Dark Knight was bad even in Endwalker but

[EponaTBHSMH]

snip

You are tanking even when everyone is alive which is like 97% of the time

I just don't get why it's such a huge factor to call a tank bad when its something that rarely happens or/and that's not supposed to happen. Why does solo survivability have such importance? How many times does it happen for it to be this important?

Talking about party members being optional is something that happens even less, why would any tank try to do that except to prove a point?

And because that part doesnt make sense, the correlation with that and DRK being weak doesn't make sense either because dungeon content is designed around Healer-Tank-DPS content, why imply that SE are tuning content around DRK solo tanking?

the tl;dr is that again all I can get from that is that, you often get parties where people die and you're the only one alive, which is why survivability matters so much in how you rank tanks. Tell me if I'm correct or not, to me this is the gist of your point and your posts

---------

But then you're also talking about raid, which is a very different subject

First off, not only I'm assuming you're talking about savage that is not even out yet, because I don't think physical or magical raidwides really matter in normal, but choosing DRK in savage is

#1 All content is clearable by all jobs
#2 Personal preference, which mind you is a very important reason to choose a tank even in content like savage, unless you plan on parsing or speedrunning why would any reason other to choose a tank matter? If you are a midcore savage player, by the time you get to the last floor you will outgear it damage wise and mitigation wise, if you do mechanics right and very little deaths, DRK or not, you're not enraging the last floor
#3 DPS checks differences only really matter when you're a world prog group running at the lowest ilvl, assuming nothing happens with the HP tuning like P8SP1, DRKs will clear this raid at LEAST by week 2, if not even week 1
-----

Saying I don't care about tankiness means you haven't been reading my posts so let me clarify my stance once again:

A tank that can do wall to wall pulls comfortably without putting a strain on themselves, and be in situations where they HAVE to invuln to survive or make their healer run out of mana or have to GCD heal, is good tank.

if on top of that you have powerful self heal abilities (reminder that DRK does have Abyssal Drain btw) then you are a VERY good tank, because you dont have to press all your mit buttons for your healer to be comfortable.

The rest of your post is just personal preference on the design of the job, you're entitled to that.

Most of yall in this thread are perpetuating the "DRK bad" meme since Endwalker because you consider powerful self heals to be the new standard for tanking or because you are meeting DRKs that think only pressing TBN in a pull will save them, I can't do that.

[Tunda]

You are tanking even when everyone is alive which is like 97% of the time

I just don't get why it's such a huge factor to call a tank bad when its something that rarely happens or/and that's not supposed to happen. Why does solo out raid, which is

#1 All content is clearable by all jobs
#2 Personal preference, which mind you is a very important reason to choose a tank even in content like savage, unless you plan on parsing or speedrunning why would any reason other to choose a tank matter? If you are a midcore savage player, by the time you get to the last floor you will outgear it damage wise and mitigation wise, if you do mechanics right and very little deaths, DRK or not, you're not enraging the last floor
#3 DPS checks differences only really matter when you're a world prog group running at the lowest ilvl, assuming nothing happens with the HP tuning like P8SP1, DRKs will clear this raid at LEAST by week 2, if not even week 1
-----

Saying I don't care about tankiness means you haven't been reading my posts so let me clarify my stance once again:

A tank that can do wall to wall pulls comfortably without putting a strain on themselves, and be in situations where they HAVE to invuln to survive or make their healer run out of mana or have to GCD heal, is good tank.

if on top of that you have powerful self heal abilities (reminder that DRK does have Abyssal Drain btw) then you are a VERY good tank, because you dont have to press all your mit buttons for your healer to be comfortable.

The rest of your post is just personal preference on the design of the job, you're entitled to that.

Most of yall in this thread are perpetuating the "DRK bad" meme since Endwalker because you consider powerful self heals to be the new standard for tanking or because you are meeting DRKs that think only pressing TBN in a pull will save them, I can't do that.

You clearly love the job as it is

Again job being bad doesn't mean it is that you aren't allowed to enjoy it.

I am working as analytics and I know how to read data

Let's have a matrix to clear what is good and what is bad:

How tank should be evaluated?
Tankiness: 10 points
Damage: 10 points
Utility: 10 points
How it will performe in different type of combs: 10 points
Performance as MT: 10 points
Performance as OT: 10 points
How much they require healer in intermediate contant: 10 points
Job rotation optimization: 10 pointa
You cad add more parameters and let's evaluate all tanks and see what is the worst even OBJECTIVELY

[CKNovel]

There's already far enough data, you don't need to theorycraft.
These were taken from random tanks that ranked around the 100th place in healing EX1, mitigation is calculated as well.

