Turning DRK into a tank was a huge mistake.

[Duelle]

Yes. Especially since they usually DRAIN hp as well.

Only drain-heavy DRK that comes to mind is, again, Gafgarion. Nevermind that drains in the console RPGs were unreliable to begin with (more efficient to have someone with Cure just heal you).

FF4, Cecil.

Cecil sacrificed HP to deal damage with Darkness, which was his job command. That was it. Cecil didn't have anything even remotely resembling tank until he became a Paladin.

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

XI merely followed what was set before it. Consumed HP to deal more damage. Mind you that XI's DRK also had drains but that made it nowhere near a tank. Blood Weapon was there partly to counteract Souleater and partly as an oh shit button. Drain had a laughably long cast time and was unreliable unless you somehow had insanely high Dark Magic skill and magic accuracy. Dread Spikes was there to keep the DRK from getting two-shotted when they inevitably stole aggro.

When considering what it was out of the job, the presentation I wanted was not of an attacker behind the enemy worrying about positionals. A Dark Knight wears heavy armor, uses both spell and blade to defeat their enemies. I understand i'm speaking more to the lore of the job and not the gameplay aspect here, but as a long time fan of the job and the series as a whole I cannot separate the two.

Heavy armor doesn't really mean anything. Well, I guess it does if you don't give your classes traits to emphasize on defense and instead split them strictly by armor class. It's just that I've seen DPS classes in heavy armor that can still get two-shotted while tanks in the same armor can survive such hits, so the heavy armor bit doesn't hold much weight with me.

The idea of them not being traditionally tanks I feel is a convenient loss of memory for many who choose to only think of the FFXI era of DRK.

It's a combination of known mechanics and how dark/evil/shadow knights are often portrayed. The more common thing is that the good/holy knight deals less damage for better defense while the dark/evil knight deals more damage sacrificing defense. Now combine this with the most recent version of DRK chronologically speaking (FFXI's DRK) and it's no surprise why some people react like they do.

XIV's implementation is unique for an MMORPG and managed to make tank DRK work (sort of), but I'm not going to say people wanting a DPS with a huge sword are being unreasonable.