Dark Knight, or Paladin?

[Phoenicia]

All this DPS stance talk going on here, you guys do realize DRK does NOT have a DPS stance, right?

Darkside is DRK's version of Maim/FoF. Not a DPS stance by ANY means. For DRK it is simply Grit, or no Grit.

PLD has the most potent of the tanks' DPS stances. Sword Oath gives roughly 10~15% DPS increase depending on the weapon. Deliverance is 5% only plus access to their most potent attacks. DRK has no DPS stance.

Also this BS with "doing 20% more of your damage isn't worth freeing up 20% more healer GCDs" needs to stop. A tank going from DPS stance to tank stance loses MORE than 20% DPS. PLD going from SwO to ShO loses auto attack bonus AND a suffers a 20% negative. WAR loses the 5% bonus from deliverance, access to Fell Cleave AND goes 25% negative from base. DRK loses access to Blood Weapon + the 20% negative. DRK has the least to lose here since they have no DPS stance.

The difference between a tank trying to maximize their DPS and a tank not trying at all can be as massive as 500 DPS. I've seen tanks do as low as 217 DPS (still holding threat, probably only doing RoH combo) which is NOTHING compared to a non-tank-stance tank doing over 800. I'm yet to meet a healer even reach 400 DPS while still managing to keep the party alive.

If a PLD can pull 700 DPS, he is set to stay ahead of the 1200 DPS DRG/MNK/NIN in threat without heavily spamming RoH. So tanking is SwO is not an impossibility.

The PLD princesses need to stop complaining about their class. The only thing PLD is really behind in is AoE DPS, but that doesn't matter since their AoE enmity generation, while below other tanks, is far ahead of any DPS.

[Seku]

I choose you math

You're under estimating DRK's ability to regen MP in raid's. Being out of tank stance gives them blood weapon (basically makes every weapon skill a mini Siphion blade) and Carve and spit. MP is really a non issue. You'll use RoH more than 9 times in a fight as a pld, assuming SWO, unless you've got a ninja in there aiding you build enmity.

Do you guys really just ignore everything but dps here

When going for max efficiency, yes. I wouldn't suggest normal groups or the normal tanks to try to DPS stance their way through content, as it requires a good group, one you will more than likely not find in a Pug. But having a good group and people actually invested into their jobs allows tanks to turn themselves into DPS and burn down bosses extremely quick. It's actually why I'm not really sweating PLD's position right now, as for the average group (the ones that will make mistakes and not play perfectly) it's probably the best choice as one of the two tanks. As for the very tip top everyone playing like a robot, not so much.

[Faytte]

Could a DRK in the same situation get away with just 2 power slash combos if they're not using Grit?

I have all three tanks at i188 (ravanna weapons on each) and yes. On dark I can open with grit and all my off cooldowns and three power slashes then turn off grit for the rest of the encounter and just use delirium and soul eater. Same as a war; once I have threat I can leave Defiance no problem. Paladin? Nope. Doing a1 Savage and my dps will creep steadily despite me keeping up the roh debuffs, eventually leading me to go back to shield oath and spamming roh to regain a lead (maiming goring of course). I started this xpac as a paladin main but I've swapped back to war. My Co tank did the same and is now a dark knight and neither of us could be happier. Paladin right now feels like the 1.0 paladin ;full of issues and misunderstanding from SE.

[Faytte]

It's probably the best choice as one of the two tanks. As for the very tip top everyone playing like a robot, not so much.

It's kind of a clunky mess at the moment which is sad given how promising it looked at first. The move to magic and unblockable busters coupled with the terrible threat scaling and intense dps checks makes them undesirable. Add in their heal being both slow as hell and negating your ability to block or parry marks most of their tools pretty disappointing for main tanking.

I feel even for a bad or normal group your better off just brining war or dark. They deal with it current content better while speeding up the fight which, if your group is failing, will reduce the duration comedy of errors better than the few paladin tricks will offset larger mistakes (save for hallowed. All praise hallowed... The reason this class is still kind of relevant).

[Valkyrie-Amber]

I take back what I sad after a few parse runs PLD is worthless over 130+ less dps than a dark that's like 200 dps less than a war so why take a pld?

[Dynza]

Wow, okay... let's back up here get some things clear.



First, when it comes to damage, the tank classes are not going to be on par with the DPS not because of damage bonuses or damage boosts through buffs, but through basic stats. As a whole, tanks have less base strength than the primary DPS classes and this largely the main reason why tanks will always be behind. Other factors such as passive/innate damage boosts through poisons, greased lightning, heavy thrust and weapon skill potencies are additional factors, but they're secondary compared to the core stats.