GNB 6.230HPS, 11% OH, ~5.630 effective HPS


DRK 5.600HPS, 6% OH, ~5.300 effective HPS


WAR 8.700HPS, 30% OH, ~6.100 effective HPS


PLD 7.500HPS, 19% OH, ~6.000 effective HPS


DRK is behind, that's true, but it's not apocalyptic either.

[Kaixern]

How tank should be evaluated?
Tankiness: 10 points
Damage: 10 points
Utility: 10 points
How it will performe in different type of combs: 10 points
Performance as MT: 10 points
Performance as OT: 10 points
How much they require healer in intermediate contant: 10 points
Job rotation optimization: 10 pointa
You cad add more parameters and let's evaluate all tanks and see what is the worst even OBJECTIVELY

Can we had to this other stuff?
Like things related to gameplay for example :

Having abilities that does almost the same thing, visually and in effect and are not tied to each other.
(flood of shadow, shadowbringer and disesteem)
10 points

Having your abilities stripped from you and some of them given to other classes with nothing in exchange.
10 points

Does your abilities fit the intended class identity or are they just here because they fit the color theme and looks cool (hello again disesteem)
10 points

Are there any abilities that look and feel like they are not particularly tied to your class and could belong to any other one in term of gameplay and visual.
10 points
(that is just me hating shadowstride, at least create a dark fog effect when we use it, please. This spell looks like it could belong to any other spellcaster and no one would notice.)

[Ryaduera]

You are tanking even when everyone is alive which is like 97% of the time

I just don't get why it's such a huge factor to call a tank bad when its something that rarely happens or/and that's not supposed to happen. Why does solo survivability have such importance? How many times does it happen for it to be this important?

Then let me add the word effectively.

Talking about party members being optional is something that happens even less, why would any tank try to do that except to prove a point?

It's not about if they will, it's about if they can do things others can't. You're interjecting a player act into the design philosophy of the jobs, that has no place in this discussion

And because that part doesnt make sense, the correlation with that and DRK being weak doesn't make sense either because dungeon content is designed around Healer-Tank-DPS content, why imply that SE are tuning content around DRK solo tanking?

Now, I'm not naive enough to think that DRK is the only reason content is so easy on the other tanks

If you don't understand what I am saying just ask instead of trying to use conjecture. What I'm saying is that any content DRK can clear the other tanks can clear more effectively, and therein lies the problem.

the tl;dr is that again all I can get from that is that, you often get parties where people die and you're the only one alive, which is why survivability matters so much in how you rank tanks. Tell me if I'm correct or not, to me this is the gist of your point and your posts

Incorrect, my point is that in the event things go poorly for the party DRK is the only tank I feel like I can't do anything to turn the tides of battle. The frequency of the occurrence has nothing to do with it.

But then you're also talking about raid, which is a very different subject

Hi, I work in game balance, and no it isn't.

First off, not only I'm assuming you're talking about savage that is not even out yet, because I don't think physical or magical raidwides really matter in normal, but choosing DRK in savage is

Do you think the damage types will change from Normal to Savage? The normal mode that is the prelude and base of the design for the savage?

#1 All content is clearable by all jobs

Yes, but again the issue isn't if it can, it's if it's a good choice to pick that one. I can run 1 mile in dress shoes, but I'd rather use running shoes or sneakers.

#2 Personal preference, which mind you is a very important reason to choose a tank even in content like savage, unless you plan on parsing or speedrunning why would any reason other to choose a tank matter? If you are a midcore savage player, by the time you get to the last floor you will outgear it damage wise and mitigation wise, if you do mechanics right and very little deaths, DRK or not, you're not enraging the last floor

If you as a player are willing to choose a suboptimal choice for your content that doesn't do its absolute best then that's a perfectly fine choice for you and your group, but some of us don't have groups or statics and resort to PF groups where we're expected to pick up the slack for the less efficient players and push ourselves to the absolute maximum to do what they cannot, in which case, DRK is the obvious choice to leave behind outside of personal choice, and a good amount of players do not want to intentionally choose the worse option.

#3 DPS checks differences only really matter when you're a world prog group running at the lowest ilvl, assuming nothing happens with the HP tuning like P8SP1, DRKs will clear this raid at LEAST by week 2, if not even week 1

Not accurate even in the slightest. Performance always matters at every stage.

