The completely REASONABLE changes to the Dark Knight job thread

[Xenosan]

Dark Mind is their own specific Niche. The Bonus evasion on Dark dance is a twist in comparison to Bullwarks straight 60% Parry. Drks mean you can provide a Monks -int debuff without a monk which only makes it easier to vary team composition. The whole 'flavor' route is done, the real questions are Drks actual performance and if that performance is under,over or the same as other tanks. If its not the same why does it differ is the difference the same in all situations.

Dark Dance =/= Bulwark. The dice roll on Parry happens after the dice roll on Shield block. Shields block for ~30% of each hit opposed to Parry's 20%. Bulwark raises Shield Block to ~80% depending on the shield. If the dice roll on Shield Block fails, PLD still has the second dice roll on Parry.

Regarding tank busters, for PLD - if Sentinel, Rampart, & Hallowed Ground are exhausted - any combination of ( Convalescence, Foresight, Bulwark, Stoneskin, Awareness, Bloodbath ) can be used for things like Death Sentence and Mountain Buster. Stoneskin has no recast limitation save for cast interruption & MP. For PLD, all these secondary mitigation CDs sit behind a passive chance to Shield Block and Parry, giving the CDs increased Umph.

None of these secondaries are traited for DRK, DRK have longer recast or lower effectiveness with all of them, and no SS at all.

Factor the meta of combat in FFXIV, any increase to Parry short of guaranteed (Raw Intuition), or not 100% up-keep is of lowest value in a mitigation repertoire. Parry is the ugly duckling of mitigation features - a bleedover of 1.0 mechanics.

WAR's Raw Intuition, PLD's double-dip RNG per physical attack, and DRK's Low Blow reset & Reprisal proc are what makes Parry valuable for each job.

Like Souleater's self-heal, Parry is not something your healers anticipate or pace their healing behavior around. They will not 'feel' the presence of your Dark Dance buff. Parry is not structural pillar of Tank EHP. Never was. With the removal of STR stat influence over it's mitigation amount, it's even less of a EHP boost than it was before.

Thus far there hasn't been a single instance where I felt that I was to squishy...

A good thing and I would agree the same, but let's not move the goal post. The question isn't whether DRK is capable, it's where DRK sits viably in a party composition for post-50/post-60 content progression. Unless the boss auto attacks strictly with Magical Damage, I don't think DRK holds ground to a Paladin MT. With the lack of utility DRK brings as OT, they don't hold water to Warrior in that role.

More utility and a on-demand EHP buffer for physicals would help make DRK more viable for either role.

Change the Dark Arts buff for Dark Dance so it's +EVA for everyone in a 7y radius.

Change the Dark Arts buff for Dark Mind so it's +15% Magical Resistance for everyone in a 7y radius.

This would help so much with progression if it prevents a squishy Caster or Healer from getting OHKO'd by a plum or other AOE mechanic. It would even improve DRK/DRK compositions because the OT DRK could rotate DM with the MT, improving it from 16% up-keep to 33%.

For MT role, improve the Soul Devourer trait (lvl48) so that Dark Arts buff'd Souleater erects a magical barrier worth 10% of base HP/VIT (an on-demand cross-classed Stoneskin, but slightly not as good). As an added bonus allow the Barrier to be fed additional HPs via Souleater's if the absorbed HPs are over-healing him (maxed barrier at 15-20%). A potentially sustaining Stoneskin/Thrill of Battle hybrid -- that as a catch-22 -- requires more resources and effort to maintain.

Granted these are just some ideas of numerous amount rolling across the Forum,

Being over-geared is inapplicable. Progressions and World Firsts / FC Firsts Clears are about content in which over-gearing isn't possible. It may be fine now but what happens when Alexander Savage releases? DRK will likely take the back-seat to PLD/WAR.