Dark Knight

[Gamemako]

I could see that happening. MRD has a lot of built in damage just a stance or something and they'd be set...

Don't really need a stance. Fix the stats and add some new abilities and you're done. You're missing all of ~40 potency per GCD (out of around 300).

...but I can't see GLD providing a viable dps job. Because the idea above is probably never going to happen.

The problem with Instrumentality's suggestion is that Darkside cannot be a primary damage mechanic. It has to be bonus burst damage. You'd simply be far too vulnerable otherwise. You'd get chowed by everything from Grim Halo on up. Only two of GLA's cooldowns even extend eHP anyway (Rampart and Sentinel).

Its pretty obvious to me.

I'm guessing this is a joke?

You've basically picked and chosen points out of a wiki that support your argument. If you go back and actually play the games you'll see that every single DRK job has exceptionally high defense.

Not... really.

2: Leon has naturally low proficiency with shields and high HP.
3: HP on par with Warriors or Monks. Weaker than Knights, Ninjas, Black Belts, Vikings. Remake gave them middling HP as well with more access to armor.
4: Decent HP. Exceptionally low magic defense (hello, DRG armor stats, how are you doing today?).
X-2: Exceptional defense and high HP. Most durable dressphere in the game.
11: What a pile of crap that game was. And still is.
D: Also very tanky.
T: One version (Fell Knight, Daku Naito) has high HP and no Darkside. Other version (WotL only) is a joke ultimate job.

You can say that the job was focused on dealing damage but guess what? Every job pre XI was focused on doing damage save for the ones like whm that were dedicated to healing (holy, and summons aside).

This is what Extal said above.

MRD/WAR is pretty much the opposite of DRK. WAR actually heals itself with a couple abilities and lessens its damage to hold more hate, whereas DRK has almost always hurt itself to do more damage, and made itself more vulnerable to attacks (despite sometimes wearing defensive-looking armor). I have no clue why you people keep thinking it will be a tank job.

Drain features heavily in many Dark Knights. X-2, Dimensions, and Tactics' Gafgarion were all pretty fond of stealing HP. The two mechanics complement each other well for an MMO, because a job that injures itself and can't recover for itself is a massive liability to the team.

[Exstal]

Warriors are characterized by equipping swords, daggers, axes, shields, and armor, and having high physical stats. The Warrior is usually one of the basic jobs in each game, and its focus is strong melee damage and survivability. In later installments, Warriors were given the ability to lower the stats of their opponents.

The Knight job is generally seen as an upgrade to the Warrior, but lacks the strict offensive focus of the job, gaining supportive abilities.

A damage dealer through and through, with high stats. One of your beginning jobs.

Final Fantasy As an invaluable asset to most parties, the Warrior is often a first choice when it comes to picking a team. The Warrior's upgrade, the Knight, is an even greater source of physical power, and can use White Magic.

Basic unit, did damage. Could take damage better than other classes but also dealt the most damage.

• 1 point to DPS, 1 point to tank

Final Fantasy III
Warriors have a high aptitude for wielding swords in battle. Having focused all their training on physical combat, they are unable to use any magic.

Another complete damage dealer unable to use any magic.

• 1 point to DPS, 0 points to tank

Final Fantasy X-2
The Warrior is a versatile fighter, able to inflict "Break" attacks to hinder enemies as well as elemental damage reminiscent to that of the Mystic Knight.

Straight up damage dealer with ability to inflict even greater detrimental effects to the enemy

• 1 point to DPS, 0 points to tank

Final Fantasy - Revenant Wings
Resembling the Fighter from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, the Warrior is a Melee unit with several hard-hitting skills. True to its Job description, several of these abilities favor power over protection.

Exact same description as some Dark Knight ones (pulled by yourself).

• 1 point to DPS, 0 points to tank

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
The Warrior is the basic melee unit of the Bangaa, with great HP and Attack growth, but low Magic and Speed. [/b]

Explicit description of the great HP leads to think Warrior could be a great tank but the secondary idea of great Attack means primary usage is DPS.

• 1 point DPS, 1 point to tank

**Tactic Advance 2 is the same

• 1 point DPS, 1 point to tank

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
The Warrior is a job exclusive to Clavats and male Lilties. It is a hard hitting class that uses strong offensive skills and a few defensive abilities.

