Dear Square-Enix: You Forgot About Buffs to Dark Knight's Off-Tank Utility.

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Originally Posted by Carstien

I'll give you a great reason why they didn't make that horrific change.

Monk puts up blunt res down. DRK is doing his combo, puts up slash res down. The int debuff cannot stack, would be too strong, so the result is dragon kick is erased, mnk damage lowered. Then monk uses it again, delirium erased, drk damage lowered.

Starting to see the problem?

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You misread their post completely.

They're saying make Dragon Kick two separate debuffs, one the blunt resist down, and the other the INT down. Similar to how Vengeance puts up the counterattack buff and the vulnerability down buff separately. There've been vulnerability up debuffs in the game that have been able to cancel the latter half of that buff, but not the former.

That way the DRK could overwrite the INT part of DK but not the Blunt resist part. Not really all that important or even really a buff, but uhh. Yeah.

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

While we're at it, Dark Knights in the single player games have always been "tanks" with high HP, access to the most powerful defensive equipment, access to generally powerful melee weapons, and access to shields. Honestly, FFIX if anything was a disservice to the image of the Job.

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Please for the love of Christ and Satan combined don't turn this thread into that topic.

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

While we're at it, Dark Knights in the single player games have always been "tanks" with high HP, access to the most powerful defensive equipment, access to generally powerful melee weapons, and access to shields. Honestly, FFIX if anything was a disservice to the image of the Job.

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Very true considering the Dark Knight class wasn't even in IX to begin with.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

To be fair:

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/W...Final_Fantasy)

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What's that supposed to even mean?

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

While we're at it, Dark Knights in the single player games have always been "tanks" with high HP, access to the most powerful defensive equipment, access to generally powerful melee weapons, and access to shields. Honestly, FFIX if anything was a disservice to the image of the Job.

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Lol, not this again. Let's ignore this post completely.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

What's that supposed to even mean?

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Warriors, also, were powerhouses. They had high strength and high defense/health. So DRK being the de facto (I assume you mean default rather than the literal translation of de facto, unless you just made a grammatical error) OT doesn't really check out when Warrior, also, exists. If you meant that DRK should be a competitive OT, then I agree, and I think that all 3 should offer individual special things as OT and as MT. Hopefully one day they sort that out.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

What's that supposed to even mean?

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Not much. Just trying to correlate FF1 Fighter to the FF14 Warrior. Which fails since Warrior can only equip Axes and is more a mesh of Fighter + Viking + Berserker.

Doesn't help the FF1 Fighter promotes into Knight aka the Paladin.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Warriors, also, were powerhouses. They had high strength and high defense/health. So DRK being the de facto (I assume you mean default rather than the literal translation of de facto, unless you just made a grammatical error) OT doesn't really check out when Warrior, also, exists. If you meant that DRK should be a competitive OT, then I agree, and I think that all 3 should offer individual special things as OT and as MT. Hopefully one day they sort that out.

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Not gonna start this argument again, even though I could very well comment on the very same link you've replied with, so I'll pass.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Doesn't help the FF1 Fighter promotes into Knight aka the Paladin.

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Ok, that's what I meant. You posted it.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Not much. Just trying to correlate FF1 Fighter to the FF14 Warrior. Which fails since Warrior can only equip Axes and is more a mesh of Fighter + Viking + Berserker.

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I mean DRK traditionally gives up health to boost offense which isn't present in FF14. Maybe relating the jobs in XIV to the past jobs in traditional FF games is a bad idea, they do tend to stray far away from being an actual FF game to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

Not gonna start this argument again, even though I could very well comment on the very same link you've replied with, so I'll pass.

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You gotta relax, friend.

Anyway, I'm done derailing. WTB OT utility for DRK. ( ' - ' )b

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

I mean DRK traditionally gives up health to boost offense which isn't present in FF14. Maybe relating the jobs in XIV to the past jobs in traditional FF games is a bad idea, they do tend to stray far away from being an actual FF game to begin with.


You gotta relax, friend.

Anyway, I'm done derailing. WTB OT utility for DRK. ( ' - ' )b

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Speechless. Oh, well.

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. Paladin and dark Knight gear is changeable minus weapon. Not like you can't just play both pal and drk.

Came into thread about OT. Came up with text fence about OT. Actually read the thread. Well shitake mushrooms I just typed unrelated and incoherent nonsense.

I'll just make myself useful and say:

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Originally Posted by Galdous

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. Paladin and dark Knight gear is changeable minus weapon. Not like you can't just play both pal and drk.

