My Opinion about the Dark knights need redesigning threads.

[TheCount]

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I don't see any Dark Knight on your profile, so I can't see what level you actually are if you play it. However it's just objectively true that Dark Knights need some adjusting, they don't have good enough ways to regen mana against single targets. They can't keep up their damage debuff. They have defensive cooldowns that do the same thing/are slightly worse compared to the other tanks their version but still have a longer cooldown despite that. Some of their abilities require a shit ton of mana to the point it's questionable to use it at all because of their mana issues (this would be fixed if they could actually use blood weapon in grit but for some reason they cannot) The int debuff that they CAN actually keep up is completely useless if you have a monk because their version is just plain better

And then there is the people saying they are squishy compared to other tanks in extreme modes, though I have yet to see that one for myself. I'm inclined to believe them however with a lack of a shield. Do you actually play Dark Knight? Because any who do can see these things. I might be doing okay in dungeons so far but with these issues I do wonder what use Dark Knights will have in raids or how well they will perform.

[Lionheart401]

I don't see any Dark Knight on your profile, so I can't see what level you actually are if you play it. However it's just objectively true that Dark Knights need some adjusting, they don't have good enough ways to regen mana against single targets. They can't keep up their damage debuff. They have defensive cooldowns that do the same thing/are slightly worse compared to the other tanks their version but still have a longer cooldown despite that.

I have a dark knight at level 59 currently.
Blood Price is all I need when I'm tanking. It has a crazy short recast timer.
Blood weapon is all I need when attacking. Short recast timer.
Do you really need more?
They can keep up an int debuff so they are weakening int-based damages all the time and they also get the damage debuff on top of that. Dark Dance helps you keep the Damage Debuff going although its not constantly up, you do have two debuffs going.

[Lionheart401]

And then there is the people saying they are squishy compared to other tanks in extreme modes, though I have yet to see that one for myself. I'm inclined to believe them however with a lack of a shield. Do you actually play Dark Knight? Because any who do can see these things. I might be doing okay in dungeons so far but with these issues I do wonder what use Dark Knights will have in raids or how well they will perform.

Doesn't matter how much mp those moves cost. Your mp regenerates. If you actually
know how to balance your moves you wouldn't have trouble with the mp like I do.
Bloodweapon and Bloodprice is overpowered. I do great without both. I only felt like I needed both when I first started playing the class cause I didn't know how to use the job and wanted both abilities as a security blanket. But I understand the class now.

squishy without a shield? have you seen warriors? do you play dark knight? I've tanked extreme mode fights.

[Asierid]

squishy without a shield? have you seen warriors? do you play dark knight? I've tanked extreme mode fights.

Any of the two tanks can do the job of a DRK better than a DRK could. That's the problem. You can do damage/threat while tanking, great. Now the unchained WAR will pull it from you in one rotation. You can mitigate, great. Why is that PLD sleeping through the tank busters while you nearly shit yourself attempting to get it mitigated?

Off tank DPS? Fell Cleave is leaving you behind.

I mean, if you like to work hard for sub-standard results, that's great. No one else here does.

[Alphras]

Off tank DPS? Fell Cleave is leaving you behind.

Can you please link me to these insane WAR dps parses (or vids) that everyone seems to be talking about? I have seen DRK at 900+, but nothing for WAR yet.

[Ditto]

Can you please link me to these insane WAR dps parses (or vids) that everyone seems to be talking about? I have seen DRK at 900+, but nothing for WAR yet.

A good War will pull more than a Drk, not by a lot, but it's definitely not an insane amount.

That is, for the duration of a Drk's TP. A War will never run out of TP, or at least not very fast, if at all. A Drk will burn their TP less than halfway into the fight if they have 0 downtime between skills, and they have absolutely no way to recover their TP.

TP is the main problem. Outside of TP issues, War pulls ahead by a bit still, but nothing 'insane'.

dark arts with the enmity combo drowns out everyone else's hate.
if those other tanks are playing properly, they would have their tank stance off and not be as big of a threat as the dark is.
dark arts is so clutch and its always ready for you.
if other tanks are giving you hate problem dark arts and enmity combo.
paladin mitigate. warriors compensate and drks mit/comp/evade.
have you tried dark arts passenger followed with dark arts dark dance? evasion is nice.