Strong offensive and few defensive means DPS, according to popular description

• 1 point DPS, 0 points tank

Final Fantasy Dimensions
The Warrior is a starting job class available to both groups. Its keeps its pure offensive focus.

As description shows.

• 1 point dps, 0 points tank

So based on the wiki page, Warrior should have been a pure DPS class given there are few games where it did more tank-like actions than it did DPS. But Square Enix decided to fuse it with Beserker and make it into a tank. Why? High HP from a few games, melee class dictated that it was a perfectly viable tank candidate.

Going by the wiki is fine for unbiased information, but one must look at information with an open mind. It's like people, with emotional attachment, don't listen to reason or even *try* to listen to reason. It's perfectly understandable that Dark Knight could, and more than likely will be, a DPS class. Although, if you're completely disregarding the possibility that it could be a tank class, that's just ignorance. There is no explicit proof that Dark Knight could be a tank just like there was no explicit proof that Warrior could be a tank but Square Enix made it so.

Then the argument gets made,

Final Fantasy XI made Warrior a tank, so that's where it comes from.

That's all fine and dandy in bizarro world until you remember that FFXI is where Ninja, who had 0 points in being able to tank in any previous game, became a tank in FFXI. Does this mean Ninja should be a tank in FFXIV? Should Thief (if it became a job) should be an evasion tank as well since it's just a weaker Ninja? How about Dancer? Where does it stop?

In the end, Square Enix might only add *one* more tank and *one* more healer to the FFXIV roster and then everything else will be DPS. If that's the case, then Samurai will more than likely be tank and Dark Knight would be DPS. However, if that's not the case Square Enix would be shooting themselves in the foot if they give away possible tank candidates to make classes that have no place being tanking class into tanks (see FFXI Ninja).

Total Points

8 points DPS
3 points Tank

[Gamemako]

A damage dealer through and through, with high stats. One of your beginning jobs.... Basic unit, did damage. Could take damage better than other classes but also dealt the most damage.

Fighter/Warrior/Knight was the closest thing to a tank in FF1. In III, it was the most durable starting job which grew into the third-most-durable job with Knight (after be-all-end-all Ninja and level 99 joke Onion Knight). And did you seriously decide that the most durable starting job is a pure DD because it can't use magic? Anyway, in X-2, Warrior is again one of the most durable jobs, having the second-highest Defense (after Dark Knight) and third-highest HP (after Berserker and Dark Knight) as long as we're excluding lolmascots. The Warriors have the unique guard ability (Sentinel) as well, though that's kind of misleading. The trick here is that they're really Mystic Knights. They come with elemental sword attacks and auto-protect as well as other debuffs. In FFTA/2, the Warrior is the starting job for Bangaa and is a stepping-stone job. It fill all physical roles before meeting obsolescence.In Dimensions, Warrior is the most durable starting job (again) and is only out-tanked by the team-specific knight job.

If we're going by their status when you get them, they are:

FF1: Most durable starting job, upgraded
FF3: Most durable starting job, obsoleted
FFX-2: Most durable starting job, falls behind when Dark Knight appears but only fully obsoleted by joke dressphere
FFRW: Dunno?
FF11: Started a tank, at least.
FFCCMLaaK: Dunno.
FFD: Most durable starting job, falls behind when team-respective Knight shows up and is functionally obsoleted
FFTA/2: Most durable starting job for Bangaa, obsoleted

So yeah, it's pretty much always the most durable starting job in all of these games where this is no true tank. The one that obsoletes or upgrades it is almost always Knight/Paladin.

[Exstal]

That's just it. It's a durable job and *could* have been a very good DPS. But Square Enix looked at it in the light of "oh, this could take hits back in the day, make it a tank since we don't have many reasonable options for this".

If you take a look at all the jobs that have appeared in Final Fantasy universe (except for Tactics Advance in which they take one job split it 4 ways and call it 4 different jobs), then you can pretty quickly reason which classes have the possibility of tanking and those who would make very little sense.

I simply showed that it's possible to rip quotes from the wiki and form a biased argument around it. However somehow lost in thread is where Bloodclaw started trolling and my opinion of Dark Knight means that it can only exist as a tank and it being a damage dealer is simply out of the question. Dark Knight will probably end up as a damage dealer. Square Enix might make it a tank. Or they may just not include it in this game just because other classes have priority. We don't know. However, as I said before dismissing one class as a possible tank rule because of lack of vision is irritating, to say the least.

