Big pulls with Dark Knight.

[OdinelStarrei]

Last I check, Abyssal Drain can only heal 200 potency. It doesn't increase with each number of targets that got hit by it.

Yes it does. It operated like that since the beginning, despite it being changed to an oGCD. It scales linearly with Attack Power I think, so whatever damage you deal is returned, with a small amount of variance as they are calculated as heal potency and not as life steal, meaning Darkside doesn't affect the healing, only the damage. Ex. ~49.5K damage over 9 targets = ~45K healing.

Now then.
If your metric of how good a tank is relies on your team being absolute idiots, or even comparable to ACTUAL BOTS I don't know exactly what to say. This is like saying AST is a bad healer because WHM is easier to fix party mistakes with. Just don't make mistakes and be competent at playing your role instead :^)))) Bad players or crisis scenarios should not be the metric where you define how good something is, that doesn't make sense. It can certainly be a positive attritube, but due to the relative infrequency of these crisis situations, I don't think it's accurate to lynch the other tanks for not being able to Cover someone with six vuln stacks or heal themselves with 2 GCDs instantly at the cost of their rotation. It's too uncommon.

Defensively, I'm pretty sure you're either undergeared or using TBN wrong. That's a bold claim, but understand that TBN, unlike other CDs, increases in power the higher your HP/Defense stat is, on top of whatever mitigations you apply to yourself, due to it not being multiplicative buff. When you complain about TBN breaking "in 1 second" or "instantly" that's a tell-tale sign something is wrong, as the only way my TBNs ever break at all is if I pull huge. Other people have already gone into this part of it, Shadow Wall with TBN and Arms Length if you have a very large amount of adds at the start of a pull, Rampart with TBN, add in reprisal, throw magic mitigations on top if something in the pack uses magic. Stacking it that way, you've already gotten yourself 35 seconds of AT MINIMUM, 20% personal mitigation, 10 seconds of -10% debuff (Reprisal), 15 seconds of a -20% debuff (Arm's Length), AND 50% bonus HP coming off TBN, with the next usage being 10 seconds away, assuming the pack isn't dead already. And functionally, because of the additive nature of shields and cooldown stacking/debuffing, it is MORE than 50% eHP. If you have a VERY large pull, like the ones in Anamesis, Abyssal Drain can scale to incredible amounts, like 2600 potency, which doesn't interfere with the outgoing tank damage at all. And honestly, if your add packs aren't dying in at max 30-40 seconds of sustained DPS, it's not the tanks problem. It's the 0 DPS healer and the not-AoEing DPS's problem.

Offensively, this is actually where DRK shines the most, because it's burst is HIGHLY favorable in the AoE department. I'll do a sample 1-1, potency calculation at 9 enemies that factors in the AoE burst window, a simple wall to wall pull you can find in Cosmos or Anamesis currently, with everything able to be used. Comparision with your chosen tank, PLD, to illustrate this point with adjusted potency after buffs in bold. There are only test examples, please don't take them too literally.

(TBN/AL once you planted yourself in the "time to aoe" spot to drain mana, you'll passively gain around 1200 MP over 10 GCDs depending on server ticks)
1. Unleash (165 > 1485)
FoS (330 > 2970)
put your entry mitigations here

2. SS (176 > 1584)
Salted Earth (330 > 2970 over 15 seconds)
Plunge (220)

3. Unleash (165 > 1485)
Plunge (220)
BW for mana and blood

4. SS (176 > 1584)

Living Shadow
This needs it's own small section. Not affected by Darkside, 4 single target attacks (1200) 3 AoE attacks (900 > 8100) for a total of 9300 over 24 seconds, but the AoE hits are the 1st, 3rd, and 4th out of 7, so the majority of the damage is within the first 15 seconds.
Delirium (+500 mana per Quietus, total of +2500)

5. 1st Quietus (231 > 2079)
FoS (330 > 2970) (free because Dark Arts)
TBN

6. 2nd Quietus (231 > 2079) *Shadow Wall should fall off here*
Abyssal (220 > 1980) +1800 potency heal
put more mitigation here (rampart probably)

