Are DRK's looked down upon?

[kaox_reaper]

DRK is definitively squishier in trash pulls. It's not really something that's debatable. You can say "but you have tools" all you want. Their tools aren't "press 1 button" - they consist of knowing and understanding the Job's mechanics and executing them properly. DRK's trash tanking really shines when you blind the enemies or boost dodge rate or use DA+AD during Blood Price runoff. All of those require non-standard usage of Dark Arts. If you're not innately aware of these rarely-used effects, you're flat out not gonna do it.

Which results in DRK being squishier than PLD and WAR in trash pulls, in general. DA+DP/DD/AD is way trickier than "having a shield" or "hitting bloodbath" to be quite honest.

Then it's not so much "it's squishier" but more "learn the job to be good" then.

[SpookyGhost]

DRK's pretty easy for trash pulls. Pull everything, put down Salted earth, put up Blood Price, pop a CD, and spam Abyssal Drain while weaving in some DA Abyssal Drain if you start ping ponging or your healer is actively DPSing. Dark Dance is pretty powerful for trash as well, since you can put Reprisal on any heavy hitting mobs or you can DA it after Blood Price wears if you don't have anything worth putting up Reprisal on. I guess, relatively, it's difficult compared to WAR? Maybe? But in general it's not exactly hard to pop CDs and press the Abyssal Drain button.