Dark Knight, A Class I love!

Hey all, On the day I was at Fanfest and they announced DRK for the 1st time I was hyped! Now after a few months of playing it on HW and making it my new main and slowly mastering the class I would like to say I love it! The Combat style of low blowing your enemies! The Plunge to your next target the Soul Survivor and how your hand clutches to say your soul is mine!!! Just everything about the class is brilliant! Happy I made the choice to go from PLD to DRK! Just thought I mention how awesome DRK and see who else thinks the same?

Even though warrior is the best and most op tank/class in the game, Dark Knight is my favourite tank too as it has nice mitigation against all types of attacks, awesome self heals, and plenty of damage output.

Totally agree! sept about WAR beining the best, the Batman took that when it flew into town. :p

I still prefer my PLD. I hate that I took NIN up to Lv60 first, because now, PLD leveling has been extra slow as I get easily distracted by wanting to do Alexander Normal, Expert Roulette, etc. PLD is Lv56, by the way.

Too bad we can't play the game as Batman as that would be sweet (tanking a boss as Batman).

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Originally Posted by Sir-Meliodas

Too bad we can't play the game as Batman as that would be sweet (tanking a boss as Batman).

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Yeah but then Batman would just 1 shot everything, maybe more a camo appearance, next Raid after Void Ark is Arkum Asylum.

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Originally Posted by Martin_Arcainess

Yeah but then Batman would just 1 shot everything, maybe more a camo appearance, next Raid after Void Ark is Arkum Asylum.

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And the end would be Arkham Knight.

Nah. I'm still a Paladin and intend to stay that way if I possibly can.

As a new job I think its totally fair to have a thread devoted to gushing about it, especially now that (hopefully) the playerbase is more knowledgeable about how it plays and performs. I firmly believe Squenix did a really good job here.

I changed mains too, from DRG, after spending pretty much the entirety of 2.5 wanting to tank and tanking on the side with both PLD and WAR but being locked into DPS by my static at the time.

So then DRK came and once I had it at 60 I was in love:

1. Playing the job is a sound/lightshow. The particle effects on our abilities are stunning and fun to watch, and the sound effects of Spin Slash, Scourge, Abyssal Drain, and Blood Weapon never get old. And it all contributes to DRK feeling menacing and powerful and well, DRK. Watching the dark flames coat your blade during combos and the nasty-looking afterimages of your blade hanging in the air after carving up some poor unfortunate striking dummy is more than enough motivation to practice my rotation every time I log in.
2. Its complete mental masturbation to play. You're in a constant state of losing your most precious resource while at the same time doing all the things that a tank must do (hold hate, mitigate, and dps) and the Dark Arts mechanic is just phenomenal. I love that it is readily available seconds later but you actually have to think about what you can get away with doing and be strategic.
3. Piggybacking off the above, its never boring, especially while MTing. MTing on DRK means the boss controls the pace of your rotation in many ways, with the procs and Blood Price returns, which is actually incredibly refreshing and rewards you for knowing the fight.
4. The proc mechanics I just mentioned are actually beautifully designed. The idea of getting a DPS benefit from parrying is incredibly satisfying, and once you get over having to use Dark Dance to manipulate those procs its incredibly fun. The constant sparta kicking of the boss you're tanking and the just plain badass "K-SHING!!...SHWING!" of Reprisal are absolutely the SHIT.
5. These procs further add to the fast paced and active feel of the job which, I don't care what anyone says, is almost totally absent from the other two tanks. This is probably the main contributing factor to my distaste for the general feeling of playing WAR, as powerful as that job is, having only one oGCD (the generic stun every melee and their dog has) leaves me starved for buttons to mash.
6. This fast paced feel again comes from all the oGCDs, all of which have 1-min recasts or shorter, down to 20 seconds or even a split second if you're getting some good procs. The weaving is exciting and of course contributes a crapton of DPS.
7. Blood Weapon is insanely fun to use especially if you're stance dancing while MTing. There's nothing like popping it and Blood Price back to back and spamming DA Souleater and Carve and Spit.
8. Carve and Spit's animation is sick.
9. Regardless of what is said about the viability of the tanks in content and who is the best tank and blah blah blah, DRK imo is hands down the most fun to play.
10. By far the tank built for speed running dungeons.
11. Having abilities that appeared at first to conflict, only to make sense later (DA DD and DA DP after BP falls off... duh) is rewarding.
12. I've gotten to A3S on this job, I can safely say that the job rewards you greatly for playing it right. Crazy satisfying.
13. The fact that it only has one CD with a recast of more than 90s makes mitigation fast paced as well and allows for creative and adaptable ways to stack them and your cross-class abilities.
14. The initial pull makes you feel like a badass. DA-Salted Earth-Unmend-Plunge-Carve is insanely satisfying, and favors an established pulling ritual that your party can easily fall in line with. Casters can start their casts as they see you DA and maximize burst, healers can even put AoE HoTs up on pull and burst DPS for a whilebecause you generate so much friggin hate.
15. Big Sword.
16. Dealing highest MT DPS somehow feels more satisfying, at least to me, than (like WAR) dealing highest OT DPS.
17. Speaking of which, the OT rotation is brilliantly designed so that you can keep all your DoTs/debuffs up and rotate between Delirium and DA SE (DAing every one) even with the attack speed variations of Blood Weapon.
18. Not a single move in their toolkit is useless. From Sole Survivor to Reprisal to Hard Slash, there's been a use for everything in all content, from unlocking the job and running Haukke NM all the way to A3S where I am now.
19. The Dark Arts mechanic offers you multiple ways to use several abilities. Having options contributes to success and things not being boring.
20. A gap closer on a tank is awesome. Another thing that made the transition from DRG to DRK feel natural for me personally.
21. Salted Earth as a placed AoE on a tank is more useful than you'd think initially, especially in progression when your DPS need to go ham asap to meet checks, you put it down where you know stuff is about to spawn to act as enmity insurance before even your first GCD. Its also nice to contribute DPS over time to targets you're not tanking.
22. Grit DA SE is crazy strong. Being able to out-heal Eos is pretty OP. I can soloheal myself on dungeon bosses.
23. Getting a crit with an Adlo with all your CDs up and taking zero damage from a 25K TB is pretty fun when it happens.
24. The cross class abilities from the other tanks actually synergize really well with the job's native CDs.
25. Abyssal Drain is genius. Being able to pull groups at a distance with a targeted ranged AoE makes speed runs so much easier.
26. Did I mention this job is built for speed runs? I'd go so far as to say it straight-up is THE speed-run tank.
27. Resource management is fun and varied. Having to do it as a tank means no fight, at least in the MT slot, unfolds in the same way twice. DA being tied to your mitigation and your DPS means your rotation is effected by your mitigation and vice versa. You have to think intelligently, know the fight, and think several GCDs ahead. Its like playing chess and is so fun and rewarding when you learn the fight properly and just absolutely make the boss and the encounter your bitch, even in the face of constantly depleting MP and constant weaving of abilities in between your combos and the tough decisions you have to learn to make on the fly.

