Dark Knight Megathread

[EponaTBHSMH]

They need to throw the 2m burst window design into the bin where it belongs, it's what's killing most jobs. The jobs were at their most fun imo, when they were focused on play style instead of mechanics. What I mean by this is tanks had 2 OGCD mitigation moves back in HW.
- The paladin was a block tank and had a move that proct off of blocks, they had some heals and white magic moves for self sustain, they also could blind the enemies making them take less white damage.
- Warrior was unga bunga tank, they did better damage than paladin could not block but had the most health to counter that.
- Drk was the parry tank, an inverse of the paladin the drk had a move that proct off of parry and a move that increased their parry chance. They had no real self sustain but they had slightly more health than the Paladin and they could apply Status debuffs to enemies as well as being able to blind enemies to take less white damage.

Not all moves gave aggro, you also had TP so spamming wasn't an option, basically you had to play with a semi functioning brain, as opposed to now.

Then around SB they decided each needed a full mechanic of their own, but wanted it to fit within a burst window, so they homogenised all the new mech so they were functionally the same. They got rid of status effects, so everyone got handed self sustain out the rear and loads of OGCD's to do mitigation, where as before your moves gave you the mitigation, now it's on a 60s button press. They removed TP, they flattened MP and didn't think how it would impact DRK, SB is when they completely and utterly gutted tanking in this game and it's never really recovered just been on a downward slope since then, this is also what caused healers to suffer.

The problem with Square Enix is that their homogenization still comes from a fear that in specific or general situations, some jobs can be excluded from lets say PF, because a certain tank is too much better at a certain thing

But in doing that they're still, since SB, trapping themselves into making them the same and as expacs go, tanks just become more and more similar.

TBH to give tanks back a sense of identity they need not only a tank redesign but also a complete encounter redesign to go along these tank changes and Im not sure if or when they will be ready to take that route.

[GoatOfWar]

The problem with Square Enix is that their homogenization still comes from a fear that in specific or general situations, some jobs can be excluded from lets say PF, because a certain tank is too much better at a certain thing

But in doing that they're still, since SB, trapping themselves into making them the same and as expacs go, tanks just become more and more similar.

TBH to give tanks back a sense of identity they need not only a tank redesign but also a complete encounter redesign to go along these tank changes and Im not sure if or when they will be ready to take that route.

The problem with the homogenisation is that it becomes easier and easier to spot the best one.
And because they now all play the same minus some bells and whistles, if you can play one of them, you can also play the best.
If i were to tank again, i'd have ZERO reason to pick anything besides Warrior. Best invuln, best sustain, best party mit, best utility and a close second on dps. It's the developer's favourite job, and coincidentally, the lamest job in the entire game. But it has the loudest playerbase so it's now the best. Which is exactly why i don't play tank anymore. There is simply not a reason to play tank because you'll always pick the incorrect option unless you really like swinging around some ugly fridge on a stick and pressing your Fell cleave button. Warrior is powercreeping both Pld and Drk. Gnb is holding on to 100 extra dps, and people think that still matters.

[Kitkat]

The problem with Square Enix is that their homogenization still comes from a fear that in specific or general situations, some jobs can be excluded from lets say PF, because a certain tank is too much better at a certain thing

But in doing that they're still, since SB, trapping themselves into making them the same and as expacs go, tanks just become more and more similar.

TBH to give tanks back a sense of identity they need not only a tank redesign but also a complete encounter redesign to go along these tank changes and Im not sure if or when they will be ready to take that route.

Had to touch on this because the tanks aren't really homogenized. Three of the four tanks have both mitigation and self/party member sustain options - fairly strong ones in fact. Drk is suffering as primarily a Mitigation tank. Even then, it's mitigation ends up being sub par in comparison to other tanks being able to both mitigate and heal damage either at the same capability or better than drks mitigation (even considering that TNB is HP% based meaning it grows as the HP pool increases). Pre-DT Drk made up for that fault in DPS output, but now it has had its DPS nerfed to possibly the lowest ranking of the four tanks, and it has horrible self sustain options. It stands out in a bad way compared to other tanks, especially since 7.0 changes.


Honestly, Drk needs a rework from the ground up and the Devs need to be willing to give the self sustain back to drk that it had pre-Shadowbringers as there really isn't a good excuse given all the self sustain other tanks have these days.