Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

Which expanding on this, is a bit of an odd space particularly when you include Gunbreaker.

Like, if I had to sum up each of the jobs based on precedents across the FF series:
Paladin: A shield-bearing knight who combines the ability to Cover and use White Magic to protect and support allies, while smiting foes with holy blades.
While 14's PLD isn't 100% this description (given that Cover is sort of a niche skill and it rarely uses Clemency), as far as practicality is concerned it's close enough -- strong mitigation and access to healing magic.

Given that "Warrior" is sort of broad in the FF series but is supposed to be closest to a Berserker, the interpretation of it as a tank would probably be described as...
Warrior: A non-magical berserker who works himself into a battle frenzy, implacably fighting through all injuries or obstacles like a raging bull.
Dark Knight: A fallen knight who uses unholy magics to debilitate and drain from foes while growing more powerful through her own suffering.
IMO, 14's versions are a far departure from these visuals, since in execution both of these jobs ended up being swapped, especially as of Shadowbringers stripping down Dark Arts and introducing Nascent Flash.
You have WAR who is magically self-healing, and DRK who is being pressed as the raw mitigation tank. For all that has been pushed forward about DRK being the magical tank, it really just ends up feeling like an armor job that just happens to include Dark Mind.

Once again, I could not tell you what the central theme of GNB's mitigation style is supposed to be. The FF8 gunblade theme only informs its rapid attacks.
But okay, let's say I based it off of what we'd seen from Thancred, then...
Gunbreaker: A fleet-footed bodyguard who evades and outmaneuvers foes, tactically employing the recoil of his own attacks to retreat or engage.
Which of course is... basically nothing like what we have, since the only "evasion" part of the kit is like, Camouflage. And I guess their magical cartridges can just do whatever you want.

I feel like it comes down to what functions should be deliberate/separable among each, and what that's supposed to afford.
For PLD, support feels like it should be a key, core, deliberate feature. Intended affordance: On-demand (esp., emergency) support. Thus, Clemency (especially at its 20% more powerful and Req-affected potency) made a lot of sense. Cover, especially with neither a gauge cost nor built-in additional mitigation, made a lot of sense.

For WAR, there's little that feels like it ought to be separable, while the intended affordance appeared to be the ability to be less affected by functioning outside of normal party support (having a bit more burst damage potential in itself to shut down key targets, its sustain being less context-dependent as to be less dependent upon timely help, etc.). Thus, self-healing being tied to and around damage-dealing made sense.

For DRK, offense and defense were to be a bit more separate of choices than WAR, but from a shared resource, such that it offered, as its affordance, timely control of that balance. One was to be rewarded for correctly shifting inputs towards their variably useful tools to greatest possible output. They were a bastard with a bag of tricks, with a higher than average performance gap from those tricks' utilization.

And I've no idea what GNB was ever supposed to have meshed or afforded, as it's never felt like anything more than a fairly rigid DPS with some tank CDs slapped atop it.

Gunbreaker: A fleet-footed bodyguard who evades and outmaneuvers foes, tactically employing the recoil of his own attacks to retreat or engage.

I'd jump for the soonest opportunity to play GNB if that were what it actually was.