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Why does the DRK and PLD have to be the ones to switch? Why is the WAR exempt from this? What if I only want to play PLD or DRK? Is it fair that PLD and DRK players need to be interchangeable to raid whereas WAR does not?

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

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Exactly, also, the changes I mentioned to Warrior and Ninja is for fairness towards Summoner and Scholar in PvP, where the Infirmity (Malady) applied by Miasma and Miasma II plays a bigger role. Because at the moment, Warrior and Ninja's slashing down debuffs stacks with Malady, Malady has diminishing returns, while Dancing Edge and Storm's Eye do not. It seems a little one-sided in terms of PvP balance.

Breaking these debuffs up into multiple parts solves multiple problems at once, it gives Dark Knight some of its much needed off-tank utility, it helps balance PvP for Warrior and Ninja (two of the stronger melee Jobs currently). And if that was not enough, this change would also be a buff to Ninja and Warrior in an indirect way by letting Warriors use Storm's Path constantly instead of Eye, and Ninjas who are without Warriors use more Aeolian Edges.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. Paladin and dark Knight gear is changeable minus weapon. Not like you can't just play both pal and drk.

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Some of us are uncomfortable on other tanking Jobs, be it from a lack of experience, or just disliking the play style. In my case, it is a mix of both. Also, it is unhealthy for the raid environment as a whole to have vast power gaps between Jobs.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. Paladin and dark Knight gear is changeable minus weapon. Not like you can't just play both pal and drk.

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Because that's silly. There's no justifiable reason why that should be the default.

I personally am in a nice spot, because my WAR OT will go PLD and MT (and I'll go WAR) should a fight require that. But potentially being personally unaffected by the issue doesn't make it any less of an issue or mean that its not worthy of pointing out.

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Originally Posted by Galdous

I honestly don't see what the big issue is. Paladin and dark Knight gear is changeable minus weapon. Not like you can't just play both pal and drk.

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That is exactly the mentality I am afraid of in 3.2.` Even if I am able to play other tanks or if I enjoy trying them out once in while, I simply find it distasteful to be forced into another job just because it's more efficient and I have the gear for it.

The most distrurbing part is that the luxury to share gear across jobs is supposed to be positive thing and groups might use that against you. In other words, if DRK is underperforming and the only solution is to swap to PLD because "same gear" then that's a fail design and something that should be stated by DRKs when looking for groups. If things are as bad as someone not landing a spot as DRK in progress groups, then I guess I am sitting off this raid tier until a miracle occurs.

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Originally Posted by DBelmont

I don't get why we don't get more fights like these. I liked the scenarios where MT/OT had a minimal distinction and tanking was more universal.

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We got plenthy of that this tier. In A1S, once the boss splits, both tanks have identical duties. In A3S, once the boss splits, tanking duties are mirrored between both tanks. A4S through the leg phases also has pretty equal tanking distribution.

Anyways, this topic has a major flaw.

Nobody views raid utility or raid DPS as singular entities. They are viewed within the context of group compositions. The reason why DRK and WAR were preferred this tier was because of the overall compositions they enabled.

If you are going to devalue the INT debuff because MNK can replace it, you also have to consider the other things you lose when bringing MNK over DRK and dropping either NIN or DRG from your DPS comp. If you are going to run a PLD / DRK tank pairing, then you will be bringing NIN and DRG. The advantages that comp has over any other comp is they have much better top-end raid mitigation without giving up NIN's utility. This is made possible by DRK's utility.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

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This is very true. My own static runs a Paladin ("Main Tank" while learning), White Mage, Scholar, Ninja, Dragoon, Summoner, Machinist, and myself (Dark Knight, "Main Tank" after learning). And while yes, there are times where we bemoan the fact that our Ninja suffers a little, and that I bring less to the table while we're learning encounters, we do enjoy our composition and primary Jobs. Also, now that we can share gear, I'm leveling the other tanks in case we want them for a fight instead of my main.

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Originally Posted by DBelmont

That is exactly the mentality I am afraid of in 3.2.` Even if I am able to play other tanks or if I enjoy trying them out once in while, I simply find it distasteful to be forced into another job just because it's more efficient and I have the gear for it.

The most distrurbing part is that the luxury to share gear across jobs is supposed to be positive thing and groups might use that against you. In other words, if DRK is underperforming and the only solution is to swap to PLD because "same gear" then that's a fail design and something that should be stated by DRKs when looking for groups. If things are as bad as someone not landing a spot as DRK in progress groups, then I guess I am sitting off this raid tier until a miracle occurs.

