after leveling Paladin ... Dark Knight just feels really squishy

[Phoenicia]

I don't think this is the case; OP is saying he HARDLY need to put them on (on pulls) while he does need it on DRK (uptime is not in question if he's not using the skill at all.

I think the shield is the think changing things here;

In FF XIV:

All tanks can Parry (with weapon) (a succesfull parry grants damage reduction on the parried hit)
PALs can Block (With shields) OR Parry (with swords) (a succesfull block grants an higher damage reduction on the blocked hit)

So if 10 enemies are hitting you (as DRK) and you have a 10% chance of parry you'll reduce 1 hit out of 10 (not much)

if the same enemies are hitting you (as PAL) you'll problably block one and parry another one

This works really well with flash (that blinds) especially on low level enemies (not immune to blind). Flash is (indirectly) a def CD if the enemyes are blindable (and you'd use it anyway at least once).


On the opposite side PALs dont get any decent DPS skill 'till lvl 60ish; you could argue that this is not as important as the lack of survival skills (on a tank) but usually fast-killing a boss pays better than the "play safe" from what i could see 'till now

It's not that simple. The fact that when OP pulled he HARDLY needed to put them on can be attributed to many things, none of them is: "PLD mitigates more than DRK/WAR without CD". They could have simply had better healers while on PLD.

First of all, you can't block AND parry. Since this game hit-table checks for misses, then crits, then blocks, then parries, a PLD will parry much less than WAR/DRK (their parry chance is reduced by the same chance% of their block). So in your example, if you block 10% of the time, you'll only parry 9%. But in reality, parry is negligible without a CD that forces it. Tanks have base parry chance of 5%. If PLD has 20% chance to dodge, they're already at 4%. My PLD which is in BiS has near 40% block chance (I have 100% chance to block with Bulwark up now), so my parry can't be more than 3% unless I abuse Anticipation usage, and even then, Anticipation gives my PLD only 22% chance to parry instead of 30% of total attacks. WAR and DRK will parry more than a PLD ever will. As a matter of fact, you should disregard parry's existence as a PLD. I mean even DRK and WAR do lol.

Second, RNG mitigation is available to other tanks. WAR gains more parry from its gauge, DRK can AoE blind with Dark Arts Dark Passenger. DRK and WAR also have abilities to heal through their damage to make up for any mitigation lost. For a PLD to heal, they drop their ability to block by casting Clemency.

Third, RNG mitigation is NOT reliable. As I mentioned in my earlier post, damage shifts from many attacks that add up to many smaller attacks that add up and certain abilities to watch for, and should your RNG mitigative tool "fail" to mitigate the one hit that matters, you will take very nasty damage.

Last but not least, the fact block is stronger than parry is already balanced by having longer CD on all their defensives. Bulwark is twice as long as Raw Intuition and 3 times as long as Dark Mind for example. Sentinel is 50% longer than Shadow Wall and Vengeance, and lasts only 66% as long as the latter. Hallowed Ground is limited to 1 usage per fight as opposed to "abuse for half the nasties" that Holmgang allows you to. List goes on.

One additional thing: Due to lack of good AoE damage options, AoE pulls with a PLD simply take longer than they would if you had WAR or DRK. Stretching periods of high damage longer than necessary. This alone makes PLD simply the worst tank in AoE scenarios.

For more details, there are many posts scattered here on the forums by me and other better tanks that show the major differences between the tanks' sources of mitigation, DPS and utility.

[Kabooa]

It's not that simple.

Things rarely are, but Paladin as a baseline is more durable than the other two. That much is that simple. It's through active cooldown use where everyone ends up about even, but Dark Knights don't get their complete mitigation kit until 70, which is why this topic came about.

In short, shields OP.

[Hierro]

As one of the biggest proponents for DRK, even I have to say that anything below cap is pretty bad compared to the other tanks. Still, so long as you play smart with your cross roles, DADP, and stay in grit for all trash pulls, you'll be fine.

