I decided that I was going to get over my "rut" with Final Fantasy XIV today and get my mojo back, so I booted it up and decided to try something I hadn't done before: give Dark Knight a go.
Dark Knight is the new tanking class that was added in the Heavensward expansion. So far, I've levelled Paladin (the main "defense tank") to 60 as my main, and I have Warrior (the main "wallopy tank") at 50, so I have a reasonable understanding of it. Dark Knight was a bit of a mystery, though; although I'd read a bit about it, I didn't really have a bead on how it might actually feel to play it.
Turns out it feels like a hell of a lot of fun — far more so than the rather weedy-but-graceful-feeling Paladin, and, for my money, also more so than the cumbersome swings and heavy hits of Warrior.
I've only levelled fro 30-34 so far (you start Dark Knight at 30, unlike pre-expansion classes, which start at 1) so I don't have a huge amount of experience as yet, but I've enjoyed what I've done. The class feels like a good balance between the relatively straightforward, set combos and defense of Paladin and the more intricate combos and damage-buffing of Warrior. There also seems to be a bit more in the way of "stance-dancing", since there are a number of abilities that only work when you have a specific status effect active — or in some cases, if you don't have it active. The skill "Blood Weapon", for example, which increases your attack speed and allows you to drain MP from enemies, will not work if you're in the defensive "Grit" stance, but that's fine, since Blood Weapon is an offensive skill and Grit carries a hefty damage penalty, so the two aren't really compatible.
I like this way of playing; rather than Paladin's approach of sticking with Shield Oath most of the time and giving it a bit of Sword Oath only when you have a hefty aggro lead on the rest of your party, Dark Knight allows you to switch back and forth a lot more freely, giving combat a much more dynamic feel. The rhythm I was getting into by the end of tonight's session saw me doing my basic aggro combo, weaving in the "Low Blow" stunning kick (which is off the global cooldown) and also dropping in the off-GCD "Reprisal" proc to reduce enemy damage after a successful parry. Then, when Blood Weapon was up — it actually has a pretty short cooldown — I'd drop Grit, hit Blood Weapon, unleash as many attacks as I could manage — including DRK's DoT, which, unlike PLD's, isn't part of a combo, so can be applied immediately — before switching back into Grit again once Blood Weapon dropped. The timing of Blood Weapon's cooldown usually meant that I could rotate defensive cooldowns at the same time as throwing up Blood Weapon, too, so I could mitigate at least some of the increased damage I'd be taking by dropping Grit's considerable (20%) reduction in incoming damage.
DRK's AoE aggro move is also a bit more intuitive than PLD's Flash, whose radius I'm still not entirely 100% sure of. Unleash, meanwhile, displays a very clear area of effect when you use it, making it extremely apparent whether your positioning is right or not. It's not quite as satisfying as WAR's cone-area Overpower, being a weird-looking spell with an annoying sound effect rather than a distinctly HULK SMASH-style swing of your axe, but I've also found so far that DRK appears to be able to hold aggro pretty well even with only a couple of Unleashes at the start of the fight — perhaps a side-effect of its increased damage when compared to something like PLD.
I'm digging DRK so far, then, and although it's another tank class like my main, it feels different enough from PLD already that I feel like it's going to be enjoyable to level. And who knows? I might even end up maining it if and when I get it to 60.
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I always mained GLA/PLD since the beta for 1.0 FF XIV… until DRK, that is. Frankly, I love playing DRK and I'm always a tank class in all the MMOs that I've played. When you get access to Grit/Darkside and a few other abilities you'll have to post about it again and I'll go into more what a DRK is really like tanking. But the largest takeaway that I want you to remember is to not play it like PLD or even WAR, it's different. One of the most important things to know is that if you are playing DRK correctly, you should consider your MP to be your aggro meter. Use a lot of moves that require MP and then Siphon Strike and use your other abilities to gain your MP back. In fact, I am so unreliant on TP that I tend to sprint a lot as DRK in dungeons. Especially if my dps are casters. If I have a full team on board that knows what they are doing, I could literally sprint tank an entire dungeon. Later on, when you have a cubic ton of abilities, make sure you know what each of them does, unlike PLD, I tend to use a lot more abilities a lot more often. With only two exceptions, your cooldowns are all pretty short. So I'm usually using a cooldown each pull and I rotate between them. We have slightly less HP than WAR do (although I still have over 20k currently), but we are also much less squishy, especially verses magic damage which a DRK is especially good against. And WAR wish in their dreams that they can pull as much aggro as a like geared and well informed DRK can.
You get Grit and Darkside immediately — or at least, I have them both already, anyway, though like an idiot I forgot to do the initial level 30 quest when I switched to DRK and consequently did a whole bunch of stuff without even having Darkside. It was only when I reached level 34 and got an ability dependent on having Darkside that I realised I had probably missed something somewhere. 🙂
Really looking forward to seeing how it handles at high level. Wonder if I can get it to 60 in time for 3.1 for some sweet DRK relic action…?
Yeah, I forgot that they were both gotten so low. You just got Dark Dance, which is very nice and gives you lower damage plus more chances at Reprisal. I always use it in conjunction with Dark Mind, but you won't get that until 42, and then I rotate that two combo with Shadowskin and Foresight (which is from WAR), for each group pull. And since you know the bosses so well from tanking them with PLD you can know when to use Dark Dance and Dark Mind to the best effect on the bosses. Dark Dance protects you against physical, and Dark Mind protects you against magical damage. And obviously Shadowskin protects against both. You also get Dark Passenger at 40, but I stopped using it after I got Abyssal Drain at 56 unless it's for very specific purposes. Combining it with Dark Arts can blind everything, but that is a crap ton of MP to use. And instead Abyssal Drain gives a ton of aggro (more than Unleash does), and also in conjunction with Dark Arts it drains HP and gives it to you.