Are Dark Knights really that bad right now?

[Lubu_Mykono]

we need dark arts + blackest night next expansion for team shield. also they need to figure out a better way to manage the blood gauge with dark arts and Mp. You'r looking at like 10 skills with DA next expansion otherwise.

[Aana]

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

The point i was making is that the on-the-ground difference is not very severe. I considered using extra curriculars to equate 'party support' and such but it was just getting more complicated trying to make a very simple point that the gap between tanks is very small, so I stuck with the simple numbers. The problem is how the community portrays the differences with strong phrases like "Theres no reason to play drk". As someone with a fairly nuanced knowledge of tanking in this game and understanding why meta comps are meta comps, I totally understand the literal meaning of the statement and dont disagree. Drk doesnt excel in any specific area and has no unique party beneficial traits that arent outclassed by other tanks, but that doesnt make it a BAD tank, just the lesser of 3. However it still serves MORE than adequately at the role of being a tank.

Drawing an arbitrary cutoff after two tanks makes drk sound like the fat kid when picking teams. The phrase sets up a false choice that "There are 3 tanks and you can only pick two and you should never pick drk as one of the two". Thats not how this game works. You arent competing with Plds and Wars in PF. You are competing with tank PLAYERS for a slot (which there are never enough of). TANKS are in demand for every event.

But when some bright-eyed hopeful new tank asks on a forum "Should I play drk?" and half the responses are "Theres no reason to play Drk ever over any other tank" and the other half are "its core mechanic is stupid" it gives a bad impression that isnt earned. Drk is a perfectly great tank in performance and a prospective new drk can decide how they feel about dark arts spam all by themselves (some people DO like the way drk plays). I wish people would stop parroting the polarized and negative statement without the nuanced context to a fresh faced tank player picking a class interested in playing drk trying to get a feel for it. Drk is a fabulous tank in its current state and if the class appeals to you, you should play it without all this baked in fear that you are letting your party down or will be shunned from groups on the daily for your choice in class. That doesnt happen.

#RantOver

[shao32]

we need dark arts + blackest night next expansion for team shield. also they need to figure out a better way to manage the blood gauge with dark arts and Mp. You'r looking at like 10 skills with DA next expansion otherwise.

we need reprisal come back only for DRK better

[Hierro]

and i never say WAR is the only one on do the phantom train cheese

But you literally said:

no other job on the game can do that.

Anyways, why would you holmgang doom strike when you would benefit more from using it on remorse instead? Not everyone runs a composition with a PLD and no BRD, or has a box at front, or what have you. As for Rampart+SW+TBN for Head On, why not? How is it wasted mitigation? What other source of damage is signifcant enough to warrant other future cooldown usage? By the time proximity bombs appear, rampart is available again, and you can take the following doom strike and explosion with DM+Rampart+TBN. Rampart would simply sit on cooldown otherwise. In between proximity and head on, TBN can handle all the fluff damage just fine.

the deal of this game was always survive not mitigate the biggest amount of damage

I am not advocating for people to pile on cooldowns for the sake of mitigating the most damage possible. I'm advocating cooldown utilization so they don't go to waste.

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.

Bruh, after looking at several of your O8S logs, your co-tank's being forced into defiance for an average of 25-30% of the time, to the point where even YOU as a DRK outdps him. You guys are suffering that penalty because his mitigation is being spread out thin after having to holmgang and cooldown embrace+hyper. That is exactly the kind of penalty I was refering to, and you proved my point.

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.

What data, exactly? I feel I was fairly objective in how I compared the nuances of one job against another.

[shao32]

But you literally said

i whas meaning the whole coment of the WAR generating such opportunities in combat, i will edit it to avoid missreading.

Anyways, why would you holmgang doom strike when you would benefit more from using it on remorse instead? Not everyone runs a composition with a PLD and no BRD, or has a box at front, or what have you. As for Rampart+SW+TBN for Head On, why not? How is it wasted mitigation? What other source of damage is signifcant enough to warrant other future cooldown usage? By the time proximity bombs appear, rampart is available again, and you can take the following doom strike and explosion with DM+Rampart+TBN. Rampart would simply sit on cooldown otherwise. In between proximity and head on, TBN can handle all the fluff damage just fine.

you have Onslaught with is a wonderfull alternative, as a DRK if i dont have a PLD i have to eat the push back no matter what and i dont always have plunge ready for it and depending of what box are up and have plunge up sometimes the range of the skill make me waste time runing back.
on TB you will recive the most powerfull healing skills, you only need to survive the hit and its done, during the rest of the combat you will want to take the least amount of damage so healers can keep you with regens only and spend that time dpsing.

