Is it me, or is DRK really isn't that super great, nor super bad.

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Originally Posted by Cyrus-Wallace

Alright, I've been tanking Neverreap and Fractal. ilvl 160. I felt like DRK is too squishy. Apparently, for "big" pulls, Paladin still is the #1. I mean, I gathered the first 5 monsters in Neverreap and I ate damage like a champ...

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At the same time, you will be slow like a champ too :p

I'd say big pull, a seasoned WAR is still the king. 2 days ago I did a couple of "speed runs" with a very good WAR that I know of - easily pulls 2 packs every time (which means up to 8 mobs), tanks and deal dmg to them like a boss and I think we completed the Fractal dungeon in about 23mins.

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Originally Posted by ShaolinMike

DRK, even with its perceived initial shortcomings, is the only tank class that makes me want to tank permanently (I've done 100+ clears on both WAR and PLD.) I'm only at level 50 with it, but I can already tell that a lot of people aren't playing it the way that (I think) it's designed to be played.

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Here we go. The "WAR is supposed to use Dex!" cult has risen yet again to try and defend DRK.

Hello, i165 Drk here.
I've played war for 2 years prior to this.
Well from what I seemed, DRK is clearly bested by WAR on every aspects.
I can rush every dungeons without being threatened at all for dying or aggro wise, even with good dps with me. But so do the other tanks and with more ease.
I see the drk as a niche tank because of its good potential against magical damage (we'll see with Alex).
I suppose i'll start leveling war now, just in case drk will be too much neglected for raid content ( with good reasons, or just because of bad reputation)

Pardon me if it's been opted already in the thread, I was too lazy to read through 17 pages of replies. However, from my experience so far, you switch Darkside off when regenerating MP, stance-dancing if you will. MP regen abilities from others, if present, kick in again, your own MP isn't constantly drained and you'll be up at max in no time again, especially when getting hit during Blood Price. It's worked very well for me so far and I can't wait to see how much Carve and Spit will help even further. :)

I've gotten a few more dungeon runs in, won't get any of the new ones till this weekend (work and other things eat too much time) but there is definitely one thing DRk has going for it over WAR and PLD.

When everything lines up right, the ***** does not stop attacking, ever. I hit a streak of luck and damn near had Low Blow reset every other GCD, allowing me an awesome feeling of being a relentless MF'er. It makes me wonder if that's going to be our true strength later on, once the rate of parry gets much higher and some minor tweaking is done.

Another thing I've trained myself to completely stop is using Dark Dance and Blood price together. Near the end of Blood Price I'll pop a DA+DD so that I can get one extra hit in to mitigate the MP lost, and this has proven to work far better. Granted these are considered lower level dungeons now, but that evade is highly noticeable in large pulls.

I've also stopped seeing Reprisal as utility and more as a defensive CD. With that in mind I've rushed every trial roulette (yes lower level, I'll get caught up when time allows) as MT and treat it as such. If I can't use foresight or Shadow Skin, pop reprisal; god knows it's constantly popping up.

One last thing that I can't wait to test out is Sole Survivor. Its a ranged execute on a 2 minute timer that is actually reliable. I haven't raided past T5, but as a Tank with enough awareness that's free MP and HP on snakes, on dreadnaughts and on the dragons at the start.

If any utility needs to be changed its Delirium, not reprisal (beyond it lasting a bit longer so it can be timed better). The int down is nice and all, but chances are MNK's will still find a way into raids. DK buff's both the MNK's damage and Ifrit's damage, Delirium doesn't really contribute much at all. It either needs to be DK, or something completely different.

But maybe my determination to find the shine to this class has made me jaded to its flaws =\

I'm loving the way DRK plays right now but changes do need to be made. Some of which in my opinion could be fixed with Dark Arts like for reprisal can be switched on when Dark arts is Up and Grit is off and add an effect to delrilium blade to change it from INT to a STR down ( though not as strong as PLDs one). My 2 cents anyway.

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Originally Posted by dank1

You cant evade raid bosses attacks aka coil
DA does have a 5 sec cd, but MP is not an infinite supply, especially if you wanna talk high dps while tanking, your mp for DA would go to Soul Eater

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Yes you can. If you can't, then feel free to find another explanation for the couple of times, for instance, I've dodged a Flatten.

