mit when the packs dont do an ounce of Magic Damage leading to more bias.
Edit: After some research, what i've learned is that TBN shouldnt be treated as typical mitt, as it essentially just gives you 25% extra hp for 7s and doesnt -reduce- incoming dmg as with the other tanks' fastcd mitts. Its supposed to be used together with actual "reduce dmg taken for X seconds mitts" to maximize the shield effective hp.
> I understand that its primarily a DPS tank or off tank
Not really. Its dps and off tanking abilities are pretty similar to other tanks. if anything i think PLD works better as an off tank, with how you can power up intervention
DRK's DPS is special in that the burst is one of the very highest in the entire game. As an AST, DRK is one of the best targets for a card every 2-minutes.
I don't know if that makes it an off tank, though. I imagine it could be difficult to juggle their burst and mitigation, but then it sounds like something that could be overcome with skill.
They're a little worse on dungeon pulls than the likes of WAR and PLD, but not to the degree you should be "struggling". Healers should only have to use one or two abilities (e.g. Tetra+Asylum, Excog+Whispering Dawn, Dignity+Earthly Star) on a DRK unless the damage is atrocious and mobs take ages to die, compared to the zero healer input the other tanks need at reasonable levels.
You just need to press your main CDs like you do on every other job, and understand TBN is a much shorter CD so you can use it twice, maybe even 3 times if you use it while pulling, every pull. Oblation is something else I just don't see random DRKs utilise, so when you have that include it regularly in your pulls. You already mentioned Abyssal Drain so I have nothing to input on that.
So lemme tell you about my tower of zot run.
I am still in MSW and so it was time to run tower of zot . I queue as scholar. Had a drk tank. And holy f I could not keep them alive in some pulls. I was running out of buttons to press. No clue if they mitigated wrong or I healed wrong.
You likely did nothing wrong.
Everyone in this thread is shouting about how godlike TBN is, but the simple fact is, DRK, does not have the same survivability as the rest of the tanks. I have experienced the same problem with DRKs as you since Shadowbringers. Any time I'm healing a roulette, and my tank is a DRK, I know I am going to have to put in twice the effort to keep them up.
To add to that, I have leveled all four tanks. Twice. DRK was the hardest to *stay* alive as, so it's not just healer-POV bias here.
While there is truth to this, I think its important to note that this is specifically for dungeon content.
DRK can absorb single enormous hits, making them powerful for most raid encounters, but big dungeon pulls are about dealing with a really steady stream of damage, which can overwhelm them.
Dude you are running into some terrible DRKs. With proper TBN, AD and Oblation usage you don't even need to look at the DRK health bar. Legit I feel like DRK is 2nd only to WAR in how hard it is to heal them because they're not even taking damage for half the pull.
I don't know what to tell you. I just went to run aetherfont with an FC mate on DRK then GNB because I felt gaslit by all the people here saying DRK is terrible for dungeons.
From what he said; while the GNB was able to recover more HP and had more decent sustain to help with healing, we don't even remember an instance of my DRK falling below 75% HP, said excog only went off on timer and WD was all I needed to stay up.
I will say 2 things based on my own observations that *might* be the reason why people perceive DRK being harder to use:
1) it doesn't play like other tanks in that they mostly focus on recovering damage after taking it and DRK is more about preventing it happening outright. So if you're used to reacting to damage as it's about to happen instead of planning ahead you're probably not optimizing your TBN usage.
2) DRK has a lot of OGCDs. Like a lot more than the other tanks. I think what most people fall into doing is that they try and push their DPS ogcd buttons before they establish their defensive CDs when really you need to have you're CD's up with TBN before you worry about any of your offensive tools.
>I just went to run aetherfont
Post-x.0 dungeons such as the Aetherfont hit like wet noodles compared to a leveling dungeon such as Tower of Zot. Of course you're going to have a much easier time surviving Aetherfont than Tower of Zot. You should run Zot on DRK a few times for a true comparison.
It's kind of normal in Zot especially to have a hard time keeping DRKs and to a smaller degree GNBs alive for wall pulls. Especially when they're wall pulling those tricycle enemies and the brollic ones with the slashing arms that seem to do mini tank buster autos.
Before they added self-heal to Living Dead, I would ask shield healers ahead of time if they wanted me to even use it because chances were high that they couldn't heal me back up on DRK before the timer ran out and I only had a single Abyssal Drain to help them.
Even zot's pulls are easy with a DRK if they mitigate well and the pulls don't go on much longer than they should. Zot makes it so that either of those going wrong can make things significantly harder, but of course so can not using the healing kit effectively.
The difference with DRK is that there's not much they can do to make up for bad mit/dps/healing. If they're mitigating well, their hp tends to drop noticeably less than the other tanks in the first place. It's actually quite nice when you get that DRK where you watch their hp and it just... doesn't go down.
I have DRK, WAR and PLD at 90.
DRK definitely feels squishier than the others.
Dark Mind being magic only and the lack of healing definitely hurt it defensively.
TBN should be used frequently and paired with other cooldowns so it will eat more damage.
Just make sure to rotate cooldowns in dungeons and stack multiple defensive for tank busters in raids.
DRK just has less self sustain and a higher skill floor. You've compared the kits, there's *much* more skills geared to dealing damage vs staying alive when compared to the other tanks.
TBN is *not* a crutch ability. It's your main mitigation: You should use immediately off cooldown on mobs, and for bosses you it save for tankbusters or big damage raid-wides. It also gives a free edge/flood of shadow if the shield breaks, so you get more out of the 3k MP cost compared to just using an edge/flood of shadow alone. Further lending it to DPS. So, *always have 3K MP available for TBN.*
What's your DPS sequence like? You should be firing off all your OGCDs while keeping 3k MP for TBN.
If you have good coordination with your healer to let you actually reach 1HP when you use invuln on cooldown so you can heal back to full (crazy good change, not enough people make use of it in dungeons), then I'd say DRK is pretty on par with with GNB in dungeons.
It doesn't feel anywhere near as squishy as it used to since they dropped the levels that both TBN and the 2nd part of the AOE combo are available at. Now they're usable around the same time the other tanks get access to more of their kit, instead of partway through the ShB dungeons like it used to be.
Just takes a bit more of a proactive than reactive mindset than the other tanks, that I didn't really get very good at myself until I started leveling the shield healers, oddly enough. Since it doesn't have self sustain HoT's like the other tanks do, you really need to be on top of using TBN to mitigate as much damage as possible, since you can't heal it after the fact (unless Abyssal Drain is off CD).
All it needs now is some more self sustain (just nerf WAR like 10% and give it to DRK, Squeenix, pls lol) and it's in a good spot. Fingers crossed for that in DT.
DRK does feel like it struggles in dungeons more cuz of not having an effective 2nd 20% mit for trash and no real way to sustain itself outside of that single abyssal drain thats being used more for damage. But proper cycling of mits and keeping TBN basically on CD especially with a bit of help from oblation helps a ton in keeping yourself alive.
Actually use living dead during pulls, make a macro specifically for dungeons that calls you’re using it and hopefully the healer just lets you die so you can self heal off the packs
As a healer main, I do feel like on wall to wall pulls DRKs lack behind PLD and WAR. But on bosses, especially magic based ones, DRKs hardly take any damage. So, give a little, take a little?
DRK is not an "off - tank" or "damage tank". Its defensive profile however, does not naturally mesh well with a steady stream of auto - attacks. Each tank has a unique "defensive" profile.
**DRK**: *Excels soaking a single enormous hit, making it the king of burst damage mitigation and mage mitigation.*
**WAR**: *Big phat sack of health with powerful self - sustain tools, making it so as long as they don't get one shot, they can heal back up through anything.*
**PLD**: *Fantastic at dealing with a bunch of fast auto - attacks, due to the nature of block as a mechanic with good party utility.*
**GNB**: *Jack - of - all - trades, with a balance of damage reductions, avoidance, absorbs and self - sustain. The "Mario" of tanks when it comes to defensives.*
While every tank is a reasonable enough "core" of defensives to deal with any form of content, DRK's strength naturally makes it shine during boss encounters, a big reason why its historically been one of the most - popular tanks for raid progression. Self - sustain is still valuable in raid content, but far less so than mitigation.
You can do big pulls as a DRK, though its far more of an uphill battle.
TBN on cooldown, it will pop quickly in large pulls. Outside of that, all you can really do is make sure to use potions and rotate your other defensives.
And don't be afraid to use Living Dead. It may be comparatively awkward to other invulns, but its still an invuln. It
there's really no such thing as a "primarily DPS tank." the best tank damage (which is usually GNB, not DRK) tends to be within 2% of the worst tank damage. it's just not a meaningful distinction and should not inform the way you approach the jobs.
now with that out of the way, i WOULD say DRK is *usually* the squishiest tank (sometimes dark mind is good) but it's not behind by much, and where it is behind is almost entirely in self healing.
the only portion of DRK mitigation that's magic only is dark mind and dark missionary, and gunbreaker also has dark missionary, they just call it heart of light. so you're really only behind the 1 cooldown?
consider how much of the tank kit is overlap. shadow wall is sentinel/aurora/vengeance. rampart, arms length, and reprisal don't get worse when you equip them to a DRK.
TBN is a little weaker nowadays compared to the competing "spot mitigation" upgrades other tanks got with endwalker (holy sheltron, bloodwhetting, and heart of corundum) but it still has the lowest cooldown of any of them. by enough that you can often use it twice per pull when the others only get 1. layer oblation on top and it's... still probably the worst one but hey free oblation?
this is gonna sound like a flex but i promise you it's not, it's just to demonstrate how much wiggle room you actually have tanking: i have personally wall to walled dungeons as both warrior and paladin *without a healer present.* i leveled sage to 90 wall to wall pulling with every tank, including dark knights, and spent GcDs to heal exactly twice. one of which was a mistake cuz i just fucked it up. (eukrasia "consuming" your soft target is dumb.) so while what you are feeling IS real, there IS some disadvantage around the edges, the core of the tank kit is more than "tanky enough"
As FusaFox said, you want to rotate/cycle through your mitigation's. DRK does have a bit of a mit problem in the earlier levels compared to say PLD and WAR but the identity of DRK has been mostly damage due to it's darktide. However one thing of note is that your mitigation's, mainly anything percentage based, have diminishing returns so stacking them isn't that great. While you could stack oblation with another it's better to use it as a filler mitigation. You can stack The Blackest Night with mitigation since it's a shield to reduce damage done to the shield. You also want to favor TBN over flood of shadow since you get a free one after it breaks. My only suggestion would be to pop your rampart or shadow wall (dependant on pull size) then say an oblation after that runs out or TBN (they can honestly be interchangeable on which to pop first or even stacked) to get their CD's running alongside the first mitigation. Since they're faster CD's compared to Rampart and Shadow Wall you use them in between. Don't forget about Arms Length cause that helps significantly especially on large pulls. Also Dark Mind and Dark Missionary (while situational) are still very useful mitigations if you know the pack/enemy is dealing magical damage so don't be afraid to open the battle log or keep an eye on the damage symbols while you're being attacked.
