Is it me, or is DRK really isn't that super great, nor super bad.

[ShaolinMike]

DRKs don't have as much mitigation, but they have a more consistant ability to heal themselves with the Soul Eater combo. Couple this with the fact that they really have no issues holding aggro (from what I've seen so far), and you can pretty much use Dark Arts+Soul Eater combo as your BnB, as opposed to using the Power Slash combo.

[Rhaja]

Plus it's also been confirmed that we can put Sole Survivor on enemies as well which adds a tremendous amount of use on that.

[Tila]

DRKs don't have as much mitigation, but they have a more consistant ability to heal themselves with the Soul Eater combo. Couple this with the fact that they really have no issues holding aggro (from what I've seen so far), and you can pretty much use Dark Arts+Soul Eater combo as your BnB, as opposed to using the Power Slash combo.

The problem is that this healing is very sustained and rather low for the amount of time it takes to get to it. They may heal for 100 hp, but in that same time a warrior or paladin merely didnt take that and more due to the mob doing less damage.

[ShaolinMike]

The problem is that this healing is very sustained and rather low for the amount of time it takes to get to it. They may heal for 100 hp, but in that same time a warrior or paladin merely didnt take that and more due to the mob doing less damage.

With the enahnced Soul Eater trait, they heal for 100% of the damage done. Couple that with Dark Arts and you're getting a 400 self heal every 9 seconds (assuming you're using the Soul Eater combo as your BnB, which I think you should be).

[Faytte]

You should list the paladins new healing spell as well if you are listing equilibriam. Given damage does not interrupt the spell cast, its basically a mana gated cd.

[Ipkonfig]

It looks like a lot of people have been complaining about the lack of tankiness coming from DRKs. This is probably due to the fact they they are probably the worst at mitigating sustained physical damage compared to the other classes. Most of the damage that comes in dungeon mobs are physical autoattacks, and it appears that DRKs are really bad against autos. This used to be a large problem for WARs but they made some changes/additions to the class to make them a bit better against autoattacks.

PLD vs Physical:
Rage of Halone STR Down (100% uptime if desired)
Rampart (90s CD)
Sentinel (180s CD)
Bulwark (180s CD)
Sheltron (30s CD)
Improved Convalescence (120s CD)
Passive blocking

WAR vs Physical:
2% Parry Per Wrath
Storm's Path (100% uptime if desired)
Inner Beast (5 stacks)
Vengeance (120s CD)
Raw Intuition (90s CD)
Thrill of Battle (120s CD)
Convalescence (120s CD)
Equilibrium (60s CD)

DRK vs Physical:
Shadowskin (90s CD)
Shadow Wall (180s CD)
Dark Dance (60s CD)
Reprisal (60s CD)
Convalescence (120s CD)

Dark Dance and Reprisal have rather low CD which is nice but it's offset by the fact that those skills are particularly weak. 10% damage debuff can be provided with 100% uptime from WAR and Dark Dance is only 30% increased parry, unlike guaranteed parry from Raw Intuition and a much high % from LNC's Keen Flurry. If DRK has LNC cross class instead of MRD, it would be a much better class. Outside of Shadowskin and Shadowwall, physical damage mitigation is very weak for DRK. They are, however, rather good against magic damage, which is something PLD is actually very poor against (PLD cannot block anything in Ramuh, for example).

Why do people keep posting about a class they aren't playing..

Dark Arts, look this up, and apply it to the abilities in question.

Dark Dance is 30% Parry AND 20% Evasion, this is how you deal with auto attacks. Add to this that Dark Dance has a 20s duration with a 60s CD so it has a 33% up time.

You list Ramuh as not being blockable, which is true, but it's also important to remember that EVERY end game raid instance has a PLETHORA of components that you can not block or parry. Dark Mind's 30% spell damage reduction for 15s every 60s is going to be amazing.

Half of the warrior's list isn't useful for auto attacks....

[Tila]

You should list the paladins new healing spell as well if you are listing equilibriam. Given damage does not interrupt the spell cast, its basically a mana gated cd.

Dont forget warriors 1200 potency heal. Or the half minute of constant parrying and wrath gain which = more mitigation.

[Faytte]

I'm not sure why auto attacks were brought up. Squishyness (Which DRks are, left mine at 55 to return to paladin) have damage reducing cooldowns. Dark Dance IS NOT that good, 30% parry is a 30% chance to reduce damage by 20%. Thats very bad. Compare it to keen flurry from dragoon (80% parry for 20 seconds) or the warriors cooldown (ALL attacks are parried for 20 seconds).

Dark knights are free to imagine that they are on a fine class, which is a laugh. That said, the class will be buffed, SE is good about fixing problems.

[Tila]

Why do people keep posting about a class they aren't playing..

Dark Arts, look this up, and apply it to the abilities in question.

Dark Dance is 30% Parry AND 20% Evasion, this is how you deal with auto attacks. Add to this that Dark Dance has a 20s duration with a 60s CD so it has a 33% up time.

You list Ramuh as not being blockable, which is true, but it's also important to remember that EVERY end game raid instance has a PLETHORA of components that you can not block or parry. Dark Mind's 30% spell damage reduction for 15s every 60s is going to be amazing.

Half of the warrior's list isn't useful for auto attacks....

Parry also does jack shit, so an extra 30% isnt as much as it sounds. Its 30% chance to block 20% damage. Thats very low. Thats a problem with DRK, a good bit of stuff, most of it doesnt do much, or costs to much (like dark messenger)

[Ipkonfig]

30% chance to block 20% of a hit (ignoring DRK's base parry chance), add into this 20% chance to evade 100% of a hit (ignoring DRK's base evade chance), also calculate in the 33% up time on Dark Dance, and it gives you roughly 8.5% total mitigation, obviously at the mercy of RNG.

Sentinel 40% damage reduction with a 10s duration and 180 CD ends up being 2.2% overall mitigation since it has such a tiny up time. Obviously designed to handle large burst spikes.

We're talking about Auto Attacks here, Dark Arts + Dark Dance is an amazing way to deal with those. I'd go as far as saying that DA/Dark Dance is DRK's shield since they both provide roughly the same mitigation to the tank over a fight, assuming you keep DA/Dark Dance on CD.