Are Dark Knights really that bad right now?

[Antagonist01]

you forgeth a important skill, holmgang, this skill is used to skip half of the TB in a fight so any advantage mitigation DRK have against magic its meaningless compared that WAR can't die, for no mention holmgang has been used to cheese mechanics due is so short it can be used against multiple share TB alone like ultima embrace on godka and the thunder on exdeath without mention thanks to they burst they skip a entire phase on phantom train saving a lot of teamwork logistic, no PLD or DRK can compete against that, WAR is specially strong due they generate "WAR strat" across the board and no other job on the game can do that.

Damn, alright. Thanks! Will look into that skill in particular. Honestly I'm deciding between WAR/DRK (don't plan to be a speedrunner or anything like that, just want to be able to clear without issue in JP server DFs and enjoy the experience) and don't really know where to start when it comes to diving into all their skills, so I'm just trying to understand in broad strokes... but with what you said it seems that WAR almost completely overshadows DRK in general terms then (defense, DPS and utility).

[Garry]

Hello, first post but thought this was the right topic to ask/continue discussion and not post another topic.
(WAR/WAR or PLD/PLD).

Well so you are off in a few areas.

For one MT/OT doesn't really matter, so much because in truth your a team trying to do as much damage as possible while holding aggro (a joke) and defending against all tank busters. Forcing yourself into the MT/OT mind set really only stunt how you look at encounters, and each fight should be weighed by both tank to decide what mechanics either should deal with.

DRKs mitigation advantage isn't really drawn from magic damage as warriors have RAI or whatever that can be used in other mechanics to block strictly physical, and for tank busters, as said by Shao, wars have HG which has a ludicrously short CD meaning they can easily cover most tank busters with rampart + vegence, and HG.

As far as raid support warriors also bring the slash damage resistance debuff along side thier shake it off. Both of which increase raid DPS.

Now DRK does have a mitigation advantage in TBN, which kind of does and doesn't come at a cost to the dark knights personal DPS. The main problem being that personal DPS is the most important stat i think any remember of your raid can bring. SO heavy use of TBN is frowned upon. So really you mostly save TBN for tank busters or the odd high damage moment to block aoe damage to yourself during high tank damage moments as these can save healer GCDs that can be a net raid damage boost.


Now on to your last statement. actualy War/Drk is always better than say War/War as that means you get more damage, more HG useage, more uses of shake it off to reduce raid damage, and about the same amount of damage taken by tanks. Where as going War/Drk you kind of only lose stuff.

Thankfully however, the community of this game is a diversity oriented one and even the raiders in FFXIV seem to have a mind set not completely geared toward exploiting every single angel when compared to other communities. Also all content is quiet readily do able with any tank combination.

[Cincierta]

I have been putting it off for a long time now. And I wanted to try out dark Knight. But the main reason that I\\'ve been hesitant to try it out because everyone says they are the absolute worst out of the 3 tanks. Is this true? or are people just exaggerating?

Personally I'd go with any tank that makes the best-sounding, most-satisfying crunches when they smack something. Like a few others have said, go have fun with dark knight.

[Kabooa]

While the shallow gameplay won't be addressed anytime soon, the QoL / power discrepancies have been mostly handled.

[Aana]

Hello, first post but thought this was the right topic to ask/continue discussion and not post another topic.

I see a lot of the consensus is that there is no reason to pick DRK over WAR/PLD. But I am trying to understand why.

That line is overused and obfuscates the point. "No reason to pick Drk over War/Pld" makes it sound like drk is a PoS. I think of it more like A college admissions office has 2 open spots and 3 applications. War has a 4.0 GPA and 1400 SAT score. Pld has a 4.0 and 1390 SAT. Drk has a 4.0 and 'only' has 1380 SAT. So 'why would you pick drk over war/pld'? is misleading and has excessively negativity tied into the phrase.

All 3 easily exceed the admissions requirements for any raid in the game, but the competition is stiff and someone has to be 3rd in a rank from 1 to 3. The performance gap is utterly negligible, though it is often exaggerated and conflated with personal playstyle preferences (Dark Arts spam h8ers).

[shao32]

snip.

what DRK brings to the team? this last 2 tiers show PLD and WAR offer a lot to the party in terms of utility, better LB generation, less complicated organization and much more better sinergy.
why bring a DRK with a WAR if PLD offer the same dps and mitigation have the same utility as DRK and 3 more on top? why bring a DRK with a PLD if WAR offer more dps, more costless agro generation, a raid aoe shield that generate more LB and make with a PLD raid aoe damage on progresion laughable, holmgang and the best kind of damage the burst damage? for TBN? for living dead? for extra magic mitigation? ppl after the last buff say DRK is king of mitigation but no one make the effort to look if DRK take less overall damage, i will make you a resume they not, PLD still have block and WAR a army of CD and both take less AA damage, DRK is more against spike damage and they overall damage recived its at the same levels of they other 2 more or less.

its sounds negative of course it does, looks like im saying DRK is doom with is not, its ok to dealt with the basic dutys of a tank to clear all content but it dosent make you raid life more easily like the other 2.

