What is Dark knight for now that War just does everything better?

[Oizen]

The tank with the most flexible form of Raw mitigations, the highest possible mitigation against magical damage.

I'm still going to play it, this game isn't very well balanced and never really has been.

[Jeeqbit]

My question has not been answered here.

That's because it's not really strictly true. I played DRK recently in an extreme trial and even though a lot of DRKs OT it was perfectly fine as a main tank. Its invuln is arguably better in that when it expires, you are at full health like with PLD. And in a dungeon you can spam The Blackest Night every 15 seconds which has always felt like having a constant Hallowed Ground in many dungeons. The difference is that a Warrior takes all that damage but then heals it afterwards.

[Bibine_Bine]

The tank with the most flexible form of Raw mitigations, the highest possible mitigation against magical damage.

I'm still going to play it, this game isn't very well balanced and never really has been.

None of that is even true

[Oizen]

None of that is even true

It is tho. Dark Mind is an absolutely insane ability, its not flashy, and this game does a bad job of making mitigation feel rewarding. But its basically Rampart on a 60s CD. Pair that with Oblation and DRK's standard mitigation on magic is 30%, put TBN on top of that and DRK is surprisingly sturdy in a lot of raid content.

Cycle between Dark Mind and Rampart, and you can hit that level every minute or shorter, and that doesn't even account for Shadow Wall or the other Oblation.

Like I get it, none of this is as flashy or reads as cool as HoC, BW, or HS but it really comes out to more than the sum of its parts.

(yes I know they don't stack perfectly Im not mathing that out)

[NekoMataMata]

lol wut? DRK has a total of 5 mitigation buttons (not counting role actions and not counting Nascent Flash which is just "Bloodwhetting but for other person"), same as WAR, but one of those is only useful for magic damage (meaning it's practically useless depending on the fight), and the other is such low mitigation that you're always stacking it with something else. So more like 4 mitigation buttons. Not even touching on WAR's mitigation being way stronger.

And don't start with "but healing isn't mitigation" yes it is. You can't heal if a mechanic one-shots you, true, but how many situations are you gonna be in where a 15% mit or a 10% health shield would have saved you from a one-shot? You shouldn't be in that situation to begin with.

You're cherry-picking. Also, there's actually two DRK mitigations that are only for magic damage. Dark Mind, but also Dark Missionary(which is party wide), and they both have their uses. Have you played anything beyond casual content? Every mitigation counts.

Anyways, I don't have much to say. You've already got your mind made up and you're willing to say whatever you feel is necessary to prove yourself right.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

Well, the Warrior having a ton of self-healing really makes it so much easier to play as than a Dark Knight. Dark Knight is definitely a much higher skilled tank. It's why I just recommend, to newer players, that if they want to tank then to play Marauder/Warrior.

[Renathras]

I'm highlighting why that is not a valid argument. I can use even larger exaggerations to get my point across if you want to?
It still stands. Why do we have a job that does everything better than another? Is War supposed to be a Drk upgrade? Or?

Will do once you present me with counter arguments instead of pointless ridicule.

I mean, AST arguably IS better than WHM in every way, yet tons of people play WHM still.

DRK has been eating pretty good this whole expansion, unlike poor PLD. WAR has just been ridiculous this whole expansion, but behind in damage as well. It probably got buffed too much, but DRK and GNB really were ahead. This last tier was the DRK tier. The optimal party comp was DRK + X where X was either GNB or WAR, depending on the content. Now DRK and PLD are equal, GNB slightly ahead, and WAR is just stupidly bonkers.

...but none of that matters unless you're going for week 1 clears OR doing Ultimates - and in Ultimates, DRK is the best because it's not penalized for downtime like the other Tanks are.

So no, WAR does not "do everything better" than DRK. It does some things better. While WAR is pretty bonkers right now, DRK is hardly worthless. "But I need a healer and can't solo 4 mans!!" And? Tanks SHOULDN'T be soloing 4 mans. That WAR can is because of how stupidly OP tank regen is right now, not something to shoot for with all other Tanks.

In high end content, DRK has an extra mitigation over the other Tanks and some powerful abilities when used well. Some people also find WAR boring to the point of falling asleep and enjoy DRK's rotation, burst, or aesthetic better. WAR's short CD regen isn't OP with just a single target like it is in AOE situations. DRK actually benefits during downtime since its base resource regenerates while WAR's Rage does not (nor do GNB's charges) making DRK better at controlled damage/burst fights or fights with lots of downtime while mechanics resolve, which is why DRK is the go-to for the current tier of Ultimates.

