Dark Knight has some problems... FFXIV Dawntrail 

Kind of funny, Square takes away the busyness of the job to make it more accessible. Instantly job gets widespread calls for a rework. It's almost like... it wasn't actually a good idea to flatten a job since then there's nothing that will stick out.

Typical situation for a tank : healers are busy, my health is getting dangerously dangerous low from the boss auto-attacks. => PLD, GNB and WAR use small cd. Effective all the time, always feel great (especially WAR). => DRK use TBN (UNLESS you're OOM after your burst phase), you pray to god the boss isn't about to stop autos to cast something, and for the shield to pop. And if it doesn't you get punished, where every other tanks are rewarded. I don't feel good when TBN works (and you know it won't always work), I feel relieved. Thats not a good thing

My raiding CO tank is a Dark Knight and I am a Warrior and the amount of conversations we’ve had about this, where the warrior kit makes more sense for dark Knight is astounding. He does enjoy the magic management, but, I’ll tell him a Warrior story about some skin of the teeth victory I had tanking and he’ll be like I can’t talk to you right now. lol.

Here's how you can truly tell the issues are deeply engrained and systemic: You're saying all of the same shit I was saying LAST EXPANSION! Like, believe me or not, I said all of this nearly identically after the EW job actions trailer showed us that all DRK was getting was some bubbles on SE and another line AoE with a high potency. Everyone told me to shut up cause "it does so much damage stop complaining," to which my argument was "so?" Yeah I know damage is how most things are balanced but a job with no identity aside from "hit buttons for an opener, don't worry about order, you'll do good damage," didn't alleviate any of my concerns and issues, then DRK fell behind in damage the further into EW we went, but I was told to shut up cause "it still performs well in Savages and Ultimates and that's all that matters." But obviously that's elitist bullshit using a well known fact to justify letting a job essentially just decay, and not just for the majority of content which falls outside of the top 5%. Then DT drops and I'm almost preemptively told to shut up cause the community and DRK mains are so happy that LD is off of the Blood Gauge, the new Delirium combo looks so cool, and omg healing with Vigil! "DRK complainers can suck it!" But now after the first couple minor patches, the first tier of Savages being out, and the DRK is underperforming in ALL OF IT for the EXACT REASONS I WARNED ABOUT feels both vindicating to see so many videos and posts popping up with people FINALLY seeing what I saw an expansion ago but also annoyed cause this was so fucking obvious a couple years ago...... DRK had become nothing but loose damage potencies with individual timers not tied to anything else, so it lacks any kind of interconnectivity within it's own kit that the whole rest of the tank cast already have, the fact we had to actually fight for basic QoL changes every other tank got last expansion also showed how little squeenix actually understood the job and part of that was cause of how blind the community has been to it all but more so how loudly they defended it despite being so blind, and it's defensive capabilities were already subpar LAST expansion as every other tank got massive buffs and more QoL added onto their most commonly used skills while DRK got.. Oblation..... My concern is they just give it a ton of damage potency buffs, it jumps up to highest tank damage, and everyone who's FINALLY seeing the deeper issues with the DRK kit now that it's been stripped bare and it doesn't have it's damage to fall back on as an excuse for bad design, will just conveniently forget all of this and start telling me to shut up again. Until DRK gets a rework that actually gives it it's own identity and unique playstyle again I'm gonna continue commenting on anything I see and making posts where I can or want to remind everyone they were wrong and a rework is necessary at this point. I mean FFS people are actually upset that it lost PLUNGE! The most basic, boring, bland nothing skill aside from the mobility it offered and we still have, and people are legit upset, and you know why? Cause The DRK has become a kit of Plunges, all of it's skills are just different forms of Plunge that you throw in on priority based on how much potency it has, so despite it doing actually nothing people are clamoring to have it back and refuse to see WHY.......

I agree with the person in Xenosys Vex's chat that suggested putting Abyssal Drain in the same position as Holy Circle after a combo to add sustain. It does need a rework though from the top down. Including the shadow clone that lasts 20 seconds but it doesn't even start doing damage for 5 or 6 seconds.

job lore: DRK, using the enemies power to empower themselves WAR, goes ungabunga and ignores damage taken which sounds more like self barrier tank and which the self healing one?

