Dark Knights are an absolute joke and I'm tired of pretending they're not

[OdinelStarrei]

Don't get me wrong, DRK definitely needs QoL stuff like Blood Weapon stacks. It just doesn't really need any power increases (I wouldn't count adjustments to Living Dead to make it more healer friendly as a "power" increase, mind).

I concur. In actuality, performance this tier was quite respectable. I was the 2nd person to get rushed into augmented tome weapon, since the absurd peaks of DRK's damage led itself very well to the progression environment, and played a key factor in making our first P4S kill possible after a few DPS deaths. My numerical output is incredible, I'm a reasonable target for cards during 2 mins buffs, the support I give to my cotank essentially zeros out every buster once they add their own mitigation in tandem, leaving me as the only heal target to worry about post-buster. Admittedly, DRK is my comfort tank, so I'm biased, of course. Potency-wise, I don't think much of anything needs to change, except for making Abyssal Drain a gain on 3+ targets. QoL-wise, we're repeating the same mistakes we've had in every iteration.

1. SE designs a DRK.
2. They build a foundation that is fully functional as a base, but needs to be tweaked, and refuse to do so for X amount of years.
3. Community sentiment grows increasingly negative, pessimistic, and polarized.
4. They tear down the foundation without making the adjustments people asked for or severely misinterpret them, and keep Living Dead, the most contentious skill.

And repeat.

The cycle needs to be broken, and it won't be if people see "Abyssal Drain CD: 20 secs, 1200 heal potency per enemy. Oh and we removed the MP cost off TBN, no more 5/3 rotation for you, just TBN on CD." and start clapping, shouting DRK is fixed, while we still have all of this jank nonsense. There's deeper, more structural issues that I'm fearing are getting drowned out. There needs to be a conversation about DRK with SE, now more than ever, the power isn't the problem, the development of the job is.

[einschwartz]

I'm not the best tank. In fact, I don't main the role.
But I do know well enough how to use my mitigations during pulls.

The major difference when I level a DRK compared to other tanks is that I feel vulnerable.
Yes, I have faith in my healer but I also hate the fact I have fewer control on my own health if the pack isn't down fast enough.
Sure, one can blame the dps slacking off or the healer isn't healing properly. But as the one who takes the beating, I should at least be able to help myself in dire situations.

[Kabooa]

It's a pretty difficult argument to make, defending DRK, once you start comparing just how insane WAR is, it's such an unfair comparison that it's not even worth making in my opinion.

We'll have to disagree here. Warrior is the outlier, it's the one that needs to be reined in, and Dark Knight just needs a couple QoL to tide over until more deeply seeded issues can be addressed. For one, simple change that does absolutely nothing to change the Warrior's strength in the 'only content that matters', you snip this madness in the bud.

Remove the target scaling. That's it. 400 per weaponskill used.

It stops there. That's all it will take - Every other avenue involving buffs will be a thread we will trace through the next two years when we could alternatively just upset the hedgehogs for 10 minutes and then move on. Bloodwhetting is blazing a path and expectation we should be steering away from, not funneling the other tanks towards.

[Shurrikhan]

I've seen a number of people say similar things with their experience leveling DRK in dungeons. My experience leveling DRK from 80 to 90 using exclusively dungeons was vastly different than what you and others have described and so I am genuinely curious as what people are doing and how they are using their abilities during wall to wall pulls that is resulting in them having so much difficulty.

Same. I've leveled to 90 DRK and PLD across two characters and GNB and WAR on another and the only outlier of the bunch to me was Warrior, while my only death when dungeon-spamming my way to 90 was on GNB (though I think that was a fault of my Sage panic-mode-ing before Bolide only to forget thereafter that he dumped all his Adder, rather than the tank being any harder to get sufficient survivability out of).

Heck, I even managed to use Living Dead (again, without dying) a few times, two of which weren't with a WHM! (I hate that this is something special; please fix Living Dead.)

I do think DRK objectively has less sustain (here meaning mitigation/damage-nullification and healing combined) and ought to get more; I just don't think that kit or its shortfalls are going to impact one's dungeons, given their current lack of difficulty, in any significant way without being bottlenecked primarily by player skill.

We'll have to disagree here. Warrior is the outlier, it's the one that needs to be reined in, and Dark Knight just needs a couple QoL to tide over until more deeply seeded issues can be addressed. For one, simple change that does absolutely nothing to change the Warrior's strength in the 'only content that matters', you snip this madness in the bud.

Remove the target scaling. That's it. 400 per weaponskill used.

