When would you take DRK over PLD or WAR?

[Tila]

If you choose to ignore "Drk goes for Magical mitigation and add control, PLD excels at Physical mitigation and defensive team support."

Just because you say it doesn't make it true. So far all anyone has proved is that DRK is a little better at magic mitigation. But certainly not on the level that PLD is better at physical. With other classes, their role is big an obvious. For DRK people struggle to find areas that they might be slightly better at. Nor are they better at defensive team support with their pety, rng based parry proc that can't be relied upon for important moments, and can only be used on bosses they are MTing (and ones that have a steady parrage of parriable attacks, so say, Ramuh, would never be reprisaled, making their whole "magic damage tank" shtick a hell of a lot weaker).

[PWilson]

Huh. And I felt the DRK would be an off-tank class, with it's endless enmity generation via both MP and TP, since the AOE and ranged enmity abilities are the ones running off of MP and comparatively cost the PLD and especially WAR a -lot- of TP.

It's interesting to see forum wisdom go the other way, based upon things other than holding hate.

[Faytte]

Just because you say it doesn't make it true. So far all anyone has proved is that DRK is a little better at magic mitigation. But certainly not on the level that PLD is better at physical. With other classes, their role is big an obvious. For DRK people struggle to find areas that they might be slightly better at. Nor are they better at defensive team support with their pety, rng based parry proc that can't be relied upon for important moments, and can only be used on bosses they are MTing (and ones that have a steady parrage of parriable attacks, so say, Ramuh, would never be reprisaled, making their whole "magic damage tank" shtick a hell of a lot weaker).

False. There are areas there are better at, its just NOT mitigation. They have great aoe, insane off gcd attacks, good offense, and mobility where no tank has any sort of mobility They have great sustain and other mechanics. Now--none of that applies to classic raiding, but I want to underline this because -if- drk's could match say a paladin in mitigation (even come close to it) AND have all those other perks, they would be over powered. Paladins have slow offense, no burst, and no real aoe--so yes, they rock in their areas (mitigation and support).

[Faytte]

Huh. And I felt the DRK would be an off-tank class, with it's endless enmity generation via both MP and TP, since the AOE and ranged enmity abilities are the ones running off of MP and comparatively cost the PLD and especially WAR a -lot- of TP.

It's interesting to see forum wisdom go the other way, based upon things other than holding hate.

Off tanking is about putting up single target dps, but much more importantly, its about applying debuffs to bosses. No debuff the DRK can put up as an offtank is very good. Raids are almost exclusively single target fights, or with very limited adds.

[Kiteless]

They have great aoe,

True, but mostly irrelevant for trails and raids. You could remove this ability completely, or buff it to points that trash completely melts under your heel, and no one would really care.

insane off gcd attacks,

They are quite good, but as good as they are, they don't make up for our poor damage output overall.

good offense,

We do less damage than WARs off the start, and after a short while PLD outdamages us (those kickass potencies that don't require resource management in picking and choosing what skills to activate really add up, and they can keep adding it up far longer than we could ever hope to).

and mobility where no tank has any sort of mobility

One skill in Plunge, which is solid, but has to be factored into our damage rotation if we want to be considered even remotely comparable to WAR and PLD in damage output, so keeping it up ends up leading to us choosing between damage and mobility. Furthermore, WAR and PLD have never really been begging for that mobility in the first place.

They have great sustain and other mechanics.

Blatant falsehoods right here. Our sustain is absolutely, completely non-existent.

[Faytte]

1) Having something and having it useful in raids are not separate things. You have it--its a factor in pvp, its a factor in dungeoning, many trials and certain aoe fights (the adds phase in t13 for instance). If you want more OTHER things, you would HAVE to lose something. You have so much aoe damage its really absurd as a tank--which is fine, it defines you.

