What is the General Consensus?

[Aana]

Um ... my response was that it was more behind than what you were implying with the way you were presenting the information.
While the importance and weight value of damage potential versus other facets of a job can be debated, the value of those other aspects can not be conveniently ignored even if individually they are lesser.

Significantly implies a level of severity that I never leveled with my response, so please don't put words in my mouth. I am more than capable of speaking for myself.

>>> can be described as significantly more than >. Triple is pretty significant. Or more, greater, increased, larger, notable. Take your pick it is really not important to the post. The crux of the post to cronos hardly hinges on using 'significantly' or 'more' when simply summarizing the path of posts that got here as we had gotten quite far into the weeds and felt lost sight of the original points we were going for. It was really not an remotely important point as it was a flyby to give context in the post and hardly worth picking out. Hardly trying to 'speak for you'.

I think that a problem with what you are saying is that you are calling out the opinions that DRK players are presenting as being overly "loud", over the top and hyperbolic, however by painting with such a broad stroke as well as being arguably hyperbolic in your portrayal of opinions being presented and what is being said, you are yourself enacting that which you are decrying.

There is no doubt that some people exaggerate about DRK, both with how bad it currently is as well as how perfectly fine it is. There are also a good number of people that are quite rational and measured when discussing DRK (as well as the other tanks) and tend to openly disagree with both extreme sides of the argument.

Perhaps people should slow down a bit on trying to "win" and be "right", take a step back and have a good look at what they are saying, how they are saying it and perhaps most importantly, why they are saying what they are saying in the way they are saying it while treating themselves with the same level of scrutiny they are giving to others.

The post was in response to the OP who asked for concensus. As you pointed out there is no true concensus and a variety of opinions, but in the service of actually answering the OP's question I divided my response into 2 parts instead of giving a thesis on the nuances of Drk in the current meta and content vs War/Pld. Broad strokes to a broad question. As comments piled up on the nuances of the differences the discussion predictably went much farther into the weeds. But answering a broad question with a simplistic, yet generally true answer is not an affront. "Whats the concensus on drk?" "Its slightly behind but if you casually read the forum and take it at face value you will probably get the idea that drk is significantly (definite intentional 'severity' implied) more behind than it is.

Yes its more nuanced. Yes there are reasonable posts and people. Of course its a group of people, not an individual. But when considering the actual point of this thread, it is not unreasonable to state that, on balance, if you knew nothing about the state of tanks and read these forums and took it at face value, you would have an exaggerated idea about the state of tanks and the 'consensus' of it. Primarily because Drks are the loud group on the forums. If they had come in at 4.0, it would have been "Forums will make you think War is much worse than it is because they are obscenely loud about their grievances". Replace 4.0 and War with X.0 and Y Class at any point in any game and any class/faction/thing. It will hold true. If characterizing the vocal minority as making more noise and exaggerating their grievances is to 'broad' a stroke then so be it. Ill stand by that 7 days a week.

[Chrono_Rising]

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Since you seem to feel people don't remember the progression of the conversation lets actually go through it:

Data:
War>Pld>Drk

Forum 'concensus':
War>>Pld>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Drk

War does most DPS. Pld a smidge behind war. Drk a smidge behind pld. Each by a couple % in damage.

Pld/War mitigation kits are solid and jockey for 1st based on how much a war is in tank stance. Drk is behind by X amount in mitigation (depending on how its measured. Its an inexact science) but still has enough mitigation to be effective in all content.

Group support: Pld by miles>War (shake it off)> Drk TBN. While nice, are not nearly as important as the volume on official forums suggests.

Drk is behind by a bit in every category that matters, but only by relatively small amounts. It's entirely usable. Just not optimal. But anything that is even a fraction of a % suboptimal is always slammed as 'useless', 'unplayable', 'broken' and 100 other hyperbolic terms.

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness exaggerates them on every count.

This is the post in question.

Data:
War>Pld>Drk

Up to here we are good. This matches what 99% of the posts have said in this thread in nearly exactly the same degree of magnitude.

Forum 'concensus':
War>>Pld>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Drk

Ok, well using this thread as its own survey of forum consensus, this hyperbole. Why? Because the vast majority of the posts before this were completely well measured in their analysis. You then threw in this inflammatory judgment on the nature of people's complaints, while at the same time engaging in the same behavior you are accusing the vocal minority for.

War does most DPS. Pld a smidge behind war. Drk a smidge behind pld. Each by a couple % in damage.

Pld/War mitigation kits are solid and jockey for 1st based on how much a war is in tank stance. Drk is behind by X amount in mitigation (depending on how its measured. Its an inexact science) but still has enough mitigation to be effective in all content.

Again, you are in agreement here, I would say warrior is more than a "slightly" above paladin, and by extension dark knight, but "smidge" isn't an exact term by nature. Max data suggests around 9% different between warrior and dark knight. But again fairly reasonable.

Group support: Pld by miles>War (shake it off)> Drk TBN. While nice, are not nearly as important as the volume on official forums suggests.

