DRK changes that would make it really fun to play

[ForsakenRoe]

At that point it seems more likely they would just rework Dark Mind, fusing the 10% raw mitigation onto it with a bonus to magic resist, a la Camouflage.
The two share the same CD after all, Dark Mind is already decried for being niche, and it would save a button in the long run. Maybe trait an extra charge onto Dark Mind at the level Oblation is normally introduced. Whether it gains the ability to cast on allies at that point or earlier is up for debate.

As nice as that sounds for hotbar realestate, could you imagine the absolute fit WARs would pitch at the idea of DRK being able to throw more than 10% on an ally? I assume in this idea the magic resist effect would be toned down to 10%, so it'd be closer to Rampart strength, because the WAR rage would be insane if it was left at 10% + 20% magicresist. Then again, GNB's HOC is now 30% for the first 4 seconds (well, 15% + 15%) so maybe it'd be ok who knows

Personally, yeh I'd move Oblation lower, trait it to have 2 charges later. If it's still kinda weak, I'd add a barrier effect to it that stacks with TBN, with TBN being prioritized to break first. Nothing big, maybe 500p healing worth of barrier, which is around 8500 hp in my trash gear, out of 88658 max HP. So maybe '10% of DRK's Max HP' is a better way to word it for the tooltip. Convert Dark Mind from 20% magic resist to 10% all, 10% magic, and make up the difference lost to multiplicative stacking with a barrier if needed. Sod it, go all in on barriers. Give DRK all the barriers. Add a job gauge element that shows how much barrier is left, and have all of the job's barriers it applies to itself feed into this communal pool. MP management is dead, long live Barrier management

[Archwizard]

As nice as that sounds for hotbar realestate, could you imagine the absolute fit WARs would pitch at the idea of DRK being able to throw more than 10% on an ally? I assume in this idea the magic resist effect would be toned down to 10%, so it'd be closer to Rampart strength, because the WAR rage would be insane if it was left at 10% + 20% magicresist. Then again, GNB's HOC is now 30% for the first 4 seconds (well, 15% + 15%) so maybe it'd be ok who knows

10% Mitigation + additional 10% Magic resist was the idea, yes. The net loss of magic resist would be extremely minor (20% -> 19%), and the additional Physical and True damage resistance for the remaining duration (including the ability to use Dark Mind for more than "select attacks") would more than make up for it.

[Hierro]

changes taht would make DRK fun again:

set it back to stormblood, keep the plunge charges, keep the living dead changes.

done!

[Vencio]

It’ll be awesome if it inherited more vampiric-like style & HP draining over time.

I mean…the darkness, black, dark spells & all that.

That would make it very enticing!

[Rithy255]

I think I'll list what I wanna see with dark knight generally
1. A general rotational rework, I don't really like how the job just copies the core of Warrior and is very busy, I would like to see dark knight generally changed rotation wise. Honestly I'd be hoping for something a bit "complicated" for a tank
2. Give Dark knight a more "magic" aspect, it doesn't have to copy Paladin but giving Dark knight some animations or something, that look more magic it would suit DRK a lot better... I really don't feel like a "Dark knight" when playing the job... it just doesn't feel "right" to me what I'd expect from a Dark knight
3. Give Drk more "sustain" It should have hp drain mechs, in raids sustain isn't really super important compared to mitigation but it would make Dark knight feel better in dungeons.
4. TBN should reward dark knight for proper usage instead of punishing dark knight, a refund isn't good or rewarding. (Some sort of regen for breaking would be nice)
5. Oblation should feel a bit more impactful or be removed (if TBN was changed), if not I think this ability should do a bit more then it does as a "late level" mitigation it feels very underwhelming.

[Archwizard]

Since Rithy laid all their hopes out, I'll take my own crack at the same.

Something that has always bugged me about Dark Knight is that it was never a conventional choice for a tank. Throughout the series it's been the epitome of the glass cannon, and was even a DPS in FF11. Obviously 14's devs are not beholden to 11's design philosophy in terms of choosing jobs -- just look at NIN actually being a DPS here rather than a fluke evasion tank -- but that role predated 11 by over a decade.