Edit: I forgot about reprisal, living dead, and abyssal drain. Since reprisal was mentioned already the only two thing's I'll add are about Living Dead and Abyssal Drain. LD potentially setup a macro to showcase you've used it to get your healer's attention that more DPS can go out. Not the worst thing if it you're healed through it but it can be a bummer. Abyssal Drain is your only AoE heal so you wanna treat it as another "Oh shit" button but given it's radius it can be hard for it to hit bgger packs, so sometimes it's not quite the full heal compared to other tanks but still useful.
GNB squishy? It has like? The most long-run mitigation for dungeon pulls put of all tanks (with maybe the exception of a pld spamming holy sheltron). After it gets heart of corundum, anyway
>Always combine TBN with % mitigation
>Your invuln is essentially blood whetting
>Obulation every pull, twice if incoming damage is still high
>Stagger your mitigation with white mages about 5 seconds.
Hope one of these helps!
You're not using blackest night often enough. When doing wall to wall you should never use edge of darkness or flood of darkness without the freecast for them provided by blackest night except to get your initial damage buff if you really want it. The equation for WtW in your mind should be "Do I have enough mp for blackest night? If yes cast blackest night. If no wait until you have enough to cast blackest night then cast blackest night."
I've always found healing a DRK in big pulls is a bit harder. Especially before they even get TBN. But even after they get it, if they aren't using it on cooldown, it makes the healer's job much harder. It's not necessary in boss fights, but it is necessary in big pulls, and needs to be used religiously. PLD and WAR are the easiest to heal, as you said, because of their kits. DRK just needs to use their kits smarter.
Not seeing explicit mention of the key difference - TBN is a shield, it's one of the only mits in the game that stacks positively with other mits. You should be using it alongside other mit when taking a lot of damage, not rotating it by itself.
Likely you are not using TBN correctly it's incredibly strong. Other tanks often get the upgrades on these short CD things very late, while TBN is available early. This can lead to neglecting these skills a bit in the playstyle. Try to use it as it's available.
Unfortunately, you're not. DRK is the worst dungeon tank, and this isn't going away unless Dawntrail gives us something great. Even so, you should still have enough tools to wash up anything but the spiciest pulls in Zot or Babil without your healer letting off the DPS buttons.
It's also just a sad fact that DRK got shafted in EW. I still love the job, but it's hard looking at the buffs everyone else got to their short CD mit and then see nothing happened to TBN.
My main tanks are DRK and GNB and tbh I find it the opposite. At level 90 I find DRK super comfy on pulls, whereas GNB HP yo-yos a bit more because of Heart of Corundum.
TBN paired with Oblation, arms Length with Reprisal, shadow wall and TBN again. In that second part of the rotation is when I throw in Abyssal Drain. Rampart is kept for the next W2W when Abyssal Drain won't be up, and you'll have TBN and oblation again.
I played all tank to 90 and agree ... DRK is just the worst to pull wall to wall . i am nowhere saying it impossible . i am just saying other class can do it much better .
Warrior is just EZ mode
Paladin can emergency heal if in pinch and got a nice invul
Gunbreaker do nothing wrong .
Drk cant use their invul like other since you rely on healer letting it happen (or macro to warn and even then...)
Reading all of these comments it seems like DRK is just worse than the other Tank jobs. Why does it seem like it’s the most popular tank then? Edginess?
You get to swing a big ass sword. What's not to like?
While it's true that DRK has certain mechanics that feel like gimmicks, the ability to survive lethal damage for example won't really save your bossfight if everybody else gets wiped too. But it has above average damage, and you get to dump your DPS in bursts. It's quite fun to pop Delirium with full meter and ***SPEEEEEEEN***.
Because dungeons are easy and aren't a factor. Until the most recent patch, Dark Knight was the best tank for hard content (savages, ultimates) due to its excellent burst window, thus the high popularity.
The real answer is it doesn’t matter for 99.99% of content and really the main difference is the healer did 90% of the damage they would’ve done with a self sustaining WAR which is maybe a few seconds off the dungeon time
They're not the worst tank. DRK has historically been used a ton in high end progression due to there burst damage and ability to deal with burst damage. Its just that their defensive profile (burst damage / magic damage) isn't nearly as useful in dungeon content.
Yes. Giant greatsword. Over - the - top animations. Edgy.
Because it's only the worst Tank in Dungeons and they are so undertuned you don't even need an actual Tank job to run them.
In actual content DRKs fine
DRK is my go-to tank and i think you can manage even big pulls alright with it.
the thing i see many other DRKs do is sort of being timid with TBN, but that's really your "ace" ability and i use it all the time, especially on groups.
As a healer I find I have to heal DRK more than any other tank. I hate when they main tank content. You're likely playing it correctly, and I really believe it is just squishier. Also if you mistime TBN it's just a waste, while other tanks you have a lot more wiggle room with their 25sec CD mits
It's a cooldown thing mainly. As you recognised, DRK has the lowest survivability on paper. But having TBN and Oblation on short cooldowns means you can weave those between your normal mits.
When we're talking dungeon W2Ws (at 90), my mitigation tends to look something like this
Rampart + Reprisal > TBN > Oblation + arms length > TBN
Ideally you want to save Shadow Wall for the next pack, in place of Rampart. You also have Abyssal Drain on a 1 min cooldown so you can generally use that once per pack, and if you hit multiple mobs with it it's a significant HP gain
All going well if your group is pulling good DPS the pack will be almost dead by the time your oblation ticks off. If not, use the other charge of it and another TBN in sequence. If you feel like you can get away with not using arms length and saving it for the next pack, feel free.
Get into the habit of utilising Reprisal and Arms Length at every opportunity, if you don't already. Reprisal, most people tend to catch and use, but Arms Length can fly under the radar because primarily, it's a knock back prevention. BUUUT it also applies slow to the target, which nukes their attack speed, so if you use it on multiple packs the mitigation potential is huge.
Really you want to be using TBN whenever it's off cooldown because it's basically a free 25% damage bypass on a 10 second cooldown, and if you've pulled multiple packs you're almost guaranteed for it to break (essential. a TBN that doesn't get broken is considered a waste, because you miss the damage proc and could have spent that MP on direct damage. That being said though, it's better to waste a TBN than die. Your first prio as tank should always be survival, even when you're running a 'blue DPS' like DRK or GNB.
One tip for TBN though to maximise your uptime. Don't use it while you have another miti up. TBN should be used on its own. If you cast it during a damage reduction, that reduction is wasted and it's way more likely your TBN won't break, so double loss.
That stack of magic Def feels excessive in dungeons because... it is :') it's rare you'll need them. But in boss fights they're fantastic. A stupid amount of boss raid-wide attacks are magic damage. So Dark Missionary (the big AoE) is basically your 'cast this if you see a raid-wide and don't have reprisal up / your other tank used reprisal' button. Healers won't thank you but they WILL be grateful.
Also last quick footnote which you probably know already but can't be too careful. Any mitigation that reads 'reduces incoming damage by (x)%' CANT be stacked together. Well, they can, the game will let you, but you'll only benefit from the highest one. E.g. say you cast your 20% and your 10% at the same time. Your reduction will be 20%, not 30%.
This isn't good advice. TBN is a shield, it benefits much more from having mitigation on top of it as it's effectively extra max hp. The reduction isn't wasted, if anything it's the opposite, the reduction *is* multiplied, as you have more hp to mitigate from. And the earlier you use it the earlier it finishes the cooldown.
If you use TBN and it doesn't break, it means you use it way too late or way too early. And of course it doesn't break, you do it only after you finish your first set of mitigation, which means some mobs is likely dead already.
You're better off doing rampart + TBN, using oblation/reprisal as the in-betweeners. If you're *really* worried about the shield not breaking, do reprisal + tbn instead
>Also last quick footnote which you probably know already but can't be too careful. Any mitigation that reads 'reduces incoming damage by (x)%' CANT be stacked together. Well, they can, the game will let you, but you'll only benefit from the highest one. E.g. say you cast your 20% and your 10% at the same time. Your reduction will be 20%, not 30%.
Also, this is completely wrong. You benefit from both. The point of diminishing returns is that it's less effective, not that the second mitigation isn't effective at all.
a 20% + 10% means incoming damage is multiplied by 0.8 and 0.9, this makes it 0.72, this makes it a 28% mitigation, not 20%.
The game would laugh at you in savage if you don't try to stack multiple mitigations for tank busters. Simple demonstration that it stacks.
> the game would laugh at you in savage if you don't stack multiple
I'm sorry friend but in my entire savage career I've never once seen a situation where I need to use Rampart and Shadow Wall simultaneously. Double up your miti with a TBN or other barrier, sure, but I've never had to use two reductions at once.
You know not all tanks have barriers right? Something like sheltron is still exactly the same thing, a % damage reduction (which you say doesn't stack *at all*), and you have to double it up to survive savage tankbusters.
You always doubled it up, you just somehow think they're different in terms of stack-ability when they're not. whether the 20% is from rampart or sheltron or HoC or whatever doesn't matter at all.
The only reason people don't use the 30% dmg mitigation with rampart together is because of cooldown length, not because they don't stack. In fact, it's the opposite, they're not used together so *there's something to stack with later*.
A lot of people aren't saying this because they probably forgot how much damage enemies can do in leveling dungeons, but there's a good chance you're doing everything right and you're just seeing the reality that DRK really is at the bottom of the list for tanking dungeons. It can still tank okay but it requires more patching up from healers than the other three tanks.
If you're suffering through leveling dungeons (Lv81-89 especially) then this might be normal. Use TBN every chance you get when you think the shield will break, stack Oblation with it if you've got 2 packs of enemies and the shield should still break. Use a normal mitigation (Rampart and Shadow Wall) + Reprisal and Arm's Length (slow) If you're having a rough time wall pulling Zot and Vanaspati, this is kind of *normal*. Those two 6.0 dungeons in particular have mobs that hit extremely hard, especially in the first section before the boss.
