Dark Knight: 5.0x Feedback Thread

[Shurrikhan]

5. That all sounds like a knee-jerk reaction. I'd have personally mention the range and how cumbersome it can be to use as a main tank. But in either case, I still believe Dark Missonary should be 15-20% party mitigation for aoe damage due to the fact it's magic only, simply due to the fact that unlike Passage of arms, you don't have a knee-jerk reaction. You have to learn what the aoe is and in any type of raid damage where you are facing physical damage, it becomes useless. Point being that if something is niche, that ability in said niche should be powerful.

Okay, let's review.

HW Dark Mind. 60-second cooldown. 15% mitigation. 30% on Dark Arts. Comparable to Equilibrium, which would usually heal for far more than DM's base absorption.
HW Dark Dance. 60-second cooldown. 30% increased chance of ~25% physical mitigation. 20% chance 100% mitigation to all damage types on Dark Arts. Comparable, again, to Equilibrium, which would usually heal for more than DD's base absorption.

Are these (1) a sign of DRK being an "anti-magic tank" or (2) simply a "tank" with a more discreet potency-cost option for its increased mitigation, comparable to, say, Inner Beast (without the necessary stance-swap and attached 10-second committal)?

HW Delirium. 10% Intelligence down. Compare to HW PLD's Rage of Halone for 10% Strength down and HW WAR Storm's Path for 10% damage down.

Again, is this that (1) DRK was uniquely an anti-magic tank or (2) WAR was uniquely (and perhaps overly) versatile?

I would argue the latter in both cases. WAR was generally right up there as an anti-magic tank. DRK simply allowed for more discreet and layered control over its kit.

If you're going to call preferring that one tank's only percentile AoE mitigation -- at a greater cooldown and far lesser applicability than, and massive cost relative to, Dark Missionary -- should be weaker than the far more easily utilized and shorter cooldown DRK percentile AoE mitigation tool, then at least show me, definitively, how XIV DRK's primary theme was that it was "anti-caster" despite having little to no eHP advantage against magic over the other tanks in HW and SB respectively.

tl;dr: DRK is not an anti-magic tank, never has been, and hopefully never will be, because that would just be an outright nerf without any real addition of identity. It's identity was more numerous and precise means of manipulation, or trade-offs, in its mitigation toolkit and above-average counter-play. And, unwittingly or not, you're asking that such an identity would be even further squished just to push DRK towards a state in which it is faintly advantaged in certain fights and effectively banned from the rest.

Also,

While Dark Missionary might look inferior in a vacuum, in practice Dark Missionary and Heart of Light are equal save for cases where HoL is used to protect the MT from physical attacks.

The two skills are identical.
Heart of Light: 15y range. 90-second CD. 15-second duration. 10% magic-only mitigation.
Dark Missionary: 15y range. 90-second CD. 15-second duration. 10% magic-only mitigation.