Dark Knight Current State

[Lyth]

Given that there's an entire thread previously dedicated to this on the front page of the forums, I'm guessing that the answer to your question is inside here. And here. And here.

As far as dungeons are concerned, DRK is really fun. There's a lot of interplay between abilities and resources. Blood, MP, and Lifesteal all build off of each other, and you're overflowing in resources. TBN, Quietus, Blood Weapon, and Abyssal Drain all play off of each other. If DRK played in single target anything like it does in AoE, it would be another thing entirely. The job that really suffers in this category is actually PLD. I know a few people like the defensive potential of Clemency and block, but I really hope that this area of their kit gets re-evaluated in the next expansion.

As far as raid content is concerned, all three tanks have been viable throughout this expansion. They were all viable at launch, when a vocal minority of WAR mains complained about "utility" and being a bit behind in dps. They were all viable before the completely unnecessary WAR rework in 4.2, when tank balance was at its absolute worst. You don't need to be particularly observant to see why change was necessary.

The message in 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and now 4.4 has always been the same. If you like a job, and you're good at it, you will find groups who want you, and you will clear content on it.

Change is difficult, though. The devs have found a formula that seems to work in the short term, so they've stuck with it. Why experiment if it seems to produce results? 1-2 dungeons, 1 primal, 4 disconnected raid bosses per patch. Grind fates for widgets/light to build a redundant relic. People like WAR? Promote WAR to promote tanking. Give everyone more Fell Cleaves. Turn every tank into an inferior WAR clone. Excitement ensues.

The problem is that it gets old, at 6 years and counting. MMOs are built around a revolving door model, but they still need to adapt, evolve, and re-invent themselves in order to keep their playerbase. The formula is getting old. The dominant jobs are getting old. It's time for a change. And the starting point is to break down the systematic advantages that make certain jobs perennially dominant and make room for more unique and varied job identities.

[Phileas]

For me it was locking blood price behind grit and the loss of dark dance and 3.0 reprisal that killed it for me....

DRK had lots of great synergies in 3.0 that they gutted in 4.0. Right now my main gripe is that it just doesn’t feel good anymore. Of course my view differs from those that started with DRK in 4.0 but I feel a sense of loss losing those abilities and TBN and the blood abilities didn’t make up for it.

[DRKoftheAzure]

For me it was locking blood price behind grit and the loss of dark dance and 3.0 reprisal that killed it for me....

DRK had lots of great synergies in 3.0 that they gutted in 4.0. Right now my main gripe is that it just doesn’t feel good anymore. Of course my view differs from those that started with DRK in 4.0 but I feel a sense of loss losing those abilities and TBN and the blood abilities didn’t make up for it.

Basically what you said plus the loss of potential combining of 2 weaponskills(Scourge and Delirium) and I know people like Scourge for it's animation but I prefered the old Delirium because of animation but it got relegated to Cross Role Silence that doesn't even do damage, along with a bunch DRK abilities relagated to Cross Role abilities that do no damage and are just there to make for the fact the devs needed to fill in space for cross role because the suits told them to...

[Seraphor]

Locking Blood Price behind Grit makes sense though.

You basically have either Price or Weapon depending on if youre in tank stance or not.
The former gains mp by getting hit (tank) the latter gains mp by hitting (dps).

Now if they could be consolidated into the same skill so I'm not gimped by the macro I made to combine then, that'd be great.

[Valkorian]

I MT DRK on all the raids trials etc. even in the savage and extreme's currently out. I enjoy the rotation of the class and to me its more fun the PLD and WAR, but that's preference. Any class is viable, there are just those elitists who have to have their opinion and want to force everyone to it. Dont worry about what others say, play how and what you want. I suggest finding a good FC and friends and playing with them, even make friends cross world. I'm on Couerl so i can't help with Mateus groups, but i'm sure there are good ones. or hit me up as a friend in game and you can run stuff with me and my fc.