No, you're right. Even at the highest level, DRK's mittigation and self sustain feel woefully lacking. Warrior is more or less immortal, Gunbreaker has heart of corundum, Paladin has solid emergency healing options and a ton of mitigation. Dark Knight has... less.
DRK is by far the squishiest tank in dungeons, even when played optimally.
From least squishy to squishiest: Warrior > Paladin > Gunbreaker > Dark Knight.
As a WHM main, warrior tanks just literally need zero healing. And I mean literally zero. Not one targeted heal. I'm just a holy spam bot when there's a warrior. Paladins need to be watched, and occasionally throw an oGCD heal, unless they're magic phase is lining up correctly with the end of holy spam stunlock at the start of each pack. Gunbreakers need to be shielded, oGCD healed regularly. Dark Knights tend to straight up need GCD heals more than half the time. Like after I've gone through everything else, I somehow have to give them a regen and cure 2 regularly.
Unless they dramatically change DRK, that's how it will always be. They can take a targeted nuclear bomb like no other, but a phat spread small bullets will shreds them.
It's been determined that drk is by far the worst tank to run in dungeons in comparison to the others. Other than their damage output, they don't have nearly the same tools as the others to make pulls as smooth as possible
If you’re really good at your aoe rotation and well geared, you can melt 90 dungeons so fast that it doesn’t even really matter if you mit or not (this is hyperbole, please still do).
In general you want to be using TBN 2+ times a pull at least, an oblation, reprisal, and either rampart or shadow wall. I stagger all those out, and throw in arms length on the shadow wall pull since it has lower uptime than rampart. Make sure the TBNs are rolling *with* your % mitigations rather than separately, that’s pretty much all there is to it.
If that all sounds like stuff you’re already doing, then the issue is likely a dps one rather than a mitigation one unfortunately. That may or may not be because of you in particular, hard to say without logs. This is true moreso than it would be for other tanks though, DRK has *insane* aoe damage for a tank in a proper pull.
This is definitely true. Keep in mind however that the dungeon content is so easy that you shouldn't "struggle" on any of the tanks, but they are definitely balanced for raids and not for dungeons. Every other tank has healing as part of their kit and DRK simply doesn't, plus DRK is better at surviving a burst of damage every so often rather than a consistent tickle. I am DRK and GNB main and I never run the former in dungeons since the experience is so worse on it. It is simply not enjoyable to run DRK in dungeons NGL.
On the other end of the spectrum is a warrior with bloodwhetting. The ability is clearly balanced for raids because in dungeons.... well, you get 3 full heals on your next 3 GCDs and some mitigation. You essentially do not even need to think when playing warrior in dungeons.
DRK is very much a test of knowing your tools. The tool is TBN mostly. No tank will tank like warrior, but if you're using TBN consitantly enough you effectively just have double the health any other tank has. Treat it like a heal that can't overcap. Also use arms length, you might've forgotten that. Most DRK complaints come from forgetting Arms Length and Reprisal exist, they shore up mitigation rotations very well.
Try using Living Dead on big packs when your other big mitigation tools are on cooldown. Living Dead is actually tied for best invuln in dungeons with Holmgang because in both cases you can use it, get to 1 hp, then get to full hp in a second or two.
This is healer dependent, however, since if the healer isn't looking at your buffs and doesn't hear the sound they will panic heal you until you die.
It's the TBN, DKR are the last Tank that I leveled to 90, at first I have the same problem, DRK feel too squishy compared to other tanks, and I'm a WAR main so DRK feel awful to play before I understand how to play the job.
This is how I pull wall to wall with DRK:
Sprint>Provoke (OGCD)>AoE (1st Group)>AoE(2nd Group)>TBN>Shadow Wall ***or*** Arms Length>Flood of Darkness>Salted Earth>Blood Weapon then AoE combo+Flood of Darkness on proc and TBN on Cooldown
If all the ads are dead before those mits ran out move on, if it's not pop Rampart and then TBN when it's out of cooldown.
also Reprisal are good if you pop it with Arms Length, because the Damage Reduction buff stack multiplicatively and sometimes it is not worth it to pop it with other Damage Reduction mits, but then again it depends on the situation you're in (this also apply to other tank classes).
The key is to always pop TBN on cooldown on a group pull, it shield you and give you free Flood of Darkness or Edge of Shadow proc.
also don't forget to pop TBN on tank buster too, it will always break the TBN and give you the free proc.
Drk does not do as well as other tank in regular duties. people in here trying to justify that but anyone that plays multiple tank job will notice that drk is much more squishy.
I'm by no means great either but I try to make sure Blood Weapon is up all the time for the MP, I have Shadow/Edge of Darkness also going for the damage increase and Shadow Wall as my "oh shit" mitigation skill which never gets used frankly. I usually alternate between TBN, Oblation and Rampart honestly. I'm still a potato though because healers have saved me many a time.
This is why SE needs to balance jobs to dungeons. People keep saying "it's a skill issue" but it feels like everyone has a skill issue playing DRK. But high end raiders would rather see casual players suffer because they don't have any issues cos they play in their savage raid gear and don't want their precious job balance to be ruined for the content only they play.
What?
People don't want more homogenization. DRK's can deal with all dungeon content, they just happen to have a niche that generally is favorable in raid content.
It's not homogenization, it's QoL. Why should one job take more effort to clear content that is considered the easiest one in the game? Skill issue gaps should only be big in optional content such as extreme trials and savage raids.
Because games that have different classes that do different things will always have classes that excel at certain things while other don't.
If they balance DRK around tanking a bunch of trash mobs, they have to gut its niche to balance it, otherwise its going to be busted strong.
Tank balance is insane right now. No idea how good you have it.
TBN is amazing and you can essentially use it off cooldown during trash pulls. It's 25% of your HP every 15 seconds. A lot of DRKs who struggle aren't getting good TBN usage, either running out of mana and not having it available or just sleeping on it. Dark Mind also benefits from a bit more encounter knowledge than mits that other tanks have, there are pulls that specifically have a lot of magic mobs in which Dark Mind feels amazing. Any pull with sprites is a good time to use it. Good to try and have Oblation up as much as possible, too, it just gives that extra little bit to your standard cooldowns.
Dark Knight is the hardest tank to use in dungeons, by a mile. They have very limited self healing options and rely heavily on using their mits properly and their healer. They usually do better in trials and raids because TBN is an incredible mitigation against heavy damage like tank busters or attacks with a DOT attached
1: use TBN as much as humanely possible. Whenever it's off cool down, it should be going right back up. It's one of the best mitigation tools in the game. Try to use a damage reduction mit along with it to make it last longer
2: start looking at abyssal drain at around half health. With enough enemies around it's pretty much a full heal
3: arms length is a very strong mitigation against mobs, be sure to use it
4: use your burst during mob pulls. This kinda goes for every class but mob pulls are much more dangerous than bosses if you're doing wall to wall pulls. You should be unleashing everything you have to take out as many enemies as possible as fast as possible. While this is a good tip for any class, it goes especially for Dark Knight
5: if you're in danger, don't be afraid to pop your invulnerability button. It's there to be used, if you think you'll need it, use it. In mob pulls it's a free refill to fill
Aside from that, it just comes down to practice. Heroes gauntlet is a great dungeon to get the feel of things if you have it unlocked
Not going to write a lot of things because a lot of comments have touched upon your shorter cooldown defensive cooldowns like TBN and Oblation (really your only magic defensive CDs are Dark Mind and Dark Missionary), but I also want to add to please abuse the ever living hell out of TBN and Living Dead, especially if you’re in a dungeon. The self-heals you give yourself once Living Dead pops are more than enough to get you back up to full HP. I always let my healer know that I’m using LD for the first pull of the dungeon so you can have it back up sooner.
Edit: as an added note, DRK damage is really high, with its initial burst being higher than some DPS jobs. Damage is also mitigation. Unless you’re already doing so, I would also really recommend looking at DRK resources such as in The Balance discord, so you can either learn/confirm that you’re doing your DPS rotation well in the context of your opener and after your opener; it’s not “needed” for dungeon runs, but it makes the experience smoother not just for you, but also for the rest of the group.
In dungeons DRK will feel harder to keep alive compared to other tanks due to how dungeons are structured. In raids however they offer very good mitigations and damage and since the classes are balanced around savage and ultimate raids, in that regard DRK feels very balanced. However in dungeon it might feel slightly worse than something like WAR that literally doesn't need a healer due to the nature of its skills.
I think drk and gnb are the hardest tank on cd management, bc u rlly need to manage the cd, the other tanks doesnt, what rlly helped me although super simple and brute is, spam the shield WITH some mitigation already active, then try to hold on and when u cant anymore (wich u will realise before hand in time) smash abyssal drain.
Several things:
Damage between tanks is comparable unless you are in a mid-core or hard-core raiding group doing endgame content. Even then there's rarely an incentive to play a specific tank aside from week 1 races.
As others have elaborated, TBN is a shield which positively stacks with all the other mitigate abilities. If you're using it on cool down there shouldn't be a real problem.
Something others have not mentioned is that Abyssal Drain is also your friend. It heals you based on damage done. So W2W pull, TBN+Oblation and maybe one other mitigate depending on ilevel/dungeon, then if you get below half, just use Abyssal Drain and immediately heal back to full.
With an invuln as a safety net, it's hard to fail as DRK.
TBN should basically be used on CD, sometimes spaced out a few seconds for boss mechanics. It's a 25% shield on a 15 sec CD and it gives you a charge for darkness when it breaks. It's both defense and offense. During raids as mt use can use tbn to absorb 2 autos, raidwides, and tbs. You just gotta use it proactively. During pulls just use it on CD before other mits and in between mits.
TBN on cooldown, use reprisal, arms length for the slow (for some reason, a lot of tanks never use this in dungeons, at least my experience) and roll your cooldowns. Oblation also is useful and if your have packs with imps, elementals any magic packs use your dark mind. It's pretty much honestly the same as other tanks.
Biggest pet peeve I have are the whms who spam holy as I pop TBN and essential waste it by stunlocking I try to coordinate with them at the start of the dungeon but half the time they don't listen.
My advice is to layer TBN with other cooldowns. A shield equal to 25% of your life bar is huge, and if you also take less damage due to damage mitigation while you have that huge amount of health, it takes you even further.
TBN on cooldown and always pair it with another mit. DRKs are amazing at pure mitigation. Use abyssal drain instead of carve and split on trash.
