Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

This entire post is math in the context of TBN taking a single tankbuster versus HoC taking a single tankbuster. And it is correct, in that on a per-use basis, TBN is generally weaker (ranging from 'marginally' to 'considerably' depending on the specific situation) against tankbusters than the other tanks' equivalent skills. But we aren't having a discussion about TBN vs HoC/HS in the context of tankbusters.

The math that people are failing to provide is the math that shows TBN being less effective in dungeon pulls.

That's because the math for dungeon pulls is significantly more complex. HoC has falloff mitigation, other cooldowns get used creating diminishing returns, GNB/PLD have Parry/Block rates respectively, Abyssal Drain is a heal entirely dependent on the number of targets, And I know from first hand experience PLD Holly Shelltron out performs both TBN and HoC in pulls in every way, but aurora is stacked with GNB effects and overall the math you're asking for is very possible, but honestly far too complex for me to be writing out this kind of math for free, math is already my job, numbers are my language. You don't even need to see the math to experience this, you can see the effects firsthand in dungeons. When I play DRK I feel pathetic defensively and healers feel more pressure when they have to heal DRK over all other tanks. The math you're asking for to disprove the usefulness of TBN exists, but there are so many variables from heal values, number of targets hit, parry rates, block rates, healing crits, enemy attack rates, when those attacks land on the tank, how often short cooldowns are even used (can't always be off cooldown for DRK and PLD), and oh god I could keep going. You're just saying that until someone puts in professional mathematician levels of work to disprove the effectiveness of TBN you will ignore the actual visible results of how poor the ability actually compares due to the kit it is in. Could you imagine how good TBN would be if we still had Dark Dance? The main problem with DRK defensive kit is synergy and coherence.

EDIT: Remember when PLD had stoneskin and you'd just toss it on yourself real quick before pulls and during boss downtime? Stoneskin was very weak compared to TBN, but it was on a tank with a block rate, so it was seen is too strong even when it could only block physical attacks. It was a positive feedback loop and didn't dig into the PLD offensive resource pool unless you were silly enough to use it during damage uptime. TBN deserves that kind of synergy before it can be called comparable to HoC, HS, and Blood Whetting. TBN is an S Tier ability on an D tier tank in defensive terms.