DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Valdegarde]

Something I noticed today after reaching level 70 on Paladin and taking it to the Susano Extreme dummy was a discrepancy in the HP values. I'm item level 317 on Dark Knight, as a fresh Paladin I made it with 313 and did almost equal damage.. What interested me after doing them back to back was that the Paladin dummy seemed to have a little more HP, as if the developers expected Dark Knight would do less.

This may seem like common knowledge that Dark Knight does the least damage out of the three tanks, but the fact that it seems explicitly intended is a bit of a downer. Having brought this up to friends of mine, they say this was to compensate for The Blackest Night overall gains that one wouldn't be receiving on a dummy.

It's my understanding that The Blackest Night, if used on cooldown and always activated, is a very small gain in Grit (which one wouldn't have used on a dummy) and very close to even or even a loss outside of Grit, due to pushing back Syphon Strike and Souleater. I'd like to know the exact math on that at some point, but that's my understanding of the dynamic.

This taken into account, I also know that Paladin has a basically free 150 potency attack in Shield Swipe that also wouldn't be taken into consideration on a dummy. So my question is, would any gain from The Blackest Night be comparable to the gain a Paladin would receive for guaranteed Shield Swiping? I know the math in this game a little less than I'd like, but what it sounds like to me is that the loss of Shield Swipe is a much bigger handicap than the loss of Blackest Night in a striking dummy situation, meaning the increased HP on a Paladin dummy implies even moreso that Paladins were intended to be doing more damage.

If this is all true so far, then my feedback is of course, vehement disappointment. 3rd place in many areas, including DPS, seems to be intended by the developers at this point for Dark Knight. I too have my own personal feelings about the uselessness of Dark Passenger and Blood Price, the overuse of Dark Arts, relative mitigation scarcity, the strange MP -> Blood -> Potency ratio which feels like pushing vegetables around on a plate, etc.
However, if the developers themselves have Dark Knight on this seemingly intended back burner, that needs to be addressed first of all, I believe.

[SyzzleSpark]

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Oh no, you're totally correct. The SSS dummies for DRK have less HP than the others. In fact the only job for whom dummies have less HP is AST.

TBN is a gain in Grit, but then you're in Grit. Its a loss out of Grit, or possibly you can break even. The math has been done many different ways but any time you use TBN for Bloodspiller you must subtract a DA's worth of potency (because you used TBN) from that Bloodspiller against your PPGCD, and also factor in Syphon's MP gain (~70 potency) and Souleater's Blood gain (roughly 8.4 potency considering BS is on the GCD) into that PPGCD, to see that TBN is usually a tiny DPS loss. It can be a gain but the results of optimizing it can't be seen without the aid of a fucking nanoscope, which is why a lot of the somewhat more hardcore DRK playerbase are very annoyed with the job right now.

Shield Swipe is a FREE 150 potency which makes even natural Bloodspillers, which are a roughly 40 potency gain against your PPGCD look like peanuts, and versus TBN Bloodspillers, its no contest.

While nothing is so bad that DRK cannot do content, we're also in an extremely magic-focused raid tier (again) and were the tables turned, DRK would be in the toilet. As Lythia pointed out in the Blood Price thread, 4.x DRK in a fight like A7S would be a potato, only squishier. The only fight in this raid tier that is overtly physical is O3S, and by virtue of the nature of the TB in that fight, Awareness acts as roughly 35% mitigation, which is the only saving grace for DRK there as well.

I also agree with your conclusion that DRK definitely feels as though it is on the backburner. They took threads from our 1-60 kit and unraveled them, and made our 60-70 kit while nuking the existing 3.x job. These problems were largely overshadowed by WAR's stance issues at the start of the expansion, which have since been not just mitigated but altogether reversed. Their stances are now completely costless and Unchained/IR now cost you nothing to use as well. So I would argue now that DRK isn't even the easiest tank to play (WAR is, now, hands down). Why they saw fit to put us on the bottom in all these areas, I can't say, especially given that we were never really overpowered in the first place. But they really did eviscerate pretty much everything about the job. Our DPS is lower (as you've pointed out), our mitigation is weaker (Shadow Wall/DM/LD are pale imitations of their co-tank's counterparts), and our utility is all but gone (TBN is not utility).

I don't think any of us want DRK to be the best tank hands down across all categories, but it'd be nice to be the best at 1 thing, or at least good at a couple of things.

All this being said, the DRK playerbase is noticeably smaller and quieter than that of the other two tanks, which isn't doing us any favors right now.

[Freyyy]

All this being said, the DRK playerbase is noticeably smaller and quieter than that of the other two tanks, which isn't doing us any favors right now.

Yet our consolidated feedback thread is 24 pages, PLD is 6 pages, and WAR only 4. I really hope SE will hear us on the way to 4.1.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Yet our consolidated feedback thread is 24 pages, PLD is 6 pages, and WAR only 4. I really hope SE will hear us on the way to 4.1.

More like the true DRK player base is so small that the "other DRK" don't care because they don't main DRK.... Seriously I see more healer and tanks who main a caster DPS job over melee job or even tank... Balance is that bad for tanks right now...