DRK's Niche as a tank?

So if Paladin has the best mitigation and possibly utility and Warrior has the best damage,
what does DRK do best? or is it halfway between the 2?

I want to know since I'm leveling DRK bit by bit.

MDEF technically and self-healing but not enough to make it worth it over the other two atm. We got the most style though and we got enough edge for people to just die by accidentally bumping into one of us.

Oh... also we got good AoE threat generation, I guess.

Also being called a mallgoth by your healer:

https://imgur.com/wHCkAcG

Even if I feel the three tanks are not equivalent, the DRK is the one who has the perfect spell for Tank Buster, it's called TBN.
And since he can put this TBN on him, or on any player in the party, it makes it better than the WAR to protect the team, even if the WAR can make more dmgs.
However, it's really the only thing I see that worth taking a DRK instead of a WAR...
Btw, I've found on Reddit a month ago a table of all tanks enmity's capacity and how many they each give in enmity, and that was the DRK who has the worst enmity, in all points.
If someone has it...

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Originally Posted by Azerhan

Btw, I've found on Reddit a month ago a table of all tanks enmity's capacity and how many they each give in enmity, and that was the DRK who has the worst enmity, in all points.
If someone has it...

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https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/enmity

but don't forget that we can use dark arts on the enmity combo, especially with the huge amount of mana we have now since 4.0, wich makes the enmity combo better and that we can better spam our aoe's than everyone else.

Magic Defense isnt really above the rest.
Where DRK has magic defense, the other tanks have magic defense as well now. Mainly just that its 30% if used with DA.

TBN is just another varriation of Inner Beast. (and what would have been sheltron if it wasnt semi nerfed, despite its magic defense buff)

WARs not only higher DPS, but the better tank to just holmgang through many mechanics.
and PLDs cover is great for helping with various mechanics as the OT.

The only thing that makes DRK stand out, is TBN.
Its not as much of a DPS loss as inner beast is. (as its barely a DPS loss, and shouldnt even really be thought as such)
But its not as good as cover.
If it lasted longer, had less mp cost, and gave allies the 20% hp, while only needing 10% removed to gain the blood, then it would be a real contender for Cover, despite cover being used for completely different reasons.

But if you dont want to double stack PLDs, and you want to stack cover and TBN, you can.
DRK is also the easiest to DPS on, as mistakes can happen easily, but they hardly put a dent into your DPS if you dont perform perfectly.

I think in time, TBN will become the DRKs main stand out feature.
In the mean time, DRK will just be a sort of middle ground.

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Originally Posted by Tint

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/enmity

but don't forget that we can use dark arts on the enmity combo, especially with the huge amount of mana we have now since 4.0, wich makes the enmity combo better and that we can better spam our aoe's than everyone else.

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If you're CnS is off CD, then that DA will give you more enmity if spent on CnS, and help you do more dps.
And for the sake of valuing DPS vs enmity, and the need to drop DPS rotations for enmity rotations, ur still going to get more bang for ur buck not DA+power slash.

Currently, there's no good reason to take DRK over PLD/WAR.
At the same time, there's no big downside for taking a DRK in the group either. They marginally have lower DPS but are still 100% effective in raid. They're just not better than PLD nor WAR.

1 thing to note is that DRK was widely used by the top progression teams to clear o4s. WAR does overtake DRK for 'MT slot' in dps at the highest play. I would assume that DRK should be used again for progressions but will later be switched to WAR for speedkilling.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

1 thing to note is that DRK was widely used by the top progression teams to clear o4s. WAR does overtake DRK for 'MT slot' in dps at the highest play. I would assume that DRK should be used again for progressions but will later be switched to WAR for speedkilling.

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5 in the top 10 groups for Neo use a DRK, all use a PLD. And 10 in the top 20.

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Originally Posted by Pence

5 in the top 10 groups for Neo use a DRK, all use a PLD. And 10 in the top 20.