Now, believe it or not, all tank classes basically get the same level damage boosts. In fact, they get damage boosts on par with those of the DPS classes (about 30 to 40%). It's not an overt thing and it pretty sneakily applied across a bevy of abilities and weapon skills. Yes, Darkside passively boosts damage by 15%, Dark Knights also get a haste with Blood Weapon, and Dark Arts, rounds out the damage boosts. All in all, the increases in damage are about the same as what a paladin gets.

Now again, believe it or not, Sword Oath was recently changed for this expansion. Instead of a passive 50% boost to auto-attack swings (which makes each auto-attack deal the same damage as a Fast Blade), Sword Oath now delivers a second auto-attack at 50% potency. It is hard to tell, but this is a some what indirect reduction in damage. Now, in order for a paladin to get the same damage as critical hit auto-attack, both attacks from Sword Oath must crit. The reason for this change seems simple; because of the way critical hit rate now boosts critical hit damage beyond the 50% applied, it can make Paladin attacks from Sword Oath too strong. There are other reasons for this change, but can be difficult to explain and I won't go into it here.

Now in terms of threat generation, the Paladin is not a slouch in this department. Contrary to what some people believe, Paladin and Dark Knight have the same number of threat generators. I will count them; Paladin has Savage Blade, Rage of Halone, Shield Swipe, Flash, Shield Toss and Circle of Scorn. The Dark Knight has Spinning Slash, Power Slash, Unmend, Abyssal Drain, Unleash and Salted Earth. The only difference here is how they operate in practice. All in all, neither one really has too much of and edge over the other, but Paladin is generally better at single target over Dark Knight.

Now, in terms of overall ability, both of them are good at what they do. Because of costs and risk associated with it, Dark Knights are likely to put out more damage overall than a paladin (at least in terms of burst) and because of a paladin's passive mitigation even when not exclusively tanking. This isn't really hard to dispute, one need only look at base potencies and can see that - even though dark knight and paladin can achieve the same overall damage boosts through abilities - dark knight overall hits harder, while the paladin hits much more frequently. You can look at Paladin and Dark Knight from a similar angle at Monks and Dragoons. Monks hit for less damage per hit, but more frequently. While Dragoons can hit much harder, but less frequently. The same differences are found in the Dark Knight and Paladin. This doesn't necessarily make one better than the other - otherwise we'd see monks more often than dragoons - but merely a difference in style.

Now, I do agree there are some issues on both sides of the fence. I do agree that Paladins could use more damaging area-effect attacks to help with AE tanking as Flash and Circle of Scorn don't feel like they're enough. I also agree that it is really not a good idea for Dark Knights to have defensive cooldowns that rely on chance factors in mitigating damage. If Dark Dance could more effectively play like Raw Intuition (without it being the ability) I think that would be good. Likewise, I think Clemency could use a faster cast-time and/or some kind of TP regeneration.

I don't see either one being flat out better than the other, but I do think they could use a few small tweaks here or there. Also, I'm not sure why people don't see how Savage Blade+Shield Swipe can generate the same enmity as Savage Blade+RoH. As a Paladin, you can move into Savage Blade+Shield Swipe and then Royal Authority and still bring in a lot hate. This really isn't an issue on single targets especially with current shield block frequencies (and if it is a problem, Bulwark). Rage of Halone shouldn't need to be used too frequently anymore unless you're really behind the gear curve.

[Valkyrie-Amber]

now that post above means same buffs for dark knight who already is superior mt over pld.

a dark all possible buffs parsers over 200 same gears as a pld would and has more or less same survivability as pld except for hg but when I drg a1 savage dark mts + war ots far superior to pld mt + war ot due to the numbers alone...

[Fatshine]

Out of all the DRK suggestions people have posted, I never read anything on Plunge. I wish the distance can be increased to 20y like Shoulder Tackle. I feel 15y is just "enough". Don't get me wrong, I LOVE it. Too me it's so satisfying being knocked back and using Plunge immediately!

[Freyyy]

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[Phoenicia]

Snip

Sword Oath changed? It didn't. Only the tooltip. Sword Oath was an additional 50 potency on top of your auto attack and had its own crit chance since 2.0.

Salted Earth has no aggro multiplier. I checked and double checked. It doesn't.

now that post above means same buffs for dark knight who already is superior mt over pld.

a dark all possible buffs parsers over 200 same gears as a pld would and has more or less same survivability as pld except for hg but when I drg a1 savage dark mts + war ots far superior to pld mt + war ot due to the numbers alone...

Based on parses, best MTs are WAR. They have better mitigation than both other tanks and pull higher DPS than both other tanks. Except..... That's not how it works.

Each tank brings a perk to being the MT. All three tanks are EQUAL. Any DPS advantage/disadvantage is made up for in another department.