DRK needs more self-sustain in dungeons

[CidHeiral]

FFXIV Community: "Stop homogenizing the jobs!"

Also FFXIV Community: "All tanks should be exactly the same!"

[Althanash]

There's only 2 ways to look at it when I play DRK especially if the run is pretty rough.

Either I am playing bad OR the healer is. Or if you're really unlucky the DPS make the healers life incredibly difficult.

Reading your post at the beginning said plenty. You got stuck at a boss because your healer was awful. Now to back this up properly. I have a very good friend who also happens to play Tank and Heal. An in some cases we feel like we spoil one another because we do well together.....but if she wants to play DPS. I have to think more about what I'm doing. Am I dealing with a good healer or a bad one? To be really blunt and somewhat mean here. It becomes glaringly obvious when I have a bad heal. So I'm left with 2 choices.

1) Play it slower so we get through it.
2) Or deal with the struggle an hope I rotate my cooldowns well enough to compensate for the problem.

[Reinha]

Am I dealing with a good healer or a bad one? To be really blunt and somewhat mean here. It becomes glaringly obvious when I have a bad heal. So I'm left with 2 choices.

1) Play it slower so we get through it.
2) Or deal with the struggle an hope I rotate my cooldowns well enough to compensate for the problem.

Dungeons should be harder to complete when playing with bad players. Not impossible, but harder. That's the point of getting good: to make things easier. It shouldn't be: oh both dps and the healer suck so I'll just solo this because it makes no difference. The roles are there for a reason and it should be noticeable when performance in one role is lacking. It should take thought to compensate for other people's shortcomings.

[ForteNightshade]

I personally liked the endwalker balance of GNB being stronger across the whole fight while DRK was stronger in burst windows and fights with downtime

Regardless with the current design of tanks it basically has to be: DRK/GNB for damage tanks and PLD/WAR for defense support tanks. But they only ever seem to balance for DPS.

Ironically, despite people still complaining, specifically DRK players, 6.4 was nearly solid on tank balance. WAR only surpassed DRK's damage at the average level, thus keeping the latter's burst in check. The only strangler was PLD, which they still seemingly punish for its "range flexibility." I'll never forget that comment in the 6.3 job changes because it highlights perfectly how they don't play jobs properly since anyone who plays PLD knows how rigid the magic rotation is.

[GoatOfWar]

Ironically, despite people still complaining, specifically DRK players, 6.4 was nearly solid on tank balance. WAR only surpassed DRK's damage at the average level, thus keeping the latter's burst in check. The only strangler was PLD, which they still seemingly punish for its "range flexibility." I'll never forget that comment in the 6.3 job changes because it highlights perfectly how they don't play jobs properly since anyone who plays PLD knows how rigid the magic rotation is.

The problem with 6.4 was that you required the perfect party composition to get anything out of Drk.
War never should have been buffed in 6.4. The patch before that was almost perfect though. PLD and GNB needed minor buffs.

[Althanash]

Dungeons should be harder to complete when playing with bad players. Not impossible, but harder. That's the point of getting good: to make things easier. It shouldn't be: oh both dps and the healer suck so I'll just solo this because it makes no difference. The roles are there for a reason and it should be noticeable when performance in one role is lacking. It should take thought to compensate for other people's shortcomings.

An therin lays the problem. People don't like it when it gets harder. An many don't want to get good. Dungeons aren't particularly that difficult. I just find them tediously long. I've got no issue compensating for a shortcoming when it presents itself. I've had to do it even for friends.

Note: Quote my entire post though please. Not snippets. Context is important.

[ForteNightshade]

The problem with 6.4 was that you required the perfect party composition to get anything out of Drk.
War never should have been buffed in 6.4. The patch before that was almost perfect though. PLD and GNB needed minor buffs.

No, it didn't. Even as low as 40%, Dark Knight still remained top of the list in both aDPS and cDPS. Which are the better metrics for job comparison, and tanks in general.

