How bad are the issues with DRK?

[LegolasT]

It has the outright worst mitigation right now. Dark Mind being extremely situational, TBN requiring a lot of muscle memory, and Shadow Wall being on a longer cooldown than Vengeance for no reason isn't good. WAR makes a fine MT now, and PLD makes a fine MT and OT. DRK is kind of stuck in that part where they still want it to be the middle ground, and it's just not working.

WAR is the worst tank of the 3 are you kidding !!

[SpookyGhost]

WAR is the worst tank of the 3 are you kidding !!

As MT -> Nah, it's actually the best. Has 2 90s CDs, 2 120s CDs, and a 180s CD immunity. In the downtime between those you've got Intervention/Cover/Blackest Night from your OT. This isn't even taking into account tank swaps which let you pair CDs together, which makes it completely insane for soaking hard hitting busters (especially multi-hit ones). PLD/DRK are roughly equal as MT, but below WAR.

As OT -> Yeah, WAR's the worst here. Offers no utility outside of slashing, which is covered by NIN and SAM. Meanwhile DRK has TBN and PLD has Intervention/Cover/Divine Veil/Passage of Arms.

[Tegernako]

As MT -> Nah, it's actually the best. Has 2 90s CDs, 2 120s CDs, and a 180s CD immunity. In the downtime between those you've got Intervention/Cover/Blackest Night from your OT. This isn't even taking into account tank swaps which let you pair CDs together, which makes it completely insane for soaking hard hitting busters (especially multi-hit ones). PLD/DRK are roughly equal as MT, but below WAR.

Who knew ignoring half your job's skill and spamming one move over and would and doing nothing else would make for a simple way to MT well?

If all you do, is literally spam IB over and over over and over and over. Sure you might be "good" at mitigation, but who wants to do that? Like every other job IN THE ENTIRE GAME WAR players want to use every skill they learn, not just one.

Say that WAR is good at MT if, and only if, it spams IB over and over just proves how bad it is right now. DRK isn't much, if at all better either.

Saying a tank can tank is just silly.

[SpookyGhost]

[...]

Sorry, I might be missing something. I never mentioned IB at all so I'm not really sure what you're saying here.

[KRinXIV]

It feels very boring to play now compared to 3.x, the loss of low blow and reprisal was keenly felt in terms of "fun factor" (only one offensive OGCD, salted earth, compared to pld which still has fun buttons like circle of scorn, spirits within, and shield swipe.).

TBN while a very powerful/quick cooldown, the class is too overly reliant on it and makes anything that isn't 70 content literally a snorefest of 1, 2, 3 combos, 2.0 Paladin style. TBN is also basically a copy of Paladin's 56 ability, except the paladin version affects the whole party.

I'm more shocked that they didn't work sole survivors effect into something else and cull it when choosing abilities to remove. (It really doesn't hold a candle to war and PLD's 58 abilities in terms of utility.)

(continued in next post)

[KRinXIV]

As is, we have 2 "normal" mitigation CD's and then everything else we -have- to use TBN, which makes healing DRK's very...spikey in terms of incoming damage. Bloodspiller isn't particularly interesting, and it costs a GCD to use as well.

Compare Shadow Wall, Rampart, and TBN to PLD's arsenal of Sentinel (better than shadow wall), Rampart, Bulwark, Hallowed (LD isn't mitigation), and Passage/Divine Veil if you're desperate (with magic blocking this is pretty decent as a CD now.)

Let's not even mention that rampart synergizes with intervention. Playing PLD now almost feels like playing Pre 4.0 DRK with loads of party utility, and Post 4.0 DRK feels like 2.0 Paladin..boring and flavorless. (especially because we lost shadowskin and therefore some of our flavor and class identity, even if rampart is identical).

I didn't mention dark mind, but that will only really be relevant if tank busters in the new raid are magic oriented. Sheltron is arguably better.

(more in next post)

[KRinXIV]

PLD also got to keep it's stun (with damage!), other tanks have to take it as a role skill and no damage..

I'm not worried with how the class performs balance wise..you can clear content with it, I did both EX's no problem, TBN made sure of that, but way too much hinges on the use of that ability and 123 soul eater spam once you get aggro....and it's...quite boring.

Not even going to go in depth on war in this discussion, but from what I've heard it has also suffered in fun factor as well.