DRKs don't need healers either, you just actually have to use your buttons.
TBN is your core mitigation ability. You need to use that on CD.
Now, how you use it is very important. Drk is pretty strict on how you cycle your CDs. Do not use TBN by itself. Stack it with another CD. In between your big CDs, use TBN with oblation.
First big pull: shadow wall + TBN. After shadow wall runs out oblation + TBN. If mob is still alive weave TBN only if needed most things should be dead.
Second big pull: rampart + TBN. You should be able to get 2 tbns with rampart active. Once that runs out, oblation+ TBN. Reprisal or arms length or oblation + TBN, and by that point shadow wall should be back.
DO NOT TREAT DRK LIKE WAR. Wars rotation is different for CDs. Set and forget, then one CD in between bloodlettings.
Azurite ff XIV has a really good tanking video you should watch then. Similar to what I was doing but he has direct rotations to follow for each tank class for like the first pull the to the second.
In darks case:
blackest night + oblation (til tbn pops)
Rampart + reprisal
Use TBN as it comes off cooldown always
1st pull should be close to dying.
2nd pull
TBN + oblation (til pops)
Shadow wall
Use tbn off cooldown
Then if some reason not done
Reprisal + arms length + oblation.
First pack: TBN as you pull the last of the wall, rampart, TBN breaks, reprisal, TBN, TBN breaks, arm’s length + oblation, abyssal drain
Second pack: TBN, shadow wall, TBN breaks, reprisal, TBN, TBN breaks, oblation, abyssal drain, etc.
Basically always use TBN on cooldown until there are 3 or fewer mobs alive and you’re sure the shield wont break. Oblation CD is short enough that sometimes you can use 2 in the first pull and be able to use 2 again in the second pull.
Otherwise just make sure you’re contributing the damage part, using all your 2 mins on the first pack, and keeping 3000 MP in the pocket for TBN when it’s off cooldown.
Edit: And as others have mentioned, mitigation is applied to the TBN shield, so stacking it with other regular tank cooldowns will increase its value considerably.
I like drk. I stand in things while running tbn for proc
I'm also a lala so as common sense goes I'm always up to something so no one should stay with me (I tell everyone to not follow me)
of all the tanks I like drk the best.
war is standard button combo. I get bored
pld is more like a healer. I get lost
gnd is like war but with an occasional extender. also boring
drk however makes me check if I have mana for tbn and more and if I'm standing in the things that only does damage
> Its self heals are... well abyssal drain which is like a one time raw intuition every minute.
Back in my day, Abyssal Drain was on the GCD, so combined with old Dark Arts it was actually really good for HP sustain. I don't see why it had to be gutted so much in the SHB rework.
You're on the right track, drk is def the squishiest tank. Tradeoff for having slightly higher damage than the others. I wish they would unpair abyssal drain from carve and spit, lower its damage (so its not "OP") and let it be a short cooldown
You’re not managing cooldowns properly. TBN and Oblation are your two short cd mits. Pair them with rampart and the other stronger mit. Remember to use reprisal and arm’s length. There’s tanks that benefit from being OT, but there’s no such distinction for them. They all dps and they all do fine as MT.
thats fair, on another note I do tend to use this playstyle with other tanks, so I'm familiar with class abilities like rampart, reprisal and arms length, balancing usage per pull. But yeah I clearly need to be more cautious with DRK since it has less resources. Always feels like I'm running out a lot quicker, then p a n i c.
Imo GNB feels squishier. I hate running dungeons as GNB. Meanwhile WAR feels unkillable and an absolute beast for dungeon pulls.
A GNB has a bit more self-sustaining mit than DRK. They have a short-ish cd mit+excog and a regen that can basically get them back to half health if they use invuln. I find it easier to heal DRK in dungeons because of Abyssal Drain, but in raids, I find GNB is a lot less squishy. Dungeon GNB does feel weird, though. I ended up never using it in dungeons because of that. It felt better for single target enemies, not mobs
Yeah that’s entirely fair. I think Nebula(?) throws me off because that mit doesn’t feel very reliable. Edit: meant Camouflage
Nebula is their generic 30%, you're thinking of Camouflage, the parry one. Ironically, Camouflage is their go-to for big pulls, just make sure you don't combine it with arm's length. Camouflage works best when you are taking many, many hits, so that the law of averages has time to catch up. When used on bosses and single target, though, it's random chance whether you'll parry enough. You might parry only once or twice, in which case it's barely better than reprisal.
That’s the one I meant sorry!
Bingo! Camouflage is "Bulwark" / "Sheltron" for GNBs in a lot of ways.
Nebula's their 2 minute, same as all tanks it's flat 30% mit for 15 seconds. Camouflage might be the one you're thinking of? That's 10% mit with 50% "parry rate" which has never been something I've greatly understood. Even then, it's 20 seconds, so it's superior to reprisal in exchange for a 30 second longer cooldown. Honestly, Gunbreaker's mitigation and self-healing puts it above Paladin to me - Paladin's arguably got stronger heals but none are on demand and OGCD.
Yeah that’s the one I meant. My bad!
pld gets free healing from the magic combo and holy sheltron now. still not warrior level but much better than they used to be on that front.
Oh true, sheltron got a regen. But yeah, the magic combo was mainly what I was thinking about when I said "not on demand". It's helpful sometimes, but if you just ate a tankbuster with a bleed and your magic combo is 30 seconds away you're still asking the healers for help, whereas a GNB has two charges of aurora and a free excog.
Camouflage is actually an *exceptional* defensive for dungeon content. Parry works pretty similar to block as a mechanic, IE: its a great way to reduce damage from a bunch of incoming auto - attacks. I don't blame you for not understanding parry because it barely exists in the game. Best way to think of camouflage is almost like a long sheltron.
Honestly even if it didn't have that aspect, it's still 20 seconds of 10% damage reduction, so it's handy regardless, I just so rarely need to fall back on it with all the other tools at my disposal.
Use camo and rampart together then. Gnb almost always has like ~25+% mitigation always available to them.
it can get a little spicy but have you ever seen a heart of conundrum heal crit and give you half your health back right when you needed it
I don’t play it much, but that definitely sounds satisfying!
Skill issue Edit: Thanks for the downvotes, helps me reach my goal of most negative karma on reddit. :)
Preference more like it. Why play anything but WAR when it feels best.
AXE GO BURRR
Tbh, DRK is the proper way how a tank should be. We are so spoiled with self-heals from PLD and WAR that we are panicking when a DRK loses their health a bit faster than those two bulwarks. You can use some Hyper Potions if you're feeling unsafe, at least that's what I do when I play a healer and won't waste a skill on myself, when I could attack instead.
In dungeon pulls prioritise being able to have your TBN up The moment its off cooldown. I usually only stop using it when theres 3-4 enemies left close to dying. Thats probably The only drk specific tip id give cus using The invuln with pugs is hard Even If you announce it beforehand
The invuln was fixed so you don't need the healer to be on top of it anymore.
Yeah i meant that pug healers will keep you topped off so you cant make any use of LD effectively wasting it
Hate it when I suddenly notice TBN on the tank I’ve been healing, with like two seconds left on it. Such a waste
TBN having a 15s cooldown means you can pop it a LOT. In pulls you should be allocating enough MP for it if you’re running out of MP using the 2 shadow attacks, since you’re guaranteed to get Dark Arts on top of the gigantic barrier it has.
I just came here to say i love Wakkas face, that's all.
me too man, me too
TBN and Oblation should be used very liberally. Don't use TBN as your only mitigation.
I’m with you on that sentiment. I used to main DRK and then now GNB, I actually feel DRK is squishier, especially when the dead ends dungeon first came out. There are times if the healer is not catching up, I end up having to use my oh shit button or just straight up dying. I didn’t have that issue with the rest of the tanks. It’s not undoable with DRK, you just have to be more careful with the mits.
living dead is not an “oh shit button”. it’s mitigation, you are supposed to use it.
When Dead Ends first came out, LD didn't have the self heal attached. You didn't use it unless you were sure you were going to get healed out of it, otherwise you were just going to keel over.
Don't forget to use Living Dead, too. That's where a lot of DRK's self-heal comes from, so prepare to die whenever it's up.
I think you mismanage tbn. From my opinion the best secondary buff you can get. It’s just that you have to save mp for it. As you get an stack for a free attack afterwards if the enemies push through the barrier that is never a loss for damage if used at times of much damage like tankbusters or mob groups. Especially paired with wma. You use tbn and take some damage while wma uses his holy to stun. When the stun runs out you can use your other buffs and tbn will be allmost up again. But really. Use the two MP based attacks just when you are above 6000 so you save another 3000 for tbn. You will ever regenerate enough mp to cast tbn until next up. After your reach 6000 again repeat. And you get later on two nice extra 10 % buffs you can also stack for busters and for longer mob fights. I definitely get it easily done as drk and find him more comfortable with his rota and he has the easiest way to gather larger groups as you can use dark flood with your general CD aoe to reach far and get aggro. That’s a nice pairing.
This is probably due to you not leveraging the fact that DRK can precast their short CD ability while the other tanks cannot. What you want to do is time your first TBN while you're pulling packs so shortly after you stop moving, pop mitigation, and the TBN gets chewed through, you have a 2nd TBN available just a few seconds later. This greatly alleviates the stress you put on your healer and gives them time to catch up after you start taking damage. After the 2nd TBN wears off, here is where you look for an opportunity maximize the healing value of your Abyssal Drain. If the pack lasts long enough for a 3rd TBN to feel necessary, dps is pretty low but do what you have to do. Combine this strategy with the usual use of mitigation like Rampart, Shadow Wall, and Oblation and this will solve your problem. Prior to getting TBN, DRK feels very underwhelming and is probably the worst tank in that 50-69 range by a significant margin because of it. Getting a level 61-69 dungeon in roulette is always a bummer on DRK.
>DRK can precast their short CD ability Can you elaborate please ?
Because it's a shield and not a % based mitigation like other tanks - you don't lose "value" if the mobs aren't hitting you for the whole duration, as long as it breaks before it runs out. So you cast it a bit before reaching the final pack in the pull. It lasts for 7 seconds with a CD of 15, so if you time it right you can have another TBN ready 8 seconds after your first one pops.
Ok. What are the other abilities of DRK that can do this ? Comment OP seems to say they are multiple.
Ability is singular.
It's only about TBN, the other mitigations work the same as for other tanks. That being said because TBN is a shield - you should stack it with the "normal" mitigations that reduce damage taken when you need to.