7. 3rd Quietus (231 > 2079)
Cns (495 single target, free mana)
FoS (330 > 2970) (free because Dark Arts)
probably reprisal

8. 4th Quietus (231 > 2079)
FoS (330 > 2970)

9. 5th Quietus (231 > 2079)
FoS (330 > 2970) *should have enough mana here from passive mana ticks and delirium

After that you should be left with 40 Blood and very little mana after around twenty-two seconds. At this point, your pack should either be dead, or very close to death, to the point of where healing isn't needed/you drop the last FoS temporarily to save the mana for the next TBN. Assuming everything hits all adds (which will almost never happen because enemy positions are never this ideal) you have a theoretical cap of 46,568 tank potency. Realistically, I'd say you get about 40Kish of it due to things dying sooner, variable amount of enemies, Flood/Salted/LS not hitting everything, variable mana amounts, holding mana for next pull etc etc.


Let's compare this with PLD.

Hallowed on pull, I'm going to assume you have 50 gauge even though at the start of dungeons you don't.
1. Total Eclipse (120 > 1080 )
Spirit's Withing at max HP (370)
Intervene (200)

2. Prominence (220 > 1980 )
Req (550, +50% to Holy Circle and Confiteor)

3. 1st Holy Circle 375 > 3375
CoS (295 > 2655, combining initial hit and DoT

4. 2nd Holy Circle 375 > 3375 *Hallowed is gone here
Add Sentinel, mandatory Sheltron, AL

5. 3rd Holy Circle 375 > 3375
6. 4th Holy Circle 375 > 3375

7. Confiteor (1200 > 10800 )
Add more mitigations if everything isn't dead
FoF

8. Total Eclipse (150 > 1350 )
Intervene (250)
9. Prominence (275 > 2475 )
...Repeat for the next 20 seconds, zero mana, but you still have CDs, assuming hallowed was used. Otherwise, probably would have to lead with it and place rampart in Holy Circles.

That puts PLD at 35,210 at a theoretical cap, that can be decreased (but not as easily as DRK) due to positioning, things dying, Confiteor wasn't targeted in the direct center, etc etc. Using your own words here, that number drops by 3.3K every time you replace a Holy Circle with a Clemency, and you wouldn't replace Confiteor with a Clemency ever, that's ridiculous to suggest, even for a strawman arugment.

Napkin math, it's not perfect, but the point I'm trying to make here is that DRK takes a bit more effort (i know, i know how that sounds coming from me), but you're rewarded with SIGNIFICANTLY more scalability in your damage, without having to compromise your defensive skills at all. And in FFXIV, at this point, the best defense is the best offense. DRK can kill things a bit faster than PLD can in burst, out of burst still has FoS usable, and has enough tools to make it easy to heal. That gap gets even larger with more gear. If things last too long, THAT'S NOT THE TANKS FAULT, assuming the tank also did AoE and mitigated.

And DRK isn't even the tank you should be complaining about in the CD department. That's GNB, and even that's really flimsy because Camouflauge parries excel in big pulls, you still got your 30%, but Aurora and HoS are a bit lacking, particularly compared to Nascent/TBN in the exact same scenarios. But that doesn't matter because you still have Rampart, Reprisal, AL, and at 9 enemies under NM, you're dishing out 4032 total potency Fated Circles every 3rd GCD, more than that with pre-prep/Bloodfest.

Is DRK good in dungeon pulls? Yes, absolutely. But every single tank is "good" in dungeons. Because dungeons are brain dead easy and don't hit you hard enough for it to actually matter. Dungeons, like everything else, is a "bring the player, not the job" affair. If you're PLD, you can offset your lower damage, replace a HC with a Clemency, and let the WHM Holy for another 5 GCDs and have long solo sustain, both options having a massive nuke at the end. WARs can instantly full heal themselves, very high burst. DRK has very high damage that is not affected by it's high TBN sustain, if used correctly. GNB just does insane sustainable AoE damage. All tanks can annihilate packs in their own way, but a lot of things, from your CD priority/planning to your damage dealing, will not transfer 100% from tank to tank. Recommend looking at some of the world's fastest dungeon runs, and seeing just how high tanks can get. At the higher levels of play, all tanks are fairly close together.

