Wait, I get to be an unstoppable juggernaut of death and soul eating glory? I see nothing wrong with this.
I can stop being this pansy paladin touchy feely tank and still use a sword, epic win.
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Wait, I get to be an unstoppable juggernaut of death and soul eating glory? I see nothing wrong with this.
I can stop being this pansy paladin touchy feely tank and still use a sword, epic win.
I saw a lot of people wanting Samurai as a counter-based tank. Got to thinking, what if they keep in the using your own HP as a oh shit button? Let's say similar to Holmgang (minus the dreaded self bind), but you get a short pacification to take as much damage as possible, without chance of death. Once the ability ends, the Dark Knight unleashes all that built up damage on the enemy? The ability to use your own HP to attack could also link into draining it back, possibly building up a pool for defense or increased healing effects?
Would could be seeing a type of tank that doesn't so much rely on self-healing, and more absolute destruction. Using the darkness inside of themselves, it doesn't matter what happens to themselves, so long as their enemies die.
I'm a FFXI Vet, who was a Dark Knight main for 5 years before I quit XI.
Originally I was all against Drk being a tank (I'm talking theoretical arguments from a year ago) because I was really against it possibly coming from Gladiator, using sword and shield and using Gladiator abilities which didn't fit the Dark Knight theme.
And I still would be against it, if that was the case.
However, even though it will be a tanking class, everything I have seen about Dark Knight so far is pretty spot on for the job. Honestly I cannot wait to play a Dark Knight again. So, I'll be a tank. No big deal. I think they managed to turn Dark Knight into a tank and still retain all the stuff I love about it. The look, the badass weapons, the dark magic. I'm good.
I'm not sure how I feel about drk tank, but I do know that history should not be used as the deciding factor of what roles jobs here should play. I would not be surprised if DRK tanked based off damage, and not enmity. This is not a problem because their tank role is enforced unless pre-formed group. I'm just saying, DRK probably won't be faced with an army of tank abilities.
Name me any content outside of leveling up jobs where DRK could play as the tank for the group, over warriors, monks, paladins, ninjas, and heck even samuria. Not even with /nin or /sam did they come close. I tanked as DRK very rarely in desperate times, and when I did it was a nightmare on healer MP regardless of not using LR or SE and incredibly slow exp.
But sure, I'll bite and ask just what you think DRK could tank in FFXI outside of mere exp groups, unless you speak of KC zergs in which case every DRK was forced to tank more or less but usually didn't matter because stuff dropped dead before their SE/BW combo wore off.
The only real time DRK could tank a significant amount of things in FFXI was after the implementation of Dread Spikes, which helped absorb HP from enemies that were hitting them (which I think seems like a winner for a FFXIV skill for tanking).
I forget if it got nerfed or not, but that was something, I guess.
The only game DRK wasn't a tank was in FFXI because that was the only game that had that kind of division. All melee characters with good HP and armor could take hits in any FF game quite well.
Introduction of Death Knights didn't kill the paladin in WoW and it will not kill the paladin here. At launch of the expansion there will be an explosion of Dark Knights, but after a time the number will even out again. People will tank what fits their tastes in the end.
Seems to me that SE just needs to implement some kinda of system that allows jobs to do different roles; so a Dark Knight could be a dps or Tank. Seems like a win win to me.
I'm ok with a DRK tank. DRK does make more historical sense as a DPS, but there's only so many available jobs that are both popular and could fit the mold as a tank (wearing heavy armor), so I always though this was a possibility. I'm actually happier that it is a tank, because I imagine that I'll have more opportunity to play DRK consistently due to the higher demand for tanks in the game.
The one thing I'm sort of confused about is DRK as an parry/evasion tank. If there was one tank class that would scream, "GO AHEAD AND HIT ME IN THE FACE, I'LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR IT", it would be the self sacrificing DRK. Parry I get, but DRK as a nimble evasion tank seems ... odd.