Yoshi P./Dev team/Job balance team Please Say Something About DRK

[Ekimmak]

... because Anticipation is never really worth a slot in your role skills over Rampart, Provoke, Shirk, Reprisal, and Convalescence.

Shirk is specific to 8-man parties with two tanks. It's a waste of a slot in 4-man dungeons, and 24-man raids (1 tank per party, and only works on party members).

If anything, I find Convalescence to be barely worth it, as it's not a defensive cooldown. It's a slight buff to incoming healing magic, when people are already overhealing you before and after any intensive damage.

[InfiniDragon]

Shirk is specific to 8-man parties with two tanks. It's a waste of a slot in 4-man dungeons, and 24-man raids (1 tank per party, and only works on party members).

If anything, I find Convalescence to be barely worth it, as it's not a defensive cooldown. It's a slight buff to incoming healing magic, when people are already overhealing you before and after any intensive damage.

It basically boils down to guaranteed heal increases (baby Defiance) on Convalescence versus not guaranteed parries on Anticipation. If say, they had sacked Raw Intuition and turned that skill into Anticipation, then there'd be no question it would be better. But because there's no guarantee you can't rely on it in anything major.

I do use it in 4 man stuff though, because lots of things hitting you is where that move actually gets a chance to shine (more chances to parry) and Shirk is useless outside of 8 man, as you said.

[CaTi]

Well thanks for the breakdown Crater, it's a handy reference point so much obliged! I will tilt my head and acknowledge a few things you've said as they are fair points, especially concerning the drain potential in an AoE scenario, do remind me how much DA dark dance buffed parry chance? That said remembering my question was in the context of the leveling experience of DRK made in the post before mine, gonna have to fight you on a few points in there

Foresight. Sorry but it's the same CD for everyone and as such equally important/unimportant. I could make the (really, really tenuous) argument that it's more useful for PLD because everything but Rampart is on a big CD. Foresight certainly had no more importance to DRK than anyone else. I certainly made good use of it back in the day.

Cover. Ok this is not a defensive CD first and utility second. What am I gonna do? Shirk some poor sap, take their hit then take aggro back? In a dungeon? With the Shirk I probably didn't bring in a 4 man? The leveling trials don't do enough to ever bother with it either. Endgame you have a point and it's great there. Before that? Nah.

Passage is a 70 skill and has no impact on the leveling experience (won't deny it's usefulness at 70, but irrelevant to this point)

Eh I do agree with anticipation being kind of sketchy as a role choice usually. That said: Shirk is useless in 4 mans, convalescence has debatable use and reprisal will hardly do much for you against crowds and very few bosses in the leveling circuit do enough of anything to really see use out of it so you can definitely slot anticipation pre-70 for most things.

True PLD did gain magic block but I do ask, how many magic Auto attack casting enemies do you see in dungeons? Not a lot (particularly in SB) so that's debatable at best.
Sheltron is a fair cop though. Although would also point out that a once and done block is pretty ineffective vs a pack. And Oath generation is pretty poor in Shield Oath pre-64 (Holy Spirit) and casting Holy Spirit for gauge doesn't really happen with 3+ enemies. So your mileage may vary on that one.
In the same vein, old reprisal was good but it was still only a single target thing and a proc based one. I'd question exactly how useful it was in anything beyond a boss (which as previously mentioned make up the lesser portion of the leveling experience).

I'm not qualified to talk on WAR and how that plays so I'll let someone else take that one should they wish

So yeah I can't personally see DRK being that much squishier than it was pre-SB compared to it's peers for leveling outside of the (pretty fair point) AoE drain stuff and possibly some loss on Dark Dance percentage. At 70 I'll grant you stuff like reprisal and Passage but that's another question entirely ^^

[Reynhart]

- The trait for Cover turns it into what is essentially a 12-second Rampart on a 120s cooldown. This is now, first and foremost a personal mitigation tool for Paladin, and a 'utility' skill as a distant, distant second.

Cover only reduces redirected damage, so it's only a utility skill.

[Chrono_Rising]

...
So yeah I can't personally see DRK being that much squishier than it was pre-SB compared to it's peers for leveling outside of the (pretty fair point) AoE drain stuff and possibly some loss on Dark Dance percentage. At 70 I'll grant you stuff like reprisal and Passage but that's another question entirely ^^

If we stay out of the CR system, since all tanks have access to the same things from there, then we have:

Paladin: passive blocking, sentinel, bulwark, Sheltron, Hallowed Ground

Warrior: Raw Intuition, Vengeance, Thrill of Battle, Inner Beast, Holmgang

Dark Knight (SB): Dark Mind, Shadow Wall, Living Dead

This is why people say Dark Knights are squishy in leveling. Dark Mind does nothing in physical packs, Living Dead is likely to get you killed in a dungeon, and the blind on Dark Passenger is super expensive. Also, Dark Dance, when used with dark arts, was an evasion bonus. The weakness in packs is not made up for by its defensive options vs. a single target either.

[Mycow8me]

Its made worse by no self healing potential outside grit beyond expending a large amount of MP for an abyssal drain which is worthless on single targets and a low damage gcd at that.

[sonatahi]

New "feedback"

“We have three jobs — Paladin, Dark Knight and Warrior — and these all give a different and unique experience while they work as a tank. Any job can be played as a main tank or off-tank, and now, with the changes to Warrior’s Shake It Off” — previously an obsolete self-cleanse, now a buff that protects the party — “we think they are all on the same level and that the balance is very good.”
- http://www.mmorpg.com/final-fantasy-...ADi535s1STD.99

[347SPECTRE]

Sophia would be exasperated at SE's idea of balance.

[CaTi]

Chrono I hear you, not gonna deny DRK is squishier in general, because it definitely is and I don't think there's much reasonable ground for challenging that. I was just contesting the notion that DRK had been overly stripped in that department when SB came around compared to how it used to be. And with regards the leveling circuit I stand by that assessment mostly (drain stuff is definitely a good point though).
I don't think I've been that clear in my opinion so I'll restate. DRK hasn't been stripped of much of anything since SB that really hurts them in leveling, they're as squishy as they've always been, it's just become more apparent with the general damage output. Equally the other two haven't gained much of anything that actually matters in leveling (well except Shake it off. Not that I've seen many people bothering to use it). But that's just my 2 gil so make of it what you will

Edit: forgot about the Rampart for Foresight swap on WAR. That's a gain

[Chrono_Rising]

Though nothing was directly gained group mitigation wise, Dark Knight saw:

Foresight taken away, which was like paladin’s block but weaker and predictable. Yes this was a warrior skill but they got rampart as a replacement.

Saw our blind cost double in price making it near unusable

Lost an evasion skill in dark dance

These loses paired with having less to begin with makes Dark Knight feel even squishier, more than in HW. Warrior and paladin only saw buffs by comparison.