What could DRK have learned from FFXI?

[Izsha]

My Apocalypse Dark Knight sticks it's nose up at your idea that I'm not a tank.

in the always on ultra haste, -damage reduction capped gear, weaponskill rework crazy game that XI is now? Sure. For the 1st oh...say, 15 years of the game? Hell no. Drk became a tank in the twighlight of the game in the same way that all 2handed melee classes became tanks. With -damage taken gear and stupendous damage capabilities built on mega WS buffs, EZ to attain super weapons and buff creeping throughout 20 years of the game. Drk couldnt tank squat for the early or prime years of the game that formed the jobs identity. You gonna tank some IT crabs in Boyada tree? Hell no. Nice humblebrag though.

[Seku]

in the always on ultra haste, -damage reduction capped gear, weaponskill rework crazy game that XI is now? Sure. For the 1st oh...say, 15 years of the game? Hell no. Drk became a tank in the twighlight of the game in the same way that all 2handed melee classes became tanks. With -damage taken gear and stupendous damage capabilities built on mega WS buffs, EZ to attain super weapons and buff creeping throughout 20 years of the game. Drk couldnt tank squat for the early or prime years of the game that formed the jobs identity. You gonna tank some IT crabs in Boyada tree? Hell no. Nice humblebrag though.

Anything with / Ninja was a tank in the 75 era. Yes, they could tank some IT crabs in B. Tree, matter fact it was a common strategy to have 1-4 DPS with /nin, a brd, a rdm, or a healer. The DPS would then bounce hate to minimize damage. At level 75 with apoc, DRK could then tank due to the Haste from cata and the fact that it restored health. They were also more than likely tanking anything that was not a HNM due to the simple fact your zerged it down and they put out the most dps. The only reason PLD and RDM were taken to those to main tank by most people was due to the fact that PLD had Ageis and RDM at the time could buff itself and had a stupid amount of Magic defense bonus, because Magic damage and status effects are the two major threats in any fight in FF11. It's also apart of the reason why Rune Fencer is considered an over powered job atm as well. :O

[Izsha]

Anything with / Ninja was a tank in the 75 era. Yes, they could tank some IT crabs in B. Tree, matter fact it was a common strategy to have 1-4 DPS with /nin, a brd, a rdm, or a healer. The DPS would then bounce hate to minimize damage. At level 75 with apoc, DRK could then tank due to the Haste from cata and the fact that it restored health. They were also more than likely tanking anything that was not a HNM due to the simple fact your zerged it down and they put out the most dps. The only reason PLD and RDM were taken to those to main tank by most people was due to the fact that PLD had Ageis and RDM at the time could buff itself and had a stupid amount of Magic defense bonus, because Magic damage and status effects are the two major threats in any fight in FF11. It's also apart of the reason why Rune Fencer is considered an over powered job atm as well. :O

Literally everyone in the party bouncing aggro around every couple hits is not tanking. Thats the conplete antithesis of tanking. Spreading enemy attacks evenly between the entire party and being in that party is not tanking.

And as i said, they were just as 'tanky' as literally any other job that can pile on damage reduction and, since you brought it up, /nin. That doesnt make drk a tank. Based on that logic, literally every job in ffxi was a tank. Mnk? Tank. Sam? Tank. Thf? Tank. Bst? Tank. Whm? Tank.

Stating that drk had the same tanking capability as basically anyone for low man situations or bouncing aggro all over does not make an argument for drk being an actual tabk or have any relevance to what 14 could take from xi. Tanking a zerg is also not tanking. Its literally a dog pile of dps with ridiculous buffs attacking a monster that is stun locked and unable to hit back and killing it before you ran out of stuns. Were calling that tanking now?

Tanking is maintaining monster aggression and mitigating the damage it outputs better than everyone else around you thus making it more efficient for X job to tank it. Ie: to tank you must be markedly better at mitigating damage and maintain aggro. Merit party bouncing aggro with everyones ninja shadows isnt tanking. Zerging a atunned monster isnt tanking. Low manning some mediocre difficulty content with tailered gear and sub jobs that virtually any job can also tank woth tailered gear and sub jobs does not a tank make.

Drk was a dps job. Ffxi was a flexibke game that let every job take small steps out of their primary role for low man activities . That was a great and fun part of the game. But it didnt make every job a tank jist because you can /nin with haste buffs on any job anymore than whm was a dps because you could offhand a k club.

[Reinfeld]

Wait, I don't remember DRK ever functioning as a tank except as a C-Class pseudo meat shield. How did that work? DRK/NIN with time to build up aggro early?

[Seku]

Literally everyone in the party bouncing aggro around every couple hits is not tanking. Thats the conplete antithesis of tanking. Spreading enemy attacks evenly between the entire party and being in that party is not tanking.

And as i said, they were just as 'tanky' as literally any other job that can pile on damage reduction and, since you brought it up, /nin. That doesnt make drk a tank. Based on that logic, literally every job in ffxi was a tank. Mnk? Tank. Sam? Tank. Thf? Tank. Bst? Tank. Whm? Tank.

Stating that drk had the same tanking capability as basically anyone for low man situations or bouncing aggro all over does not make an argument for drk being an actual tabk or have any relevance to what 14 could take from xi. Tanking a zerg is also not tanking. Its literally a dog pile of dps with ridiculous buffs attacking a monster that is stun locked and unable to hit back and killing it before you ran out of stuns. Were calling that tanking now?

