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

[Valkyrie-Amber]

but lets talk about the real issue and that isent plds or drks its wars they have a free pass to all partys.

fact is tank spot number 2 can now be either a pld or drk cause I cant rember alex sav first world clears ever useing a pld till they were geared better.

[Brian_]

What is your dog is in this fight? Are we trying to make sure DRK stays gimped unless content favors and melee DPS compositions favor it? Can we say the same about WAR? Is it being propped up? Should all the tanks not be equally well designed in their own way and able to offer EQUAL levels of (different) utility regardless of whether or not they have aggro at a given moment? Answer my questions instead of just saying "that doesn't matter".

Just because DRK's problems were overshadowed by how horrible PLD was in comparison does not mean, now that PLD has been substantially buffed, that we can just pretend those problems never existed or that DRK is "working as intended".

I play all three tanks and am full i210 on all three of them (with their relics). I was a PLD main in 2.X. I switched to WAR in 3.0 because my raid group needed a WAR. On fflogs, I have 90th percentile parses with PLD and WAR. If something happens and I need to play DRK for my group, I'd be fine switching. To me, it doesn't matter what job I play. I am a responsible progression tank so it's my duty to be prepared for anything.

It's about getting the job done. Not bickering about MT or OT or whatever. Tanks operate as a singular unit. The raid operates as a singular unit.

I have no dog in this fight. Nobody should.


The major problem you have is you do not understand progression raiding. And, balance of this degree only matters in progression. If you're going to link Mog Talk, maybe you should take some time to watch their video about raiding in 3.2.

Progression raiding is attempting to clear content while being below the ilevel the content is tuned for.

There are two major ilevel hurdles groups have to overcome in progression. The first is the DPS gap. The second is the eHealing / eHP gap. All raid utility and all raid composition balance has to be viewed under that lens -- not this MT OT BS. If you are bringing a tank to a raid, you are bringing a tank to the raid. Utility does not suddenly matter more or less because it's coming from the MT or OT spot because that definition is inherently very obscure in content and the line separating the two is becoming increasingly blurred.

If you're working through progression and need to compensate for the lack of a MNK in a situation where you are not reaching to clear a DPS check, you will bring a DRK. In the scenario where your other tank is a WAR, path does not stack with path. In the scenario where your other tank is a PLD, reprisal + INT debuff > path for raid mitigation.

DRK + PLD comps were only handicapped because you needed to maximize raid DPS in 3.0's raid meta. If you are instead trying to push for max raid eHP, DRK + PLD is better than any WAR comp.

Again, we do not know what direction the meta is heading. From what we do know, the DPS checks won't be as tight. That inherently favors any non-WAR/DRK tank pairing.

[FallenWings]

Proper context of why MNK was mandatory in 2.0 because there was only MNK and DRG for First Coil and Second Coil. Ontop of the imbalance already present between the two where MNK simply floored DRG in DPS, so a second MNK was considered for overall higher DPS.

NIN only arrived in Final Coil and no World First/Server First groups were going to gimp themselves in the race by waiting for their NIN to level up and experiment with the class.

MNK was as far as I can remember, only mandatory in T13 where the raid wide damage far exceeded the low gear level at the time.
For the most part the major factor wasn't dragon kick but:

- There was really only MNK and DRG in progression in the entirety of 2.0.
- DRG being garbage so the only real compositions were MNK+MNK, MNK+NIN or MNK+Caster#2
- MNK being undisputed highest ST DPS
- Every single raid wide mechanic was already covered by the healers and/or Storm's Path. Only T13 was the outlier in which Dragon Kick was required ontop.

[Jhett_Magnum]

It needs them.

I agree with you Syz. You've proven a valid point throughout this thread. My question to you is what possible utility can DRK get?

[Syzygian]

I agree with you Syz. You've proven a valid point throughout this thread. My question to you is what possible utility can DRK get?

Well if you give DRK a raid DPS buff that stacks with Storm's Eye, given that FFXIV's tanking meta is very DPS-happy, that'll just make PLD never ever ever get used again.