TL;DR Kill things faster if you don't want to die.

Also Low Blow is a valid cooldown, stun is free.

[Goji1639]

It's a 25% shield not 20% witch it's really massive and the trick on aoes is due it have the most short recast (15s) you have to keep it on colddown and use the procs for flood, it's affected by your HP so the more ilvl you have more powerful it gets, so no, DRK is not weak or you are not using it enough, you gear it's just extremely low or both at the same time.

PLD can heal himself but lower the contribution of DPS on the pull making it take way more time to kill and DRK on the other hand can be a eternal wall with TBN spam as long as you play it properly and keep generating mp, something it's extremely braindead to archive this expansion and dealt one of the most broken aoe dps of the tank role killing everything so fast, the faster your targets die the better always.

Btw you can use reprisal since it's aoe, there is just tons of mitigation tools right now, don't depend of the silly heals of PLD without run out of mitigation tools first.

It's a heal of 200p per target so if you hit 5 targets with AD you get 5 heals of 200p.

Losing 1 or 2 casts during req doesn't make it take "way more time to kill," you severely overestimate the tanks contribution to overall DPS. Clemency is a great tool for when you're pulling for a healer who seems to be struggling to handle mass pulls. Staying alive is a DPS gain. With a good healer your defensive kit barely matters during a big pull, so it's pointless to compare tanks in that context.

Interesting note about server ticks, though; I'll try not popping TBN and a defensive CD together and see if that makes a notable difference.

Also, I've never been sure how the math works with potencies in this game, but what I do know from simple observation is that Clemency crits for 50K plus HP, and AD seems to hit for about 2-3k per target. I'd need about 15-20 targets to match 1 cast of Clemency, and I can technically spam Clemency 6-7 times in a row if I needed to. There's absolutely no comparison when it comes to self-healing.

[Goji1639]

Now then.
If your metric of how good a tank is relies on your team being absolute idiots, or even comparable to ACTUAL BOTS I don't know exactly what to say. This is like saying AST is a bad healer because WHM is easier to fix party mistakes with. Just don't make mistakes and be competent at playing your role instead :^)))) Bad players or crisis scenarios should not be the metric where you define how good something is, that doesn't make sense. It can certainly be a positive attritube, but due to the relative infrequency of these crisis situations, I don't think it's accurate to lynch the other tanks for not being able to Cover someone with six vuln stacks or heal themselves with 2 GCDs instantly at the cost of their rotation. It's too uncommon.

It's the only metric that matters in 90% of this games content. When a good healer could technically cover a DPS tanking in these dungeons it makes almost everything a good tanking class brings to the table moot. When everything's going fine your class literally doesn't matter, so how is that a good context for comparison? A tank class that falls apart when the group sucks isn't a good tank, imo.

When you complain about TBN breaking "in 1 second" or "instantly" that's a tell-tale sign something is wrong, as the only way my TBNs ever break at all is if I pull huge. Other people have already gone into this part of it, Shadow Wall with TBN and Arms Length if you have a very large amount of adds at the start of a pull, Rampart with TBN, add in reprisal, throw magic mitigations on top if something in the pack uses magic.

Pulling huge is all I'm really talking about, and the context I'm talking about is bad groups. Since we can't just materialize bad groups for comparison purposes I'm using trusts. I think a lot of you are basing your opinions on situations where you wouldn't actually see the differences in effectiveness, because everything is dying fast and the healer is making your defensive kit mostly irrelevant.

