What is the General Consensus?

[Chrono_Rising]

Snip

Since you seem to feel people don't remember the progression of the conversation lets actually go through it:

Data:
War>Pld>Drk

Forum 'concensus':
War>>Pld>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Drk

War does most DPS. Pld a smidge behind war. Drk a smidge behind pld. Each by a couple % in damage.

Pld/War mitigation kits are solid and jockey for 1st based on how much a war is in tank stance. Drk is behind by X amount in mitigation (depending on how its measured. Its an inexact science) but still has enough mitigation to be effective in all content.

Group support: Pld by miles>War (shake it off)> Drk TBN. While nice, are not nearly as important as the volume on official forums suggests.

Drk is behind by a bit in every category that matters, but only by relatively small amounts. It's entirely usable. Just not optimal. But anything that is even a fraction of a % suboptimal is always slammed as 'useless', 'unplayable', 'broken' and 100 other hyperbolic terms.

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness exaggerates them on every count.

This is the post in question.

Data:
War>Pld>Drk

Up to here we are good. This matches what 99% of the posts have said in this thread in nearly exactly the same degree of magnitude.

Forum 'concensus':
War>>Pld>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Drk

Ok, well using this thread as its own survey of forum consensus, this hyperbole. Why? Because the vast majority of the posts before this were completely well measured in their analysis. You then threw in this inflammatory judgment on the nature of people's complaints, while at the same time engaging in the same behavior you are accusing the vocal minority for.

War does most DPS. Pld a smidge behind war. Drk a smidge behind pld. Each by a couple % in damage.

Pld/War mitigation kits are solid and jockey for 1st based on how much a war is in tank stance. Drk is behind by X amount in mitigation (depending on how its measured. Its an inexact science) but still has enough mitigation to be effective in all content.

Again, you are in agreement here, I would say warrior is more than a "slightly" above paladin, and by extension dark knight, but "smidge" isn't an exact term by nature. Max data suggests around 9% different between warrior and dark knight. But again fairly reasonable.

Group support: Pld by miles>War (shake it off)> Drk TBN. While nice, are not nearly as important as the volume on official forums suggests.

This is where I come in with my post. A good portion of meta strats rely on the defensive utilities in question, the fact that dark knight is lackign here is part of the issue with the class. I listed a number of them in later posts. Part of what makes those strats optimal is the very thing you are saying is not important. Without the defensive utilities people's uptime would drop and speed clears would suffer, that actually is significant. Dark contributes nearly nothing, if not nothing to this process. There is a reason meta strats utilize defensive utility, because it is significant for increasing uptime to shave off those precious few seconds. When comparing apples to apples (and not cover to trick attack) Warrior and paladin are bringing more dps to the table, and are increasing other's dps with their utilities, Dark Knight is not, and it is noticeable.

Drk is behind by a bit in every category that matters, but only by relatively small amounts. It's entirely usable. Just not optimal. But anything that is even a fraction of a % suboptimal is always slammed as 'useless', 'unplayable', 'broken' and 100 other hyperbolic terms.

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness exaggerates them on every count.

You start by recognizing the argument pushed by dark knights, Dark Knight is behind in three relevant metrics which pushes dark knight into a more distant third, and then pass judgement on the claim with the "fractions of a %" "useless" "unplayable" I will double check but I don't see this in the majority of the posts in this thread using this language. You are the person who is pushing the hyperbole, and then blaming dark knights for it, when you are literally reading these words into peoples feedback. You are getting annoyed at the playbase for vocalizing their complaints to the dev team in the only way that it can be done. By the way since your posts have become so keen on the "answering the OP's question" bit, this analysis of your opinion of the forums feelings on the matter are completely outside of the OPs original question.

9% behind warrior dps is not fractions of a percent behind.
1 extremely questionable utility is not fractions of a % behind paladins 4 utilities, or warriors 1 strong utility.
The defensive utilities are widely used by groups, and form a core part of speed running strategy, it is an important factor.

The reason for your judgement is based on shaky ground at best, and you are engaging in hyperbole in the opposite direction. Oh and as for this:

If they had come in at 4.0, it would have been "Forums will make you think War is much worse than it is because they are obscenely loud about their grievances". Replace 4.0 and War with X.0 and Y Class at any point in any game and any class/faction/thing. It will hold true. If characterizing the vocal minority as making more noise and exaggerating their grievances is to 'broad' a stroke then so be it. Ill stand by that 7 days a week.