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So everyone used PLD and half use WAR and the other half PLD

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Even if I feel the three tanks are not equivalent, the DRK is the one who has the perfect spell for Tank Buster, it's called TBN.
And since he can put this TBN on him, or on any player in the party, it makes it better than the WAR to protect the team, even if the WAR can make more dmgs.

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Intervention/Sheltron are the same thing, arguably better. Sheltron is approx ~24% damage down on PLD (compare to TBN's -20% on DRK), and Intervention is -10~40% on a party member (compare to TBN's 10%).

Play what you want. It literally won't matter outside World First progression

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

So if Paladin has the best mitigation and possibly utility and Warrior has the best damage,
what does DRK do best? or is it halfway between the 2?

I want to know since I'm leveling DRK bit by bit.

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Unless you and your group are shooting for world first clears of cutting edge content, or are shooting for top clear times in speed runs, none of the things you mention matter at all. A lot of people get hung up trying to quantify and rank the tanks. Just play what you like. If you're going to play it hardcore, you'll be playing all three anyway.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Intervention/Sheltron are the same thing, arguably better. Sheltron is approx ~24% damage down on PLD (compare to TBN's -20% on DRK), and Intervention is -10~40% on a party member (compare to TBN's 10%).

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Sheltron is completely busted by multi hit bursts, and TBN is not 20% damage less. It's 20% of your max HP less.

That means, it will be stronger than Sheltron (at 24% as you stated) as long as the damage are lower than 80% of your max HP, where it can account from 25% to 100% of the burst taken. Sheltron will only be stronger on TB eating 80 to 100% of your HP bar unmitigated.

TBN is mostly stronger than Sheltron, that's the cost of TBN that is higher than Sheltron which is on a separate gauge dedicated to reducing damage taken (by yourself or another).

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

TBN is mostly stronger than Sheltron, that's the cost of TBN that is higher than Sheltron which is on a separate gauge dedicated to reducing damage taken (by yourself or another).

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Actually, wouldn't it just matter what the incoming damage is? Like, at 20% max HP (around 11k?), the damage would only need to be upwards of 50k or so for Sheltron to overtake TBN in damage reduction. Plus there is the scaling issue, say the incoming damage is 100k, sheltron catches 24k damage while TBN is still only catching 11k since it's based off max HP. Obviously if the damage is lower that favors TBN, but at this point most busters are already over 50k. I do like that TBN reimburses gauge instead of costing gauge, and it has a higher uptime (though that doesn't matter if only using for TBs), it's pretty hard to say it's stronger than (or even equal to) sheltron or intervention with regard to busters. But hey, still better than what War has.. Lol

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

1 thing to note is that DRK was widely used by the top progression teams to clear o4s. WAR does overtake DRK for 'MT slot' in dps at the highest play. I would assume that DRK should be used again for progressions but will later be switched to WAR for speedkilling.

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It doesn't help that War was broken at SB release. It was fixed by the time savage came out, but the damage was already done. Either way, early prog focuses more on utility so War probably wouldn't have been the defacto 2nd tank anyways.

It doesn't really have one, magic protection could be argued but that's not really so much the case anymore when Paladins can now block magic at any time by chance or guarantee the block. Meanwhile Dark Knight would have to dark arts it if they want the full version of it, which feels a bit more clunky and inconvenient after you played a Paladin who can protect against it so much more easily

DRK's Niche is that they're fun to play around when you juggle MP, TP and Blood gauge to keep the wheel turning. It's fun. Imho that's the only niche that should matter. Unless you're racing for world first of course.

To elaborate, The Blackest Night is one of the most fun active mitigation tools we have currently. Yes it can cause a DPS loss, but proper usage rewards with blood gauge and even more proper usage can be a DPS gain. Even if it did hurt your personal DPS, it might save your healer healing GCDs for DPS. Either way who cares? You block big hit, in return you can make big hit back at bad guy!

