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

[Launched]

Now lets say your MT is a WAR. Do you bring PLD or DRK? Well, RoH is equivalent to Delirium in value. But THEN it has DV, Clemency, and Cover, which, while the latter two are iffy to use, they're still better than nothing at all, and paired with DV, are a huge thing to miss out on. DV is easily capable of mitigating (especially now that tanks will have more HP) as much or more damage from the same things Delirium was desirable for, such as Cascade in A3S.

I disagree. DRK having more DPS than PLD, along with the occasional Reprisal when there's a tank swap or the OT has to tank something, is a valid alternative to DV, Clemency and Cover because Clemency and Cover are incredibly situational. You can say that DV is capable of mitigating more damage at once than Delirium because it is, but you can have Delirium up for every single raidwide aoe like Cascade, while DV is limited by its still long 2 minute cooldown. RoH is physical damage only and most raidwide aoes are magical, and you don't really care about reducing autoattacks on the MT (or tankbusters when they already have IB+Vengeance up).

[Syzygian]

I disagree. DRK having more DPS than PLD, along with the occasional Reprisal when there's a tank swap or the OT has to tank something, is a valid alternative to DV, Clemency and Cover because Clemency and Cover are incredibly situational. You can say that DV is capable of mitigating more damage at once than Delirium because it is, but you can have Delirium up for every single raidwide aoe like Cascade, while DV is limited by its still long 2 minute cooldown. RoH is physical damage only and most raidwide aoes are magical, and you don't really care about reducing autoattacks on the MT (or tankbusters when they already have IB+Vengeance up).

So lets say they are roughly equivalent - DRK only bringing a debuff that is easily expendable/replaceable as its sole party-based raid utility (personal DPS is not raid utility) is really.... really bad.

[Akasha_Carnelian]

The point is that it is speculated that the 3.2 adjustments to tanks and tank damage are to bring all 3 tanks in line damage wise. Thus if PLD and DRK are both equal in damage, logically you would take the one that has greater or more valuable utility and this applies whether you are filling MT or OT role.

Having a MNK in the group lessens a DRK's already lacking utlity and when the rest of it's utility needs it to be tanking something to work or engaging in the questionable practice of skirting cleaves for procs when parrying isn't guarenteed.

Paladin on the other hand has a ton of utility that it can draw on and it can do so whether it is tanking something or not. Some of said utility reqiures lowering personal DPS which is fine but will still potentially leave it more desirable for raid group without a monk and even moreso for those with.

DRK players shouldn't need to feel like they are going to be pressured to change to PLD and vice versa just because situations conspire to make one or the other flavour of the month (or 6 months since we're talking aout raiding), but the fact is that regardless of if there are tank swaps or not if damage is equal between the two you are going to want whatever brings the most in other areas which at the moment PLD has in spades whilst DRK has 1.5 things as MT and 0.5 as OT.

And as stated elswhere WAR utility is always going to be wanted even if it's only a Slashing Buff and a -10% damage debuff as if you have a NIN is is less of a loss for the WAR to apply and -10% raidwide damage that can be applied always is quite the boon.