[dangadget]

The use case that you are basing your critique on is odd, to put it mildly.
Why would you even bother to "pull huge" with a bad group or a Trust in the first place?
What possible gain could there be in doing so?
Bad groups with bad DPS and healing will not be a net gain in huge pulls, as everything will still take too long to defeat, and in Trusts, the difference is even more apparent due to their complete lack of AoEs and DPS when doing avoiding mechanics

[Goji1639]

The use case that you are basing your critique on is odd, to put it mildly.
Why would you even bother to "pull huge" with a bad group or a Trust in the first place?
What possible gain could there be in doing so?
Bad groups with bad DPS and healing will not be a net gain in huge pulls, as everything will still take too long to defeat, and in Trusts, the difference is even more apparent due to their complete lack of AoEs and DPS when doing avoiding mechanics

In a bad group it's still faster to mass pull; slowly killing 1 large group is faster than slowly killing 2-3 small groups. The tank just has to be able to keep himself alive for the duration. A Paladin can keep himself alive indefinitely in any group. A Dark Knight can only keep himself alive in a very capable group that covers all of his weaknesses. It's pretty obvious which tank is more effective.

"In a good group it doesn't matter" is fine, but I'd like a tank that's capable even if I get unlucky in roulettes, so I test big pulls in trusts as a simulation. When the tank classes are actually put in a situation where they're strained it becomes obvious how much more capable some are than others.

[shao32]

Losing 1 or 2 casts during req doesn't make it take "way more time to kill," you severely overestimate the tanks contribution to overall DPS. Clemency is a great tool for when you're pulling for a healer who seems to be struggling to handle mass pulls. Staying alive is a DPS gain. With a good healer your defensive kit barely matters during a big pull, so it's pointless to compare tanks in that context.

Interesting note about server ticks, though; I'll try not popping TBN and a defensive CD together and see if that makes a notable difference.

Also, I've never been sure how the math works with potencies in this game, but what I do know from simple observation is that Clemency crits for 50K plus HP, and AD seems to hit for about 2-3k per target. I'd need about 15-20 targets to match 1 cast of Clemency, and I can technically spam Clemency 6-7 times in a row if I needed to. There's absolutely no comparison when it comes to self-healing.

I belive you are the one that understimate the value of tank contribution to overall DPS on aoe situations, specially from DRK and PLD since the first one have extremly powerful skills that can end anything quickly and push more dps that a DPS in short periods of time and the value to land all your holy spirits+confiteor during requiem cast, if you belive that having a good healer you defensive kit barely matters then you are being negligent on purpose or you don't fully understand the the potential behind optimice your kit under such situations.

In an aoe situation if you have a good healer properly use your kit allow that healer to push more DPS and combined with yours that doesn't cost anything due the simplicity of everything right now will make the combination of both nuking the pull independent of the size, you shouln't refuge on the excuse of "the healer is good then my defensive kit it's mostly irrelevant now" when you can do much more.

now on the oposite scenario if the healer is bad it's pretty much irrelevant, this game is hella easy and everything hits like a wet noodle, if you use you defensive kit properly and push dps as your should you will see how brainless everything is right now, and if you pull and need to use clemency for whatever reason reason (being honets the chances of any good PLD have to use clemency to stay alive are nonexistent but in the case that happens) then you should pull smaller since pushing dps and keeping the hp on check without having to use clemency it's way better and faster that forcing mass pulling, both tank and healer being bad at their jobs and rely on clemency to success it's a bad practice when smaller pulls can do the same more safe and way more faster.

in resume, tanking on mass pullings it's all about how much you and your healer can keep your considerable amount of dps output with the defensive and healing tools at your disposal, pulling smaller it's always way better if you are in the situation of being forced to use clemency without any doubt specially if your dps are aoe skills allergic, and when you start using DRK properly you will see is not the weak tank you claim it is, it's you dont knowing how to use your tool since DRK it's by far one of the best dungeon tanks since ever.

[Goji1639]

Shao, you can't honestly believe that doing small pulls just to avoid using a couple Clemencies is worth cutting the ACTUAL DPS classes output in half, or thirds by pulling small.

