Why I love Dark Knight...

[Fluffernuff]

DRK is pretty well balanced right now if you ask me. I'd even say on the slightly weaker side of the raid tanking scales. It very hardly depends on your healers' abilities to DPS, and the fight you're going into.

4/5ths of the new content has physical heavy-hitting attacks, so DRK can find themselves on the weaker side of the defensive spectrum for this tier, which can mean less healer DPS. They bring more personal DPS to the table and also Reprisal, but PLD's capability to tank physical stuff and the fact that Rage of Halone reduces Str and can have 100% uptime (which would be a DPS loss for the Paladin but perhaps a DPS gain for the healers) make DRK, imho, the weakest of the three tanks for the current raid tier, though not in a level where it has too much impact on the meta anyways.

I personally prefer healing PLDs, but I don't care if it's a DRK instead.

Indeed! I would agree on a boss encounter with 1 enemy (Raids), DRK falls just a tad bit shorter of the 2. Not so much HARDER to heal, but just lurking around the tanking forums, it seems that DRK just doesnt have enough effective tools in a longer 1 enemy fight to keep up with the tankbusters... or rather they simply have too many longer cooldowns. but I do agree, all 3 tanks are totally interchangeable, and it's amazing.
My last sentence was more of a snark than anything. If DRK is so hopelessly squishy, then why would ANYONE want it taking all the hits? Obviously, no one would and DRK wouldnt be MT over a PLD... IF this were the case.

oh jeez, LD.... I forgot that existed because it just never comes up for me... Apparently it has it's uses in savage as an extra cooldown, but it's downside is just so anti-tank it boggles my mind... It just has that much more added coordination/communication that the other 2 "oh sh!t" buttons WAR and PLD don't have... Its like a "worse" Holmgang with a longer CD and a HG that kills you on a shorter CD. Holmgang CAN get you killed, sure, but it wasn't the effect of holmgang that killed you.
not to mention that LD actually becomes WORSE the better gear DRK has- it makes that healing requirement HARDER to heal outside of a WHM benediction. it'd rather silly. clearly not USELESS, but still...so, so silly.

[Fernosaur]

Snip.

As a side note that I forgot to add: In the long run, and as this raid tier becomes more and more obsolete and more focused on farming A12S for the weapons and body pieces, DRK will slowly become the preferred tank over PLD because PLD struggles a lot with the vast amount of magical tank busters in A12S. DRK, on the other hand, has Dark Mind on a very very short cooldown, which offers ridiculously good survivability on that fight, and, as said earlier, offers better DPS windows for healers, which only boosts DRK's own superior DPS output. Through progression on A9, 10 and 11, PLD is better. In the long run of this patch cycle, DRK will be the better MT.


And about Living Dead: While I don't think Living Dead is amazing, I don't think it's AS bad as it's usually painted. The balance between the three invulnerabilities is interesting. All three of them can be used to extend periods of healer and tank DPS by quite vast amounts of time, the most simple one being Hallowed Ground, of course, since it gives both healers and MT 10 seconds of not giving two shits and DPSing to the heart's content. However, the 7 minute CD hurts quite a bit, particularly in magical fights where PLD is already starved for defense.

Holmgang, by contrast, offers the least amount of free DPS uptime at 6 seconds, but can be used every three minutes, which gives WAR an invincibility every time PLD and DRK would be using Sentinel or Shadow Wall. This allows the least healer DPS out of the three.

Finally, Living Dead, as you said, requires more coordination. When taken to its full extent, Living Dead can give 20 full seconds of invulnerability to allow both the DRK and healers to DPS to heart's content. The trade-off being the need to get the DRK back to full, of course. With a White Mage, this is very easy, particularly because both Benediction and LD share a 5 minute cooldown, so when planned right, these two skills can be used to allow for 10-19 seconds of full DPS, specially considering WHM doesn't even need to hop out of CS to use Benediction. AST doesn't care much for the healing requirement because ED and Synastry+Benefic II work wonders for LD. If there are two healers, a Scholar's fairy will very likely cover any HP amounts the AST couldn't get because of non-crits or whatnot. A combo of WHM+AST won't care, of course, because of Benediction.

