What about creating an ACTUAL Dark Knight?

[DonovanLifeweaver]

Spend 5% of your HP, to gain a shield of 25% HP.
Spend 10% of your HP, to fill up a gauge. As long as the gauge has something in it, you have a constant -X% dmg taken (like a tank stance)
-X% hp, to mitigate X% of an enemies damage.
etc
Anything that gives more survival, than what you are losing.
Its no different than when tanks turned tank stance off, to gain more offense.
Yet as "stupid" as it sounds, it was the correct direction to min/max.

all of which requires you to not press certain actions when too low on HP.
Is it harder to do? yeah. But thats the playstyle the OP wants.
SE didnt want harder, they wanted easier. They already knew it could be done, but didnt want to go that route.

optionj 1 to 3 kills scholar bubble
ask for an adjustment to tena to make it a viable stats so we can stack suvival instead of dps

[HWalsh]

Fairly sure this one is true about cecil.
The rest is based on other iterations of DRK in either mainline or spinoff titles.

Nope. I've played FF IV a LOT and Cecil doesn't do this. He casts some damaging spells (Fire - For example) but that's it.

He uses "Black Magic" hence Dark. When he becomes a Paladin he uses "White Magic" that's all it is.

[Xia_Thas]

Dude, it was only a joke, chill out. I know how SB works, lol

My bad. Admittedly jumped the gun, It's hard to gauge what's sarcasm and what people actually think these days.

[Nephyleem]

I'm glad to see such a silly idea creating debate.

I'll come back on an excuse I heard a lot "It makes no sence for a tank to sacrifice HP".
In virtue of what? If what you gain exceeds what you spent, it becomes viable. If you are able to steal it back from the enemy, it even becomes entirely a benefit.

I am not specially talking about a tank who would sacrifice HP for big damage. Again, we're talking of a tank. (though such a possibility would be interesting nonetheless to spice up the gameplay. But this is another story)

The vibe I had of dark knights always were fighters who spend their HP and then make up for it somehow, by lifestealing, or creating barriers. It would not kill the Scholars' if they can overlap. And still, the Scholar's only costs MPs, when the Dark Knight would need to make a bet on if he can afford to spend said health or not.

But if we talk further, we could also change how the actual filling of bloodgauge happens!
Now, it comes mostly from skills like Souleather and so. It could also come from the damage we are dealt directly. Hence another gain to lose health as it would refill their secondary ressource (hopefully do so something more interesting than just Bloodspiller or Quietus.)

The possibilities are actually near endless. Saying otherwise is either dishonesty or intellectual laziness.
All it needs it so be thought about.

And if it is too hard for some people to play...
Well, remember that some do not even need a job to be hard to suck at them.
There are some very easy jobs to content them. Why not giving some challenge to those willing to take it, for once?

I wonder...

[Reynhart]

Nope. I've played FF IV a LOT and Cecil doesn't do this. He casts some damaging spells (Fire - For example) but that's it.
He uses "Black Magic" hence Dark. When he becomes a Paladin he uses "White Magic" that's all it is.

No, Cecil doesn't use any Black Magic. However, he uses Darkness/Souleater that sacrifice its HP...unless you've played FF IV Easy Type, that removed all of his skills.

[Freyyy]

Nope. I've played FF IV a LOT and Cecil doesn't do this. He casts some damaging spells (Fire - For example) but that's it.

He uses "Black Magic" hence Dark. When he becomes a Paladin he uses "White Magic" that's all it is.

FF4 is my favourite FF title alongside FF6. Like others have said Cecil as a DRK does indeed use HP-sacrificing moves and doesn't use any black magic. Cecil is also not the first Dark Knight to appear in the franchise but he was the inspiration for every subsequent iterations since he was the first to use HP-sacrificing moves (FF3 DRK had that only in its remake, the original NES one used white magic while wielding katanas, and FF2 DRK is just a title for Leon since jobs don't exist in this game).

[MaraD_]

Nope. I've played FF IV a LOT and Cecil doesn't do this. He casts some damaging spells (Fire - For example) but that's it.

He uses "Black Magic" hence Dark. When he becomes a Paladin he uses "White Magic" that's all it is.

Darkness takes up HP, to deal damage.
I cant remember if it was called that, or Soul Eater in the SNES version.
EDIT: SNES version was "Dark Wave" (and no, he didnt have black magic. Only in the NES version of FF3 did Magic Knights have Black magic (and white magic) which was replaced with soul eater in the DS versions.

If i remember correctly, one of the SNES versions was glitched, so it doesnt eat his HP. most likely the US version. This may be why you dont know about it, since you may have only played the US SNES version. (The original JP version took HP. Plus the US team felt the need to tamper with a lot of stuff, like removing Rosas Pray ability, boss mechanics, etc)
The remakes fixed this glitch. (maybe intentional by the US team)
EDIT: seems i was beaten to the punch by the others lol

option 1 to 3 kills scholar bubble
ask for an adjustment to tenacity to make it a viable stats so we can stack survival instead of dps

Currently a SCH/AST bubble gets eaten before TBN does.
So its currently possible to reorder the priorities to eat HP before temp HP, based on the games current programming.

As for tenacity, it does need a slight buff, but not too much, it still needs to be less than the other options.
It would be possible to "balance it" based on a tank buff that raises their own Tenacity by a %.
As a replacement to some other forms of mitigation. It would end up being used like Vengeance, as an offensive skill, but can still double as a defensive skill.
Make it an ability unique to one job, and it helps bring some variance in the jobs materia options.

[Reynhart]

If i remember correctly, one of the SNES versions was glitched, so it doesnt eat his HP. most likely the US version.

The US version, "Final Fantasy II" removed this skill, alongside some skills from Rosa and Yang

As for tenacity, it does need a slight buff, but not too much, it still needs to be less than the other options.

For me, mitigation skills should have a potency, and scale on Tenacity. After all, offensive and healing skills works that way, why not mitigation ?

[MaraD_]

For me, mitigation skills should have a potency, and scale on Tenacity. After all, offensive and healing skills works that way, why not mitigation ?

And Defense/MDef
Basically TBN, Thrill, Foresight, were all the propper ways to handle mitigation.
Rampart, Hallowed Ground, and Sentinel were the worst possible ways to handle mitigation. (plus Shield Oath in some ways)

This butchered possible tank builds, due to making everything need to match those skills. It should have never been based on enemy stats, but instead on the tanks gear/stats.

[Greyhawk]

If you know the fight you'll know when to sac your HP. I mean I can applaud your attempts at an argument but it falls flat on it's face there.

It's the same thing with foregoing a mechanics if you can push phases with your burst and help the raid.

I can throw this so many ways and I'm not starting an argument FFS. If you watch other tanks, you will find that all the bandwagon tanks have no concept of "knowing the fight". Watch the GNB that are playing recently - it's very apparent. They don't even care about if the group is ready or not, they just go and face-roll the crap out of mobs (just like their tanking). DRK (and tank) veterans, sure, are more adept to knowing the fights. However, if you've been doing this long enough you know that things happen. The spamming ability sprout tanks are just going to dump three defensive cool-downs, then use some HP sacrificing ability right before a tank buster. I see the same methodology all the time when I am playing my other classes and not tanking.

I can applaud your attempt at starting an argument with me but it falls flat on it's face there.