Tank mitigation should be balanced to dungeons

[HyonaCookie]

I think it’s unfair that DRK should have a harder time in dungeons compared to other tanks. It’s not like mitigation matters to high-end raiders so mitigation should be balanced to dungeon content so that all tanks are on equal footing. High-end raiders only care about damage numbers so as long as damage numbers remain equal, they won’t complain about mitigation being based about dungeon content. I don’t see how “dungeons are easy anyone can clear” should be a reason to not balance to dungeons. I shouldn’t have to rely on gear or hope my healer is good at the game to be able to clear a dungeon on a tank.

[Doozer]

Use Living Dead.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

The only thing DRK could honestly ever need is the Addle treatment on Dark Mind - put -10% physical reduction on it.

Beyond this, DRK needs genuinely nothing for dungeons. I do Tower of Zot final zone max pulls spacing out my tools well.

Humble note if no caster or ranged uses LB on trashpulls, steal it for personal mitigation.

[Oizen]

The only thing DRK could honestly ever need is the Addle treatment on Dark Mind - put -10% physical reduction on it.

Beyond this, DRK needs genuinely nothing for dungeons. I do Tower of Zot final zone max pulls spacing out my tools well.

Humble note if no caster or ranged uses LB on trashpulls, steal it for personal mitigation.

Tower of Zot isn't the hardest dungeon to play DRK in
Bardam's Mettle is.

and most of DRK's fraility and issues lie in the fact its an incomplete job before lv 70, and abyssal drain is comically underpowered for all the heavy lifting its expected to do as the only unique thing thats relevant at that level DRK has.

[Rithy255]

Tower of Zot isn't the hardest dungeon to play DRK in
Bardam's Mettle is.

and most of DRK's fraility and issues lie in the fact its an incomplete job before lv 70, and abyssal drain is comically underpowered for all the heavy lifting its expected to do as the only unique thing thats relevant at that level DRK has.

This is why dungeons are so easy for pulls, because wall to wall will be balanced around trying to keep Dark knight alive, I've noticed how much easier pulls have gotten in 6.1+

Ideally what needs to happen is warrior needs to be nerfed to not aoe heal (some other nerfs like shakes healing and all that would also be welcome), PLD's Magic attack healing should be replaced (put it somewhere else, I dont like healing tolls that i can't control) and reduced a bit, GNB is fine as it is, I'd personally like dark knight to get slow sustain over time and maybe dark mind Can mitigate some physical damage like (10-15%), TBN and all short defensives should be given eariler and PLD should have more self sustain eariler.

If you play dark knight in level 90 / expert dungeons, for the most part i can wall to wall fine, it seems like the healer barely needs to do anything, but if you're playing the first EW dungeon it's a massive honestly a struggle at the end at least for me when i don't have a pure healer, I feel like i can cycle pretty well on DRK; but honestly wall to walls should feel rough, it's a fun part for tanking.

My personal belief is that Dark Knight is currently fine in dungeons, but I want to give dark knight a little bit more (not to warrior levels, it's honestly just really bad how warrior functions in dungeons), so we can actually discuss making AOE harsher and letting tanks Pull more then 2 packs.

[Derio]

DRK is fine in dungeons that you are not doing trusts with, or bad healers with. DRK is the king of mitigation. It lacks however self sustain to where you have to have more incoming heals than other tanks in dungeon outside of your abysall drain and TBN windows.

Overall the leveling process for all tanks needs to be looked at. Obviously if you do any dungeon on WAR, you can see it is way ahead of its tank counter parts. One will argue this is a dungeon and its casual content, but if one tank is way better in content most people play then there is a serious problem.

We only have to hope there are some serious changes to leveling, self sustain, and mitigation as a whole in the next expansion.

[Oizen]

DRK is the king of mitigation.

* Magic Mitigation

If you account for Physical damage, Dark Knight has no unique mitigation until lv 70, and in current content it only has 10% unique mitigation for it with Oblation. Not an issue in raids as they tend to either be mixed or dominantly magic, but in anything physical DRK only has TBN/Oblation on the other tanks. Not even its raidwide mit can be used here.

[HyperiusUltima]

* Magic Mitigation

If you account for Physical damage, Dark Knight has no unique mitigation until lv 70, and in current content it only has 10% unique mitigation for it with Oblation. Not an issue in raids as they tend to either be mixed or dominantly magic, but in anything physical DRK only has TBN/Oblation on the other tanks. Not even its raidwide mit can be used here.

I think DRK just needs to have Dark Mind swapped with something else entirely. If anything, in Dungeons you typically get 0 Value out of using it during W2W pulls, let alone normal pulls as mobs do Physical damage a majority of the time. If we're looking at a Raid perspective though, removing Dark Mind wouldn't necessarily harm DRK's mitigation kit too heavily, it'd just be a tad more reliant on TBN and ask for people to hold 3000 MP more often instead of burn it every 60s.

