DRK feels weak

[Ryaduera]

-snip-

To expand on my own point, not all healing is mitigation. Clemency, for example, is healing that would fall under more of a sustain usage than a mitigation usage. The difference is how the healing is applied. Take Sage for example, the healing from Kerachole is mitigative healing, but the healing from Taurochole is sustain. The difference is the intent in which it's used and method in which it's applied. Most regeneration effects are mitigative because using it to top off a target is inefficient, but using it as damage is coming in is very efficient. The exceptions to this are healing effects in the form of lifesteal or HP drain effects like we see on Warrior. It -is- applied after damage is taken, but that is purely to gain maximum benefit since overheal is a waste, but it is planned before damage is taken. Most flat heals are sustain (Equilibrium for WAR, Celemency for PLD) because you only ever plan these after damage has already been taken. Even if you argue you are using your foresight and knowledge of what is going to happen so you already knew you'd use it, the principle is the same in that it is a reactive ability as opposed to proactive. The exception here being the heals from Heart of Corundum and Excog, they are flat heals but are used as part of the process for increasing your effective HP. Where heals lose effect is when the damage is enough to bypass your maximum eHP in a single hit before the healing is applied, which, as I said, doesn't really exist in this game outside of sub-optimal play, and in those situations the eHP from shields is more valuable, and so a barrier based tank is actually a really cool idea, but we have yet to see Squeenix genuinely lean into this identity beyond gimping DRK in every category other than DPS just because it has TBN.

[DarkDredgen]

I actually felt DRK could exhaust its abilities quicker than WAR and I am pretty sure it's because I do not see TBN as a stand alone mitigation in dungeons. It lasts maybe 2-4 seconds, depending on tick times, the mob and whatever else you got on. Its just a little something extra to help you along while the 20%-40% uptime is your bread and butter (it's usually 30%-40%, 20% when you're running out towards the end of a pull with an oblation + reprisal). AD can also be emergency reserve or used during 20% phase to help out, depends on situation.

Bloodwhetting feels much more impactful, damage mitigation and all the healing. It can be used as a complete stand alone mitigation unlike TBN so it feels like you have more access to an emergency button often.

DRK feels OK when you maintain 20-40% defensive boost + full uptime on TBN, but it doesn't have any room for error. WAR feels abit more fluid and feels like it has room for error. Just my experiences with both taking them to 90.

But, I will say, DRK is nowhere near as bad as some people are making it out to be.

You just need to be on point with it, accidently pressing Rampart while Shadowwall is up or vice versa while fumbling for salted earth proc is going to get you wiped on the next pull for example...trust me xD

It feels great in boss fights and Pandemonium (about to tackle Ex trials), as expected, TBN comes into its element and still saving countless DPS/Healers.

You just have to be on point in dungeons and nail your defensive rotation. Still, I wouldn't turn my nose up to some extra sustainability being added, but I can absolutely live with out it too.

If I was going to suggest something for casual use, I'd probably say add some sort of healing with TBN. Make it feel impactful in high/sustained damage situations. Doesn't need to be Bloodwhetting 2, just a little something to give TBN a kick.

Shadowbringers is growing on me too...Its still Flood 3 and I'm still not happy..but it does feel nice I guess.

Edit: oblation has grown on me too, great to have two charges. Useful with TBN for tank busters and useful paired with a Rampart/reprisal. Not sure I would like it simply added to TBN, I like the utility of having it separate.

[Duskane]

the big problem with DRK mitigation in dungeons that it is all AND nothing
you can only rely on your % mitigation like Oblation,rampart and Shadow wall because TBN gives you 2 seconds of breathing room before it breaks and then your back to nothing,while every other tank gets extra benefits to shorter CD regardless and just have extra tools for comfort
holy sheltron you are still getting the block effect and the regen once mitigation runs out
Blood whetting you still get raw healing once shield breaks and mitigation runs out
Heart of Corundum you still have 15% mitigation once your heal is popped and other 15% is done
Dark knight gets "free" flood of shadow once your 25% shield breaks

[Fubous]

I actually felt DRK could exhaust its abilities quicker than WAR and I am pretty sure it's because I do not see TBN as a stand alone mitigation in dungeons. It lasts maybe 2-4 seconds, depending on tick times, the mob and whatever else you got on. Its just a little something extra to help you along while the 20%-40% uptime is your bread and butter (it's usually 30%-40%, 20% when you're running out towards the end of a pull with an oblation + reprisal). AD can also be emergency reserve or used during 20% phase to help out, depends on situation.

Bloodwhetting feels much more impactful, damage mitigation and all the healing. It can be used as a complete stand alone mitigation unlike TBN so it feels like you have more access to an emergency button often.

DRK feels OK when you maintain 20-40% defensive boost + full uptime on TBN, but it doesn't have any room for error. WAR feels abit more fluid and feels like it has room for error. Just my experiences with both taking them to 90.

But, I will say, DRK is nowhere near as bad as some people are making it out to be.

You just need to be on point with it, accidently pressing Rampart while Shadowwall is up or vice versa while fumbling for salted earth proc is going to get you wiped on the next pull for example...trust me xD

It feels great in boss fights and Pandemonium (about to tackle Ex trials), as expected, TBN comes into its element and still saving countless DPS/Healers.

You just have to be on point in dungeons and nail your defensive rotation. Still, I wouldn't turn my nose up to some extra sustainability being added, but I can absolutely live with out it too.

