So I am going to point out the issues with Dark Knight that have NOT been fixed since it launched ALL THE WAY BACK IN Heavensward;

Living Dead, for lack of better phrases, SUCKED @$$ then, still SUCKED @$$ even AFTER it got "buffed" and it still SUCKS @$$ now, and and it will CONTINUE to SUCK @$$ until Living Dead works similarly to Superbolide where it drops my HP to 1 instead of 10 seconds of dead air UNLESS an attack hits that would NORMALLY kill activates the effect.




Now for the issues that were present in Stormblood and by extension Shadowbringers;

The ability pruning did NOT do Dark Knight any favors and is even more true when you attempt to do level sync content, and basically go "This jobs plays like @$$!" which is most, if not ALL, jobs when they are forced to do any level 50 dungeon via duty roulette, though when Stormblood content was relevant it wasn't AS bad as it is today, but nevertheless, it still causes balancing issue to this day.

In addition removing good changes for bad changes until later deciding that those bad changes need to be less bad, or in extreme cases ACTUALLY GOOD changes, or in the absolute WORST case making change that makes Dark Knight go from bad to WORST has ALSO not been doing Dark Knight any favors. Most of Shadowbringers Dark Knight is a prime example of this, but Endwalker Dark Knight is ALSO guilty of this as well, and Dawntrail Dark Knight continues this trend, for the worst...

In Heavensward MOST of Dark Knight's issues were made to make Dark Knight less bad if not made Dark Knight better, after launch, same with Stormblood, especially when Sole Survivor was a button almost never got used until it got buffed to have an Excog effect where, all of a sudden, the ability's usage spiked, which should have been the sign that devs were onto something good, but Shadowbringers Dark Knight design seems to be have been made by someone who absolutely HATES Dark Knight, and is only getting paid to get the job done, rather than to care about making it better, for 3 EXPANSIONS IN A ROW!




And now for the issues with Shadowbringers Dark Knight;

The Blackest Night no longer generates 50 Blood Gauge when it breaks but instead grants Dark Arts when it breaks which is then can be used for Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow... the problem is that you CANNOT generate Dark Arts OUTSIDE of The Blackest Night...

Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow are now used to maintain Darkside... the problem is that I CANNOT turn Darkside on OUTSIDE of battle OR downtime...

Living Shadow being a series of actions that it can execute, but more often than not feels like waste of spot on my hotbar, and no amount of forcing actions behind it is going to change my opinion on Living Shadow, especially if I have no way of maintaining it and it's only purpose is "do more damage than the player" which is poor AND lazy game design...

Abyssal Drain being a 60 oGCD, which hurt Dark Knight more than it should have.

Blood Weapon being a worse Berserk only needed to be buffed to where it restores MP when you use magic attacks while still buffing your attack speed BECAUSE of spells ESPECIALLY in AoE.

Delirium being a worse Inner Release, as a opposed to leaving it alone, is where the Warrior comparisons really started...

Making Dark Knight be weak against Physical damage even AFTER you get The Blackest Night




And ever since Endwalker it feels like the devs are only adding things onto Dark Knight is because of a checklist that they have to complete before the launch of the next expansion, nothing more... such as;

Locking the cooldown of Abyss Drain with Carve and Spit also hurt it more than it helped, Salt and Darkness might as replace Salted Earth at this point, so long as the keep the 20 second cooldown.

And their level 90 ability with the Darkside restriction felt tacked on because they couldn't think of an actual downside and they gave after that...

Oblation because Dark Knight sucks against Physical damage but because you get it so late it that doesn't even matter because you already made the swap to another tank before Endwalker launched. And I'm being generous with how early/late players made the switch...



And then there is change for the sake of change like;

Removing Plunge which LIVING SHADOW ALSO USES BY THE WAY for an ability NO ONE EVEN WANTS TO USE BECAUSE IT DOES NO DAMAGE AND YOU CAN'T EVEN USE IT ON OTHER PARTY MEMBERS AND IT'S TOO SLOW!



But in Dawtrail we at least got;

A new GCD combo that's locked behind Delirium even though I would rather it cost Blood gauge instead... and a new AoE GCD... that might as well be a combo action for Queitus... a new line AoE that is locked behind Living Shadow... and I would rather it be part of line AoE burst combo that costs 3k MP that was 15 second cooldown and finally do away with Living Shadow so the devs can finally make a tank whose entire gimmick is Summoner but as a tank and not a Limited Job... Oh and half of the 4.3 Sole Survivor effect on our Shadow Wall replacement... which I would rather have Shadow Wall grant a buff the makes the 40% damage reduction available for 30 seconds, which can also be said for a LOT of replacement abilities...