DRK being compared to past FF games.

[Laerune]

I agree that the weapon should not dictate what role the class will have, but what I am wondering is, will they change the playstyle of the Dark knight? In almost all the FF games we see that Dark Knight has a mechanic where they become stronger, when they have less HP, how is this going to work with tanking?

Lets hope SE will share more 3.0 info during the Japanese Fan Festa.

[Risvertasashi]

[...]will they change the playstyle of the Dark knight? In almost all the FF games we see that Dark Knight has a mechanic where they become stronger, when they have less HP, how is this going to work with tanking?

As a healer, all I can say is thank the #$%^ing twelve. DRGs are enough trouble and they have high HP for DPS.

[Akira_Tenshi]

I think it is a fair complaint. If they made black mage a healer people would have something to say about it. FF is all about tradition and familiarity and its not unreasonable to be upset by a job completely changing role. I do understand why it has been done however. It's a shame jobs cant have multiple roles as DRK would fit DPS and tank well.

[silentwindfr]

exept DRK in the previous FF (don't count the 11) wasn't tagged Tank or DPS, by the way Drk was rarely the best class for get a huge dps output...

[MomomiMomi]

A job that has always sacrificed its HP to cause massive damage does not make sense as a tank. That is the traditional role of the Dark Knight, and in an MMO, that is clearly a dps.

To say that there were not healers, tanks, and damage dealers in non-MMOs is wrong. Take the Knight job from FFV, for instance. Its job command is Guard, allowing it to prevent incoming physical damage, and its passive ability is Cover, to protect its allies. This is a tank. Yes, it can do fairly large amounts of damage, but thematically, the job is a tank.

You can also see the difference in Cecil in FF4. As a Dark Knight, he sacrifices HP to unleash a devastating attack. This is the Dark Knight's only defining trait. Its role is to deal damage. After his change to a Paladin, he gains Cover. This allows him to use his own body to take attacks in place of another party member. This is a tank.

I'm sure I don't need to explain that there were jobs that were obviously healers.

Also, there is no reason to use traditional FF jobs if you're not going to keep them in their traditional roles. If people were asking "Give us White Mage!" then it's clear what they're asking for. Hint: They weren't asking for a tank job.

[Brianmj]

Similar to this, I don't understand why people are upset that machinist/gunner/musketeer/whatever they choose to call it might be a healer.

I mean, c'mon. Are people really going to say any class they think is cool can only ever be a DPS? Tanks and healers can't have nice things? x.x

I don't think its about tanks or healing not able to have nice things. I think it's the way Yoshida and team are handling the jobs - it's like they're taking the communities aggregate expectation about what a class/job should be, and saying "nope". Look at all the topics on SMN being a dot class, or THF can't be in the game due to lore reason, and now DRK. There bound to be some disappointment, but in the end, it's Square's Final Fantasy, not ours.

[Tupsi]

Similar to this, I don't understand why people are upset that machinist/gunner/musketeer/whatever they choose to call it might be a healer.

Answer this:

How much healing does Captian Madison do to you when he's shooting your face off?
Or the Captain in Pharos Sirius?
Or the Goblin Marksmen/Snipers?
How much healing did Merly do to the Sahgain she shot in the head?

It's not that people are "upset" it's just...why? xD

[Ghishlain]

But DRK was a DPS back in XI.[/U]
This is XIV, Not XI.

Apocalypse Dark Knights from XI would like to have a word with you =p Arguably the BEST tank in game at the 75-era, dealing high amounts of damage while staying alive without a problem. Admittedly, at it's prime there was probably only 50-100 Dark Knights across all severs that could boast that~

With that being said and on the topic of discussion, Dark Knight as a tank doesn't bug me in the slightest. Cecil as a Dark Kngiht from FFIV fame was fairly beefy and few things could break that meatshield, though he would be the most tank like Dark Knights in Final Fantasy Lore.

Things I'd like to see to differentiate Dark Knights from PLD and WAR tanks by providing an endrain style effect on their attacks (as many have stated before), allowing them to absorb a partial amount of damage they do back. This would help normalize their HP pools and differentiate them from mitigation PLD or raw HP / HPS WARs. Additionally, Bravely Default Dark Knights had an ability called "Adversity", which increased their physical attack and defense and magical attack and defense by10% each time you accumulate a combined 25% total damage of your maximum HP. This limit caps at 150% total bonus, or five stacks of the buff if you wanted to translate such a buff into XIV terms. You can modify this to provide an enmity bonus, defense, and magical defense buff for the Dark Knight and even add a cooldown that gives you maximum stacks of the buff at like everyone 30 seconds like WAR's Infuriate. Might not be the best idea, but I could see something like this being potent and I'm just throwing out a few ideas from past games that can be inputted as "tanking methodology" for Dark Knights (which I will admit have been predominately portrayed in the XIV franchise as damage dealing juggernauts).

[Ultimatecalibur]

A job that has always sacrificed its HP to cause massive damage does not make sense as a tank. That is the traditional role of the Dark Knight, and in an MMO, that is clearly a dps.

It's signature ability does sacrifice hp to deal extra damage, but that doesn't mean its role in the party was primarily damage.

Final Fantasy traditionally has 4 roles:

Heavy Frontliners - High Hp, Heavy Armor, medium/high repeatable damage
Light Frontliners - Medium Hp, Light Armor, high repeatable damage, often with utility abilities or limited medium multitarget damage
Casters - Low Hp, Robes, Primary source of resource consumptive high multitarget damage
Healers - Medium/Low Hp, Robes, Primary source of healing and holy damage

Heavy Frontliners primary duty was to sit in the front and take hits while also doing much of the damage in random encounters.

Dark Knights have always been Heavy Frontliners with what could be considered a trash cleaning multitarget attack to speed up random encounters. Darkness/Souleater is never used safely in boss fights.

To say that there were not healers, tanks, and damage dealers in non-MMOs is wrong. Take the Knight job from FFV, for instance. Its job command is Guard, allowing it to prevent incoming physical damage, and its passive ability is Cover, to protect its allies. This is a tank. Yes, it can do fairly large amounts of damage, but thematically, the job is a tank.

Knight, Mystic Knight, Dragoon and Samurai are all Heavy Frontliners in FFV. Knight is the first one unlocked.

You can also see the difference in Cecil in FF4. As a Dark Knight, he sacrifices HP to unleash a devastating attack. This is the Dark Knight's only defining trait. Its role is to deal damage. After his change to a Paladin, he gains Cover. This allows him to use his own body to take attacks in place of another party member. This is a tank.

Cover made Cecil a better tank but the enemy AI would naturally attack the 2 or 3 characters in the front row the most often. This led to Cecil (both as Dark Knight and as Paladin) + Kain/Yang/Cid defaulting to tanks in FF4.

[Tupsi]

It's signature ability does sacrifice hp to deal extra damage, but that doesn't mean its role in the party was primarily damage.

Let's be honest - Every time you used a Dark Knight in FF games you didn't invite it for healing or to "tank". Any Dark Knight in any other Square based games like BD you didn't invite for Tanking either - you did so because the grand majority of the time (almost all the time) you did for the damage it could output.

Just like you didn't use White Mages because they were stronger nukers than Black Mages and vice versa you didn't invite Black Mages for their healing capabilities. Think back on the tactics game as those are the closest to "formations" you use in MMOs, they're almost always in the 'DPS' role.

Maybe it's a western thing, but I don't really recall the concept of "killing yourself to do more damage" = being a Tank that's meant to keep the party alive lol. I don't play many western rpgs, so I might be missing something actually.