Dark knight abilities. Uncreative.

No, I don't think Dark Knight needs any major buffs really. I do think it's sort of a victim of poor design. So much wasted potential. Look at a good chunk of the abilities.

Salted Earth - Nothing, just damage. Use when up.

Dark Passenger - Aside from large trash pulls, just damage. Use when up.

Plunge - Pointless gap closer, but most of the time just damage. Use when up.

Carve and Spit - Minimal MP recover, or... Damage. Use when up.

Shadow wall/Shadowskin- Straight up damage taken down, no gimmicks or other uses.

Unleash/abyssal Drain - These 2 skills more or less serve the same purpose, except unleash costs less and abyss drain can be dark arts'ed. Why not just give the drain effect to unleash?

Living dead - They tried. But it sucks.

Seems like they wasted so much potential when creating this job. IMO it should have been more life steal based or had more gimmicks involving dark arts. It's like the 3.0 version of 2.0 PLD. You sit there and spam your soul eater/delirium combo and use oGCDs when ready. I don't see how they can make a kit like warrior's, that flows so good together, and is so much fun to use, then turn around and make a spam-fest tank job like this. Sure, it gets the job done... But it lacks any real identity(no, dark mind doesn't count).

Dark Mind is just a mini CD.

DRK is a reskinned slightly-more-fun PLD which is why I'm getting bored of it. But without a complete redesign, I do not see that anything can be done about it.

A complete redesign would be nice, but you know they wont do that.

I mean hell, they apparently need Savage mode results just to verify what glaring problems they DO have, when those problems have been a thing since the day the first person hit 60.

I felt that DRK was just a hodge podge of WAR and PLD (more so PLD) all stapled together under the premise of more off GCD abilities. I wanted to like it, but it just felt so bloated and ill planned imo. Playing a DRK feels so clunky and all over the place, so I ended up sticking to WAR.

If they make a 4th tank some day, I hope they go in some wild direction, because if they stick with the status quo, I feel they'll just end up with an even less inspired tank next time.

The only people I see/hear that are having issues with DRK are the ones that aren't tanking material to begin with.
I'm not here to point out all the good things a DRK brings to the table, because frankly I don't think those bashing DRK would either care nor understand what I would say.
I AM here to make the point that 2.0 war had some issues back when ARR released. These issues were truly game breaking and made the class nigh unplayable. DRK is in a similar boat, but no where near as bad. We could use a slight buffer here and there, sure, but most jobs can right now tbh.
I see plenty of DRKs clearing Savage Alexander and I hear very very few of them complain about DRK being underwhelming, not viable in end game raids, or even that DRK needs major buffs. The fact is, they practiced and mastered DRK.
My advice to you would be to stop using jobs you simply don't like, and go play a job that you do like.
(Also, rose-tinted glasses were off at the time of this posting).

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Originally Posted by Kiri_Tqnikaze

The only people I see/hear that are having issues with DRK are the ones that aren't tanking material to begin with.

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My number one issue with DRK right now is that it feels like 2.0 WAR when it tries to OT. They did the exact same thing they did for DRK that they had to fix for Warrior in 3.0, and that was give them a tank stance, but no DPS stance. Darkside is basically the DRK equivalent of Maim, in that it is a DPS increasing buff, not an actual stance. In addition, a DRK gets no damage increasing CDs, either. There is no Fight or Flight, or Berserk-like skill, meaning that a DRK puts out pretty much what a DRK is going to put out all the time. There is no burst phase for a DRK. Only Blood Weapon comes close with the MP regen effect, and the 10% attack speed, which goes into the next problem. TP issues. They fixed OT WAR's TP issues, by giving them Deliverance and Equilibrium. PLD, while suffering from TP issues as well, at least gains party utility in the form of Clemency and Stoneskin. A DRK gets none of those. The only way for a DRK to conserve TP is to use MP abilities, which further compound the issue of needing to use even more TP to regen said wasted MP, while also lowering their DPS.

That is the problem with DRK. As an MT, they're alright. They could use some help with TP, since even a PLD MT gains Shield Swipe for some TP recovery over a long fight. But as an OT, they are TP starved, and clunky. There is no burst for phases you really need to push, only a sustained, albeit fairly high, DPS. And unlike WAR, who can use their Defensive CDs as Offensive CDs to gain Wrath, a DRK doesn't get access to those, either. You can't use Blood Price as an OT, since you aren't getting hit anyway, so that's a wasted CD, and all your other defensive CDs are just that. Defensive. So they are of no use to a DRK trying to DPS. There is no real reward for playing well as an OT DRK. Because your rotation is literally spamming your Delirium combo when you don't have enough MP to Dark Arts Souleater, and using whatever OGDs happen to be up. There is no buff/debuff/Wrath management like a WAR, and even a PLD can help out the raid with their toolkit. They can drop a RoH to lower enemy strength. They can directly heal a dying party member, or shield them from a hit with Stoneskin, or coordinate a Divine Veil with the healers. They can cover an MT to take a stack, or help one who got in a little over his head. A DRK can do none of that. They sit there, and 123 123 123, unless they have an OGCD, or enough MP to 12(DA)4.

