What DRK misses as a Tank

Another DRK post i know but,

I feel that DRK really could use a silence ability. I see a lot of threads on how DRK could be improved and should be improved and i agree with some and disagree with some. DRK shouldnt be a magic PLD or a magic WAR. DRK should be DRK.

A silencer would fit the job perfectly imo.

share your thoughts on what you think DRK misses.

OT Reprisal proc. Otherwise I think it's fine.

Interesting gameplay.

People who whine about how it's broken and bad and should be fixed constantly.

Yeah but we have Plunge which makes us the gnarliest tanks of all.

I think people playing DRK on their keyboard are the ones complaining. On a controller playing this job is the most exciting hand coordination in my life right now. Just the best.

Dark Knight doesn't really need a silence. We already have six sources of silence, so having a full party with no way to silence at all is very unlikely, if not outright contrary to common metagame beliefs. Such a party would be consisting of: A Dark Knight, a Warrior, a White Mage, an Astrologian, a Dragoon, a Black Mage, a Summoner, and another Dragoon, Summoner, or Black Mage. So not only would such a team be losing out on the regenerative buffs brought by running a Machinist or Bard, they would also be losing out on their limit break generation, which can make or break some fights.

Moving on, I, as a raiding Dark Knight who is currently working on A7S, have never really seen any holes in my skill set. I see more design flaws than anything. I have in the past spoken of how I believe that Dark Knight is a very awkward Job not only to play, but to understand from a design perspective. Such as the smaller details, like being split between unaspected magical damage and physical damage, but also oddities such as Dark Arts' effect on Dark Dance. As far as their toolkit, Dark Knights only lack one crucial elemental to how a tank functions in Heavensward, an on-demand physical mitigation tool that they can use for every tank buster. There have already been fights this expansion where Dark Knight does not have enough cooldowns to last through the full duration of the fight without dipping into Living Dead, relying on chance, or just attempting to take it in full. Meanwhile, Warriors and Paladins have Inner Beast or Shelltron for almost every single tank buster that comes that comes their way.

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Originally Posted by Grogs

I think people playing DRK on their keyboard are the ones complaining. On a controller playing this job is the most exciting hand coordination in my life right now. Just the best.

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I play on keyboard, and while I won't tell you to go look through my post history, I've never really complained about Dark Knight needing more abilities or anything, I just want Dark Knight to be more unified from a design perspective. Such as the idea that Delirium should boost our damage in some way to incentivize using it over a Dark Arts-enhanced Souleater. In the past, I suggested changing Dragon Kick so it applies two debuffs (the intelligence reduction and the blunt resistance reduction) and making Dark Knights deal purely magical damage while also gaining the ability to boost magical damage vulnerability through Delirium at the same time. We already have a single tank who has little incentive to use their defensive combo, do we really need a third?

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Originally Posted by Confidence_Trick

Yeah but we have Plunge which makes us the gnarliest tanks of all.

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Plunge is awesome. I agree. But I don't think it is what makes us a strong tank, just one of the benefits of bringing a Dark Knight, we're the most mobile tank between Plunge and not being punished as much for using Sprint if we need to.

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

OT Reprisal proc. Otherwise I think it's fine.

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I agree, but I don't think making Reprisal able to be triggered while not tanking is the answer. Dark Knight just needs more rewards for choosing to not tank. Additionally, Shield Swipe should also possess the damage reduction that Reprisal and Storm's Path do, to give emphasis to Paladin's and Dark Knight's more defensive nature.

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

Dark Knights only lack one crucial elemental to how a tank functions in Heavensward, an on-demand physical mitigation tool that they can use for every tank buster. There have already been fights this expansion where Dark Knight does not have enough cooldowns to last through the full duration of the fight without dipping into Living Dead, relying on chance, or just attempting to take it in full. Meanwhile, Warriors and Paladins have Inner Beast or Shelltron for almost every single tank buster that comes that comes their way.

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Does Paladin have an on demand magical mitigation tool? If not then maybe they designed Dark knight this way on purpose just for the sake of making it a magical alternate to Paladins shelltron ( even though sheltron is ready in half the time, it runs the risk of being eaten by auto attacks so I guess that's some balance.)

