So I've been using my drk a lot at events lately and I've been working on tanking as drk/nin. I've tanked all sky gods with it and proto omega so far pretty easily. Now I've been tanking HNM for several years now as pld and I've never seen a practical application of DRK tanking there beyond omg i took hate once or twice and kept shadows up.
My setup I'm working on is basically for low man man co-tanking things with a setup that is basically:
PLD/nin (tank)
Drk/nin (tank)
Brd/blm
rdm/blm
whm/sch
brd/blm
blm/rdm
blm/rdm
A setup such as that would contain enough stuns and support for most low man HNM. You would of course have two blms in a stun order while the DRK free stuns. Cerberus for example your drk could effectively stun lavaspit, sulfurous breath, gates of hades and Magma Hoplin if he was really fast.
This would in turn make you ask why not just use a second PLD? My answer to that would be that a well geared drk can contribute more damage than a second pld while still being able to keep shadows up due to stun/weaponbash etc.
Drk has access to pretty much all of the damage reduction gear pld does so it is very possible for a drk to take aegis level magic damage with fast macros so as to not be a burden on healers.
I want to say again that I'm not talking about drks who use their apocalypse on cerberus/tiamat etc and take hate from damage and then have to keep shadows up. I'm talking about purposefully tanking as drk to make low man more possible.
If anyone has any thoughts or ideas who actually have experience doing this some feed back would be nice. I'm fairly sure this isnt standard strategy for most linkshells.
Drk Tanking
Drk tanking
I've tanked practically everything on DRK/NIN. In all honesty, it's no different than NIN/DRK in most situations.
The hate spike and stuns are actually very helpful for stuff like Omega, since pile pitch will hate reset. And stunning it's silence laser can help a lot.
As for cerberus, its a bit harder to tank him since he can attack more than once. But sometimes I don't always trust our stunners, so I tell them I'm going PLD and go DRK to tank/stun instead.
As for it being viable, I don't think DRK will be as much accepted as PLD or NIN (or rdm I guess) and for stuff like Tia you wouldn't want to melee since he has counter, and Fafnir/Nid resist stun. Other than that, DRK is a lot of fun to tank on, but might not be as useful as a PLD IMO.
The hate spike and stuns are actually very helpful for stuff like Omega, since pile pitch will hate reset. And stunning it's silence laser can help a lot.
As for cerberus, its a bit harder to tank him since he can attack more than once. But sometimes I don't always trust our stunners, so I tell them I'm going PLD and go DRK to tank/stun instead.
As for it being viable, I don't think DRK will be as much accepted as PLD or NIN (or rdm I guess) and for stuff like Tia you wouldn't want to melee since he has counter, and Fafnir/Nid resist stun. Other than that, DRK is a lot of fun to tank on, but might not be as useful as a PLD IMO.
Depending on target (Fafnir/Nidhogg come to mind, but I'm sure there's more) Avoid using sleep as a means of enmity accumulation. You never know when you need to sleep those guys after a wing-chain.
Know when to turn, and know when to not engage. Omega is a great example, perhaps the easiest NM in the game to tank, as OMega does not Double attack, but like genbu, he has unannounced counter ability. Cases like that are rare, but more importantly, know when your damage is worth the additional TP gain, and when it isn't. I tend to always favor not engaging under 25%. 200parry skill is 5% chance against any mob higher than 70, so there is really no point.
I generally will not switch gear (Except once or twice depending on what set I had on at the moment I've taken hate) if I do have aggression from the target. I know there's this whole Elitist *** about "Well u gotta makro in dis here 1% hayst 4 teh uber awesome lolz" and stuff like that. But I find survivability is much higher if you make yourself as easy a target to heal as possible. Lots of mages still don't know about the /ma "Cure(x)" PersonName. Maybe your healers are prodigies that have no such issue, I'm not a gambling man so I don't take chances. The risk/reward for blinking 150 times a min while tanking is just not favorable.
That's all that comes to mind, really DRK/NIN is almost identical to the NIN/DRK strategies used not too long ago, the exception is Dark Knight is also able to add a significant chunk of damage. This blending of exceptional Damage, Kiting(w.legs), and Tanking prowess is why Dark Knight is my favorite job.
Know when to turn, and know when to not engage. Omega is a great example, perhaps the easiest NM in the game to tank, as OMega does not Double attack, but like genbu, he has unannounced counter ability. Cases like that are rare, but more importantly, know when your damage is worth the additional TP gain, and when it isn't. I tend to always favor not engaging under 25%. 200parry skill is 5% chance against any mob higher than 70, so there is really no point.
I generally will not switch gear (Except once or twice depending on what set I had on at the moment I've taken hate) if I do have aggression from the target. I know there's this whole Elitist *** about "Well u gotta makro in dis here 1% hayst 4 teh uber awesome lolz" and stuff like that. But I find survivability is much higher if you make yourself as easy a target to heal as possible. Lots of mages still don't know about the /ma "Cure(x)" PersonName. Maybe your healers are prodigies that have no such issue, I'm not a gambling man so I don't take chances. The risk/reward for blinking 150 times a min while tanking is just not favorable.
That's all that comes to mind, really DRK/NIN is almost identical to the NIN/DRK strategies used not too long ago, the exception is Dark Knight is also able to add a significant chunk of damage. This blending of exceptional Damage, Kiting(w.legs), and Tanking prowess is why Dark Knight is my favorite job.
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only problem with a drk backup tank is when the main tank cant get hate back. its a given drk's have access to most pld gear, but when the drk gets hate and your main tank cant get it back, there lack of Defence ability's will get them killed eventually... but dont get me wrong, good drks can take a beating! most the time lowman groups know how everyone reacts and your main tank is most likey not gonna suck lol.
on another note, a pld can afford to "mess up" once or twice.
if your tanking on drk and miss that ichi... good chance your dead.
on another note, a pld can afford to "mess up" once or twice.
if your tanking on drk and miss that ichi... good chance your dead.
[+]
it's not hard for drk to get -40% phys. dmg or more from gear. if you're gonna tank as drk you're expected to have -dmg sets for phys. and magic, if you don't you're just half-assing the play style. and drk/nin tank plays exactly like nin/drk, the ONLY difference being that nin/drk has the ability to evasion tank in some instances.
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