Dark Knight feels terrible to play

[ThorneDynasty]

You stop having issues on drk in dungeons when you figure out how to weave your mitigations properly and get paired with a healer that knows when to cover the gaps in your defense. Once you hit that, you'll never drop below 60% health.
The issue is that if you get into a bad situation, you have no way of getting yourself out of it, and roulette healers are all too eager to turn their brains off and allow that bad situation to occur. That's why my runs with SCH have always been smooth.

GNB has the same issue, but if it all goes to shit, you at least have an invuln to fall back on. Drk does not have an invuln.

GNB also has way more ability to ration their self-healing and mitigation skills - DRK is just kind of screwed if you need spend more than half of your 4 basic Rampart/Arm's Length/Shadow Wall/Reprisal kit between two big pulls, because the rest of it just can't compensate and you are going in half-cocked when the healer already can't keep up. It's just a very rigid mitigation strategy with the standard cooldowns, TBN on cooldown and saving AD until you need the heal, and if it doesn't work there's really nothing you can do to adjust.

[Shurrikhan]

Haha, I tried so hard to level DRK this go around but I think my side project is sitting at 83 now. I refused to take it out of zadnor. It’s the only place I can get self sustain on DRK.

It's no rougher to level via dungeon-spam than GNB or PLD...

You basically lose your invuln without a WHM, which sucks, but... even leveling dungeons have never needed said invuln, nor are they slowed by the lack of one beyond some insignificant fraction of a standard deviation.

[Undeadfire]

It's no rougher to level via dungeon-spam than GNB or PLD...

You basically lose your invuln without a WHM, which sucks, but... even leveling dungeons have never needed said invuln, nor are they slowed by the lack of one beyond some insignificant fraction of a standard deviation.

Going through content, you don't really need the Invuln on any of the tanks. I go through many dungeons all the time and Drk handles them just fine without Invuln, it's really based on your team than the job, War/Pld only forgive it more. Tower of Zot final pull is the only threat in dungeons.

[TouchandFeel]

It's just a very rigid mitigation strategy with the standard cooldowns, TBN on cooldown and saving AD until you need the heal, and if it doesn't work there's really nothing you can do to adjust.

If you are saving Abyssal for an emergency or until you need the heal, you are likely not utilizing it to its full potential. Its greatest potential is best met by using it in a planned, deliberate and consistent manner like the other defensive abilities.

In my experience the best time to use it is when you have just finished the pull portion of a wall to wall pull and are grouping together all the packs at the wall. This is the period with the highest incoming damage since all enemies are still alive and the period in which the healer is most likely to mess up. If at this time you hold off with popping any other defensives and then use AD when you hit about 1/3 through 1/2 of your hp, AD should restore you pretty close to full at which point you can then go into your regular rotation of defensives, making sure you are stacking defensives with TBN. This will buy you a bit of much needed time and give you most of the control over your HP and avoiding any potential goofs by the healer. Also using it up front helps make it more likely that it will be available for the next pull.

I switched from holding on to AD for when I may need it to doing the above and found it to make wall to wall pulls more predictable and smoother overall.

[RyuDragnier]

It's no rougher to level via dungeon-spam than GNB or PLD...

It's easier in Zadnor, as Essence of the Bloodsucker gives tanks healing on every attack they do, which gives DRK the sustain they need, and they in turn become powerful enough to take themselves out of Walking Dead easily if they ever (unlikely) enter it.

[Xtro99]

You stop having issues on drk in dungeons when you figure out how to weave your mitigations properly and get paired with a healer that knows when to cover the gaps in your defense. Once you hit that, you'll never drop below 60% health.
The issue is that if you get into a bad situation, you have no way of getting yourself out of it, and roulette healers are all too eager to turn their brains off and allow that bad situation to occur. That's why my runs with SCH have always been smooth.

GNB has the same issue, but if it all goes to shit, you at least have an invuln to fall back on. Drk does not have an invuln.

I've never really had issues keeping DRKs up as AST, you just have to soften up the edges. In my experience, what used to trouble me the most with them is that they drop like a sack of rocks when they run from pack1 to pack2 but if you drop an intersection an exaltation on them immediately after they grab the first pack, they can get to the second pack almost at full health and that makes the pulls much more smoother. To be fair, when i realize I'm going to be healing a DRK I know I'm going to have to ease up on the DPS and rely more on my GCD's but hey, so long as the run goes well, I'm ok with it. At least hey give me something to do, unlike wars.

[Lyth]

Players usually report a rougher experience in levelling dungeons, due to more variability in gear and job familiarity. Levelling DRK felt fairly par for the course.

I think that people's expectations are being skewed based off of the amount of mitigation and self-healing available to the other three tanks. It does need to be standardized, but I'd prefer that they cut back some of the bloat, at least in the long run.

Also, why wouldn't you find a reason to use Hallowed in every dungeon run? Not all invulns were created equal.