~ Phoenicia ~

DRK's niche is aggressive mediocrity.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Actually, wouldn't it just matter what the incoming damage is? Like, at 20% max HP (around 11k?), the damage would only need to be upwards of 50k or so for Sheltron to overtake TBN in damage reduction. Plus there is the scaling issue, say the incoming damage is 100k, sheltron catches 24k damage while TBN is still only catching 11k since it's based off max HP. Obviously if the damage is lower that favors TBN, but at this point most busters are already over 50k. I do like that TBN reimburses gauge instead of costing gauge, and it has a higher uptime (though that doesn't matter if only using for TBs), it's pretty hard to say it's stronger than (or even equal to) sheltron or intervention with regard to busters. But hey, still better than what War has.. Lol

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It's not a scaling issue, if you're taking 100K as a buster, you're dead even with Sheltron because you don't have enough HP to survive this. If you can survive 100k buster with sheltron on, it means you have at least 76khp (later during expansion) and then your TBN will be 15k, but that would be having the strict minimal HP for that exact buster. If you use two cooldowns (rampart with sheltron and rampart with TBN), the 100k hit will be reduced to 60.8k damage for a PLD, and 65k for a DRK. The issue beeing : What is the damage of the buster, what are your current max HP, and every how many seconds will you need damage reduction ? Sheltron require a mere 22s of sword oath to be avaliable, If encounters are designed around 30s or 1min between TB, that means the main scaling issue is : they aren't designed around having a short on demand cooldown, which is the point of TBN, and thus it's flawed like Rage of Halone was flawed for HW raid content.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

If you can survive 100k buster with sheltron on, it means you have at least 76khp (laterIf you use two cooldowns (rampart with sheltron and rampart with TBN), the 100k hit will be reduced to 60.8k damage for a PLD, and 65k for a DRK. ... Sheltron require a mere 22s of sword oath to be avaliable, If encounters are designed around 30s or 1min between TB, that means the main scaling issue is : they aren't designed around having a short on demand cooldown, which is the point of TBN, and thus it's flawed like Rage of Halone was flawed for HW raid content.

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Additionally, if we are looking at such extremes as taking a 100k tank buster and not using a tank ultimate then the pld Sheltron + sentinel will live with about 10k hp to spare, while dark knight shadow wall + tbn will die by about 4k, at current hp values. Doing some napkin math I estimate a pld could tank a tankbuster with these two mitigations and survive a tankbuster up to 120k unmitigated, dark could take up to 94k unmitigated. Shadow walls duration simply doesn't make sense with its duration and cooldown. I do realize this is slightly off topic but it's worth noting. The only time I think I would want to be able to do this would be the double attack in v4s if your cotank dies unexpectedly, but outside such extremes this is a very hypothetical conversation.


However, we don't need to go to such extremes for Sheltron to mitigate more than tbn, whenever a buster exceeds 84% of our max HP sheltron will mitigate more than tbn.

On the subject of multihit tankbusters this savage tier, the only one that comes to mind is Thunder in v4s, and that seems to break any TBN on the first hit meaning that sheltron and TBN are functioning relatively the same currently, if we get low power multihit tank busters TBN should be preferred over sheltron. However I think most people just attempt to tank ultimate through this entirely, but I could be wrong.

However, on the topic of closely spaced minibusters pld has a major advantage in v1s and v2s. In both turns we see two mini busters or frontal cleaves followed by a tank buster repeating at around 1 minute intervals. Each minibuster will break tbn, but the next hard hit come 5 to 6 seconds later so tbn is down, and with TBN's duration if we get to the point that it does not break then it will wear off before the next frontal cleave. Sheltron can be reapplied, provided you have nearly 100 gauge to start, and at one minute intervals you can rebuild your gauge enough to be able to repeat this every cycle.

DRK is my favorite tank but Darkside and Dark Arts feel like unnecessary busywork. There's no reason not be be in Darkside and for some reason it doesn't get reapplied if you revive. Dark Arts doesn't make you more careful with your MP because half the skills it modifies are too situational to be spamming and/or a waste of the CD without it.

Ha! Looks like my initial prediction about DRK being the safe off-tank was right alllllll along!

and that's their niche.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Ha! Looks like my initial prediction about DRK being the safe off-tank was right alllllll along!

and that's their niche.

