What is the General Consensus?

[Chrono_Rising]

Clue 1: There is a reason you don't see dark knights in speed kills using TBN every 15 seconds. If it was DPS neutral people would absolutely be looking to maximize this skill usage in order to maximize healer damage. Once again, TBN is powerful mitigation, but it isn't as strong as paladin's kit against reasonably spaced tank busters, and it isn't as powerful as warrior's kit which covers both busters and fluff damage. Dark Knight mitigation shines more in god kefka where there are frequent magical tank busters, but progging with warrior/paladin comp the advantages offered seem really overblown.

Clue 2: The fact that warriors are getting away with only using a subset of their kit doesn't point to the kit being weak.

DRK basically doesnt sacrifice anything, maybe soul eater drain when out of grit stance, thats it. He is absolutely fine tanking, dealing damage and healing himself at the same time. Warrior could do the same, but then he does less dps anyway.

How are dark knights self-healing themselves? Are we talking about the undesirable grit locked soul eater that warrior has access to in both stances? Are we talking about Sole Survivor that can only be used on adds once every 2 minutes if the raid just happens to include them (thankfully more did include adds this tier)? Or are we just talking about plain old abyssal drain which does little inside a raid?

Warrior's might give up a chunk of dps when trying to do something similar, but hey, if you are healing yourself its usually a "do or wipe" situation, and in that context warrior does it better and more effectively than anything dark knight can do. Same can be said for paladin, if the chips are down, spam clemency and pray will get your further than grit and soul eater.

To be fair, I don't agree with the DRKs that they are lacking mitigation. I guess the only place that they are below the other tanks mitigation wise is V3. The problems that DRK has are more related to its DPS and the lack of things like burst windows, utility, anti-knockback tools and enmity generation tools. Also DRK has an overall poor design skillset.

I agree, the only thing I would want to see changed about dark knight mitigation kit is a physical analog to dark mind for leveling purposes and to make the dark knight mitigation more well rounded.

Overall I think the lacking dps is the bigger issue the class faces.

[Nedkel]

How are dark knights self-healing themselves? Are we talking about the undesirable grit locked soul eater that warrior has access to in both stances? Are we talking about Sole Survivor that can only be used on adds once every 2 minutes if the raid just happens to include them (thankfully more did include adds this tier)? Or are we just talking about plain old abyssal drain which does little inside a raid?

Warrior's might give up a chunk of dps when trying to do something similar, but hey, if you are healing yourself its usually a "do or wipe" situation, and in that context warrior does it better and more effectively than anything dark knight can do. Same can be said for paladin, if the chips are down, spam clemency and pray will get your further than grit and soul eater.

You cant use equilibrium in deliverance, you are left with the thrill of battle and storm paths combo and shake it off, with 90 and 120 cd and a GCD little heal, when DRK has still TBN. :P

Comparing DRK in grit stance to warrior in defiance, DRK does more dps, where war has more mitigation, and the similar healing power as DRK it may be a little higher but not by too much, soul eater still is the thing.

[Chrono_Rising]

You cant use equilibrium in deliverance, you are left with the thrill of battle and storm paths combo and shake it off, with 90 and 120 cd and a GCD little heal, when DRK has still TBN. :P

TBN is not healing, it is mitigation. It shields your for 20% of your HP but unless we want to really muddy the waters with whether or not all mitigation is a form of self healing then I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Warrior might not have access to some of these things out of its tank stance, but it can switch into its tank stance for access to something like equilibrium for nearly free every 90 seconds. Of course Inner beast is still a dps loss so spending gauge on that might not be the best idea unless you need it.

Comparing DRK in grit stance to warrior in defiance, DRK does more dps, where war has more mitigation, and the similar healing power as DRK it may be a little higher but not by too much, soul eater still is the thing.

This is just plain false. Warrior's have numerous moves which ignore their stance penalty, which is exactly the same penalty than dark knight has. If you have proof otherwise please share it because right now this just seems false. Warrior is losing access to Fell Cleaves, but dark knight is losing access to blood weapon, which means less blood and less mana for enhancing attacks. In general tanks are hit with a 25% penalty for being in tank stance.

