Dark Knight - rework- changes 8.0 suggestion

[Mikey_R]

Do we really have to go over the tanks mitigation kit below 70 just to prove a point? I guess we do.

All tanks have Rampart, Reprisal, Arm's Length and their 30% that are exactly the same as each other mitigation wise and they are all learned at the same time (levels 8, 22, 32 and 38 respectively).

Now, to compare short mitigations:
Sheltron, 15% mitigation lasting for 6 seconds. Takes 50 gauge to use, which takes 22.4 seconds to generate, assuming 100% uptime for the auto attacks. Learned at level 35.
Raw Intuition, 10% mitigation lasting for 6 seconds and has a heal of 400 potency for every enemy hit in the same timeframe. Cooldown of 25 seconds. Learned at level 56
The Blackest Night, a shield totaling 25% of the DRK's max HP, lasts for 7 seconds. 15 second cooldown and uses 3000 MP. Learned at level 70.
Heart of Stone, 15% mitigation lasting 7 seconds, 25 second cooldown. learned at level 68.

We all know Raw intuition is busted with the heal and there have been talks about reducing it's effectiveness, so it isn't fair to compare it to the others. The noticeable thing here is that Heart of Stone is learned at level 68, effectively 1 dungeon earlier than The Blackest Night.

90 second cooldowns.
Bulwark, blocks all attacks (20% mitigation) for 10 seconds. Learned at level 52.
Thrill of Battle, increases the Warrior's HP by 20% for 10 seconds. As a reference, this is equivalent to about 16% mitigation (based on an attack that would OHKO a tank exactly). Learned at level 56.
Dark Mind, 10% mitigation to physical attacks, 20% mitigation to magic attacks, lasts 10 seconds. Learned at level 45.
Camouflage, 10% mitigation with a 50% increase to the rate of parry, lasts 20 seconds. Parry mitigates 15% physical damage and is ineffective against magic attacks. If the parry does proc, it is effectively ~23% mitigation. On average, this is a reduction in physical damage by ~16%. Learned at level 6.

Warrior's is clearly the worst one here. Just increasing your HP without any additional recovery benefit (the increased HP recovery comes as a trait at level 78) just means the healer is healing you as if you have no additional mitigation. However, it is still useful for attacks that chunk a big part of your HP in one go. Camouflage also being 20 seconds whilst the others are all 10 seconds is also something to note, however, it is also the only one with RNG mitigation, so, whilst we can provide the extremes and an average, how effective it actually will be will vary.

Invulns
Hallowed Ground, take no damage from (most) attacks for 10 seconds. 7 minute cooldown.
Holmgang, prevents you from going below 1 HP for 10 seconds. 4 minute cooldown.
Living Dead, for the first 10 seconds, prevents you from being knocked below 1 HP. Once you do hit 1 HP, you have another 10 seconds of not being able to go below 1HP, plus, all your GCDs restore HP with a potency of 1500 until you have restored the equivalent of 100% of your HP. Once you have restored 100% of your HP, the Healing potency is removed but you still cannot be killed until those 10 seconds are over. Cooldown of 5 minutes.
Superbolide, if your HP is above 50%, it will reduce to 50% and makes you impervious to most attacks, if your HP is below 50%, nothing gets taken away and you are impervious to most attacks. 6 minute cooldown.

With the short cooldown, Warrior is used most, but it is worth noting that it requires other cooldowns to be used to heal them back up. Dark Knight is capable of restoring 100% of their HP themselves, so it isn't as reliant on outside sources, plus, it gets misunderstood the most. Paladin's 7 minute cooldown is just criminal though.

Healing
Clemency, 1000 potency heal, costing 2000MP and uses up a GCD. Learned at level 58. (Do not, it does use up Requiescat stacks with the only benefit being making it insta cast).
Equilibrium, 1200 potency heal, cooldown of 60 seconds, oGCD. Learned at level 58 (the HoT is a trait at level 84).
Abyssal Drain, 500 potency heal on each target hit, does 240 potency damage and restores MP. Shares recast with Carve and Spit. Learned at level 56.
Aurora, 300 potency heal over time for 18 seconds, for a total of 1800 potency heal. 60 second cooldown. Learned at level 45. (the second charge comes from a trait at level 84).