You mean the patch (6.35) where Dark Knight was so oppressively strong it had more clears of TOP than almost all three of the other tanks combined? Yes, let's buff 6.35 Gunbreaker... the second strongest tank that was only a 100 or so DPS back of Dark Knight. I've explained this to you in several posts now and you refuse to acknowledge it; seemingly reading what you want instead of looking at the data itself. FFlogs shows that, no, 6.35 was anything but "almost perfect." There's a reason even after the Warrior buff in 6.4, Dark Knight was favored in any form of optimization. In fact, let's break now the supposedly maligned Dark Knight of 6.4.

Kokytos: 53% (GNB 35%)
Pandaemonium: 27% (GNB 33%) (WAR 32%)
Themis: 40% (GNB 30%)
Athena: 58% (GNB 21%)
Pallas: 30% (GNB 31%) (WAR 26%)

So it only trailed in two of the five fights; one being by a single percentage. And in two others was so dominate, it was literally being brought twice by some groups.

Like I've said in multiple posts responding to you now, Dark Knight cannot be stronger at a base level because of how insanely powerful its burst phases are. Which is why it pulled so dramatically ahead of every other tank throughout most of Endwalker. 6.4 finally accounted for that by essentially making it so a half way decent Dark Knight who simply played into raid buffs could match or surpass Warrior regularly. Which is actually "almost perfect." Now yes, if you were in a mostly selfish comp, you might struggle from time to time but that isn't unique to Dark Knight. Nevertheless, it didn't need a full meta comp to perform well.

What it boils down to is you have to choose. Do you want multiple hard hitting oGCDs that lead to a busy burst phase every two minutes or do you want a somewhat bland "unga bunga" Fell Cleave spam? The former means your baseline is lower at first glance and requires you to properly play into raid buffs, albeit not perfectly. While the latter is easier but can be argued as boring. You can't have both.

Now for clarity, all of this is mostly speaking about Endwalker and backing up my position that 6.4 was very nearly solid. When it comes to Dawntrail, Dark Knight does actually need a buff. It should be ahead of Warrior in aDPS, and arguably even Gunbreaker considering how ridiculous Great Nebula is. Ironically, if you swapped DRK with GNB, then GNB with WAR. You'd very nearly have it. A smidge of a buff to WAR's now weaker output and a bigger one for PLD and everything would be perfect.

[Oizen]

To be entirely honest I don't actually view DRK as unsalvagable this expansion, I like Scarlet Delirium, and I like Disesteem.
I think the MP just needs to be fixed, and it needs a 30s oGCD to fill the gap plunge left, and whatever other potency adjustments put DRK where it belongs DPS wise.


My ideal 7.05/7.1 DRK update would be:
Carve & Spit / Abyssal Drain: 30s CD with 2 charges
Bloodweapon Restores 1k MP per stack
lv 96 Enhanced Delirium increases Delirium MP from 200 to 400 per hit

[Reinha]

An therin lays the problem. People don't like it when it gets harder. An many don't want to get good. Dungeons aren't particularly that difficult. I just find them tediously long. I've got no issue compensating for a shortcoming when it presents itself. I've had to do it even for friends.

Note: Quote my entire post though please. Not snippets. Context is important.

The people who lie on the floor dead while the tank soloes everything also find that tedious, and have complained about it. That's what the OP wanted "fixed", they clearly stated they want to solo things on a DRK while the rest of the party is dead. No thank you.

I will continue to quote snippets whenever the rest of the post provides no relevant context for the part(s) I'm responding to.

[Oizen]

The people who lie on the floor dead while the tank soloes everything also find that tedious, and have complained about it. That's what the OP wanted "fixed", they clearly stated they want to solo things on a DRK while the rest of the party is dead. No thank you.

Dark Knight can already do this too.
I view this as a format problem, and I truly think the answer is as simple as giving everyone the ability to res in normal content (and only in normal content), just like in a Variant or Criterion Dungeon.
The healer dying, especially in non-res caster groups is way too impactful for causing wipes. Especially for DPS who cant sustain themselves through raidwide damage.

This changes the dynamic from tank solo to tank resses the healer and everyone moves on from there, and we don't even need to nerf anything to achieve this.