Big pulls with Dark Knight.

[Hierro]

Is it so hard to admit your belief on PLD being superior stems only from your relative incompetence with DRK? AD is literally better, you don't sacrifice a GCD, you do damage with it, and it outheals it in burst scenarios. When you're spamming TBN on cooldown, AD is more than sufficient while still out-healing clemency on burst.

Tell you what, I'll offer you a coaching session since we're on the same datacenter. Would love to see how you feel about the tanks afterwards!

[Tranquilmelody7]

Abyssal drain is still a valuable tool despite the nerfs from Storm blood but it is way too limited.

Just adding charges to the move would make dark considerably more flexible during mass pulls.

[Goji1639]

I'm not saying AD is bad, but it has nowhere near the healing utility of Clemency. It's sufficient in a typical group situation but it's not going to sustain you in a big pull that's painfully dragged out by a subpar group. One Clemency crit under req will beat it handily, and you can literally chain instant cast Clemency 5 times in a row if you need to. THAT's flexibility. THAT's a tank that can shift gears and really hold out if a fight is going south fast. THAT"s a tank that can virtually solo a boss fight when the healer goes down early. THAT's flexibility.

I'm not saying that chain casting Clemency is optimal, or that casting Clemency should even be on your mind in a good group. In a bad group, however, the Paladin can switch gears and become survivability machine if necessary. That's my image of a good tank.

So Dark Knights perform well when overgeared in competent groups. So does every other class.

[Hierro]

I'm not saying AD is bad, but it has nowhere near the healing utility of Clemency. It's sufficient in a typical group situation but it's not going to sustain you in a big pull that's painfully dragged out by a subpar group. One Clemency crit under req will beat it handily, and you can literally chain instant cast Clemency 5 times in a row if you need to. THAT's flexibility. THAT's a tank that can shift gears and really hold out if a fight is going south fast. THAT"s a tank that can virtually solo a boss fight when the healer goes down early. THAT's flexibility.

I'm not saying that chain casting Clemency is optimal, or that casting Clemency should even be on your mind in a good group. In a bad group, however, the Paladin can switch gears and become survivability machine if necessary. That's my image of a good tank.

So Dark Knights perform well when overgeared in competent groups. So does every other class.

DRK performs well in suboptimal conditions too, you just have to know what you're doing.

[Noctisnine]

DRK is super good and handling big pulls because of TBN, it procs so easy that you can refresh it without any effort as soon it's off cooldown. I think you clearly dont know what you are doing when playing DRK specially comparing him to Paladin. You have a massive shield on you and you dont need to lose dps by healing yourself because the downside of paladin is if you use your combo to heal you will lose a lot of dps specially after using requiescat. DRK is very good for tanking I would actually say its the easiest to tank with just because of TBN. Even with bad groups TBN with rampart for example is more then enough for everything. You just have go learn how to play that job.

[Vyrerus]

It's kinda sad that all this thread does is remind me that last expansion, DRK was king of huge pulls by a fairly large margin. That cycle of Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain into Blood Weapon'd Quietuses bak into DA + Abyssal Drain. Doing the whole lot of the monsters between Magitek Scorpion and the 2nd boss of Ala Mhigo. Good times.

It still performs well, but yeah Goji, arguing from your position, of course it's lackluster compared to PLD. It has never been designed with lack of a group in mind. Its immunity should tell you that. In fact, at least at first, all of the Heavensward jobs were designed with the group in mind. From AST's cards, DRK's original delirium and immunity, MCH's original Hypercharge. All tools that require or go into group planning or at least buff syncing.

But to want what you want out of a tank sort of enters into the territory of stepping on other role's toes as well as basically desiring for tanks' DPS to be pushed even lower than it already has been pushed. The only reason PLD was allowed to keep clemency was for flavor, and to also not cause another Heavensward situation where people actively disparage the class. Also though, because it doesn't have a self sustain on a combo or an oGCD spike heal. You can, as other have pointed out, turtle up somewhat on DRK and use your single target Souleater combo to try and last as long as possible. It's a 300 potency heal now, independent of the damage it deals, after all.

What I really suggest you do though, to improve your lot as a tank, on all tanks, is reverse how you think about tanking and cooldowns. Hallowed Ground is not an, "OH SHIT, I'M GONNA DIE!" button. That is much more the territory of the other tank immunities, namely Superbolide and Living Dead. This is why Hallowed has that silly delay in its activation. When you do large pulls, whether your group is crappy or not, you should using your biggest, strongest cooldowns first, as they take longer to come back, and the sooner you use them, the sooner you can use them again. This also prevents waste to their CD timers, as if you were to pop a big CD when a pack is half dead, some of the mobs will die(or are already dead), and you will waste mitigation, provided it wasn't necessary to live. Of course, if you have a WHM, you should delay all defensive cooldowns until the Holy spam results in stun immunity(if they're DPSing as they should be), as stunned mobs aren't hitting you, and this wastes mitigation.