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That is actually something I agree whole with hardheartedly. Was a machinist but was semi pressured into going back to a bard when I did raid. Se could seperate gear like they did with Esoteric.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

Anyways, this topic has a major flaw.

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What you're saying has an even bigger flaw.

MNK doesn't make Delirium better or worse and having a DRG/NIN melee comp doesn't make a DRK OT more desirable; it makes a DRK MT more desirable.

Delirium in and of itself is a fine debuff. Its good for what it is. But by itself? That's a pitiful amount of utility compared to what the other tanks bring, in either role. Now while MTing, Delirium+Reprisal is a perfectly good balance of good utility that stacks and synergizes with the other tanks' kits. No complaints there.

Lets pretend for a moment that MNK doesn't exist and DRK is your sole option for INT down. The only possible melee comp is DRG/NIN.

Now lets say your MT is a PLD. Do you bring WAR or DRK? Path already outdoes Delirium because not only does it cover physical and magical, but damage dealt down > stat down.

And THEN on top of THAT it brings a slashing debuff.

Now lets say your MT is a WAR. Do you bring PLD or DRK? Well, RoH is equivalent to Delirium in value. But THEN it has DV, Clemency, and Cover, which, while the latter two are iffy to use, they're still better than nothing at all, and paired with DV, are a huge thing to miss out on. DV is easily capable of mitigating (especially now that tanks will have more HP) as much or more damage from the same things Delirium was desirable for, such as Cascade in A3S.

The point is melee composition has nothing to do with it when we are talking about a DRK OTing. While MTing, you betcha. But no matter WHAT your melee comp is, if its down to the OT slot, either other tank brings more to your group overall. Not having a MNK doesn't make DRK more desirable over PLD for OT (it offers equivalent (at worst) or better raid mitigation) and it CERTAINLY doesn't make it more desirable than WAR for OT.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

Now lets say your MT is a WAR. Do you bring PLD or DRK? Well, RoH is equivalent to Delirium in value. But THEN it has DV, Clemency, and Cover, which, while the latter two are iffy to use, they're still better than nothing at all, and paired with DV, are a huge thing to miss out on. DV is easily capable of mitigating (especially now that tanks will have more HP) as much or more damage from the same things Delirium was desirable for, such as Cascade in A3S.

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I disagree. DRK having more DPS than PLD, along with the occasional Reprisal when there's a tank swap or the OT has to tank something, is a valid alternative to DV, Clemency and Cover because Clemency and Cover are incredibly situational. You can say that DV is capable of mitigating more damage at once than Delirium because it is, but you can have Delirium up for every single raidwide aoe like Cascade, while DV is limited by its still long 2 minute cooldown. RoH is physical damage only and most raidwide aoes are magical, and you don't really care about reducing autoattacks on the MT (or tankbusters when they already have IB+Vengeance up).

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Originally Posted by Launched

I disagree. DRK having more DPS than PLD, along with the occasional Reprisal when there's a tank swap or the OT has to tank something, is a valid alternative to DV, Clemency and Cover because Clemency and Cover are incredibly situational. You can say that DV is capable of mitigating more damage at once than Delirium because it is, but you can have Delirium up for every single raidwide aoe like Cascade, while DV is limited by its still long 2 minute cooldown. RoH is physical damage only and most raidwide aoes are magical, and you don't really care about reducing autoattacks on the MT (or tankbusters when they already have IB+Vengeance up).

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So lets say they are roughly equivalent - DRK only bringing a debuff that is easily expendable/replaceable as its sole party-based raid utility (personal DPS is not raid utility) is really.... really bad.

The point is that it is speculated that the 3.2 adjustments to tanks and tank damage are to bring all 3 tanks in line damage wise. Thus if PLD and DRK are both equal in damage, logically you would take the one that has greater or more valuable utility and this applies whether you are filling MT or OT role.

Having a MNK in the group lessens a DRK's already lacking utlity and when the rest of it's utility needs it to be tanking something to work or engaging in the questionable practice of skirting cleaves for procs when parrying isn't guarenteed.

Paladin on the other hand has a ton of utility that it can draw on and it can do so whether it is tanking something or not. Some of said utility reqiures lowering personal DPS which is fine but will still potentially leave it more desirable for raid group without a monk and even moreso for those with.

DRK players shouldn't need to feel like they are going to be pressured to change to PLD and vice versa just because situations conspire to make one or the other flavour of the month (or 6 months since we're talking aout raiding), but the fact is that regardless of if there are tank swaps or not if damage is equal between the two you are going to want whatever brings the most in other areas which at the moment PLD has in spades whilst DRK has 1.5 things as MT and 0.5 as OT.

