DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Lyth]

You don't need to make drastic changes to a job to make it better.

The problem with Living Dead, as as been stated countless times, is that the concept only works on a job that is capable of burst self-healing. DRK isn't that job. WAR, especially following the changes to Nascent Flash, is. You could always make DRK into the better self healer, but it really just makes sense to give the ability to WAR and make them commit to that playstyle.

Like it or not, TBN is DRK's signature ability. Instead of trying to rework the job, just play into it harder. The thing that I liked best about DRK in previous iterations was the speed. It's not that hard to implement as a baseline mechanic.

It kind of reminds me of the old Defiance/Deliverance traits - as you have more gauge, you gain some trait (Crit/Parry) that helps you out in some way. You could very easily do something similar across each tank:
PLD: Every time you block, your casting speed and spell potency increases.
WAR: As your maim uptime increases, your crit and self-healing increases.
DRK: Every time you prevent incoming damage with a barrier, your damage and attack speed increases.
GNB: Every time you use a cartridge, you gain progressively more recast reduction on your cooldowns.

[ADVSS]

You don't need to make drastic changes to a job to make it better.

The problem with Living Dead, as as been stated countless times, is that the concept only works on a job that is capable of burst self-healing. DRK isn't that job. WAR, especially following the changes to Nascent Flash, is. You could always make DRK into the better self healer, but it really just makes sense to give the ability to WAR and make them commit to that playstyle.

Like it or not, TBN is DRK's signature ability. Instead of trying to rework the job, just play into it harder. The thing that I liked best about DRK in previous iterations was the speed. It's not that hard to implement as a baseline mechanic.

It kind of reminds me of the old Defiance/Deliverance traits - as you have more gauge, you gain some trait (Crit/Parry) that helps you out in some way. You could very easily do something similar across each tank:
PLD: Every time you block, your casting speed and spell potency increases.
WAR: As your maim uptime increases, your crit and self-healing increases.
DRK: Every time you prevent incoming damage with a barrier, your damage and attack speed increases.
GNB: Every time you use a cartridge, you gain progressively more recast reduction on your cooldowns.

Definitely a better way of wording it than i could. Basically TBN is the DRK jam nowadays, so it makes sense theyd work with it, instead of against it. I dont suppose too many WAR would like that suggestion, but it makes good sense if its such a great invuln that itd be given to the job that actually can self-disable its worst mechanism. At the very least i like the PLD DRK suggestion for passive incremental increases is speed/casting time just by playing the tank role as should be, i could see something like this working more in the direction they seem to be moving with ease of play. Definitely wouldnt mind this at all.

[Valknut]

I just really don't get the themes of DRK at all anymore.

PLD protects and his answer to a higher threat is to improve his defenses. Good makes sense. Sword, shield, big armor and abilities that protect others/heal very on point.

WAR is all about taking the hit and hitting harder back. Good makes sense in the berserker battle frenzy thing they got going on. Big axe, lots of wild swinging abilities and blood thirst type healing. Sure seems to be cohesive.

DRK is the, uh? Anti-hero? Maybe? Does it put it self before the party? No, and that wouldn't work well in an MMO. Does it use themes from the past DRK's? its got that 1 drain ability and a blood weapon that does the opposite of what it sounds like it should, no dots, no enfeebles, no real primary drain abilities.... Its got black armor and a big sword though! What a mess! The fact that the previous suggestion is based around DRKs ability to shield itself is just bonkers to me.

In what world do you see PLD WAR GNB and DRK and think..... Ya DRK would benefit the most from shielding it self, this makes sense.

[ADVSS]

I just really don't get the themes of DRK at all anymore.

PLD protects and his answer to a higher threat is to improve his defenses. Good makes sense. Sword, shield, big armor and abilities that protect others/heal very on point.

WAR is all about taking the hit and hitting harder back. Good makes sense in the berserker battle frenzy thing they got going on. Big axe, lots of wild swinging abilities and blood thirst type healing. Sure seems to be cohesive.