If you don't play DRK well, then you don't play tank well.

[Goji1639]

I know how to play DRK fine. Even while undergeared in trusts I can sustain it in big pulls, but it performs FAAR worse than the Paladin. The disparity in it's ability to sustain itself is surreal, and it's not like the Paladin isn't comparably effective in every other aspect of tanking. So, all other things being relatively equal, why wouldn't you play as the tank class that actually has real flexibility? I don't see the point in playing DRK and sacrificing supreme sustainability for nothing.

If the main response I got to this thread was "yea, Clemency is busted, it operates way outside the parameters of what should be possible for a tank," I'd have no choice but to agree. Instead I'm mainly hearing "my ilvl synched DRK tanks big pulls just fine; ur just bad lololol," from people who are entirely missing the point.

[Xtrasweettea]

I know how to play DRK fine. Even while undergeared in trusts I can sustain it in big pulls, but it performs FAAR worse than the Paladin. The disparity in it's ability to sustain itself is surreal, and it's not like the Paladin isn't comparably effective in every other aspect of tanking. So, all other things being relatively equal, why wouldn't you play as the tank class that actually has real flexibility? I don't see the point in playing DRK and sacrificing supreme sustainability for nothing.

From what you are describing, is not “flexibility”, but being able to carry without the need for others.

Actual flexibility uses what limitations and tools come from the job. You cannot carry heal as a DRK. It is not within its kit. You can, however, try to prevent a situation that would have required you to try to keep yourself sustained without a healer. That would be anywhere from using your CDs correctly to applying TBN to healers who keep taking avoidable damage (preventing their death most of the time), etc. DRK’s flexibility scope will be different than PLD’s flexibility scope.

Of course, if the healer is horrible, you have other tools: Votekick or Leave. Everyone has those at their disposal.

If the main response I got to this thread was "yea, Clemency is busted, it operates way outside the parameters of what should be possible for a tank," I'd have no choice but to agree. Instead I'm mainly hearing "my ilvl synched DRK tanks big pulls just fine; ur just bad lololol," from people who are entirely missing the point.

In other words, you wanted someone to agree with you, but you didn’t get it. Which is obvious what you really wanted, or you wouldn’t be disregarding people’s feedback, some who have provided you in depth responses.

[Tint]

If the main response I got to this thread was "yea, Clemency is busted, it operates way outside the parameters of what should be possible for a tank," I'd have no choice but to agree. Instead I'm mainly hearing "my ilvl synched DRK tanks big pulls just fine; ur just bad lololol," from people who are entirely missing the point.

Well you should have made your point more clear then because this is what people were reading:

[...] I feel like Dark Knights are TERRIBLE at handling big pulls.

Also the title of this topic. This is not a Clemency is powerfull topic, this is a DRK is trash topic.

And then you explained how you handle big pulls on DRK:

My routine is to immediately pop arms length and TBN, and TBN is eaten through in like 1 second. Since TBN is basically our entire defensive tool kit I have to almost immediately also pop shadow wall, rampart, Abysal Drain, etc. just to keep myself alive for the next 14 seconds until TBN is back. Then once that TBN gets eaten I'm helpless, so everything better be pretty close to dead.

So in other words you are activating all your defensives at the same time and then you wonder why you are helpless afterwards? That's not how you play DRK (or any tank).


DRK is perfectly fine for doing big pulls. Even with a super powerfull Clemency on PLD. But maybe you have to gauge the party performance and adapt by doing smaller pulls. Why are you even doing big pulls with a subpar party in the first place? Where is the gain here when the dps is too low anyway? Just pull less, this gives the healer room to dps more and you can also keep dpsing instead of casting Clemency.

[Goji1639]

Actual flexibility uses what limitations and tools come from the job. You cannot carry heal as a DRK. It is not within its kit. You can, however, try to prevent a situation that would have required you to try to keep yourself sustained without a healer. That would be anywhere from using your CDs correctly to applying TBN to healers who keep taking avoidable damage (preventing their death most of the time), etc. DRK’s flexibility scope will be different than PLD’s flexibility scope.

Using your CDs correctly is all stuff all tanks do anyways. Flexibility is being able to adapt to the groups capabilities. A Paladin can hurt his DPS to greatly increase his survivability. The DRKs "flexibility scope" is miles worse than a Paladins, and that's a problem.

In other words, you wanted someone to agree with you, but you didn’t get it. Which is obvious what you really wanted, or you wouldn’t be disregarding people’s feedback, some who have provided you in depth responses.

No, I wanted someone to understand what I was saying and respond to it, instead of trying to flex. People responding with anecdotes about how their ilvl synched DRKs tank big pulls fine, so I must be bad, obviously haven't been understanding any of this, so of course they're being disregarded.