I am new DRK player and generally new FF XIV player. Been playing since 2 months so my opinion comes from someone new who didn't see ever previous HW or SB or any other version of DRK before:

1. I absolutely had no issues below 70 lvl to tank. I didn't even know TBN exists and I never had problem being main tank. Between lifesteal, enemy damage reduction, 2x skills for my personal damage reduction I never had issues with staying alive, not even on trash Wall to Wall pull. At worst I had to pop all my dmg reduction skills and focus on max AOE damage with BW + Flood spam. Of coursse once I got TBN I had easier time .

2. I personally love his kit and I love Delirium combo, becasue I enjoy doing one big burst and whenever that's 5 different skills to spam or 1 skill spammed 5x times - doesn't matter. I like Bloodspiller spam and I like having a lot of OGCDs to burn during my burst rotation. Also I like that tanks don't have so many combos/rotations as DPSes.

3. Living Shadow is cool, but it would be much cooler if he was mimicking what I am doing instead of doing his own stuff. But I like that's it's "Press and it works" instead of another thing to micromanage.

However, I have issues with DRK, and those are issues I feel as DRK player, not comparing to other tanks as I didn't play them:

1. Living Dead is just bad. It's very very bad. Unless I play with bene White Mage who ON TOP of that knows what Living Dead is and can find icon next to me and be fast enough to cast bene - I die 8/10 times I use it without Discord. It's design is just bad and I don't know who thought overcomplicating simple tank ability like that is good idea.

2. OGCDs could be little faster, just for the sake of fun.

3. Blood Weapon needs either 5 charges or extended duration. You have to precisely use it as 2nd GCD to be able to squeeze 5th weaponskill in for MP.

4. Salted Earth needs to do something for DRK. It can be MP regen when you stand it it. It can be lifesteal when you attack enemies while standing it it. It can be damage reduction where you stand in it.

5. Dark Mind changed to just 15% all damage reduction. I am sure that Dark Mind is awesome when you know 100% than big damage coming is magical. But since FF XIV gives no info about that - it's just useless for your average player. Same with Dark Messiah - just make it flat 10% reduction for your party members, not DRK. This will give him nice support ability without benefits for him.

6. Abyssal Drain needs to be either 30s or have it's Potency higher becasue it's Potency is not worth it's 60s cooldown.

7. Some abilities needs to be moved to lower lvls:

a) TBN needs to have weaker version on levels 30+. Like "The Dark Night" and be it 15% barrier, that upgrades to TBN
b) Second AOE needs to be available on level 50.


However I can't stress it enough: THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN is change Living Dead. Just this will fix 8/10 problems with DRK. Just make it normal invul.