Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

How else, exactly, is one to read "'everything DRK is giving up to have [TBN]'" that doesn't include those things --despite having already been had, in former iterations, alongside TBN-- being sacrificed because of TBN?

Again, by viewing TBN as the catch-all for the kit.

The devs took a hard look at tank design for Shadowbringers, and by the end of it DRK was left with TBN and a few other niche abilities for survival. Most of us didn't complain at the time because TBN was effective enough to cover it for 90% of situations... until EW dropped and suddenly tank damage intake was upscaled to fit a new paradigm of tanking that TBN was shockingly not read in on, and TBN as-is wasn't able to do everything single-handedly anymore so that you need to alternate more of your other cooldowns to survive in sustained damage situations.

That isn't "LD and DM won't ever change because it would make DRK too strong with TBN, ergo TBN must change" that's "TBN used to be so strong we barely ever batted an eye at DM and LD before, but even though nothing changed for it, now that regular dungeon encounters are leaning towards making us use everything, we're forced to examine everything."

In short, DRK retains the design philosophy it had in Shadowbringers, while the other tanks have moved forward, and it shows.

But if your whole point is that TBN isn't even as powerful as the pre-82 on-demands, it's sure as hell not going to be a reasonable answer to that question,

We would be arguing on different definitions of "powerful" then. The point of my argument has always ever been that in terms of its effectiveness in Wall-to-Wall pulls, DRK falls behind other tanks -- in part because TBN is poorly suited for sustained damage intake, and in part because of its other cooldowns being lackluster in general.