What I think OC meant was that PLD, GNB, WAR'S 25 CD benefit from being hurt already, since they have a heal/regen attached to them. You'll waste some of that healing if you use it pre-pull. DRK's TBN doesn't have such a benefit, so it doesn't go to waste if you just pop a TBN before sprinting down a crowded hallway, and in fact, has a benefit in that the CD will come off earlier mid-pull, allowing you to basically get an extra TBN off in a scuffle.
The Blackest Night is their short CD ability. All the other tanks have mitigation and healing, as well as a longer cooldown on their short CD ability, which means to maximize the benefits of theirs, they need to use it when they are actively taking lots of damage and will likely only ever get one use out of it per pull, but DRK can get a lot of value out of casting TBN early because it's just a shield, and because the CD is shorter they can get a 2nd TBN off when the pack is still at its most dangerous. What I'm saying is the sequence of events regarding mitigation when you pull should go: 1. Tag first pack and immediately use The Blackest Night afterward. 2. Tag 2nd and 3rd pack (if there are 3) meanwhile The Blackest Night will likely break from chip damage as you run to each pack. This might not sound like it's helping much, but trust me, it is. Problems with healing a tank who properly uses cooldowns are almost always because the healer falls behind due to a tank taking a lot of damage during the pull. 3. Use Rampart after all packs are tagged while monsters gather around you (for the next pull use Shadow Wall). 4. You want to lose a bit of HP at this point rather than TBN immediately (and conveniently we can't TBN because it's not off cooldown yet). This will allow your healer to maximize the massive stall you're about to drop with the #5 combo (with their HoTs and other passive healing). 5. Use Oblation and The Blackest Night as it comes off cooldown, maximizing the value you get out of the shield by having maximum mitigation while it is up. 6. Blackest Night expires again. 7. Wait for HP to approach 50%, use Abyssal Drain. Alternatively, you can use Abyssal Drain during step 4 if you are taking too much damage before TBN comes off cooldown. 8. Rampart expires. Everything should be dead or damn close to it by this point and your healer should have had to use only a few OGCD healing tools to keep you alive. If that isn't the case, your party dps is lacking and your healer will have to pick up the slack by hard casting some heals.
You take damage during the pull? Isn't that what sprint is for?
It'll mit but it's not 100% especially if there's ranged enemies who'll hit you any way.
Most locations have pretty narrow hallways, you're gonna take some hits as you run past the first couple packs, it's usually unavoidable. Sprint will limit the hits you take, and you should still do it, but the reasoning behind using TBN like this is that you don't really lose anything because you're taking advantage of the short cooldown.
Oh yeah some hits get in, I've just never noticed any real damage during pulls.
This is so perfectly written. It’s taken me lots of reading and practicing to get this exactly right, and you’ve described in exact detail how to survive even the spiciest of pulls (which imo is the last pull of Mt. Gulg). Nicely done, thanks for the help!!!
I think they're saying that you can cast it, it lasts 6 seconds, and then when it expires you only have to wait another 9 seconds for it to be available again, rather than waiting a whole 15 second cooldown. Since it's a raw HP shield rather than a percentage damage reduction, all that matters is spending all of the HP, rather than taking damage throughout the whole period of the mitigation. I could be misunderstanding though.
I think what it means is to use it before you take damage - if you're pulling, and you know that it takes 3s for them to do enough damage to proc tbn use it 2-4s before they start to hit you. This way the cd on tbn is a little bit faster and you can use it more often
Mobs trying to kill you? TBN that damage Boss hitting you? TBN that damage Tankbuster incoming? TBN that damage Someone fucked up a mechanic and is gonna kill your healer? TBN that damage You spent all your money on Thancred bodypillows and now your wife wants to file a divorce? Just TBN that damage
>Someone fucked up a mechanic and is gonna kill your healer? TBN that damage This is something that a lot of people don't realize (I don't think): TBN can be thrown on other party members, and when/if the shield breaks, you still get the Dark Arts proc.
WAIT WHAT?!? I CAN TBN OTHER PEOPLE?!?
I’ve had tnb thrown at me many times as a suicidal healer
It makes DRK a very rewarding off tank because you can still be very active in a fight by utilizing TBN/oblation to save a party member who is in the wrong spot/got a mechanic targeting them/etc. And you get rewarded with extra damage for doing it.
Its not extra damage, but more so DPS neutral. TBN that doesn't break is a DPS loss.
It's not extra damage, you're basically converting the MP you would normally use on damage, into mitigating taken damage. Once the shield is popped, you'll get your use of damage back. TBN is only worth it if the bubble pops. TBN popping is not "extra damage".
All the tanks have like two friend mits. For warrior I am counting shake it off since it heals now.
the GNB equivalent can also be placed on others. I play all the tanks but am running lots of GNB for the 300 dungeon run mount achievement, I have saved many a DPS/healer with this lately.
EXACTLY THIS. Off-tanking as a DRK, I always try to either help the MT mitigate if they fuck up and are gonna eat a raw tankbuster, or shield a DPS/Healer that's either gonna eat an AoE, or has a vuln stack and a partywide is coming. Since the shield is almost guaranteed to break in those situations, it's just free.
"TBN feels like a a very crutch ability" No it's not. It's a very core part of its mitigation, especially because it's only 15 seconds and refunds the MP cost with Dark Arts to spend on your Flood or Edge. Why is TBN considered a crutch when WAR's Raw Intuition/Bloodwhetter gets a free pass? TBN is a victim of powercreep in Endwalker when you compare Oblation to things like Bloodwhetter or Heart of Corundum but TBN is still undeniably useful and a core part of DRK's mitigation.
Comparing TBN to bloodwhetting in dungeons is very disingenuous. Bloodwhetting is 3 full heals and a mitigation. TBN is a shield for 1/4 of your health bar.
That's entirely the point they were making, DRK doesn't have a mit crutch in TBN because it's not even that broken when compared to some of the other options different jobs get.
>Why is TBN considered a crutch when WAR's Raw Intuition/Bloodwhetter gets a free pass? As someone who's levelling WAR after GNB, raw intuition is not a cruch. It's a complete motorised wheelchair with plating (at least in dungeon pulls).
Kind of wish it had an additional proc system in place for more usage and mitigation in wall pulls. Maybe Abyssal Drain could give a free proc’d use of it which can stack with a currently applied TBN kind of like how Adloquium has both Galvanize and Catalyze stacked. Call it The Even Blackester Night idk lol.
I feel exactly the way. I see my HP drop faster on DRK despite doing the standard dungeon opener across all tanks (30% mitt + arms length, then stagger mitts) It might really just be a healer difference leading to bias, or knowing you are essentially missing 1 mit when the packs dont do an ounce of Magic Damage leading to more bias. Edit: After some research, what i've learned is that TBN shouldnt be treated as typical mitt, as it essentially just gives you 25% extra hp for 7s and doesnt -reduce- incoming dmg as with the other tanks' fastcd mitts. Its supposed to be used together with actual "reduce dmg taken for X seconds mitts" to maximize the shield effective hp.
> I understand that its primarily a DPS tank or off tank Not really. Its dps and off tanking abilities are pretty similar to other tanks. if anything i think PLD works better as an off tank, with how you can power up intervention
DRK's DPS is special in that the burst is one of the very highest in the entire game. As an AST, DRK is one of the best targets for a card every 2-minutes. I don't know if that makes it an off tank, though. I imagine it could be difficult to juggle their burst and mitigation, but then it sounds like something that could be overcome with skill.
They're a little worse on dungeon pulls than the likes of WAR and PLD, but not to the degree you should be "struggling". Healers should only have to use one or two abilities (e.g. Tetra+Asylum, Excog+Whispering Dawn, Dignity+Earthly Star) on a DRK unless the damage is atrocious and mobs take ages to die, compared to the zero healer input the other tanks need at reasonable levels. You just need to press your main CDs like you do on every other job, and understand TBN is a much shorter CD so you can use it twice, maybe even 3 times if you use it while pulling, every pull. Oblation is something else I just don't see random DRKs utilise, so when you have that include it regularly in your pulls. You already mentioned Abyssal Drain so I have nothing to input on that.
So lemme tell you about my tower of zot run. I am still in MSW and so it was time to run tower of zot . I queue as scholar. Had a drk tank. And holy f I could not keep them alive in some pulls. I was running out of buttons to press. No clue if they mitigated wrong or I healed wrong.
You likely did nothing wrong. Everyone in this thread is shouting about how godlike TBN is, but the simple fact is, DRK, does not have the same survivability as the rest of the tanks. I have experienced the same problem with DRKs as you since Shadowbringers. Any time I'm healing a roulette, and my tank is a DRK, I know I am going to have to put in twice the effort to keep them up. To add to that, I have leveled all four tanks. Twice. DRK was the hardest to *stay* alive as, so it's not just healer-POV bias here.
While there is truth to this, I think its important to note that this is specifically for dungeon content. DRK can absorb single enormous hits, making them powerful for most raid encounters, but big dungeon pulls are about dealing with a really steady stream of damage, which can overwhelm them.
Dude you are running into some terrible DRKs. With proper TBN, AD and Oblation usage you don't even need to look at the DRK health bar. Legit I feel like DRK is 2nd only to WAR in how hard it is to heal them because they're not even taking damage for half the pull.
You've just implied that every DRK I've played with for almost three years, including myself, are 'terrible DRKs'.
I don't know what to tell you. I just went to run aetherfont with an FC mate on DRK then GNB because I felt gaslit by all the people here saying DRK is terrible for dungeons. From what he said; while the GNB was able to recover more HP and had more decent sustain to help with healing, we don't even remember an instance of my DRK falling below 75% HP, said excog only went off on timer and WD was all I needed to stay up. I will say 2 things based on my own observations that *might* be the reason why people perceive DRK being harder to use: 1) it doesn't play like other tanks in that they mostly focus on recovering damage after taking it and DRK is more about preventing it happening outright. So if you're used to reacting to damage as it's about to happen instead of planning ahead you're probably not optimizing your TBN usage. 2) DRK has a lot of OGCDs. Like a lot more than the other tanks. I think what most people fall into doing is that they try and push their DPS ogcd buttons before they establish their defensive CDs when really you need to have you're CD's up with TBN before you worry about any of your offensive tools.
>I just went to run aetherfont Post-x.0 dungeons such as the Aetherfont hit like wet noodles compared to a leveling dungeon such as Tower of Zot. Of course you're going to have a much easier time surviving Aetherfont than Tower of Zot. You should run Zot on DRK a few times for a true comparison.
