What's going to be the strength of Dark Knights now?

[TheCount]

I have to ask because the live letter left me feeling a bit hopeless as to the future of Dark Knight tanking in Stormblood. They not only pretty much ignored showing them in any good detail even though the other two tanks did get more screen-time and love.

But they also give away some of the strengths of Dark Knights. Primarily by suddenly giving the Paladin the ability to block magic (and do so effectively at that what with it's new little ultimate as well that makes them 100% block) but also other small things such as giving warrior gap closer, and possibly widening the dps gap even further by having them fell cleave even more.

Are Dark Knights just being benched or what? What's their strength now even? What do they have over other tanks at this point from what we've seen?

[Demus]

DRK will probably keep its spot over PLD in DPS and be the tank of choice for higher levels of play.

[Lyth]

It's hard to say what the result will be without seeing in-game footage. With 15 jobs, it's difficult to showcase everything, at least if you want the live letter to finish in under 10 hours.

The job reveal does actually provide a fair amount of detail, however.

In the video, we see:
Darkside -> DA -> Blood Weapon -> New Move -> Plunge -> HS -> DA -> Carve and Spit -> SS -> Soul Eater -> Grit -> Defensive Cooldown -> Reprisal -> DA -> New Move

When Blood Weapon is activated, the new DRK gauge starts increasing, at a rate of 3 units for every auto attack or ability (similar to the trigger for Blood Weapon MP ticks). Dark Arts does not cause a drop in the gauge, so it's probably still tied to MP. Both of the new slash moves have Dark Arts prior to their use. In addition, they also consume 50 units of the new DRK gauge. Soul Eater independently appears to give you 10 units, at least out of Grit. When Grit is applied, the DRK gauge stops increasing, possibly because the Blood Weapon effect is removed.

The defensive ability in the video looks like Shadow Wall at first glance, but the animation is different. It's actually the same animation that the DRK does on their targeted "Cover-like ability" in the Stormsblood Benchmark. This suggests that not only can you use it on another player, but you can use it on yourself as well.

Reprisal is interesting. It's used without any kind of a proc. It's hard to tell whether this is the new shared role action, or if they took the animation for Reprisal and applied it to a new DRK ability.

On the whole, it looks like we'll have another layer of resource management to potentially set us up for some big damage moves.

It's hard to tell what the end result of these changes will be without a complete ability list. Low Blows becoming shared doesn't just affect DRK, as WAR has lost Brutal Swing as well. Reprisal becoming shared compensates for the loss of the Storm's Path debuff on WAR. You should also note that the new gap closer on WAR costs 20 IB to use and is 100 potency, although it's on a 15 second shorter recast. There are trade-offs everywhere, and the changes look very fair for once.

I think the most important part will be the raid debuffs. WAR still has slashing, but it's been switched around to Maim instead, with SE taking over the role of self-buff. Without having the chance to see either of PLD or DRK's combos in action on an in-game target, we really don't know what their debuffs will be. We also don't know what modifications have been made to existing abilities yet.

I will say that every tank actually looks interesting to play this time around, which is definitely a step up from Heavensward.

[Awful]

Great analysis Lyth I agree with you that all the tank changes are very fair the way I see the role options for every class is more or less talents with the main class bringing their own utilities, same goes for tanks as well i'm honestly excited to play all the tanks this time around and mess around with stats and abilities.

[javid]

They did say they wanted the base play of the tanks to be the same. So it's possible the gauges all work the same for those 3. I do like how you CANNOT hotbar all the shared tank abilities meaning (if these new abilites don't some how becomes useless) will create niches!!

[SpookyGhost]

I will say that every tank actually looks interesting to play this time around, which is definitely a step up from Heavensward.

Agreed, it's nice to see PLD finally got a mechanic even if we've got no idea what it does (same w/ DRK but at least it had some form of MP management before).

Even though we got all that information yesterday it's still really hard to tell what the meta will be, especially when none of the numbers are set in stone. It's fun to speculate, but if you're actually going to be making job-changing decisions over speculation then I'd recommend waiting 'til SB actually drops.

[TheCount]

DRK will probably keep its spot over PLD in DPS and be the tank of choice for higher levels of play.

I have my concerns over that. From the looks of their abilities they'll get a damage increase too, and with how defensive they are now they are pretty much looking to be the de facto choice for MT as they are both great against magic and physical now, as well as even having a little ultimate that protects the entire raid from some damage. Paladins were already more defensive than Dark Knights to begin with, the only thing Dark Knights had over them being slightly better dps and better magic protection. One is questionable now and the other looks to be just outright better for the paladin what with having the ability to block it passively and then having an ultimate that lets them 100% block it for those important moments.

[TheCount]

Mind you we also don´t know even if they have done something about the MP management of Dark Knights either. We already had to constantly juggle that because of how quickly that depletes and now we get an extra mechanic on top of it. So that becomes a MP juggle and Dark Blood mechanic while also tanking and trying to optimize your dps and whatnot, to me it seems like the other tanks will have to do a lot less for the same or better result judging on what i´ve seen. Warrior doesn´t even have to deal with their thing anymore and just have that rage bar of theirs instead.

[TarynH]

What's going to be the strength of Dark Knights now?

Giving in to the darkness. Also, understanding the realization that they did not have the high ground.

[SenorKanga]

It felt daft that any tank was ever better against magical damage anyway, that just ruled them out against too many fights. Much better to be able to choose a tank based on the style of play you enjoy with maybe a few niche utility differences between them. The new drk cover looks really great for that - might literally be a second living dead.

Definitely no need to worry anyway, just wait for the full lists to come out, play and have fun!