Saying I don't care about tankiness means you haven't been reading my posts so let me clarify my stance once again:

A tank that can do wall to wall pulls comfortably without putting a strain on themselves, and be in situations where they HAVE to invuln to survive or make their healer run out of mana or have to GCD heal, is good tank.

I had to Invuln plenty on DRK if I wanted to pull at the pace of PLD and WAR because I just ran out of mits where the others didn't. I mean, I didn't need to invuln, and usually when I did healers didn't see it and just GCD healed me anyway because LD is so poorly designed that using it without a notification macro will make it go completely unnoticed. I could have just slowed down, but have you seen how random DPS players run dungeons these days? You are expected to go at WAR/PLD/GNB pace in pulls just because that makes up 75% of the tank jobs (idk about play rate) and that plays into the factor of why DRK balance is a problem. It creates an unhealthy environment for the DRK and for parties that have DRK in them. I can take 3 left turns to go right, but it was still better to just take one right turn.

And before I see "Then you were undergeared" No. In 14 you cannot enter a dungeon undergeared, everyone in the dungeon meets the gear requirement set by the balance team regardless of current ilvl in that space. This "undergeared/overgeared" discussion for dungeons is silly and I will not have it in a discussion about class balance. If anything, my DRK was better geared because I saved all my dungeon gear for it.

if on top of that you have powerful self heal abilities (reminder that DRK does have Abyssal Drain btw) then you are a VERY good tank, because you dont have to press all your mit buttons for your healer to be comfortable.

Even if you assume you are hitting 20 targets (A LOT) with AD it still doesn't even reach GNB healing, and GNB is third in healing potency (arguably higher than the others in healing efficiency since HoC is an excog effect making it highly unlikely to overheal) and a 1 minute cooldown is a long time so calling it a powerful effect is logical fallacy. Hallowed Ground on PLD is considered to be one of the worst tank invulns despite having an inarguably better effect than the other invulns, but it's regarded as a weakness due to it's colossal cooldown. Calling AD a powerful tool is outright misleading. It's a "Once per pull" took that every other tank has 2 of in a pull.

The rest of your post is just personal preference on the design of the job, you're entitled to that.

Hi, I work in game balance. DRK is designed poorly with extremely limited interactivity with its own kit, and while I don't work in design, I work in balance, this is the kind of design I'd send back to the design team on the grounds that they've made my job harder with this jobs design.

Most of yall in this thread are perpetuating the "DRK bad" meme since Endwalker because you consider powerful self heals to be the new standard for tanking or because you are meeting DRKs that think only pressing TBN in a pull will save them, I can't do that.

Nobody here thinks only pressing TBN will save them. I can link the math to you if you like, but DRK is suffering. And this is particularly strange because it looks like you're admitting it's weak next to the other tanks cooldowns and recovery tools. It's okay to like DRK, I liked the inarguably unhealthy Stance Dancing that was terrible for the tanks playerbase back in 3.0, but I'm not so bullheaded I'll sit here and say it was a good thing. I liked something that was probably bad and that's okay, I miss it but I am glad its gone because it has seen the game I play and care about succeed easier in the hands of the players, which is exactly what I want for DRK. It doesn't even need major changes. I'd like to see major changes, but honestly I think that a handful of small changes solves everything, and I can do it without adding healing if you like.

Most of yall in this thread are perpetuating the "DRK bad" meme

[Oizen]

That's highly manipulative to only take burst window.
In burst window, WAR has as much oGCDs as GNB, does that means WAR is as busy as GNB?
DRK's oGCDs are much more flexible and half of them are Edge of Darkness.

Guess we just have different definitions of the word "busy" then. I view it was pressing a lot of buttons in a short time.
GCD centric jobs dont feel busy to me. Since you're always going to be rolling GCDs no matter where you are in a rotation. And GNB feels like a GCD centric job to me now especially with the lionheart combo and double down.

I'll give you GNB is more strict. But strictness wasn't really what I was refering to. Simply that GNB isnt that doubleweave monster it used to be, and thus no longer feels busy to me.
But in terms of oGCDs that bit of GNB also is fairly flexible, press continuation after gnashing fang, press blasting zone and bow shock on CD.

Most of yall in this thread are perpetuating the "DRK bad" meme since Endwalker because you consider powerful self heals to be the new standard for tanking or because you are meeting DRKs that think only pressing TBN in a pull will save them, I can't do that.

I think DRK is bad right now because the MP nerfs are a lot more impactful than streamers who do not play the job let on. -2400 MP between bursts plus slightly less from syphon strike due to +1 Bloodspiller and Disesteem. If you think DRK feels bad right now this is why.