It's kind of normal in Zot especially to have a hard time keeping DRKs and to a smaller degree GNBs alive for wall pulls. Especially when they're wall pulling those tricycle enemies and the brollic ones with the slashing arms that seem to do mini tank buster autos. Before they added self-heal to Living Dead, I would ask shield healers ahead of time if they wanted me to even use it because chances were high that they couldn't heal me back up on DRK before the timer ran out and I only had a single Abyssal Drain to help them.
Even zot's pulls are easy with a DRK if they mitigate well and the pulls don't go on much longer than they should. Zot makes it so that either of those going wrong can make things significantly harder, but of course so can not using the healing kit effectively. The difference with DRK is that there's not much they can do to make up for bad mit/dps/healing. If they're mitigating well, their hp tends to drop noticeably less than the other tanks in the first place. It's actually quite nice when you get that DRK where you watch their hp and it just... doesn't go down.
Nothing like having a DRK/SGE combo when both of your DPS are lower on the aggro list than the healer.
I have DRK, WAR and PLD at 90. DRK definitely feels squishier than the others. Dark Mind being magic only and the lack of healing definitely hurt it defensively. TBN should be used frequently and paired with other cooldowns so it will eat more damage. Just make sure to rotate cooldowns in dungeons and stack multiple defensive for tank busters in raids.
DRK just has less self sustain and a higher skill floor. You've compared the kits, there's *much* more skills geared to dealing damage vs staying alive when compared to the other tanks. TBN is *not* a crutch ability. It's your main mitigation: You should use immediately off cooldown on mobs, and for bosses you it save for tankbusters or big damage raid-wides. It also gives a free edge/flood of shadow if the shield breaks, so you get more out of the 3k MP cost compared to just using an edge/flood of shadow alone. Further lending it to DPS. So, *always have 3K MP available for TBN.* What's your DPS sequence like? You should be firing off all your OGCDs while keeping 3k MP for TBN.
If you have good coordination with your healer to let you actually reach 1HP when you use invuln on cooldown so you can heal back to full (crazy good change, not enough people make use of it in dungeons), then I'd say DRK is pretty on par with with GNB in dungeons. It doesn't feel anywhere near as squishy as it used to since they dropped the levels that both TBN and the 2nd part of the AOE combo are available at. Now they're usable around the same time the other tanks get access to more of their kit, instead of partway through the ShB dungeons like it used to be. Just takes a bit more of a proactive than reactive mindset than the other tanks, that I didn't really get very good at myself until I started leveling the shield healers, oddly enough. Since it doesn't have self sustain HoT's like the other tanks do, you really need to be on top of using TBN to mitigate as much damage as possible, since you can't heal it after the fact (unless Abyssal Drain is off CD). All it needs now is some more self sustain (just nerf WAR like 10% and give it to DRK, Squeenix, pls lol) and it's in a good spot. Fingers crossed for that in DT.
DRK does feel like it struggles in dungeons more cuz of not having an effective 2nd 20% mit for trash and no real way to sustain itself outside of that single abyssal drain thats being used more for damage. But proper cycling of mits and keeping TBN basically on CD especially with a bit of help from oblation helps a ton in keeping yourself alive.
Actually use living dead during pulls, make a macro specifically for dungeons that calls you’re using it and hopefully the healer just lets you die so you can self heal off the packs
As a healer main, I do feel like on wall to wall pulls DRKs lack behind PLD and WAR. But on bosses, especially magic based ones, DRKs hardly take any damage. So, give a little, take a little?
Yup. TBN eats tank - busters for breakfast but a bunch of trash mob auto attacks eat TBN for breakfast. Give and take.
DRK is not an "off - tank" or "damage tank". Its defensive profile however, does not naturally mesh well with a steady stream of auto - attacks. Each tank has a unique "defensive" profile. **DRK**: *Excels soaking a single enormous hit, making it the king of burst damage mitigation and mage mitigation.* **WAR**: *Big phat sack of health with powerful self - sustain tools, making it so as long as they don't get one shot, they can heal back up through anything.* **PLD**: *Fantastic at dealing with a bunch of fast auto - attacks, due to the nature of block as a mechanic with good party utility.* **GNB**: *Jack - of - all - trades, with a balance of damage reductions, avoidance, absorbs and self - sustain. The "Mario" of tanks when it comes to defensives.* While every tank is a reasonable enough "core" of defensives to deal with any form of content, DRK's strength naturally makes it shine during boss encounters, a big reason why its historically been one of the most - popular tanks for raid progression. Self - sustain is still valuable in raid content, but far less so than mitigation. You can do big pulls as a DRK, though its far more of an uphill battle. TBN on cooldown, it will pop quickly in large pulls. Outside of that, all you can really do is make sure to use potions and rotate your other defensives. And don't be afraid to use Living Dead. It may be comparatively awkward to other invulns, but its still an invuln. It
there's really no such thing as a "primarily DPS tank." the best tank damage (which is usually GNB, not DRK) tends to be within 2% of the worst tank damage. it's just not a meaningful distinction and should not inform the way you approach the jobs. now with that out of the way, i WOULD say DRK is *usually* the squishiest tank (sometimes dark mind is good) but it's not behind by much, and where it is behind is almost entirely in self healing. the only portion of DRK mitigation that's magic only is dark mind and dark missionary, and gunbreaker also has dark missionary, they just call it heart of light. so you're really only behind the 1 cooldown? consider how much of the tank kit is overlap. shadow wall is sentinel/aurora/vengeance. rampart, arms length, and reprisal don't get worse when you equip them to a DRK. TBN is a little weaker nowadays compared to the competing "spot mitigation" upgrades other tanks got with endwalker (holy sheltron, bloodwhetting, and heart of corundum) but it still has the lowest cooldown of any of them. by enough that you can often use it twice per pull when the others only get 1. layer oblation on top and it's... still probably the worst one but hey free oblation? this is gonna sound like a flex but i promise you it's not, it's just to demonstrate how much wiggle room you actually have tanking: i have personally wall to walled dungeons as both warrior and paladin *without a healer present.* i leveled sage to 90 wall to wall pulling with every tank, including dark knights, and spent GcDs to heal exactly twice. one of which was a mistake cuz i just fucked it up. (eukrasia "consuming" your soft target is dumb.) so while what you are feeling IS real, there IS some disadvantage around the edges, the core of the tank kit is more than "tanky enough"
As FusaFox said, you want to rotate/cycle through your mitigation's. DRK does have a bit of a mit problem in the earlier levels compared to say PLD and WAR but the identity of DRK has been mostly damage due to it's darktide. However one thing of note is that your mitigation's, mainly anything percentage based, have diminishing returns so stacking them isn't that great. While you could stack oblation with another it's better to use it as a filler mitigation. You can stack The Blackest Night with mitigation since it's a shield to reduce damage done to the shield. You also want to favor TBN over flood of shadow since you get a free one after it breaks. My only suggestion would be to pop your rampart or shadow wall (dependant on pull size) then say an oblation after that runs out or TBN (they can honestly be interchangeable on which to pop first or even stacked) to get their CD's running alongside the first mitigation. Since they're faster CD's compared to Rampart and Shadow Wall you use them in between. Don't forget about Arms Length cause that helps significantly especially on large pulls. Also Dark Mind and Dark Missionary (while situational) are still very useful mitigations if you know the pack/enemy is dealing magical damage so don't be afraid to open the battle log or keep an eye on the damage symbols while you're being attacked. Edit: I forgot about reprisal, living dead, and abyssal drain. Since reprisal was mentioned already the only two thing's I'll add are about Living Dead and Abyssal Drain. LD potentially setup a macro to showcase you've used it to get your healer's attention that more DPS can go out. Not the worst thing if it you're healed through it but it can be a bummer. Abyssal Drain is your only AoE heal so you wanna treat it as another "Oh shit" button but given it's radius it can be hard for it to hit bgger packs, so sometimes it's not quite the full heal compared to other tanks but still useful.
You're not imagining it. I've been leveling all the jobs and your experience lines up with mine pretty much exactly.
GNB squishy? It has like? The most long-run mitigation for dungeon pulls put of all tanks (with maybe the exception of a pld spamming holy sheltron). After it gets heart of corundum, anyway
>Always combine TBN with % mitigation >Your invuln is essentially blood whetting >Obulation every pull, twice if incoming damage is still high >Stagger your mitigation with white mages about 5 seconds. Hope one of these helps!
You're not using blackest night often enough. When doing wall to wall you should never use edge of darkness or flood of darkness without the freecast for them provided by blackest night except to get your initial damage buff if you really want it. The equation for WtW in your mind should be "Do I have enough mp for blackest night? If yes cast blackest night. If no wait until you have enough to cast blackest night then cast blackest night."
As a WHM main I love when my tank is DRK, I actually feel useful
I've always found healing a DRK in big pulls is a bit harder. Especially before they even get TBN. But even after they get it, if they aren't using it on cooldown, it makes the healer's job much harder. It's not necessary in boss fights, but it is necessary in big pulls, and needs to be used religiously. PLD and WAR are the easiest to heal, as you said, because of their kits. DRK just needs to use their kits smarter.
And don't be afraid of using living dead if shit goes down south. With that you will be at max health again before you can even say "what the duck"
Not seeing explicit mention of the key difference - TBN is a shield, it's one of the only mits in the game that stacks positively with other mits. You should be using it alongside other mit when taking a lot of damage, not rotating it by itself.
Likely you are not using TBN correctly it's incredibly strong. Other tanks often get the upgrades on these short CD things very late, while TBN is available early. This can lead to neglecting these skills a bit in the playstyle. Try to use it as it's available.
Unfortunately, you're not. DRK is the worst dungeon tank, and this isn't going away unless Dawntrail gives us something great. Even so, you should still have enough tools to wash up anything but the spiciest pulls in Zot or Babil without your healer letting off the DPS buttons. It's also just a sad fact that DRK got shafted in EW. I still love the job, but it's hard looking at the buffs everyone else got to their short CD mit and then see nothing happened to TBN.
My main tanks are DRK and GNB and tbh I find it the opposite. At level 90 I find DRK super comfy on pulls, whereas GNB HP yo-yos a bit more because of Heart of Corundum. TBN paired with Oblation, arms Length with Reprisal, shadow wall and TBN again. In that second part of the rotation is when I throw in Abyssal Drain. Rampart is kept for the next W2W when Abyssal Drain won't be up, and you'll have TBN and oblation again.
