Dark Knight

[Danbo05]

Meanwhile Yoshi-P and the rest of the dev team is sitting back, reading this thread all like:

[Ecks007]

No it's not, had to burst your bubble there.

Flash spam and riot blade combo, can hold any number of mobs in low level dungeons easily.

Thing is, you don't flash spam. That wastes MP like nobodies business at the early levels. One flash is enough for initial aggro retention then you Riot Blade combo bouncing it back and forth so that you maintain equal aggro on all mobs, you can flash again after a bit to solidify your aoe aggro but really once is enough if you know how to juggle your hate building sword combo. Any flash used after is in case of emergencies. Or if more mobs end up getting pulled that you intended.

Also, I've been in low level roulette many a time where the tanks just didn't understand how their skills worked. Gladiator doesn't play like most primary tanks in other MMOs do. (ie you can continually use your single target and aoe aggro taunts to keep aggro on you and that's really all you have to do in most other games) You can't just flash spam, not a with a good party. It doesn't grab as much aggro and if you are just using it and not doing your combos properly aggro is going to just get ripped right off of you by the dps or healer pretty quickly. And again, you'll run out of MP really fast.

I've seen many a bad beginning tank, thinking they need to spam flash, then they run out of mp and the healer rips hate off them because they are just healing like normal and they have no more mp for flash. Flash spam is just bad in general at the lower levels. I can't comment yet on how it works at the higher levels and endgame, but I'll find out easily enough after 2.4 (gonna level up my tanks more and take advantage of the mass ninja ques).

I did experience some good tanks as well, but I'd say the bad ones or mediocre ones outwieghed the good when I leveled up my Summoner, Black Mage, White Mage, Monk and Dragoon. I primarily did dungeons so I kind of know what I'm talking about, at least from my experience. I also have a real good friend who I leveled up my first job with (Summoner) who mains Paladin and I took mental notes on the things he was doing, plus he would explain stuff as we did dungeons together. I learned a lot about Gld/Pld tanking by watching him. He's definitely one of the best tanks I know.

So, when I started leveling up Gladiator and Marauder to the point where I could run dungeons on them players in my party that had obviously been with bad tanks before would be amazed that I'd keep aggro on 3-4/5 mobs at the same time without aggro coming off and another player being attacked (this was also with trigger happy archers). I'm not trying to toot my own horn, it's just this is what happened. It's what I've experienced. But I can't lie, it is a pretty nice feeling when you're congratulated for tanking well. There are many people that don't know how to play Gladiator and Marauder and tank well at the early levels. Hell there are people that are level 50 with i90+ gear and still can't tank worth a darn.

[abzoluut]

I honestly dont mind DRK being a tank, but my main interest was in Samurai. If that class isn't a tank im going to find the tallest jumpable bridge in eorzea and just let it go... I love being a tank, due to it being much more challenging than a dps role in my own opinion and playstyle, and samurai was what I wanted to main as - if it ever comes out

There is still hope if they want SAM for 3.0's release. We'll have 4 tanks, 3 healers and 6 dps (7 dps if they add another one which I think they will do since adding only DRK and one healer isn't enough for an expansion). Also, if they would SAM as a dps, we would have 4 melee. That seems highly unlikely to happen.

The 4th tank could be the SAM. It would bring balance since a lot of people want to play DRK and SAM. Gone would be the days of waiting for tanks. I have to admit I am worried now that DRK will be a tank. I have been waiting for SAM since release.

[whoopeeragon]

I have been waiting for SAM since release.

So has the Musketeer crowd.

So has the Red Mage crowd.

So has the Dancer crowd.

So has the Blue Mage crowd.

So has the Ranger crowd.

So did the Ninja crowd.

Lesson learnt? Be patient. They'll come with time.

[WellGramarye]

;D

[dragonfire8974]

Meanwhile Yoshi-P and the rest of the dev team is sitting back, reading this thread all like:

And the 15 other threads just like it

[Zantitrach]

Thing is, you don't flash spam.

....
You can't just flash spam, not a with a good party. It doesn't grab as much aggro and if you are just using it and not doing your combos properly aggro is going to just get ripped right off of you by the dps or healer pretty quickly. And again, you'll run out of MP really fast.

I've seen many a bad beginning tank, thinking they need to spam flash, then they run out of mp and the healer rips hate off them because they are just healing like normal and they have no more mp for flash. Flash spam is just bad in general at the lower levels.

I'ma stop you right there, spamming flash is indeed OP at lower levels. Up until... 40-ish you can just spam flash and then spend all your GCD combo'n Riot Blade to get your MP back just fine. The only thing this doesn't really apply to is bosses.

[WellGramarye]

I'ma stop you right there, spamming flash is indeed OP at lower levels. Up until... Forever you can just spam flash and then spend all your GCD combo'n Riot Blade to get your MP back just fine. The only thing this doesn't really apply to is bosses.

Fixed that for you. Unless your group massively out gears you, and I mean full I40 ahead of you, flash is still pretty king.

[Zantitrach]

Fixed that for you. Unless your group massively out gears you, and I mean full I40 ahead of you, flash is still pretty king.

Yeah, but I ran into that a lot when I was leveling PLD after 40. Lol

[madolyn]

so is the general idea that a lot of people who wanted to play DRK are now not going to play DRK because they don't want to tank?

i wish i could swap between dps classes in my raid but im just stuck tanking and don't even care about DRK lol.