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Originally Posted by Ragology

Does Paladin have an on demand magical mitigation tool? If not then maybe they designed Dark knight this way on purpose just for the sake of making it a magical alternate to Paladins shelltron ( even though sheltron is ready in half the time, it runs the risk of being eaten by auto attacks so I guess that's some balance.)

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It's like the tanks are designed so they all have pros/cons....

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Originally Posted by Violette

It's like the tanks are designed so they all have pros/cons....

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What? This game has PVP, we can't have that!

Gouge out every unique aspect until all the classes have nothing different and interesting to them! PVP demands it!

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

What? This game has PVP, we can't have that!

Gouge out every unique aspect until all the classes have nothing different and interesting to them! PVP demands it!

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GIVE US SOULCLEAVE

Access to silence and stuns is fairly important, even setting the obvious issue of PvP balance aside. PLD was essentially mandatory on certain fights in ARR because of its ability to provide both a silence and an on-demand stun. The most obvious solution to this is to avoid designing wipe mechanics which mandate chainstunning an add or silencing a particular attack. While this mechanic type has thankfully become fairly rare, it occasionally rears its ugly head (this raid tier included). If you're pugging a6s and you don't know/trust the brd/mch, you're probably going to swap out to PLD. Wiping to spaghetti and waiting on cooldowns to reset because someone was too focused on their dps isn't a good time.

in all seriousness ive made suggestions to adjust this, the issues now at hand being not to reward ot drk with reprisal at will, grant a silence like paladins. ell,. 'same old Sam' believes DRK is perfect where it stands(WHERE? ITS IN TH MIDDLE BECAUSE ITS DMG AS MT?) face it soul eater in grit acts like storms path without the mitigation of better than reprisal, make it heal out of grit add reprisal while in grit,as an additional effect sheesh.

still not enough balance to me, but fine enough to work imo without having to tear its walls down and rebuild it. when war/war becomes less desirable than pld/pld or drk/drk or pld/drk (besides the limitbreak crap) then ill worry about simple buffs to either, untill then, yeah you know

I've tanked in a lot of MMO's and I feel that Drk and the tanks in general in this game are missing some basic tools that other tanks receive in other MMO's that, while not necessarily a hindrance with them missing, are nice to have.

1. A taunt.

I don't mean Provoke in this case, what tanks in other MMO's have is a baseline taunt that functions in a similar manner to Provoke with one additional effect. In addition to putting you at the top of the threat list, it forces the enemy to fixate on you (and only you) for a few seconds. To prevent abuse of that WoW added a diminishing return to it but something like that is especially useful for tank swaps or when you need an add to fixate on you immediately.

2. An AOE taunt.

Same as above but with an AoE effect centered on the tank or a targeted enemy (depending on the game/class).

3. An interrupt.

This is not a stun. This is a move that is also very common in other games for tanks and dps. Essentially, it's a move that's usually on an 8-10 second cooldown that stops the enemy from casting a single move and prevents them from using it again for 2-4 seconds with no diminishing returns. Cycling interrupts to lockdown an enemy or prevent a particularly strong move or spell is a mechanic in a lot of these fights or just cycling them correctly on a dangerous enemy makes the healer's job a lot easier. Obviously not every enemy or ability can be interrupted, but I think if implemented properly it could make players have to pay a bit more attention.

4. A gap closer.

Plunge is the best example of this and while I don't feel every tank needs a jump attack, having a gap closer is nice. Paladin could charge an enemy while warrior could say get a short speed boost when they use Tomahawk or just have it be an active ability like a Sprint.

While I do believe that homogenization is a legitimate concern and I definitely don't want every tank to feel the same, giving every tank those basic tools wouldn't make them all the same. Just to use another example, SWTOR has three tank classes, all of them have all of the basic tools listed above but each one plays completely different and their cooldowns are different also preventing them feeling the same while still making sure those basic useful tools I listed above are present.

Some utility as the OT currently Drk has barely any (Reprisal, Delirium) I would want them to have a magic vulen/magic dmg taken increased to bring them in line with War who has Storms Eye/Path and Paladin that has Rage of Halone.

This way Drk brings something more to the table even anything like a Blood link where they link themselves to party members and when they get hit % dmg is transferred to the Drk, or increased magic defense buff that's party wide, a silence would be something as well in PvP or PvE as they don't have a silence either.