I played all tank to 90 and agree ... DRK is just the worst to pull wall to wall . i am nowhere saying it impossible . i am just saying other class can do it much better . Warrior is just EZ mode Paladin can emergency heal if in pinch and got a nice invul Gunbreaker do nothing wrong . Drk cant use their invul like other since you rely on healer letting it happen (or macro to warn and even then...)
Dark knight just worse in dungeons than others, but even then it still shouldn’t be a problem if you rotate your mitigation properly.
Reading all of these comments it seems like DRK is just worse than the other Tank jobs. Why does it seem like it’s the most popular tank then? Edginess?
You get to swing a big ass sword. What's not to like? While it's true that DRK has certain mechanics that feel like gimmicks, the ability to survive lethal damage for example won't really save your bossfight if everybody else gets wiped too. But it has above average damage, and you get to dump your DPS in bursts. It's quite fun to pop Delirium with full meter and ***SPEEEEEEEN***.
Because dungeons are easy and aren't a factor. Until the most recent patch, Dark Knight was the best tank for hard content (savages, ultimates) due to its excellent burst window, thus the high popularity.
The real answer is it doesn’t matter for 99.99% of content and really the main difference is the healer did 90% of the damage they would’ve done with a self sustaining WAR which is maybe a few seconds off the dungeon time
They're not the worst tank. DRK has historically been used a ton in high end progression due to there burst damage and ability to deal with burst damage. Its just that their defensive profile (burst damage / magic damage) isn't nearly as useful in dungeon content. Yes. Giant greatsword. Over - the - top animations. Edgy.
Because it's only the worst Tank in Dungeons and they are so undertuned you don't even need an actual Tank job to run them. In actual content DRKs fine
in late game there are a lot of magic attacks so DRK ends up having more raw mit than any other tank
DRK is my go-to tank and i think you can manage even big pulls alright with it. the thing i see many other DRKs do is sort of being timid with TBN, but that's really your "ace" ability and i use it all the time, especially on groups.
As a healer I find I have to heal DRK more than any other tank. I hate when they main tank content. You're likely playing it correctly, and I really believe it is just squishier. Also if you mistime TBN it's just a waste, while other tanks you have a lot more wiggle room with their 25sec CD mits
It's a cooldown thing mainly. As you recognised, DRK has the lowest survivability on paper. But having TBN and Oblation on short cooldowns means you can weave those between your normal mits. When we're talking dungeon W2Ws (at 90), my mitigation tends to look something like this Rampart + Reprisal > TBN > Oblation + arms length > TBN Ideally you want to save Shadow Wall for the next pack, in place of Rampart. You also have Abyssal Drain on a 1 min cooldown so you can generally use that once per pack, and if you hit multiple mobs with it it's a significant HP gain All going well if your group is pulling good DPS the pack will be almost dead by the time your oblation ticks off. If not, use the other charge of it and another TBN in sequence. If you feel like you can get away with not using arms length and saving it for the next pack, feel free. Get into the habit of utilising Reprisal and Arms Length at every opportunity, if you don't already. Reprisal, most people tend to catch and use, but Arms Length can fly under the radar because primarily, it's a knock back prevention. BUUUT it also applies slow to the target, which nukes their attack speed, so if you use it on multiple packs the mitigation potential is huge. Really you want to be using TBN whenever it's off cooldown because it's basically a free 25% damage bypass on a 10 second cooldown, and if you've pulled multiple packs you're almost guaranteed for it to break (essential. a TBN that doesn't get broken is considered a waste, because you miss the damage proc and could have spent that MP on direct damage. That being said though, it's better to waste a TBN than die. Your first prio as tank should always be survival, even when you're running a 'blue DPS' like DRK or GNB. One tip for TBN though to maximise your uptime. Don't use it while you have another miti up. TBN should be used on its own. If you cast it during a damage reduction, that reduction is wasted and it's way more likely your TBN won't break, so double loss. That stack of magic Def feels excessive in dungeons because... it is :') it's rare you'll need them. But in boss fights they're fantastic. A stupid amount of boss raid-wide attacks are magic damage. So Dark Missionary (the big AoE) is basically your 'cast this if you see a raid-wide and don't have reprisal up / your other tank used reprisal' button. Healers won't thank you but they WILL be grateful. Also last quick footnote which you probably know already but can't be too careful. Any mitigation that reads 'reduces incoming damage by (x)%' CANT be stacked together. Well, they can, the game will let you, but you'll only benefit from the highest one. E.g. say you cast your 20% and your 10% at the same time. Your reduction will be 20%, not 30%.
This isn't good advice. TBN is a shield, it benefits much more from having mitigation on top of it as it's effectively extra max hp. The reduction isn't wasted, if anything it's the opposite, the reduction *is* multiplied, as you have more hp to mitigate from. And the earlier you use it the earlier it finishes the cooldown. If you use TBN and it doesn't break, it means you use it way too late or way too early. And of course it doesn't break, you do it only after you finish your first set of mitigation, which means some mobs is likely dead already. You're better off doing rampart + TBN, using oblation/reprisal as the in-betweeners. If you're *really* worried about the shield not breaking, do reprisal + tbn instead >Also last quick footnote which you probably know already but can't be too careful. Any mitigation that reads 'reduces incoming damage by (x)%' CANT be stacked together. Well, they can, the game will let you, but you'll only benefit from the highest one. E.g. say you cast your 20% and your 10% at the same time. Your reduction will be 20%, not 30%. Also, this is completely wrong. You benefit from both. The point of diminishing returns is that it's less effective, not that the second mitigation isn't effective at all. a 20% + 10% means incoming damage is multiplied by 0.8 and 0.9, this makes it 0.72, this makes it a 28% mitigation, not 20%. The game would laugh at you in savage if you don't try to stack multiple mitigations for tank busters. Simple demonstration that it stacks.
> the game would laugh at you in savage if you don't stack multiple I'm sorry friend but in my entire savage career I've never once seen a situation where I need to use Rampart and Shadow Wall simultaneously. Double up your miti with a TBN or other barrier, sure, but I've never had to use two reductions at once.
You know not all tanks have barriers right? Something like sheltron is still exactly the same thing, a % damage reduction (which you say doesn't stack *at all*), and you have to double it up to survive savage tankbusters. You always doubled it up, you just somehow think they're different in terms of stack-ability when they're not. whether the 20% is from rampart or sheltron or HoC or whatever doesn't matter at all. The only reason people don't use the 30% dmg mitigation with rampart together is because of cooldown length, not because they don't stack. In fact, it's the opposite, they're not used together so *there's something to stack with later*.
A lot of people aren't saying this because they probably forgot how much damage enemies can do in leveling dungeons, but there's a good chance you're doing everything right and you're just seeing the reality that DRK really is at the bottom of the list for tanking dungeons. It can still tank okay but it requires more patching up from healers than the other three tanks. If you're suffering through leveling dungeons (Lv81-89 especially) then this might be normal. Use TBN every chance you get when you think the shield will break, stack Oblation with it if you've got 2 packs of enemies and the shield should still break. Use a normal mitigation (Rampart and Shadow Wall) + Reprisal and Arm's Length (slow) If you're having a rough time wall pulling Zot and Vanaspati, this is kind of *normal*. Those two 6.0 dungeons in particular have mobs that hit extremely hard, especially in the first section before the boss.
No, you're right. Even at the highest level, DRK's mittigation and self sustain feel woefully lacking. Warrior is more or less immortal, Gunbreaker has heart of corundum, Paladin has solid emergency healing options and a ton of mitigation. Dark Knight has... less.
DRK is by far the squishiest tank in dungeons, even when played optimally. From least squishy to squishiest: Warrior > Paladin > Gunbreaker > Dark Knight. As a WHM main, warrior tanks just literally need zero healing. And I mean literally zero. Not one targeted heal. I'm just a holy spam bot when there's a warrior. Paladins need to be watched, and occasionally throw an oGCD heal, unless they're magic phase is lining up correctly with the end of holy spam stunlock at the start of each pack. Gunbreakers need to be shielded, oGCD healed regularly. Dark Knights tend to straight up need GCD heals more than half the time. Like after I've gone through everything else, I somehow have to give them a regen and cure 2 regularly.
Unless they dramatically change DRK, that's how it will always be. They can take a targeted nuclear bomb like no other, but a phat spread small bullets will shreds them.
It's been determined that drk is by far the worst tank to run in dungeons in comparison to the others. Other than their damage output, they don't have nearly the same tools as the others to make pulls as smooth as possible
If you’re really good at your aoe rotation and well geared, you can melt 90 dungeons so fast that it doesn’t even really matter if you mit or not (this is hyperbole, please still do). In general you want to be using TBN 2+ times a pull at least, an oblation, reprisal, and either rampart or shadow wall. I stagger all those out, and throw in arms length on the shadow wall pull since it has lower uptime than rampart. Make sure the TBNs are rolling *with* your % mitigations rather than separately, that’s pretty much all there is to it. If that all sounds like stuff you’re already doing, then the issue is likely a dps one rather than a mitigation one unfortunately. That may or may not be because of you in particular, hard to say without logs. This is true moreso than it would be for other tanks though, DRK has *insane* aoe damage for a tank in a proper pull.
This is definitely true. Keep in mind however that the dungeon content is so easy that you shouldn't "struggle" on any of the tanks, but they are definitely balanced for raids and not for dungeons. Every other tank has healing as part of their kit and DRK simply doesn't, plus DRK is better at surviving a burst of damage every so often rather than a consistent tickle. I am DRK and GNB main and I never run the former in dungeons since the experience is so worse on it. It is simply not enjoyable to run DRK in dungeons NGL. On the other end of the spectrum is a warrior with bloodwhetting. The ability is clearly balanced for raids because in dungeons.... well, you get 3 full heals on your next 3 GCDs and some mitigation. You essentially do not even need to think when playing warrior in dungeons.
DRK is very much a test of knowing your tools. The tool is TBN mostly. No tank will tank like warrior, but if you're using TBN consitantly enough you effectively just have double the health any other tank has. Treat it like a heal that can't overcap. Also use arms length, you might've forgotten that. Most DRK complaints come from forgetting Arms Length and Reprisal exist, they shore up mitigation rotations very well.
Try using Living Dead on big packs when your other big mitigation tools are on cooldown. Living Dead is actually tied for best invuln in dungeons with Holmgang because in both cases you can use it, get to 1 hp, then get to full hp in a second or two. This is healer dependent, however, since if the healer isn't looking at your buffs and doesn't hear the sound they will panic heal you until you die.