For a solo Scholar, however, I've found that LD is more hassle than it is worth. To get the DRK back to full HP you need around 5 or 6 seconds as a Scholar, maybe even more. Only three Embraces will manage to go out, you'll probably have to use Emergency Tactics on Adloquium, and you'll very likely find yourself spending at least two AF stacks on Lustrating the tank. The biggest hurt is those two stacks (from a pure DPS perspective, this really hurts Sch bc of Enerdy Drain) and being forced to use ET, since it has a better use when used with Succor. The later is just my personal opinion, though. Anyways, the point is that Living Dead is actually pretty good imo, it's just the rare situation of a solo Scholar that makes the skill awfully inconvenient and a drain of resources.

Luckily, for A12S, Dark Mind is in such a stupidly short recast timer (at 60 secs) that Living Dead I don't think will ever have a need to come up.

Whoops... Sorry! Wrote way more than I intended!

[Claire_Pendragon]

-
LIVING DEAD
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the actual effective "invulnerability" of its effect isnt actually 20seconds. Nor is it actually 10 seconds.
If I activate it 9 seconds before the tank buster, those 9 seconds didnt need to be spent healing, regardless of which tank pops their invulnerability on the last second tank buster.
If the tank buster comes early, then the remaining seconds disappear, as they now start the next phase of living dead, which requires you to heal them up to full in the next 10 seconds.
If you heal them to full at the very 1st second, then their invulnerability ends.
So technically it "can" be a literal 1 second duration invulnerability.

I personally like the "concept" of Living dead, but as people pointed out, there are small flaws in it's design.
I feel the concept should remain, with only small tweeks.
(1) The amount needed to be healed should only be their base HP w/o gear.
or/and
(2) Increase the amount of time needed to heal them before they die by 3 seconds.

With at least one of those changes, Living Dead will be a unique invulnerability, w/o just feeling like the "lesser" of the 3.

[bardaboo]

They do take damage, but that is something healers should be glad that happens, because honestly, a well geared Paladin just makes you want to leave the dungeon, there is nothing to heal there.

Or ya know... dps instead??? Thus making the dungeon go faster?

[Pixelmancer]

Just throwing this out there. The Pld wouldn't have to be casting Stoneskin between pulls if you were doing it already :P

Stoneskin on tanks is a waste of MP. It gets knocked off instantly and constantly. It's just good for keeping DPS from being 1 shotted if they stand in something.

[Averax]

I like the pacification macros, like the simple ones, not the over the top ones. Just as an indicator so i know it's coming.

[Deceptus]

Stoneskin on tanks is a waste of MP. It gets knocked off instantly and constantly. It's just good for keeping DPS from being 1 shotted if they stand in something.

Can't believe I'm reading that from a healer.

Effective HP is effective HP. If a tank has 30K hp and a Tank buster does 31K damage tank is dead. But if you stoneskin said tank during the TB cast and bring him up to 33K HP, he lives. Stoneskin, Adloquinium and Aspected Benefit (shield) are really important skills.

[AlphaFox]

No more pacification macros. (Warrior)

I dunno, personally don't mind it as long as its tasteful. If its just a simple 'Berserk Up' I am all for it, lets me know so I can try to remove it when it hits or if I am bard will toss Warden's paean. When its like "10secs to pacify<se>, 5<se>, 4<se>....DO IT NOW!" Thats when I roll my eyes and just let them keep it.

[Ilan]

Stoneskin on tanks is a waste of MP. It gets knocked off instantly and constantly. It's just good for keeping DPS from being 1 shotted if they stand in something.

Yeah a total waste. Just like tanks who keep hate and dps who deals dps and does mechanics right...

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I loooove annoying berserk macros. Can't always see when they pop berserk on the party list and I usually have my volume down, so I won't hear it. Fey Caress and the Wardens Paean say hello. :] <3.

God, I hate those macros. :c I quit playing War because literally everyone would ask why I don't use a macro for it. No thanks, if I see a berserk macro I'm letting them sit pacified. The DPS loss isn't worth.