Dark Knight = The Black Mage of Tanks

[YokeM]

TL;DR at end.
Hello everyone, as many people seem to have issues with the dark knight I wan't to point something out that he's really outstanding in. While I don't understand what problem many people have while MT (I don't find him to squishy at all and he hits really hard) maybe this will help people to like the job more.

First of all: All you people that go around and saying "You can just let Dark Side on the whole time!", let me tell you: You don't! Even as off-tank I turn Dark Side off when I know there is a longer boss animation. Dark Side drains your mana while you are in a combat situation and standing around doing nothing will just drain your mana for no reason at all. Turning it off and on often leaves you with more mana available even if the animation off the boss is just 5 -10 seconds long. Just so you know.

But for a even bigger part that becomes vital in dungeons. Namely the trash mop pulls. I'm currently at lvl 56 so I'm doing The Aery. I usually pull two monster groups. The first one I walk by and send a Abysmal Drain when they are following me and are lined up nicely. I do this with Dark Side still off. When I'm at the second mop I'm allmost at full mp again (In Dark Side I would have lost Abysal Drain costs + Dark Side costs as I allready am in battle). When I'm at the second monster group I use Abysal Drain again and then 2 - 3 times at the whole droup before going into Dark Side and putting Salted Earth on the ground. After Dark Side is on I use Dark Passenger and Blood Price. At 5+ monsters I will have unlimited mp for 15 sec now while slowly restoring mp (or fast if the monsters hit fast). After blood price has ended I nuke until I'm out of mana. I manage this in regard to the LP the monsters have left. If they die before I can use blood price again I usally stop at 30%-40% off my mana so I will be nearly full for the next group. Going into detail here would be to long as this post allready is pretty long.

The key is: By now I will have the potency of Salted Earth (75 x 7 = 525 pot) + 3 x Abysal Drain without Dark Side (0.95 x 120 = 342 pot) and 8 - 10 x Abysal Drains with Dark Side on (1.10 x 120 = 1056(1200) and the 150 pot of dark passenger . This leaves you with an incredible 2073(2217) pot over a time of 40 sec in AOE which is roughly 70% - 80% the potency a Black Mage pre nerf could deal in the same time while using tripple flare.

As it stands now, enemys in The Aery hit by that rotation are left with roughly 70% of their max hp even if no other party member attacked them. Try imaging this with gear that is 20 - 30 ivl over the dungeons get-in-specs.

I could go on how I out dps most other dps in duty finder while OT with Dark Knight but the post is long enough. I thing you get the idea.

TL;DR
Turn your Dark Side off when you don't need it. It will save you alot of mana in battle situations.
The larger the group the more mp you have. Usually at 5+ enemys you will have nearly unlimited mana.
A good mana and skill management can give you over 2000 potency in AOE over 40 sec.

[Kiteless]

First of all, no one cares about trash pulls. It's common knowledge that DRK does amazingly well at them. The problem is actually tanking meaningful content, such as raids. Good DRKs will already be turning off Darkside during downtime, but it doesn't change the fact that during uptime, against single targets or those who opt not to constantly attack us, DRK's resource management is abysmal. Furthermore, you cannot afford to have Darkside off during uptime. You're better off just spamming syphon strike like a 2.0 PLD if it means keeping Darkside up.

4 man dungeons were never the problem, and you need to stop thinking that that's what people are worried about with DRK. They have always been brain-dead easy, and DRK's kit has no trouble with them. It's about consistent tank buster mitigation and raid resource management during content where balance actually matters.

[Sapphic]

Any weaknesses will become glaringly obvious when Alex savage goes live and players tank it as DRK.