Dark Knight Discussion

[Dein]

Yes, but it has a somewhat lengthy animation so you need to apply it on something that'll live long enough for the animation to finish and the effect to actually take hold so you don't wind up blowing the 2 min CD and getting nothing for it.

[Niiro]

Drk enmity gain is off the charts though

.......if you've never played WAR, I guess?

[Clash Perez]

I totally thought that move was only about marking a player, and when they get KO'd you get the gains. SO it is actually not that terrible, and kind of unique as is.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this at first, though in retrospect I have no idea why I thought that.

[Neon_Sea]

I think I just really notice it because drk damage combo's are not enmity combo's same for replenishing mp. A lot of time I only do those and the hate bars barely move. With War your BB combo is the highest damage combo iirc so you are basically always throwing it in.

[Niiro]

Not really, WAR in a dungeon is mostly doing Storm's Eye and Overpower.

[Carth]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this at first, though in retrospect I have no idea why I thought that.

Honestly I thought the same thing too. I think it's the name.

[Neon_Sea]

So what exactly does dark mind do? Think I have it confused, does it lower the damage of a mobs magical damage or increase its damage taken by magic?

[Carth]

It reduces damage taken by magic. Think of it as Sentinel but only for magic.

[Neon_Sea]

Ok, man I though it boosted magic damage this whole time o.O. So it is pretty useful(situation given)

[Kiarax]

It's incredibly useful. DRK is absolutely going to be the best MT for Savage a4 because of it. The tank buster is magic damage and Dark Minds CD is low enough to be used on every one, PLD and WAR can't compete with that.

[Dammerung]

Except there's no reason you can't tank swap to make use of both tanks.

[Seravi Edalborez]

You can already try to do it sort of T11 style where you split the hits. Bahamut's Claw in T9 may have intended to be like this, idk.

[Jahaudant]

I think I just really notice it because drk damage combo's are not enmity combo's same for replenishing mp. A lot of time I only do those and the hate bars barely move. With War your BB combo is the highest damage combo iirc so you are basically always throwing it in.

I'm pretty confident DRK's burst enmity is higher than WAR (at least for the first 9 GCD's).

[Churchill]

Depends, nothing touches Warrior burst, invariably that means nothing touches their threat burst either. I personally don't like doing unchained at the start, but that's me.

I like to get Eye up first and CD into Unchained instead of blowing the Infuriate on no Maim, no Eye BB's. So for the idk, Heavy>Maim>Eye>Heavy>Sunder+Veng+Berserk section of getting 5 Wrath stacks at the start the other two tank classes could easily outthreat a Warrior (or more specifically, me).

It's just the 20s after that where you know, you wouldn't.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I'm pretty confident DRK's burst enmity is higher than WAR (at least for the first 9 GCD's).

I doubt it. What do they have that keeps threat that well early on? Maybe I just haven't seen it.

I've yet to meet any other tank that keeps hate off my opener. This was very difficult to deal with in Ravana. I am forced to do SE > SE/SP as an opener if I am OT. On tank I always open with Unchained SE combo and never lose hate to anyone. WAR in my mind still has best threat establish on the game. Alternating SE > BB combo only lost threat to PLD in 2.0 and even then it took a long time. Now that all tanks have DPS combos I don't see it happening like ever.

[Seravi Edalborez]

I haven't played against a comfortable OT WAR for hate yet (in that, any WAR I have played with was learning Ravana/Alex with me so far), but DRK's opening burst for enmity is definitely not weak.

pre-pull Dark Arts
Unmend > Plunge
Hard > [CnS] + Blood Price/LowBlow/whatever
Spinning > Dark Arts + whatever
[Power] > whatever

Not sure about optimal order for opener in terms of off-GCDs, but a 450pot move and a 6.5x enmity Power isn't bad. While I would normally start going into damage combo after this I could manage another (non-DA) Power combo.

I'll try to get into enmity dickwaving with my co-WAR now that I'm 60.

[Jahaudant]

DA C&S, DA Power Slash, DA Power Slash for massive enmity in 6 GCD's. Or, 3x DA Power Slashes for higher total enmity but over 9 GCD's. At that point you can't afford another DA unless you've taken quite a few attacks with Blood Price up. Bosses tend to pussyfoot around with their animations and casting and whatnot... just hit me ffs.

My groups other tank is a PLD so maybe I just haven't been with a good WAR yet , but even in Hunts (solo, with no pt buff) I am almost guaranteed to be tanking the mob after the first Power Slash even with the hordes of WAR's going balls out.

I remember seeing enmity modifiers posted for DRK skills a little while back. Anyone have a link to these, and are they even accurate?

[Kiarax]

Without explicitly testing it and just using hunts as an enmity dickwaving contest, WAR definitely has stronger opening enmity burst, no contest. Once Berserk drops off it definitely seems like DRK can pull ahead again after a few rotations though, but it's kind of completely meaningless when to maximize enmity on either class you're basically just choosing to play the class inefficiently. In typical MT/OT play enmity is never going to be a problem no matter what you do, but when it comes to farming content without tank stances there's definitely going to be a bit of a give and take if you're having a DRK or PLD MT. Either the MT is giving up damage for the sake of keeping ahead in enmity or your WAR is giving up damage by using more Maim combos to not overtake the MT. In an ideal world maybe SE would shift WARs potencies a little more in favour of Storm's Eye, because as long as their enmity combo is their higher damage whilst the opposite holds true for DRK/PLD it could always crop up to be a problem. I don't think anything will ever change though given it's such a non-issue in what 99% of the playerbase is doing. Just means as far as damage optimization goes WAR MT and DRK OT will probably be king if 2 tanks are absolutely required.

[Ramset]

The way to solve this is just have a ninja in your party. Bam, no more enmity problems. Furthermore, Goad is almost required for DRK anyway. Pretty simple solution.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Veering off topic, but makes me question the "optimal" DPS lineup. MNK and a BRD/MCH is probably still a given. NIN is highly beneficial for utility reasons alone (Goad/Shadewalker/Trick, synergizes with WAR). Last slot is a tossup between DRG, SMN, BLM, or a repeat?