Paladin and Dark Knight

[Yasuhiro]

Dark Knight, feels like there's more stuff to do with it, Paladin which was my first Tank class was pretty boring I do use it when I want to use my Lightning glamour for Blazefire saber but that has nothing to do with Paladin, lol, I digress. I will say though, 50-60 with Dark Knight was painful and almost put me off from playing, had great difficulty with it.

[MagiusNecros]

Paladin is boring and Dark Knight is not. On the same token PLD has skills that synergize with each other. Dark Knight skills actively conflict with each other and some skills are reliant on party coordination. And not the DRK.

[JackFross]

Paladin is boring and Dark Knight is not.

This is incredibly subjective and flat out untrue for some players. Paladin and Dark Knight have different playstyles that appeal to different types of players. Some people have fun playing Paladin and doing good DPS while also being an unmovable wall. Some people do not enjoy the hectic nature of playing Dark Knight. I run into more DRKs in DF who just flat out do not use any Mana for any reason ever than I encounter Dark Knights who actually play properly. Maybe 1 in 20 will actually play DRK with any sort of skill - if you're gonna ignore the main mechanic of Dark Knight, you might as well play Paladin, where you can maintain optimal DPS without worrying about those sort of things.

[Awful]

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I mean you're just generalizing Drks here are there bad Drk tanks? Yes. Are there bad War tanks? Yes. Are there bad Pld tanks? Yes. Saying that Drk is the defacto "Derp Knight" of the tanks is quite a bold statement. I can't tell you how many Wars I ran into that rushed in with Deliverance and couldn't keep hate and blamed the DPS. Or what about those Plds that Circle of Scorn once and never use Flash? Tank is the exclusive role in DF where it's easy to point fingers at as you're the one maintaining the pace of the dungeon, combined with the DPS and healer DPS, but in reality the tank moves and pulls how they please.

I mean hell i've had DPS that just don't pull their weight should I assume all Drgs can't AoE? That Blms are just ice mages 100% of the time? No that's all untrue for some players I agree with you there are bad tanks out there but please don't lump us who enjoy and maximizing our role as Drks with those other bad Drks.

[SpookyGhost]

In terms of gameplay PLD is the most fundamentally simple. There's very little to min/max, it's pretty straightforward, you can pick up PLD and probably be at the top of your game in a week or so of practice. But being simple doesn't necessarily mean bad or boring. As an example, when I was leading my static by calling out all the mechanics, calling out Mantra timings, being generally aware of what everyone was doing and needed to do, while also maximizing my effectiveness as a WAR... that was pretty rough. Had I been a PLD in the same situation I feel like I would've been significantly less stressed and been able to more accurately call things out without any sort of panic. So that's why I said in my initial post that PLD is good for raid leading, you have to worry significantly less about what you're doing and can focus on what's going on around you to help everyone out.

[JackFross]

I mean you're just generalizing Drks here are there bad Drk tanks?

To be fair, I lost my train of thought halfway through that post and just rambled for the second half of it.

The point I was making is:
"If you are going to pick up Dark Knight and then play it like a Paladin (ie. Ignore the base mechanics of the Job as many DF'ers like to do), you'll be hot garbage. If you instead pick up Paladin and play similarly (ie. press buttons and use combos), you'll be respectable in your role."

That doesn't make one better or worse than the other. It was mainly because the whole notion that "PLD is boring other tanks are fun" needs to die. It's inaccurate rubbish spread by people who believe "active dps" = "enjoyable game design" without thinking of multiple viewpoints. When someone is asking "which tank should I play?" you shouldn't respond by saying "PLD is boring, DRK is fun, HOWEVER..." you should posit facts about each Job gleaned from your personal experience playing them and then let the OP or the reader decide which one they prefer after reading said logical discussion of the perceived pros and cons of a list.

Coloring the argument out the jump by applying a negative adjective to one and a positive to another is an improper way to attempt at giving an unbiased opinion of two different Jobs.

[Drkdays]

PLD is a bit boring compared to DRK, DRK skills are just more flashyand enjoyable to me. Also the DRK storyline from 50 to 60 is my favorite class storyline that I've played.

[Lyth]

Well the only reason warrior wasnt on the list if my DRK is lvl 53 and Pally lvl 52 while my warrior is 32 so that would be a longer grind

I would recommend that you gain one more level on DRK and get the associated job skill. If you're mainly looking for something to explore the story with, let's just say that it makes a certain one-on-one fight significantly more epic.

There were two great moments in the class unveiling of DRK, during the lead-in to Heavensward. One was when it was revealed to be a tank, at Fanfest London. The second was during the Job Actions video, where they revealed that it had a gap closer. I mained PLD until 2.2, followed by WAR until 2.5. When I saw this, I hung up my axe and never looked back.

[Awful]

When someone is asking "which tank should I play?" you shouldn't respond by saying "PLD is boring, DRK is fun, HOWEVER..." you should posit facts about each Job gleaned from your personal experience playing them and then let the OP or the reader decide which one they prefer after reading said logical discussion of the perceived pros and cons of a list.

This stood out to me as I was giving my experiences in DF, I did go off topic and talked about other classes but i'll stick to Drk, and pld. They both bring their own play styles and you're right saying if you play a Drk like a Paladin you'll be garbage. Just in my own experience I don't hate or discredit pld it's a good class and easier to jump into as you have to worry about less and can focus on other things around you while supporting the raid group (Divine Veil + Conva with a spread Adlo for group wide dmg or Covering the MT when need be). But for me as a tank main who raids Midas Savage weekly, I love being a drk for a lot of the knock backs in Midas Savage or getting to the boss in A5S when you have to get behind him. It's so satisfying to be able to do that in a split second and timing it with the knock backs so you don't even get knocked back i'm so used to it that when I go on my pld for A5S/A6S for weekly clears I have tempered will which is nice but has such a long CD. Having mobility as a tank is something I really enjoy and it helps me become a better tank by being in those positions or help the group when an add is loose or to be where the boss is gonna be next.

Also sorry about being negative/condescending I wrote this late the other night lol kinda rambled on and gave no tips or anything really so you got me on that one tried to make this post more constructive compared to the old one where I said "pld was boring" because it isn't people just have the mentality because of the active DPS meta that pld isn't desirable one of my co-tanks is a pld and he enjoys doing Midas with me every week when he can.

[Jim_Berry]

I juggle both PLD and DRK. I like the safety of PLD (lots of defensive CDs) but I like the aggressiveness (Dark Arts combos) and survival (MP and HP restoration) of DRK. While I'm still leaning more in favor of PLD, I like to do DRK on easier content (Normal Raids) and PLD on harder content (Savage Raids).

When people ask me to come tank for them, I generally go PLD until I get a feel of the group. If it's a quick-kill group, I swap to DRK (plus I almost have DRK mount).