Hey fellow edgelords, I'm a fresh returner who got into a pretty casual Sortie static in the last 3 weeks, doing ABCDGE daily for now.
I usually main heal but tbh since we often end up /yelling for DDs (and we often get DDs that get outdps'd by our RDM ffs), I wanna start bringing my DRK instead, but i wanna make sure i do the "homeworks" before doing so.
My DRK got Calad, Anguta, Loxotic+1, Naegling and Apoc for now as weapons, with pretty decent overall gear (still far from the absolute BiS, but good enough for 6-7+ Sortie Bosses).
The thing is, I won't have the luxury to be a random pug member who just casually joins the runs to learn and experience the content (while fucking up our runs by popping wrong WSs and skillchains on the wrong bosses basically 50% of the time), or to practice various optimization routines which would improve the overall DRK performance, so I figured i'd ask in here to hopefully gather valuable knowledge and infos about DRK optimization routines (and general knowledge for DRKs within Sortie).
Yes, i know that if i spent a lot of time like a detective within this forum i'd probably find such infos scattered through a bajillion of posts, but tbh I thought that maybe by having such scattered infos n knowledge united into a single post, it could help many returners/fresh DRKs getting into Sortie properly to improve their overall performance.
That being said, these are the things that I'd like to know:
- Which Great Sword weaponskills can we use on each Boss?? (I know there's a spreadsheet mentioning various WS for each boss, but the one i found only mentions Scythe WS for some reasons)
- Would using the Skillchains addon to avoid skillchains while still using Torcleaver (like WSing right after a WS) or other strong WS be a reasonable option sometimes? In an ideal scenario i think it could work, but for this specific group I fear it wouldn't be the case (as the overall attitude towards optimizations is pretty poor).
- This group does not split up for objectives yet, in general what are your routines at the various A B C D objectives??
- Which mobs can you use as Absorbs/Drain fodder in the various sectors to maybe prebuff a bit more right before you go up to a boss?
- For the 4 step objective, can i do like Insurgency>Entropy>Cross Reaper>Quietus or would that obliterate the fomor too early? If so, what kind of weapon/setup/skillchain you do for that objective as DRK??
- Which Bosses are susceptible to which DRK spells? (likely to avoid trying to use an absorb or drain off an NM just for it to be resisted)
- What about JA use optimization, do you try to optimize Scarlet Delirium? If so, when do you usually pop it vs the various bosses? are there Arcana type mobs to take advantage of Arcane crest/circle during Sortie at all?
- Is Soul Enslavement + Asylum (when SE is about to wear off) vs F Boss the right play?
- Regarding Drain III placements, when do you usually place your drain III and do you go for MBing it everytime with chainbound from af gloves + insurgency, or do you just DS+NV it?
- I don't have Crep Cloak yet (also for what this group does, it's not needed yet) but I guess ideally a good Occult Acumen Impact set would be amazing to fit into DRK routine VS all bosses?
- Do you ever wanna Stun anything in particular vs Bosses?
- Finally what's your preferred subjob usually? /SAM or /DRG? I'd think /SAM to be the way to go, but maybe there can be a case for /DRG as well sometimes?? (i usually /DRG for dyna W3 for hate management mostly)
One last question which is not directly related to DRK, (but i've seen WARs often doing it in Sortie...) why Warcry prepull?
Unless i'm missing something, i'm pretty sure they're not gaining an extra usage of Warcry like that as fights do not last long enough, so everytime I see a WAR popping Warcry few seconds before people even engage, I can only think "what a waste".
Wouldn't technically be much better to pop Warcry few seconds after you engage? At least ppl would already have TPs to use as opposed to wasting precious Warcry uptime to run in, engage, build tp (even worse for DD in need of 3k for aftermath), and only then WS. Unless i'm missing something, it just feels wrong to use Warcry prepull like that.
Thanks in advance to those who will bring valuable knowledge to this topic!
