Can we expect even a SLIGHT rework for DRK in the upcoming live letter/patch?

[Absimiliard]

Working extremely well in raids and working extremely well in everything else are two very different things. Is DRK good for raids? Of course. The numbers show us very clearly that it is a top performing job, both in terms of damage and in mitigation. But uh.. y'know what? There are other forms of content, and playing DRK outside of a very structured environment is a lot like getting a root canal without anesthetic. You'll die more to glare mages than anything else by a wide margin. That aside, it just feels terrible to play. It's like a Walmart brand WAR with some extra peripherals you bought at K-Mart tacked on for good measure.

Oh, and LD is still a suicide button outside of pre-planned use.

[Danelo]

I got a late start to this expansion so I haven’t leveled any jobs to 90 yet but I switched to GNB and even in the leveling process you can feel the care that the Devs put into it. It’s hard to argue the devs put the same level of care and attention into DRK as was given to GNB and, based on the tool tips, war and pld. We’ll see about updates. Either way, as frustrating as the last 4 years have been, I can’t bring myself to care anymore and I’m happy to be rid of DRK. I look forward to all the cool and unique CDs which will be passed out from DRK’s kit in the future and thank the devs for keeping GNBs kit one of a kind.

I post this only to say that, I’m not entirely sure DRKs abnormally high DPS numbers were on purpose considering the buff to pld. And without the DPS on DRK what really shines? Still TBN? The shadow dot? Nothing seems a standout in a good way. Those of you that like it, for more than just the DPS, wherever you are, I’m happy for you.

[Archwizard]

I don't understand, drk functions super well. Guessing by its post count, its the single most played job in the game.

Depends on the content, and the problem most DRKs have is that its strong performance in high-end trials and raids belies its weaker performance in most other content.

DRK's only self-healing tool (outside of Souleater) is Abyssal Drain, which shares a CD with Carve & Spit; it's a damage loss at less than 4 targets, and doesn't compare to Equilibrium or Aurora's healing (before their boosts to double their effects) until 6 targets. This is in contrast to the other three tanks who got big boosts in self-healing this expansion at both 82 and 84 -- the latter of which instead gave DRK an active CD reduction on its gap-closer instead of any survival boon during its rotation.
Dark Mind is only usable in certain types of content where targeted magic damage is expected, which is relatively rare in dungeons outside of raidwides or effects you're meant to dodge.
Oblation is the single weakest mitigation effect available to tanks, only of notable value when stacked with other CDs. Its cooldown also means it won't always line up neatly with TBN.
DRK's on-demand mitigation skill requires MP, competing with its damage skills. While the bubble is great for taking the brunt of a tankbuster, it gets shredded within about 2-4 seconds against a crowd of enemies; unlike the post-82 on-demand skills, it also provides zero survival benefit after that first four seconds.
Those all contribute to a recurring issue for healers where they find DRK tanks burn through their mitigation effects extremely quickly during wall-to-walls, and are harder to heal in dungeons than most other tanks.
And of course, Living Dead can only be safely used when coordinated with your healer, which no other tank immune has as a limitation (especially because any other tank could self-heal through the worst of theirs). Unless your healer has Benediction or most of their resources saved up, there is a strong chance they will struggle to heal you to full within the period given by Walking Dead, making it the one "immune" that amplifies healer anxiety rather than providing momentary relief, on top of giving no indication of how close it is to being healed -- and even if they do miraculously succeed, you lose time on the actual immune period, because you would die instantly if the clock actually hit 10, so you're not even guaranteed the full benefit. It is without question the worst tank immune, especially now that even Holmgang lasts a full 10 sec.

Bonus round: It doesn't get its extra gauge until 62, its on-demand until 70, its AoE combo until 72, or its raidwide until 76. In all cases, the highest of any tank. Kinda just feels like a really simple melee DPS with the wrong role actions before 70.

And that's before we get to the rotation feeling like a clone of WAR's with less "oomph" from all the Direct Crits... but that's something that I doubt would even be addressed in a .X series.

It's picked the most often for trials and raids because it's the highest parsing damage among tanks, owing to most of its EW boosts being to direct damage (two to a glorified DoT). Even that's marginal, and if that went away the job would drop to the least use of all tanks.

[Kazamaiya]

I honestly hope that Dark Knight receives any sort of slight rework or changes this expansion but i do not expect it to happen considering the fact that it has gotten less changes in two and a half years than Paladin got in the current patch.

[ForteNightshade]

Working extremely well in raids and working extremely well in everything else are two very different things. Is DRK good for raids? Of course. The numbers show us very clearly that it is a top performing job, both in terms of damage and in mitigation. But uh.. y'know what? There are other forms of content, and playing DRK outside of a very structured environment is a lot like getting a root canal without anesthetic. You'll die more to glare mages than anything else by a wide margin. That aside, it just feels terrible to play. It's like a Walmart brand WAR with some extra peripherals you bought at K-Mart tacked on for good measure.

Oh, and LD is still a suicide button outside of pre-planned use.

Ironically, this may be our saving grace. The dev team will respond far quicker to casual player complaints; irksome as that may be. The fact Sage basically can't heal LD in a dungeon setting is particularly egregious. Maybe DRK getting showcased in raids and how many groups even at the highest level go out of their way to avoid using LD whereas groups without a DRK run invuln strats will finally smack the devs awake on how garbage this ability is.

[Derio]

We know devs do listen to casuals so the fact that DRK isnt doing good in dungeons will push devs to make changes.

[NanoSquid]

We know devs do listen to casuals so the fact that DRK isnt doing good in dungeons will push devs to make changes.

I'll gladly take this copium. I really miss the days when all I had to worry about was MP management, not whether I'd get carpal tunnel from my opener.

[oblivionwayfarer]

i want to believe

[Lyth]

There were a ton of upvotes for questions about Living Dead near the end of Shadowbringers, but they still deliberately ignored the issue in favor of less upvoted questions. I really don't know what level of player frustration is going to be the tipping point for them to actually acknowledge it.

[Danelo]

The player base will have to move onto different job. As long as it’s played by a somewhat equal share as the others I don’t imagine they care. The saving grace for se is that there has been an influx of new players while the game has been growing. Im just guessing that if they did a detailed analysis of who is still playing DRK they'd find the vase majority are new players instead of vets. I wonder what will happen when everyone gets settled in and the growth curve has flattened out?