Dark Knight Megathread

[Keagian]

Kinda wished they utilized the Motif of DRK using Darkness and Blood more in their kit. The blood gauge being just a resource dump for Bloodspillar and Quietus isn't really all that interesting. Even using it just to summon Living Shadow doesn't really have much of an impact.

They could turn DRK into a Stance Tank where we have its Normal mode which is the mode we're used to playing.

A Blood Stance activated by using Blood Weapon that gives haste and causes our attacks to regeneration HP and Blood Gauge while empowering our blood gauge moves. Could give DRKs the Darkside Aura and have the Bloodweapon runes that appear on the weapon remain on the sword for the duration of the buff.

Then we have a Darkness or Shadow Stance by the activation of Darkside/Dark Arts. Could replace Delirium with Darkside/Dark Arts and turn it into a buff that gives us empowered weapon skills and allows us to generate MP. Could then add a Shadow like aura around DRK to indicate they are in this stance.

Would make it unique to the other tanks and finally give it some form of Identity.

[jetfire117]

Alright look after messing around with the other tanks, can we AT LEAST get better self-sustain options. Please if literally nothing else.

[Mekhana]

Getting gutted with the shared cd for Abyssal Drain or C&S guts our leveling/synch down kit even further. Meanwhile, I just solo healed a level 60 dungeon the other night as a PLD.

[Kalaam]

Earlier I was in the 2nd dungeon with a PLD, as a reaper, and during the boss the healer fell and died at the beginning of the 2nd phase, followed by the other DPS.
We cleared it nonetheless. The PLD had no issue staying alive while keeping me up and running (arcane crest kind of helped a bit).
A DRK definitely couldn't have done that.

[Ignimortis]

Earlier I was in the 2nd dungeon with a PLD, as a reaper, and during the boss the healer fell and died at the beginning of the 2nd phase, followed by the other DPS.
We cleared it nonetheless. The PLD had no issue staying alive while keeping me up and running (arcane crest kind of helped a bit).
A DRK definitely couldn't have done that.

That's not a bad thing by itself, really. Class diversity is necessary, even if it creates some weak spots in your kit. The issue is that for every weakspot, there's supposed to be payoff. My theorycrafting friends say that DRK apparently has the highest DPS among tanks at the moment (by a significant margin, so much that they can outdamage DPS classes during the opener, and keep ahead of other tanks during the downtime), but that's about it.

[Kalaam]

Oh yeah, that in some situations a specific tank shines brighter isn't an issue.
But DPS isn't that interresting of an edge to have over other tanks. It's just number tweaking, it doesn't address the mechanical weaknesses of the DRK.
And even with that DPS, it's 0 DPS if you die and the fight ends up in a wipe anyway.

[Lyth]

I seem to remember that prior to Shadowbringers, tank damage output was the single most important factor that players looked at, and being able to mitigate was less relevant outside of being able to generate more LB.

What would be nice, however, is if they bring out the person who designed Reaper, and just gave them the instructions to design a tank job based around the same principles. I think a lot of players would pick up a job and play it without having any specific advantages, so long as it was simply joyful to play.

I also think that with the recent more revelations on how magic works, it makes a lot of sense for DRK to work off of two resources, be it Aether (MP) and... well, let's call it 'Blood'. Burning through your supply of one should help attune you to the other. I strongly think that the devs should stop designing timer focused jobs and instead put out more genuinely resource-management focused jobs.

[Kalaam]

Honestly reaper feels like a dark knight if they gave up defense entirely (and just kept TBN)
So this wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe

[Isutowaru]

Can we talk about Dark Knight's damage at the moment? I'm really feeling happy with the damage output of Dark Knight at the moment, 4.4k averagely with nearly hitting the 10k opener barrier already, ilevel 570 right now with extreme trial weapon and accessories. Still using Job gear left side. I'm personally quite happy with Dark Knight's personal output right now but I don't know how Gunbreaker/Paladin/Warrior compare to our current version of Dark Knight.

[Kalaam]

Damage can be changed from one patch to the other, it's honestly not that good of a metric.
DRK could have only 1 2 3 combo, but all hitting for 1000+ potency it wouldn't mean the job is in a good state. That it has at least that going for it is...fine.
But honestly, damage isn't even that relevant to a job's mechanics. Especially a tank.