In your darkest hour: DRK's identity crisis

[Chrono_Rising]

I agree with just about everything you say. Basically a middle of the road tank is the concept which is proving to be fatal to dark knight. In HW we were a strong defensive MT who could dish out healthy damage, now we are doing less than either role. We need a dark knight abilities back, but with the recent Yoshi P interviews I doubt they will change much before 5.0 unless there is a strong community backlash.

Balance
As much as I like the idea of a Deus Ex style balance in which there are multiple approaches to the same problem, there are some fundamental obstacles. Take Hallowed, for example. It completely negates all incoming damage. There isn't an alternate way to achieve the same effect. But if you made it into a role action and made it universal, the job would lose something that made it unique.

I disagree that there aren't alternate ways to do this with Hallowed Ground.

A Dark Flair: Switch MP and HP Pools, mp pool cannot be reduced below 1. After 10 seconds MP and HP Pools switch. Effect basically gives you a smaller pool of HP, but shelters your main pool.

A Warrior Flair: HP hits 1: Damage taken converted to HP restored.

[Shurrikhan]

Balance
As much as I like the idea of a Deus Ex style balance in which there are multiple approaches to the same problem, there are some fundamental obstacles. Take Hallowed, for example. It completely negates all incoming damage. There isn't an alternate way to achieve the same effect. But if you made it into a role action and made it universal, the job would lose something that made it unique.

I think it's okay for tanks to have weaknesses. It's okay to find yourself wishing in the moment that you were on a different tank to deal with a tough situation. I'm not a fan of this mentality that "X has an ability, so I need to have that ability too". The problem is that the exchange of abilities has been a one-way relationship. There are definitely occasions where you will definitely miss having a WAR or a PLD. You don't really get that sense with DRK anymore, after Stormsblood.

Why would another immunity need to achieve non-conditional damage nullification? (Note that both LD and Holmgang also achieve complete damage negation, although conditionally -- only after hitting 1 HP.) They need only act as a way to prevent death, and their cooldowns can (theoretically) be the balancing point to their disadvantages. That doesn't make any more sense to me than would saying that every damage-dealing ability would need to have the same potency and recast time.

If Hallowed Ground still uniquely prevented debuff affliction, that would create immense swing in its balance on a fight-by-fight basis, more so perhaps than even Defensives-to-Mechanics Alignment, and would leave it overtuned in some fights or undertuned in all others, but that's only been the case in maybe two fights since Ultima Ex's release. Most since have remembered to allow passage of the debuff regardless of whether damage was dealt, or only nullify it when the damage was fully averted in the presence of a shield (not just by a nullifying buff).

Now, with the latter paragraph I agree completely. And while I feel like the "shit, where's <x job-unique ability>?" moments aren't the best indicator of balance, they are at least one of job presence and a meta-layer sort of identity. DRK lacks that identity -- to outside view, of course, but perhaps even worse internally. And I worry at how obvious the external gap will have to grow before any internal improvements are made. (Not as much as I worry for Monk, but definitely second only to Monk.)

[Mycow8me]

Ironically enough the death prevention skills are the ones that have the most class identity in my opinion, the problem is drk's has far to punishing of an after effect and 10 seconds is only enough for 3 gcd heals without a speed bonus from 1 healer while damage is still going out.

One of the main problems with this style of death prevention is continuous damage attacks like shinryu's ahk mourn. Living dead serves its purpose but by the time the last ahk mourn goes off you may be at 7-8 seconds left already so only 2 gcds are left. If the first ahk mourn hit takes you down to 1 hp then you probably have even less. The continuous damage can actually nullify a gcd if you cast a heal too early and the last ahkmourn takes them back down to 1 hp you have a recovering gcd and whatever time is remaining.

[Delily]

The "parry" and "magical" tank notions put aside, what stood out for DRK in 2.0 was that it was a more active job than either PLD or WAR. We had more defensive cool downs, we could toggle Grit, we had to weave Dark Arts in to many moves. When we parried, we could throw up reprisal, and we have to maintain scourge. Beyond the aesthetics of the job, it was just simple a lot more fun, to many people, to play than either P or WAR.

Then 3.0 was released with the express intention or reducing button bloat to simplify the jobs so they could focus on more complex content, and much of what made the job fun was taken away or reduced. Our identifying feature is Dark Arts, our ability to weave that into our moves to strengthen them is what does set us apart from the other 2 jobs, and it's one that SE needs to expand on.

[347SPECTRE]

The "parry" and "magical" tank notions put aside, what stood out for DRK in 3.0 was that it was a more active job than either PLD or WAR. We had more defensive cool downs, we could toggle Grit, we had to weave Dark Arts in to many moves. When we parried, we could throw up reprisal, and we have to maintain scourge. Beyond the aesthetics of the job, it was just simple a lot more fun, to many people, to play than either PLD or WAR.

Then 4.0 was released with the express intention or reducing button bloat to simplify the jobs so they could focus on more complex content, and much of what made the job fun was taken away or reduced. Our identifying feature is Dark Arts, our ability to weave that into our moves to strengthen them is what does set us apart from the other 2 jobs, and it's one that SE needs to expand on.

Fixed /10char

[Gravton]

They said they were not going to add another tank because they wanted to focus on balance. I kinda feel cheated. They are trying to make all the tanks the same. I mean I guess you can call it balance when there is no counter balance. With groups only needing 2 tanks, they are going to need to change group dynamics before releasing another. Like having 2 tanks greatly support mele and each other, while the other 2 do the same for magic. They won't do something that in depth. They will probably just throw it out there and let the community fight over it, but one can dream.

[WhyAmIHere]

I just wish it had any metric that it surpassed PLD and WAR. Mass pulls in dungeons is about it that I can think of. It's like that "anything you can do" song, except DRK is like the jilted ex lover that got left out in the song writing process.

"I can do all of those things too guys." -drk
"Yes but we are you, but better." -pld/war

[Tint]

Ironically enough the death prevention skills are the ones that have the most class identity in my opinion, the problem is drk's has far to punishing of an after effect and 10 seconds is only enough for 3 gcd heals without a speed bonus from 1 healer while damage is still going out.

One of the main problems with this style of death prevention is continuous damage attacks like shinryu's ahk mourn. Living dead serves its purpose but by the time the last ahk mourn goes off you may be at 7-8 seconds left already so only 2 gcds are left. If the first ahk mourn hit takes you down to 1 hp then you probably have even less. The continuous damage can actually nullify a gcd if you cast a heal too early and the last ahkmourn takes them back down to 1 hp you have a recovering gcd and whatever time is remaining.

it doesn't matter if damage is still going out and no healing is nullyfied. you don't have to actually fill up the health bar to 100%, you have to heal equal to 100% of the DRK's healthbar. if the DRK has 50k HP you have to heal for 50k, regardless if he gets hit in the meantime for another 20k. then Walking Dead is cleansed when the DRK sits at 30k HP.

[Hierro]

I don't know what you're trying to say with that last bit on axe-wielding barbarians are for warcraft and greatswords are for final fantasy. did you forget there's an axe on the cover of the box art for the original FF? You can use a plethora of axes in that game too. Where's this nonsense coming from that one choice is inherently "less final fantasy" than the other?

[XykeVayaris]

A friend sent me this:
FFXIV tanks in a nutshell:

Paladin: Divine veil, passage of arms, intervention, cover, all the love and care in the world for the party

Warrior: Shake it off, deals highest damage among the 3 tanks, also known as a dps tank

Dark Knight: *uses blackest night on self* You guys take care of urself ktnxbye