I'll use Bardam's Mettle as a standard as Oizen mentioned it was the hardest for DRK. I'll only be going over personal mits+survival tools and not Role Actions, as those are a given.

DRK: Living Dead(10s Doom and Undying w/ Lifesteal), Abyssal Drain(Minor Lifesteal)

WAR: Thrill(eHP), Holmgang(1 HP), Raw Intuition(100% Damage Lifesteal), Equilibrium(Self-heal)

PLD: Sheltron(15%), Hallowed(Invincible), Bulwark(Guaranteed 20% Mit), Divine Veil(Shield), Clemency(Hard-cast Heal)

GNB: Aurora(Regen), Super(1 HP, but Invincible), HoL(Magic Mit; useless here)

So as you can see, for dungeons PLD and WAR are stacked, while GNB/DRK are lacking in proper defensives pre-70 - DRK moreso due to a lack of survival tools. The 20/30% Mits are a given, but managing them boils down to healer capability mostly. If anything, I'm on the side of the fence for giving DRK one more Mit to be used to replace Dark Mind - but shifting TBN to Lv 62 would make a lot more sense by moving Delirium to Lv 70(since WAR gets Inner Release at Lv 70) and Bloodspiller/Quietus being moved to 64/68. GNB can have Heart of Stone moved to Lv 62 while Bow Shock can be 64, HoL be 68 so you get the mits you need earlier.

[Luizgazen]

I hope they would give back DRK Dark Dance as a 100% parry rate like they gave PLD Bulwark, if it comes around the same level as Dark Mind it would already fix a lot of DRK's mit problems trought the entire game

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I think DRK just needs to have Dark Mind swapped with something else entirely. If anything, in Dungeons you typically get 0 Value out of using it during W2W pulls, let alone normal pulls as mobs do Physical damage a majority of the time. If we're looking at a Raid perspective though, removing Dark Mind wouldn't necessarily harm DRK's mitigation kit too heavily, it'd just be a tad more reliant on TBN and ask for people to hold 3000 MP more often instead of burn it every 60s.

I'll use Bardam's Mettle as a standard as Oizen mentioned it was the hardest for DRK. I'll only be going over personal mits+survival tools and not Role Actions, as those are a given.

DRK: Living Dead(10s Doom and Undying w/ Lifesteal), Abyssal Drain(Minor Lifesteal)

WAR: Thrill(eHP), Holmgang(1 HP), Raw Intuition(100% Damage Lifesteal), Equilibrium(Self-heal)

PLD: Sheltron(15%), Hallowed(Invincible), Bulwark(Guaranteed 20% Mit), Divine Veil(Shield), Clemency(Hard-cast Heal)

GNB: Aurora(Regen), Super(1 HP, but Invincible), HoL(Magic Mit; useless here)

So as you can see, for dungeons PLD and WAR are stacked, while GNB/DRK are lacking in proper defensives pre-70 - DRK moreso due to a lack of survival tools. The 20/30% Mits are a given, but managing them boils down to healer capability mostly. If anything, I'm on the side of the fence for giving DRK one more Mit to be used to replace Dark Mind - but shifting TBN to Lv 62 would make a lot more sense by moving Delirium to Lv 70(since WAR gets Inner Release at Lv 70) and Bloodspiller/Quietus being moved to 64/68. GNB can have Heart of Stone moved to Lv 62 while Bow Shock can be 64, HoL be 68 so you get the mits you need earlier.

Ok so here is my take on Bardam's Mettle. By every stretch, you are correct - if you look purely at DRK's kit it is possibly the most difficult especially when you consider the first packs with the Gulo Gulo.

However it is important to note that in Stormblood compared to future expansions healing done is comparatively a lot higher relative to your max HP both by healers and tanks. So while you still take a buttload of damage, Healers generally have an easier time keeping you up because their heals are relatively more potent than for example Lv80 or 82, which is weird because Healers only got more healing tools.

The reason I cited Tower of Zot in particular is because it is within that reach where you notice the disparity of mob pulls compared to other tanks the most. After the first boss the rooms with the Hypertuned hurt a lot and grabbing all iron giants + roader + magitek spiders at the end needs a LOT of mitigation AND healing, so both the tank and healer need to be completely on their game for that bit if they do the maximum pull.

This is why I suggest treating Dark Mind like Addle: 20% magical mitigation, 10% physical mitigation. It would help out in dungeons for being dominantly physical in mob pulls and would keep the emphasis of being a magical defensive vs GNB's Camouflage being more suited for physical damage, notably auto attacks.