Dark Knight : Just another mitigation tank

[Assirra]

What's really annoying is people bringing up WoW for every single inference made about anything.

WAR and PLD currently are very different in how they go about doing the same thing - being effective at tanking. It's crazy how often people mention WoW for every single example of something that's been tried before. WoW has to balance classes with 3 different specs each, for both pvp and pve therefore trying to cater a much larger pool of interests.

Do NOT begin to tell me that a tank CANNOT be distinct because of balance issues. WAR operates different from PLD. SCH different from WHM. NIN different from MNK. Because you can't wrap you're head around it means it should'nt even be discussed or attempted? I don't think that's right.

Let me ask you, If DRG and MNK were the only two melee classes, would you suggest that NIN shouldn't be added because it would cause cherry picking? Has that happened, Are DRGs forced to play all 3 mdps? I mean there are things that NIN can do that the others can't? Does a BLM need to level SMN even though their playstlyes are nothing alike?

The point is there are different routes to fulfill the same objectives. The classes don't have to to be totally insular, no one is asking for that. Trying to make DRK have it's own more distinct identity isn't even a challenge, its a choice of whether to just do it or not.

Well the thing is at least with this thread that the OP was basically summing up Blood Dead knight from wow. No idea if this was a coincidence or not but it's really hard to not compared it when it resemblances it so much.

[Reynhart]

Give them a "Dread Spikes" stance the reflects/drains 20% of damage taken instead of a revamped Shield Oath. (And you can even reduce their potencies so that they do less damage by themselves to keep balance)

Cons : Healers need to keep DRK at higher HP than other tanks for the drain to take effect after damage.
Pros : More damage when MT'ing with the reflected damage.

There, another stance for tanking that will make DRK as useful as the other tanks in 90% of the content. For the remaining 10%, it's fine for each tank to be better in a specific situation.