2) Parses of dark knights currently put them ahead of paladins. I'm not sure what insane potencies your talking about. Your base potencies without expenditures are very good. Fast Blade: 150-> Savage Blade -> 200 Royal Authority -> 340 (total: 690) VS Soul Eater combo without DA is 150+250+260 is, guess what...660--add in Dark arts every third rotation and you exceed it handily(extra 140 potency /3 attacks=43 potency per rotation, or 13 ahead). Thats with a health leach and a mana leach in there--all Royal Authority does is damage. Your comment on damage is baseless. Goring blade is only 40 more potency than a Scourge (which is far easier to keep up at all times, given its not rooted in a combo). You have dark side up continuously and blood weapon that increases your dots. You have IMPRESSIVE off gcd attacks. You are already parsing in the 800/900's without issue. Is that as high as some of the war parses? No--but its well ahead of paladin parses (700's).

3) Plunge is an amazing power you can do twice a minute. Its unique in the game and yeah, no paladin or warrior asked for it cause we have never really had a charge save Monks (which until heavensward was buggy and had strange minimum range issues). Plunge is fantastic and if you dont want it, i'll trade you for it ^_^ There are many times in raiding where a paladin or warrior is chucking shields or tomahawks where simply BEING on the boss or target gives us much better options for aggro or damage.

5) Abyssal Drain is FANTASTIC sustain against multiple targets. DA + Soul Eater leaches 400 potency (which is more than IB does) and can be spammed. I've seen tanks heal themselves for 3+K with it, and it can be done every few seconds when mana allows.

[Tila]

snip

No, the AoE bit for DRK is certainly a moot point. Its a complete none factor for bosses, and as far as trash goes, at most PLD can have some minor issues with it, and WAR AoE is damn good.

The thing about PLD dps is that its a lot less prone to falling off significantly when you need to leave the boss for a bit. DRK does more DPS in a perfect scenario where they can stay on a boss. PLD can keep its damage at a higher level easier though due to it being more sustained and long term. All the number crunching in the world wont save the DRK's dps when the boss moves off its salted earth, or because they had to use plunge on something else etc...

You missed the point on plunge. It the one move that gives them mobility, but only if you sacrifice DPS to use it.

And who cares about trash and tank self healing. There is a reason the 2.0 WAR didnt work and thats because self healing is bad mitigation.

[PWilson]

Off tanking is about putting up single target dps, but much more importantly, its about applying debuffs to bosses. No debuff the DRK can put up as an offtank is very good. Raids are almost exclusively single target fights, or with very limited adds.

Hey, I don't disagree, I just thought it was an interesting thing. Shows my own inexperience, more than anything, I guess.

[Reynhart]

The thing about PLD dps is that its a lot less prone to falling off significantly when you need to leave the boss for a bit.
DRK does more DPS in a perfect scenario where they can stay on a boss. PLD can keep its damage at a higher level easier though due to it being more sustained and long term. All the number crunching in the world wont save the DRK's dps when the boss moves off its salted earth, or because they had to use plunge on something else etc...

If we need to move away from the boss, it's far easier to apply Scourge just in time than doing a whole combo for Goring Blade. And PLD gets a lot of its own good DPS from Sword Oath, which is useless if you can't auto-attack for some time.

You missed the point on plunge. It the one move that gives them mobility, but only if you sacrifice DPS to use it.

How is Plunge "sacrificing" DPS ? If the tagrets moves away every tank lose some DPS if they need to follow the boss...except than DRK can follow quicker.

[LucklessStrikes]

Ideally, I would never bring a DRK to a raid. It's not that it's a bad class, quite the contrary, DRK is really good. They're great at dungeon running.

PLD and WAR synergy is phenomenal. DRK doesn't offer anything notable to the formula. They don't have a niche of their own. People can argue all they want that DRK is designed to be the "Magic Tank", but just because they have one skill that mitigates 30% of magic damage every 60 seconds doesn't make them the ideal magic damage soakers. Furthermore, unless it's a gimmick fight (which are rare), the vast majority of damage in this game is physical. So even if DRK is somehow superior to soaking magic damage (It's not), there would be few scenarios in which it's actually useful.

PLD is better at mitigating damage. WAR deals enough damage to breed the illusion that you've brought an extra DPS to the group. DRK sits somewhere between the two with a slight lean towards PLD in resemblance.

I want to like DRK more. I really enjoyed leveling the class. However, if I'm being objective, bringing a DRK in it's state is something I would do only because I couldn't bring a PLD/WAR. To say that it's optimal, ideal, more efficient, or wanted over PLD/WAR combo is just a pipe dream.