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Originally Posted by Isala

My number one issue with DRK right now is that it feels like 2.0 WAR when it tries to OT. They did the exact same thing they did for DRK that they had to fix for Warrior in 3.0, and that was give them a tank stance, but no DPS stance. Darkside is basically the DRK equivalent of Maim, in that it is a DPS increasing buff, not an actual stance. In addition, a DRK gets no damage increasing CDs, either. There is no Fight or Flight, or Berserk-like skill, meaning that a DRK puts out pretty much what a DRK is going to put out all the time. There is no burst phase for a DRK. Only Blood Weapon comes close with the MP regen effect, and the 10% attack speed, which goes into the next problem. TP issues. They fixed OT WAR's TP issues, by giving them Deliverance and Equilibrium. PLD, while suffering from TP issues as well, at least gains party utility in the form of Clemency and Stoneskin. A DRK gets none of those. The only way for a DRK to conserve TP is to use MP abilities, which further compound the issue of needing to use even more TP to regen said wasted MP, while also lowering their DPS.

That is the problem with DRK. As an MT, they're alright. They could use some help with TP, since even a PLD MT gains Shield Swipe for some TP recovery over a long fight. But as an OT, they are TP starved, and clunky. There is no burst for phases you really need to push, only a sustained, albeit fairly high, DPS. And unlike WAR, who can use their Defensive CDs as Offensive CDs to gain Wrath, a DRK doesn't get access to those, either. You can't use Blood Price as an OT, since you aren't getting hit anyway, so that's a wasted CD, and all your other defensive CDs are just that. Defensive. So they are of no use to a DRK trying to DPS. There is no real reward for playing well as an OT DRK. Because your rotation is literally spamming your Delirium combo when you don't have enough MP to Dark Arts Souleater, and using whatever OGDs happen to be up. There is no buff/debuff/Wrath management like a WAR, and even a PLD can help out the raid with their toolkit. They can drop a RoH to lower enemy strength. They can directly heal a dying party member, or shield them from a hit with Stoneskin, or coordinate a Divine Veil with the healers. They can cover an MT to take a stack, or help one who got in a little over his head. A DRK can do none of that. They sit there, and 123 123 123, unless they have an OGCD, or enough MP to 12(DA)4.

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Aren't their various OGCD abilities essentially their "burst phase"?

Ill just throw this out there, I was playing PLD in Savage A3, and switched to DRK. My dps has gone up, group dps has gone up (bringing NIN instead of MNK) and healers have said its easier to heal me through the difficult parts on DRK, due to their abundance of cooldowns. If there were anything I'd like changed about DRK is some sort of means of restoring TP, but nearly all suggestions I've ever read for DRK changes are far too extreme, I believe.

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Originally Posted by Felorr

Ill just throw this out there, I was playing PLD in Savage A3, and switched to DRK. My dps has gone up, group dps has gone up (bringing NIN instead of MNK) and healers have said its easier to heal me through the difficult parts on DRK, due to their abundance of cooldowns. If there were anything I'd like changed about DRK is some sort of means of restoring TP, but nearly all suggestions I've ever read for DRK changes are far too extreme, I believe.

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It was not the point of the OP. He was just pointing out the fact that DRK has a lot of uncreative abilities and took the example of many abilities that only serve to deal damage with no cool side-effects unlike almost every offensive abilities other tanks have. I think he's right on this, tho DRK is still really fun to play and performs its role pretty well.
Just need some really slight tweaks and a mean to restore TP and the job will be perfect.

I wish they'd just give Dark Arts effects to more skills, and vary up the effects. Require some more thought to where you are using your DA.

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Originally Posted by Kiri_Tqnikaze

I AM here to make the point that 2.0 war had some issues back when ARR released. These issues were truly game breaking and made the class nigh unplayable. DRK is in a similar boat, but no where near as bad. We could use a slight buffer here and there, sure, but most jobs can right now tbh.

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Man, people's memories of 2.0 WAR seem to get worse and worse every day. Soon people will remember them as being unable to do 4mans and even leveling to 50 required a fulltime healer for regular mobs.