You really have a warped sense of how important tank DPS is. It matters, but working in some clemencies so you can pull big even with a bad healer isn't going to slow down the run very much at all. Doing small pulls because you have some weird assumption that ANY use of Clemency is crushing the groups DPS potential is flat out ridiculous. You're a tank; your DPS isn't THAT crucial.

DRKs are good dungeon tanks in good groups; same as every other tank class. In bad groups they're borderline helpless. A Paladin can make a successful and fast run out of a bad group and a bad healer, where a DRK can't.

[OdinelStarrei]

Losing 1 or 2 casts during req doesn't make it take "way more time to kill," you severely overestimate the tanks contribution to overall DPS. Clemency is a great tool for when you're pulling for a healer who seems to be struggling to handle mass pulls. Staying alive is a DPS gain. With a good healer your defensive kit barely matters during a big pull, so it's pointless to compare tanks in that context.

I think you're underestimating the DPS contribution tbh. Even the best healers will have trouble when a tank pulls with no CDs, just look at Bardam's Mettle or those wall-to-wall pulls in Mt. Gulg. If a healer is struggling with big pulls, despite you using CDs, they just aren't pressing buttons. They are literally just not pressing buttons.

Also, I've never been sure how the math works with potencies in this game, but what I do know from simple observation is that Clemency crits for 50K plus HP, and AD seems to hit for about 2-3k per target. I'd need about 15-20 targets to match 1 cast of Clemency, and I can technically spam Clemency 6-7 times in a row if I needed to. There's absolutely no comparison when it comes to self-healing.

Yeah, that's kinda the point we're trying to make. There is no comparision, so why are you comparing them like that? No one else has a GCD heal! You have to make up for that with CD and leveraging TBN. I guess, you could just switch to single-target Souleater healing, and AoE with Floods after TBN breaks? That's a possible option, even though it's only 2-3% total HP per usage and I very rarely do it. That's how you did dungeons after a mana dump pre-Stalwart Soul anyway. But you'd lose so much damage it's probably not worth it, again, because things dying sooner = less damage taken.

I literally just hit a dummy with Abyssal Drain for 5.5K, and I healed for 5.5K. Abyssal heals can crit per target for 8.5K, like Souleater heals can, but yes, it's not a CRITICAL Clemency, sorry. Mainly because the calculation is done per enemy, not on usage.

It's the only metric that matters in 90% of this games content. When a good healer could technically cover a DPS tanking in these dungeons it makes almost everything a good tanking class brings to the table moot. When everything's going fine your class literally doesn't matter, so how is that a good context for comparison? A tank class that falls apart when the group sucks isn't a good tank, imo.

Does anyone else just not comprehend this line of thinking? No DPS can do a big pull like tanks can and survive, they MAY be able to continue a big pull if the tank falls over and they are a geared melee with AL and Bloodbath and the healer is healbotting them. Casters are out because cast interuppts/no sustain, ranged have no sustain, melees (DRG) are your best dungeon DPS for that. I'm saying that defensives are not the only benefit to bringing the tank, offensives also play a heavy role. The class doesn't fall apart either, I've DONE pulls and bosses where I'm the only one left, and it's fine, maybe because I'm usually max ilvl for the dungeon, and can sustain myself for the rest of the pull. Maybe because the healer actually heals me before they eat the floor, instead of me trying to be all 3 roles at the same time, who knows.

You can't legitimately say this and use it as a foundation for this topic, because by your logic, EVERY tank that ISN'T PLD, is inherently BAD in general, rather than in just not excelling in ONE edge case. Because none of them can cast Clemency either, and therefore, can't survive the same things you're harping on DRK for. Even WAR.

If you extrapolate your statement to that remaining content, might as well just take PLD/PLD/WHM/WHM/RDM/RDM/RDM/RDM as the "best" composition because you'll never have any problems in 95% of content and can account for/recover from literally every mistake/bad play in the game that doesn't insta-wipe you. Incompetence should not be used as a measuring stick for good job design. Ease of play, sure. People not doing the DPS role, or the healer role in the party, and that makes the TANK DESIGN bad because he can't carry 3 other people? I don't know.

