Leveling Rotations and Tips for Dark Knight — Endwalker 6.4

Item level is the most important consideration for all jobs while leveling, and takes special importance for tank jobs because Defense and Vitality are crucial to your role of staying alive. As of patch 6.0, there is no longer any difference between low-level gear intended for tanks and gear intended for physical DPS jobs, so you can trust any item level upgrade to increase your survivability as well as your damage output.

Also note the difference between normal-quality and high-quality gear; this only applies to crafted gear (with white name text and icon background), but makes a significant difference. High-quality gear matches the stats of other equipment at a given item level, while normal-quality has much lower stats. Make sure that any normal-quality drops you obtain are actually upgrades before equipping them, and look for high-quality crafted or dungeon loot if you can.

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• Make sure Grit is toggled on while in dungeons and when holding aggro in raids or trials.
• Cast Unmend or Provoke to grab the attention of groups of mobs or establish your initial threat lead against bosses.
• Hard Slash → Syphon Strike is your basic GCD combo for dealing damage.
• Hard Slash → Syphon Strike → Souleater is your basic GCD combo for dealing damage plus minor self-healing.
• Hard Slash → Syphon Strike → Souleater is your basic GCD combo for dealing damage plus minor Mana generation and self-healing.
• Hard Slash → Syphon Strike → Souleater is your basic GCD combo for dealing damage plus minor Mana and Blood generation and self-healing.
• Use Blood Weapon in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Salted Earth in your opener, and then on cooldown every 90 seconds.
• Use Plunge in your opener, and then on cooldown every 30 seconds for damage. It can also be held for movement when required.
• Use both charges of Plunge in your opener, and then when both charges are accumulated every 60 seconds. One or both charges can also be held for movement, if required.
• Use Salted Earth in your opener, and then on cooldown every 90 seconds. Make sure to follow up with Salt and Darkness while Salted Earth is still active.
• Use Abyssal Drain in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Carve and Spit in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Delirium in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Spend Mana with Flood of Darkness to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Spend Mana with Edge of Darkness to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Spend Mana with Edge of Shadow to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Prioritize using your Blood for Living Shadow whenever it is available.
• Spend Blood with Bloodspiller. Focus on avoiding overcap, and additionally try to use Bloodspiller during raidbuffs as much as possible.

• Rampart reduces all damage taken for 20 seconds. Use it for periods of high incoming damage, such as the start of trash pulls in dungeons or tankbusters and long strings of auto-attacks in raids and trials.
• Low Blow stuns enemies and can sometimes prevent casts, though most bosses are immune. Use Interject instead if the enemy castbar is flashing for a guaranteed interrupt.
• Provoke instantly grants you top enmity against the target. Use it to pull enemies at range, to take aggro if a non-tank player has the attention of an enemy, or when a tank swap is desired.
• Reprisal reduces the damage of nearby enemies. It is an extremely flexible mitigation tool that can be applied during trash pulls or to cover particularly hard-hitting or raid-wide attacks from bosses.
• Arm's Length negates most knockbacks applied to you over its duration, and also acts as a defensive tool by slowing the attack speed of non-boss enemies that hit you during this time.
• Shadow Wall is a more potent version of Rampart, but with a shorter duration and longer cooldown.
• Dark Mind is another alternative to Rampart which only works against magic damage but has a very short cooldown. Prioritize using it against incoming magical damage to free up Rampart and Shadow Wall for other situations.
• Shirk transfers a portion of your enmity to the target party member, useful for swapping aggro to another tank in eight-man content.
• Living Dead prevents death from most sources for ten seconds. On reaching 1 HP, a new ten-second timer is started, which maintains your invulnerability but will kill you if you do not heal for a total of 100% of your maximum HP before it ends. During this time, GCD skills will heal you for a large amount (>25% of your max HP) per target hit until the healing requirement is met. Living Dead is extremely useful both for the invulnerability and for the healing. For best results, coordinate its use with your healers so that they don't spend resources trying to keep you alive beforehand and so you can reliably hit 1 HP after using it.
• The Blackest Night is a powerful shield that should be used as often as possible, provided the shield will break via incoming damage rather than expire. Breaking the shield grants an effective mana refund in the form of a free cast of Flood of Darkness or Edge of Darkness. In trash pulls, most of your mana after your initial burst should be spent on The Blackest Night, with Flood or Edge being used mainly when you have a free proc for them.
• The Blackest Night is a powerful shield that should be used as often as possible, provided the shield will break via incoming damage rather than expire. Breaking the shield grants an effective mana refund in the form of a free cast of Flood of Shadow or Edge of Shadow. In trash pulls, most of your mana after your initial burst should be spent on The Blackest Night, with Flood or Edge being used mainly when you have a free proc for them.
• Dark Missionary mitigates magic damage for all nearby party members. It is generally used for raid-wide damage, but can serve as a personal cooldown in emergencies.
• Oblation is a minor single-target mitigation for yourself or a party member. Use it whenever and wherever a bit of additional damage reduction will help out.

