Dark Knight Megathread

[Crater]

DRK is comparable to GNB and PLD in dungeon performance (WAR vs any other tank is of course a different story). The whole idea that people "dread" seeing DRK is just leftover remnants of the doomposting DRK got at Endwalker launch from people who haven't bothered to actually update that opinion with actual experience.

Math has been posted here before, there are easily-perusable public logs where you can compare the total effects of healing and mitigation from tank to tank - the idea that DRK is a bad dungeon tank holds absolutely no water, unless you define good and bad such that WAR is the only good dungeon tank and DRK/PLD/GNB are all essentially equally bad.
There was a (weak) case to be made at EW launch that DRK was a little worse than GNB or PLD because Living Dead wasn't really dungeon-friendly, but that's no longer the case.

[RyuDragnier]

DRK is comparable to GNB and PLD in dungeon performance (WAR vs any other tank is of course a different story). The whole idea that people "dread" seeing DRK is just leftover remnants of the doomposting DRK got at Endwalker launch from people who haven't bothered to actually update that opinion with actual experience.

Math has been posted here before, there are easily-perusable public logs where you can compare the total effects of healing and mitigation from tank to tank - the idea that DRK is a bad dungeon tank holds absolutely no water, unless you define good and bad such that WAR is the only good dungeon tank and DRK/PLD/GNB are all essentially equally bad.
There was a (weak) case to be made at EW launch that DRK was a little worse than GNB or PLD because Living Dead wasn't really dungeon-friendly, but that's no longer the case.

No, DRK is not comparable to GNB or PLD in dungeons. It has one mitigation tool that mitigates nothing most pulls (Dark Mind), it has no equivalent to the regens from Aurora or Holy Shelltron, it has no equivalent to HoC's burst heal, it has no equivalent to the constant healing potency of PLD's attack spells. And do not insult me or anybody else here by bringing up TBN as a comparison, when you know that's a crock of shit. DRK has no healing comparison to GNB or PLD, all it has is a single HP barrier that's easily shreded through, and a now useable (when it once wasn't) invuln. DRK is the worst of the tanks in dungeon pulls, by a WIDE margin.

[Mesarthim]

No, DRK is not comparable to GNB or PLD in dungeons. It has one mitigation tool that mitigates nothing most pulls (Dark Mind), it has no equivalent to the regens from Aurora or Holy Shelltron, it has no equivalent to HoC's burst heal, it has no equivalent to the constant healing potency of PLD's attack spells. And do not insult me or anybody else here by bringing up TBN as a comparison, when you know that's a crock of shit. DRK has no healing comparison to GNB or PLD, all it has is a single HP barrier that's easily shreded through, and a now useable (when it once wasn't) invuln. DRK is the worst of the tanks in dungeon pulls, by a WIDE margin.

Can confirm, which is why I am on DRK in dungeons now (got all the WAR achievements, and my friend swapped from PLD to WAR for raid).

Gotta give healers something to do after all. I will hug oblation begging for it to save me in dungeons (why is this skill so bad, they even advertised before endwalker dropped that we'd be rewarded for timing cooldowns, DRK didn't get that like HoC, Holy sheltron, or bloodwhetting).

[Crater]

No, DRK is not comparable to GNB or PLD in dungeons. It has one mitigation tool that mitigates nothing most pulls (Dark Mind), it has no equivalent to the regens from Aurora or Holy Shelltron, it has no equivalent to HoC's burst heal, it has no equivalent to the constant healing potency of PLD's attack spells. And do not insult me or anybody else here by bringing up TBN as a comparison, when you know that's a crock of shit. DRK has no healing comparison to GNB or PLD, all it has is a single HP barrier that's easily shreded through, and a now useable (when it once wasn't) invuln. DRK is the worst of the tanks in dungeon pulls, by a WIDE margin.

This really isn't true. Throwing a hissyfit and calling simple mathematics a "crock of shit" doesn't change the fact that it is, in fact, simple mathematics.