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Originally Posted by Avalon_Albrook

Yes you can. If you can't, then feel free to find another explanation for the couple of times, for instance, I've dodged a Flatten.

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Uhh, no. Flatten is absolutely not dodgable. Evasion doesn't work at all on Coil bosses. This is why no one takes featherfoot on WAR.

Basically, give Delirium the slashing debuff from Warrior/Ninja, or perhaps a magic damage debuff, anything to make it worth using next to a Monk, and to give us a role as offtank, instead of competition for the awesome PLD tank.

And Reprise needs to have a way of near-permanent uptime.

These changes would go a long way to make us more feasible as both MT and OT. As it is, we really suck in conjunction with a PLD.

I actually don't mind the way things are being done -- It's better to release a new class to be middle of the road and buff as needed, instead of making it the new hotness and nerfing to bring it back in line with the other classes.

Warrior pulls more damage, warrior gots more health, I hope it doesn't stay like this with DRK being overlooked over a warrior doing this xpac.

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Originally Posted by Niyuka

Basically, give Delirium the slashing debuff from Warrior/Ninja, or perhaps a magic damage debuff, anything to make it worth using next to a Monk, and to give us a role as offtank, instead of competition for the awesome PLD tank.

And Reprise needs to have a way of near-permanent uptime.

These changes would go a long way to make us more feasible as both MT and OT. As it is, we really suck in conjunction with a PLD.

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But...why?

Why should PLD have no competition though?

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Originally Posted by Rhaja

If any utility needs to be changed its Delirium, not reprisal (beyond it lasting a bit longer so it can be timed better). The int down is nice and all, but chances are MNK's will still find a way into raids. DK buff's both the MNK's damage and Ifrit's damage, Delirium doesn't really contribute much at all. It either needs to be DK, or something completely different.

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Int down was certainly a lifesaver in Coils earlier in, but I agree, maybe it should keep the int-down as is but also have a second effect that doesn't get overwritten by dragon kick? Slashing could be good, just don't have the healing reduction of Storms Eye. So it gets overwritten by the Ninja or Warrior's debuff.
That way you'll cover one debuff hole if you don't have a war/nin or monk.

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But maybe my determination to find the shine to this class has made me jaded to its flaws =\

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I think people are in a mood to greatly exaggerate how much everything sucks right not? DRK as a main-tank, at worst, just a tiny bit off in terms of defensive CDs than the others (or really quite better, if you're getting hit by magic...so you mileage may vary here). But as an off-tank, it lacks a bit of party utility, since reprisal is a parry proc it doesn't really have anything but delerium and that's going to be overwritten often.

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Originally Posted by Avalon_Albrook

Yes you can. If you can't, then feel free to find another explanation for the couple of times, for instance, I've dodged a Flatten.

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I've never seen a dodge, as tank, against a coil boss and I've taken featherfoot a few times to try. Seen plenty of 0-damage hits from blocks + good mitigation and stuff, but never a dodge. I'd believe you that it could happen but it must be an exceptionally small chance.

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Originally Posted by Syfer22

I actually don't mind the way things are being done -- It's better to release a new class to be middle of the road and buff as needed, instead of making it the new hotness and nerfing to bring it back in line with the other classes.

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Its not middle of the road though. Its in the gutter.

DRK is a mish mash of RNG, button bloat, and lessons never learned from 2.0 WAR.

Just random thoughts and what not's to pass the time (at work), but what if Delirium was changed to -%10 magic damage instead of int? The difference being that it could stack with MNK's DK. It would also still fit the theme we're seeing of specializing against magic damage.

But I'm not a number cruncher, wouldn't know if that'd be better or worse than just INT down.

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Originally Posted by Avalon_Albrook

Yes you can. If you can't, then feel free to find another explanation for the couple of times, for instance, I've dodged a Flatten.

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Blatant lie detected.

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Originally Posted by Rhaja

Just random thoughts and what not's to pass the time (at work), but what if Delirium was changed to -%10 magic damage instead of int? The difference being that it could stack with MNK's DK.