This is where I come in with my post. A good portion of meta strats rely on the defensive utilities in question, the fact that dark knight is lackign here is part of the issue with the class. I listed a number of them in later posts. Part of what makes those strats optimal is the very thing you are saying is not important. Without the defensive utilities people's uptime would drop and speed clears would suffer, that actually is significant. Dark contributes nearly nothing, if not nothing to this process. There is a reason meta strats utilize defensive utility, because it is significant for increasing uptime to shave off those precious few seconds. When comparing apples to apples (and not cover to trick attack) Warrior and paladin are bringing more dps to the table, and are increasing other's dps with their utilities, Dark Knight is not, and it is noticeable.

Drk is behind by a bit in every category that matters, but only by relatively small amounts. It's entirely usable. Just not optimal. But anything that is even a fraction of a % suboptimal is always slammed as 'useless', 'unplayable', 'broken' and 100 other hyperbolic terms.

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness exaggerates them on every count.

You start by recognizing the argument pushed by dark knights, Dark Knight is behind in three relevant metrics which pushes dark knight into a more distant third, and then pass judgement on the claim with the "fractions of a %" "useless" "unplayable" I will double check but I don't see this in the majority of the posts in this thread using this language. You are the person who is pushing the hyperbole, and then blaming dark knights for it, when you are literally reading these words into peoples feedback. You are getting annoyed at the playbase for vocalizing their complaints to the dev team in the only way that it can be done. By the way since your posts have become so keen on the "answering the OP's question" bit, this analysis of your opinion of the forums feelings on the matter are completely outside of the OPs original question.

9% behind warrior dps is not fractions of a percent behind.
1 extremely questionable utility is not fractions of a % behind paladins 4 utilities, or warriors 1 strong utility.
The defensive utilities are widely used by groups, and form a core part of speed running strategy, it is an important factor.

The reason for your judgement is based on shaky ground at best, and you are engaging in hyperbole in the opposite direction. Oh and as for this:

If they had come in at 4.0, it would have been "Forums will make you think War is much worse than it is because they are obscenely loud about their grievances". Replace 4.0 and War with X.0 and Y Class at any point in any game and any class/faction/thing. It will hold true. If characterizing the vocal minority as making more noise and exaggerating their grievances is to 'broad' a stroke then so be it. Ill stand by that 7 days a week.

Its funny looking at your main warrior class's post history, as well as the alt that you are currently on, I don't see the same level of arguing with 4.0 warrior buffs in warrior threads. Only Dark Knights, maybe we could acknowledge the bias here and let people have their discussions free of accusations and judgement. Where is the outrage when its our class trying to get buffs and changes? Apparently those weren't days of the week.

[Aana]

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You consistently reference 'this thread' as a basis for refuting my comments about the 'consensus' of the tank forum. This thread is not the tank forum and you would be hard pressed to refute that the forum has not been booked solid with Drk threads for MONTHS. The OP asked about the consensus of the state of tanks. Based on the forum history, it's plainly obvious that the vast majority of threads and posts on the Tank subfourm are Drk complaints/reworks and that a great many threads on other tanks are constantly derailed into Drk QQ. There are reasonable posts scattered around within these threads of course. But once again the concluding line of my very 1st post in this thread:

There is truth to much of the forum complaints. But the extreme loudness (read: sheer volume of posts and threads) exaggerates them on every count.

As said multiple times, If you were to read this forum as a whole looking for the state of tanking at face value, you would have a warped sense of the current state of tanks. This thread is not 'the forum'. This forum has been overflowing with Drk tears for months and that is not up for debate. You have been here the whole time to witness it. Just because you and a few others happen to frequently post measured, reasonable posts does not change the thousands and thousands of QQ posts, threads, and consistently derailing discussion about other topic into more Drk sadness. The consensus of this FORUM (not this singular specific thread. Why would anyone post in a thread to explain the consensus of the thread it's posted in? That makes no sense. Just read the thread.) exaggerates how bad a spot drk is in.

Starting off stating the 'reasonable' view of War>Pld>Drk is fine with you (as you agree with it), yet also tossing a warning that the forum can mislead you into thinking War>Pld>>(insert unimportant number of >> for emphasis)>>Drk is somehow an insult? Saying that thousands and thousands of QQ posts, threads and derailments is being 'loud' is offensive? Its simply true. The point was that you should trust the reasonable judgement based on data, not the thousands of QQ posts littered throughout the fourms. I back this up with the fact that Drk's volume of clamoring matches every non-meta thing in most every forum and should be taken with a grain of salt, just like every other case. Why is there such a pushback against sayind Pld>War>Drk and beware the exaggerated QQ posts all over the forum when determining the 'consensus' on tanks? I get that you are part of the drk community, but you should also easily see that they are, on balance, loud and can easily misrepresent the actual state of drk in this game, just like every non-meta thing before or after them. Why anyone needs to defend the blatantly obvious fact that the forums have been full of QQ on Drk for months is beyond me. It's plain as day.

War>Pld>Drk. Don't buy into all the negative hype that Drk is some shit tier unplayable job, which is what you might believe if you followed the forum consensus (based on the forum history for months). This is not some absurd claim, or evil attack.

[Chrono_Rising]

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I'm not going to continue to argue with you Aana. If you need to be told 4 times now what was wrong with your post then you are beyond what I can offer.