DRK feels weak

[Dracosavarian]

If you have "...no more buttons to mash to keep enough meaningful mitigation up." you might be doing something very wrong. Dungeon speed-runners average about 33-40s per pull and that's not including the 13-15s to gather up the next wall-to-wall pull. Your average Duty Finder group does about 40-55s per pull. You'll have at the most three uses of TBN per pull. This also gives you about one Abyssal Drain use per pull as well and you obviously want to save it for when you need it each pull and not spend it immediately (you don't understand how many times I've seen this). The rest of your mitigation tools should be spread out accordingly.

I get the very strong feeling that you have not leveled Dark Knight at all after Endwalker’s launch.

[Almandaragal]

I get the very strong feeling that you have not leveled Dark Knight at all after Endwalker’s launch.

You'd be correct. Anyone who starts off a post with "I feel like DRK is very strong defensively." in the context of a thread noting that DRK feels weaker defensively in Endwalker is either inexperienced with the job at 90, or likely trolling. When they throw in "but self sustain doesn't count as mitigation" as if self sustain isn't part of a defensive kit, well, I can't help but wonder if they actually tank dungeons at all, or are just tanking 8 man content where incoming damage is mostly a joke in comparison.

Overall their posts give off an air that they don't seem to understand how survivability for tanks in dungeons works. Somehow Thrill doesn't count as mitigation because 20% more HP doesn't reduce damage taken (despite literally giving you the equivalent of a temporary shield that can be healed) but TBN counts as mitigation because... 25% more HP? For 7 seconds instead of 10, shield not healable, doesn't increase amount healed, and is a DPS loss if not fully diminished?

I mean, I get it. TBN is a great skill in a vacuum. It has pros and cons, potential versatility, etc. However, it doesn't hold a candle to the new tools literally every other tank got, and it seems like some people are still hung up on it being one of the better tools of the prior expansions, not realizing that it's sub par now. Or that it had to make up for two of DRK's cooldowns being magic only, or that it's invuln was garbage comparatively, and so on. DRK doesn't need to be the "best" tank. However, I would like for it to have similar self sustain even if that comes at the cost of some of it's damage.

I dunno, maybe the job balance team just forgot that I can't spam my Abyssal Drain on the global cooldown anymore-- for two expansions, and thinks we're still fine.