Your thoughts on DRK as a Tank in the future?

[Huntington]

Personally, I think it's an excellent set designation for the class, and I'm going to take my opinions on that designation from a spin-off Final Fantasy, Bravely Default.


There won't be any spoilers for the 3DS title here, but I will say that Dark Knight is a Job the player can acquire later on, that's it, nothing more.

As for the Job itself in the game, I found it to be the best iteration for it that I've used or seen yet. The Job's main trait was an ability called Adversity. For each increment of damage that the character would take in percentages of 25% I believe in relation to your max HP, your four primary attack and defense stats would increase. So Phys Defense, Phys Attack, and Mag Attack and Defense. They would cap at 150% of their start, and make it a great tank class in the game, if it wasn't designated as more of a DPS of sorts in the game itself.

What made it so excellent is that I could easily make it into a tank in the party just by shifting around gear, and making him two-hand a sword which would give him great offensive capabilities. With Adversity boosting it's stats the more damage it took, it propelled it's abilities means to do damage even higher. You couple that with another Sub-Job that lets it drain stats, and it could become a powerhouse, only having difficulty with enemies resistant or immune to dark damage.

I honestly see DRK in XIV being used in a similar manner. The more the tank is getting pounded on, the stronger it's stats become, and I believe through only my own personal conjecture, that it will be able to rival WAR perfectly in terms of damage output or to even exceed it. This is only my personal opinion as of right now, just because I think Bravely Default's DRK was the most absolute fun I've had with the Job's iteration yet, dat Rage attack.

But let's hear everyone else's thoughts, I've been absent from XIV for over a month and thought I would make this thread for the discussion, hopefully I'm not just clogging the boards with another repeat thread.

[Thistledown]

The only ff I played was FFTA so my knowledge is quite limited. With that said though, gaining higher defensive stats for every loss of raw hp sounds exciting! Something healers will have to coordinate accordingly for sure.

From what it sounds like, SCH would synergise greatly because of relatively lower raw healing done and focus on damage prevention. And WHM could focus on stoneskin as a pseudo heal.

It would also be the biggest noobtrap though. 'Oh I get tougher the lower my hp is!' at below half hp or something.

[Saigwa]

Short and sweet: I have no objections to DRK being a tank. This is FFXIV, not ffXI or previous FF titles. I was honestly a bit saddened because I was hoping if DRK was a dps, then a very high chance SAM would be a tank and I would have a main tank and dps to play - but now that is, of course, not the case, and I am contempt with SE's discussion. HOWEVER, I will miss running dungeons with pallys and warriors because its very eminent that DRK will become 70% of the tanking population. I make this deduction from the fact that Great swords and dual wields are the most popular form of combat in many MMOs. Regardless of role, people will flock to DRK because it is a great sword wielding badass.

[Cassandaria]

I look forward to a new tank type. I wonder if they will base the archetype off of FFIV or FFIII though? Either way, both games offered the class to be a high risk tank style, something we need more of. Right now, Paladin is the no risk tank and warrior is a medium, balanced risk tank. Having a tank you have to really work on, at least to those that enjoy that kind of thing, would be very awesome. That way, we have a tank for everyone!
At least those that want to play a tank ^_^

[Duelle]

I honestly see DRK in XIV being used in a similar manner. The more the tank is getting pounded on, the stronger it's stats become, and I believe through only my own personal conjecture, that it will be able to rival WAR perfectly in terms of damage output or to even exceed it. This is only my personal opinion as of right now, just because I think Bravely Default's DRK was the most absolute fun I've had with the Job's iteration yet, dat Rage attack.

Ugh that system sounds too much like Vengeance as it was implemented in WoW. And that system was one of the worst ideas they had for tanks (suffice to say, there were unintended consequences).

[Deifact]

It's a fun idea but I don't think it will happen because you're relying a class mechanic on someone else; the healer.

In a party situation, your effectiveness would be at the mercy of the healer. Unless they got an ability to block incoming healing or something.

[Huntington]

Ugh that system sounds too much like Vengeance as it was implemented in WoW. And that system was one of the worst ideas they had for tanks (suffice to say, there were unintended consequences).

How did that turn out?

[Huntington]

It's a fun idea but I don't think it will happen because you're relying a class mechanic on someone else; the healer.

In a party situation, your effectiveness would be at the mercy of the healer. Unless they got an ability to block incoming healing or something.

How it would hopefully go is they're just taking damage like any tank would, the healer wouldn't need to be keeping them just near a certain threshold. But as for a Tank Stance that DRK would have, I can't right think of anything suitable for it. As it's been shown, it won't have a Base Class, which makes it very interesting in terms of how they will structure it. I see a simple tree of it just branching from PLD, without taking any abilities for it. The NPCs will just say "for every light there is must a shadow it shall cast, Dark Knights are the shadows to the Paladin's light." Something mysterious like that I'd bet, then you just start out leveling DRK in your scrubby race clothing.

Maybe the tank stance would amplify the stat gains it receives while out of it it just takes damage like normal and only receives small bonuses. Maybe it would just make it look like the GMs do when you see one of them, I could take guesses all day, so we'll just have to wait till Spring 2015.

[ZanzhizExaverion]

Short and sweet: I have no objections to DRK being a tank. This is FFXIV, not ffXI or previous FF titles. I was honestly a bit saddened because I was hoping if DRK was a dps, then a very high chance SAM would be a tank and I would have a main tank and dps to play - but now that is, of course, not the case, and I am contempt with SE's discussion. HOWEVER, I will miss running dungeons with pallys and warriors because its very eminent that DRK will become 70% of the tanking population. I make this deduction from the fact that Great swords and dual wields are the most popular form of combat in many MMOs. Regardless of role, people will flock to DRK because it is a great sword wielding badass.

70% of the 1% is .7%

You gotta remember that although it is Dark Knight, it is a Tank.

A lot of people for some reason hate tanking, and hate taking responsibility. If you're putting in effort to "lol great sword im so cool" over "I'm a Dark Knight and I'm gonna tank the shit out of this", one of those players is going to be getting berated while playing the class.

Dark Knight will not end up like Ninja. Ninja is a DPS, everyone likes to see Numbers. Dark Knight doesn't have "numbers".

All the plebs will level it up to 60 (Expansion Hype) and then people will realize how much they hate tanking, and some others will continue on with the job.

[RuruKun]

I have nothing against ninjas/rogues, but I'm more excited for dark knight more than Ninjas. I would be willing to give that a try.