Is anyone surprised at this point?

[RinaB]

I think its pretty safe to say we're getting more gameplay changes with 6.0, but what those changes will be remain to be seen. I've already said my piece in multiple posts in this thread so I won't repeat myself but I do think its important to note that old style drk was also designed around how enmity worked pre SHB. In endwalker we might receive big gameplay changes or just get a few new ones between 80 and 90. I dont think they're going to change enmity or their current design decisions regarding tanks because of accessibility. Theres far more tanks running around then before which helps speed up queue times for everyone and their gameplay decisions are reflecting this accessibility model. Truth is we're gonna have to wait and see.

[Absurdity]

More people definitely dip their toes into tanking since the accessibility changes but whether or not we really have more tanks mains is...questionable.
This is anecdotal so take it with a pinch of salt but I've seen most of the tanks on my friend list, that I ran content with in SB, flat out quit the game in early ShB or reroll a different role (or maybe they all just transferred back to Chaos, who knows) and I can't say I'm particularly engaged by the current tank playstyle either. So we might've gotten a lot of new tanks but lost just as many veterans, we don't really have numbers for that.

[DaulBan]

So we might've gotten a lot of new tanks but lost just as many veterans, we don't really have numbers for that.

Yeah unfortunately it's hard to know. Luckybancho just tells us if it's at max level, and fflogs will always show the same proportion of tanks to dps to healers. That said, it seems like there are more overall tanks now than this time last expansion, if you take 39.5k tank logs on fflogs for Alphascape vs 112.5k total logs for tanks in this tier. So if you (take the admittedly very generous) position that the number of raiders has tripled, then there are three times as many tank raiders now than before.

This doesn't mean that there are three times as many people who want to play tank of course. Just three times as many statics (more or less) which just so happen to need two people playing tank. It can't be used to gauge interest.

[ForteNightshade]

Yeah unfortunately it's hard to know. Luckybancho just tells us if it's at max level, and fflogs will always show the same proportion of tanks to dps to healers. That said, it seems like there are more overall tanks now than this time last expansion, if you take 39.5k tank logs on fflogs for Alphascape vs 112.5k total logs for tanks in this tier. So if you (take the admittedly very generous) position that the number of raiders has tripled, then there are three times as many tank raiders now than before.

This doesn't mean that there are three times as many people who want to play tank of course. Just three times as many statics (more or less) which just so happen to need two people playing tank. It can't be used to gauge interest.

Not only that but you have to consider the massive uptick in active player numbers between expansions. Stormblood averaged out at around 500k whereas Shadowbringers sits around 900k and even flirted with 1.2M for the first time since Luckybancho started tracking activity. For the sake of argument, if we calculate those results you get a 7.1% for Stormblood and 12.5% or 9.3% for Shadowbringers, respectively. This, of course, also doesn't account for FFlogs only tracking parse uploads over a two week period. So the Alphascape numbers were likely much higher at its perk activity than the final two weeks.

All in all, this should be taken with a fairly large grain of salt. Unfortunately, even if the results do suggest a net neutral result or only a small increase in tanks, SE is notoriously stubborn. We've seen them cling to poor choices before even when everything suggests they shouldn't.

[AC9Breaker]

DRk is fine. WAR probably better now.

[Bhearil]

Personally I think that if during an expansion where a new tank has been released the overall % of tanks number didnt increase, that means a complete faliure in making people wanting to play tank and if the same path is being followed into a new expansion with no new tank classes, tank players will become as rare as black rhinos

[Recon1o6]

numbers wise ofc there's more tanks, there's more players.
but if the % of tanks hasn't gone up, then all it does is show that the dumbing down was even more unneccessary than it first appeared.

I'm not even surprised they ignored dark again. That was a bug fix not a change. Nobody would have even noticed if it didn't get put in the patch notes.

I'm just hoping, though not expecting in the slightest any improvement to dark knight.

[NeoDivinity]

numbers wise ofc there's more tanks, there's more players.
but if the % of tanks hasn't gone up, then all it does is show that the dumbing down was even more unneccessary than it first appeared.

I'm not even surprised they ignored dark again. That was a bug fix not a change. Nobody would have even noticed if it didn't get put in the patch notes.

I'm just hoping, though not expecting in the slightest any improvement to dark knight.

Yeah, i really think that DRK lost his identity when all the other tanks now can hold both magic and non magic damage equally, BN is great but sharing his resource for both defensive and ofensive ogcd kinda sucks. Damage wise is not a problem at all, the difference between all of them is just too little.
I'd never liked DRK to be honest since i dont feel like their animations fit with the sound effect and effects but that my thing.

but the general problem right is this tight window DRK has on Bloodweapon, WAR on Inner Release, GNB in No Mercy. Playing with more than 180ms on makes it impossibe to double weave (even when u need to fit a defensive) w/o messing the rotation sometimes. Doesnt makes a huge difference but when you are trying to get better u often compare yourself with other and the problem gets more clear.

[NeoDivinity]

I would'nt be mad at all if they'd get rid of that DPS check meta we have and give Tanks more machanics to deal on the fight, having to focus on actually protecting the party members, i miss some weird mechanics like Awareness on Helicarnassus or the dumb WAR running around the arena taking aggro from the adds on Melusine's fight so the healers dont get shot, the PLD covering the WHM/Voking the add on Nael's so they dont stab the healers as soon it spawns, these kinds of mechancis that made me feel like tank wanst just another DPS that takes the Tank Buster.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

oof... reading through 17 pages takes a while... this post is aimed at the conversation that Shao32, RinaB, and WhyAmIHere were having, and is my own thoughts on the matter.

as mentioned by RinaB, the way that different Dark Knight players are split into different "groups", is actually quite a problem.
a lot of Dark Knights all want change, but there is a bit of a lack of agreement on the how and what of this change.

that aside, again as mentioned by RinaB, but also Shao32, here is my opinion.
to be honest, I am apart of the "HW Dark Knight is best" group, but I also am against just copy-and-paste bringing back the original 3.x Dark Knight.
my thoughts are that the best move for Dark Knight would be to take original 3.x Dark Knight, remaster it into a new form that would fit how the game functions now, and then take the current Dark Knight, fix its three most mentioned problems, being living Dead, Delirium, and Blood Weapon, before taking both of these and merging them together into one.

I think that the best thing for Dark Knight, would be to remaster HW Dark Knight and add its most iconic parts, actions and most importantly the "identity" of Dark Knight, and merge that with what the current Dark Knight has.
we could keep BlackBlood gauge, gain a lot more MP-related skills, make DarkSide less boring, more interactive, and require more effort to maintain it, through oGCDs interacting with it, have MP and BlackBlood interacting with each other, have both of actions that cost one or the other, and actions that cost both; have our dual resources both generated more, through oGCDs and GCDs, more GCD options than just a single 1-2-3 combo, and have Dark Knight juggle various oGCDs between GCDs, instead of just Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow spam and occaional long-CD oGCD.