Turning DRK into a tank was a huge mistake.

[Souljacker]

Why, most of them put all attribute points in Strength, use full set of Strength accessories and never use any defensive cooldowns.

This is actually a by-product of this community's (somewhat unhealthy) obsession with non-DPS jobs doing DPS. I've been in parties where healers will let me drop to an inch of my life (and sometimes hit the floor) to get that one more offensive spell out, I've seen tanks that never miss hitting that berserk button when it's up, but don't touch Foresight or anything else, all of it. I've honestly never seen a community so obsessed with healers and tanks doing DPS as this one, ever.

That being said, I'm one of those warriors throwing the points in STR, stance-dancing and swapping out gear when the situation warrants it. I agree that it's a fun way to play, but for the overall community it requires a commitment to the role that your average player isn't going to have. It's hard enough to teach people how to function in their own actual role without pressuring them to also do a job they aren't necessarily responsible for. I'm not surprised that those who embrace DRK have done it with the STR > all mentality because that's just what they have been taught by the elite tanks.

[Eisen-Zorn]

This is actually a by-product of this community's (somewhat unhealthy) obsession with non-DPS jobs doing DPS. I've been in parties where healers will let me drop to an inch of my life (and sometimes hit the floor) to get that one more offensive spell out, I've seen tanks that never miss hitting that berserk button when it's up, but don't touch Foresight or anything else, all of it. I've honestly never seen a community so obsessed with healers and tanks doing DPS as this one, ever.

This. All of this. I mean, I know that healers don't want to just be standing around healing, but that's their job. When I get dropped because a healer was stuck casting an offensive spell, that's not because I'm too squishy. It's because they weren't doing their job: Healing.

[nyttyn]

To be fair, if Square Enix didn't make Healing have such major periods of time where we don't need to heal, and didn't make DPS checks so strict without giving a way to tell which DPS is slacking, healers wouldn't feel obliged to be obsessed with DPS.

Though perhaps it's always going to be that way, because if they increase healing requirements too much, suddenly a lot of bad healers are going to cause a lot of more wipes (since when a healers screws up too much, that's usually a wipe.).

[Cyrus-Wallace]

This. All of this. I mean, I know that healers don't want to just be standing around healing, but that's their job. When I get dropped because a healer was stuck casting an offensive spell, that's not because I'm too squishy. It's because they weren't doing their job: Healing.

Uh, depends. Sometimes it's a mix of both elements. The healer can DPS as long as the tank does his job. It's really hard tp DPS when the tank ignore all his cds and he just goes ham on that big pull spamming flash/overpower/unleash. A wise healer will see how the tank does his job before dpsing. I've found plenty of tanks like that, lately. But the DPS obesession won't stop there. Even among the same DPS that still exists. DPS not using their LB when they should because "omg my stacks" or "omg my cds"? And not only that, they go greedy and ignore mechanics, stepping into AoEs or stuff like that.

Such is the life in FFXIV...

[NamiNamai]

All I have to say was, I came in on low lvl roulette yesterday to get my law tomes. I joined an in progress as DPS. The healer made sure to let the rest of the party and myself know that he'd only been playing four days. The other DPS mentiond that the DRK really should put up Grit. He proceded to lecture us that he was not going to do so because it would decrease his damage out put. While I am not a level 60 tank, I am a level 50 one. I understand.. I *really* do, that when you're tanking you want to do more than pop you defensive cooldowns.

However, it's down right nasty to sit there and ignore the polite requests and then further pleas of your other party members and healer to use your freaking defensive capabilities instead of getting hit like a wet napkin with a hammer.


Needless to say, he continued to be rude and refused and since he kept pulling.. no one could kick him. :/ I apologized to the healer and other dps and logged out after calling him out for a third time.

This kind of attitude is on that I've seen a lot since the release of HW.

Not everybody needs to be the "hero." Sometimes doing you role in the party is what makes you shine instead of deciding that you need to be a special snowflake. It's not just about you. It's about the other players as well. We're contributing our time as a team to finish the dungeon, and people like this tank need to get their head out of their arse and deflate their ego. It's disgusting.

[Kosmos992k]

All I have to say was, I came in on low lvl roulette yesterday to get my law tomes. I joined an in progress as DPS. The healer made sure to let the rest of the party and myself know that he'd only been playing four days. The other DPS mentiond that the DRK really should put up Grit. He proceded to lecture us that he was not going to do so because it would decrease his damage out put.

The sooner dps players pretending to be a tank get tired of DRK the better. For that matter, the sooner the player community wakes up to the fact that tanks and healers dps should be considered optional at best, the better we will all be.

[SuzakuCMX]

Though perhaps it's always going to be that way, because if they increase healing requirements too much, suddenly a lot of bad healers are going to cause a lot of more wipes (since when a healers screws up too much, that's usually a wipe.).

They'd also totally have to rebalance healer MP management in that case since you go out of MP far before the encounter is over if you constantly have to keep healing.

[Duelle]

You're wrong OP.

1) Dark Knight was only "DPS" in FFXI. In FFIV and all other FF games that it appears, it's a "tank" job.
2) Bad tanks are bad tanks. It doesn't matter which tank job they choose.

A job known to sacrifice HP to deal damage is a tank? >.>

There's a reason a number of people expected the job to enter the game as a DPS before the announcement was made. The only real analogue in FF to a tank for DRK was, surprisingly, Gafgarion from FF Tactics (because Night Sword drains allowed him to outlast pretty much everyone).

To FFXIV's credit, this is basically a brand new rendition of DRK (none of the other versions focused on the "harnessing the dark power" thing). It is understandably jarring, in a way. Sort of like if SE announced that the new tank job in 4.0 is Calculator. You'd definitely have people going "WTF?!" over that.

[Kiteless]

The sooner dps players pretending to be a tank get tired of DRK the better. For that matter, the sooner the player community wakes up to the fact that tanks and healers dps should be considered optional at best, the better we will all be.

Thing is, tank DPS isn't really something that could be considered optional any more. Many of the changes made with Heavensward, and the design of DRK itself (horribly flawed as it may be at the moment), all point towards that decision. You've got to pull your weight now.
That said, when tanking, there are a lot of things that are far more important than DPS. As a tank, you should only ever worry about DPS once you've got enmity control, survival, and utility down. 500 DPS and a functioning party is a hell of a lot better than 900 DPS with a ring of friendly corpses around you.

[Kaedan94]

A job known to sacrifice HP to deal damage is a tank? >.>

Yes. Especially since they usually DRAIN hp as well.

There's a reason a number of people expected the job to enter the game as a DPS before the announcement was made. The only real analogue in FF to a tank for DRK was, surprisingly, Gafgarion from FF Tactics (because Night Sword drains allowed him to outlast pretty much everyone).

Sorry, that's wrong.

FF2, Leon. FF3, Magic Knight (later corrected to DRK). FF4, Cecil.

The "issue" is players from FFXI who either haven't played any other FF game or are simply obsessed with the FFXI version.