And as stated elswhere WAR utility is always going to be wanted even if it's only a Slashing Buff and a -10% damage debuff as if you have a NIN is is less of a loss for the WAR to apply and -10% raidwide damage that can be applied always is quite the boon.

We go one raid tier and everyone forgets that Dragon Kick was basically mandatory in 2.X progression.

Dude, I understand you have a dog in this fight but saying that RoH is equivalent in value to Delirium is unfiltered stupidity. No sane raider actually thinks that and any educated player knows that Delirium is significantly better.

DV will never, ever mitigate as much damage as Delirium throughout a fight. Even with the reduction in recast, you cannot have it available for every cascade let alone active through every splash, protean, sluice, or whatever. DV mitigates more damage than delirium for a single moment. While they might both fall under raid mitigation, they are used in very different ways. This is why PLD comps will still have a MNK.

The raid leader from Elysium's old team 1 explained it best. In 2.X, people designed progression comps around raid consistency and the ability to deal with any situation. The race was a sprint and having a comp that didn't cover all your bases left you vulnerable. That's the real reason PLD was great and MNK was mandatory. In 3.X, that mentality went out the window because it was all about DPS.

At this point, who knows what 3.2 will bring. Like I said in my original post, 3.X so far has actually forced both tanks to "MT" a great deal. If there is a moment like A4S's 4th leg mortal revolution again that teams cannot survive even with heavily stacked raid mitigation, we might be in a world where teams bring PLD and DRK for Reprisal, Delirium, and DV for maximum raid mitigation. If there is a mechanic like Ravana's Final Liberation dives which you can just straight cheese with two immunities then that might be a thing.

And MT or OT does not matter as long as we're dealing with issues of overall raid balance. You can't pretend MNK doesn't exist because they do. You can't pretend we only have 1 melee DPS comp because we don't. Any discussion about DRK's OT utility has to be done without impacting their overall utility.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

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It really depends on what you'd rather have. Delirium is very much replaceable by Dragon Kick, and Reprisal is very much replaceable by Path.

The bigger question goes into the melee comps themselves. Will the Monk buffs be enough to replace a Ninja with one? If you can reliably replace Ninja with Monk then there's no need for Dark Knight at all. Dark Knight doesn't really bring anything special or unique. Especially while being an OT.

And neither Paladin nor DRK can replace a Warrior even if the DPS was brought very close Warrior still wins out in utility.

If you replace Warrior with DRK/PLD you most definitely don't have bases covered and you will probably do far less raidwide damage(your ninja would definitely lose out)

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Originally Posted by Brian_

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You're still failing to make me understand how Delirium alone is considered adequate OT utility. Its a fact that the jobs OT utility is crap compared to the other tanks. It needs a buff. How anyone could argue the contrary, I'm not following.

I heard from patch 3.0-3.15 nothing about DRK OTs other than how bad they were and how they offer no utility. So now that PLD has been buffed, people suddenly don't believe that anymore? Suddenly its utility when OTing is better all better now? How?

And PLD OTs... their DPS was never notably far behind DRK OTs (unlike the MT gap between them, of course)... and due to Clemency getting interrupted while MTing and Cover being more beneficial when directed at another MT, it was not uncommon these past few patches to argue that PLD's utility was better overall while OTing. It brings more to the table, more options, no matter how situational, and none of them are replaceable by a melee DPS.

Sure you can do crap like voking the boss or an add to stick Reprisal up on something, I understand that and I do it all the time, but that's such a cumbersome way to operate. No other tank has to fuck with another tank's aggro or voke something just to have a chance to operate off their max utility.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

You're still failing to make me understand how Delirium alone is considered adequate OT utility. Its a fact that the jobs OT utility is crap compared to the other tanks. It needs a buff. How anyone could argue the contrary, I'm not following.

I heard from patch 3.0-3.15 nothing about DRK OTs other than how bad they were and how they offer no utility. So now that PLD has been buffed, people suddenly don't believe that anymore?

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The problem is people aren't considering a couple of factors.

Tanks will do less DPS period. A5+ will be more physical oriented(according to the devs anyway), Monk was just buffed, Mch also received a hefty bonus for any comp not using 2 casters.

DRK/PLD is a definite no no. DRG is still very much amazing, there's also the chances of PLD/WAR/NIN/MNK/DRG/MCH, PLD/WAR/MNK/DRG/MCH/BLMor SMN just outright destroying any comp running DRK just for an Int debuff.