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PLD is the safer OT. (and better all around)
If anything, DRK is just better at being in the middle of the two tanks, while not being enough in the middle to do anything they are used for. (such as holmgang timings, or cover timings.)
WAR and PLD are the better MTs.
But what makes PLD and WAR good, isnt enough to favor them over DRK.

Despite being inferior, DRK is in a good spot, because it was at least balanced enough that the pros of the better tanks arent deal breakers.
The only "Safer" part about DRK is having a slightly easier rotation, but due to cover being better, its even more "safer" than bringing DRK.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Ha! Looks like my initial prediction about DRK being the safe off-tank was right alllllll along!

and that's their niche.

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Nope, that's wrong. Paladin is a better OT too, simply because of the fact that it still has two abilities that can help mitigate for the main tank (or others if they really desire to) and their big passage of arms will be more easily used in the OT position which benefits the entire group. Paladin also has a slightly easier time doing its maximum DPS compared to DRK in the OT position.

Basically you can put Paladin in either position and they'd outclass the Dark Knight as it stands currently.

Then why did DRK make world first? Checkmate, naysayers.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Then why did DRK make world first? Checkmate, naysayers.

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Simple: People did not want PLD/PLD combs because of Limit Break penalty. And because people did not like WAR as it was broken in Stormblood release so they took DRK. Even if you want to say that WAR was fixed, the damage was already done.

Also in most cases, DRK was the MT as it does have better aggro generation at a lower cost to DPS than PLD. But that's redundant since the world first also had a NIN.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Then why did DRK make world first? Checkmate, naysayers.

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Because the world first group brought a DRK. I'm sure that if that same player had gone in with WAR, they would still be world first.

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Originally Posted by Felorr

Because the world first group brought a DRK. I'm sure that if that same player had gone in with WAR, they would still be world first.

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Best logical answer.

But this is the big issue with the DRK: what reason did we have now to take a DRK instead a WAR?
I don't talk about fun or personal preference, but just about strat/meta/math, call it what you wan.
I wonder if SE will do something about it, I don't want to see the same thing that happened to the Monk during HW happening to the DRK in SB...

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Originally Posted by Felorr

Because the world first group brought a DRK. I'm sure that if that same player had gone in with WAR, they would still be world first.

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It has something to do with how WAR is inefficient to bring where you don't know the contents well enough. TBN is a huge part because you can effectively pair it with most CDs and it will still be up for other mechanics, compare it to WAR tanking having to consider "what if I use too much CDs and I potentially won't have enough CDs for next busters etc?". The playing safe method is sound especially because they have no issue with lack of DPS as the general cause of switching roles in that situation.

Edit: and most of the top raiders are versatile enough to bring jobs of the same role in. So it is never a problem if they end up having to switch mid way like what Elysium (PLD or DRK mostly) did for the previous expansion on Gordias and Midas.

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Originally Posted by Azerhan

Best logical answer.

But this is the big issue with the DRK: what reason did we have now to take a DRK instead a WAR?
I don't talk about fun or personal preference, but just about strat/meta/math, call it what you wan.
I wonder if SE will do something about it, I don't want to see the same thing that happened to the Monk during HW happening to the DRK in SB...

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I would say that the balance atm is fine. DRK would need to get another round of buffs to stay somewhat competitive but overall is fine.

I am now slowly going for WAR atm as well, coming from maining DRK for this expac.

Right now, DRK WHM MNK and again Casters are unfit for speedkills at top 10 range but that doesn't mean that they significantly worse. People tend to overexaggerate too much. This stuff only matters if you are doing serious speedkills at 95 percentile and above.

Actually it's funny that full 4 physical DPS is meta again, going round and round.

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Originally Posted by Catsby

DRK is my favorite tank but Darkside and Dark Arts feel like unnecessary busywork. There's no reason not be be in Darkside and for some reason it doesn't get reapplied if you revive. Dark Arts doesn't make you more careful with your MP because half the skills it modifies are too situational to be spamming and/or a waste of the CD without it.