While I agree completely that Bloodwhetting/Nascent's target-scaling needs to be curtailed, removing it completely seems overkill, given how little percentile mitigation Warrior's on-demand has to lean on in its place.

Reverting it to healing based on damage dealt would be reasonable.
Reducing to 100, 150, or 200 cure potency per for hits after the first would be reasonable.
Removing it altogether would not be reasonable without increasing the percentile or shield potency... which would in turn overbuff Warrior's single-target sustain.

[Abomination713]

I'm no DRK expect and don't even have mine to 50 yet, so I can't comment on much, but I can think of two changes that would help.

Make Oblation a 30 second CD for 1 stack. 60 seconds for just a simple 10% damage reduction is a joke. This is not Rampart or Reprisal and should not treated as such.

Change LD's effect to something like......idk, maybe remove the insta dying after 10 seconds and instead maybe if they don't get to full HP during that time, they get a 30 second dot of Bleeding damage (like it's saying your body is still wrecked after that push to survive) that can't be Esuna'ed. Yeah, would be annoying, but at least it's not insta death.

[Kabooa]

Removing it altogether would not be reasonable without increasing the percentile or shield potency... which would in turn overbuff Warrior's single-target sustain.

I disagree. The equilibrium buff was massive and that is available on every pack, while Bloodwhetting with no target scaling is still the strongest short CD of the bunch.

[TankHunter678]

My DRK is level 65, so I am still leveling. Dark Mind is useless in 80% of trash pulls and useless against most bosses. Reprisal and Arms Length get combo'd on cooldown and they barely make up for a lack of 3rd general purpose defensive. Abyssal drain feels incredibly weak and the health I get from it basically vaporizing after I use it. The job works against bosses, but dungeon pulls make me feel like paper.

[Flay_wind]

Seems like there's a problem between keyboard and computer to me, tbh. I have leveled DRK through EW dungeons just fine. The only times where i had problems were when healers were bad at their job (Cure I/Physik/Benefic enjoyers), they were undergeared or both.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

The only sensible reason to nerf Bloodwhetting is to future-proof against potential AoE encounters further into the expansion.

Dominating AoE tankiness in dungeons is almost entirely irrelevant—especially so when it's been this way for nearly the entirety of the last expansion.

[Shurrikhan]

I disagree. The equilibrium buff was massive and that is available on every pack, while Bloodwhetting with no target scaling is still the strongest short CD of the bunch.

Well, let's deal with Equilibrium and base Bloodwhetting first.

The Equilibrium buff never should have happened. Warrior was already the highest sustain tank in ShB. Because PLD previously lacked any degree of sustain and therefore basically owed its Req heals regardless, Enhanced Equilibrium should only be compared against Enhanced Aurora, which added... zero potency per minute since its healing ticks are so small as to cause no risk of overheal nor provide any real benefit in 8-man content in being banked for emergencies. As such, any Enhanced Equilibrium trait should have been something of similar situational value, not an 83.3% buff to the skill itself.

So, Enhanced Equilibrium is gone. Now, what of Bloodwhetting's base?

At present, Bloodwhetting does 15% mitigation for 4 seconds and provides 2000 potency of sustain (400 shield + 1600 healing).
Holy Shelltron, by contrast, provides 35% mitigation for 4 seconds, 20% mitigation for a further 4 seconds, and 1000 potency of sustain. (It also has a faintly shorter cooldown and two charges.)
Heart of Corundum provides 30% mitigation for 4 seconds, 15% for a further 4 seconds, and 900 potency of sustain. Now, Aurora can be blamed slightly for HoC underperforming Holy Shelltron, but Bloodwhetting?

Simply put, how often will 20% mitigation for 8 seconds outweigh 1000 whole potency of healing (a whole modern Clemency or most of an Equilibrium). 1000 potency is worth roughly 20% of a tank's HP. If they'd otherwise die within those 8 seconds, then the mitigation is preferable. If not, though...

But while that situation (otherwise dying in 8 seconds) is decently rare in raids -- and Bloodwhetting's heal potency might even arguably deserve to be nerfed faintly (e.g., to 350) to make that equivalency (1000 potency for 20% mitigation for 8s) tighter -- it's not quite so uncommon in dungeons that the mitigation might be worth more. I'm not certain a Bloodwhetting without any target-scaling would actually be as strong as Holy Shelltron, which brings us to whether it should be.

Imo, above-average sustain in AoE situations should be a trait Warrior holds onto. It's been unfailingly a core element since 1.x and doesn't need to go away. It just can't be so strong as to, say, remove damn near all threat from bursty add phases or break even the possibility of challenging dungeons over its power relative to other tanks.