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The really, really big issue here is that you would just stack those two... And trivialize some mechanics once again. Devs are trying to make their content last by having hard hitting tank busters, aoe abilities, and dps checks, and thus forcing people to gear up. If they allow for too many buffs to stack, then a lot of mechanics that are supposed to be challenging / require better gear / etc can just be made trivial.

As for squishy DRK, I haven't done any old lvl50 content and thought DRK was worse off then PLD/WAR. Although did have a dungeon boss situation where Healer died. Was able to finish off the boss before wipe, but required using Living Dead and died right after the buff wore off (just after the boss). If I was a WAR/PLD i wouldn't have died.. so idk LD meh(?)

Can't say for sure about new lvl60 content until I've lvl'd PLD and WAR as well. Need to test them personally. Right now everyone is projecting subjective bias. Need to have all at 60, personally experience each one at 60 in the same context, then know. Right now it's all 'my color RED is better than your BLUE'

If DRK OT dps turns out to be lowest as some are suspecting, a small change I imagine that isn't too breaking would be

adding a +percent to damage dealt whilst under Dark Arts. This effect doesn't stack with the Dark Arts consuming WS/CD (so Dark Arts > Souleater wouldn't feel the boost), but every WS/CD used before consuming the Dark Arts would. This would require player finesse to see a dps increase, and require forward-thinking with regard to DA activation within rotation.

ie: ( Syphon > Dark Art's > Souleater ) would be wasting the damage boost, where as ( Dark Art's > Syphon > Souleater ) would offer a damage increase to Syphon. This way Dark Arts is applying a damage increase to all WSs, not just the few WSs designed to consume it.

A change to Delirium would be to add a Darkness Vulnerability Up debuff. This would make Delirium worth maintaining for DRK's personal DPS. Just some thoughts atm

The issue with DRK OT isnt its dps its that it cant apply meaningful debuffs that help the raid. War can add -10% damage and paladin can add -10% strength which are far--far more useful than -10% int (that the monk is keeping up anyways if you have one).

As an MT...eh....

Darks have tons of powers that replace other powers. Got Abyssal Drain? By by unleash (less it procs for free). Dark Passenger is a waste of mana that you only use if you are dripping in mana. Otherwise, it actually plays similar to old paladin in that you are mostly tied into the same combo of soul eater spam once you have aggro--meh? Lots of clunkyness to be frank, and while it looks GREAT and has some nifty things, in the end I don't know what the purpose of it is. It doesnt have great burst self healing, or good defensives---where it does excel is aoe damage and aggro, but that is something that applies to dungeons and not raids.

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Originally Posted by Casper

The really, really big issue here is that you would just stack those two... And trivialize some mechanics once again. Devs are trying to make their content last by having hard hitting tank busters, aoe abilities, and dps checks, and thus forcing people to gear up. If they allow for too many buffs to stack, then a lot of mechanics that are supposed to be challenging / require better gear / etc can just be made trivial.

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So, its an MMORPG?

hmmm maybe Delirium should give slashing down too and treat it as the higher debuff (as in neither storm's eye nor dancing edge can overwrite it). on top of that change dragon kick to apply 2 debuffs (like Miasma): 1 for blunt down and 1 for int down. while int down can't overwrite delirium.

this would boost it's synergy with the other tanks a bit, especially pld. and i can guaranty to have the int down up when i need it and not rely on a mnk, that has a tight timing and might screw up somewhere in it's rotation, or simply die. (atm as a drk you have to wait for dragon kick to fall off, before you can refresh delirium...)

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Originally Posted by Lorielle

Coming from Paladin, you're going to feel that way because PLD in general is built to tougher. That transition to DRK softness is better from WAR. Though I can't really vouch how WAR feels when it comes to DRK's defense.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

At the same time, you will be slow like a champ too :p

I'd say big pull, a seasoned WAR is still the king. 2 days ago I did a couple of "speed runs" with a very good WAR that I know of - easily pulls 2 packs every time (which means up to 8 mobs), tanks and deal dmg to them like a boss and I think we completed the Fractal dungeon in about 23mins.

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Sup, guys!