[Xan_Kriegor]

I also don't know the numbers. Once I heard that all of the three tanks lose something like ~35% of their DPS if they stay the entire fight in Tank Stance. But it doesn't matter to our discussion because there is no need to stay in tank stance the entire fight. We were talking about situations in which a tank may want to go to defensive stance to use some extra mitigation and avoid a wipe. In this scenario the stance dance that WAR has is better than the DRK's which is better than PLD's.

[Chrono_Rising]

I also don't know the numbers. Once I heard that all of the three tanks lose something like ~35% of their DPS if they stay the entire fight in Tank Stance. But it doesn't matter to our discussion because there is no need to stay in tank stance the entire fight. We were talking about situations in which a tank may want to go to defensive stance to use some extra mitigation and avoid a wipe. In this scenario the stance dance that WAR has is better than the DRK's which is better than PLD's.

I think 25% is more accurate. And I agree. However, if they wanted to fix something on warrior I would want to see deliverance restore their full HP on activation, and apply healing up to all healing not just casts, and also allow for inner beast to be used out of tank stance.

I think TBN suffers because by comparison sheltron is amazing for both increasing dps and also mitigating a ton of damage if you are getting hit for more than something like 80% of your max HP. In general I think this is a design issue that blocking is so powerful for every type of damage, while the type specific mitigation are mitigating less and only some attacks.

[Nedkel]

TBN is not healing, it is mitigation. It shields your for 20% of your HP but unless we want to really muddy the waters with whether or not all mitigation is a form of self healing then I don't think this is a road we want to go down. Warrior might not have access to some of these things out of its tank stance, but it can switch into its tank stance for access to something like equilibrium for nearly free every 90 seconds. Of course Inner beast is still a dps loss so spending gauge on that might not be the best idea unless you need it.



This is just plain false. Warrior's have numerous moves which ignore their stance penalty, which is exactly the same penalty than dark knight has. If you have proof otherwise please share it because right now this just seems false. Warrior is losing access to Fell Cleaves, but dark knight is losing access to blood weapon, which means less blood and less mana for enhancing attacks. In general tanks are hit with a 25% penalty for being in tank stance.

Unchained is a 4.4% dps boost (taking cd into consideration), berserk is 10%, storm eye is 10%, inner release on defiance is a waste imho.

It is even with DRK, but the DRK combo is way stronger than the Warrior, its 840 potency for DRK + 475 bloodspiller, warriors one is only 640 and +350 inner beast.
Not to mention DRK plunge or slated earth, i dont know how you see DRK worse in DPS in tank stance, its not even comparable.

Warrior could change the stance for equilibrum, but the stance themselves are 10 sec cd and it just hurts your DPS to switch between them.

[Chrono_Rising]

Unchained is a 4.4% dps boost (taking cd into consideration), berserk is 10%, storm eye is 10%, inner release on defiance is a waste imho.

It is even with DRK, but the DRK combo is way stronger than the Warrior, its 840 potency for DRK + 475 bloodspiller, warriors one is only 640 and +350 inner beast.
Not to mention DRK plunge or slated earth, i dont know how you see DRK worse in DPS in tank stance, its not even comparable.

Warrior could change the stance for equilibrum, but the stance themselves are 10 sec cd and it just hurts your DPS to switch between them.

You have missed the point of the warrior tool set. Inner release in deliverance is warrior's highest potency move, because it is not augmented by tank stance, and it is up frequently this will balance out with the less frequent bloodspiller.

The 475 bloodspillers are nice, but is lowered slightly by tank stance, and also less frequently used compared to inner beast. You can make this look as bad as you want by comparing base potency to base potency without factoring in things like damage buffs and stance penalties. You can also wave your hands at things like salted earth and other Dark oGCD's without even mentioning that warrior has some as well, but you aren't really presenting a balanced case, it seems more like you are intentionally skewing things to make a point.