DRK is the Hydroid of FFXIV and it's sad to see. Anything DRK can do the other Tanks can do better. Gutting the job and giving all it's tools to all the Tanks and taking the Speed Tank identity from DRK to give it to GNB is what has been plaguing the job for almost 8 years. Living Shadow is just Scourge with less control. Shadowbringer is just Dark Passenger without the Blind. Disesteem is just Eventide but boring and locked behind Living Shadow. The days of Low Blow and Reprisal parry procs for more damage are over. Blood Weapon giving you Haste and speeding up your attacks has long been removed. Blood Price, Sole Survivor, Shadowskin, Dark Arts, Plunge and Power Slash deleted. TBN outpaced by other Tanks adjacent skills not requiring to use up their damage resource to use it. Living Dead requiring Team Support while other Invulns do not. Other Tanks get lots of self-sustain meanwhile DRK gets barely any. And to top it off it does the lowest damage out of the 4 Tanks overall? DRK is the deal that just gets worse all the time.

Even aesthetically, DRK is scuffed. What does it matter that Delirium gives Bloodspiller a new 3-part combo when you interrupt the animations with oGCD weaves most of the time?

You are 100% right. Not only is the class mad brain numbing when your not in the burst windows. Otherwise every other tank does any other aspect of tanking much better. Gunbreaker is the best off tank right now, Paladin is the best option for main tanking with self sustain just baked into the damage of the class without having to use cool downs. While Warrior is just better in all aspects compared to Dark Knight. The job needs a rework real bad and needs to take inspiration from it's HW and SB versions of the job.

Something that I've always wondered about Living Shadow is why Square didn't take a cue from WoW and look at a similar skill Blood Death Knights have, Dancing Rune Weapon. For those who don't know, the way DRW worked, at least when I last played a couple years ago, is that when you summon it the weapon gives you a passive boost to your defenses, but also will mimic every attack ability you make. It acts simultaneously as both a defensive and offensive cooldown that's actively more impactful the better you are at your class and the fights, and it looks cool as fuck seeing this animated copy of your weapon follow beside you and attack when you do. Obviously there's more to DRK that would need fixing in terms of making the class feel more exciting to play, but I could see something in that vein potentially making Living Shadow a bit more interesting than it basically being a pseudo-DoT that also lets you use two abilities while it's summoned.

To be honest, I think the simplest fact that DRK had enhanced unmend for years is a good indicator that a rework has been long needed.

They should make abyssal drain every 15 seconds it would be a little closer to the healing from blood whetting Or give blackwst night 15 percent mit for like 4 seconds after then a regen

I’ve always wanted to fire triple abyssal drains like Frey did during the DRK story quests.

Been saying for years; Abyssal drain should heal you based on enemies hit; place salted earth at the feet of the target, and standing in salted earth grants you regen of hp or mp, and salt and darkness could do damage and mitigate some damage all as it's own 90s cd combo.

Since Dark Knight is inspired by Berserk they should give it a transformation like Reaper, would be pretty sick if when you're in "normal mode" you have the slow animations like we have today but when you enter this transformation the animation changes and you just start going ballistic on the enemy just like Guts would do when he used the Berserker armor. The transformation could also give you sustain and maybe a little bit of mitigation (maybe remove oblation and put the 10% on that instead).

@5:29 - GNB doesnt have to choose between Blasting Zone and Bow Shock. They are separate cooldowns.

ironic that dark knight was at its best in heavensward

What I'd like to see? DRK reverted to its 3.0 state with the new abilities added since then integrated into its kit creatively. Some quick fixes that would get it feeling 100% better asap: - Blood Weapon/Delirium: 40s cd, MP from Torcleaver/Impalement combo moved onto BW effect - TBN: gives Dark Arts when cast, shield break lowers cd of Oblation - Living Dead: fail state removed - Salted Earth: grants lifesteal when standing inside - Abyssal Drain: 30s cd, no longer shares recast w/ CnS - Living Shadow: uses Plunge instead of Shadowstride - Missionary learned @ lv66 - Dark Passenger learned @ lv58 (500 pot ogcd line aoe, 60s cd), upgrades to Shadowbringer @ lv90 - Impalement effect: instantly refreshes the cd of Abyssal Drain Big buff to MP gen, damage and mit at lower level. Busier filler. Some of the apm from 6.0 returned to 2 minute. Incredible self sustain in dungeons at 100, almost on par w/ WAR but requires more input from player. Not what I'd want to see but more than enough to inject some life into its 5.0 design.

