Dark Knight Starter Guide for Level 30-50: New to the Job? Start Here! [FFXIV 6.40+]

if you're about to pick up Dark Knight for the first time and find it a bit overwhelming to get started then this video is for you this guide will teach you how to play the job at level 30 and then go on to explain how to use all of the actions you learned from level 30 to 50 in order recommending ways to use actions as necessary this also includes more General tanking advice in the summary we'll cover a detailed attack rotation for use at level 50 that encompasses all the things you learned throughout this guide now then grit serves as your tank stamps greatly boosting your enmity generation causing enemies to prioritize attacking you over others this should typically always be turned on unless you have a cool tank who is going to main tank always keeping it on is a nice default if you aren't sure next let's talk about your basic attack combos heart slash siphon strike and Soul Leader serves as your filler single Target combo or 123 combo Psy from Strike restore 600 MP as a bonus and so leader also heals you for a bit at this level you should use this combo repeatedly when there are less than three targets as the combination of the damage and the MP recovery of siphon strike makes it Superior to other options speaking of other options unleash serves as your area of effect or an AOE for short option they should be used with three or more targets instead of your 123 combo while not crucially important it is worth noting that unleash is a spell and so if you have skill speed from your equipment its recast time will not be affected unlike your 123 combos for Mobility attacks you have flood of Darkness this spends 3000 MP to strike in a line in front of you and as an ability you can use this between your weapon skills and spells commonly referred to as weaving while in combat all jobs recover 200 MP every 3 seconds and for Dark Knight this is supplemented by siphon strike flood of Darkness also boosts all damage you do for 30 seconds and using it again with the buff already active will extend it up to a maximum of one minute generally you will recover enough MP for this to never be a problem to give back however in extremely prolonged eoe fights you may want to conserve some MP for an extra use aside from that you can weave flood of Darkness once after each weapon skill or spell whenever you have the MP to do so make sure to aim yourself to the line AOE hits as many attacks as possible when pulling enemies you can use on mend as a ranged option as its enmity multiplier makes it apply a ridiculous amount of enmity to the Target provoke serves as the classic taunting action placing at the top of the enmity list and applying an obscene amount of energy to the Target as it is an ability you can weave this between other actions if you so desire however in content with multiple tanks present I recommend only using provoke strategically to switch who is tanking the bars you can combine on mend and provoke to easily pull three or four enemies at range without stopping which can be very helpful for pulling multiple packs at once next regarding defensive cooldowns Rampart produces all damage you take and reprise or reduces the damage all enemies around you do for a while once you've pulled the enemies you plan to and they are all about to be in range use Rampart to minimize the damage you take if the fight prolongs much further than that use reprisal if the rampart ends in most situations it is best to only have one defensive cooldown active at a time if you don't need more than one to survive as this lets you reduce the damage for longer making it easier for your healers to deal with it stacking too many cooldowns will simply cause your healer to sit and have nothing to do and then have too much to do when your cooldowns run out this concept of using one cooldown at a time in this manner is often commonly called Defensive cooldown cycling I talk more in depth about this and other tanking techniques in this video dedicated to the subject found in the icard and the description for more utility specific cooldowns low blow allows you to stun enemies which can be used to interrupt certain actions or give you a bit of extra breathing room most bosses are immune to stuns but many buses in low level dungeons aren't so it is worth testing sometimes interject can also be used to flat out interrupt interruptible actions which are signified by a red pulsing and flashing Casper it is almost always beneficial to interrupt actions so do it whenever you can with all of that out of the way let's talk about your level up actions at level 32 you'll learn the ability and Rule action arms length this ability makes you immune to most knockback effects and if a normal enemy hits you its attack speed is slowed for a while this makes it a very potent defensive tool on packs of enemies I recommend adding it either after reprisal or even alongside it in your defensive order depending on the situation at level 35 you learn the ability blood weapon this causes your next five weapon skills or spells within 15 seconds to restore an additional 600 mp on a minute cooldown as long as you have a Target to attack for the duration you are pretty much guaranteed to get all 5 swings every time so this should be used on cooldown make sure to spend some MP quickly if you're close to full note that blood weapon is activated by your one to three couples and unleash specifically aside from adding an additional flood of Darkness every minute this does not change your rotation much at level 38 you learn the ability Shadow wall which reduces damage taken even more than Rampart I recommend when pulling pack of enemies to use Shadow wall for one pull and Rampart for another if you can get away with it so that you have a decently strong defensive cooldown for each pool sometimes you will need both Shadow wall and Rampart to survive and you simply have to deal with that as it comes as such I recommend using Shadow wall then reprisal for one pull and Rampart then reprisal for another Pool as I mentioned you can use arm's length alongside the price of the