DRK being compared to past FF games.

[Fayto]

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.

Mundo tanks how he pleases.

[ShinigamiZero]

DRK lowered its defense and increased its damage with last resort. Sacrificed its hp for damage with soul eater. There is no tank intended at all.

[Fayto]

DRK lowered its defense and increased its damage with last resort. Sacrificed its hp for damage with soul eater. There is no tank intended at all.

Cecil had high physical defense in FFIV.

[MomomiMomi]

Final Fantasy traditionally has 4 roles:

I wouldn't say four, but while I don't exactly disagree with you, I am not talking about party roles. I'm talking about job design; judging jobs by their abilities. Dark Knight is very clearly designed as a job that sacrifices its life to deal a powerful attack.

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.

Actually all party members had an equal chance to be attacked. The back row merely reduced damage taken. The only function of the rows is to increase damage dealt, and to reduce damage taken. Being in the front row is therefore not a tanking position, but an offensive one.

[Fayto]

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Knight

In Final Fantasy Dimensions, Dark Knight has provoke. Most of the Dark Knights have stats that allow them to tank as well as some abilities. And no, you put the tanky members in the front row to protect the squishier mages, hence tanking.

[HakuroDK]

In an interview, Yoshi said Dark Knight would be reminiscent of FFTactics Dark Knight (i.e. Goffard Gafgarion) and Ogre Battle.

While I don't necessarily like the idea of DRK being a tank, thinking about Gafgarion's fighting style, it would make DRK seem very much like a blatant ripoff of what they were trying to do with WAR, which would include absorbing HP from enemies through skills like Sanguine Sword and Infernal Strike.

[MomomiMomi]

And no, you put the tanky members in the front row to protect the squishier mages, hence tanking.

As I just mentioned, both rows have an equal chance to be hit. You can check it if you want. Start up a new game, put either Cecil or Kain in the front row, the other in the back row. Watch as the front row character does not get hit more often than the back row.

Or you can put them both in the back row and use Jump and Darkness, both of which ignore row, and enjoy taking pathetic amounts of damage. Who's protecting them? Nobody. This is merely the mechanics of the back row in play.

You don't put members in the front row to protect the ones in the back. You put them there because the game only gives you two options: Three in front, two in the back, or two in front, three in back. If you only have three members, you can put all three in the back row and enjoy them being protected by nobody at all.

[Seif]

People don't understand that all the roles are already in the game and they've said many many times that more will not be added now or in the future.

What we will get is FF skins on tank, DD, and healer roles. Inevitably this will cause friction as it makes jobs like THF, PUP, RDM, BLU and so on literally impossible to implement in the way players want them. There is no room for a whole job to do anything else as main in one of the 3 roles.

I hope all those who cry for a RDM think about this.

[Duelle]

FF4 - Cecil is a Dark Knight. Well, until he becomes a Paladin. He's actually one of the stronger physical damage dealers, but he isn't actually any stronger in terms of attack power than the 'Tanky' paladin Cecil aside from his ability to use the Darkness attack - which actually does worse damage than whacking away at single foes in the exact same way Paladin Cecil does.

This is a bit of a stretch, as what creates the distinction between DRK and PLD Cecil is the fact that DRK Cecil has an offensive special command (Darkness), while PLD Cecil has a defensive special command (Cover).

FFT - Gafgarion is the only Dark Knight in the game, and leaves the party rather quickly. The Dark Knight job is actually a narrow mirror of the Holy Knight job Agrias uses; which derives its stats in turn from the tanky non-magical 'Knight' class. Both jobs use special sword techniques that inflict status effects; one of the Dark Knight abilities is notably unique in that it drains HP to keep the Dark Knight alive longer.

The drains were more thematic in purpose, and somewhat OP in the eyes of the original developer team (hence why Gafgarion was the only DRK in the original FFT). They did give him a "pest" factor by the fact that his Dark Sword skills could undo most of the damage your units did on him unless you ganged up on him. I guess his natively lower attack could make him "tanky", though to me that's a bit of a stretch.

FFXI - Dark Knight is a job that has a multitude of attacks that make it deal more damage in exchange for HP or becoming more vulnerable to damage. Interestingly, they also have multiple attacks that generate considerable bonus aggro when used, and one of their abilities even gives them as much hate as Provoke! They also wear heavy armor and have decent HP; however, the community (not the designers) adopts them in the metagame as melee damage dealers.

The high enmity was there to create a risk factor in using cooldowns. Heavy armor in FFXI did not necessarily mean "tank", either. XI's DRK had no defensive traits, mediocre proficiencies in sword and shield (which prompted me to keep asking why the devs even bothered to put DRK on shields it had little use for) and little in the way of tools to hold aggro. It also lacked mechanics to make it versatile enough to gear for tanking or gear for DPS. Granted, XI's defense stat is near useless and gear swaps cause enough trouble as is.

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As I've said in another thread, there are thematic concessions that will have to be made for this DRK to work. HP drains are out of the question, as that model did not work and the last thing we need is DRK becoming the same as WAR back when ARR launched. Sacrificing HP is also out of the question because you're increasing your chances of death by going in that direction. The only thing left is going entirely by the darkness thing. Dark/fel energy-themed abilities that make it possible for the DRK to withstand damage and generate aggro. You'd get a working tank, and one that can be called a Dark Knight, but it would not have any of the elements that FF fans are familiar with. It'd be a different spin on the job (similarly to how BRD has been approached), for better or worse.

[Volsung]

In the end let people be upset if they wanted a damage dealing class. Its 100% fine that its not
a DD, but its also completely understandable that people wanted it to be one. The whole theme
of it for most FF has been "a knight that sacrifices HP to deal more damage or aoe damage, lowers
defense to up attack, and has a dark aspect" For most people that doesn't say nice defender person.

I'm a little shocked yoship is going the route of samurai is the dps though in all honesty. Sam has
had many defensive actions throughout final fantasy. sword grab (stop incoming attack), dragon (drain)
no fear (protect shell), hayate (eva haste), seigan third eye blade bash yaegasumi(XI defensive ones),
murasame (heal), kiyomori (protect shell), masamune (regen haste), lots of counters and before swine in
bravely default, and auron had some badass hp lol. and in that same breath, I understand that sam
has also had some great utility and damage dealing abilities. So I can't be hurt either way.

But again, it doesn't matter what our opinions are to an extent, they're going to do what they think is right
for the game. Gunner could turn in to agent/redmage/chemist or w/e they want it to. As long as the themes
slightly follow previous games i'll be fine. I hope dark knight has the dark edge the mentioned. They just need
to know how to implement things that are fun and functional without pissing off too many fans which
has me nervous about some classes that are multi role. Can't make everyone happy!