It was matter of getting used to it. As you point out, paladin is a solid and straight forward tank. It has a nice skillset plus a nice balance between passive and active defensive moves. DRK plays completely different. Even different than WAR on my experience. Big pulls became a cake by rotating the base CD like a paladin (Shadowskin), plus the efficiency of a Dark Arts + Dark Dance is super amazing, in combination with inflicting blind status (Dark Arts + Passager). You don't run out of MP as long as you know when to activate Blood Price. Dark Dance has a super low CD, so even pull I've got these two up. If the DPS is low, that's when I use Shadow Wall, Foresight and Convalescence. Just to make some time until the first 2 mentioned CD are ready to use again.

Being able to recover Low Blow upon parrying, is a plus, as I can either stun lock the potential monster that deal the most damage or I can separately stun them to reduce the damage received.

All that while having Salted Earth and using a couple of Unleashes.

The class is super fun to play in dungeons. However, I need to test it in raid content now.

Its a great class for dungeons (many targets hitting you, dodgeable attacks, many targets to use abyssal drain off of).

Its a terrible class for raids (worst skill suite for tank busters, provides no meaningful debuffs on an OT, has no raid utility, no ability to burst heal itself like paladin and war can).

Can we stop about the healing capability on tanks? Paladin had no way back then to heal himself (I don't consider a 120hp cure to be a "heal") and he was doing just fine. The delirium effect alone is worth of having a DRK in your party just because not every group automaticly have a monk. Except the groups that are aiming for the early encounters are obliged to have a monk because of dps checks, and it was only the case in final coil. Who knows how it's gonna be in alexander? Seeing the new monks skill i'm very doubtful about stationary fights where monk shines.

Also, DK debuff is sometimes tricky to pull because of your rotation and you cant just stop and keep it because you'll loose stacks. The monk debuff is extremely important when it came down to surviving in final coil, it had to be on someone else. War is increasing nin DPS thus giving you paths to optimize your group. Do not judge the class before seeing it in action. I would personally liked to see an OT debuff with dark arts

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Originally Posted by Croisciento

Can we stop about the healing capability on tanks? Paladin had no way back then to heal himself (I don't consider a 120hp cure to be a "heal") and he was doing just fine. The delirium effect alone is worth of having a DRK in your party just because not every group automaticly have a monk. Except the groups that are aiming for the early encounters are obliged to have a monk because of dps checks, and it was only the case in final coil. Who knows how it's gonna be in alexander? Seeing the new monks skill i'm very doubtful about stationary fights where monk shines.

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Unless the tooltip is bugged, the dragon kick is still superior since it also lessens blunt resistance.

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Originally Posted by Tila

Unless the tooltip is bugged, the dragon kick is still superior since it also lessens blunt resistance.

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Which only benefit the monk if i recall correctly (MCH??)

MCH is piercing

Dragon kicks blunt resistance is only relevant to monks, if there are no monks in the party it again doesnt matter.
So Delirium works just fine in the context that a Monk doesn't exist.
If a monk is present then -int is already covered and so yeah Drk loses value there.
Given that Pld, War, Ninja and Drk are all slashing though if you have a Ninja in the party already and want reduced Int, you may just decide to have the Drk instead of the monk if they didn't have other balance concerns.

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Originally Posted by Croisciento

Can we stop about the healing capability on tanks?

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Paladins and Warriors got very good healing cooldowns, before that the best was thrill of battle for 25% of the warriors hp. At the moment the 1200 potency healing seems to be for about the same amount with just the base gear at i170 and it scales 'well' with weapon damage and strength. Its very relevant to top yourself off before and after a tank buster.

As to delirium... RoH works against MUCH more damage sources and storms eye works against ALL of the. Tank busters are almost always physical, and neither the rage or storms is replicated by another class. You can replace a dark with a monk if you needed magic power down. As to monks not being good...-hahahaha-...this thread is hilarious..

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Originally Posted by Faytte

As to monks not being good...-hahahaha-...this thread is hilarious..

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Someone said this? I get that we're trying to defend Dark Knight and all, but please people...No one really is trying to give DRK a hard time. It's constructive criticism. I love the job myself, but I'm not going to ignore the faults it has.

If Dark Knight gets changed (improved) I plan to level it, maybe make it my main (i love the aesthetic) but claiming its competitive with warrior and paladin is either self delusion or ignorance.