All tanks lose about the same percentage of their dps in tank stance. Warrior does more damage out of tank stance compared to dark knight, and so I expect it to be higher when both have similar penalties imposed. You can wave your hands at combo potency as much as you please, but nothing short of an excel spreadsheet and damage calculator would convince me that the difference in potency is unbalanced between the two in tank stance, especially compared to the relatively simple argument many have presented before you.

As far as the stance changing immediately hurting your dps you can stop it by: planning an unchained use to minimize it to nearly nothing and even gain dps on moves like upheaval to minimize any losses even further. The main point here is that if you needed that clutch self heal on warrior you can go into tank stance and gain access easily, all moves involved are oGCD. Dark Knight loses a GCD going into tank stance and then spends 3 GCD's trying to restore its HP at an 80% reduction thanks to tank stance. The main point here being that if you are about to die the non optimal thing to do is to continue to dps and not try to save yourself.

[Nedkel]

You have missed the point of the warrior tool set. Inner release in deliverance is warrior's highest potency move, because it is not augmented by tank stance, and it is up frequently this will balance out with the less frequent bloodspiller.

The 475 bloodspillers are nice, but is lowered slightly by tank stance, and also less frequently used compared to inner beast. You can make this look as bad as you want by comparing base potency to base potency without factoring in things like damage buffs and stance penalties. You can also wave your hands at things like salted earth and other Dark oGCD's without even mentioning that warrior has some as well, but you aren't really presenting a balanced case, it seems more like you are intentionally skewing things to make a point.

All tanks lose about the same percentage of their dps in tank stance. Warrior does more damage out of tank stance compared to dark knight, and so I expect it to be higher when both have similar penalties imposed. You can wave your hands at combo potency as much as you please, but nothing short of an excel spreadsheet and damage calculator would convince me that the difference in potency is unbalanced between the two in tank stance, especially compared to the relatively simple argument many have presented before you.

As far as the stance changing immediately hurting your dps you can stop it by: planning an unchained use to minimize it to nearly nothing and even gain dps on moves like upheaval to minimize any losses even further. The main point here is that if you needed that clutch self heal on warrior you can go into tank stance and gain access easily, all moves involved are oGCD. Dark Knight loses a GCD going into tank stance and then spends 3 GCD's trying to restore its HP at an 80% reduction thanks to tank stance. The main point here being that if you are about to die the non optimal thing to do is to continue to dps and not try to save yourself.

Bloodspiller is not lowered by tank stance, DRK has 0 dmg penalty on tank stance because of Darkside.
It will remain 475 potency ability, with no damage penalty.
I may be less frequent but it does not matter, because 1-2-3 combo is still way stronger than warrior get.

There is no way warrior in tank stance could do more damage than DRK in tank stance, not even a chance in hell.
I could demonstrate it with the numbers, in the 60 seconds of time the DRK in tank stance, comparing to warrior using only highest potency combo, inner beast use with generated furry gauge with combo and infuriate, considering all the buffs unchained, inner release inner beast 5 times use and even 10% bonus dmg from storms eye combo is 880 potency lower than DRK using 1-2-3 combo, salted earth, plunge, carve and spit without bloodspiller.
I could show you the numbers if you want.

[SaberYukihira]

There is no way warrior in tank stance could do more damage than DRK in tank stance, not even a chance in hell.
I could demonstrate it with the numbers, in the 60 seconds of time the DRK in tank stance, comparing to warrior using only highest potency combo, inner beast use with generated furry gauge with combo and infuriate, considering all the buffs unchained, inner release inner beast 5 times use and even 10% bonus dmg from storms eye combo is 880 potency lower than DRK using 1-2-3 combo, salted earth, plunge, carve and spit without bloodspiller.
I could show you the numbers if you want.

The fact you are talking about doing a fight in tank stance already means you're not tanking correctly. There is literally no point in arguing what tank does more in tank stance since you should not be using it other than on pull for MT.