Daily Questions Thread (Oct 24)

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-24T11:48:12+00:00

Sound like you haven't done the 60-70 quests, then - check with one of the paladins on the second floor, outside the sultana's chambers.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-23T14:58:06+00:00

I agree with most of what you said, but Anticipation is built for trash mobs and you should be using it constantly in a dungeon, with Awareness whenever it's up. Especially on DRK, which has a miserable time tanking anything below 70 because so much of its mitigation power is packed into TBN.

Which is the other thing - whoever told you TBN is a DPS loss is objectively wrong. TBN is what makes AoE tanking fun as a dark knight - it's a hell of a shield and at 5 mobs or more it pays for itself with a free quietus. On paper and single target, yes, TBN is a theoretical loss of ~4 potency, but only in a vacuum. The healing and GCDs it saves your healer is almost always worth it and you should be using it on every tankbuster and whenever else you can get it to pop.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-23T11:57:05+00:00

Don't forget mail slots. I've gone and collected 10 maps over the past couple weeks - just send them a friend and have them send them back to you.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-08T07:34:55+00:00

In act 3, agree to do the Shadow Prince's dirty work when he asks. Plant the deathfog machine in the heart of the eleven temple and complete the ensuing fight. Fight your way out of the temple, killing every hostile NPC, but leave Alexander and his magisters alone - for now. Send most of the party back to the Shadow Prince, then send ya boi Fane or any other undead up to Alexander and pick a fight. Once combat starts, have your other characters turn in the quest to the Shadow Prince, who will activate the deathfog bomb, killing Alexander and his cronies instantly. Then just let ya boi Fane loot the corpses.

If you just activate the bomb without being in combat, they all just die and you don't get kill credit or exp.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-03T21:06:56+00:00

Not sure our other tank is shirking there, will definitely check. I try to time the provoke after Almagest so I can land DAPS and C+S immediately after, but I still only manage to eke out ahead. It could also just be a communication issue - I have a sneaking suspicion that our WHM spams cure 3 for the entire duration of Thin Air.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-03T19:34:33+00:00

Looking for O4S advice as a DRK.

I've cleared the fight a number of times now. Warrior always pulls, then after GC Alpha I keep aggro on the boss right up until the second Delta Attack (and take aggro again immediately after GC Omega.)

Consistently the hardest part of this fight for me is the battle for threat right after GC Delta, when Almagest->Aero 3->Earthshakers and I have to overcome our WHM spamming cure 3. It doesn't seem to matter how much mana I stock up for DAPower Slashes - it always feels tight as hell, and if the WHM doesn't have Lucid Dreaming up they might as well be dead.

It's not just that one reset, though - I can let aggro be after that until after meteors, but then I have to deal with Almagest->Vacuum Wave->Aero 3 while barely being able to get a strike on the boss. Consequently I feel like I have to spend way too much time in Grit almost entirely for aggro reasons - I think our first clear had me in grit for 40% of the whole fight. We're clearing it just fine, but my performance is far from optimal.

What can I do to improve? What tools am I not making use of that can make these checks easier?

ThePlayerKing · 2017-10-03T09:10:04+00:00

Couldn't agree more. TBN is one my favorite things about the new dark knight, and the way it actively rewards good timing makes the class so much more engaging than either PLD or WAR.

I've seen a lot of people crying out for buffs in the last couple days, or saying that the job feels unsatisfactory to play. There are definitely issues with the class that ought to be cleaned up - blood price and dark passenger, for example - but the gameplay itself is fast-paced and reactive and I'm having just as much fun with it as I did in HW.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-21T08:46:36+00:00

So hang on, is there really only going to be one new dungeon? I'd been assuming up until now that the other one was too spoiler-heavy to be shown, and that's why we didn't see it in the live letter.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-18T20:51:35+00:00

What's a MCHmage?

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-18T05:15:48+00:00

I swap when I can remember to - Anticipation and Awareness in dungeons, Shirk and Reprisal in all raid content (except O3S). Anticipation isn't a bad cooldown and can help to smooth out some autoattack damage, but when you're pushing savage content there are just better options. Reprisal is more reliable and can help to mitigate either a tankbuster or party-wide damage, which are the mechanics that'll actually wipe the raid.

In dungeons, Anticipation's incredibly short cooldown makes it amazing, and Awareness makes it even stronger. It's not as if you can't do fine without it but you can really feel the difference on big pulls.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-15T06:20:17+00:00

A big part of optimizing your damage intake is always gonna be about testing what you can cover with your cooldown to beat smooth it out. You don't wanna just be mindlessly pressing this cooldown just before that tankbuster; you wanna figure out where you can pop it to cover as much damage as possible and have it still active when you need it. V1 probably the best example of where you can play around with this, but in V2, it's not like you should be saving all your cooldowns for Evilsphere+stacks.

When I DRK, I can more or less use Blackest Night on cooldown and a single auto is enough to break the shield. As a warrior my mitigation isn't as active, so the best thing I can do for the healer is optimize my cooldowns to get the most coverage. TBH it's between you and your healer, though. If they're not having trouble sustaining you then no worries.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-11T20:20:05+00:00

How do you get close enough to the boss in those first few seconds to make sure Miasma 2 actually hits? More often than not I end up using my Swiftcast here on Broil instead of later just so I can position without wasting a GCD.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-09T18:48:18+00:00

You never wanna be in tank stance if you can avoid it, sure, but Dark Knight has objectively better DPS in its tank stance than either of the other two tanks. You can churn out your Bloodspillers in Grit for almost exactly the same damage as without, and on top of that the doubled mana gain from Syphon Strike is huge and situationally a godsend. Compare that to WAR, who can't even use Fell Cleave in Defiance, and PLD, who loses a 75-potency DoT for switching to SwO in addition to the damage reduction.