Its funny looking at your main warrior class's post history, as well as the alt that you are currently on, I don't see the same level of arguing with 4.0 warrior buffs in warrior threads. Only Dark Knights, maybe we could acknowledge the bias here and let people have their discussions free of accusations and judgement. Where is the outrage when its our class trying to get buffs and changes? Apparently those weren't days of the week.

[Derio]

I honestly don't see DRK getting fixed until 4.4

[Saeno]

I honestly don't see DRK getting fixed until 4.4

I expect a very nice change to the job in 4.3 akin to shake it off in 4.1. But yes, 4.4 is where the money is. SE in the past has typically reserved major buffs for the raid patches, most likely for the reason that a big buff to a job mid raid tier might just make the raid tier a joke with how insane the job would be since the raid was not designed with the job's rework in mind.

[Aana]

Snip

You consistently reference 'this thread' as a basis for refuting my comments about the 'consensus' of the tank forum. This thread is not the tank forum and you would be hard pressed to refute that the forum has not been booked solid with Drk threads for MONTHS. The OP asked about the consensus of the state of tanks. Based on the forum history, it's plainly obvious that the vast majority of threads and posts on the Tank subfourm are Drk complaints/reworks and that a great many threads on other tanks are constantly derailed into Drk QQ. There are reasonable posts scattered around within these threads of course. But once again the concluding line of my very 1st post in this thread:

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness (read: sheer volume of posts and threads) exaggerates them on every count.

As said multiple times, If you were to read this forum as a whole looking for the state of tanking at face value, you would have a warped sense of the current state of tanks. This thread is not 'the forum'. This forum has been overflowing with Drk tears for months and that is not up for debate. You have been here the whole time to witness it. Just because you and a few others happen to frequently post measured, reasonable posts does not change the thousands and thousands of QQ posts, threads, and consistently derailing discussion about other topic into more Drk sadness. The consensus of this FORUM (not this singular specific thread. Why would anyone post in a thread to explain the consensus of the thread it's posted in? That makes no sense. Just read the thread.) exaggerates how bad a spot drk is in.

Starting off stating the 'reasonable' view of War>Pld>Drk is fine with you (as you agree with it), yet also tossing a warning that the forum can mislead you into thinking War>Pld>>(insert unimportant number of >> for emphasis)>>Drk is somehow an insult? Saying that thousands and thousands of QQ posts, threads and derailments is being 'loud' is offensive? Its simply true. The point was that you should trust the reasonable judgement based on data, not the thousands of QQ posts littered throughout the fourms. I back this up with the fact that Drk's volume of clamoring matches every non-meta thing in most every forum and should be taken with a grain of salt, just like every other case. Why is there such a pushback against sayind Pld>War>Drk and beware the exaggerated QQ posts all over the forum when determining the 'consensus' on tanks? I get that you are part of the drk community, but you should also easily see that they are, on balance, loud and can easily misrepresent the actual state of drk in this game, just like every non-meta thing before or after them. Why anyone needs to defend the blatantly obvious fact that the forums have been full of QQ on Drk for months is beyond me. It's plain as day.

War>Pld>Drk. Don't buy into all the negative hype that Drk is some shit tier unplayable job, which is what you might believe if you followed the forum consensus (based on the forum history for months). This is not some absurd claim, or evil attack.

[Chrono_Rising]

Snip

I'm not going to continue to argue with you Aana. If you need to be told 4 times now what was wrong with your post then you are beyond what I can offer.

[kashi11]

I have been reading and posting in threads on this forum for the past few months and I would say people saying DRK is "unplayable, useless, etc. " is not language players use very often by the DRK playerbase. No one is arguing that DRK is incapable, the loudness comes from the injustice of being dead last in every measurable aspect of tanking, being DPS, mitigation, and party utility.

Just look at say, Shinryu EX, DRKs in this trial using their invulnerability need to be watched by their healers, or else they die. This puts strain on the party, because if others in a PUG group don't know mechanics healers can be preoccupied healing the group. Neither WAR nor PLD need to be baby sat in this way. DRK also lacks an anti-knockback for this fight, again not a big deal, but an inconvenience. Couple this with the fact that you are bringing less damage and no utility, and it's almost a chore to bring DRK, not only for the player but for the healers as well.