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Originally Posted by Faytte

If Dark Knight gets changed (improved) I plan to level it, maybe make it my main (i love the aesthetic) but claiming its competitive with warrior and paladin is either self delusion or ignorance.

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if you have access to PLD, WAR, MNK in your setup (and ppl who aim for progression at lower gear levels) then go for it. it's probably the best combo for this job. while your are at it also take a BRD, DRG, SMN, SCH and WHM/AST (whichever is superior) and be happy about your perfect group.

DRK is not perfect atm, but it'll get the job done. and any group without a mnk can be happy to have one, when it has to deal with huge magic damage.

I'm doing Ravana EX no problem with DRK atm. It took me a while to get used to it but it has a nice DPS sustain and the mitigation comes when you need it. You can even solo some tank busters no problem.

Well I'm not 60 yet but here is some things I find need some love. I'm sure with a few tweaks to these abilities we'll be in a much better place then our sour middle of the road feel atm.

Dark Arts: Cost is too high for it's overall use. Honestly I would love to see this turn into a trance type buff. Last X amount of time for a given buff depending on stance.

Darkside: I have no real issue with this at all as it is. But for sake of balance I think our Grit / Darkside should work like how warrior's two stances work.

Grit: Like Darkside I really don't have a issue with what it brings, OTHER then it's retarded high cost in mana / GCD tax. Take off GCD and allow Blood Weapon to be used while active. Also Dark Arts should give more Def like bonus to abilities while this is up.

Delirium: Needs only a small adjustment really, Take the Int debuff off for something more useful. Also (If Dark Arts isn't a trance state or something) I think that Dark Arts should give this ability something depending on stance. Darkside = Dot or something Grit = Shield or Dmg reduction.

Those are few of our bigger issues. Now most of our Def CD's have a ok place but they need some love, main case is Dark Dance (while having a high upkeep % it just really blows overall).

I think we can all agree that Drk will be getting buffs, so these are just my suggestions that I think will improve our class some. But honestly I think the three skills that will get reworked the most are probably Delirium / Dark Arts / Dark Dance.

Also another major issue that needs to be address is our TP shortage on longer fights. Warriors got niffy lil buff for TP issues, in which I think all 3 tanks should have a similar type buff imo.

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Originally Posted by Kalma51

Also another major issue that needs to be address is our TP shortage on longer fights. Warriors got niffy lil buff for TP issues, in which I think all 3 tanks should have a similar type buff imo.

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Get a ninja. Seriously, Ninja/DRK combo is probably about the best you can do, as it shores up the major weaknesses of the DRK.

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Originally Posted by Kalma51

*snip*

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On Dark Arts, the problem is it's actually really potent as it exists now. It's just incredibly underwhelming. It's not like a Warrior where you go "RAWRGLBLARGHL INNER BEAST SMAAAASH!" Instead, it's just a very strong potency buff to a number of abilities that actually brings DRK damage to comparatively high levels. For instance, it flat out makes Souleater superior to Inner Beast in healing potency despite IB's avoidance of Defiance' damage tax. It also (for DPS) gives the DRK a rather comparable amount of potency to a WAR throwing out fell cleaves. It's really strong, it's just also really underwhelming and feels like a bad mechanic because of it. As such, I agree it should be changed, but this isn't the way I'd change it.

Darkside: It's not a stance. This is basically DRK's version of Maim, and should be treated as such. The only change I'd make is really just remove mana degeneration and regeneration while it's on. Though, I personally would prefer seeing Darkside turned into a mana dump ability that procs dark arts on everything without needing to use Dark Arts, with DA being salvaged into another ability. That is, mark managing darkside an actual DRK mechanic.

Grit: I don't think any tank stance should be on GCD or cost resources. Seriously, why does the warrior get a free pass? Make them all free so that it doesn't feel so awful switching between them. It's not like 1 GCD is that huge a balancing problem.

Delirium: Should be able to override Monk's dragon kick, but without overriding the blunt resistance debuff part of it. I agree that it should have a Dark Arts effect, as right now, if you have a ton of mana to dump, you basically have no time to use delirium, and it would add nice options to the class.

