SE... please (an honest DRK).

[Chrono_Rising]

DRK is fine.

And here we go.

No one was exactly bitching about WAR's lack of "party utility," because WAR functioned and performed its job just fine. People were clearing os4 with WAR before the shake it off change, and that was that. No complaints, no fuss. Did the SiO buff make it easier? Of course, but it wasn't something that was going to make or break the job by a stretch. No one would be up in arms if WAR never received a party-wide shield, and no one would have quit the job if it was never given one, much less complain about it.

I agree with this, people weren't complaining because they wanted job utility on Warrior. The point was warriors have no utility so buff our damage. SE decided to give warrior utility. Fine on its own and not game breaking, makes shielding the party easier, and has a ton of uses, but buffing warrior means dark knight issues get larger because the job needs to justify its existence in some way. Dark was sorta hanging on with the whole I have a 1 target shield thing, but SiO is a bit better in terms of utility.

People like to bring up WAR having an equivalent to TBN in the form of Inner Beast, and an extra cooldown in the form of Thrill of Battle, but let's be real. IB was never desirable because it meant lost Fell Cleaves and punishment in the form of 10 seconds in defiance, and ToB was always used for IRzerk windows to buff up upheaval anyways.

And while it is doing that it provided a self heal and a 20% boost to HP while providing that buff to damage. I also agree, Inner beast is horrible for speed running, great for learning when you might want an extra CD. If you don't need to use SiO lets not forget you can use it to snapshot your buffs into a buffed shield for yourself as yet another mitigation. Warrior also now has unchained for relatively free tank stance for a short time. This also gives access to Equilibrium every other unchained for relatively free and if you have an upheavel during this time it is almost entirely free because of unchained and tank stances interaction with the skill. Lets not forget Holmgang and Veagence being on shorter cooldowns meaning the job has more frequent access to said mitigations (something which often seems forgotten in these discussions of how many do you have), on top of having higher durations on most mitigation.

However, DRK's TBN is mitigation on demand that can be used gritless. It pretty much pays for itself to break evenly. With it, you can supplement your cooldowns. Fact of the matter is that many tank busters are magical, and what better way to deal with them than use of TBN+Dark Mind? You could even go as far as treating grit like a cooldown and supplementing that alone with TBN, and that works out just fine because unlike PLD, you don't spend another GCD to go into "dps stance."

And unlike Paladin, Dark Knight doesn't have sheltron which can block 26% of damage, which is usually enough on its own. The fact that TBN needs to be paired with something for more powerful tankbusters is pointing a light on the kit. Paladin has it bad with tank stance swapping, but lets not forget grit is on the GCD, has triple the mana cost, and clips into your next GCD big time to take it off. Its not worlds apart better.

Back in HW during gordias, a PLD could not compete with the other tanks without being at least 10 ilvls ahead. In SB, this has not been the case with DRK. It can do all content at a similar ilvl as other tanks and is very well capable of dealing damage that's within the realm of the other two tanks.

It isn't as bad a Gordias, but not as bad doesn't mean we should repeat the same mistake and make one job do less in virtually all respects. There are three tanks, I cannot beleive that it is so hard to find a unique domain for three jobs. The healer situation seems great. Again, there can only be one meta, but each class should have a domain it excels in. I cannot really think of one for dark knight.

This all said, DRK is performing its job just fine. It's not weak, in terms of damage nor in mitigation. Is it weaker than the other tanks in those aspects? Sure, but it's not ruining the job. It's not a reason to cry to SE that your job has been neutered simply because you lack an answer to PLD/WAR's divine veil/SiO. "Party utility," as exemplified by the earlier version of WAR, isn't exactly a strong case for what a tank needs.

In three jobs it is weaker in terms of utility, mitigation, and damage. So everything is fine? K.

If someone is struggling with DRK, maybe just maybe it's not the job but the player.

Relevance? I'm pretty sure you can be good at a job and recognize that it seems to be lagging behind jobs performing a similar role.