In a bad group it's still faster to mass pull; slowly killing 1 large group is faster than slowly killing 2-3 small groups. The tank just has to be able to keep himself alive for the duration. A Paladin can keep himself alive indefinitely in any group. A Dark Knight can only keep himself alive in a very capable group that covers all of his weaknesses. It's pretty obvious which tank is more effective.

"In a good group it doesn't matter" is fine, but I'd like a tank that's capable even if I get unlucky in roulettes, so I test big pulls in trusts as a simulation. When the tank classes are actually put in a situation where they're strained it becomes obvious how much more capable some are than others.

I've groups on DRK, where the SCH is succor'ing in the corner, the DPS are running around with NON-HQ 480 gear, and I still big pull, and I don't die. I just move around the mana amounts to maximize the TBNs, and spread out the tail end of the CDs for longevity. I get unlucky in roulette on ANY tank, I just big pull and go, and it's never a problem, even with bad players. I don't know where you're getting this idea that DRK completely cannot sustain itself over a long period of time. That's objectively false. It's not indefinite, you're right. But it's not a piece of tissue paper in a trash compactor. I've only felt strained in ShB dungeons when I first attempted Anamesis's god pull at the end, and that was more because of positioning rather than because I just couldn't survive the 20 mobs wacking me.

Shao, you can't honestly believe that doing small pulls just to avoid using a couple Clemencies is worth cutting the ACTUAL DPS classes output in half, or thirds by pulling small.

You really have a warped sense of how important tank DPS is. It matters, but working in some clemencies so you can pull big even with a bad healer isn't going to slow down the run very much at all. Doing small pulls because you have some weird assumption that ANY use of Clemency is crushing the groups DPS potential is flat out ridiculous. You're a tank; your DPS isn't THAT crucial.

DRKs are good dungeon tanks in good groups; same as every other tank class. In bad groups they're borderline helpless. A Paladin can make a successful and fast run out of a bad group and a bad healer, where a DRK can't.

I think that's entirely fair for him to say, because you sac a lot of potency, and therefore, elongate the pull if you use Clemency, HC is very strong. Last time I checked, Tank DPS in dungeon big pulls is almost a 20-25% of a dungeon's total damage output, including the bosses, mainly because we don't have any damage fall off on any AoE skills. Would not surprise me if I came out of many big pulls competing with actual DPS jobs outright. It's very important. Plus, if you burst down 2 packs because lol-single target trusts faster than 1 slow big pull with those two packs in them, wouldn't that just benefit the run overall by the end? We already know that trusts don't AoE, and you aren't AoEing either because all of your AoE burst in magic is in Clemency now, so what's actually happening? No one at all is AoEing 7 mobs, and you're just in a big clump casting Clemency with your healbot healing you and the DPS single targeting? Is he not right by saying "pull smaller" and you offload the mana into potency??? This seems like such a exclusive set of conditions, almost like you have specific NICHE to your job kit, and not an overwhelming advantage over other kits.

This isn't the reverse situation of ARR/HW/SB PLD in dungeons where they were absolute garbage and never taken, now rising from the bottom of the barrel to become dungeon gods regardless of the party. It's just competent with niche advantages at the cost of some (very useful) damage.

Bad groups. The entire point of trusts is that they don't play in conventional ways to disincentive what you're talking about. I don't feel they can be used, they aren't human, and their behaviors cannot be altered like Squadrons. I can tell my squadron healer to heal bot with Defensive Battle Tactics, I can't tell the Trusts that. I can't wrap my head around bad play being the judge of design, particularly when I've dragged bad groups over the finish line before on each tank with no trouble. Honestly, when you get a really bad group, the most effective strat is Duty Finder > Leave > Ok and take the penalty for the headache you're saving yourself.

If this was SB dungeon DRK we wouldn't even be having this conversation. F

[shao32]

Shao, you can't honestly believe that doing small pulls just to avoid using a couple Clemencies is worth cutting the ACTUAL DPS classes output in half, or thirds by pulling small.

