Dear Square-Enix: You Forgot About Buffs to Dark Knight's Off-Tank Utility.

[Syzygian]

It needs them.

[Phoenicia]

+1.

Tank problems won't be solved unless:

- WAR becomes "wanted" as a main tank. (It currently rivals the other two).

- DRK and PLD can rival WAR's ability to OT.

As long as x and y compete for the MT spot while Z watches and laughs because it's guaranteed the OT spot (while it still can beat them at the MT spot), you have NOT solved the tank issues.

[DBelmont]

Totally agree with OP. DRK provides zero OT utility and with the PLD boosts, DRK will be wrestling with PLD for the MT spot. While that happens, WAR gets the OT spot by default.

Not nerfing WAR is nice. Buffing PLD is nice. DRK turning into an underdog at the end of the day is not really that great.

[Violette]

How about we wait until we see how the raid environment ans out and see what tanks are required to do before we cry bloody murder. Drk still has better sustain than pld, which is +1 in it's favor currently. I'm not saying everything is fine, just we should see how the dice fall. Who knows, maybe there will be so much damage that pld+drk will be required if they really are easing up the damage checks.

[Syzygian]

How about we wait until we see how the raid environment ans out and see what tanks are required to do before we cry bloody murder. Drk still has better sustain than pld, which is +1 in it's favor currently. I'm not saying everything is fine, just we should see how the dice fall. Who knows, maybe there will be so much damage that pld+drk will be required if they really are easing up the damage checks.

Crying bloody murder is hardly what I was doing, more like stating an inarguable fact; DRK needs raid utility in the OT slot because it currently brings next-to-none. Its like stating that the sky is blue.

That being said, I DO see where you're coming from, but that still wouldn't change the fact that DRK is a poorly designed OT with no unique raid utility, and that problem will rear its ugly head one of these days even if the (highly unlikely) tank-meta scenario that you're suggesting masks it for this particular tier.

[Violette]

The thing about OT utility is that if we have the case of a lot of single tanking, paladin still bugs out of tp in 3 minutes as an OT and they have no recovery/control mechanics like drk/war. If they bottom out they have to... flash? While drk can still do damage with the un spells.

Pld's utility will only win out should it's healing be needed/the shielding be needed.

If you take ast/whm, the dv may be needed to make up for weaker aoe barriers. But that's a sacrifice. You need to look at the class synergies and what they offer/what is required/what their weaknesses are.

I.e. ninja has the worst physical dps, but if you have a warrior this is somewhat mitigated.

If you take a nocturnal ast, you have potentially more raid dps in return for less solo dps and worse aoe barriers. But if you have a paladin you get some aoe barriers back every 2 mins.

[MiniPrinny]

If you take a nocturnal ast, you have potentially more raid dps in return for less solo dps and worse aoe barriers.

Succor and Nocturnal Helios have the same potency, MP cost, range, and duration. Nocturnal Helios takes longer to cast, but it also isn't the sole AoE healing spell that an Astrologian has. As a reminder, Indomitability isn't a spell, it's an ability, which means it isn't boosted by outside healing boosting abilities, like Mantra or Defiance. Collective Unconscious, while usable less often than Sacred Soil, is much more powerful since it has the HoT which can be extended through Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation. So, I don't see where the "worse AoE barriers" thing is coming from. Also, in terms of their single target, Adloquium is 300 potency, not instant cast, and has a chance to crit for extremely high numbers. While Nocturnal Benefic is 262.5 potency in healing and 341.25 potency in shielding, instant cast, and costs less MP. Really, both shielding healers have ups and downs, the problem is the raid environment in Midas was so hostile to Astrologian that most people didn't even attempt to make it work.

Anyway, I don't have much to add to the main discussion in the thread beyond my continued confusion at SE's fear of making Dark Knight offer more than its damage and Intelligence Down debuff. While some may consider this idea overpowered, I've been discussing with my friends for a while, and they tend to agree that it is baffling that they didn't separate the Infirmity debuff from Dancing Edge and Storm's Eye and separated the Intelligence Down debuff from Dragon Kick and made Delirium effectively a slashing version of Dragon Kick.

I have other mild bits of confusion as well, such as the bewildering waste of time coding Dark Passenger's Blind and Dark Dance's Evasion. While yes, Blind and Evasion are useful in level 60 dungeons, they are useful up until a point. That point I noticed at level 50, was around the 2.3 dungeons where those debuffs and buffs severely dropped in viability. I wouldn't be surprised if the 3.3 dungeons did the same, since in raids, we already have enemies with accuracy so high that Evasion is worthless, and all Savage mobs are immune to Blind. Soooo... yeah.

[Jim_Berry]

Totally agree with OP. DRK provides zero OT utility and with the PLD boosts, DRK will be wrestling with PLD for the MT spot. While that happens, WAR gets the OT spot by default.

Not nerfing WAR is nice. Buffing PLD is nice. DRK turning into an underdog at the end of the day is not really that great.

PLD was once the underdog.

[Jim_Berry]

How about we wait until we see how the raid environment ans out and see what tanks are required to do before we cry bloody murder. Drk still has better sustain than pld, which is +1 in it's favor currently. I'm not saying everything is fine, just we should see how the dice fall. Who knows, maybe there will be so much damage that pld+drk will be required if they really are easing up the damage checks.

With changes to difficulty in new content, dps from DRK won't really matter a ton anymore, unless the community still want speed runs within the first hour of patch release.

Anywho, OT was merely referring to utility as an OT. Even PLD can still reduce the target's damage by reducing it's STR by 10% as an OT.

[MagiusNecros]

PLD was once the underdog.

And Warrior before it.