[udubdave]

I play both Dark Knight and Paladin. Even though Dark Knight can tank any content out there right now, including savage raids, I prefer to bring my Paladin because the DPS is about the same on both, but Paladin just brings more to the raid in terms of utility.

[saltlife]

Feeling squishy as a DRK could be from a few things such as low gear item level on either you or the healer, or it could be the healer is focusing at dps and reacting to your healthbar when it gets a bit lower.

The only thing honestly wrong with DRK is the fact that when it comes to heavy partywide damage, they aren't able to mitigate them like Divine Veil or Shake It Off can. they only have Reprisal which any tank can do.

As far as damage, they're honestly fine and are actually coming close to WAR in damage if you look at the top damage dealing tanks for 4.4 Alphascape raid tier.

Gameplay wise, they can feel a bit clunky with the heavy reliance of needing to excessively use Dark Arts to buff the next skill, but during Blood Weapon can be difficult to double weave such as Dark Arts+Carve and Spit or Dark Arts+Dark Passenger. Then the mini game of managing Mana can be a bit daunting while trying to optimize yourself.

[Shiroe]

drk should be the most rewarding tank with its "difficulty" compred to the other tanks.., like making drk have the highest single target damage of all tanks..

(imo war should have the highest aoe damage but not single target.., its more befitting for a class that goes "beserk" to thrash blindly thru masses of enemies and therefore have high aoe-damage..., while the drk feels like a class with a more focused / clear killing intent)

[Grafeit]

I like he idea of the WAR and DRK and how they deal damage. I’m a vet EQ2 player (Shadowknight was the king of AoE’s and self preservation, I had hoped DRK would feel like that.)

I’ve been practicing my rotations, and honestly, now that I’m not trying to weave DA on every hit, I actually feel less pressure, and since I’m not parsing I don’t know how much less DPS I am delivering. Also, knowing about stance dancing (if that’s what you’d call it) makes me feel more useful. I haven’t done Savage yet, but I was doing Alphascape 1-4 today and MT’ed all fights. I started with Grit, and switched out on less threatening parts.

I honestly feel more comfortable now with the class and don’t feel like I am playing a bad class anymore.

I do have questions about TBN though; When do I use it, how do I know when I need to use it, and aside from throwing it on a tank if I am OT to eat a big hit..aside from saving it for emergencies, I just use it to fill up more blood.

[shao32]

I like he idea of the WAR and DRK and how they deal damage. I’m a vet EQ2 player (Shadowknight was the king of AoE’s and self preservation, I had hoped DRK would feel like that.)

I’ve been practicing my rotations, and honestly, now that I’m not trying to weave DA on every hit, I actually feel less pressure, and since I’m not parsing I don’t know how much less DPS I am delivering. Also, knowing about stance dancing (if that’s what you’d call it) makes me feel more useful. I haven’t done Savage yet, but I was doing Alphascape 1-4 today and MT’ed all fights. I started with Grit, and switched out on less threatening parts.

I honestly feel more comfortable now with the class and don’t feel like I am playing a bad class anymore.

I do have questions about TBN though; When do I use it, how do I know when I need to use it, and aside from throwing it on a tank if I am OT to eat a big hit..aside from saving it for emergencies, I just use it to fill up more blood.

TBN is your bread and butter on mitigation you always use it on tank busters with rampart or shadow wall or dark mind every single time, on big aoes you used too if there is no TB before the skill recast.
If you are a OT then is the same, you use it on the MT to help with TB only but is not enterely necesary specially on non savage content except the MT get a vuln stack or something.
Dont use it against auto attacks on single target, is complety a waste and the shield will never pops (on savage can pop but more that half of the time it will be wasted bcs the boss start casting something or doing a mechanic that dont AA you or you will overflow you blood for nothing).
On dungeons you can use it on adds pulls, TBN pops and you can use quietus to recover mana and keep spaming abyssal drain.