Yoshi P's Stance on Pld

[Exodus_Kenpachi]

I'd concede a few small numerical adjustments but unlike PLD, DRK is functioning 100% as intended. It sounds like you just don't enjoy the job.

DrK problems:

1. Grit cost is insane. The GCD penalty is more than enough for the instant 20% mitigation.

2. DA Dark Dance, and Dark Dance in general, is useless outside of lolfaceroll tomb grinding. DrK has been designed around parry with Low Blow procs, Reprisal procs, and Blood Price. Evasion is counter-intuitive to the entire build of DrK.

3. Outside of more DPS than PLD they really dont bring anything to the table in the OT roll. If you have a MNK their one OT utility is useless.

4. DA Power Slash is a joke. It is roughly the same emnity as a DA Carve and Spit and should never be used.

5. No real raid utility. This is especially highlighted by the PLD/DrK combo. Their best and unique utility is gated behind a proc that requires them to be MTing and cannot have 100% uptime.

6. Physical mitigation issues. Try tanking Twintania while synced. Ravana is another good example. Any fight that has multiple physical cleaves or lots of trash DrK's defensive faults come to light. Really the only way a DrK can mitigate physical busters is with Shadow Wall (which is on too long of a CD) and Shadow Skin. Dark Dance is not reliable and Foresight is lol.

7. Shoehorned skills. Sole Survivor? Come on SE, you can do better than that. DA unmend? Only useful when tanking trash.

Now none of these issues are as crippling as PLDs problems but they are real and need to be addressed. I have a hard time agreeing that DrK is functioning as intended and I think most people are running them because 1. They aren't a PLD and 2. They wont hinder your LB. Honestly, would you take a DrK over double WAR if LB penalty didn't exist? If the answer is yes (it should be), then there is a problem with the class. It sounds to me like you really enjoy the job and are trying to look only at the positives the class brings (Being the less of two evils should not be seen as a positive).