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Agreed there, no skill should exist soley for the sake of extra complexity. Kinda like how Enochian is now pointless on black mage and should be built into astral fire/umbral ice.

Also how does DRK have an easier rotation than PLD? DRK rotation so far seems a lot tougher, given my DRK is only level 42 now and that may change at level 70.

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

how does DRK have an easier rotation than PLD? DRK rotation so far seems a lot tougher, given my DRK is only level 42 now and that may change at level 70.

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It’s the opposite, PLD rotation gets a bit more complicated at lvl 70 (actually before, as soos as you get Holy and requiescat) while DRK is pretty much unchanged.
DRK is spamming the same 1-2-3 combos all day while PLD have to manage 2 combo paths, physical and magical bursts and more oGCD.
However, it is harder to optimise DRK DPS because there’s no complexity in the rotation itself so you optimize by managing your MP/blood to maximize your potency during party buffs (i.e. trick attack, chain strat, balance, etc)

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Originally Posted by Sylvina

Also how does DRK have an easier rotation than PLD? DRK rotation so far seems a lot tougher, given my DRK is only level 42 now and that may change at level 70.

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DRK had its second dps combo finisher taken away, it's literally 1-2-3/1-2-DA-3/1-DA-2-DA-3 that's not very complicated at all. I really wish they'd bring back scourge as a second dps combo finisher to help break up the monotony.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

snip.

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I agree, for myself I just think that bring to the DRK Scourge back or something that give him a little more dps - and why not more variation in his rotation - should be perfect.
I've to say the lost of the DoT and Delirium makes the DRK a little boring.

Not only do decisions made in early prog not reflect what's optimal, they also don't necessarily reflect what's optimal for prog. This is especially true when the devs release major balance changes at the same time as the raid tier. Even if you're equally talented in every tank, gear does not automagically become available the instant you decide to swap. Gear takes time to make and you have to prioritise. Swapping jobs and picking up new gear costs lockouts.

Based on what we know now about the 4.05 patch changes (which pretty much trivialised resource management on WAR), WAR would have been a better choice as a prog tank. Defensive cooldowns have never been a limiting factor on WAR. How do you think people did prog on WAR in earlier content? And without Rampart, no less? If, for some reason, you need to play super defensively, WAR has the ability to be more defensive than any other tank by pairing up the largest set of free cooldowns in the game with on-demand IB (which is actually less of a dps loss this expansion than it ever was in HW). And if a dps check shows up later in the fight, you just phase it out.

The main reason why Scourge was removed was because of changes to DRK's MP balance. In 3.x, it was very easy to float your MP, because there was a natural equilibrium between Syphon Strike and the MP drain from Darkside. In 4.x, you have to constantly spend MP or risk capping your MP and losing dps. While it's harder to bottom out, it's much, much easier to cap. The latter doesn't flag to the player that they're wasting dps the way that losing Darkside used to. So players mistakenly feel that it's easier while simultainously getting punished even harder for bad play than they would have in 3.x.

You need to be able to make a decision whether to burn MP on DA on a GCD by GCD basis. That's why they've moved away from actions that force you into a more structured rotation, like Scourge. You don't have time for it.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

snip.

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I don't really know why they've removed Scourge. I believe they did this because for most of the job (not only tank) having a DoT is kinda useless. As you said, that takes a GCD that can be spend somewhere else.
But in fact, and I realise only now, that was fun sometime to put a DoT, just to change the 1-2-3 rotation with sometime a CDs or an OGCD. And that was cool to put it during Berserk, at the end when you only have 2sec to put it. Or when you where at 1899 pm instead of the 1900 you need to use DA. Or just because the boss will bump you during the next 2 sec and during 10 sec.

But I don't understand why PLD still has two DoT. The OGCD, ok, np it's a very good ability. But the last? And the worst: I'm levelling my PLD now, and I feel really cool to have 3 differents combo, it's less braindead.
So maybe don't put Scourge again - even if all DRK miss the Scourge's animation - put something else, just to not sleeping after 3 minutes of fight.