[Antagonist01]

snip.

Thanks for clarifying, and especially for the nuance on DRK’s mitigation mechanics! That helps inform my WAR/DRK decision better.

Minor question: Did you mean War/War generally better than War/Drk in your second last paragraph or did I misunderstand? Possibly typo, but it starts with saying War/Drk is better and ends with “going War/Drk you kind of only lose stuff”.

Otherwise, sounds like I should probably learn tank fundamentals (e.g. MT/OT dynamics and related variables) properly first once I decide on a job.

That line is overused and obfuscates the point. "No reason to pick Drk over War/Pld" makes it sound like drk is a PoS. I think of it more like A college admissions office has 2 open spots and 3 applications. War has a 4.0 GPA and 1400 SAT score. Pld has a 4.0 and 1390 SAT. Drk has a 4.0 and 'only' has 1380 SAT. So 'why would you pick drk over war/pld'? is misleading and has excessively negativity tied into the phrase.

All 3 easily exceed the admissions requirements for any raid in the game, but the competition is stiff and someone has to be 3rd in a rank from 1 to 3. The performance gap is utterly negligible, though it is often exaggerated and conflated with personal playstyle preferences (Dark Arts spam h8ers).

Fair! To me, knowledge of the meta having value and personal skill/style/teamwork being key can co-exist, but I can understand why you find the "no reason to pick DRK" statement problematic.

More pragmatically speaking, I understand differences in player skill and teamwork are FAR more indicative of success in all content. The need to “assume all else equal” is necessary for comparing jobs strengths/weaknesses, but I understand is almost never how it really plays out in reality.

For me personally, I want to know where the jobs stand/how they compare so I can play with them accordingly (I suppose this is the reason I ask “why” people say DRK is worse vs simply asking for a ranking). For example: as AST, I give BLMs the Arrow card because they have good DPS and reduced cast time benefits them a ton (whereas I usually reshuffle it to try get Spear/Balance), and BRD is always first to get Spear because they massively benefit from crit. SAM maybe unpopular, but I hear they tend to have among the best personal DPS, so when I get an AOE Balance buff, I will time dilation extend them first.

So for now, I am trying to understand where DRK stands and how best to make use of it as a player/teammate, even if its theoretically not as optimal. For that I need to understand its perceived strengths, weaknesses, etc. so I can contextualize its skills when I look into them and practice.

[Garry]

Thanks for clarifying, and especially for the nuance on DRK’s mitigation mechanics! That helps inform my WAR/DRK decision better.

Minor question: Did you mean War/War generally better than War/Drk in your second last paragraph or did I misunderstand? Possibly typo, but it starts with saying War/Drk is better and ends with “going War/Drk you kind of only lose stuff”.
.

yeah saying War/War is almost always a better option in availible VS War/Drk.


Drk just needs a reason to be chosen. I think the college analogy is kind of off.

A Better analogy is:

You are trying to admit people into your PhD program.

The Warrior has a 4.0GPA and a Great GRE score, and maybe he has some small lab experience

The Paladin has a 3.6 GPA an Okay GRE score, but has published a paper and knows alot of techincal lab skills.

The DRK has a 3.7GPA an Okay GRE score..... and that's it.

IN that the warrior is just obivously the tops, but the paladin has alot of skills that will take years for the warrior to even come close to brining to the table. While the Drk is any other student with a decent GPA, or otherwise doesn't stand out. All could pass a PhD problem for sure, but the other two have a big leg up to start.

[Hierro]

you forgeth a important skill, holmgang, this skill is used to skip half of the TB in a fight so any advantage mitigation DRK have against magic its meaningless compared that WAR can't die, for no mention holmgang has been used to cheese mechanics due is so short it can be used against multiple share TB alone like ultima embrace on godka and the thunder on exdeath without mention thanks to they burst they skip a entire phase on phantom train saving a lot of teamwork logistic, no PLD or DRK can compete against that, WAR is specially strong due they generate "WAR strat" across the board and no other job on the game can do that.

Understand that it's not always desirable to holmgang a tank buster. Take O5S's Head On, for example. It's much more of a hassle to heal that after holmgang than it is to heal a DRK who mitigated the same damage with Rampart+Shadow Wall+TBN. In the same vein, we can also use that to exemplify clown kefka's hyperdrives. Sure, WAR can holmgang the first and third hyper drive, but DRK can super-cooldown every hyper and survive with a very comfortable amount of HP.

