DRK feels weak

[DarkDredgen]

I realise there are ton of threads on this already, but I am deliberately making a new one for the devs, if we were all raising our concerns in the same thread it would no doubt be overlooked right?

Disclaimer: I am a fairly casual player, not overly concerned about Tank DPS and Have not touched end game content yet. Mostly playing dungeons etc But I do feel like I can play tanks pretty well, been playing on and off for like 7+ years since Realm reborn

As the title says really...it just feels weak defensively. Levelling 80-90 was a bumpy ride (Compared to beast mode WAR anyway) which involved plenty of wipes for me after literally having no more buttons to mash to keep enough meaningful mitigation up.

And its not just DRK suffering...I have never seen healers sweat so much before, especially a Sage seeing my Living Dead is activated and I have dropped to 1 HP...The whole party had a laugh at the prospect of a sage burst healing my invul..Living Dead feels more redundant than ever lol

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy DRK. It is more than playable, even if it is noticeably weaker (defensively) than its counter parts which makes it a real challenge, and even if Shadowbringers = Flood of Shadow 3 which lacks serious imagination. Shadowbringers should have had something like the reapers grim swathe animation IMO. But, here we are, Flood 3 I guess.

Now that DRK feels like it is an expansion behind the other tanks, I am hoping they buff TBN with a heal or something, or add some other self-sustain feature. I think it would go a long way to helping DRK enter 2022 with the rest of the tanks.

I am hesitant to suggest specific fixes, as that is for the people who crunch the numbers. I thought I would just point out a casual players view point of the current DRK.

Hope you all had a great Christmas folks

[Hanayumi]

Yeah... despite "feeling weak" and jank especially in dungeons, its looking to be one of the stronger is not strongest tank for raids and trials, dps and overall mitigation. Dunno what else to say, if you want to feel beastly in the casual content as of now War is supreme.

[DarkDredgen]

Yeah... despite "feeling weak" and jank especially in dungeons, its looking to be one of the stronger is not strongest tank for raids and trials, dps and overall mitigation. Dunno what else to say, if you want to feel beastly in the casual content as of now War is supreme.

Being good in a small niche is great and all...but what about the other like 80% of the content in FFXIV? xD

That seems to be the general consensus from what I am reading. I'm certainly not saying it is broken or unplayable etc because it is far from it, I just feel it needs to be looked at again so it engages with the majority of content to a similar level as the rest of the tanks.

Instead of the current 'does marginally better in high end content but is noticeably less efficient in all other content'

It feels like DRK is only relevant due to TBN now, hence why it excels in low damage scenarios as raids etc

In high damage scenarios i find it struggles and is significantly less independent than other tanks.

I dont think it needs a lot added for it to catch up, but for sure feels lacking.

[pastry777]

I feel like DRK is very strong defensively. They have one of the best (if not the best) mitigation kit out of all the other tanks. It's between DRK and GNB. The other tanks needed upgrades to their short cooldown mitigation tools to be on par with DRK. I won't go into details on high-end content since you're looking at DRK from a casual perspective. Despite the other tanks' upgrades, TBN is still currently mitigating more damage compared to the other tanks' upgraded cooldowns. One of the hardest single target tank busters right now hit for about 47,000+ damage. With all tanks being equally geared, TBN is soaking 8% more damage than WAR's Bloodwhetting (20% + approximately 8% shield), 13% more than GNB's Heart of Corundum (15% + 15% but due to scaling it's approximately 28%), and 7% more than PLD's Holy Sheltron (15% mitigation + 20% block = 35%). That's without even having to pair TBN up with Oblation. The other tank's kit does include self-sustain in some shape or form though which is something DRK doesn't have with TBN. Don't forget that TBN is on a 15s cooldown as opposed to 25s on Bloodwhetting and Heart of Corundum as well as 22-23s on Holy Sheltron (assuming the PLD has something to auto the entire time).