[ThorneDynasty]

If you are saving Abyssal for an emergency or until you need the heal, you are likely not utilizing it to its full potential. Its greatest potential is best met by using it in a planned, deliberate and consistent manner like the other defensive abilities.

In my experience the best time to use it is when you have just finished the pull portion of a wall to wall pull and are grouping together all the packs at the wall. This is the period with the highest incoming damage since all enemies are still alive and the period in which the healer is most likely to mess up. If at this time you hold off with popping any other defensives and then use AD when you hit about 1/3 through 1/2 of your hp, AD should restore you pretty close to full at which point you can then go into your regular rotation of defensives, making sure you are stacking defensives with TBN. This will buy you a bit of much needed time and give you most of the control over your HP and avoiding any potential goofs by the healer. Also using it up front helps make it more likely that it will be available for the next pull.

I switched from holding on to AD for when I may need it to doing the above and found it to make wall to wall pulls more predictable and smoother overall.

I didn't say emergency? I said delay it until it's needed.

But since you are getting into this, let me ask: When would you say DF healers typically start to throw out their big oGCD heals? Because you are kind of touching on yet another anti-synergy DRK has with healers.

[TouchandFeel]

.I didn't say emergency? I said delay it until it's needed.

And I didn't say that you said emergency. The exact words you used were "saving AD until you need the heal" which is directly referenced in the "or ..." after I mention saving it for an emergency. I listed two situations, the one you mentioned and the other most common reason someone may sit on a self-heal ability.
Please take into account the entirety of what was said instead of selectively culling for the point of argument.

But since you are getting into this, let me ask: When would you say DF healers typically start to throw out their big oGCD heals? Because you are kind of touching on yet another anti-synergy DRK has with healers.

For the most part I find DF healers will be relatively reactionary with big heals, waiting until you drop pretty low before throwing out their first big oGCD heal.
Knowing this plays directly into and is a part of the proactive usage strategy that I outlined for Abyssal Drain usage.

In a wall to wall pull you are sprinting and potentially using gap closers to outpace and get ahead of the first pack to avoid autos. This tends to have you also get a bit ahead of the rest of the party. As you are tagging the last group of the pull, there is usually around a couple seconds as the first pack and your party catches up. During this time you are taking some damage. Once caught up,many healers require a few seconds to adjust before launching into healing. This means you could be taking damage for around 5 or more seconds before you could see a heal come your way. If that damage is completely unmitigated, it could be around half or more of your HP. If you watch for that and proactively use AD then, you can get yourself back up quickly and save the healer that initial big heal as well as delaying your usage of other defensive abilities which can allow you to stretch them out through more of the fight.
Sure, saving it until you need a heal can also save the healer a big heal, but as I stated previously, those initial seconds when bringing a wall to wall pull together is where healers tend to fumble the most and if you can proactively take control of the situation, the chance of said fumble is greatly diminished. Also, with all the mobs alive, you will maximize the amount of dps done and healing received, which is good since that is also when you will be taking the most damage and could use that healing.
Basically you are trading off the usage of your big heal at the beginning for one of the healers' while also buying them a sliver of time to get comfortable. Also their heals are not dependent on the number of enemies and therefore don't weaken as the enemies die, making them just as effective later while AD diminishes as the fight goes on.

I don't see any "anti-synergy" in this, it's simply using your abilities strategically to position them in a way to get the most out of them as often as possible.

You don't have to use the strategy I suggested, but I have found it to be very effective.
I simply find proactively finding a way to use an ability like AD as frequently as possible while still trying to maximize it's effect a better overall strategy than allowing it to sit off-cooldown waiting to be used.

In my experience, what used to trouble me the most with them is that they drop like a sack of rocks when they run from pack1 to pack2

Hmmm ... that honestly sounds like those players just need to be better at pulling. I can often get through a wall to wall pull without taking more than a couple stray autos or none at all until I get to the final pack.
If they are using sprint properly and tagging mobs quickly without stopping, the reaction delay of the mobs should put the mobs far enough behind that they aren't really taking much damage during the pull.

Also PLD is the only job that has extra mitigation built in passively with block that would lessen the damage during the pull, so there really shouldn't be a difference between DRK, GNB and WAR, and only the slightest of difference for PLD.

So yeah, definitely sounds like you have just been dealing with bad players on DRK which wouldn't be surprising, DRK does draw a lot of players to it solely for the aesthetics which can lead to a relative higher percentage of newer or just plain bad players on the job.

[Absimiliard]

GNB has the same issue, but if it all goes to shit, you at least have an invuln to fall back on. Drk does not have an invuln.

GNB at least has passable sustain. Their self-healing and mitigation tools are strong enough that, when used in tandem, one can survive for a fair length of time with no external heals. The DRK on the other hand will most likely become a bloody smear on the ground after being ignored for any length of time. The good ones will last a bit longer, but there's only so much you can do when the only two heals included in your kit A.) kinda suck and B.) one of them requires you to single target, while the other has a really dumb cooldown.