Even within the WAR job itself, take O7S for example: It's much better to use your cooldowns for Arm&Hammer than it is to holmgang the tank buster. The point remains is that if there are feasible and practical alternatives to surviving a tank buster, it's better to go that route than it is to end up with 1 HP.

Also, NIN, SAM, and RDM can do the skip strategy reliably, you're plain wrong on saying WAR's the only one who can do it.

Now on to your last statement. actualy War/Drk [sic] is always better than say War/War as that means you get more damage, more HG useage, more uses of shake it off to reduce raid damage, and about the same amount of damage taken by tanks. Where as going War/Drk you kind of only lose stuff.

Suppose you take WAR/WAR into O8S. "Ah, more damage and HG uses!" may be a thought to occur, but consider that it actually puts in more strain on the healers, or resorts one of the WARs into tank stance. Holmgang cannot last for both an embrace and a hyper, meaning additional cooldown usage is required for the following hyper. In this case you are losing damage and mitigation. In DRK/WAR, if WAR takes embrace, DRK can voke during the cast and mitigate the following hyperdrive, and quite realisitically null the damage entirely. In this scenario, DRK/WAR handles embrace+hyper even better than PLD/WAR, and far better than WAR/WAR.

Now, shake it off is only a raid dps increase if not having it would have resulted in party member deaths, for the LB gain. This is something that is only abused by the very small handful of speed running groups in the game, a subsection of players far smaller than what you would find in parse statics/pfs. For the rest of players, this is a non-factor.

Despite being a WAR main, I'm a fairly decent DRK, and I've never had an issue with my liberal TBN usage getting in the way achieving good damage. It's DPS neutral and brings the same damage benefit as DA. I've seen first hand by comparison that TBN is such a helpful tool in mitigating small raid-wide AoEs, periods where i'm taking auto attacks for an extended period of time, or whatever. No matter the instance, TBN can be used to mitigate BOTH fluff damage AND tank busters, physical or magical. By comparison, I can tell you Raw Intuition is mostly worthless in o5s and o6s.


In my opinion, the benefit DRK brings over the other tanks is a simpler playstyle that I appreciate very much. I can't achieve the same numbers on PLD as I do on DRK, despite both being equally geared, because the rotation is that much easier. On PLD you have to take into account your DoT upkeep, mana management, optimal amount of shield swipes, naked HS usage, slide casting, and managing two buffs. DRK? You just press your buttons and don't cap out on resources-- EZ. I still bring the same damage and mitigation as the other guys, just an easier time doing it.

[shao32]

snip

ok lets go with parts, in O5S you will holmgang any free doom strike that is not tie with the proximity aoe and the incoming acid rain, doom strike its the real TB of he fight, Head On its just a proximity attack where you can trow you free CDs to stay at melee and keep dpsing the boss.

rampart+shadow wall+TBN its a waste of mitigation no one do that, i can use that argument against you since you can holmgang any TB and complete negate the next one with rampart+ vengeance+ thrill+ raw, you will use rampart/shadow wall+TBN like much and if you have a free CD then use it against raid aoes and incoming AA.

the deal of this game was always survive not mitigate the biggest amount of damage on a TB since it takes less that a second to get full HP with the healers we have, benediction is 3 min like holmgang, and still have tetragramon, Excogitation and Essential Dignity, only 1 of this you will get out of danger instantly and any good healer will be ready to trow one of this on a TB so there is no diference at the end, 40k or 1 HP you will get healed instantly.

and i never say WAR is the only one on do the phantom train cheese but is the most cheap and the option that cost less to raid dps all being said, no my coment was that WAR is the only job in the game that generate situations where the only presence of having a WAR will make the fight incredible more easily, it was not refering to O5S but in general.

- ok now the second part:

in godka hiperdrive is a joke and my co tank WAR take it after ultimate embrace with a extra CD and then we switch and never have problems of run out of CD after all after the swap he iwill take no damage outside of the raid aoes so i can spread my CD to take some AA more efectively apart of the TB, null the damage of hiperdrive is meaningless bcs a single regen cover that with only rampart and we can use TBN or intervetion for help, the only reason we dont have WAR/WAR is the LB penalty.

any top DRK keep TBN at minimun usage the skill is good but is a dps loose use the bloodspiller outside of any dps buff (trickattack, balance,...) only on those buffs is dps neutral or a micro dps gain, and use more that 15 it will become a big dps loose bcs interfere with you bloodspiller generation naturally for no mention the abuse of TBN can lead with unecesary overflow of blood since the gauge limit is so tight and the boss can start casting anything and then you shield dont pop if you use it against AA with is a masive dps loss,TBN need to be use wisely all the time, raw intuition is not worthless in any combat bcs if you cant use it against physical AA you can use it to feed SIO.

and for last we dont discuss how "easily" is DRK for you bcs the entire tank comunity dont share you idea of easy, even the data is against that argument.