When would you take DRK over PLD or WAR?

[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.