It already has two raid mitigation utilities. Problem is one of them only works while tanking something. Which as an OT, you aren't always, and if you want to throw out those labels, what about magic only fights? It only has Delirium. It only has one readily working utility, one that isn't unique to it, and the other, while good, is dependent on the fight and what role the DRK is playing at the given moment. And then there's the fact that WAR beats DRK at literally everything other than personal DPS while MTing. People acknowledged that this same thing was a problem with DRG prior to 3.0 (even though there wasn't anything wrong, per se, with DRG's personal DPS (sound familiar?), after 2.4 anyway), so this thread was just pointing out that there's a similar problem now with DRK.

You could of course add another OT-specific mitigation utility and that'd be fine, I suppose. As long as its roughly analogous to Reprisal in raid mitigation over the course of the fight and not overpowered.

For whatever reason some folks seem to think that I'm wrong in pointing this out. But I just wanted it to be pointed out to begin with.

The primary utility I can think of that DRK could bring that wouldn't devalue another job, is a party-based MP/TP restore. Sure other jobs have this, but its not just one its many of them (so its clear that giving many jobs this utility doesn't cause them to devalue eachother). In fact, ranged DPS have this, a melee DPS has this, and a healer has this. It'd be cool, for example, if Sole Survivor acted as an MP-Goad out of Grit (that way you have Reprisal+DE in Grit, and Sole Survivor+DE out of Grit). I dunno, you could have DRK+tank+NIN+2healers+any 3 melee/casters and manage to have a group without a BRD/MCH since you'd have a TP Goad and an MP Goad, so you'd actually open up more different party compositions that way instead of making one comp or job obsolete. Which would be nice.

Or you could just do what SE did with AST (hopefully without all the issues that poor job has had) and do what many people thought would happen from the beginning and give DRK two job-specific stances, wherein one stance, a specific cooldown or debuff's contribution is raid DPS (in place of a WAR) and in the other its contribution is raid mitigation (in place of a PLD). They could turn Reprisal into another ability entirely that procs on crit that is a slashing debuff when you have Grit off. Inb4 anyone says how would they change one ability into another - *points at NIN's mudra button* ...It wouldn't stack with Eye, so it wouldn't change DRK/WAR comps at all, but it would allow PLD/DRK comps in which the DRK is the default OT to function much better.

Anyway I'm not here to come up with ideas, but simply to make known the problem. I'm sure someone will come up with 50,000 reasons why the ideas I just spitballed won't work. I have a static, I'm the (default) MT of that static, this issue actually doesn't effect me that much. I may not have 100% of the resume of bragging rights that Brian has but I do know that people have acknowledged the same issues, people that have far more time for world-first-level prog raiding than my silly, plebian, somewhere-in-server-top-10-self. I figured I'd point it out; folks will notice the OP is very short and to the point. I honestly didn't fathom getting so much backlash as it has gotten - I thought it was a generally accepted fact: DRK's OT utility sucks. And like it or not, that issue could very well trickle down far past progression raiding and the point where it matters, where gear has rendered the issue obsolete. It did that with PLD.

So I'll just leave this here and SE will do or not do with it whatever they please. I doubt I'll be the last to bring it up though, I'm certainly not the first.

[TalentedTrack98]

I have a suggestion for dark knight that I've been passing around a little bit. What if for reprisal you made it so that you could dark arts to trigger the proc instead of having it tied to dark dance? You would also need to make reprisal's cool down a bit longer to compensate and I would also suggest just taking the parry proc off of dark dance entirely and instead making it so that dark dance did something a little more useful, maybe block rate or something. This would allow dark knight to have a little bit more utility as an off-tank combined with delirium for magic damage and also allow them to do pretty much their max dps, excluding a few low blow resets.

[Tanathya]

Well if you give DRK a raid DPS buff that stacks with Storm's Eye, given that FFXIV's tanking meta is very DPS-happy, that'll just make PLD never ever ever get used again.

To be fair, PLD just got its Shield Oath damage penalty reduced. While not the same as giving a NIN (since WAR and, in this example DRK would have) a slashing resistance down, it's something to keep in mind in the long run. And that buff to PLD is actually happening as of tomorrow.

I would definitely give PLD some sort of blunt resistance down on top of that Shield Oath buff, so, in the case of having a MNK and a DRK, the former would take advantage of the PLD while, for example, fighting PLD's enemy, while the latter would have its own slashing resistance down and Delirium's INT down wouldn't be useless in every case. PLD would contribute further with the parties' damage, and so would DRK.

