Your thoughts on DRK as a Tank in the future?

[Estevo]

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.

I'm not too sure, if the dark knight is a challenge to play (which I would adore) a good number of people would be turned off by it, considering I've read a whole thread basically saying that they wanted drk to be dps so it's easy to play.

[Saigwa]

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.

I Said "70% of the TANKING population" not 70% of the player base population. Tanks will stay tanks, and we will get new tanks when this class comes out. Then, there will also be ppl who play this class to get it lvled, but never main it because they don't like tanking. My point was that out of the people who stay tanks, 70% of those individuals will most likely be DRK and drop the paladin/warrior classes because 1.) they are tanks anyway and 2.) its a great sword wielding badass.

[Saigwa]

I'm not too sure, if the dark knight is a challenge to play (which I would adore) a good number of people would be turned off by it, considering I've read a whole thread basically saying that they wanted drk to be dps so it's easy to play.

The people who would be put off by it are the people who refuse to play tank classes. People who are already tanks, will flock and stay with said class because it's new, and its a great sword wielding class, which is one of the most popular weapons in mmos. We WILL see more people tanking for sure when it comes out, but its pretty certain paladins and warriors are gonna lose their spotlight and most tanks will be DRK.
BUT I would love the ffxiv community to prove me wrong when 3.0 comes out. Nothing is worse than having one class dominate the population of an already unpopular role

[Ocyrith]

I Said "70% of the TANKING population" not 70% of the player base population. Tanks will stay tanks, and we will get new tanks when this class comes out. Then, there will also be ppl who play this class to get it lvled, but never main it because they don't like tanking. My point was that out of the people who stay tanks, 70% of those individuals will most likely be DRK and drop the paladin/warrior classes because 1.) they are tanks anyway and 2.) its a great sword wielding badass.

I expect we'll see a bunch of DRKs at the start, but as the game goes on, some people will find they dislike the mechanics and/or miss their old tank. Also, if SAMs are tanks, that'll also cut the population in half.

[Martin_Arcainess]

I'm super hyped about DRK and I have no qualms about it being a Tank ^_^ My main is a PLD but when DRK comes out that will be my new main. Why? Not just because it's new because:

Black/Red are my favorite color scheme.
I've always like my Dark evil things.
Swords are my fav type of weapon.
Because it can be related to Batman!

How will it play out? I can't say for sure, I will only go back to my PLD if I hate DRK but here's hoping it be a class I enjoy.

[Kamil]

Curious... is this changing the entire schematics of what Dark knight originally was? I do recall it being a 'sacrificial' damage dealer.

[Cassandaria]

Curious... is this changing the entire schematics of what Dark knight originally was? I do recall it being a 'sacrificial' damage dealer.

Not exactly, the first time dark knight was mainstream in an FF game (bear in mind, I do not say the first appearance of dark knight, just the mainstream concept) was final fantasy IV. Cecil was very much your damage absorber, but as a dark knight it was always a risk versus reward thing. You activate your power to deal more damage, but at the cost of your own health. In the long run, you are still there to soak up damage for your fellow party members. You aren't just there for the damage.
I see this playing out as a risk/reward style tank and if handled well, it will be quite fun.

[Duelle]

How did that turn out?

The main issue is that it ridiculously inflated tank DPS. Was also a big issue in PvP, since ganging up on a tank meant said tank was then doing a lot of damage while keeping all of its defenses intact. If there's gonna be some sort of tradeoff, it really can't be survivability because otherwise you get screwed during boss fights (systems like WAR's Slayer wouldn't work for this very reason).

[Huntington]

The main issue is that it ridiculously inflated tank DPS. Was also a big issue in PvP, since ganging up on a tank meant said tank was then doing a lot of damage while keeping all of its defenses intact. If there's gonna be some sort of tradeoff, it really can't be survivability because otherwise you get screwed during boss fights (systems like WAR's Slayer wouldn't work for this very reason).

Would it make more sense to reverse it then? The more damage you take = The higher your offenses go while your defenses decrease, while in Tank Stance. I could see DRK having two stances like PLD does to accommodate how the class has operated before.

[Keres]

Like many others, part of me is just a tiny bit worried that DRK is going to get a bad rep for attracting lots of people who don't actually want to tank, but rather just want to be a badass Dark Knight and hold a big sword.

I'm really excited for it, though. I don't have any particular affinity for DRK itself, but a brand-new tank job to learn is all I need to be excited. I'm definitely looking forward to checking it out.