I have to keep thinking about why they chose to implement DRK as a tank back in Heavensward, and I keep coming back to two things about its historical precedent:
1) Dark Knights always used their health as a resource, and effectively became more powerful as they willingly allowed their health to get lower. Metaphorically speaking, "health as a resource" is the tanking role.
2) Dark Knights have often supplemented the above using either Blood equipment or Drain magic (such as Dread Spikes) in order to create a sustainable cycle of both supplemental health and damage output. This is rather meaningless to a DPS outside solo content, but once again, very meaningful to a tank.

And right now, the job accomplishes... neither.
I guess you can say Living Dead is a broad interpretation of the former point now, but before 6.1 I wouldn't even have qualified that as "growing more powerful" when they died since it was a death sentence for 7 years. Through a certain lens, "sacrificing TBN to burst your entire MP pool on Edge of Shadow" could qualify as sacrificing your survivability... if TBN wasn't presently being used to prefer MP overcap before burst.
Abyssal Drain is on a cooldown that severely limits its sustainability, having been relegated to a rather disappointing version of Equilibrium or Aurora that returns next to nothing on a single-target. Since the advent of Nascent Flash, in many respects, WAR has been and continues to be a better Dark Knight by the standards of older FF games than DRK... and just to really lay it on thick, at the same time NF was introduced, DRK's rotation was dumbed down to a knockoff of WAR; juggling the same buff timer mechanic, using the same resource gauge, cloning several of the same cooldowns including its immunity, and not even getting a branching combo out of the mix.

In interviews, it's been specified that 14's DRK is meant to be "the Magic Tank" -- hence its use of magical barriers and Dark Mind -- but if that was the goal, it seems like something from the Spellblade spectrum with the Runic ability would have been a more appropriate choice in the long run, such as the Rune Fencers from FF11.
Of course, by the time they made the choice to shift DRK over purely to a "magical" focus it was too late to rename it, but even so, the job's actual use of "magic" has largely been phased out in favor of flashy weapon strikes that feel neither impactful nor particularly helpful. Even when using spells in combat, both DRK and PLD suffer from the separation of Skill Speed and Spell Speed, so the insistent use of "magic" is arguably to its detriment, especially with how niche focused "magic resistance" has been. Combine that with the same double-weaving issues as GNB and the aforementioned WAR rotation... and it feels like DRK tries so hard to be different from all the other tanks that it fails to find its own footing at something it does both uniquely and successfully.

It just doesn't feel viscerally like a Dark Knight. And as someone who didn't pick up the job until Shadowbringers, I can't even say if it ever did.

[Mikey_R]

It just doesn't feel viscerally like a Dark Knight. And as someone who didn't pick up the job until Shadowbringers, I can't even say if it ever did.

Unfortunately, if you define DRK as draining HP to deal damage, then that really isn't going to work well when it is a tank, I won't go into details here, but it should be easy enough to at least understand why.

This is why DRK has mainly used it's MP to cover a similar role, so, instead of reducing HP, you reduced MP. Going right back to HW, Darkside was a permanent buff to DRK, as long as you had MP. Back then, it would slowly drain your MP, so you had to use your tools to keep yourself healthy. This is also where things like Dark Arts and Dark Passenger helped to keep you engaged as they both required MP. Dark Arts was especially good as it did change properties of some moves, Carve and Spit losing the MP recovery, but it done more potency (and was the best potency gain for it), however, the best thing that was lost, in my opinion, was the interaction with the combos. DRK had 2 combo chains (not counting the enmity combo), Delirium (being comboed off of Syphon Strike and applying a INT down debuff) and Soul Eater. Dark Arts only affected Soul Eater of these 2 chains and it allowed it to do more damage , with the potency ratings going Soul Eater < Delirium < Dark Arts Soul Eater. This meant, with proper planning, you could increase your damage and it required some thought.

SB DRK was just a worse version, DA affected more things, MP came in much quicker, they lost the Delirium combo and that is why SB DRk was generally disliked over HW. There wasn't much thought put into the rotation as it was generally just spam Dark Arts just so that you didn't overcap your MP (where Darkside no longer drained your MP). Then ShB happened.

I'm sure, if DRK went back to a HW root, with more recent QoL updates, it would make it stand out as a more unique tank. You can even take the more recent action additions and see how they could fit them with the HW DRK. I don't really want to go into too much of my thought here, however, I hope that small insight into HW DRK helps you to understand how it was different and even then, I have only just given a slight intro to how it played. However, HP reduction still isn't the way to go.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Unfortunately, if you define DRK as draining HP to deal damage, then that really isn't going to work well when it is a tank, I won't go into details here, but it should be easy enough to at least understand why.

