Are Dark Knights really that bad right now?

[whiskeybravo]

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.

Hmm. Sharing the 3rd and 5th sorta make sense since both tanks are in the circle but I never had a problem Holmganging them both. Our order was Holm (cover), Hallowed, Holm, shared (cover), Holm.

I'm still not sure how the other tanks would do it. I suppose War/Drk could do the same sorta, would just need to swap for hyperdrives? Pld/Drk seems the trickiest. LD/HG first 2 then share the rest? LD would be back up for the last one I guess

[Lyth]

Job Appeal and Accessibility
A lot of the problem is in the title itself. Why settle for "not bad" when you can have "really good"? When a new player comes to the forums or reddit trying to figure out which tank is the strongest, the general response is to tell them to play WAR. It's extremely forgiving, yet it retains its advantages over other tanks even at higher levels of play. It has high damage, good self-sustain, good mitigation with a very strong invul, good utility, and brings a mandatory raid buff.

Even phases like "PLD is the utility tank" or "DRK is good at mitigation" fall somewhat flat because WAR is comparable, and perhaps arguably better, in these categories. This isn't new, of course. These problems with tank balance date back to Heavensward.

DRK has historically positioned itself as a high skill, high reward job. The idea being that it was relatively unforgiving to play, but rewarded you appropriately. In Heavensward, everyone expected WAR to do more damage in general, for example, but DRK gave you the satisfaction of pulling ahead through better mechanical skill and higher uptime.

In Stormblood, the devs tried to make DRK more accessible. Superficially it seems simpler, but the gameplay became more awkward as a result. And there's definitely no longer the sense that you'll be rewarded for investing extra effort in the job. Higher skill for lesser rewards. Oddly, I don't think there's a target demographic for that.

The easiest way to make DRK accessible? Don't story-gate the job trainer. The easiest way to get newer players into the job is to allow them to jump on DRK the instant they hit level 30, rather than waiting another 20 levels to get into Ishgard. There are no shortcuts to learning a job. You just need people to get started sooner.

Niches
I don't think we should strive for "not bad". In Stormblood, DRK just about falls behind the other two tanks in nearly every area. Individually, it's "not bad" in any given category. Unfortunately, this adds up to become "fairly bad" overall. Disadvantages in other category should be offset by excellence in another.

People have argued that, with Shadow Wall being buffed to the point of being nearly on par with Vengeance (exciting), that DRK is a good candidate for progression. But a good prog tank lets you either recover the run or at least see more of the fight. As we discussed before, abilities like Living Dead require coordination and planning in advance. It's not a reflex save that will let you see the next mechanic.

Having an invuln that takes a lot of planning is fine if you're doing speedruns or otherwise optimised content, but why take the tank with the lowest damage output for that sort of thing? It seems as if Holmgang and Living Dead are on the wrong tanks.

I think that if you want to position DRK's niche as being progression orientated, you have to address Living Dead as well as give DRK more self-sustain potential. Surprise! These seem to be recurring requests.

Whichever way the design goes, players will overlook weaknesses in some areas if they get the sense that they can excel in something else. Nobody aspires to be "not bad". Players generally don't research which job is the most mediocre, when choosing a main.

But if you want every job to have a chance to excel, then you can't have any given job be powerful at everything. In order for DRK and PLD to have proper niches, WAR has to have, well, a bit less of a niche. After all, "everything" isn't a particularly good niche. Given that SE already recognised this as a problem at the end of Heavensward, and already set out to do this but balked, I'm not overly confident in the next expansion. I think a lot of people are getting tired of seeing WAR + X at this point.

As a DRK main, how are the attempts at tank balance to this point? How is this expansion as a whole? Well, in fairness, they're "not bad". But aim a little higher, next time.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Hmm. Sharing the 3rd and 5th sorta make sense since both tanks are in the circle but I never had a problem Holmganging them both. Our order was Holm (cover), Hallowed, Holm, shared (cover), Holm.