If Warrior wasn't the guaranteed OT this wouldn't be an issue, however that is the case and so, you'd have to decide what is worth more when the content releases. Mitigation or DPS.(DRK/PLD comps will bring neither of these in spades aside from not needing a monk for Int down)

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Originally Posted by Carstien

I'll give you a great reason why they didn't make that horrific change.

Monk puts up blunt res down. DRK is doing his combo, puts up slash res down. The int debuff cannot stack, would be too strong, so the result is dragon kick is erased, mnk damage lowered. Then monk uses it again, delirium erased, drk damage lowered.

Starting to see the problem?

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You're missing the possibility that they could actually fix their debuff design, such that components within two particular debuffs simply do not stack with each other, rather than the debuffs themselves being considered mutually exclusive.

Or there's another method for this they've already done with Vengeance, if only for ease of design: just split the (de)buff. Delirium applies Int Down and Slashing Resist Down. Dragon Kick applies Int Down and Blunt Resist Down. The Int Down effects replace each other. Done.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

You're still failing to make me understand how Delirium alone is considered adequate OT utility. Its a fact that the jobs OT utility is crap compared to the other tanks. It needs a buff. How anyone could argue the contrary, I'm not following.

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Dragon Kick alone was enough to make MNK mandatory for all of 2.X. That was despite NIN and DRG being higher DPS.

Again, one raid tier was enough to make everyone forget a year+ of raiding meta.

And, one patch is also apparently enough to make everyone forget reality. PLD utility? What utility? DV is their only high impact utility. Stoneskin is good but nobody has ever considered bringing PLD because of Stoneskin. RoH is mediocre because strength down is just not that useful. Clemency is not suddenly good now that it is 1 second faster to cast. Cover has always been very very rarely useful.

On the flip-side, Delirium was the entire reason NIN DRG melee comps became a thing. Delirium caused a job to go from mandatory in progression to being the red-headed stepchild of melee DPS jobs. I would call that pretty damn impactful. Ask all the unemployed or converted MNKs if they think Delirium isn't a big deal.

The reality is again, MT and OT does not matter. The two roles swap constantly in content. What matters is overall raid comp balance. You cannot throw off overall raid balance just to give DRKs more OT utility. If you want to make this argument, then provide an easily implemented and balanced way to increase DRK's OT utility while not impacting overall raid balance. I doubt you can.

Pretty much the long and short of it. Reducing the damage of nearly every tank buster (except a3s) is a massive deal. What OT utility does a drk bring? Chances to drop a monk in favor of a drg/nin. Pld kind of forces a monk for dk.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

You can't pretend MNK doesn't exist because they do.

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If you have a DRG/NIN setup and need an OT, there's no reason to take DRK over WAR. Zero. DRK only competes as a MT. Path mitigates everything Delirium does and more. What serious group would take a DRK instead of a WAR for that role?

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Originally Posted by Brian_

The reality is again, MT and OT does not matter. The two roles swap constantly in content.

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You're consistently saying this and consistently (and conveniently) leaving out the fact that PLD and WAR don't lose utility from that swap. DRK does.

I'm noticing you're saying all sorts of things about my comparison between DRK and PLD but being very careful to avoid saying anything about DRK vs. WAR for the OT spot because you know that argument can't hold water. If you don't have a MNK, but need an OT that can reduce magic damage, you'll bring a WAR (like yourself... you'll forgive me for pointing that out), because it reduces both, and reduces them by more.

You're also being very careful to not address the topic of a DRK/PLD composition being a complete handicap to a progression raid-group.

A job shouldn't have to hope for a given raid composition in order to be viable or even optimal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEBV_zEM7_M

^^^Here you can see a pair of the bigger names in tanking absolutely rip DRK apart in regards to issues that this patch barely touched and issues that you seem determined to sweep under the rug.

Things were fine when we were guaranteed the MT slot b/c we were being propped up by the nature of the content (high DPS checks, high magic mitigation checks)... but now that's likely to not be a thing anymore, and the issues are no longer overshadowed by PLD's need for buffs.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

I understand you have a dog in this fight

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What is your dog is in this fight? Are we trying to make sure DRK stays gimped unless content favors and melee DPS compositions favor it? Can we say the same about WAR? Is it being propped up? Should all the tanks not be equally well designed in their own way and able to offer EQUAL levels of (different) utility regardless of whether or not they have aggro at a given moment? Answer my questions instead of just saying "that doesn't matter".

