The lens through which we must view DRK when discussing its balance and problems.

[Ditto]

Hard numbers come from end game content currently, mostly from streams, or hell even peoples own goes at it. Look at Xenosys's streams for example, as a Warrior he pulls crazy DPS, more than Chet as a Drk does (If I remember correctly). Or hell more than even some DPS.

Drk does good DPS, there is no doubting that, but Warrior still pulls ahead, even if by just a little bit.

Paladin damage isn't bad either nowadays, they're keeping up fairly well. Rumor currently is that Paladins can do as much damage as Warriors on single target. If that's true, which I cant confirm it is, then that puts Drk in an even worse position, as that means they're likely out DPS'd by Paladins as well.

Biggest problem with Drk DPS though is our lack of methods to restore our TP. A War should never have TP problems nowadays, but a Drk can blow all of it's TP in just a few Blood Weapons. Last boss of Fractal for example, I tank without Grit, in full slaying. I can get pretty high, often times I'm either highest on the list or in second (Assuming the DPS isn't a Drg or a Monk going in hard), but that all ends the instant I run out of TP, which is only like halfway into the fight.

Also, sadly, quality of life does not make a tank, lol.

[Faytte]

This is generally overblown. A DRK while tanking will do the most damage of the three tanks (keeping grit/shield oath/defiance on). When you swap to OT, things differ, and in this case yeah--DRK might need some help here. They have no good steroid (blood weapon is about it!) but while tanking, they certainly will out damage either other tank (DRK do about 92% of their damage between dark side and grit, where paladins are lower and wars are only 1% ahead with defiance + maim, HOWEVER---dark has MUCh better potency on their attacks that more than make up for that).

Dark has a great niche atm for aoe damage, and in general, small party tanking (i think better than either other tank in dungeons) but are held back by being better mostly due to lots of wasted abilities or duplicate powers, high mana costs and some things being gated behind dark arts that shouldnt be.

It needs some help as an off tank, and some ability clean up for certain.

[Lorielle]

I can see why this turned into a discussion about what they're capable of putting out damage wise MT status, but I don't think anyone's actually complaining about DRK's damage at all. That's NOT the problem with DRK AT ALL. We've been through almost 10-15 threads talking about the same thing over and over again about what is -essentially- the issue with DRK. Save a few reworking of abilities(everyone's opinions seem to differ more or less how to implement, but on the right path), DRK doesn't seem to offer anything of big value when it comes to end game content that the other two tanks can simply do better. Their toolkit OVERALL is weak. The job is fine for dungeons, passable for end game, but simply beaten in the long run when put up against the other two veteran tanks.

[Kiteless]

What kind of WAR these days won't be switching inbetween stances for maximum efficiency? Additionally, you're leaving out Storm's Eye, which in addition to increasing the WAR's damage, also provides utility to other slashing classes. Top level WAR has the potential for some crazy damage output.

[ZanzhizExaverion]

I'm sitting at 53 DRK right now. As a veteran Paladin and somewhat WAR, I have to say that the job seems pasaable, but there aren't enough cooldowns to use Dark Arts with.

As for TP Problems we should be able to Dark Arts - Blood Price to gain a goad-like effect, and we should be able to Dark Arts - Automatically proc Reprisal for better off-tank capabilities. I think these two simple changes would put DRK in a position to shine as an optional off tank to Warrior or even comboed with Warrior for more Tank combination options.

[Kiteless]

You'll get enough skills for Dark Arts to go through soon enough. Dark Passenger and Carve and Spit go through enough MP as it is.

[Syzygian]

I'm really enjoying DRK, and its cooldowns are being called into question a lot so I wanna comment on that;

The first thing I've noticed is the massive potential uptime on these CDs. Dark Dance and Dark Mind have only 60s cooldowns, and if you popped those together on T13 with the latter having a DA buff that'd have gotten you through Flatten Breath, maybe with a Foresight thrown in as well for safety.

Speaking of Foresight, DRK not only gets its cooldowns but also gets two from each of PLD and WAR, and while BB/Conva/Awareness/Foresight are not ever gonna save your life from anything, they all had their place in endgame cooldown rotations and do mitigate damage over the course of an encounter. When you pop two of them at once you have a sorta-decent cooldown. In fact, if you stack any one of those with Dark Mind + Dark Dance, with DA boosting one of them depending on what kind of hits are gonna be more prominent in the mechanic (magical or physical) you have a very beefy mitigation tool that is essentially on a measly 1-minute cooldown. And that's without even touching either of what are considered *actual* mitigation cooldowns (Shadowskin and Shadow Wall).

DRK also has a Shield Oath and not a Defiance. And I dunno about you guys but I see Reprisal proc a LOT. I think DRK may have an innately higher parry rate, although I'm not sure. I have little trouble keeping it up on bosses, and Delirium's DK effect is fantastic as well.

In endgame content with big tank busters I see a DRK MT having to push a lot more buttons but basically achieving the same level of mitigation. They have some great self heals (imagine 1-2K DA Souleater heals o.o) as well. If you stack cross class cooldowns with the cooldowns they already have they can definitely eat some big hits.

I haven't found anyone that's wanting to screw around in old raid content for testing, but if I were to go into T13 (I'm using this as an example cause it has the biggest tank busters in the game thus far), with my DRK as MT, here's the rotation I'd use (assuming staple things like Viruses, Eye for an Eyes, and so forth):

Flatten #1 - Shadow Wall + Convalescence
Flatten #2 - Shadowskin + Dark Dance - DA Dark Mind after hit for breath

Phase 2 (This assumes only 2 Flattens in Phase 1):
Flatten #3 - Foresight + DA Dark Dance + Convalescence
Flatten #4 - Living Dead
Flatten #5 - Dark Dance + Shadow Wall

Phase 3:
Pain #1 - Foresight + DA Dark Dance
Gusts x3 - Awareness + Foresight
Sin - Convalescence

Storm of Meracydia:
Death Sentence #1 - Shadow Wall
Death Sentence #2 - Shadowskin + Foresight + Awareness

Akh Morn #1 - DA Dark Mind + Convalescence

Akh Morn #2 - Shadow Wall

Akh Morn #3 - DA Dark Mind + Shadowskin

Akh Morn #4 - Living Dead + possibly Bloodbath and a DA Souleater or two to help the healers get the buff off of you

Akh Morn #5 - DA Dark Mind + Shadowskin + Convalescence

-with Dark Dance, Foresight, and Awareness kept on CD as Akh Morn ends for concurrent/subsequent autos. Cool thing about this? no tank swap/holmgang-cover required. DA Dark Mind is OP. Also note that due to the shorter CD and the way Living Dead works, you have a degree of leeway in precasting it, and the actual cooldown doesn't kick in until the lethal blow does, which is actually a fantastic design for things like Akh Morn. So you see, if it could have performed pre-3.0 it can most likely perform now without issue, its just a matter of people getting used to the choice between 3 tanks. On top of that, DRK would most likely be doing just as much damage as the PLD WITHOUT any DA boosted hits, as keeping Fight or Flight on CD equals out to about the same degree of damage. (30% for 30s out of 60s CD comes out to 15% on average, same as 100% uptime on Darkside).