Dark Knight Megathread

[Oizen]

Hell even in p2s you can use tbn to take the coherence teather and itll be up again for the shared tb immediately after

[The_User]

Ah right, I forgot that 2 of 25s mitigations with no dps cost along with a 60s heal that don't care whether the damage is physical or magical is worst than 1 TBN or 2 TBN+dps cost+ a 60s mitigation that only work against magical. How could I forget that only end game matter.

[RyuDragnier]

Dark Mind is fine in endgame trials and raids...it ain't fine in dungeons, where Dark Mind is one of the most useless skills there is. I'd rather they remove it and just have Oblation take its place, but buffed to where it's 15% mitigation against everything. At least then DRK would have something other than just Shadow Wall, Rampart, and TBN to use in dungeon pulls.

[baklava151]

Dark Mind has definitely come in handy in P3 and P4 so I'd hate to see it go just because it's not useful in dungeons. I'd rather see Oblation get buffed in one way or another and I think DRK would be perfectly fine in dungeons. Dark Mind also gives DRK some flavor as a tank that's better equipped to deal with magic damage, which I think suits its identity.

[ItsUrBoi]

I generally believe the issue at hand is that the tank with the most double weaving also has to combine a somewhat usefull but useless on its own mitigation which is Oblation, with TBN with Dark Mind to make up for a litttle less then a PLD using Holly Sheltron and Sentinel
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"
Progging through end game such as Savages and Ultimates I have had so many moments when playing this job felt like a hinderance to myself because on every other tank, misplays from healers could be compensated once or twice with the press of a button to heal myself. On DRK you just die and hope the healers adjust. Or you end up using so many TBNs that your 2 minute burst becomes non existent because you have no MP or much less than usual. I don't want the job to be braindead, or promote and endless amount of second chances, but being able to compensate slightly for some mistakes such as a healer pushing Glare instead of a heal is something every other tank can do every now and then, except this lovely job.

[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.

[RyuDragnier]

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.

DSR does not equate to casual content. Every other tank is good in both areas, whereas DRK is not, and this needs to change. People should not dread seeing a DRK in dungeons, and people shouldn't dread playing DRK in dungeons. I know people who main DRK in Savage but wouldn't dare touch it in dungeons due to how bad it is there. I also know people who leveled DRK in dungeons and refuse to play it in Savage thinking it's just as bad there BECAUSE of how it felt while leveling.

[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).