pools that really hurt to reduce the damage further this builds compensates with a rather weak potency of reprisal but also alleviates the downside of arm's length taking a few seconds to take effect at level 40 you learn the spell stalwood soul which is your follow-up attack after unleash stalwood Soul also restores 600 MP like siphon strike and this makes your AOE combo of Unleashed and Stonewood Soul Superior for damage output on two Targets meaning you should only use your 123 combo on one target or if you need the healing from Soul Leader to survive for some reason note that stalwood so restoring MP also means that you'll no longer need to consider being conservative with your mp on AOE at all you also learn the ability Edge of Darkness which is a single type alternative to flood of Darkness age of darkness is stronger than front of Darkness on one or two Targets they are equal on three targets and flood of darkness is superior on four or more targets you simply use whichever one applies to the amount of targets present if using age of Darkness with multiple targets it may be beneficial to use it on the healthiest Target to make sure they all go down together at level 45 you learn the ability dark mind which is a defensive cooldown that reduces magic damage taken if you are expecting magic damage at all then it might be a good idea to use this as the cooldown is very short and the effect very potent to identify with an attack is actually magical take note of the icon next to the damage number when you are hit a purple staff or wand indicates magic damage while a blue sword indicates physical damage a green power icon means that it is so-called unique damage and really maybe darkmind will work on these at level 48 you learn the ability and roll action shirk which transfers 25 of your enmity to your target this is used for tank switching when your tank partner uses provoke to grab attention you shirk your partner to push them further ahead so ensure the enemy stays on them this is most useful in high level content but it is nonetheless useful to know how to use it at level 50 you learn the ability Living Dead which gets a little hairy to explain when used it prevents you from dying if your words are die within 10 seconds if you do die then the Living Dead Effect is replaced with a fresh 10 second duration Walking Dead Effect that causes your weapons skills and spells to heal you for an absolutely ridiculous amount on top of this while walking that is active you cannot die however if the duration of Walking Dead reaches zero you die immediately if you manage to get healed for 100 of your max HP within the duration of Walking Dead it is place with Undead rebirth it is somewhat rare this comes up but it is worth noting that you need to receive healing which means if you take zero damage during Walking Dead you will be incapable of healing the single one HP you got reduced to and will subsequently die from Walking Dead you need to take damage to be able to resolve Walking Dead finally Undead rebirth just makes you incapable of dying and it will have whatever duration Walking Dead had left and that rebirth does not include the massive healing effect and does not kill you if it runs out naturally you should use Living Dead for two or dying situations and as it does very little at all if you never manage to tie during it it is better to use it when you are close to this rather than when you are healthy unless you know the incoming attack will kill you otherwise now to round off let's cover an actual boss fight opener and rotation make sure grit is active unless there is another tank who is using their tank stats in which case this is usually optional as you run up to the boss if you are tanking pool with provoke and then use hard slash weaving Edge of Darkness and blood weapon then use siphon strike weaving Edge of Darkness so leader weaving Edge of Darkness again and then hard slash weaving Edge of Darkness one more time finish your 123 combo and this leads to the general rotation Dark Knight at this level functions on a relatively simple rotation of using one two three combos blood weapon on cooldown and Edge of Darkness whenever you can this gives you a lot of breathing room to use your defensive cooldowns when you want or need to for AOE adjustments replace your 123 combo with the one two AOE combo of unleash and solid Soul when there are two or more targets unless you need the healing from Soul reader to survive although generally you should not need this with three targets you can freely choose between using Edge of Darkness or flood of Darkness however with 4 or more targets you should use flood of Darkness note that the attack is a line in front of you so make extra Shields or Clump the enemies together in front of USB as you can although you should do this even if you aren't using flood of Darkness as it makes it easier for the rest of your group to let their AOE if you do so now that is all for this video thank you so much for watching if you want to support me in my channel you can make sure to let the YouTube algorithm know by liking the video leaving a comment subscribing and hitting the Bell to get notified when next I post a video and if you want to give even more support than that you can also become a member of the channel like these wonderful people here fun fact blood weapon used to be a strict 10 second duration buff which meant you needed a certain amount of skill speed alongside extremely good timing of weaving it to be able to consistently fit five weapon skills within the duration you could completely forget about fitting spills in it as the unchanged cast times of these would never allow you to fit five of them in it if you are interested in learning more about this I did cover this in the shadowbringers edition of this guide which you can find right here [Music]

Channel: Caetsu Chaiji Ch.

Views: 1,900

Keywords: ff14, ffxiv, final, fantasy, ARR, Realm, Reborn, HW, Heavensward, SB, Stormblood, ShB, Shadowbringers, EW, Endwalker, Guide, DRK, Dark, Knight, Tank

Id: TnWz4no6MRo

Length: 11min 11sec (671 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2023