[TouchandFeel]

I'd also posit that a major factor in there being as many DRK related threads as there are is the effect of issues and concerns being largely ignored by the developers over a long period of time.

When a perceived issue is found and voiced, often we see a large uptick in the number of threads regarding that issue and the job that it is associated with. This tends to grow in size and "volume" (audibility not spatial) which then dissipates once it gets addressed.

Great juxtaposing examples of this are the PLD threads during HW where the concerns of PLDs were largely ignored for a long time and so a large portion of the Tank forums were made up of PLD threads, as well as the WAR threads regarding SiO in early SB where there were a lot of WAR threads about this but the clamor quickly died off because SE decided to address the issue incredibly quickly.

Basically what we are seeing is around 9 months (arguably much longer for certain DRK issues that persisted from HW) of build up from DRK not being acknowledged by the devs, plus the extra salt in the wound of having more attention being given to a job that was performing better in practically all aspects, WAR.

Sure it may seem like "too much", but apparently "too much" was just enough and what was needed to get SE to begrudgingly acknowledge that DRK may have issues and that they should perhaps take a look at it, just like PLDs had to go all out and really push for much needed changes through out almost all of HW.

If DRK issues were resolved, or at the very least acknowledged, as quickly as the SiO change, there would likely be less "complaint threads" floating around.

When your concerns are often expediently dealt with, it is easy to look at those who have been ignored continuing to raise their concerns and see them as whiny. Easy, but not necessarily right.

I truly don't understand why, in a cooperative-play game in which a player can at will play any available job, that people wouldn't support improving jobs that are undeniably behind and making all jobs as equally playable and enjoyable as possible instead of this constant "us vs. them" embattled state we currently have.

[whiskeybravo]

I guess I'm the only one that gets Aana post lol. Go ahead label me another War fanboy

For reals tho, seems like an honest attempt to prevent the OP from getting the wrong idea just by glancing at the tank forums. There have been DRK threads for months, it's not untrue. I think it's entirely possible for an untrained forum-goer to get a bad impression of DRK, but in general - consistent with Aana's other posts - it basically only matters for the top % of players. I still see plenty of DRKs running other content (they might be in savage too, I don't know since I never really pug)

There is a significant gap in # of DRK players compared to WAR/PLD, no doubt about that. But they are still here. There are still DRKs clearing savage. While I'm not defending the exaggerated argument in general, it's not incapable of clearing content. It's not that far behind. It's just undesirable in serious groups. There's nothing that makes it valuable to them. I think it's fair to point out both sides.

[TouchandFeel]

Nobody is arguing or has argued to my recollection that DRK is incapable of clearing any and all content in the game, only that it is less capable than the other tank jobs. How much so is up for debate because many different people have many different perspectives on the relative value of the measured deficiencies.

The issue that myself and others took with the post in question is that it used hyperbole to form a portayal of others being hyperbolic, which itself presents a distorted image of the situation while claiming to do so in the name of trying to prevent viewers from getting a distorted image of the situation.

Presenting both sides, or multiple sides, to something is fine but it can be done in a more sensible and pragmatic way.

"DRK can currently clear all content in the game, but it does have issues.
Some people overstate and exaggerate the issues with DRK, some people downplay the issues, most people express something in between.
The main thing that can be determined by the number of DRK threads is that DRK still has issues. How bad those issues are is debatable and you would best be served by reading through threads and using your own best judgement to try to gleam the truth, as most responses to asking what people's opinions are on the matter will be continuations of the opinions presented already in the existing threads.
Also the best way to really know how the tanks stack up against each other is to level all of them and try them all out to get a first hand comparison. After all the best tank in the game is the omni-tank."

See, like that.

[Chrono_Rising]

...

I think it's fair to point out both sides.

I agree it is, but calling people out for exaggeration while at the same time exaggerating your side does no one any good.

If we are going to have conversations and expect others to engage in the same conversation with an open mind and the ability to sway each others opinions, we ourselves need to put those actions to practice. We cannot ignore people's arguments and insist we are correct for the sake of being right. We cannot distort facts about the past to fit a narrative. We cannot argue that others engage in exaggeration, while we ourselves exaggerate in the next breath. And we cannot sugar coat what we have previously said in an effort to smooth out our own mistakes. That doesn't get us anywhere other than arguing for the sake of being right, when we should be arguing to find the truth.