Dark Knight - I Used To Love You

[DRKoftheAzure]

Dark Knight has been in every world first group this expansion because of how strong its personal mitigation is. You're completely misunderstanding the importance of DPS vs. mitigation to claim mitigation is not relevant compared to DPS, when instead it's excess mitigation that isn't relevant compared to DPS. TBN helps provide an extremely solid baseline in terms of the mandatory mitigation every encounter or big pull requires, and making it a DPS gain will result in DPS optimization for DRK being based around bad play and deliberately being hit by AoEs.

TBN is the single best individual mitigation skill in the game. It doesn't need to be a DPS button.

Then you clearly dont know how to use TBN or you waste it, TBN lines up in almost every TB scenario so far this xpac, not to mention back in E4S you could Rampart + TBN to eat 1 Stonecrusher then use LD to eat the rest with the double tank stack mechanic trivializing it during MGR or Fault Line you easily had TBN if you were orange. Even during E5S every crippling blow there is TBN available and during thunderstorm if I so choose with Dark Mind, the mitigation on TBN is so strong and in the right hands is just amazing.

But mitigation isn't worth it though right?

If tankbusters were way more frequent, I would actually use TBN as the devs clearly intended, but because of how infrequent tankbusters tend to be, TBN just feels more like bloat along with Dark Mind... Though they did add re-worked TBN at the start of the expansion for the "Dark Arts spam replacement" which is probably the dumbest re-work the devs have ever done...

[shao32]

TBN is a busted shield you can use for almost everything, TB, raid aoes and mass pulling, the shield is to powerful and in such frequent use you barely need management with you mitigation and make you healers lifes more boring, that's basically why every DRK play the job right now, it's like the fell cleave obsession in HW but on mitigation, the only memes that don't criticize the job are only to praise TBN.
His mitigation is insane for progression and cost literaly nothing except if you mess up but considering everything is scripted and casted in this game makes TBN the best, DRK it's only TBN now and it's easy to see why.

[Alaeacus]

Ever since Stormblood, DRK has always felt like the tank that's busier than WAR but doesn't get rewarded for it. You press more buttons for the same or less result. Living Dead can kill you, Holm can't. DRK dps is almost never top. TBN is great, but the other tanks have plenty of great mitigation and heals too.

DRK has consistently been the "it's viable" or "it's fine" tank. Never the "it's amazing!" tank.

^ Every time I post this same opinion, people gang up on me. DRK, to me, feels like it's got excessive button-presses and extra resource-management just to become equal to PLD...a job that has neither excessive button-presses nor extra resource management. I see literally no actual incentive to play DRK over PLD, other than to look like an edgy boy with all my purple farts (and I can glamour my gear Black as a PLD too). In fact, I only see disincentives. The less I have to look at a skill bar or resource gauge, the more I can actually pay attention to what a boss is doing.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

To me, in the current implementation of the tank jobs, PLD feels the most "busy", followed by GNB, then DRK, then WAR.

I guess it all really depends on what a player defines as "busy" and their own personal play-style preferences. I for one find PLD's quick cycling rotation as being "busy" but because it is also quite repetitive, the "busy" part starts to feel like "busy work" because it starts getting allocated to muscle-memory instead of active mental engagement.
Whereas with DRK, I tend to feel more mentally engaged due to it's focus being more on resource management as opposed to a strict rotation. While I find the extra mental engagement of such to be more fun and in a way it's own reward, others of a different mindset may find this to be "extra work" and not fun or lacking in reward.

Also, some people like jobs with a higher APM, while others like slower APM jobs. To me a slow APM play-style feels awkward and too "chopped up", leaving me having difficulty getting in the flow of it; whereas a faster APM job flows more naturally.

However I will agree that there is a fine line that can be crossed where things definitely get into the "doing more for equal or less" territory and DRK has had the most troubled history among the tanks of crossing that line, with the example that was given for Living Dead being a pretty perfect representation of where that line was crossed. I won't deny that there are still other aspects to DRK that could be seen as being like this, but I do at least feel that most of the problems like this that have been brought up about DRK in the past have been mostly addressed.

[Alaeacus]

snip

That's fair. It's all in the eye of the beholder. To be honest if they made Living Dead not have such an excessive downside, I'd have a lot more difficulty picking between the two Tanks as I do like the big boy sword and DRK aesthetic.

