DRK vs. WAR: how do they compare?

[Travel]

So, from what I've managed to find on the subject, Warrior is considered to be overall best tank for clearing older content; extremely high sustainability, relatively simplistic to use, and good damage overall make for an extremely solid solo job. However, I wanted to ask about the other tank jobs, for comparison; I know Paladin is also rather solid, and I'm pretty sure Gunbreaker is basically a blue DPS job, but I wanted to ask about the fourth tank: Dark Knight.

I've asked a little about this on another thread, but I decided to make a standalone topic here, to get some extra opinions: put simply, how does DRK compare to WAR in general? From what I've heard, DRK is rather complex at endgame compared to other tanks, and it doesn't have quite the same amount of sustain as the others; it can certainly survive, but it's apparently not as good or simple at solo content.

Me, I'm still stuck at level 62 with it, so I can't exactly test those claims myself. Was wanting to ask; how does DRK feel for play in comparison to other tanks, particularly WAR? Does it get good sustain? What about solo content?

[Lyth]

Don’t pay too much attention to discussions around ‘job complexity’. Every job becomes muscle memory over time, and all tanks are as well balanced as they can be. DRK currently is the most oGCD heavy tank currently, so it tends to have a very active burst phase followed by periods of chill downtime. If you like the aesthetic and lore, then go for it. It’s a very solid pick for raid content.

WAR and PLD are probably more reliable choices for solo content, but you can make DRK work. It’s always better to play something you enjoy.

[Bhearil]

Dark Knight is basically a copy paste Warrior with different animations and just a few differences besides the core gameplay. Dark Knight boasts the highest tank damage (small difference between tanks though so its not an issue their dps ranks) in exchange of the worst self sustain.
Drk is based on "spam every button during the burst window then do almost nothing but spam your only basic 1-2-3 combo until next burst" gameplay which makes them very APM heavy during the burst to drop to very low levels in between

It is a functional job, but it is also a very neglected one by the devs and once you compare it to other tanks you notice how shallow the job flavour is compared to the other 3 even if those have also shortcomings as well but thats another issue, same as the healers gameplay and balance problems

[Oizen]

DRK is the neglected child of tanks while WAR is the fat overfed favorite child. I prefer DRK but thats how I would put it.

DRK is really good in raid content for its fat damage output, but said damage output is not a conscious design decision of the devs, rather an inevitability of having so many unrelated ogcd attacks.

Meanwhile WAR is very well rounded and has extremely useful, borderline overpowered tools that let it clear dungeon content while half asleep.

[fulminating]

Warrior isn’t the favourite child, its had all of the fun aspects surgically removed and been given a fiefdom in irrelevant content to shut it up. And even then they still take take take. Just recently they made overpower terrible, before that they removed gauge management, before that they took away critical and direct hits in the burst.

[RyuDragnier]

Warrior isn’t the favourite child, its had all of the fun aspects surgically removed and been given a fiefdom in irrelevant content to shut it up. And even then they still take take take. Just recently they made overpower terrible, before that they removed gauge management, before that they took away critical and direct hits in the burst.

You may not have seen the LL on Friday. Attacks that are guaranteed crit/DH will now do more damage when they get any crit or dh buff effects. So that is no longer taken away, and has been powered up enough to where it may become the #1 damage dealer among tanks, depending on numbers and what else they changed.

[Lyth]

When you're looking at rdps, the damage gain associated with a Crit/DH buff belongs to the player who supplied the buff. The actual winners are jobs like SCH and BRD, assuming that their rdps hasn't been rebalanced around this.

Let's just say I'm very curious to see how this actually gets implemented, though. The ratio of crit multiplier gain to crit rate gain will determine what job comp the buff favours.

[Absurdity]

You may not have seen the LL on Friday. Attacks that are guaranteed crit/DH will now do more damage when they get any crit or dh buff effects. So that is no longer taken away, and has been powered up enough to where it may become the #1 damage dealer among tanks, depending on numbers and what else they changed.

That changes nothing about warrior's playstyle, it now just has better party sinergy and gets more damage for doing the exact same thing they've been doing all of Endwalker.

[fulminating]

You may not have seen the LL on Friday. Attacks that are guaranteed crit/DH will now do more damage when they get any crit or dh buff effects. So that is no longer taken away, and has been powered up enough to where it may become the #1 damage dealer among tanks, depending on numbers and what else they changed.

Let's be absolutely blunt here, any future buffs with an as yet unknown impact will not change the fact that they removed warrior's ability to crit for four years.

[Oizen]

Warrior isn’t the favourite child, its had all of the fun aspects surgically removed and been given a fiefdom in irrelevant content to shut it up. And even then they still take take take. Just recently they made overpower terrible, before that they removed gauge management, before that they took away critical and direct hits in the burst.

I mean if you're going to do a dick measuring contest here, there's really no tank that could take the title of "Dev's Favorite" other than WAR.

Everything you complained about with WAR happened to DRK as well except in this case, it wasn't actually replaced with anything. The class has been largely the same since Stormblood.
Man I wish DRK got cool things like Primal Rend.

And while I get that "fun" isn't exactly a design intent the developers has ever had in regards to tank jobs in this game, the fact they even changed overpower makes me very confused as it means they looked at their available data for tanks in dungeon content and actually came to the conclusion that WAR wasn't easy enough there.

I was also taken aback by looking at the tank kits in PVP, how WAR's the only one that even really feels complete while the others are just sorta...bad unless you're just taking into account PLD's ability to not die or cheese certain frontline maps.