Am I missing something, or are Dark Knights just terrible?

[Falar]

I can cast unleash and stalwart soul without a target

[kujoestars]

I can cast unleash and stalwart soul without a target

Same here, aside from Stalwart soul, which I don't have yet. That's my main strategy for pulls really. I just spam unleash as I pass by and circle round to herd them back towards the rest of the party while also reminding them I exist and they should keep trying to beat the shit out of me.

[Derio]

I really hope Stalwart soul gets reworked to be a lvl 45 skill in the next expansion.

[Mahoukenshi]

I really hope Stalwart soul gets reworked to be a lvl 45 skill in the next expansion.

That would be neat. It's pretty annoying to have the second AoE combo skill so late. Heck, that's even later than Dragoon receive their 2nd AoE combo.

[Lucy_Pyre]

Well for me is like
Self healing rank
PLD> WAR> GNB> DRK

Damage output
GNB> PLD> WAR > DRK

Mitigation Support
DRK > PLD> WAR=GNB

self-sufficiency
Thanks to SE all tank is almost same with few dps button different

Well drk best weapon is TBN and drk is best tank for dungeon cause of TBN

While most of this is correct, the damage output should read as such;

GNB -> PLD -> WAR=DRK because outside of Hades EX, WAR and DRK are more or less identical in their damage outputs, often being within single or double digits of one another.

[Malmstrom]

1. I never even considered or realized the whole Unleash and Stalwart Soul being considered spells. My mind is blown. That is solid information to have, thank you.

Let me preface this by saying that I don't do any sort of serious content, and I meld Tenacity and Skill Speed because I think it is fun and that the following is entirely my own opinion. On that note:

Now that I'm actually aware of the fact that skill speed does not affect Unleash and Stalwart Soul, it has actually driven another nail into the coffin of DRK for me. Lately there have been a few things bothering me about the job, like how at lower levels they are almost painful to play. No Stalwart Soul or TBN makes me realize that with the way DRK is currently built, not having them kind of sucks. There's no mana generation in a large pack of enemies because there is no Stalwart Soul (RIP Blood Price, I will always remember BP + AD spam with fondness), and it feels like I'm missing cooldowns because HOORAY I HAVE DARK MIND. It feels like when they did the ability prune they should have also done a rearranging of skills to go with it.

I was rolling my eyes in a dungeon run earlier because I hit Delirium and was spamming Bloodspiller, and it just felt lazy. I was irritated when I kept running out of MP in a run because I had no Stalwart Soul. Maybe somewhere along the way I forgot what it was like being a low level DRK. Or something. I don't know. It just feels off.

More and more I find myself uninterested in playing DRK, which kind of bites because I played the unholy hell out of it since HW. A couple more runs to the 300 mount (I wish achievement progress was shared across characters, I'd have had 500+ long ago), and I think I'm going to shelve the job for a while.