Dark Knight Megathread

[Crater]

Also all tanks can heal themselves. DRK cannot. This has to change since it is a fundamental requirememt for being a tank in our days. Every other tank can, which makes healers automatically more comfy with anything than a DRK and sets a bar for "oh you actually need hand holding, yeah you aren't playing Warrior or Paladin, shame"

How is that a "fundamental requirement"? Dark Knight is not only easily clearing all content in the game, but has a solid spot in the meta for almost all of it, including a commanding lead in DSR.
I'll tell you right now, it's not (just) down to doing more damage. Groups are not running DRK and going "Man, it's so much harder to heal this Dark Knight, but we absolutely need that extra 300 tank DPS." The damage is a bonus - it's a really nice bonus - but that meta dominance has just as much to do with the fact that Dark Knight has a very strong defensive kit that frequently does things the other tanks cannot.

There's a very coherent vision for what Dark Knight is supposed to be, from a defensive standpoint in raid encounters: It is the sturdiest tank, but the least self-sufficient.

DRK isn't loaded with self-healing; that's true. But what DRK does have is the ability to completely shrug off attacks that deal harsh damage to every other tank. It isn't uncommon to see a situation where both tanks are hit with a tankbuster at the same time, and the DRK's HP bar barely moves, taking 20-30k damage, while the co-tank gets trucked for 60-70k without some major healer assistance. And they can do it more frequently, too.

Is this always a benefit? No, and it shouldn't be!

This is what we should all want out of this game's class design: Different classes within the same role with both advantages and disadvantages compared to other classes in that role. This is a rare case in FFXIV where class design has not been completely homogenized, and where different classes are arriving at similar levels of effectiveness by taking very different routes, in a way that allows room for each class to sometimes shine especially brightly, and sometimes struggle a little bit more than the others.

Three out of four tanks have a significant self-healing component to their defensive kit, and one out of four tanks takes the different approach of simply mitigating harder. We don't need to, and shouldn't want to, see that become four out of four to zero.