DRK is the, uh? Anti-hero? Maybe? Does it put it self before the party? No, and that wouldn't work well in an MMO. Does it use themes from the past DRK's? its got that 1 drain ability and a blood weapon that does the opposite of what it sounds like it should, no dots, no enfeebles, no real primary drain abilities.... Its got black armor and a big sword though! What a mess! The fact that the previous suggestion is based around DRKs ability to shield itself is just bonkers to me.

In what world do you see PLD WAR GNB and DRK and think..... Ya DRK would benefit the most from shielding it self, this makes sense.

As much as I agree with you, thats apparently the hand DRK been dealt in this game. The funny part is the removal of shadowskin, which would make sense that TBN would be sort of cloaking yourself in darkness to resist damage. It looks like DRK is now a Shadow Knight, using its shadow as a dot, and cloaking itself in a bubble of darkness. And thats about it. It also has a zombie tank invuln, we arent entirely sure how that happens, i guess he goes unconscious and his shadow takes over till it fades or something. Maybe he just sinks into the darkness and his only way out is being healed completely to full before he's swallowed whole. Theme's a bit of a mess. Though iirc the proper Japanese title for the job is "Shadow Knight" so... i guess thats what it is now. Just cant do anything cool like hold mobs down with its shadow powers, or anything. Even lost its ability to blind people with its darkness, so yeah. Your guess is as good as mine.

[TouchandFeel]

Though iirc the proper Japanese title for the job is "Shadow Knight" so...

It's not.
The name that has been used for the Dark Knight job in the Final Fantasy series, as well as in a lot of other media depicting a "Dark Knight" character, is 暗黒騎士 (Ankoku Kishi). 暗黒 (Ankoku) means darkness, as in the noun form and being the absence of light. 騎士 (Kishi) means knight; coming from the idea that a knight is an elite warrior on horseback and the kanji for kishi are 騎 (horse) and 士 (person), as in a person who is defined by being on/riding a horse. Ankoku may be used to reference the darkness created by a shadow or that is a shadow, but it tends not to be used as a direct reference to the shadow itself. The word most often used for a shadow itself is 影 (kage).
So "Dark Knight" or "Darkness Knight" are pretty literal translations of the Japanese name.

Also, just a note not aimed specifically at you but to all in general, be very wary of relying on things like Google Translate or such tools for translating Japanese to English. Japanese is fundamentally different enough from English that a lot of it doesn't translate directly or cleanly over to English and I see a lot of mistakes or misconceptions by people who just type some stuff into Google to get translations and then slap them together and are like "look at so-and-so, it means such-and-such", when in truth it is basically gibberish or something different than what they think.

It also has a zombie tank invuln, we arent entirely sure how that happens...

I personally don't think that the Living Dead ability is meant to be anything to do with zombies or some undead state, although with the names Living Dead and Walking Dead coming to such a conclusion makes sense.
I think that it is actually meant to be more along the lines of something like the terms "dead man walking" or "you're already dead, you just don't know it yet", encapsulating the idea that your physical body may have been dealt a mortal blow but your sheer force of will (i.e. grit) is keeping you going, at least for a bit.

I come to this conclusion from two things.
First is we see a reflection of this very thing in the story of Frey, where Frey fought beyond his/her physical limitations and later died from it.
Second, Yoshi-P commented way back when that they pulled a lot of inspiration for their version of Dark Knight from the character Guts in the manga/anime Berserk (https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/Guts).
In Berserk, Guts acquires the Berserker Armor (https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/Berserker_Armor) which basically allows Guts to fight beyond his normal physical limits and helps keep him alive after sustaining severe wounds by injecting metal spines/spikes from within itself to do things like realign and set broken bones, essentially keeping him temporarily "held together" when he should be crippled or dead.

So basically I don't think the ability is the Dark Knight turning into an undead zombie, but is them using their willpower to temporarily live past being dealt a mortal blow and keep fighting even though technically they have been killed, which actually makes the way the ability works and this concept line up pretty succinctly, which from a conceptual stand-point is pretty cool.
Don't get me wrong though, I still really dislike the implementation of the ability when compared to the rest of the tank invulns and think that it should be changed to bring it more in-line with the others or vice-versa.