Technically, WAR and PLD lack more defensives compared to GNB and DRK having 1 or 2 additional options. Outside of the role actions, WAR has Vengeance, Bloodwhetting, and Shake it Off and PLD has Sentinel, Holy Sheltron, and Passage of Arms. It's just that WAR self-sustain is just so insane (in wall-to-wall dungeon pulls) that people don't realize WARs are taking huge spike damage. If they run out of mitigation while waiting for Bloodwhetting to come off of cooldown, they are in a very bad situation. Same for PLD. Since PLDs don't have a powerful self-sustain kit like WAR, you can see and feel how much they are struggling to keep themselves up due to no mitigation. Raid scenarios are by no means "low damage scenarios". Boss auto attacks in Savage hurt...a lot. Even the autos on the third floor of Pandaemonium hurts quite a bit right now and that's only normal mode.

DRK needs quality of life changes though, such as an improvement or change to Living Dead. Normally I wouldn't say this because healers can typically top off the DRK (just requires more work), but, with SGE not having an "Oh shit" heal button, AST getting a nerf to Essential Dignity, and SCH's "Excog", not having much of an impact in Living Dead situations, Living Dead needs to be changed or at least have an additional effect where healing done to the DRK is increased or it takes no damage to give healers some breathing room to heal the DRK. Only WHM's Benediction is capable of topping the DRK off in a short time (instantly in this case). Blood Weapon needs a fix. Perhaps have it on a stack system.

[pastry777]

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.

[ThorneDynasty]

And let's hear your reasoning why the healing effects of Bloodwhetting, HoC and Sheltron don't count, should be good.

[Annihilism]

When Yoshi was asked about possibly adding more meaningful DPS kits to healers his reply was basically "LOL just play SGE, wtf?" So when the time comes to address the DRK issues in dungeons don't be surprised if SE answers with "Well uh, certain tanks are a better choice for certain content..." In Yoshi's defense DRK in 8mn content is very fun to play, but during trash pulls not so much. Honestly the quickest fixes they could do for DRK in short term is maybe something like changing Abyssal Drain into a WS that would be 3rd step of our aoe combo that still retains the healing element (nerfed slightly) and of course redesigning Living Dead.

Disclaimer, I myself have no issue healing DRKs but when I play DRK myself I dislike the over reliance on the healer during trash. The stark difference between DRK and WAR in dungeons needs to be addressed. You could argue that DRK is the expert mode of tanks because you have zero safety nets unlike PLD that cannot die in dungeons but still DRK's kit seems jank as hell in dungeon pulls unlike the very synergistic kits of WAR and PLD.

Sigh, I miss stormblood DRK...

[Luin]

Being good in a small niche is great and all...but what about the other like 80% of the content in FFXIV? xD

The battle system is balanced around full party content and always has been.

Outside of the role actions, WAR has Vengeance, Bloodwhetting, and Shake it Off

You forgot Thrill (effectively 20% mitigation). Most Endwalker double pulls are easily handled with just Thrill+Shake+Equil and 1 or 2 Bloodwhetting casts. WAR has the most defensives.

people don't realize WARs are taking huge spike damage.

What? They have Holmgang - an objectively superior invuln to Living Dead.

Like say WAR has Vengeance+Whet, and WAR has Corundum from cotank, that's 59% mitigation. Add Thrill, 20% increase in max HP, that's almost a TBN itself (plus 400p shield from Whet). How is that spike damage compared to any other tank?

Compare to DRK. Let's say ShadowWall+TBN+Oblation+Corundum. This is 54% mitigation, plus 25% shield. Yes, TBN is the most potent mitigation for singlehit busters, but busters are not balanced around TBN. They're survivable with any tank comp.

[pastry777]

And let's hear your reasoning why the healing effects of Bloodwhetting, HoC and Sheltron don't count, should be good.

If you're referring to my argument, it's simple. Self-sustain =/= mitigation. Lets hear your reasoning as to why they should be counted?

[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.