[Starbirth]

I play all three tanks and am full i210 on all three of them (with their relics). I was a PLD main in 2.X. I switched to WAR in 3.0 because my raid group needed a WAR. On fflogs, I have 90th percentile parses with PLD and WAR. If something happens and I need to play DRK for my group, I'd be fine switching. To me, it doesn't matter what job I play. I am a responsible progression tank so it's my duty to be prepared for anything.


It's about getting the job done. Not bickering about MT or OT or whatever. Tanks operate as a singular unit. The raid operates as a singular unit.

I have no dog in this fight. Nobody should.


The major problem you have is you do not understand progression raiding. And, balance of this degree only matters in progression. If you're going to link Mog Talk, maybe you should take some time to watch their video about raiding in 3.2.

Progression raiding is attempting to clear content while being below the ilevel the content is tuned for.

There are two major ilevel hurdles groups have to overcome in progression. The first is the DPS gap. The second is the eHealing / eHP gap. All raid utility and all raid composition balance has to be viewed under that lens -- not this MT OT BS. If you are bringing a tank to a raid, you are bringing a tank to the raid. Utility does not suddenly matter more or less because it's coming from the MT or OT spot because that definition is inherently very obscure in content and the line separating the two is becoming increasingly blurred.

If you're working through progression and need to compensate for the lack of a MNK in a situation where you are not reaching to clear a DPS check, you will bring a DRK. In the scenario where your other tank is a WAR, path does not stack with path. In the scenario where your other tank is a PLD, reprisal + INT debuff > path for raid mitigation.

DRK + PLD comps were only handicapped because you needed to maximize raid DPS in 3.0's raid meta. If you are instead trying to push for max raid eHP, DRK + PLD is better than any WAR comp.

Again, we do not know what direction the meta is heading. From what we do know, the DPS checks won't be as tight. That inherently favors any non-WAR/DRK tank pairing.

This is not the Marines. I've known people that are/were in the Marines that do not treat this game like the Marines. Doing so may help you complete raids but only if you and seven other individuals view it as a 2nd and 3rd job, after you find said individuals of course. You seem like you've had the same static since 2.X days and that's nice. I wish I had a static that didn't have people quit the game, leave for another static or have that one clown with his pants always down that forgot to cap weekly tomes and upgrade his weapon effectively gimping the raid for a week. So 99% of the player base has to make do with what they can find and hopefully get a decent team to complete raid content. That is totally doable if the devs in charge of Alex Savage didn't completely miscalculate the difficulty of it and create static destroying content that excludes entire classes. People play a class they like because its fun, they may like playing difficult content on that class because it's fun and they like playing a class they think is fun while feeling like they contribute to a groups success.

The problem here is you do not understand when devs throw these things out the window and it impacts a class to the point people don't find it appealing to play anymore and that can ruin their gaming experience. It can even happen vice versa as well. Warrior is too good because of Alex Savage and is deemed too sacred to touch. So now SE has to power creep PLD to make it seem less shitty to a large majority of statics and guess what? People are afraid of the same thing happening to DRK because PLD is going to take back its raid spot from DRK. These are legit concerns. Not everyone wants to main swap every patch.

Everyone wants a raid spot for their Job. Everyone here commenting has a dog in this fight. You have the first and claim to not have the second. Why are you here?

[Naelle]

I don't agree with this DRK has no OT utility compared to others. Unless I'm forgetting something, Warrior only has Storm's Path. Dark Knight and Paladin have STR down and INT down. That's 1/1/1 for OT utility. Paladin brings the most as OT if we drop DPS from the equation for a moment: Stoneskin, Divine Veil, Clemency, Cover, and a GCD stun. That's 6/1/1. Dark Knight offers an AoE blind that's hardly worth mentioning and Reprisal. I know people seem to think that as OT you can never use Reprisal but very few raid bosses lately are seeing the OT as nothing but DPS. It's usable you just have to make use of it. 6/2/1. You can't make everyone happy. When there are fewer slots for a role than there are Jobs to fill it people will complain. Even if in a perfect world all three tanks were 100% balanced someone would be left out. I may be missing something because of the time so feel free to correct me or discuss, but please don't bother with personal attacks.

[MagiusNecros]

Warrior has Storm's Eye. Which it can use unless the Ninja in the party wants to be on Dancing Edge duty.