• Two-Target Priority
• Make sure Grit is toggled on while in dungeons and when holding aggro in raids or trials.
• Cast Unmend or Provoke to grab the attention of groups of mobs or establish your initial threat lead against bosses.
• Spam Unleash to damage nearby enemies.
• Hard Slash → Syphon Strike → Souleater has near-identical total potency as Unleash spam, but edges ahead by virtue of benefiting from skill speed and granting minor self-healing.
• Hard Slash → Syphon Strike → Souleater has near-identical total potency as Unleash spam, but edges ahead by virtue of benefiting from skill speed and granting minor Mana generation and self-healing.
• Unleash → Stalwart Soul provides the most total potency from GCD combo actions, with additional Mana generation.
• Unleash → Stalwart Soul provides the most total potency from GCD combo actions, with additional Mana and Blood generation.
• Use Blood Weapon in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Salted Earth in your opener, and then on cooldown every 90 seconds.
• Use Plunge in your opener, and then on cooldown every 30 seconds for damage. It can also be held for movement when required.
• Use both charges of Plunge in your opener, and then when both charges are accumulated every 60 seconds. One or both charges can also be held for movement, if required.
• Use Salted Earth in your opener, and then on cooldown every 90 seconds. Make sure to follow up with Salt and Darkness while Salted Earth is still active.
• Use Abyssal Drain in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Carve and Spit in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Delirium in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Spend Mana with Flood of Darkness to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Spend Mana with Edge of Darkness to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Spend Mana with Edge of Shadow to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Prioritize using your Blood for Living Shadow whenever it is available.
• Spend Blood with Bloodspiller. Focus on avoiding overcap, and additionally try to use Bloodspiller during raidbuffs as much as possible.

• Make sure Grit is toggled on while in dungeons and when holding aggro in raids or trials.
• Cast Unmend or Provoke to grab the attention of groups of mobs or establish your initial threat lead against bosses.
• Spam Unleash to damage nearby enemies.
• Unleash → Stalwart Soul provides the most total potency from GCD combo actions, with additional Mana generation.
• Unleash → Stalwart Soul provides the most total potency from GCD combo actions, with additional Mana and Blood generation.
• Use Blood Weapon in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Salted Earth in your opener, and then on cooldown every 90 seconds.
• Use Plunge in your opener, and then on cooldown every 30 seconds for damage. It can also be held for movement when required.
• Use both charges of Plunge in your opener, and then when both charges are accumulated every 60 seconds. One or both charges can also be held for movement, if required.
• Use Salted Earth in your opener, and then on cooldown every 90 seconds. Make sure to follow up with Salt and Darkness while Salted Earth is still active.
• Use Abyssal Drain in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Use Carve and Spit in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Abyssal Drain can be used instead of Carve and Spit for the small additional healing at a very minor damage loss.
• Use Delirium in your opener, and then on cooldown every 60 seconds.
• Spend Mana with Flood of Darkness or Edge of Darkness to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Spend Mana with Flood of Shadow to deal damage and gain Darkside for 10% increased damage for 30 seconds. Prioritize applying and maintaining your Darkside buff. After that, spend Mana to avoid overcapping. Finally, use any available Mana for damage during raidbuffs.
• Prioritize using your Blood for Living Shadow whenever it is available.
• Spend Blood with Bloodspiller. Focus on avoiding overcap, and additionally try to use Bloodspiller during raidbuffs as much as possible.
• Spend Blood with Quietus. Focus on avoiding overcap, and additionally try to use Bloodspiller during raidbuffs as much as possible.

• Same as three-target priority, but use Flood of Darkness instead of Edge of Darkness and Abyssal Drain instead of Carve and Spit in all cases.