Tanking is maintaining monster aggression and mitigating the damage it outputs better than everyone else around you thus making it more efficient for X job to tank it. Ie: to tank you must be markedly better at mitigating damage and maintain aggro. Merit party bouncing aggro with everyones ninja shadows isnt tanking. Zerging a atunned monster isnt tanking. Low manning some mediocre difficulty content with tailered gear and sub jobs that virtually any job can also tank woth tailered gear and sub jobs does not a tank make.

Drk was a dps job. Ffxi was a flexibke game that let every job take small steps out of their primary role for low man activities . That was a great and fun part of the game. But it didnt make every job a tank jist because you can /nin with haste buffs on any job anymore than whm was a dps because you could offhand a k club.

Considering that it generates a lot of arrgo, Defense was worthless in general due to level difference, and anything outside of a Paladin with Aegis prior to recent update basically tanked just about as efficently - yes anything that went /nin and could maintain hate was the tank in 11. DRK did it well due to stun, soul eatter, and it's damage output. Cata regenerated your health which also gave higher surviablity.

Sam was designed as a tank as well. It was actually common to have Sam/nin tanking in Sky.

Mnk made a decent tank as well too, the only thing that really killed it is that it fed tp like crazy and caused things to go kinda side way on higher level content.

Thf was decent at evasion tanking more so when it started getting it's hate stealing abilities.

Bst literately soloed things due to the durability of it's pets.

Never seen a WHM tank before due to them running out of MP due to cure bombing, as that is there only way to keep hate on higher level content. Benediction is a good hate spike but that would be a waste and overtkane

Wait, I don't remember DRK ever functioning as a tank except as a C-Class pseudo meat shield. How did that work? DRK/NIN with time to build up aggro early?

Yes, because for long fights anything in 11 needed time to build hate. The most efficent way to do it orginally was through RDM and it's enfeebles. Drk knight could do it just as well though as long as your group was ok with doing damage. Stun has the same enmity generation as Paladin's flasth. Soul eatter and Last resort are basically 2 instant provokes. Then it's high damage stacked on top of it would allow for a drk to keep hate in the same fashion a Paladin would, they were just better at it due to th high damage, because unlike 14, the damage you dealth = your enemity. There were a few abilities that upped it for spike hate, some placed on jobs that would be considered "Dps" on 11, such as Warrior.

[Duelle]

A bit late for me to jump into the discussion, but...

First off was bio, a DoT that also lowered the enemies attack power, of course bio is taken in FFXIV but there are other spells this could have been like umbra.

In a vacuum it sounded like it was useful, but Bio was always eclipsed in usefulness by Dia (something that was not helped by their being mutually exclusive; a mob could have only Bio or only Dia active). In the context of tanking, I would work this into the design by making a DoT that while active does something to the DRK. Could be increased skill speed, parry rate, or maybe increased parry threshold (I'm assuming parries are still capped at 20%). As a bonus, the people that miss Scourge might be getting it back if we went this route.

Next was the absorb line of spells. DRK had access to an exclusive set of black magic spells that let it absorb the enemies stats to enhance its own, for example it had absorb VIT which let it steal the enemy defence while raising its own and absorb STR which let it lower the enemies attack while raising its own.

This could work if Reprisal did not exist. You could have had DRK with a cooldown called "Absorb Fortitude" that reduced the target's damage output and increased the DRK's damage, with the same caveat as Embolden (the buff becomes weaker over time).

Finally DRK had access to a very powerful spell called dread spikes, a spell that put a shield up on the DRK that when struck absorbed the damage dealt as hp, if the enemy hit the DRK for 500hp the dread spikes absorbed 500hp essentially working as an invulnerability.

This is the one I've very rarely seen mentioned since the job was implemented. Dread Spikes could work as a tanking tool for tank busters, though the damage drained would need to be tweaked (I'd change it to something like "drains attacker's HP equal to 60% of damage taken by the next attack"). Of course, in the current design that means giving TBN the boot.

[Khalithar]

What could it have done to make it more like ffxi? Easy, make it a drain tank focusing on life stealing and absorbing enemy attack/defense to boost its own.

[D_C]

By Halone’s frozen teat, that sure was seven pages o’ pointless pedantics.

I can’t speak ta the version o’ DRK in Vana’diel too much, not havin’ spent much time there. But it might be interestin’ ta have a tank whose typical cooldowns revolved around debuffin’ to increase their own stats. Imagine fer example, if Delerium instead made yer next Quietus/Bloodspiller reduce damage done by 30% and increase yer own? Instead o’ Shadow Wall and the like, appropriately timed and etc. The problem there is the same reason they scrubbed the ol’ Rage o’ Halone an’ weapon type debuffs, o’ course. Though, it is kinda what they did with Blackity Night, in a way.

If ya think of it, the 4 incarnation o’ DRK might work well in XIV. Heals are at a surplus to the point that tanks damagin’ themselves for increased power would always be seen as worth. Shite, that coulda even been their version o’ deliverance, increasin’ power at a health cost. Tanks were already killin’ ‘emselves for more damage not long ago. Now that those days’re gone though, the idea holds a bit less weight. Not ta mention the health leechin’ part would be natural, but that’s bitin’ WAR’s kit.