Turning DRK into a tank was a huge mistake.

[NeaturalBomber]

The whole bad dark knight thing is not the class it's every person not coming from a tank background thinking dark knight looks cool im going to swap to tanking

Give them time to learn there job it's still a new class and tanking ain't the easiest job right out of the gate
Positioning ,cool downs , and holding aggro should be there main priority but a lot of people think that dpsing as a tank is what there meant to be doing
Dpsing as a tank comes in time with practice but should only be done if groups need it which is rarely needed
I think people will think different once savage Alexander is downed and farmed pretty regular and the dark knight rotations start popping up

[Borascythe]

DRKs need some tweaks for sure. The class, however, is fine overall.

As for the enmity problem, I've had zero problems holding aggro. I feel I hold enmity better than my PLD on single targets and hold AoE enmity with zero effort. I was playing with a STR WAR today (I have all VIT accessories right now) and I easily held aggro against him in A2 while farming (we were goofing off a bit...). That's just one of many examples. I would argue DRKs have the best enmity of all three tank classes.

I do miss some of my defensive cooldowns from PLD, but it's manageable. I can survive just as well in A4 as any other tank. It's not like we have that much fewer defensive cooldowns than the other tanks.

SE released the DRK class to help alleviate DPS queues. Plenty of the terrible DRK tanks you're running into are former DPS players. They'll either get better or return to their mains. I've already seen a significant culling of them on my server by level 60.

[Taika]

Most of the DRKs I've run with aren't bad or difficult to heal. But some are the way OP described. Last week I was farming Alexander floor 2 and pumped into same DRK 4 or 5 times. Wearing full STR accessories, didn't really seem to have a clue about tanking. After him constantly dropping during the first run I did with him, I asked my random healing partners to focus on healing him during the following runs while I focused on the other tank. The DRK died every single run at least once no matter who was healing him. The DRK didn't seem to learn anything.

[Seig345]

DRK is what broke my anxiety over tanking, and now I dare say I'm an exceptional one. Maybe not a perfect/pro, but more often than not, I tend to get randoms who will go out of their way to tell me how they were expecting me to be as bad as the last DRK they ended up with (and were happily mistaken).

So I'm a bit biased towards being glad that DRK was made into a tank class. :3

I have noticed though that when I was healing DRKs earlier on, that some were indeed squishy, but I've been putting all my points into VIT so far, and I haven't noticed the healers having to struggle to keep my HP up. Zero issues holding aggro, and in some cases, recovering aggro from over-eager DPS. (Except for those two places in Sohm Al, but I mean, come on... >_>; haven't had anyone die at least!)

[Leshpar]

If you're a tank you need to gear with that in mind. That said, I am a healer and I love a good challenge. However, when the tank starts getting one shot or globaled, I can't do anything to prevent that. So yeah, there comes a point where you have to sacrifice dps for survivability if you want to be a tank.

[Kiteless]

Most of the DRKs I've run with aren't bad or difficult to heal. But some are the way OP described. Last week I was farming Alexander floor 2 and pumped into same DRK 4 or 5 times. Wearing full STR accessories, didn't really seem to have a clue about tanking. After him constantly dropping during the first run I did with him, I asked my random healing partners to focus on healing him during the following runs while I focused on the other tank. The DRK died every single run at least once no matter who was healing him. The DRK didn't seem to learn anything.

...Nothing wrong with going full STR as DRK right now.

I mean, DRK has a lot of problems, but that's not one of them. And as for that guy, he probably would have died with the extra vitality anyway.

[Huneidu]

VIT doesn't really help out your healers. The mobs dying faster does. Especially in low level dungeons, I would rather one mob die faster then my tank having a slightly bigger HP pool. Then again, I am rather vigilant as a healer. I don't sit and wait until they are almost dead.

Honestly, I think it is better for them in the end.

They should learn to wipe and learn to be on edge with healing rather then becoming lazy.

I disagree. GCD is by far the most important thing to a healer. I tried to heal a full str DRK through Vault and 9.7k hp did not cut it for the final boss. I could not spare one global cooldown to do anything other than spam heals on him. HP does help your healer. > <

[Kosmos992k]

Welcome to the parser generation, where defense means nothing and it's the healer's fault if they're on the ground.

Indeed. I feel positively old school with my vit accessories and focus on defense and emnity gain. If there is one thing I would ask the developers to do, it is to re-emphasize the actual roles our jobs have in the party, and make the skill of knowing your job and playing it's role effectively worth something.

[Kiteless]

I disagree. GCD is by far the most important thing to a healer. I tried to heal a full str DRK through Vault and 9.7k hp did not cut it for the final boss. I could not spare one global cooldown to do anything other than spam heals on him. HP does help your healer. > <

I've never ran Vault in anything but full strength, as either a DRK or a WAR. Never had any problem with it. They just need to not get hit and be on it with their cooldowns.

[Windklinge]

well for leveling its safer to go full vit since you and your healer still lack gear AND some skills most the time depending on the instances level. on max level tough i go mostly 3 str / 2 vit for accs. on some fights like floor 3 or ravana i go full str since if the mechanics are ignored you die EITHER way. and if they are not ignored it works with full str like a charm.

when you have maxed defense and armor vit on lvl 60 gear that extra around 2000 hp from going full vit is really not worth it as its rarely going to safe you while killing a boss / mob faster is always helpful since shorter fights means less problems are likely too happen. this is due to the way fights are designed on ff14. only devs can fix that problem.

going full str while leveling tough. maybe a bad idea. except if you play with a healer you KNOW he can do it. dont do it with randoms. doesnt end to well most the time.