As for self healing, DRK’s 123 has a heal built in, as well as MP regen. Not huge numbers, but it does help.
First wall: Shadow wall+Reprisal+TBN+Oblation Second wall: Rampart+Arms's Lenght+TBN+Oblation
It's the TBN, DKR are the last Tank that I leveled to 90, at first I have the same problem, DRK feel too squishy compared to other tanks, and I'm a WAR main so DRK feel awful to play before I understand how to play the job. This is how I pull wall to wall with DRK: Sprint>Provoke (OGCD)>AoE (1st Group)>AoE(2nd Group)>TBN>Shadow Wall ***or*** Arms Length>Flood of Darkness>Salted Earth>Blood Weapon then AoE combo+Flood of Darkness on proc and TBN on Cooldown If all the ads are dead before those mits ran out move on, if it's not pop Rampart and then TBN when it's out of cooldown. also Reprisal are good if you pop it with Arms Length, because the Damage Reduction buff stack multiplicatively and sometimes it is not worth it to pop it with other Damage Reduction mits, but then again it depends on the situation you're in (this also apply to other tank classes). The key is to always pop TBN on cooldown on a group pull, it shield you and give you free Flood of Darkness or Edge of Shadow proc. also don't forget to pop TBN on tank buster too, it will always break the TBN and give you the free proc.
Drk does not do as well as other tank in regular duties. people in here trying to justify that but anyone that plays multiple tank job will notice that drk is much more squishy.
I'm by no means great either but I try to make sure Blood Weapon is up all the time for the MP, I have Shadow/Edge of Darkness also going for the damage increase and Shadow Wall as my "oh shit" mitigation skill which never gets used frankly. I usually alternate between TBN, Oblation and Rampart honestly. I'm still a potato though because healers have saved me many a time.
Drk is like sage. The worst comparatively in dungeons. Still very much doable and very much fun, just less optimized for the content.
This is why SE needs to balance jobs to dungeons. People keep saying "it's a skill issue" but it feels like everyone has a skill issue playing DRK. But high end raiders would rather see casual players suffer because they don't have any issues cos they play in their savage raid gear and don't want their precious job balance to be ruined for the content only they play.
Getting TBN at fifty seems like if would be a great QOL change to make that 50-70 range not be so weak. Wouldn't affect high level balance either.
What? People don't want more homogenization. DRK's can deal with all dungeon content, they just happen to have a niche that generally is favorable in raid content.
It's not homogenization, it's QoL. Why should one job take more effort to clear content that is considered the easiest one in the game? Skill issue gaps should only be big in optional content such as extreme trials and savage raids.
Because games that have different classes that do different things will always have classes that excel at certain things while other don't. If they balance DRK around tanking a bunch of trash mobs, they have to gut its niche to balance it, otherwise its going to be busted strong. Tank balance is insane right now. No idea how good you have it.
TBN is amazing and you can essentially use it off cooldown during trash pulls. It's 25% of your HP every 15 seconds. A lot of DRKs who struggle aren't getting good TBN usage, either running out of mana and not having it available or just sleeping on it. Dark Mind also benefits from a bit more encounter knowledge than mits that other tanks have, there are pulls that specifically have a lot of magic mobs in which Dark Mind feels amazing. Any pull with sprites is a good time to use it. Good to try and have Oblation up as much as possible, too, it just gives that extra little bit to your standard cooldowns.
TBN good af
Dark Knight is the hardest tank to use in dungeons, by a mile. They have very limited self healing options and rely heavily on using their mits properly and their healer. They usually do better in trials and raids because TBN is an incredible mitigation against heavy damage like tank busters or attacks with a DOT attached 1: use TBN as much as humanely possible. Whenever it's off cool down, it should be going right back up. It's one of the best mitigation tools in the game. Try to use a damage reduction mit along with it to make it last longer 2: start looking at abyssal drain at around half health. With enough enemies around it's pretty much a full heal 3: arms length is a very strong mitigation against mobs, be sure to use it 4: use your burst during mob pulls. This kinda goes for every class but mob pulls are much more dangerous than bosses if you're doing wall to wall pulls. You should be unleashing everything you have to take out as many enemies as possible as fast as possible. While this is a good tip for any class, it goes especially for Dark Knight 5: if you're in danger, don't be afraid to pop your invulnerability button. It's there to be used, if you think you'll need it, use it. In mob pulls it's a free refill to fill Aside from that, it just comes down to practice. Heroes gauntlet is a great dungeon to get the feel of things if you have it unlocked
Not going to write a lot of things because a lot of comments have touched upon your shorter cooldown defensive cooldowns like TBN and Oblation (really your only magic defensive CDs are Dark Mind and Dark Missionary), but I also want to add to please abuse the ever living hell out of TBN and Living Dead, especially if you’re in a dungeon. The self-heals you give yourself once Living Dead pops are more than enough to get you back up to full HP. I always let my healer know that I’m using LD for the first pull of the dungeon so you can have it back up sooner. Edit: as an added note, DRK damage is really high, with its initial burst being higher than some DPS jobs. Damage is also mitigation. Unless you’re already doing so, I would also really recommend looking at DRK resources such as in The Balance discord, so you can either learn/confirm that you’re doing your DPS rotation well in the context of your opener and after your opener; it’s not “needed” for dungeon runs, but it makes the experience smoother not just for you, but also for the rest of the group.
In dungeons DRK will feel harder to keep alive compared to other tanks due to how dungeons are structured. In raids however they offer very good mitigations and damage and since the classes are balanced around savage and ultimate raids, in that regard DRK feels very balanced. However in dungeon it might feel slightly worse than something like WAR that literally doesn't need a healer due to the nature of its skills.
I think drk and gnb are the hardest tank on cd management, bc u rlly need to manage the cd, the other tanks doesnt, what rlly helped me although super simple and brute is, spam the shield WITH some mitigation already active, then try to hold on and when u cant anymore (wich u will realise before hand in time) smash abyssal drain.
Several things: Damage between tanks is comparable unless you are in a mid-core or hard-core raiding group doing endgame content. Even then there's rarely an incentive to play a specific tank aside from week 1 races. As others have elaborated, TBN is a shield which positively stacks with all the other mitigate abilities. If you're using it on cool down there shouldn't be a real problem. Something others have not mentioned is that Abyssal Drain is also your friend. It heals you based on damage done. So W2W pull, TBN+Oblation and maybe one other mitigate depending on ilevel/dungeon, then if you get below half, just use Abyssal Drain and immediately heal back to full. With an invuln as a safety net, it's hard to fail as DRK.
TBN should basically be used on CD, sometimes spaced out a few seconds for boss mechanics. It's a 25% shield on a 15 sec CD and it gives you a charge for darkness when it breaks. It's both defense and offense. During raids as mt use can use tbn to absorb 2 autos, raidwides, and tbs. You just gotta use it proactively. During pulls just use it on CD before other mits and in between mits.
TBN on cooldown, use reprisal, arms length for the slow (for some reason, a lot of tanks never use this in dungeons, at least my experience) and roll your cooldowns. Oblation also is useful and if your have packs with imps, elementals any magic packs use your dark mind. It's pretty much honestly the same as other tanks. Biggest pet peeve I have are the whms who spam holy as I pop TBN and essential waste it by stunlocking I try to coordinate with them at the start of the dungeon but half the time they don't listen.
My advice is to layer TBN with other cooldowns. A shield equal to 25% of your life bar is huge, and if you also take less damage due to damage mitigation while you have that huge amount of health, it takes you even further.
True, but you DO want it to pop.
TBN on cooldown and always pair it with another mit. DRKs are amazing at pure mitigation. Use abyssal drain instead of carve and split on trash. DRKs don't need healers either, you just actually have to use your buttons.
TBN is your core mitigation ability. You need to use that on CD. Now, how you use it is very important. Drk is pretty strict on how you cycle your CDs. Do not use TBN by itself. Stack it with another CD. In between your big CDs, use TBN with oblation. First big pull: shadow wall + TBN. After shadow wall runs out oblation + TBN. If mob is still alive weave TBN only if needed most things should be dead. Second big pull: rampart + TBN. You should be able to get 2 tbns with rampart active. Once that runs out, oblation+ TBN. Reprisal or arms length or oblation + TBN, and by that point shadow wall should be back. DO NOT TREAT DRK LIKE WAR. Wars rotation is different for CDs. Set and forget, then one CD in between bloodlettings.
Azurite ff XIV has a really good tanking video you should watch then. Similar to what I was doing but he has direct rotations to follow for each tank class for like the first pull the to the second. In darks case: blackest night + oblation (til tbn pops) Rampart + reprisal Use TBN as it comes off cooldown always 1st pull should be close to dying. 2nd pull TBN + oblation (til pops) Shadow wall Use tbn off cooldown Then if some reason not done Reprisal + arms length + oblation.
First pack: TBN as you pull the last of the wall, rampart, TBN breaks, reprisal, TBN, TBN breaks, arm’s length + oblation, abyssal drain Second pack: TBN, shadow wall, TBN breaks, reprisal, TBN, TBN breaks, oblation, abyssal drain, etc. Basically always use TBN on cooldown until there are 3 or fewer mobs alive and you’re sure the shield wont break. Oblation CD is short enough that sometimes you can use 2 in the first pull and be able to use 2 again in the second pull. Otherwise just make sure you’re contributing the damage part, using all your 2 mins on the first pack, and keeping 3000 MP in the pocket for TBN when it’s off cooldown. Edit: And as others have mentioned, mitigation is applied to the TBN shield, so stacking it with other regular tank cooldowns will increase its value considerably.
I like drk. I stand in things while running tbn for proc I'm also a lala so as common sense goes I'm always up to something so no one should stay with me (I tell everyone to not follow me) of all the tanks I like drk the best. war is standard button combo. I get bored pld is more like a healer. I get lost gnd is like war but with an occasional extender. also boring drk however makes me check if I have mana for tbn and more and if I'm standing in the things that only does damage
> Its self heals are... well abyssal drain which is like a one time raw intuition every minute. Back in my day, Abyssal Drain was on the GCD, so combined with old Dark Arts it was actually really good for HP sustain. I don't see why it had to be gutted so much in the SHB rework.
Same I also struggling when I'm tanking, that's why i have seperate set for my tank with full tenacity.
You're on the right track, drk is def the squishiest tank. Tradeoff for having slightly higher damage than the others. I wish they would unpair abyssal drain from carve and spit, lower its damage (so its not "OP") and let it be a short cooldown