If you're playing optimally, you get 3 uses of TBN between bursts.
But Dark Side is now a ticking clock that demands more MP from you at specific intervals, so unless those use cases of TBN line up perfectly with the boss, there's a good chance you'll be caught without it.
But if you want the most optimal play you need TBN to break at a very, very specific point in the now, so you can bring the maximum of 5 edges into the burst window. Not to early to overcap, not to late to not be able to get back up to max MP. This was easier to manage in Endwalker due to higher mp values.

The end result I'm finding is that you want to use TBN as little as possible to make this easier to optimize, or memorize the fight down to when you can perfectly break TBN without issue. So in a lot of cases DRK can't really freely use its short mit to shield itself anymore, let alone allies.

Do I think the devs will fix this come 7.05? lol no they dont care.

[Arohk]

DRK is behind, that's true, but it's not apocalyptic either.

This is Pointless data for dungeon content, DRK is simply garbage in dungeons.
The self healing sucks, and the Invul sucks even harder.

[Ryaduera]

This is Pointless data for dungeon content

I disagree with this. If DRK was sufficient in dungeons we'd probably see the numbers be even closer. What I think we see when we go into dungeons is that eHPS being exaggerated over multiple targets at a time during pulls. The numbers are relevant they just function differently in different scenarios. Not to mention this also means boosting it too much breaks it in the other direction for raids and trials. What's happening is the meaning behind the numbers is being taken at face value and saying that just because it is sufficient in one scenario it's fine, which is what people have been doing since Shadowbringers.

[CKNovel]

Guess we just have different definitions of the word "busy" then. I view it was pressing a lot of buttons in a short time.
GCD centric jobs dont feel busy to me. Since you're always going to be rolling GCDs no matter where you are in a rotation. And GNB feels like a GCD centric job to me now especially with the lionheart combo and double down.

I'll give you GNB is more strict. But strictness wasn't really what I was refering to. Simply that GNB isnt that doubleweave monster it used to be, and thus no longer feels busy to me.
But in terms of oGCDs that bit of GNB also is fairly flexible, press continuation after gnashing fang, press blasting zone and bow shock on CD.

The definitions of "busy" means to be actively engaged or occupied.
We seems to have the same definition, but the difference is the window of time you pick, which is highly manipulative.
With this process you can prove many false statements.

DRK has a busy 120s, this is true. But outside of that, can you call DRK "busy"? Over the course of a whole encounter, can you say DRK is "busy"? I wish it was true.

If your point is to have DRK at the same level of DPS as other tank jobs, I'm all for it, I don't think tanks should have such a big gap.
But DRK is far from busy and I hope SQEX will update it to make its filler and 60s much more interesting. I simply don't want to sleep while waiting for the next 120s.

[EponaTBHSMH]

-snip-

You and I are talking about different things then, I'm not interested in design philosophy of the job, player act is really the only thing that makes me decide if it's good or bad, you seem focused on the theory aspect of it

At the risk of repeating myself, survivability is something I consider exceptional, you care more about all the possibilities and the theorycrafting which is why frequency doesnt matter to you, we have different PoVs for this

For the savage part, when it comes to simply clearing savage on PLD vs the other tanks, your analogy would be more correct if you compared running 1 mile in Adidas and running 1 mile in Nike's, which one would you choose?

I do understand much better where you're coming from now that you mentioned PF, and why you think damage types matter, but again this is PF. I do believe this is more of a placebo effect to convince oneself that we used the best combo and still wipe, it has the same energy as the double melee locking in PF or setting ilvl lock at crafted gear ilvl on day 1. Things are definitely different in a static setting

Player performance is the one that matters, you know that because you mentioned having to pick up slack for "less efficient players" but you will never be able to prove that in a specific PF switching from PLD to GNB will be the difference between a clear and a wipe because there are too many other factors such as other's people DPS

as DRK, you had to invuln but didn't need to inlvun? huh?? Also can you give me examples of dungeons where DRK cannot go at "WAR/PLD/GNB pace" cuz I feel like this is yet another misconception

My quote with AD was weird so you prolly misunderstood, AD is nowhere near being a powerful self heal at all, was mostly a tongue in cheek for people thinking DRK doesnt have any self heal, which is why I called WAR/GNB/PLD very good tanks and DRK a good tank

And finally, I think you'd be surprised, some DRK really dont know their mit well, I'm not talking about people in this thread but those I meet in DF sometimes.