You really have a warped sense of how important tank DPS is. It matters, but working in some clemencies so you can pull big even with a bad healer isn't going to slow down the run very much at all. Doing small pulls because you have some weird assumption that ANY use of Clemency is crushing the groups DPS potential is flat out ridiculous. You're a tank; your DPS isn't THAT crucial.

DRKs are good dungeon tanks in good groups; same as every other tank class. In bad groups they're borderline helpless. A Paladin can make a successful and fast run out of a bad group and a bad healer, where a DRK can't.

you have a limited vision about the whole problem, it's not only your own dps, healer dps counts too and isn't a small amount, having a healer spaming cures on you and dealing zero dps with you using clemency lowers the overall aoe output of the party that pulling smaller and having both dps and you adnt the healer using the maximun potential of your jobs dps against then, apart of that...

-1º you asume both dps do proper aoe dps wich in bad groups they do only poor single target rotations except you know how every job works and identify they are doing optimal aoe rotations.

-2º i'll repeat if you do mass pulls and you healer is strugling to keep you alive for whatever reason and he is spaming heals on you at the same time you use some clemencis it really hurts a lot the overall aoe output of the whole party by reducing the potential of having 4 members pulling maximun aoe performance to having 2 and half at best, again asuming dps know they job.

-3º yes you understimate the aoe potential of both tank and healer dps on aoes situations, nuking smaller groups of 4-5 with all the party it's way more faster and safe that dealing with a full mass pull losing the aoe potential of 1 member and great part of the other specialy if the dps are not using any or random aoe skills + increasing the chance of wipe and stress on the rest of the team for no reason.

clemency it's a carry skill, it's mean to be the last resort of PLD kit when everything else fails, something that's pretty hard considering how easy is mitigate and the vast arsenal the job have, you are free to use it how you want but don't be surprised that more veteran tanks with more experience and info from the math crafters and other can't be named sources tell you that any alternative it's way more efective that casting clemency and yes can save you from a rare extreme case of wipe but you need to understand that many things have to fail first to get that situation, things that you need to learn to identify and avoid to all cost.

do what you want i wont stop you im just informing you, my own experience with DRK,WAR, PLD and GNB in dungeons with any kind of groups has tell me that WAR and DRK are the most durable and independent tanks thanks to the huge amount of self healing (war) and mitigation (drk)) respectively have, you just need to know how to use then properly, DRK it's not called the best defensive tank for nothing.

[Goji1639]

I think you're underestimating the DPS contribution tbh. Even the best healers will have trouble when a tank pulls with no CDs, just look at Bardam's Mettle or those wall-to-wall pulls in Mt. Gulg. If a healer is struggling with big pulls, despite you using CDs, they just aren't pressing buttons. They are literally just not pressing buttons.

Regardless of what makes a bad group bad, I've had plenty of PuGs that were actually far less capable than Trust groups. Say what you will about Trusts, but at the very least they do competent single target damage and there are occasions when the healing is decent.

Yeah, that's kinda the point we're trying to make. There is no comparision, so why are you comparing them like that?

I was just responding to people actually saying that AD is superior on big pulls. It's not.

You can't legitimately say this and use it as a foundation for this topic, because by your logic, EVERY tank that ISN'T PLD, is inherently BAD in general, rather than in just not excelling in ONE edge case. Because none of them can cast Clemency either, and therefore, can't survive the same things you're harping on DRK for. Even WAR.

Not bad necessarily, but inferior. Again, versatility in roulette is like 90% of this games content, and it's not like Paladin sacrifices anything in other content for it. I think all tanks should have the option to sacrifice damage for comparable endurance. That way good tanks can make judgement calls depending on the groups capabilities and still perform well. It's a shame that only one tank has that kind of flexibility.

As for DPS, I'm just talking about exchanging a few casts for clemencies to help the healer, which is usually all you need. In the grand scheme of the groups damage output that's practically nothing. Pulling small, however, effectively carves the DPS output in thirds, and that includes the tanks DPS.