Often people say that Dark Knight is in a bad spot, but what other Jobs...

[Tlachtga]

DRK doesn't even take damage because of TBN, unless they forgot to put it on their hotbar.

TBN is really overrated. its pretty bad when you compare it to Bloodwhetting, Holy Sheltron and Heart of Corundum.

[Riusvell]

Someone in this thread has made a good point though, wall to wall pulls on DRK are possible and can be done.
But if the DPS is low, the DRK will run out of resources. While I don't deny that it needs to be buffed/improved, I'm happy it's still "solid" (in terms of not getting something that completely throws things out of order.) and just needs a small look at the class to bring it up to par with the other tanks. And at least give Living dead a healing received increase buff, c'mon.

Now for my old main... I have little to no good words. Seven years down the drain for a job that doesn't even come close to fulfilling it's job-fantasy and has been turned into a rather generic mage. The bar has been set so low, that I now enjoy my former-two-most-hated jobs way more than what is my favourite Final Fantasy job in general, including the lore. The less I say the better, lest people come out of the woodworks defending and attacking me for not liking what is essentially a bare-boned class that has less gameplay than a White Mage. If healers have more buttons and better gameplay than a DPS, something went horribly wrong.

[Dogempire]

Machinist sucks right now, so do all of the healers once you get used to the kit, I hear dragoon isn't bad, just forgotten and kinda overshadowed

[Hazama999]

As always when it comes to these types of things, you'll have people going "what do you mean? [Job] is fine!"
Yes. DRK is fine.
It works. It does its abilities when you hit the buttons and you can clear dungeons, trials, raids, etc... on DRK.

In this instance, the perceived "bad spot" DRK is in comes from how it feels to play, specifically how bad it feels to play. This is, of course, highly subjective, but I'm not gonna sit here and act like I've not seen a good chunk of people, be it on this OF or in social media, complaining about how utterly insipid and bland the job feels in this expansion... And I have to say my own experience ain't all that different. I've been playing DRK since Heavensward and it feels like it's only been on a decline since then, its introductory expansion being the time I enjoyed it the most. Cut to Endwalker and we got... Salt and Darkness, Enhanced Unmend (snrk)... Dark Passenger, sorry, "Shadowbringer." Some people, somehow, managed to get hyped about a few traits and a half-second animation.

I find it rather funny cause I've a friend who started playing XIV in Shadowbringers, with DRK as his main job. When he saw what DRK got in Endwalker, he simply shrugged and said something to the effect of "that's alright. Job plays fine in Shadowbringers so it's whatever if they don't get anything crazy." He started to change his tune the more information we got and the closer we got to early access. Pretty sure he mains RPR now.

[Ultaniku]

I feel fine tanking on DRK. And doing wall pulls, but it isn’t overly exciting this time around. Same situation on my SCH, I can do all the things on the job. It just doesn’t feel as fun to play for me.

[BluexBird]

DRK is great right now, don't listen to people who say otherwise. Or at least ask them to clarify.

Here's a few myths:

1. DRK does less damage - false, and if anything DRK is doing the most damage right now.

2. DRK doesn't have any self-healing - false, because DRK has healing built into their rotation, PLUS a massive shield every couple of seconds (which no other tank has).

3. DRK is not as cool as other tanks - false, they are the coolest tank with the coolest weapon. No this is not subjective.

4. DRK doesn't have Bloodwhetting - true, but the only people who should be crying about this are healers, not you.

[Dracosavarian]

DRK is great right now, don't listen to people who say otherwise. Or at least ask them to clarify.

Here's a few myths:

1. DRK does less damage - false, and if anything DRK is doing the most damage right now.
2. DRK doesn't have any self-healing - false, because DRK has healing built into their rotation, PLUS a massive shield every couple of seconds (which no other tank has).

3. DRK is not as cool as other tanks - false, they are the coolest tank with the coolest weapon. No this is not subjective.

4. DRK doesn't have Bloodwhetting - true, but the only people who should be crying about this are healers, not you.

If, by your logic, Dark Knight was perfectly fine, you wouldn’t see so many complaints about the job across so many different forms of media outside these forums. Much less the JP and other language playerbases, not to mention the huge amount of threads in the Tank Forums.

Yet, here we are.

[DezereDawn]

Hahahaha imagine thinking TBN is even close to Holy Sheltron, bloodwhetting or Heart of Corundum...

or thinking that healing during GCD combos (Which exists on every single tank except for Paladin who still even gets it during Requiescat's rotation btw) is a big deal, oh boy DRK gets an extra 50 pot every 3 GCDs vs warrior at the cost of... checking notes... having absolutely 0 sustain tied to their Short form CD.

hmmm, i'd say that's a bad deal. doubly so when you consider those short form CDs are all usable during aoe and the DRK's healing is not.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Someone in this thread has made a good point though, wall to wall pulls on DRK are possible and can be done.
But if the DPS is low, the DRK will run out of resources. While I don't deny that it needs to be buffed/improved, I'm happy it's still "solid" (in terms of not getting something that completely throws things out of order.) and just needs a small look at the class to bring it up to par with the other tanks. And at least give Living dead a healing received increase buff, c'mon.

Now for my old main... I have little to no good words. Seven years down the drain for a job that doesn't even come close to fulfilling it's job-fantasy and has been turned into a rather generic mage. The bar has been set so low, that I now enjoy my former-two-most-hated jobs way more than what is my favourite Final Fantasy job in general, including the lore. The less I say the better, lest people come out of the woodworks defending and attacking me for not liking what is essentially a bare-boned class that has less gameplay than a White Mage. If healers have more buttons and better gameplay than a DPS, something went horribly wrong.

You said it better than I could have.

I find that Dark Knight really depends on the group while Warrior/Paladin rely far less on the group to do very well.

[Hazy_eyes]

To be fair the criticism I hear for DK is not that its bad its more like as one streamer put it. DK feels like an after thought in this expansion. Like it didn't really gain or lose anything. It just stagnated. Which isn't really good or bad. Just boring.