Regardless of what people have said in other threads, in game, and elsewhere, DRK, in a vacuum and outside of the influences of content and how it plays in it, (the DPS heavy meta will always stroke WARs no matter how competitive our DPS can be under the right circumstances, at least as an MT), feels like the most brilliantly and creatively designed tank right now. I'll totally admit my bias but I had played both tanks at 50 pre-HW and was bored by them after awhile, although they'll both be 60 soon as well. It absolutely feels like the best designed new job.

Play it. Its fun. But play it right. Too many people play this job sooo poorly.

Love it too. I was a WAR main before 3.0 and played a lot of PLD and MNK too. I've always been a dedicated tank in MMOs with melee DPS as a secondary class. I always loved aggessive tanking and fast-paced gameplay. I had my aggressive tanking with WAR but WAR feels pretty slow-paced. I had my fast-paced gameplay with MNK as a DPS. But when DRK came out, I decided in HW to level it first because I loved the look of it so much (and I always wanted to play a greatsword job) that I wanted it to be my main and I hoped it would be fun to play and viable in end-game raiding. I was not disappointed at all, it brings me both the aggressive tanking style AND the fast-paced gameplay with all the oGCDs to weave and Blood Weapon. I'm having a real blast as a DRK and I look good while doing it. I really love this job. I still love WAR and MNK which I have at 60 too. I still am a Viking badass Warrior in my heart, but I enjoy being a DRK so much. My static tank mate who was PLD before even switched to WAR for that (and he's having a blast Fell Cleaving things too).

Thank you SE for this great job. It basically brings me the tank I always wanted in terms of gameplay and look.

Edit : Is it possible to edit the title ? It should be job instead of class.

Not going to lie, I am really starting to miss WAR as it was my main all of 2.X, but DRK is very satisfying. Plunge is a great skill that was needed on a tank, the proc's feel awesome, and since I'm not a raider anymore being able to turn into a dodge masta as a tank feels great too. Really curious to see if they change anything up in 3.1 though.

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Originally Posted by Sir-Meliodas

And the end would be Arkham Knight.

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Nah! "Final Fantasy Arkham: A Knight Reborn"

I really liked the quests, I think they hooked me I just had to level it to 60 over my dragoon at that point to see what would happen

i think it needs a bigger damage buff for pvp and in the open world.

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Originally Posted by azlewood

i think it needs a bigger damage buff for pvp and in the open world.

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lol na the damage DRK can emit is fine if played right, heck I even out DPS a ninja in my static and he's a great NIN.

DRK can easily out DPS some DPS class if he's got all STR gear on.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

15. Big Sword.

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I can't agree with this.
15?! Seriously?! Thats the frigging 1st!!