Dark Mind and Dark Dance need a rework to not need Dark Arts to actually do anything. Seriously, it feels awful having to burn DA for those, and I'd rather see Darkside reworked so that it's not used for static oGCD cooldowns. Active abilities like a self-shield for Delirium? That sounds great, actually! But otherwise, no.

Blood Price and Blood Weapon should also probably be rolled into the same ability. For a gritless DRK, it functions as Blood Weapon does now. For a Grit Stance DRK, it should give a static amount of MP over time based on how many enemies are nearby to make it more consistent and not make me hate WHMs for doing their job well and casting holy. The consistency is the bigger thing, since right now Blood Price is just horrible for tanking bosses that either swap target a lot or attack very slowly.

Presuming DA is gotten rid of along with either BP or BW, the class needs more active cooldowns. It just really needs more buttons to push for E.G. physical damage, because right now the DRK is a bad paladin pretending to be a warrior, and failing at it.

The problem with Darkside and Dark Arts is that they basically fill the same roll, with no real reasoning outside of needing to fill in more skill slots. Additionally, the game never really gives you a reason to actually manage Darkside. It's something that should absolutely always be on, even if it means doing nothing but spamming syphon strike combos.

I've posted on potential solution in another thread, but I figure it's worth mentioning here (and probably every other of the hundreds of thousands of DRK suggestion threads)

With the way DRK is right now, it really feels like an unfocused mess. Darkside and Dark Arts feel like two wasted skill slots to do the job of one (it's not like you'd ever actually turn off Darkside anyway, and Dark Arts requires the use of Darkside in the first place... they're so much overlap here that it's ridiculous), and a lot of our abilities don't really work particularly well together, and I spend most fights that aren't trash mobs just spamming Souleater to keep my MP at a barely functional level. What I'd like to see is a more focused skillset that still emphasizes resource management and variety in tools, but with more consistent access to those tools.

Grit: Remove from GCD, lower/remove MP cost.

Darkside: Increase MP cost substantially (double? more? Either way, it should be at a level which is absolutely not maintainable, to encourage active "stance" management), increase damage boost to ~30%. While in this stance, various moves have bonuses or alternative functionalities applied. Change aura to either a glowing red eyes effect (see Fray during the level 50 DRK quest), or the one from the Job Skills preview trailer. Additionally, buffs activated while in Darkside that have altered properties retain those altered properties even after Darkside is deactivated.
•Souleater (Current Dark Arts Effect)
•Power Slash (Current Dark Arts Effect)
•Dark Passenger (Current Dark Arts Effect)
•Abyssal Drain (Current Dark Arts Effect)
•Carve and Spit (Current Dark Arts Effect)
•Delirium (Applies a 10% magic defense debuff)
•Shadow Wall (Heal for 75 potency whenever struck with an attack (scale from strength?))
•Dark Dance (Damage reduction from parrying is doubled)
•Dark Mind (Current Dark Arts Effect)

Dark Arts: Turn into a cooldown that, for the duration, should your MP not be sufficient to cast a skill or maintain Darkside, causes the cost to be taken from your HP instead. (Allows for some over-extending when optimal, rewards skillful play while punishing recklessness, removes redundancy with Darkside, fits well thematically).

Blood Weapon: Increase cooldown to 60 seconds, allow for use in Grit. Alternatively, simply allow for use in grit, while only applying the attack speed bonus while outside of it.

Reprisal: Reduce damage to 160, remove requirement for parry, repurpose "Low Blows" trait to affect Reprisal instead of Low Blows,.

Low Blow: Repurpose "Low Blows" trait to affect Reprisal instead of Low Blows.

Shadow Wall: Reduce cooldown to 120 seconds, increase duration to 15 seconds.

Dark Dance: Remove Darkside Requirement. Increase to 50% parry rate.

Dark Mind: Remove Darkside Requirement.

The people who keep suggesting that Dark Knight abilities should in some way drain from their HP pool for some effect really don't realize how bad of an idea that would be for a tank in FF14.

Really, even in the hands of a skilled player, this would NOT be worth it. In fact it would make the people having to deal with that crap hate Dark Knights and not want them in their party most likely, especially considering a lot of people will not use such an ability well or at the right time.