Thoughts on why DRK feels off at times

[RecklessLion]

Drk is in a good place.

I feels like that because the game had to use magic monsters for drk to atleast be played. This 3.0 is the birth the debut for them they have to sit well. Overall no haha it's a lot of hard work and involves great skills and knowledge of fights. I'm not mad at their offensive skills at all. I think it's nice with them. They team up with BLM and other int base class well. My concern their mitigation sucks and this suppose to be a tank. Only thing they have really working for them is dark mind is really a 50 sec cd if you count the first 10 being active. Their mitigation are only good for up incoming big attack. No sustainable cd...same problem WAR had in 2.0 series. Content switch to dps and magic so yeah drk looking well but for all content no. But I'm not mad at it, SE gave us the choice to run all 3 tanks...sure someone favorite will be left out but you as the player won't be left out kind of why I'm not mad about it.

[Syzygian]

I'm not mad I'm not mad about it.

No one is saying you're mad, we're saying you're wrong. DRK's CD structure is almost identical to PLD which people like to hail as the "tankiest tank". SE went out of their way to make an extremely physical fight with light DPS checks (the opposite of what people consider DRK good at) in Thordan Ex and DRKs were MTing it week 1. Its cooldowns are all 60-90s with the exception of Shadow Wall. That's pretty sustainable. A2S - another example of a fight with almost no magical damage where DRK functions just fine.

The mere fact that DRK MTs out of tank stance so much is a testament to the fact that they have good, sustainable mitigation.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Or they're being babied by the healers with extra heals to cover for their lack of mitigation.

[Judge_Xero]

Or they're being babied by the healers with extra heals to cover for their lack of mitigation.

I feel this is fairly accurate when it comes to high physical damage in fights. But since DRK puts out high DPS it's a fair trade off.

[MiniPrinny]

My concern their mitigation sucks and this suppose to be a tank. Only thing they have really working for them is dark mind is really a 50 sec cd if you count the first 10 being active. Their mitigation are only good for up incoming big attack. No sustainable cd...same problem WAR had in 2.0 series.

I don't know why I'm bothering, maybe because I'm just tired of it after six months, but allow me to enlighten you, my Warrior acquaintance.

Dark Mind, to start off with, is a 60 second cooldown whose duration doesn't really matter because as it stands, damage is predictable. Even if you are using it on the rare trash pull that is primarily composed of mages, your healer likely won't notice because if you're a good Dark Knight, and I hope most of the people who post here are, you will be healing yourself for more through Abyssal Drain than you would ever prevent by using an enhanced Dark Mind.

Secondly, about the mitigation skills for my Job. While it is true that Dark Knights have a slightly reduced potency on their major defensive cooldown as compared to Paladins, and that our cross-classes from Paladins are weakened from missing their traits, we do have means of compensating for these pitfalls. Perhaps the largest advantage, and one that mustn't be ignored, is a Dark Knight's raw damage output. While it is true that we deal considerably less damage than a Warrior, our true strength isn't when we are tanking single enemies, it is our raw multi-target damage that makes us threatening, which is an area that Paladin is extremely weak in. This of course allows us to kill things more quickly, and by extension, prevent damage from ever happening in the first place. Additionally, while Paladins have better cooldowns in Awareness, Convalescence, and Sentinel; their Bulwark, Shield Swipe, and Shield Bash abilities are either weaker than what Dark Knights have, or come at a high cost. Bulwark may be able to be more reliable, but Dark Dance is more powerful over time.

Finally, only Warriors has a "sustainable" cooldown in the form of Inner Beast. Both Paladins and Dark Knights eventually have dry spots where they lose their durability for a brief period, especially if they're burning through cooldowns rapidly. Dark Knights, however, are no where near the poor state that Warriors were in at the beginning of a Realm Reborn, we have the tools we need to do what we need to do. We aren't getting one-shot by tank busters, we aren't relying on just self-healing and raw HP, and we certainly aren't in need of being boosted like Warriors needed, and even then, there are many who suspect that Warrior may not have needed to be boosted to begin with.

[FinalWolf]

Power slash + dark arts should have been a slashing debuff.

All that extra threat isn't needed.

[Jim_Berry]

I think there should be an ability or trait that resets and allow activation of Reprisal immediately upon a successful Parry, similar to how a crit from BRD's "bites" can reset Bloodletter/Rain of Death.

As for Delirium, make it where it's potency is swapped with Souleater's potency when you're OT/off Grit.

[Cynric]

The only things I don't really like are.

Living Dead - Too many times have healers just panic healed me before I've even seen 2 seconds of walking dead, or just not healed me enough to make me not die.

Blood Weapon - I don't like that I can't use this move with Grit on, it devalues the tank stance a little for me.

Reprisal - The weakness of this move in fully magical encounters and the fact that you must be hit and parry to proc it irks me a little. I'd rather see an alternative activation or something, I don't know but I don't like having damaging , or utility based moves I can't use as an OT.

Delirium - If I have a Monk this move is just the end of the I need MP combo. I'd rather see it become identical to dragon kick or have a different effect altogether

Dark Arts Power Slash - I feel like this isn't really all that great for the combo tree and dark arts effect. I'd rather see Dark arts give a different buff/debuff to this skill then a bit more enmity.


The job plays well but some things either don't have the best synergy with OTing or feel a little odd sometimes.

This is all personal preference though. Aside from a lack of off tank utility the job is pretty solid.