Are Dark Knights really that bad right now?

[Khalithar]

It's only 6-sec so it's not long enough to cover both Ultimate Embrace and the following Hyperdrive. It's really only a problem with DRK/WAR, however, since PLD can Cover the Hyperdrives for EZ mode.

But, Holmgang can still negate 3 of the 5 Ultimate Embraces which neither DRK or PLD can do.

The way my group does embrace:

1. Warrior holm's, I use Cover for the follow up hyperdrive.
2. I hallowed this one and negate the follow up hyperdrive.
3. Warrior holm's this one, no hyperdrive here.
4/5. We share the damage from it during the third and fourth forsaken since we have to stand in the circle anyway.

I also use Cover for the third hyperdrive in the fight that happens after kick.

[Falar]

I just came back after 13 or so months and am disappointed to see this thread, that after all this time still no resolution.

I could not stand what they did to DRK in Stormblood and ragequit. I see some changes have been made while I was gone and like a few of them. Some of my largest issues:

Blood Price, I forgot how much they nerfed this (despite it also being locked into grit now) WOW.
Unleash. What for? As if level synced content (the only place you'd use it, beyond random free casts) wasn't tedious enough now you make it much weaker.

And of course, the loss of Dark Dance and Reprisal. DA-DD was so fun to use. I won't mention Scourge since we got Bloodspiller in return.

[RokkuEkkusu]

Blood Price, I forgot how much they nerfed this (despite it also being locked into grit now) WOW.
Unleash. What for? As if level synced content (the only place you'd use it, beyond random free casts) wasn't tedious enough now you make it much weaker.

I believe that Blood Price was locked in Grit stance since DRK was first introduced in FFXIV.

Nerfing unleash probably had 2 reasons. 1. DRK aoe was a little to solid for it's own good at the lower leveled dungeons back in Heavensward. 2. It is to encourage the use of Abyssal Drain as well in terms of using enmity aoe tools. Back in Heavensward, both Unleash and Abyssal Drain had the same potency, but Unleash costed less. Why use Abyssal Drain when you can get the same amount of damage and hate with Unleash. And the life gain from Abyssal Drain with Dark Arts is excellent too, but it takes quite a bit of MP management as well.

[Chrono_Rising]

I believe that Blood Price was locked in Grit stance since DRK was first introduced in FFXIV.

You are thinking of blood weapon only being accessible out of grit, blood price did not depend on stance in HW.

Nerfing unleash probably had 2 reasons. 1. DRK aoe was a little to solid for it's own good at the lower leveled dungeons back in Heavensward. 2. It is to encourage the use of Abyssal Drain as well in terms of using enmity aoe tools. Back in Heavensward, both Unleash and Abyssal Drain had the same potency, but Unleash costed less. Why use Abyssal Drain when you can get the same amount of damage and hate with Unleash. And the life gain from Abyssal Drain with Dark Arts is excellent too, but it takes quite a bit of MP management as well.

I don't remember the exact potency from back in HW, but I don't remember Abyssal Drain and Unleash being the same potency or unleash being more potency than Abyssal Drain, but at the end of the day the extra 50 potency on unleash wasn't breaking low level dungeon runs. Abyssal Drain use to be insanely strong when paired with blood price, it was always preferred over unleash once you obtained the skill.

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?

As for the original topic, is Dark Knight bad right now? The answer is no, as a tank, Dark Knight is doing very well in the area of mitigation.

What follows is a a subjective opinion (like most are) so people may disagree with it, but the 4.0 Dark Knight design is out of touch with what drew people to the class in 3.0, and that is why it feels bad to many people.

I've spent alot of time thinking about my experience with dark knight in heavensward and I came to a conclusion. What I enjoyed most about the job was the activity. Many will argue we are pushing the same number of buttons now as we did then, but I disagree that the button presses "feel" the same. What do I mean:

Low blow procs, this was our stun and dealt damage, it had a chance of being reset by parry procs for additional damage.
Reprisal procs, damage down and damage done based on parry procs.
Blood price, take damage and gain damage from mana absorption.

These skills made it feel like we were fighting back in a sense. But this also meant something, to get the most out of the class you needed to be actively tanking.

This is fundamentally at odds with the developers stated intentions for tanks in stormblood: that any tank be able to flexibly play the OT/MT role. So what can we do to achieve this intention? Low blow was taken off the job along with reprisal, this removes the preference for having a dark knight as main tank. Blood price is locked away in grit, so you only would use it if you were already actively tanking, if you care about damage there is no benefit to being the main aggro target as tank stance is a dps loss and this comes along with a nerf to the mana gain of blood price to shift our focus towards using blood.

Why do I say this is out of touch with the 3.0 design? Our kit was left mainly unchanged besides these, and other, removals, the missing skills and damage were filled in by taking away things like the mana drain (the part of our kit that made us feel the sacrifice of being a dark knight, another one of those dark knight themes), and adding in gauge moves, additional mitigation, and a skill to extend our dps skill. Our fast playstyle of mashing multiple different buttons was replaced with dark arts spam, which while it can be fun at times, doesn't feel as impactful as actively attacking those who attack you or those you choose to protect. Yes, the 4.3 changes definitely helped dark knight out in the area of mitigation, and pushed it well past the other two tanks in magic heavy fights, but those changes did not address the job being drained of many of its themes. And for that you still see people who want to the class to be redesigned because it just isn't living up to what it could be or even what it once was.