[Izsha]

1-69 is a crapshoot for all tanks. You gain access to different parts of your kit at different levels vs other tanks. But it's over so fast I wouldnt really worry about it. All tanks will survive the road to 70 and mass pulls really depend on a very solid team to do in level capped dungeons. Tank has to be good, healer has to he good, dos have to kill things fast enough. The entire team needs to he on point for mass pulls without the ilvl advantage you suddenly get at lv 50, 60, and 70. It all self corrects kn the end.

[Lubu_Mykono]

Dark Knight really doesnt come alive until you get the Blackest Night at 70. The other Stormblood actions are just not as intuitive to use.

[Steelbreeze]

DRK really is squishier than PLD, particularly in synched content. I know drk fanboys (or girls) really really want them to be equal in mitigation but they really aren't. I learned this both while leveling drk/pld and while leveling any healer.

[shao32]

DRK really is squishier than PLD, particularly in synched content. I know drk fanboys (or girls) really really want them to be equal in mitigation but they really aren't. I learned this both while leveling drk/pld and while leveling any healer.

DRK is not more squishier that PLD, is in fact the most solid tank against magic content and it's equal on physical fights, only on leveling where DRK missed most of his primary tools it's pretty bad for the overall bad desing they give us this expansion.

[Izsha]

A few people have taken "drk is squishy' out of context. Pre 70 (the point of the thread) drk is squishy. It gets to on-demand, free spam mitigation at lv 70. At 70 it's a different story, but pre 70 drk is a little rough. But it's still functional for the hour you might be any given level.

[Noldornir]

It's not that simple. The fact that when OP pulled he HARDLY needed to put them on can be attributed to many things, none of them is: "PLD mitigates more than DRK/WAR without CD". They could have simply had better healers while on PLD.

Indeed, i'm presuming OP tested many times (with many variables changing) before submitting

First of all, you can't block AND parry. Since this game hit-table checks for misses, then crits, then blocks, then parries, a PLD will parry much less than WAR/DRK (their parry chance is reduced by the same chance% of their block). So in your example, if you block 10% of the time, you'll only parry 9%. But in reality, parry is negligible without a CD that forces it. Tanks have base parry chance of 5%. If PLD has 20% chance to dodge, they're already at 4%. My PLD which is in BiS has near 40% block chance (I have 100% chance to block with Bulwark up now), so my parry can't be more than 3% unless I abuse Anticipation usage, and even then, Anticipation gives my PLD only 22% chance to parry instead of 30% of total attacks. WAR and DRK will parry more than a PLD ever will. As a matter of fact, you should disregard parry's existence as a PLD. I mean even DRK and WAR do lol.

I think one should NEVER disregard something that's free (like the passive chanche to parry) especially early on. All the calculation you are making are good but based on the "long run" (overall chanche that something will happen) . WAR and DRK will indeed parry more (cause they can't block it FIRST). The only think not accounted is that parry chanche is "just another thing" that COULD happen in case you could not dodge/block:

let's say enemy as a base chanche to hit you of 100% (won't account crit/dh) and gives you 100 hits on both:

A PAL (20%dodge + 30%block + 10%Parry) (Clarification: i'm using random nambers)
A WAR/DRK (20% dodge + 10%parry)

let's also presume both tanks are not using any cooldown to raise such percentages (OP is not saying DRK is weak he's just stating it NEEDS CD always on while PAL doesn't); they'r just getting hit like a dummy target.

On the PAL:

-20 Hits will miss: 80 will land
-of these 80 the 30% (24) will be blocked= now we have a total of 56 hits remaining
-of these 56 the 10% (5.6) will be parried= 50.4 Hits Remaining

Total:

51 (rounding 50.4) Standard Hits
20 MISSES
24 Blocks
5 (rounding 5.6) Parries



On the other tank:

-20 Hits will miss: 80 will land
-of these 80 the 10% (8) will be parried= now we have a total of 72 Remaining hits.