If I was going to suggest something for casual use, I'd probably say add some sort of healing with TBN. Make it feel impactful in high/sustained damage situations. Doesn't need to be Bloodwhetting 2, just a little something to give TBN a kick.

Shadowbringers is growing on me too...Its still Flood 3 and I'm still not happy..but it does feel nice I guess.

Edit: oblation has grown on me too, great to have two charges. Useful with TBN for tank busters and useful paired with a Rampart/reprisal. Not sure I would like it simply added to TBN, I like the utility of having it separate.

I agree, it's quite enjoyable to play at 90, especially in the extremes. I think the playstyle, while flawed in many ways, is very satisfying. It definitely needs a bit more QOL and spice put into it, tho; enhanced unmend, salt and darkness and the living shadow traits are pretty pathetic in comparison to other job additions.

[ThorneDynasty]

But healing isn't mitigation, stop counting it, it doesn't count. Only yellow hit points are mitigation. Thrill of Battle isn't yellow so it doesn't count either.

[Dracosavarian]

But healing isn't mitigation, stop counting it, it doesn't count. Only yellow hit points are mitigation. Thrill of Battle isn't yellow so it doesn't count either.

Nuance. I would argue any tool or utility that keeps a tank above 0 hp is worth counting.

[TouchandFeel]

First off, we should all avoid comparing any of the other tanks' defensive capabilities, especially self-healing, against WAR in the context of large dungeon pulls. WAR is arguably immensely over-powered to the point of being broken in this scenario and does not make for a good point of comparison. Don't point to an outlier when you are trying to make an argument of how something compares to the rest.

For me personally I had no noticeable trouble with doing wall to wall pulls in dungeons while leveling DRK to 90 and for the most part the capability of being able to comfortably do that didn't seem all too different compared to when I leveled PLD to 90.

Going into leveling DRK, I really wanted to see for myself how bad it was defensively in dungeons since that is what some people were saying and so I was very meticulous about my approach; making sure that I always went into each dungeon at min level, always did one initial run using the Trust system to get a consistent base-line of performance per dungeon, and then did at least 4 runs back to back to have some amount of a sample size to average out to compensate for variable party competency.
Only during the largest pulls using a Trust party or if the party finder healer was so bad they could learn a thing or two from Alphinaud did I ever have any issues, and this is no different than when I was leveling PLD.

So the argument that DRK is "fine" in terms of basic defensive competency for large dungeon pulls is true. However, the differences in opinion come in because of differing definitions and expectations for what "fine" means.

Using the context used above to define "fine", that of basic competency in a range of average situations, DRK will perform approximately the same as PLD and GNB, or at least has the potential to.

The caveat to this is that I noticed that in this situation, DRK is a bit more involved or busy when executing it properly. I felt that a bit more thought and consideration was needed when determining how to stack/layer my defensives with TBN and how to best fill the gaps between TBNs. You are also inherently pressing defensive buttons more frequently with TBN having a recast of 15s and you wanting to pretty much always use that as often as you can. With pretty much everything revolving around TBN and how frequently it is available, you end up having to pay more frequent attention to the decisions that you make which can feel frantic and/or frenetic, leading you to very much love or hate the way it feels.
With PLD, defensive usage feels way more just like a cyclical rotation where you are more focused on the bigger longer recast defensives (Rampart, Sentinel, etc.) and then just layering in Holy Sheltron as it's available. It feels incredibly straight forward to the point of almost not needing to think about it as you do it. The only real level of thought you need to do, which is still minimal, is making sure to use your Requiescat + Holy Circle burst during periods of peak damage which always tends to be towards the beginning of a big pull so is really easy to remember and do.

The other side of this disagreement though, is if in your definition of "fine" you are including the ability to adjust to situations that have gone a bit off the rails, such as if you have a really bad healer, the dps keep dying forcing the healer to spend too much time on them, or the healer themselves die. Now while these kind of situations are normally few and far between, they do happen and I ran into instances with both PLD and DRK. The strong self-healing on PLD and especially having Clemency for emergencies gave me more flexibility to deal with these kind of situations, while with DRK I didn't feel quite that level of flexibility to keep myself sustained in a protracted engagement without a functional healer since there isn't as strong or constant a level of self-healing.

If you also factor in the invulnerabilities, yes Living Dead is definitely the worst of the bunch and especially so in party finder dungeon runs where it is can actually be dangerous to use. So the other tanks do have one extra strong defensive tool that they can leverage in dungeons over DRK. I personally feel that all the tanks are defensively strong enough that the invulns aren't even needed, but if you have them and they don't cost anything to use, make use of them.

So in conclusion ...

If your definition of "fine" is that DRK can perform well enough in large dungeon pulls to not be in imminent danger with an averagely competent party, then yes you are correct and DRK is "fine" by those standards and absolutely not the dumpster fire that some are making it out to be.

If your definition of "fine" is that DRK is equitable with the other tanks overall in all defensive aspects and all potential situations, then no DRK is not "fine" by those standards because there are discernible aspects and situations in which DRK lags behind the other tanks and could use some changes or adjustments to address those weak points.

These two things are NOT mutually exclusive and in the end both are true.

[NyneSwordz]

They are strong

[AC9Breaker]

They are strong

this guy gets it.

[Danelo]

You two above need to make your case for why it is good, not just troll. Saying something is strong without backing it up is not worthy of a forum meant for discussion and open dialogue. Please stop trolling.