I know it's not the feeling of everyone, but it's the feeling for some DRK that came from HW, and maybe we can have a compromise between those who like the old DRK and those who like the "new".

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Originally Posted by Azerhan

So maybe don't put Scourge again - even if all DRK miss the Scourge's animation - put something else, just to not sleeping after 3 minutes of fight.

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Scourge with 3.xx Delirium animation and it combos off of Syphon Strike and has DA effect of reducing targets damage Dealt by 10% while still being a DoT baseline?

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

Scourge with 3.xx Delirium animation and it combos off of Syphon Strike and has DA effect of reducing targets damage Dealt by 10% while still being a DoT baseline?

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Lowering dmg dealt by a single target is closer to what WAR needs, not DRK.
DRK needs something to help lower dmg taken by multiple sources. (And maybe something to increase the duration of TBN by an extra 5 seconds, that isnt DA)

(for the sake of balance, id keep it closer to 5% mitigation, rather than 10%, for both tanks, as they have reprisal now)

EDIT: actually, add DA to TBN, and it becomes an AoE. That would be pretty nice. Its even a DPS loss, so it should only be done when its an absolute necessity for the groups survival.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

WAR has the ability to be more defensive than any other tank by pairing up the largest set of free cooldowns in the game with on-demand IB

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I think DRKS need some love, but I think the xtra mitigation from IB argument is a bit overlooked. Wars tank stance, Defiance increases max HP by 25% and healing received by 20%. I'm hard pressed to say this is as good as a straight 20% mitigation, and maybe only when warrior is topped off. IB does allow the warrior that 20% mitigation the other tanks get in tank stance.

So, 20% Healing increase, 20% IB + random cooldown > 20% Mitigation Tank Stance + Random Cooldown.

But I don't think this is where the problem lays (and the difference trivial) as the benefit of IB means being well placed/timed.

The overall problem, imho, is I don't think they know what they want darks to be yet.

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Originally Posted by zarndelius

Defiance increases max HP by 25% and healing received by 20%. I'm hard pressed to say this is as good as a straight 20% mitigation, and maybe only when warrior is topped off. IB does allow the warrior that 20% mitigation the other tanks get in tank stance.

So, 20% Healing increase, 20% IB + random cooldown > 20% Mitigation Tank Stance + Random Cooldown.

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Grit+TBN is nearly equivalent of defiance+InnerBeast, except defiance is a convalescence mixed in as well, at the cost of gauge for fell cleaves.

My raid groups pretty much rely on Holmgang/living dead, as a means to "survive" tank busters.
if you never use CDs, stay in DPS stances, and can only use holmgang (and enough times), you'll get through every encounter just fine.

Surviving the tank buster is all that matters, healing is more than potent enough to keep you up.
Having any more mitigation than that, is just to help learn a fight, and give the healers more room to DPS.
So defiance, thrill of battle, and the Blackest Night, are all good means to survive tank busters.
(I know that you already feel its a trivial difference, but just wanted to clarify this tidbit.)

DRKs WERE in the middle, until this update, which is hard to ballance out. if you DA+TBN, and make it then AoE, would be a step, but the DPS loss is bad.
Then there is the long CDs on mitigation which is an issue as well, so they need soem reductions. if living dead was as short as holmgang, it would be seen as an "almost" equal to holmgang, though worse than holmgang by a tiny amount.
(or up the potency of BS, as its still a DPS loss to use TBN)

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

if living dead was as short as holmgang, it would be seen as an "almost" equal to holmgang, though worse than holmgang by a tiny amount.

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What? So the ability to have a 10 second buffer before the actual invulernability is not as good as holmgang? Or how about 4 seconds longer invulerability than holmgang? How about the ability to move while invulernable?

Dude, for what Living Dead affords a player, it's balanced. Lower the cooldown to holmgang's 3 minutes, and it's DEFINITELY overshadowing holmgang. Where do you get the idea that it'd be worse?