I'm still not sure how the other tanks would do it. I suppose War/Drk could do the same sorta, would just need to swap for hyperdrives? Pld/Drk seems the trickiest. LD/HG first 2 then share the rest? LD would be back up for the last one I guess

DRK PLD is ideally share HG share LD share. Reason is that for the first embrace both tanks sit on sufficient mitigation (DRK: Shadow Wall + TBN + maybe 20% intervention; PLD: Rampart + Sheltron) and PLD can make use of the popped Rampart for the embrace and the to-be-covered hyperdrive. On the other hand, given forsaken 3 and 4 strap you off your cooldowns quite a bit it is better to not only have your DRK use LD for embrace to potentially tank both wings + embrace, it also doesn't require your PLD having to go back to the DRK after running (if group insists current OT always runs) and just settle close to the dps.

As Hierro said earlier, you do not always want to invuln with a 1hp invuln like LD and Holm if you can mitigate better with other tools if present. This is an example of it.

DRK and PLD both have excellent fluff mitigation (DRK rampart + tbn, PLD bulwark + passive blocking), so its a shame to sit on cooldowns in favor of more LD per encounter.

Hallowed Ground is the sole exception. If there is no gods-given spot like embrace-hyper, making use of it twice per encounter is a pure boon to mitigation and should be considered if a fight allows it.

[ArianeEwah]

rant about Dark Dance

Dark Dance wasn't meant to be a tank buster mitigation. It was a fluff AA mitigation CD, while it also increased proc chances on reprisal and low blow. To a BRD it was a self applied Battle Litany on 60 sec CD.
But moving this ability to role skill section removed DRK physical mitigation when below Level 70. And Shadowwall still being on 3 min didn't help either (at least they FINALLY fixed that in 4.3).
I agree on Dark Dance not being a strong CD, esp. after DRK lost its proc mechanic. Still with 4.0 probably every DRK felt something was missing in their (mitigation) tool kit.

[shao32]

Correct, and the most interesting thing is when the expansion was launched WAR start being the DPS selfish tank without utility witch it was balanced, but when SE start buffing it they give it an amazing utility from nowhere without balancing the rest of his kit or thinking how affect the overall tank skill set balance with it was the biggest mistake they made, plus the complety unnecesary rework of inner release when it is DRK who suffer from desing flaws across the board, DRK feel off and is inferior the entire expansion for this and no proper fixing due ignoring our feedback with I hope they do better next expansion, buffing and reworking the wrong jobs constantly without notice the impact of such changes should never happen again.

[Fal_Kearst]

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

Hey it all comes down to having fun on the job you're playing. In my opinion it is not in a bad place because I am having fun on it ya know? If I am a Robin that is ok because Robin eventually becomes NIGHTWING!! lol

[Falar]

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.

Ohh, I lived for those pulls.

Wall to wall in every dungeon. I always had the MP for it. Blood Price with a huge pull used to give all kinds of MP. Spam DA-AD so the healer can dps until BP wears off then DADP and DADD and watch them not touch you. Then you still had Shadow SKin (I hate using Rampart instead of this) and Wall to use still.

I liked Dark Dance. And it did have uses in raids I'd say as it still did reduce incoming damage and went towards getting reprsial/low blow procs.

Putting it on the Role Skills was a slap in the face along with that sad version of reprisal.

I hope they bring back Dark Dance in 5.0.

Cooldown 60s
100% parry rate for 10s and 25% evade for 10s
DA Effect: Both Parry and Evade now also proc vs magic attacks and duration extended 5s

[Bhearil]

Hey it all comes down to having fun on the job you're playing. In my opinion it is not in a bad place because I am having fun on it ya know? If I am a Robin that is ok because Robin eventually becomes NIGHTWING!! lol

Theres a difference between having fun with Drk (i do) and admiting its a job plagued with issues that went to worse with SB and despite the buffs it has received it needs a rework badly for 5.0. I love RDM but it was clear its potency was too low when even Bards could outdamage him, just to mention another example. Being fun for someone doesnt means its balanced which is what are we speaking about

And yes, Nightwing is cool but competing against Batman id say the odds are 1 to 10 in Batman's favor. Heck on New 52 Age (Prime Earth) Nightwing has been nerfed to kingdom come

[Awful]

I do miss using DD to fish for Reprisals and Low Blow procs there were so many times I used DD in A12S during the time crystal drops to get a Reprisal for the group AoE buster as well as having it up for the Punishing Heat and having Delirium up to smooth the damage.

Sigh the good ol days.

[Falar]

Yep, I miss HW Dark Knight very much.