Total:

72 Standard Hits
20 MISSES
8 PARRIES

As you can see, even with diminishing returns (which will always happen in a damage reduction calculation based on percentages) the double chanche is something not to take lightly. In truth the difference between chanches is minimal (the PAL parried 3 hits less than the other BUT also blocked 24)

Second, RNG mitigation is available to other tanks. WAR gains more parry from its gauge, DRK can AoE blind with Dark Arts Dark Passenger. DRK and WAR also have abilities to heal through their damage to make up for any mitigation lost. For a PLD to heal, they drop their ability to block by casting Clemency.

AoE Blind is available to PALs as well (Flash); PALs can't use clemency/holy spirits in the levels he's talking about (they can't DPS at all as well). While DPS->SelfHeal can be too little early on on levels to be noticed (no substantial damage)

Third, RNG mitigation is NOT reliable. As I mentioned in my earlier post, damage shifts from many attacks that add up to many smaller attacks that add up and certain abilities to watch for, and should your RNG mitigative tool "fail" to mitigate the one hit that matters, you will take very nasty damage.

I feel that you are a very strong and experienced player (from the things you say) but you are not accounting that the original statement have been made with a situational dogma in mind: OP IS STILL LEVELLING.

What you stated is true in a bossfight, you can't rely on blocking a Death Sentence (you use an active ability when you want to be SURE) but in a pull with 6+ enemyes hitting you passive RNG mitigation starts to get better; in fact block/parry/dodge is much more efficient on 10 low pwr hits than in 1 heavy pwr hit (in the latter as you say one should not rely on it, you cant just "hope" to block the tankbuster

Last but not least, the fact block is stronger than parry is already balanced by having longer CD on all their defensives. Bulwark is twice as long as Raw Intuition and 3 times as long as Dark Mind for example. Sentinel is 50% longer than Shadow Wall and Vengeance, and lasts only 66% as long as the latter. Hallowed Ground is limited to 1 usage per fight as opposed to "abuse for half the nasties" that Holmgang allows you to. List goes on.

It IS balanced, as you say, in fact OP is stating "I can't do it without DEF CD while with PAL i can". Pal will not even use a CD in a pull most times (PALs save it cause they can't use em so frequently)

One additional thing: Due to lack of good AoE damage options, AoE pulls with a PLD simply take longer than they would if you had WAR or DRK. Stretching periods of high damage longer than necessary. This alone makes PLD simply the worst tank in AoE scenarios.

For more details, there are many posts scattered here on the forums by me and other better tanks that show the major differences between the tanks' sources of mitigation, DPS and utility.

Now you are wounding me deeply

You are correct, Due to lack of good AoE damage options, AoE pulls with a PLD simply take longer than they would if you had WAR or DRK

AoE Pulling with a PAL while exping is a PAIN especially in a random with ppl random targetting enemies/running in front of you/fucking up in general; before LvL 30 a PAL needs to flash 2-3 times in order not loosing aggro (with maybe a combo or two inbetween - NO MORE) pulling with a WAR/DRK is SO MUCH BETTER.

Killing an almost dead boss when your party wiped with a DRK/WAR at lvl 30-50 is MUCH MORE easy than doing it with a PAL (you could survive eons sure, while comboing Rage of Halone on him cause you can only do that).

These differences tends to fade off at 70 due to all tanks having their complete toolkits.

In short:

A low-LvL PAL is more tough but will loose aggro pretty easily if overnumbered
a low-LvL DRK will have an harder time to survive but is unlikely to loose aggro

Later on skills such as The Blackest Night to improve a DRK resistance overall and Goring Blade/Royal Authority-Requiescat+Holy Spirit to give PALs something to attack with

[Daniolaut]

In light of this thread, and it’s responses, I hope everyone is looking forward to 5.0 and even more removal of abilities and further imbalance of jobs at lower levels!

My suggestion is everyone just organize their hot bars, it’s not so difficult.

This coming from a gamepad user, who uses and has every ability on their hotbar with plenty of space still!

-On topic. DRK has Soul Eater and Abyssal Drain. Though not as powerful as a shield, should always be used. Essentially I have seen DRK’s repeatedly using power slash. This is not the way to go, in fact, once you get soul eater, should never be used unless you’re losing threat.