Just because DRK's problems were overshadowed by how horrible PLD was in comparison does not mean, now that PLD has been substantially buffed, that we can just pretend those problems never existed or that DRK is "working as intended".

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

PLD was once the underdog.

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yep and now Darks want to maintain tank number two by demanding buffs so PLD remains in the sidelines in raids till they overgear just like in 3.1

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie-Amber

yep and now Darks want to maintain tank number two by demanding buffs so PLD remains in the sidelines in raids till they overgear just like in 3.1

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Yeah, I'm happy you got buffs too buddy. You'll excuse me for wanting for DRK the ability to raid with its PLD-bros instead of us both being tied down with WAR 24/7.

Catty bitterness aside, I'd actually much prefer there be no "tank number #" and instead be able to have a 1:1:1 type of thing going on.

but lets talk about the real issue and that isent plds or drks its wars they have a free pass to all partys.

fact is tank spot number 2 can now be either a pld or drk cause I cant rember alex sav first world clears ever useing a pld till they were geared better.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

What is your dog is in this fight? Are we trying to make sure DRK stays gimped unless content favors and melee DPS compositions favor it? Can we say the same about WAR? Is it being propped up? Should all the tanks not be equally well designed in their own way and able to offer EQUAL levels of (different) utility regardless of whether or not they have aggro at a given moment? Answer my questions instead of just saying "that doesn't matter".

Just because DRK's problems were overshadowed by how horrible PLD was in comparison does not mean, now that PLD has been substantially buffed, that we can just pretend those problems never existed or that DRK is "working as intended".

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I play all three tanks and am full i210 on all three of them (with their relics). I was a PLD main in 2.X. I switched to WAR in 3.0 because my raid group needed a WAR. On fflogs, I have 90th percentile parses with PLD and WAR. If something happens and I need to play DRK for my group, I'd be fine switching. To me, it doesn't matter what job I play. I am a responsible progression tank so it's my duty to be prepared for anything.

It's about getting the job done. Not bickering about MT or OT or whatever. Tanks operate as a singular unit. The raid operates as a singular unit.

I have no dog in this fight. Nobody should.


The major problem you have is you do not understand progression raiding. And, balance of this degree only matters in progression. If you're going to link Mog Talk, maybe you should take some time to watch their video about raiding in 3.2.

Progression raiding is attempting to clear content while being below the ilevel the content is tuned for.

There are two major ilevel hurdles groups have to overcome in progression. The first is the DPS gap. The second is the eHealing / eHP gap. All raid utility and all raid composition balance has to be viewed under that lens -- not this MT OT BS. If you are bringing a tank to a raid, you are bringing a tank to the raid. Utility does not suddenly matter more or less because it's coming from the MT or OT spot because that definition is inherently very obscure in content and the line separating the two is becoming increasingly blurred.

If you're working through progression and need to compensate for the lack of a MNK in a situation where you are not reaching to clear a DPS check, you will bring a DRK. In the scenario where your other tank is a WAR, path does not stack with path. In the scenario where your other tank is a PLD, reprisal + INT debuff > path for raid mitigation.

DRK + PLD comps were only handicapped because you needed to maximize raid DPS in 3.0's raid meta. If you are instead trying to push for max raid eHP, DRK + PLD is better than any WAR comp.

Again, we do not know what direction the meta is heading. From what we do know, the DPS checks won't be as tight. That inherently favors any non-WAR/DRK tank pairing.

Proper context of why MNK was mandatory in 2.0 because there was only MNK and DRG for First Coil and Second Coil. Ontop of the imbalance already present between the two where MNK simply floored DRG in DPS, so a second MNK was considered for overall higher DPS.

NIN only arrived in Final Coil and no World First/Server First groups were going to gimp themselves in the race by waiting for their NIN to level up and experiment with the class.

MNK was as far as I can remember, only mandatory in T13 where the raid wide damage far exceeded the low gear level at the time.
For the most part the major factor wasn't dragon kick but:

- There was really only MNK and DRG in progression in the entirety of 2.0.
- DRG being garbage so the only real compositions were MNK+MNK, MNK+NIN or MNK+Caster#2
- MNK being undisputed highest ST DPS
- Every single raid wide mechanic was already covered by the healers and/or Storm's Path. Only T13 was the outlier in which Dragon Kick was required ontop.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

It needs them.

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I agree with you Syz. You've proven a valid point throughout this thread. My question to you is what possible utility can DRK get?