The average DF-quality dungeon run is basically divided into three sets of two trash pulls; 90s and 120s skills can be used on one pull or the other, 60s skills can be used once per pull.

Across both pulls, excluding skills that are the same on each tank, you tend to get:

6 uses of TBN (3 per pull), for a total of roughly 135,000 HP of mitigation in current gear.
4 uses of HoC (2 per pull), for a total of 60,000 HP of healing and roughly 40,000 HP of mitigation.
4 uses of Holy Sheltron (2 per pull), for a total of roughly 66500 HP of healing and roughly 50,000 HP of mitigation.

2 uses of Abyssal Drain, for at least 50,000 HP of healing, possibly more depending on how many enemies are in each pull.
3 uses of Aurora, for for about 65,000 HP of healing.
16 spell GCDs with a healing component, for about 110,000 HP of healing.

3 uses of Oblation, which tends to total up to about 15,000 HP of mitigation.
1 use of Camouflage, which tends to offer about 20,000 HP of mitigation.


That's 200,000 HP of combined healing and mitigation on DRK, 185,000 HP of combined healing and mitigation on GNB, and 226,500 HP of combined healing and mitigation on PLD.

Now obviously there's some variation here based on how fast the group is going, and we are talking about casual DF runs so fluctuations are expected. If you go a little faster DRK is disadvantaged because you might only get 4 TBNs to 4 HoCs/HSheltrons, but if you go a little faster than that it swings right back around and you can get 4 TBNs to 2 HoCs and 3 HSheltrons; if you go a little slower then GNB can start to pull ahead by squeezing a second use of Camouflage into the second pull. At some timings PLD will be able to get 5 uses of Holy Sheltron into a 2-pull interval, etc.

But in general, that's all nitpicking: This "WIDE margin" you claim exists between DRK and the other tanks is a delusion. DRK and GNB are on pretty equal footing as far as dungeons are concerned, both in terms of DPS and in survivability; PLD is marginally ahead of both in terms of survivability, and behind by a similar amount in terms of DPS.

[ItsUrBoi]

No, DRK is not comparable to GNB or PLD in dungeons. It has one mitigation tool that mitigates nothing most pulls (Dark Mind), it has no equivalent to the regens from Aurora or Holy Shelltron, it has no equivalent to HoC's burst heal, it has no equivalent to the constant healing potency of PLD's attack spells. And do not insult me or anybody else here by bringing up TBN as a comparison, when you know that's a crock of shit. DRK has no healing comparison to GNB or PLD, all it has is a single HP barrier that's easily shreded through, and a now useable (when it once wasn't) invuln. DRK is the worst of the tanks in dungeon pulls, by a WIDE margin.

I think this is also heavily overestimated. I mean the topic with DRK in dungeons. I run expert roulettes with it and have never had any problems. The Aurora self healing you get is basically a 200 potency heal every 3 seconds. This is not better than TBN. Realistically all it does is it gives you roughly the same amount of HP back over time rather than instantly shielding you for that amount. I am not making a point for TBN being good in dungeons, but Aurora being good? Thats far from reality too. The PLD self healing is also far from reality and was needed and introduced specifically because of this. It is not per target healing like WAR's and rotationally doing the Requiescot rotation gives you as much HP as roughly 2 TBNs. In 60 seconds. I think the more logical argument would be that GNB has a damage reduction tool that works besides the standard kit, while DRK's Dark Mind does not. But you have Oblation as a 10%. And in all honesty, if you use 2 small damage reductions per all the mobs between any two bosses, like rampart and oblation with tbns in between whenever, and then shadow wall with oblation with tbns again, you will be fine with any healer.
The reason I was advokating for Dark Mind to move to Oblation is because there are too many buttons that need pressing, the skills kind of try to fit a similar role ( one fails for being too weak), and it would make space for some healing ability, even if weak to help slightly with self recovery from non existent to being the worst, but there.