I get you and understand the general sentiment why "it wont work".

Counterpoint: It CAN work, using the following characteristics...

1.) To combat HP spending additional is implemented (think in availability similar to Bloodwhetting)
2.) To combat overturtling, damage distribution will put emphasis on HP spenders or attacks comboing from those (ergo you will be weaker than PLD if you never spend)
3.) To combat overspending, require a minimum HP threshold before it gets disabled. More ideal spenders gated by additional means (MP, Blood, Darkside duration, cooldown)

It offers a lot of room for optimisation and furthermore lets healers drop excess heals they may have on the DRK as a raid dps gain.

HP spender tanks arent impossible, they are just difficult to design well, especially in a game where your community will vomit and cry over every possibility of "loss from using action at bad time". Yes I speak of TBN.

[Mikey_R]

I get you and understand the general sentiment why "it wont work".

Counterpoint: It CAN work, using the following characteristics...

I only have question, how will you determine how much HP is spent for an action?

If you make it a fixed value, does that then mean you get stronger and stronger as you get better gear through a raid tier or through an expansion's worth of gear? Bear in mind, this is additional resources for spenders so that you can use them more, as opposed to every other job who gain no such benefit. Would this entail SE needing to nerf the job or buff the rest through the expansion? If that is the case, If that is the case, how would this affect the players playing the job as they are levelling later in the expansion? You are now weaker relative to where you should be just because you need to balance around the top gear. This is one of the reasons why MP was changed to be a fixed 10K after all.

So, we can go onto the other option, percentage HP usage. This means, over the course of an expansion, your actions will cost more and more HP as your gear gets better. This would also necessitate that your HP regens also scale at a similar rate. However, how do you balance that out? If you give them too little healing, you cause healers to have to heal you more than other tanks, too much and you can essentially become self sufficient. However, there is still the case of when you regen that HP. Is it something that happens on all GCDs? Is it more of a burst heal at specific points? Both of those come with pros and cons. This is even before we have even considered content where the tank and healer aren't even in gear. If the healer is at the lowest ilevel and the tank the highest, the healer is going to have more problems keeping you alive due to weaker healing, reverse it, and you can end up doing more because your healer can heal you for alot more of your HP with the same spell.

Even then, this is before a discussion of using HP spenders at the wrong time (eg. before a tank buster) can impact a fight and how the healers have to give you special attention. I would say, with a very very high certainty, that a tank like this would not be played, or at least not bought into a hardcore raid setting, unless it was absolutely bonkers in DPS compared to the other tanks and that is something noone wants.

[ForsakenRoe]

HP spender tanks arent impossible, they are just difficult to design well, especially in a game where your community will vomit and cry over every possibility of "loss from using action at bad time". Yes I speak of TBN.

The reason they didn't do HP spending DRK is indeed 'loss from using action at bad time'. Not 'loss of damage' though, 'loss of last HP and you die to the raidwide/TB'. It's the same reason we eventually had the HP sacrificing effect removed from Convert (the BLM thing that gives MP back for the funny Flare meme combo), and why Blood for Blood changed to Lance Charge and had it's 'you take more damage for a bit' effect removed. People will 100% spend their HP in a 'it gets me more damage' way, even if it means they die for it, and SE didn't want to deal with the backlash of it all.

MP management was the compromise, a resource you spent and wanted to make sure you made the most of, without spending it all. In FFXIV terms, MP represents aether, and certain forms of aether are synonymous with 'life energy', so in a sense, it's kinda similar. The difference here though, is that you wouldn't have some tryhard getting toxic to the healers because they spent their HP for more damage, one second before White Hole checked if they were full HP, and petrified them. Running out of MP as DRK in the old days hurt nobody but the DRK, and even then, it was just a case of 'generate some MP with Syphon Strike, press Darkside, get back into the rhythm'. Not quite as disruptive as 'overspent HP, died, mobs are running rampant, TBs are hitting everyone but the tank, etc'.

HP spender tanks aren't impossible designwise. But when the design leaves the paper and reaches 'live version', the playerbase will quickly prove how impossible it really is.