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Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum

I agree with you Syz. You've proven a valid point throughout this thread. My question to you is what possible utility can DRK get?

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Well if you give DRK a raid DPS buff that stacks with Storm's Eye, given that FFXIV's tanking meta is very DPS-happy, that'll just make PLD never ever ever get used again.

It already has two raid mitigation utilities. Problem is one of them only works while tanking something. Which as an OT, you aren't always, and if you want to throw out those labels, what about magic only fights? It only has Delirium. It only has one readily working utility, one that isn't unique to it, and the other, while good, is dependent on the fight and what role the DRK is playing at the given moment. And then there's the fact that WAR beats DRK at literally everything other than personal DPS while MTing. People acknowledged that this same thing was a problem with DRG prior to 3.0 (even though there wasn't anything wrong, per se, with DRG's personal DPS (sound familiar?), after 2.4 anyway), so this thread was just pointing out that there's a similar problem now with DRK.

You could of course add another OT-specific mitigation utility and that'd be fine, I suppose. As long as its roughly analogous to Reprisal in raid mitigation over the course of the fight and not overpowered.

For whatever reason some folks seem to think that I'm wrong in pointing this out. But I just wanted it to be pointed out to begin with.

The primary utility I can think of that DRK could bring that wouldn't devalue another job, is a party-based MP/TP restore. Sure other jobs have this, but its not just one its many of them (so its clear that giving many jobs this utility doesn't cause them to devalue eachother). In fact, ranged DPS have this, a melee DPS has this, and a healer has this. It'd be cool, for example, if Sole Survivor acted as an MP-Goad out of Grit (that way you have Reprisal+DE in Grit, and Sole Survivor+DE out of Grit). I dunno, you could have DRK+tank+NIN+2healers+any 3 melee/casters and manage to have a group without a BRD/MCH since you'd have a TP Goad and an MP Goad, so you'd actually open up more different party compositions that way instead of making one comp or job obsolete. Which would be nice.

Or you could just do what SE did with AST (hopefully without all the issues that poor job has had) and do what many people thought would happen from the beginning and give DRK two job-specific stances, wherein one stance, a specific cooldown or debuff's contribution is raid DPS (in place of a WAR) and in the other its contribution is raid mitigation (in place of a PLD). They could turn Reprisal into another ability entirely that procs on crit that is a slashing debuff when you have Grit off. Inb4 anyone says how would they change one ability into another - *points at NIN's mudra button* ...It wouldn't stack with Eye, so it wouldn't change DRK/WAR comps at all, but it would allow PLD/DRK comps in which the DRK is the default OT to function much better.

Anyway I'm not here to come up with ideas, but simply to make known the problem. I'm sure someone will come up with 50,000 reasons why the ideas I just spitballed won't work. I have a static, I'm the (default) MT of that static, this issue actually doesn't effect me that much. I may not have 100% of the resume of bragging rights that Brian has but I do know that people have acknowledged the same issues, people that have far more time for world-first-level prog raiding than my silly, plebian, somewhere-in-server-top-10-self. I figured I'd point it out; folks will notice the OP is very short and to the point. I honestly didn't fathom getting so much backlash as it has gotten - I thought it was a generally accepted fact: DRK's OT utility sucks. And like it or not, that issue could very well trickle down far past progression raiding and the point where it matters, where gear has rendered the issue obsolete. It did that with PLD.

So I'll just leave this here and SE will do or not do with it whatever they please. I doubt I'll be the last to bring it up though, I'm certainly not the first.

I have a suggestion for dark knight that I've been passing around a little bit. What if for reprisal you made it so that you could dark arts to trigger the proc instead of having it tied to dark dance? You would also need to make reprisal's cool down a bit longer to compensate and I would also suggest just taking the parry proc off of dark dance entirely and instead making it so that dark dance did something a little more useful, maybe block rate or something. This would allow dark knight to have a little bit more utility as an off-tank combined with delirium for magic damage and also allow them to do pretty much their max dps, excluding a few low blow resets.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

Well if you give DRK a raid DPS buff that stacks with Storm's Eye, given that FFXIV's tanking meta is very DPS-happy, that'll just make PLD never ever ever get used again.

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To be fair, PLD just got its Shield Oath damage penalty reduced. While not the same as giving a NIN (since WAR and, in this example DRK would have) a slashing resistance down, it's something to keep in mind in the long run. And that buff to PLD is actually happening as of tomorrow.

