The Definitive Dark Knight Guide

[Freyyy]

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For your first question, I guess DRK's weakness is its lack of physical mitigation against an eventual physical tank buster (which currently doesn't exist in Savage but could be implemented for the next set of raids), which can be compensated with proper use of Reprisal and Dark Dance alongside their other universal CDs (Shadow Wall and Shadowskin), making their physical mitigation not that far below PLD in reality because they basically only lack Sheltron, Reprisal playing Rage of Halone's role and Dark Dance playing a weaker Bulwark role with more uptime. They also have a very good self-sustain against common damage like auto-attacks with Souleater and they shine when it comes to mitigate magical damage as they are the strongest tank for that thanks to Dark Mind. Their raid utility is quite non-existent if there is a MNK in the party but their awesome DPS while MTing is also raid utility in some way.

For your second question, what makes Dark Knight different is definitely its MP management mechanic. While not that hard to master, it's still a unique trait they get which defines their gameplay. It's also very fast-paced with a lot of offensive abilities to weave in between your GCDs, and even more when you pop Blood Weapon (which increases your attackspeed). Its gameplay can feel similar to a PLD in some fashion but it's a whole different approach. It's more offensive, more aggressive and also more complex. Where PLD feels like they're ready to jump between the enemy and an ally to protect him using its body as a shield, DRK feels more like they're ready to jump ON the enemy to outright kill it before it even gets the chance to hurt his ally. They feel like two opposite sides of the same coin.

DRK also has a unique feeling when it comes to taking damage. A DRK likes taking damage as it results in him benefitting from it for its abilities. Whether it's a physical attack that you can eventually parry to get a low blow proc or use Reprisal, or just any attack with blood price on which makes you gain MP for each hit you receive. The more often a DRK gets hit, the more power he can obtain. I think it's pretty representative of how Dark Knights were sacrificing their own HPs in order to deal more damage in older FF games. Here you just benefit from being hit. You like pain. You enjoy it.