Consider what people didn't like in 3.0: shadow wall being on a long cooldown, stance locked skills on a job that could not flexibly change stances, and anti-synergy in skills (using blind and evasion while something like blood price was up or having a whm holy while blood price was active).

Consider what we got in stormblood: more stance locked skills, more additional effects locked behind stances, along with the removal of the synergy people enjoyed in the kit (like procs and resets) while keeping the anti-synergy between skills. Eventually we did get the reduction on shadow wall, but that came in 4.3 and not as part of the 4.0 expansion of the job.

Again, this is a subjective opinion, but the expansion of the job into stormblood just feels out of touch with why many players enjoyed it in heavensward. Dark Knight was not perfect in heavensward, and it did need some tweaking, but it felt more dark knight like to me. At this point, I've given up on dark knight and have been a paladin for the majority of the expansion, people say don't like don't play and so I'm taking that advice and maining paladin these days.

[Falar]

Correct, Unleash was 100 and Abyssal Drain 120. No serious player was using Unleash over Abyssal Drain once they unlocked Abyssal Drain.

Unleash had just a few functions:

Level Synced Content
"free casts" proc'd from your unmend openers against trash
Depending on how adds or mobs spawned sometimes it was faster to grab them with Unleash

In other words, they had no reason to "promote AD usage" as everyone already was using it besides people that had no clue. It was primarily used when synced low enough to not have access to AD anymore and as if synced content already wasn't tedious that change just made it even more so. Unleash just feels bad now.

Another thing I had forgotten about in my long absence is our Souleater heal. I notice that the percentage is getting lower now with the newer ilevels. This bears keeping an eye on too.

[Fal_Kearst]

Dark Knight is not in a bad place. If you are playing it right now and liking it then stick with it! You can do it!

[Bhearil]

Dark Knight is not in a bad place. If you are playing it right now and liking it then stick with it! You can do it!

Dark knight is functional, but to say its fine is not true. A Drk is like playing as Robin when the other tanks play as Batman, both can kick asses but the difference its obvious despite SE tries to fix the mess that is the Drk by buffing his defences.

Right now Drk lacks personality and has a functionality as clunky as it was on Heavensward despite removing quite a few skills of the toolset

[Syaoran_Black]

I would say the DRK is better than it previously was at the time of Stormblood's initial release. While not everything is fine and dandy, the improvements to such moves like Dark Passenger and Plunge adding hate is a nice touch to his kit. Also, the potency increase to Power Slash was nice...I guess...if used under DA (spam). Though, these things should have been already implemented into its kit from the get-go, or at least before SB's release.

The fact that Shadow Veil is 60 seconds less compared to Sentinel now (about damn time) and that Soul Survivor is gives back MP regardless if the target is killed or not, is actually nice now; however, personally, I feel the DRK is still a bit out of place compared to the other two tanks. Do not get me wrong, TBN is still OP as all get-out and love that move in the DRK's kit, but that is the only real thing I see going for the DRK even after everything has been changed or improved as of now.

While I am not saying the DRK is bad, not at all, and that it still can fulfill its role as a tank, it could be better than what it is currently. The DRK is still the middleman compared to the PLD and WAR in terms of both damage and raid utility even after the slight improvements it received to its kit and move-set.

[ArianeEwah]

snip

I agree to all points about 3.0 to 4.0 DRK changes.

I want to add just one more thing:
The removal of Dark Dance and old Reprisal and changing them into role skills.

I can get behind the stun (proc) removal because they removed WAR stun, too.
But they didn't make up the damage (and fun) loss of reprisal.

Anticipation/Dark Dance was part of DRK mitigation tool kit. But since 4.0 we could barely equip it because we use to slot other (more important) abilities we had access to before, too.
That might change in 4.4, but it's not an unique ability anymore since both other tanks will be using it, too.

It just feels like having less "less" than the other two.

[Hierro]

I agree to all points about 3.0 to 4.0 DRK changes.

I want to add just one more thing:
The removal of Dark Dance and old Reprisal and changing them into role skills.

I can get behind the stun (proc) removal because they removed WAR stun, too.
But they didn't make up the damage (and fun) loss of reprisal.

Anticipation/Dark Dance was part of DRK mitigation tool kit. But since 4.0 we could barely equip it because we use to slot other (more important) abilities we had access to before, too.
That might change in 4.4, but it's not an unique ability anymore since both other tanks will be using it, too.

It just feels like having less "less" than the other two.

Dark Dance was a joke of a cooldown! What kind of mitigation has to be based on RNG, and even when activated, weak? You could never use it in raids. The only time it was mildly amusing was when it was paired with DADP during dungeons, but imagine having to sink in over half your mana bar for a pull. What were you going to do afterwards? Presumably, this option was only for the end of a pull, when BP wore off and you couldn't spam AD, so I don't see many options there.