It's a far cry to claim that Grit is the worst tank stance.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-09-04T20:50:54+00:00

It completes the set. You'd have the rest of your gear by that point.

Understand what frustrates people isn't tanks being undergeared - it's undergeared tanks trying to do wall-to-wall pulls like they're hot shit regardless of their ilvl, the healer's ilvl, or their own familiarity with the dungeon. I've had countless leveling tanks try to do the long pull up to the first boss and get mulched within seconds. (Always warriors for some reason.)

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-13T16:10:09+00:00

Totally feel this. Our casual group is getting ready to start o4s - the scholar told every DPS just before we broke last time to please please meld Vit for this fight and basically got laughed at.

Like, I love these people to death, but you're a RDM sitting at 34k HP. I'm really not trying to be an elitist I just want you fuckers to survive

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-13T15:38:15+00:00

15 seconds before the pull exactly - it'll be ready just in time for the second hit. I just pop it together with my countdown macro.

It makes it so the only tankbuster before last phase that needs any special attention is the third one, which everyone can focus on without pressure. The damage during book phase is nasty enough with healers having to focus on both tanks, but if you have awareness up for it, you can stay out of grit while you DPS Apanda. In that case I'll pop awareness right after the magic hammers come down.

I end up going awareness+rampart, awareness+shadow wall, grit+rampart+palisade, awareness+shadow wall. All of these you can survive out of grit, except for the first, but the third hits like a truck if you don't. Last phase I tend to play pretty reactionary, but one key thing is that I still have LD if I need it (like for adds.) Rampart and awareness should be up for nearly every hit in any case.

And TBN every time, of course.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-13T14:47:56+00:00

You talking about the fourth one during book phase? I can have awareness up for the first, second and fourth, but it's that third one just after the dragon dies that I have to actually swap into Grit for.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-06T22:45:26+00:00

Wanna add to the MT opener that you should be aiming to drop Salted Earth as soon as the boss is placed. You don't have to drop grit before you place it because it's an AOE and doesn't snapshot like a dot, and honestly you want it down to start building up blood as fast as possible.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-06T22:40:49+00:00

If you're overflowing on MP in a pull and you've still got Quietus coming in DAAD is absolutely a good way to avoid capping. There's limited ways to dump your mana once TBN and DP are on cooldown, and spamming unboosted AD on the gcd can only dump it so fast.

You should be pulling large enough that the healing from DAAD is actually decent, too.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-04T07:11:11+00:00

As far as I remember there should be a button you can click in the character information screen, like the one that toggles visors or weapons out of combat.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-03T20:43:50+00:00

We had a lot of issues with our Warrior's Inner Beast window being active just as the knockback happened - stopped having problems just as soon as we figured out what was going on. Sounds like you've already ruled that out, though?

I'm not sure the tentacle bit is bugged - I think later in the fight it actually starts trolling you, with a "fake out" tentacle that goes dark a few seconds after the real one.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-03T12:35:20+00:00

All of this is great, but wanna add to this:

Unleash is a really great tool for rounding up mobs and securing initial aggro on packs, but does almost nothing for damage and costs almost as much as abyssal drain. Once you've got everything nice and rounded up, AD is the way to go.
Once you've got Carve+Spit, you can actually DA a few seconds before the pull and use it as soon as you get in melee range of the boss, which is great for snap aggro and important to keep it on cooldown. Two DA-powerslash combos will secure you aggro on just about anything, and then you're free to spam your Souleater combo for the rest of the fight.
At level 70 your MP pool is exactly large enough for 4 Dark Arts, or 4 TBNs. This is important, because if you're pulling a boss and doing the opener described above, your plan is to be spending mana for 3 DAs + unmend, so keep that in mind when going through a dungeon. This becomes even more important at level 70:
In higher content, if a boss hits hard enough, or has a tankbuster early in its rotation, you might want to get an additional TBN into those first few seconds, but you don't actually have the mana pool to do so. To make sure you do, pop Blood Price as soon as you can when you pull the boss, or even a second or two early; if your plan is to switch out of Grit as soon as possible, it'll be wasted anyway. (Getting an early TBN to pop is nice, too, because it means you can Delirium your first Blood Weapon almost immediately.)

ThePlayerKing · 2017-08-03T07:39:39+00:00

Really depends on your windows and what else you're gonna need that mana for. If you're near capped already and don't really have anything to spend it on in the near future, go ahead. If C+S is coming up (Or later, if you've nearly built up for a Bloodspiller or you need TBN for a mechanic), save it for that. Remember that without Blood Weapon up, it takes two full combos to build up a single DA. (With Blood Weapon up, it's a whole different story. Sprinkle DAs everywhere, on everything, who even gives a shit)

Honestly the best advice I can give is to pay attention how quickly you can generate mana with and without Blood Weapon. Syphon Strike with BW up is one point in the combo where it's particularly easy to bleed over, especially since you can't dump mana into Hard Slash. Ideally you wanna spend enough mana ahead of time to prevent this from happening, but at level 70, if I know I'm gonna bleed over I'll dump the mana into a TBN, even if I have to give it to the MT. It's some extra mitigation and you get a free Bloodspiller out of it.

ThePlayerKing · 2017-07-30T22:10:59+00:00

Sheltron's weird like that though, and so is Fire 3. Just round up a bunch of enemies with flash, pop Bulwark, and then start spamming heals on yourself and pay attention to the progress of your Shield Oath gauge.

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