Big pulls with Dark Knight.

[Xtrasweettea]

TBN is terrible with big pulls […]

TBN is very good for big pulls. How you start your CD usage and your current gear and accessory setup will dictate how long TBN will stay up. If you are near the minimal ilevel for the dungeons, TBN won’t last that long at the start of the actual tanking phase of the big pull (once you hit that wall and enemies have all gathered around you). As you start gearing up and getting closer to where your gear could potentially be synced, you will notice the first TBN will last longer.

I tank on DRK very often in dungeons. I average two TBNs a pull. The second TBN often times gets close to not breaking. I am also gear synced for all level 80 and Expert dungeons that force a gear sync.

[Goji1639]

TBN is very good for big pulls. How you start your CD usage and your current gear and accessory setup will dictate how long TBN will stay up. If you are near the minimal ilevel for the dungeons, TBN won’t last that long at the start of the actual tanking phase of the big pull (once you hit that wall and enemies have all gathered around you). As you start gearing up and getting closer to where your gear could potentially be synced, you will notice the first TBN will last longer.

I tank on DRK very often in dungeons. I average two TBNs a pull. The second TBN often times gets close to not breaking. I am also gear synced for all level 80 and Expert dungeons that force a gear sync.

I mean overgeared; good healer; good DPS you probably don't even need a tank in a lot of content. I feel like a good tank class is defined by how it performs in suboptimal conditions. If I ever want to run a quick comparison I usually just wall to wall pull with a Trust to simulate a mediocre PuG. The Paladin holds up beautifully no matter how bad the DPS is or how thoroughly the healer ignores me. Dark Knight gets absolutely slaughtered; once TBN disappears the class is just a massive ball of squish with no reliable self-healing.

[Xtrasweettea]

If I ever want to run a quick comparison I usually just wall to wall pull with a Trust to simulate a mediocre PuG. The Paladin holds up beautifully no matter how bad the DPS is or how thoroughly the healer ignores me. Dark Knight gets absolutely slaughtered; once TBN disappears the class is just a massive ball of squish with no reliable self-healing.

Trusts aren’t meant to do big pulls with. Trusts are the literal bottom left of the bell curve when it comes to party efficiency. Trusts don’t AOE and they do not do damage when they do mechanics. Trusts also do less damage overall than a mediocre player. Trusts take longer to kill three enemies from a single pack pull than a mediocre pug killing a walled pull.

Trusts are worse than a mediocre PUG, they’re a sub-par PUG.

Paladin is going to hold up fine since it can heal itself and regain MP through its combos and sword oaths. It is a literal self-healing machine. The other tanks, not so much. WAR might be able to with NF healing, but that is only for six seconds and it is only really good with bursting damage. DRK does not have strong self-healing tools like Clemency. Instead, they have a strong shield. The tanks are themed differently. You are not going to get the same results with different tanks and expecting same outcomes when using this test.

[Nedkel]

I mean overgeared; good healer; good DPS you probably don't even need a tank in a lot of content. I feel like a good tank class is defined by how it performs in suboptimal conditions. If I ever want to run a quick comparison I usually just wall to wall pull with a Trust to simulate a mediocre PuG. The Paladin holds up beautifully no matter how bad the DPS is or how thoroughly the healer ignores me. Dark Knight gets absolutely slaughtered; once TBN disappears the class is just a massive ball of squish with no reliable self-healing.

Trust is the simulation of team that only press 1 button and does nothing else.
This is not a good representation of the tanks performance.
You may use as much clemency as you want on PLD, but it does not change a fact that a tank dpsing is going to have easier time anyway, since killing mobs is even more efficient than self sustain.

[AC9Breaker]

I feel the exact opposite. Easiest to do big pulls with my Dark. I also like healing Dark Knights more so then any other tank class.

[Gallus]

Well, I mostly play low level roulette for the clusters and DRK certainly feels terrible at large pulls with average healers, while I can tank for an entire minute while watching Netflix the same big pulls with GNB no problem. Then again, the game isn't balanced around low levels, but it's still ridiculous the amount of defensive shit you have with GNB at level 50-60 whereas DRK is extremely underwhelming defensively until you don't hit 70 with TBN (and even then, I still feel GNB is superior defensively).

Aurora + No Mercy + Heart of Stone? Reprisal + Heart of Stone? Arm's Length/Nebula? Rampart + Camouflage? Even Superbolide feels like a much better version of Living Dead (which is again, unreliable with average healers).

If people are happy with DRK, more power to them, but it's certainly not my cup of tea.

[Venoshock-]

Well, I mostly play low level roulette for the clusters and DRK certainly feels terrible at large pulls with average healers, while I can tank for an entire minute while watching Netflix the same big pulls with GNB no problem. Then again, the game isn't balanced around low levels, but it's still ridiculous the amount of defensive shit you have with GNB at level 50-60 whereas DRK is extremely underwhelming defensively until you don't hit 70 with TBN (and even then, I still feel GNB is superior defensively).

Aurora + No Mercy + Heart of Stone? Reprisal + Heart of Stone? Arm's Length/Nebula? Rampart + Camouflage? Even Superbolide feels like a much better version of Living Dead (which is again, unreliable with average healers).

If people are happy with DRK, more power to them, but it's certainly not my cup of tea.

DRK is demonstrably defensively superior to GNB in single target and big pulls. It's DPS is far superior to GNB in large pulls as well. Only place where GNB comes out on top is it's single target DPS.