The Current state of DRK

[CVXIV]

Dark knight is my favorite tank and it's a shame that it's in the state that it is.
When I first started playing the game I actually wanted to go dark knight but was unable to for obvious reasons, so I picked up paladin instead.
By the time I got to heavensward as a sprout it was the first thing I did, unlock that job and I really enjoyed it.
It's been one of the jobs I've always enjoyed in the franchise ever since I could be one in FFIII

One suggestion I would have is more in line with completely revamping it to resemble more what the job is based off of, a job that uses its own hp to deal major damage.
I know that's what the blood gauge is meant to represent, but I think having high risk/high reward would be a lot of fun, and it could have more self sustain to keep itself alive in a pinch
However I don't know if it would really work in an mmo setting, as cool as the idea sounds to me in my head

I think merging tbn and oblation would be a really good idea especially if the mp cost was either reduced or went away entirely
It could maybe be bumped up to 15% damage reduction on top of the shield, but maybe that'd be too strong
I mention the increase because other tanks like paladin and gunbreaker have around that for their 25 second cooldown, on top of the other bonuses they provide

[Zimmerson]

One suggestion I would have is more in line with completely revamping it to resemble more what the job is based off of, a job that uses its own hp to deal major damage.
I know that's what the blood gauge is meant to represent, but I think having high risk/high reward would be a lot of fun, and it could have more self sustain to keep itself alive in a pinch
However I don't know if it would really work in an mmo setting, as cool as the idea sounds to me in my head

As much as it would be cool to use ones own health to deal DPS, I don't believe it would be a good idea in PVE. For example, BLM back in the day had an ability called "Convert" that allowed to converted 20% of your HP into MP. This often ended up with BLMs dying to raidwides due to the lack of HP.
If this was a thing for DRK - it would make main tanking for DRK difficult, or force it into an off-tank role. I love playing MT so it'd basically be unviable for me to use this to it's full potential due to being hit by auto's and mechanics, which can pack a punch. You could argue that - "Just mit more", but you'd end up burning through your mitigations that you would want to save for something like M3S's 6 back-to-back Tankbuster hits.

This change would also force the healers to watch your HP more and have to be more proactive in keeping you alive, lest the DRK dies. Last thing you need is for a DRK to be greeding for extra damage before being given a bloody nose by the boss/enemy before murdering either the DPS/Healers or the co-tank that didn't mit for a tankbuster as they weren't expecting you to die.

[Silver-Strider]

I'm going to say this from a healer's perspective. I believe DRK is balanced within the context of the Trinity System and that the other tanks are currently outside the scope of balance.

Having said that, DRK does suffer from a lack of damage and mitigation in comparison to its peers, so I'd be fine with increasing those aspects of its toolkits.
For Dark Mind and Dark Missionary, let's add on a buff that increases the amount of healing received for people under the effects of these buffs.
Add back Shadowskin as a low level version of Oblation that provides only 10% mitigation and upgrade into Oblation that grants a 2nd charge and increases the mitigation effect to 15%. Reduce the CD of both to 45s.
Reintroduce Dark Passenger and Scourge as proc upgrades for Flood and Edge of Shadow when TBN breaks.
Decouple Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain.

[ApolloGenX]

DRK is one of the coolest concepts and one of the weakest executions of the concept...

[Doomfist]

I played DRK a lot in Endwalker, and really liked having to manage 2 gauges (MP and Blood). In Dawntrail I did the MSQ as this job so I could have the worst possible tanking experience in the new dungeons, in order to feel the thrill of surviving on this frankly underwhelming tank. But the changes to DRK made it more dull to play, you build up MP slower so you press your magic buttons less, and you no longer have to worry about overusing blood before your even minute bursts. Now I'm too scared to even use TBN, and while darkside now needs more careful mp usage, it's more boring than last expansion's gauge management.

I'm not going to repeat any improvements other posters have put forth, but I wonder if we could remove Edge of Shadow, but rework Flood to be one of those "Higher single target damage with aoe falloff" attacks. That would free DRK up to have one new attack, either an ogcd or an addition to our gcd combo.

[Arrius]

Definitely had the healers work more when I was running dungeons with the Dark Knight.

[DaveFishnomer]

Yes yes yes, nobody cares about DRK, we are scuffed, it's been like that since StB, move along.

[Zimmerson]

Yes yes yes, nobody cares about DRK, we are scuffed, it's been like that since StB, move along.

So you believe that not even bothering to continue to try to raise this issue is the right course of action?

[DaveFishnomer]

So you believe that not even bothering to continue to try to raise this issue is the right course of action?

No, raise it all you like, I believe that it's pointless, the devs has made it crystal clear they dont give a shit about many aspects of the game, DRK being one of them

[OdinelStarrei]

So you believe that not even bothering to continue to try to raise this issue is the right course of action?

It's coming from a place of precedent. Everyone on a fundamental level agrees with you. The job is awful now, and depending on who you ask, the job has been awful for a long time. They aren't saying to you specifically, "You are wasting your time, stop annoying us with your rework pleas" but instead "You are wasting your time, stop doing Square Enix's job for them, and they aren't going to listen to you, because we've been complaining for literally years now and haven't been listened to."

Think about it man. Something like Living Dead, was a poorly designed skill at the outset of 3.0 that only got worse and worse with time. We didn't get a resolution to that until 6.1. Blood Weapon issues after the rework were constantly complained about for years before they got fixed, and then they BROKE it AGAIN when they nerfed it this expansion and combined it with Delirium, something that has an entire different intent than Blood Weapon used to, even if they were used at similar times. Maybe if they kept BW at a 40 second CD, they would have remembered what the skill's original purpose was.

Why bother speaking to developers who don't listen, don't care about the job, and never interact with the community of mains who have at the very least, have made it consistently obvious that no one is happy with the job or the constant nerfs and borderline malicious treatment? You have better results running yourself headfirst into a brick wall then trying to get these developers to develop a fun, engaging, and unanimously accepted Dark Knight playstyle or admit their decisions post-rework have been nonsensical and unexciting, and that's me being generous. They don't want us to manage gauges, because they removed Darkside, removed MP management, and removed Blood management. They don't want us having a fast APM or inputs per minute, because they removed Blood Weapon GCD haste, removed or consolidated our oGCDs, slowed down our openers and killed Skill Speed Dark Knight viability. They don't want us having multiple combo strings or really any kind of GCD centric playstyle either because the last GCD DRK gets before the one-and-done Disesteem is Fell Cleave Minus (having all it's originality killed in the rework) at 62. Just 1-2-3 until whatever is left of a Dark Knight's grey matter slide out of their ears.

So where does that leave you and the rest of us DRKs? Someone who is putting more effort into Dark Knight design, conceptualization and discourse then the developers do. And you aren't even being paid. So give up. The developers certainly did. It's for the best.

Pathetic job.