Well congrats, you just ran out of MP and lost Darkside faster than you can say MP.

WAR does not out DPS either tank in OT situations, my FC has a plethora of tanks so we run a few as DPS for Bis/Rav Ex. especially since we can keep up with regular DPS and take a hit. Fel Cleave is great, but really only makes up for WARs lack of potency in general.

Tanking wise, in current content, all three tanks seem to be about equal. Rav Ex's Blinding Blade hits hard no matter what CD you use if you are tanking it solo. Granted I don't know why you wouldn't just throw a few of your higher HP DPS in to eat it with the tank when solo tanking seems foolish to let, even a PLD, eat 90% of his HP when it could easily be split 3 ways. Or just bring the second tank since OT DPS is damn near on par with regular DPS.

Monk is the least played DPS class, still (my FC has zero MNK mains), and DRK can reduce INT by 10%, none of the other tanks can do this, every fight so far has magic damage so it's a nice perk. Also Reprisal and Storm's Path stack, so if your DRK is MTing you're getting 20% damage reduction when Reprisal is up. If you want to view it over the whole fight, taking into consideration up-time, it's 16.7% raid wide damage reduction.

I'm working on getting WAR leveled to have both DRK/WAR for content, and I like both classes, but really the differences between them are smaller than the forums make them to be.

The only magic damage in Ravana EX (As fara s I know) are the hadoukens, and the split damage AOE after pillars of heaven. None of which do any bit threatening damage.

All the damage that matters is physical. Also, Dragons Kick > Delirium. Half the time I cant even put Delirioum on Ravan for some reason, and we don't have a Monk.

Also, Wars out DPS Drk's in OT situations ESPECIALLY, simply due to TP. Equilibrium keeps a Wars TP afloat. Drk burns their TP in literally 3 Blood Weapons if they have constant uptime.

[Ipkonfig]

The only magic damage in Ravana EX (As fara s I know) are the hadoukens, and the split damage AOE after pillars of heaven. None of which do any bit threatening damage.

All the damage that matters is physical. Also, Dragons Kick > Delirium. Half the time I cant even put Delirioum on Ravan for some reason, and we don't have a Monk.

Also, Wars out DPS Drk's in OT situations ESPECIALLY, simply due to TP. Equilibrium keeps a Wars TP afloat. Drk burns their TP in literally 3 Blood Weapons if they have constant uptime.

TP isn't a valid argument in a fight like Ravana where you are constantly not fighting to avoid mechanics. On top of having BRD/MCH for regen. Also I highly doubt Equilibrium maintains a WAR for much longer, granted I'm only 52 with WAR atm, but when I played DRG/MNK in coil even with Invigorate I typically bottomed out around after 3 - 4 mins of pure fighting and needed BRD song. Our dummy tests used a BRD to keep TP going just so we could get an accurate test, which showed them all the same. I guess if you don't have MCH/BRD and you fought long enough the WAR would win out because of TP maintenance, but how much longer can they go with 200 TP every 60s?

Threatening damage or not, reducing raid wide damage is a bonus regardless of how much it is. Do I wish DRK brought more utility? Yes, but they do at least bring some with a stackable damage reduction (reprisal and storm's path), and -10% INT. PLD/DRK will be a pretty poor tanking combo, but DRK/WAR has some nice utility.

[Launched]

TP isn't a valid argument in a fight like Ravana where you are constantly not fighting to avoid mechanics. On top of having BRD/MCH for regen. Also I highly doubt Equilibrium maintains a WAR for much longer, granted I'm only 52 with WAR atm, but when I played DRG/MNK in coil even with Invigorate I typically bottomed out around after 3 - 4 mins of pure fighting and needed BRD song. Our dummy tests used a BRD to keep TP going just so we could get an accurate test, which showed them all the same. I guess if you don't have MCH/BRD and you fought long enough the WAR would win out because of TP maintenance, but how much longer can they go with 200 TP every 60s?