Clemency being really strong due to it's ability to be used frequently is a blessing and a curse as it uses up your GCD, pushing your rotation back, plus, it using up Requiescat stacks doesn't help either. Abyssal drain is effectively a full heal with enough targets, aka, the start of any big pull. Equilibrium is strong, immediate healing, which I think is better in trash pulls than a regen that is going to get lost in the rest of the regens and isn't always obvious if it actually helped (I'm sure it does).

With that out of the way, lets go through the levelling process, starting at level 50 as I am sure noone is complaining about mitigation at or below level 50.

All tanks have the 4 mentioned at the start of the post and they will all have access to their invuln. Ontop of that, Paladin gets Sheltron, Warrior gets Thrill of Battle, Dark Knight gets Dark Mind and Gunbreaker gets Camouflage and Aurora.

Level 52, Paladin get's Bulwark (all tanks now have their 90 second cooldown).
At 56, Warrior get's Raw Intuition and Dark Knight gets Abyssal Drain.
level 58, Paladin get's Clemency and Warrior gets Equilibrium, both completing their mitigation kit.
Level 68, Gunbreaker gets Heart of Stone, getting the last of it's kit.
Level 70 Dark Knight gets The Blackest Night and completes it's kit.

So, if Dark Knight has issues, why are you not saying Gunbreaker also has issues? I have tanked plenty of low level content and I can say for certain that I never have to use my full suite of mitigation to stay alive (yes, this is levelling dungeons, so no massively out gearing going on here). So, even without The Blackest Night, Dark Knight has plenty of mitigation to go around. If the Dark Knight has run out of mitigation, that is their own fault for not managing them properly. Alternatively, it is just the party not killing things quick enough. there could also be confusion from the healer, seeing the Dark Knight get low, with the Dark Knight intending to use Living Dead or Abyssal Drain, only for the healer to spam heal them thinking that the Dark Knight is being stupid.

Again, there is nothing wrong with Dark Knights mitigation before level 70 and TBN doesn't add much of anything to trash pulls anyway, so even after that, almost nothing has changed. The real issue is that people do not understand that Dark Knight has to be used slightly differently, where they want to get to low HP to make the best use of Abyssal Drain and Living Dead. This is as opposed to Warrior, where Raw Intuition is on such a short cooldown, it doesn't matter as much if it isn't used as optimally for the healing. Obviously, there is a lot of speculation here, but I find it hard to believe you went through 'thousands' of Dark Knights and they were all bad.

[Oizen]

90 second cooldowns.
Dark Mind, 10% mitigation to physical attacks, 20% mitigation to magic attacks, lasts 10 seconds. Learned at level 45.

Dark Mind is actually uniquely 60s and is part of the reason its so busted.

[Vatom]

Dark Mind is actually uniquely 60s and is part of the reason its so busted.

Dark busted is a funny joke lol

[HanakoTheGoth]

Dark busted is a funny joke lol

I couldnt even bother anwsering the troll at this point nod for you doing so cant believe someone called dark busted

[Mikey_R]

Dark Mind is actually uniquely 60s and is part of the reason its so busted.

I was meant to make note of this, but it seemed I forgot to add it. So thanks for the correction.

I couldnt even bother anwsering the troll at this point nod for you doing so cant believe someone called dark busted

The fact I disagree with your initial premise does not make me a troll (does that also mean everyone that agrees with the fact DRK tanking is fine below level 70 is also a troll?).

Then, to not even engage with the most basic of points shows you do not care enough. I could have also gone down a route comparing healers and how they stack up to healing DRK to see if it was just one healer having 'issues' or if it was multiple, which could have pointed more towards a problem with a specific healer than DRK itself. All these things needs to be considered in a more objective manner to really pin point where the perceived problem is rather than just baseless accusations.