For a while now Dark Knight has been dealing with the problem of a number of its traits being questionable as to why they even exist, seeming to only be there to fill a spot where the job was supposed to get something but apparently nothing of real value could be thought of.

I was really hoping some of this would get dealt with or cleaned up with the expansion, however this situation remains untouched and unaddressed and in some cases actually exasperated.
It's about time that these were dealt with and since the expansion is already out, the X.1 patch is prime-time for this long passed due "clean-up".

For me the primary culprit is Enhanced Unmend. This is a trait that was so bad and relatively pointless that it became a joke among players. With the change of the gap-closer to remove its damage, the trait has lessened in value even more since before you could maybe pull out a tiny bit more dps from an extra plunge in certain rare circumstances. Now you don't even get that. It's time that Enhanced Unmend was removed and replaced with something of value to the job.

Another obvious example is Enhanced Living Shadow and Enhanced Living Shadow II. These are both just dps bumps to your Living Shadow ability but are given separately back to back at Lvl.88 and 90. Yes, I understand that the Lvl.90 trait coincides with you getting access to the Shadowbringer ability yourself, but it still seems unnecessary to me to have them separated out like that when it could have easily just been lumped into a single trait at lvl.90 and something else could have been provided at lvl.88.

When you compare what the other tank jobs get as traits at lvl.84 and lvl.88, you can see that they actually get things of value such as additional healing effects on abilities at 84 and things like the ability to store an extra stack of an ability or resource at 88.

Based on those traits that other tanks get at those equivalent levels, I would like to see Dark Knight get the following ...

1) Remove the Enhanced Unmend trait, opening up for a new trait at lvl.84.
For the replacement I would like to follow what the other tanks get as a trait at that level and add increased self-healing to an existing ability.

Lvl. 84: Enhanced Delirium
Effect: Stacks of Blood Weapon now restore HP on landing weaponskills and spells.
Cure Potency: 300 or 400 depending on balancing
(* Enhanced Delirium at lvl.96 would be renamed to Enhanced Delirium II accordingly)

2) Consolidate Enhanced Living Shadow and Enhanced Living Shadow II into a single trait provided at lvl.90. Enhanced Living Shadow III gained at lvl.100 would be renamed to Enhanced Living Shadow II accordingly.
For the replacement we can follow the precedence of some of the other tank traits (WAR and GNB) at lvl.88 where either an extra stack is made available for a certain ability or resource.

Lvl.88: Enhanced Dark Arts
Effect: Increases the number of Dark Arts that can be stored to 2.

Do these called for changes have to be exactly what I presented above?
Of course not, those are just potential ideas.
The only thing I am adamant about is that those "filler" traits need to be removed and replaced with traits that bring actual value to the job.