That enough counter arguments for ya?

If you like DRK and are decent at it, you aren't going to have trouble finding groups.

EDIT:

The button input for DRK is way more than the input for WAR is, and that alone to me should be enough of a reason to see DRK have better damage. More effort being put in should result in more results naturally.

I see this argument a lot (for all roles) BUT IT CANNOT WORK: The reason is that FFXIV's combat system is too rigid. The only thing that matters is damage and (rarely) Raises. Everyone has the same amount of mitigation within the Tank role (and most roles, for that matter, are no more than 1 apart), but there's no other kind of utility that matters. Either you do damage or you don't. And if you do less damage, encounters don't work because either the Job that does the most damage in a role is ALWAYS picked or, if the Enrage is so lax the low end Job can clear it fine, then the top end Job is STILL always picked because you can skip mechanics.

Damage cannot be the distinguishing factor in FFXIV because the combat system is too rigid. Best you can ask for is more utility buttons, and you may get the monkey's paw fingers to curl if you do that.

People argue this all the time across all the roles, but what we see is if a Job does 2% damage less, it's "literally unplayable" for a tier. So "I do more work I should do more damage" is not, and never will be, allowed unless FFXIV completely revamps the way they do encounters. This isn't WoW where some classes can literally be 20% less damage than others - and they aren't taken then, mind you, but the damage disparities are sometimes ridiculously huge.

[DixieBellOCE]

The more i play, the more annoyed i get by this nagging sense that i'm playing worse Warrior. They outperform us in just about everything except for soaking magic tank busters, which we're not even that much better at. Besides that, they have the highest damage, shortest cooldown invuln in the game, best sustain of all tanks, better raid utility. It also does not rely on a 2 minute burst so isn't punished as hard when fights end before their burst.
I plan to get into savage next week, but i'm becoming increasingly frustrated with Warrior's state. And feel like i'm just playing worse warrior for no fucking reason.
So what is the point of Dark knight's existence currently? 'Play it because you wan to play it' will be ignored. You could play conjurer or Arcanist at level cap because you want to. That doesn't mean that you should.

i mean unless your doing a current ultimate or parsing for top 100 in savage, it doesn't matter.

[Shurrikhan]

Damage cannot be the distinguishing factor in FFXIV because the combat system is too rigid. Best you can ask for is more utility buttons, and you may get the monkey's paw fingers to curl if you do that.

People argue this all the time across all the roles, but what we see is if a Job does 2% damage less, it's "literally unplayable" for a tier. So "I do more work I should do more damage" is not, and never will be, allowed unless FFXIV completely revamps the way they do encounters. This isn't WoW where some classes can literally be 20% less damage than others - and they aren't taken then, mind you, but the damage disparities are sometimes ridiculously huge.

Except, what you're looking at under those dps disparities, however minute they may be, already accounts for that effective disparity in difficulty/effort unless one looks only at potency maps, not actual logs.

Honestly, a good mark of balance across jobs of differing difficulty is just that they swap ranks as percentile / player quality increases. An easier job like WAR should perhaps overperform something like DRK or GNB at lower percentiles, so long as it doesn't perform better than them also at the high end.

The problem right now: They don't. The only swap is between WAR and DRK, and happens only at the 80th percentile.

DRK, despite having the lowest sustain of any tank, also has the second lowest aDPS and the lowest rDPS (not that it particular matters) at all ranks. WAR, despite having the highest sustain of any tank, has the highest aDPS until the 80th percentile, at which point it's overtaken by GNB... who also has far more total sustain (mitigation + healing) than DRK.

Meanwhile, WAR brings a 29% more sustain than the top DPS (GNB), but only 0.5% less aDPS, and brings 3% more aDPS than DRK despite also bringing almost 40% more total healing+absorption. This... despite being more than arguably the simplest of tanks.

That... is a balance issue.

[fulminating]

That... is a balance issue.

Nah it’s drk being killed in shadowbringers for no discernible reason. And you’re not seriously telling me that dark knight is substantially more difficult than warrior?

Also aurora vs equilibrium. Equilibrium heals for just under both charges, but can’t be placed on others.
Thrill vs camo: thrill only adds hp which is no use if the attack hits for more than 110% of your hp, which camo would let you live through.
Bw vs hoc: hoc doesn’t need a target for its healing component. Bw/nf probably shouldn’t have the yellow hp shield tacked on and should go back to being however many% of damage dealt.