Getting refused to EX groups as a DRK

[Giantbane]

Honestly, Giantbane, you're under rating Inner Beast, even for as highly as you're already considering it. That 6 seconds of reduction is up more like every 15 seconds, not including the use of skills like Vengeance, Berserk, and Infuriate; and being able to activate it more frequently is worth a hell of a lot more than the longer duration of Dark Mind, since it means that you can use Inner Beast to block way more individual tankbusters.

You could probably have Inner Beast fill in for several of those DRK cooldowns, even.

You're right, I was being very conservative in my comparisons.

From what we know so far, at least for OT damage (we can't really parse DRK MT damage too effectively, at least on dummies, because we can't actually maintain our damage while MT without taking damage), WAR has a pretty clear lead on DRK and PLD, who both end up coming up pretty even, up until DRK runs out of TP after around the 2:15 minute mark, at which point PLD starts to beat DRK by a fairly sizeable margin.

Don't forget, PLD has an incredibly impressive tool in the form of Fight or Flight. That's an overall increase in damage of 10% (30% for 30s every 90s) that applies to ALL of their damage dealt, including DoTs and autoattacks (this means crazy stuff from shield oath), something DRK's blood weapon can't even come close to attesting to.
While MTing, I imagine that the damage situation between PLD and DRK will be quite close, with WAR edging them both out by a considerable margin with smart play.

Problem is that the WAR & the PLD both is that I think they lose more when going from OT > MT. In addition to the damage penalties of the respective tanking stances, PLD loses sword oath and WAR loses deliverance and fel cleave. Now WAR does gain some of that back with unchained. The DRK loses blood weapon, but I don't think it's as big a loss as the equivalent DPS stances of the other tanks. Blood price will help regain some of the lost MP from blood weapon, and as a MT, the DRK will now have access to reprisal and having the low blow cooldown reset. So I think it's possible for the DRK to pull even or end up on top.

But, like I said, I don't think it's that straightforward and will need more investigation.

Lets not just act as if War's don't have a 1200 potency heal every 60 seconds that scales off of their AP. (Which is a lifesaver if healers are unable to prep you for a tank buster for whatever reason, or your HP is critically low and you need quick instant heal to not get mauled by an auto attack)

And Magic cannot be parried, thus Reprisal isn't even an option in pure magic fights. It shouldn't even be listed as one if Raw Intuition isn't.

And though some may say it's trivial, War's have a constantly fluctuation Parry boost that will be anywhere from 2% - 10%, growing at whatever speed they're stacking wrath at. They may not be sitting on that parry rate at 5 stacks, but that is still an advantage in parry over a Drk. That is up to left side gear piece worth of parry they are constantly hitting, assuming I'm understanding how parry percentage boosts work. (Consider this grabbing at straws if you want, but it's an advantage nonetheless. Though I guess you could argue Dark Dances 30 second shorter cooldown would change that)

I did not consider this to be a fully exhaustive comparison between the two classes. It's more high concept using Kaedan's original method. This time with all (I think) of the major cooldowns hit. I didn't include second wind, evasion or dark passage's potential blind effect either as long as we're pulling everything out.