[TheForce]

I agree 100% OP. Back when ShB launched, I was so angry with what they did to Dark Knight I nearly stopped playing the game, because one of the main reasons why I enjoyed the game as much as I did in the first place was because of the Dark Knight class. It was literally everything I love in a class:

- Tank
- Complex/Challenging
- Engaging gameplay
- Lots to learn
- Uniqueness
- Power (once mastered)
- Awesome aesthetic
- Utilized a greatsword

It's now been about 8 months since ShB dropped, and I'm definitely still a bit angry about Dark Knight, but I've just made peace with its fate. I still use the class (it's my secondary behind Paladin) because at the end of the day, it's still Dark Knight, but I cannot main it like I once did. It just lacks depth, and feels so...boring (in my opinion). Spamming Souleater combo drives me crazy man. Thankfully, Paladin is really dope now (but block seriously needs some kind of buff) so I'm able to at least enjoy the game, but I wish they would make Dark Knight like it used to be...

[Awful]

If tankbusters were way more frequent, I would actually use TBN as the devs clearly intended, but because of how infrequent tankbusters tend to be, TBN just feels more like bloat along with Dark Mind... Though they did add re-worked TBN at the start of the expansion for the "Dark Arts spam replacement" which is probably the dumbest re-work the devs have ever done...

You're joking right? Dark Mind and TBN aren't "bloat" they're literally one of the strongest mitigation CDs when stacked together, especially if the boss has magical TBs or Mid range AoE group damage, look at Ramuhs lightning AoEs they do 40-50k unmitigated on a non tank and you'll take about 25-30k on a tank Dark Mind is F R E E if you don't wanna use TBN.

We can also look back at old Eden Gate Savage fights (Been away for school so I'm just getting into Savage this tier), You have E2S TBs every 90 seconds that you can rotate Dark Mind, You have E1S lasers as well as using TBN on the Gravitational Waves to save your healers healing you after the fact, E3S Tsunami/single soak/TBs, E4S double fists/Earthen fury etc I could go on. It's not fluff these are core CDs for DRK that makes them stand out and isn't taken for granted you can use these in conjunction and it's one of the strongest combinations in the game. The fact you don't use TBN just makes me question if you just pull these things out of nowhere, I get you jumped ship to GNB which nothing wrong with that, but it's like if you never used Camouflage or HoS because it was "fluff" or Continuation because TBN is indeed a core mechanic just like your Gnashing combos are a necessity for GNB.

As for the Dark Arts spam that's subjective, if you liked that kind of play style that's totally fine same if you like Edge/Flood of Shadow, personally I like DRKs more contained burst combo but as pointed out in other threads I wish DRK evolved with their burst vs what Delirium is today. I don't mind it really and I love playing ShB DRK it's my 2nd fav with HW being my choice and SB being the option I'd avoid like the plague since that play style made me swap to unga-bunga WAR in SB.

[Lammas]

re-worked TBN at the start of the expansion for the "Dark Arts spam replacement" which is probably the dumbest re-work the devs have ever done...

Are you seriously trying to say that TBN giving you 50 blood back then was better than the cost neutral ogcd it is giving us now? I just.... what?

[Tranquilmelody7]

I just want a 12 second duration for Blood Weapon, 2 charges for Abyssal drain and flat out reowork of Living Dead and I'm satisfied.

[Makeda]

But after taking a break and coming back, I hopped into the newest dungeon to find that I didn't enjoy myself. DRK felt super clunky and not very engaging. Abilities didn't feel like they had much purpose outside of "do damage". After I swapped to Gun Breaker to do a few dungeons with (in the process of leveling still) I found myself enjoying the game by miles more. Everything felt connected and each button press felt like it was working towards the next big swirl of animations. It felt good and rewarding to play with my resources in mind. I feel like DRK has become a shadow of its former self, even with it's flaws.

I've gone the other way. I always disliked DRK. Before Shadowbrings I only ever wanted to use WAR outside of leveling them.

I was playing GNB this expac, but eventually just found it not as fun as it was once the 'new shiny' wore off... so I leveled DRK to 80 for completionist sake and found I absolutely love everything about the Shadowbringers take except maybe Living Dead because healers always go AFK when I hit that... It's like the skill comes with a forced 'AFK timer' on healers... that forces them to randomly 'answer the door', 'take a bio', 'feed the cat', 'disconnect', or 'pay the pizza guy'... It's just... a sure thing...

But other than that one ability, I am enjoying Dark Knight for the first time ever in this game, and finding my thrill with Warrior, Paladin, and Gunbreaker is a lot less. I enjoy them, but it's not the blast I have on Dark Knight... There was about a month long period when I was finishing up Dark Knight where every week when I had to do my level 80 roulettes... I was looking at my Scholar or my Dancer because I was just worn out on Gunbreaker... and so in the last week I just ignored the tomestome grind and forced myself to get Dark Knight up so I could enjoy level 80 roulette tanking again.