They won't add DRK as a Tank because it's simply not a Tank job. It's always LITERALLY been the exact opposite.

There are plenty of opportunities for more tank classes, support classes, and healing classes. This is FF, of course.

This is wrong and no one should believe this low level trolling.

[Bloodclaw]

*Snip*

8 points DPS
3 points Tank

I'll take this red-herring about the warrior points vs. a counter list to my dark knight list a concede to my correct point of view on the dark knight.
Thanks for the fish!

I am more than open to counter arguments on points about the DRK but quite honestly I don't feel like exhausting myself on a side subject.
Anyway, last comment I will make on the subject of warrior here. Just looking at the warrior and I think anyone not biased could see that this is the dark tank of the game, not the dark knight.

I highly doubt that the dark knight will be a tank with this class already in the game and looking like this. It just wouldn't make sense.

[Exstal]

You are a master of selective reading, Bloodclaw. I guess I can respect that.

[ShadowMax]

DRK sounds cool. I cant wait to play it. Atm Im a SMN, but I think it wont take long to level a class to level 30 again.

[Bloodclaw]

You are a master of selective reading, Bloodclaw. I guess I can respect that.

I perhaps you didn't read my post. I requested for someone to go into the various references on wiki an pull out points made describing the class Dark Knight as a class that would make it defined as tank type to put some light on my points from a different perspective because I am totally ready to look at this from another perspective and want to get enriched by that. Instead I get a list on the warrior. I don't want to go off on a tangent; so I don't want to talk about the warrior in depth on a dark knight thread. I get your perspective on it, but frankly I view its biased badly from the listed evidance alone. The only counter I want to spend time on this off topic was one trying to bring it back to the subject at hand by referencing the esthetic similarities a DRK tank would have with the already existing War. So please go on.

[Exstal]

I requested for someone to go into the various references on wiki an pull out points made describing the class Dark Knight as a class that would make it defined as tank type to put some light on my points from a different perspective because I am totally ready to look at this from another perspective and want to get enriched by that. Instead I get a list on the warrior.

It's a durable job and *could* have been a very good DPS. But Square Enix looked at it in the light of "oh, this could take hits back in the day, make it a tank since we don't have many reasonable options for this".

I'll say it here, your original list is just based on old games showing Dark Knight as DPS, it had some ability to take hits, usually better than most classes because of armour spec. Warrior was the same way. But SE decided to choose Warrior as a tank instead of a DPS. The underlying message is Dark Knight has a chance to be a tank.

P.S. I am hearing the occasional person saying "DRK is going to be a tank." and I have to say this is not true in the slightest. Please look at the history of the Dark Knight before jumping to such a conclusion.

Maybe you 100% believe Dark Knight has no possibility of being a tank. Which is where you would be incorrect. That's all there is to it.

Now that that's out of the way, when they do introduce Dark Knight, if it comes as a DPS, it'll be just like any other melee DPS; chock full of positional skills. Personally, I would prefer if it was a Sword and Board DPS class but all the FFXI lovers would crucify me for that kind of thinking. But I find that scythe is super lame looking and was a terrible idea.

[Bloodclaw]

I'll say it here, your original list is just based on old games showing Dark Knight as DPS, it had some ability to take hits, usually better than most classes because of armour spec. Warrior was the same way. But SE decided to choose Warrior as a tank instead of a DPS. The underlying message is Dark Knight has a chance to be a tank.

Maybe you 100% believe Dark Knight has no possibility of being a tank. Which is where you would be incorrect. That's all there is to it.
Now that that's out of the way, when they do introduce Dark Knight, if it comes as a DPS, it'll be just like any other melee DPS; chock full of positional skills. Personally, I would prefer if it was a Sword and Board DPS class but all the FFXI lovers would crucify me for that kind of thinking. But I find that scythe is super lame looking and was a terrible idea.

I would have some doubt. Even now I have a slight bit of it; I am 99.95% sure it will be a DPS. However with the aesthetic appearance of the WAR I am more concerned that if they ever think about insisting the DRK be a tank, they will say, oh we already have a dark tank, and move on.