TP is a huge problem when you're doing raid fights like T10/T11, especially at the start with low DPS. A DRK would be out of TP super quick there.

With Berserk's pacification, Fell Cleave and Equilibrium, WAR has literally unlimited TP. I can go on a dummy for 5 minutes and come out at 1000 TP. I don't even drop to 740 (the point where you should pop Equilibrium) until nearly 3m in. As MT, WAR's TP conservation is almost as good, and there's nothing to stop you popping into Deliverance for a few GCDs to use Equilibrium if it really is a problem.

[Ditto]

TP isn't a valid argument in a fight like Ravana where you are constantly not fighting to avoid mechanics. On top of having BRD/MCH for regen. Also I highly doubt Equilibrium maintains a WAR for much longer, granted I'm only 52 with WAR atm, but when I played DRG/MNK in coil even with Invigorate I typically bottomed out around after 3 - 4 mins of pure fighting and needed BRD song. Our dummy tests used a BRD to keep TP going just so we could get an accurate test, which showed them all the same. I guess if you don't have MCH/BRD and you fought long enough the WAR would win out because of TP maintenance, but how much longer can they go with 200 TP every 60s?

Threatening damage or not, reducing raid wide damage is a bonus regardless of how much it is. Do I wish DRK brought more utility? Yes, but they do at least bring some with a stackable damage reduction (reprisal and storm's path), and -10% INT. PLD/DRK will be a pretty poor tanking combo, but DRK/WAR has some nice utility.

In Ravana EX TP may not be, but I've seen Drk's get out DPS'd by Wars a few times in Ravana. Not all fights have that many downtimes however. In Bismarck EX for example, I've nearly ran out of TP a few times.

you wont run out of mp because you'll have blood price and syphon combos giving you mp back. you only need one dark arts enmity combo to drown everyone else's hate. Ive never ran out of TP as a dark idk why you say they run out so fast. most of the moves are based on mp except the weaponskills. managing tp is a warriors problem that why they gave warriors that ability.

You're level 59, doing dungeons that hardly matter, against DPS who are likely not so geared and are still in the process of learning their new skills. Of course 1 Dark Arts Power Slash is going to generate a butt ton of Enmity when the rest of the group likely isn't.

At 60, against DPS who know what they're doing, 1 Power Slash, hell even buffed with Dark Arts (Which doesn't increase it's enmity as much as people think it does) wont do much for you. It's enough to put you in the lead for long enough to be able to drop Grit for a Blood Weapon, but unless you're pushing out some heavy tank DPS at a constant, another DPS is going to pull off of you.

There have been fights where literally the only time I ever did my enmity combo was twice in the very start, then I dropped Grit and never enabled it nor used my enmity combo again.

Then there have been fights where the DPS were too good for that and I had to enable Grit a few times just to ensure I stay ahead in threat.

I could easily burn my TP when DPS testing my WAR pre HW. I lasted a bit longer because of Wrath attacks and pacify but eventually ran out. If I used Fracture it was even faster. Also we aren't talking about T10/11 because they are irrelevant at this point. The new classes were designed with what's coming in mind not what's behind.

Don't get me wrong, WAR will always have my heart. Played WAR/NIN in FFXI, played WAR in 1.0, played WAR at release when they were "garbage" and got through coil (minus T5, that took a while) just fine. Leveling my WAR now to be ready for Alex release, but DRK tanks just fine in all current content. I've yet to feel stressed, or feel like I'm taking to much damage compared to any other tank. The TP drain is real with Blood Weapon, but our BRD typically keeps me going.

Irrelevant or not, it's a type of fight we've commonly seen in the past, and one we're likely going to be seeing again. We should not have to rely on a Bards reduced damage to keep my TP going instead of the mages MP, or a Nin's 2 min cd as a tank instead of a DPS who could put that TP to high damage for pushes.

And yes, Pre Heavensward Warrior had TP issues (I was one of them), but fact is, they don't anymore. Drk does, along with the plethora of other issues they seem to have, even outside of just balancing. It really feels as if Drk was designed for 2.0, and it's missing the 'wow' factor to it that the other 2 tanks got with the Heavensward update.