I would definitely give PLD some sort of blunt resistance down on top of that Shield Oath buff, so, in the case of having a MNK and a DRK, the former would take advantage of the PLD while, for example, fighting PLD's enemy, while the latter would have its own slashing resistance down and Delirium's INT down wouldn't be useless in every case. PLD would contribute further with the parties' damage, and so would DRK.

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Originally Posted by Brian_

I play all three tanks and am full i210 on all three of them (with their relics). I was a PLD main in 2.X. I switched to WAR in 3.0 because my raid group needed a WAR. On fflogs, I have 90th percentile parses with PLD and WAR. If something happens and I need to play DRK for my group, I'd be fine switching. To me, it doesn't matter what job I play. I am a responsible progression tank so it's my duty to be prepared for anything.


It's about getting the job done. Not bickering about MT or OT or whatever. Tanks operate as a singular unit. The raid operates as a singular unit.

I have no dog in this fight. Nobody should.


The major problem you have is you do not understand progression raiding. And, balance of this degree only matters in progression. If you're going to link Mog Talk, maybe you should take some time to watch their video about raiding in 3.2.

Progression raiding is attempting to clear content while being below the ilevel the content is tuned for.

There are two major ilevel hurdles groups have to overcome in progression. The first is the DPS gap. The second is the eHealing / eHP gap. All raid utility and all raid composition balance has to be viewed under that lens -- not this MT OT BS. If you are bringing a tank to a raid, you are bringing a tank to the raid. Utility does not suddenly matter more or less because it's coming from the MT or OT spot because that definition is inherently very obscure in content and the line separating the two is becoming increasingly blurred.

If you're working through progression and need to compensate for the lack of a MNK in a situation where you are not reaching to clear a DPS check, you will bring a DRK. In the scenario where your other tank is a WAR, path does not stack with path. In the scenario where your other tank is a PLD, reprisal + INT debuff > path for raid mitigation.

DRK + PLD comps were only handicapped because you needed to maximize raid DPS in 3.0's raid meta. If you are instead trying to push for max raid eHP, DRK + PLD is better than any WAR comp.

Again, we do not know what direction the meta is heading. From what we do know, the DPS checks won't be as tight. That inherently favors any non-WAR/DRK tank pairing.

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This is not the Marines. I've known people that are/were in the Marines that do not treat this game like the Marines. Doing so may help you complete raids but only if you and seven other individuals view it as a 2nd and 3rd job, after you find said individuals of course. You seem like you've had the same static since 2.X days and that's nice. I wish I had a static that didn't have people quit the game, leave for another static or have that one clown with his pants always down that forgot to cap weekly tomes and upgrade his weapon effectively gimping the raid for a week. So 99% of the player base has to make do with what they can find and hopefully get a decent team to complete raid content. That is totally doable if the devs in charge of Alex Savage didn't completely miscalculate the difficulty of it and create static destroying content that excludes entire classes. People play a class they like because its fun, they may like playing difficult content on that class because it's fun and they like playing a class they think is fun while feeling like they contribute to a groups success.

The problem here is you do not understand when devs throw these things out the window and it impacts a class to the point people don't find it appealing to play anymore and that can ruin their gaming experience. It can even happen vice versa as well. Warrior is too good because of Alex Savage and is deemed too sacred to touch. So now SE has to power creep PLD to make it seem less shitty to a large majority of statics and guess what? People are afraid of the same thing happening to DRK because PLD is going to take back its raid spot from DRK. These are legit concerns. Not everyone wants to main swap every patch.

Everyone wants a raid spot for their Job. Everyone here commenting has a dog in this fight. You have the first and claim to not have the second. Why are you here?

I don't agree with this DRK has no OT utility compared to others. Unless I'm forgetting something, Warrior only has Storm's Path. Dark Knight and Paladin have STR down and INT down. That's 1/1/1 for OT utility. Paladin brings the most as OT if we drop DPS from the equation for a moment: Stoneskin, Divine Veil, Clemency, Cover, and a GCD stun. That's 6/1/1. Dark Knight offers an AoE blind that's hardly worth mentioning and Reprisal. I know people seem to think that as OT you can never use Reprisal but very few raid bosses lately are seeing the OT as nothing but DPS. It's usable you just have to make use of it. 6/2/1. You can't make everyone happy. When there are fewer slots for a role than there are Jobs to fill it people will complain. Even if in a perfect world all three tanks were 100% balanced someone would be left out. I may be missing something because of the time so feel free to correct me or discuss, but please don't bother with personal attacks.

Warrior has Storm's Eye. Which it can use unless the Ninja in the party wants to be on Dancing Edge duty.