I am not advocating for people to pile on cooldowns for the sake of mitigating the most damage possible. I'm advocating cooldown utilization so they don't go to waste.

as i do, rampart is better against fluf damage TBN is not, since ppl like you say we should use TBN for fluff damage i did my tests and always end with dps loose of somekind, i dont tolerate that, mitigate properly TB and use the free CDs against fluff damage its dont punish you and save a lot of micromanagement.

Bruh, after looking at several of your O8S logs, your co-tank's being forced into defiance for an average of 25-30% of the time, to the point where even YOU as a DRK outdps him. You guys are suffering that penalty because his mitigation is being spread out thin after having to holmgang and cooldown embrace+hyper. That is exactly the kind of penalty I was refering to, and you proved my point.

i out dps him on all turns and i MT the 3 first turns mostly alone pull include so its not about i force him to use defiance, its not optimal but we dont have isues with that our goal is clear the fight not archive the best score, on godka he dont run out of CD specially with me TBN him on every hiperdrive, but i no gonna start a discusion with you about how my co-tank operate, specially i know he use inner for extra security on certain parts not bcs he need it.

What data, exactly? I feel I was fairly objective in how I compared the nuances of one job against another.

the data show the lower tier DRKs have more problems to keep the same levels of aproach to the other tanks like the highest ones, i dont want to talk about this again with you but DRK its much more that dont overcap you resources if you want to midmax the job.

[Valdegarde]

If the other tanks didn't exist, Dark Knight would look perfect. But the problem is that the do exist, and being stacked up next to them magnifies Dark Knight's shortcomings even though they now range from small to moderately annoying to glaringly strange, yet not crippling. There's still some major clunkiness involved that might be getting looked at by the dev team after over half an expansion's worth of trying to get their attention. If you play Dark Knight now you might be able to get used to it and appreciate the changes, or you can hold off so you don't develop habits that may change.

Some people on this forum love to scream from the hilltops "Dark Knight works fine, it doesn't need change at all!" You'll see this kind of discussion pop up over and over between Dark Knight players who maintain that Dark Knight is not only viable but in a perfect spot and Dark Knight players who believe it's still lacking in certain areas whether the gap is large or not, and is way overdue for mechanical and playstyle consideration.

I fall into the latter camp, but both sides have valid points. The problem lies when the first group attempts to actually shut down possibilities of Dark Knight becoming something greater than it is now, and this is felt by the latter group (which consists largely of players from Heavensward) as an insult to the class. Not something to worry about if you'd like to try out Dark Knight for the first time, but this is where most of the drama tends to come from I think.
Who knows, maybe there'll be a completely new dynamic in the next expansion?

[Tint]

I hated the Dark Arts spam at first too and the whole SB changes in general.

But I am now so used to it and I even started to really like the new DRK gameplay that I am reeaally worried about a possible DRK rework in 5.0.

However, DRK still needs a little attention in regards of utility or more personal dps, to bring him on par with the other tanks. And the defense kit below 70 is still a mess.

[whiskeybravo]

I can say my o8s runs with war/drk have been some of the worst I've experienced. Granted, it could've been better given time to learn and optimize the fight together, but for just random tanks running together it was a disaster, you simply can't handle things the same way you can with PLD co-tank.

[Hierro]

I can say my o8s runs with war/drk have been some of the worst I've experienced. Granted, it could've been better given time to learn and optimize the fight together, but for just random tanks running together it was a disaster, you simply can't handle things the same way you can with PLD co-tank.

It really isn't all that different after you've learned to make up for the difference. The biggest hurdle is the swap on first embrace cast, but that's a simple thing when you've told your co-tank, "hey, i'm voking during the cast, so shirk me so I can take the hyper." I've never been with a static or a premade, I've always done O8S with pugs, and it's never been an issue when you take the time to communicate.

[whiskeybravo]

It really isn't all that different after you've learned to make up for the difference. The biggest hurdle is the swap on first embrace cast, but that's a simple thing when you've told your co-tank, "hey, i'm voking during the cast, so shirk me so I can take the hyper." I've never been with a static or a premade, I've always done O8S with pugs, and it's never been an issue when you take the time to communicate.

Yea afterwards I figured that out. It was pretty bad, the drk didn't want to swap and thought TBN should be enough for hyperdrives. Got to the point where I was just swapping to defiance to IB the hyperdrives. Even the healers were crying. Scrub ass DRKs... lol