Make edge and flood of shadow and TBN cost 2000 instead of 3000. All moves that give 600 mana back should give 1000-1200 mana. A second combo action that grants more mana similar to delirium combo now. Tbn needs the shield timer removed or extended with the damage proc occurring every time the shield ends or breaks and have a version that covers the party as well like picto. There should also be a 15%damage reduction and a 25% of hp heal when the shield ends or breaks. The same amount as the shield gives you. Dark mind and missionary need to just be flat reductions not just magic. Bring plunge back. Untie carve and spit and abyssal drain. Make heal and damage potency of Abyssal Drain higher. Let Living a Shadow mimic our moves. And finally, give us 5000 mana cost transformation (like Guts) that has a one minute cooldown (maybe 90 seconds) where a high potency combo is available and gives damage mitigation, healing and mana regeneration. Call it something like Dark Arts.

as a healer i can confirm dark knight require more work especially one that gear on damage

I've never seen a DRK in the early access & i've NEVER SEEN a DRK throughout my entire Dawntrail MSQ,that speaks volumes.Also,i haven't played DRK since HW and looks like they completely destroyed the fun of it's gameplay.What shame....that was a good class,what a rotten way to die.

Make drk a debuffer tank who weakens enemies with magic to hit critical strikes and his shadow fuses with him and does afterimages that copy your abilities and refresh mana from it so you have this intense berserker mode with debuffs for the group as ot

I loved this class during EW but now I just switched to PLD, for 1-2% damage less I get consistent personal mit and raid mit ahah. Oblation is decent for autoattacks but doesnt compare to Holy sheltron or Bulwark.

What's worse than current DRK are the buffoons who vigorously defend it, falsely claiming that I have "skill issues" with misusing TBN. On one hand, it is a lvl 70 skill and the real butt monkey is Oblation in competition against Holy Sheltron/Intervention, HoC, and Bloodwhetting/Nascent Flash, if going off unlock level. But regarding practical use, TBN really is more appropriate to compare against the other tanks' fast mits, and ho boy does it have issues because it has a failure state and cannot heal. 25% shield is going against 38% mit, except there's no dps punishment if you fail to maximize the use of the mit, plus the heal comes no matter what (except WAR, he must still attack for 3-4 gcds). The 15s cooldown is also deceiving because in very few scenarios do you actually take full advantage of it, and even then, the mp economy isn't sustainable; practically speaking, it really is more like a 25s cooldown but slightly more flexible. The other mits can do the same things TBN does but better in nearly every way.

Fix DRK MP economy. Problem solved. DRK is the resource management job. With that in mind, lets reduce the cost of mp spenders, give Obilation the Blood Price effect, reduce recast of TBN to 1s, allow 3 stocks of Dark Arts and make Dark Arts be spent on C&S and Abyssal Drain (Both reduced to 1s recast) So that keeping Darkside up is more manual instead of how it is now. Done, CPM, DPS, and Defense goes up. A DRK being able to use its MP more freely on TBNs would actually just make it the better high CPM tank over GNB. Where GNB is forced to use continuation, a strickly offensive skill needing to be in melee range, DRK would freely be able to use either EoS or TBN when needed.(SE loves to be TBs during the 2 min)

Just gonna put my thoughts on Dark Knights here real quick: 1. TBN should be an upgrade from Dark Arts; switch out the useless Enhanced Unmend Trait with Enhanced Dark Arts Trait instead at LvL 70. Base Dark Arts would increase potency, but only for DRK's 123 and AoE combos for 10s; 50 damage potency(or cure potency, but damage potency feels more consistent). New effect while Dark Arts is active: Dark Soul - Gain a stack of Dark Soul after executing a 123/AoE combo, to a maximum of 2-3 stacks that restore 10% of maximum MP per stack after Dark Arts expires. Once upgraded to TBN, Dark Arts duration increases to 20s-25s and stacks of Dark Soul increase to 4-6. DRK changes their battle stance, which alters their 123 and AoE combo with new animations; increase damage potency applied to these skills from 50 to 100, once upgraded. Remove the requirement of breaking the TBN shield to activate Dark Arts; Dark Arts activates in tandem with TBN, even if you put the shield on an ally. New debuff effect when Dark Arts upgrades to TBN: Unwilling Succor - DRK siphons life energy from enemies, healing for X potency over time(X duration). Applies after successful 123/AoE combo; can be applied on multiple enemies after execution of AoE combo. Can be refreshed while under the duration of Dark Arts, but won't expire after Dark Arts expires. This will NOT be a DoT debuff. TBN shield duration should be increased from 7 seconds to 10 seconds. As for the MP cost, I'd rather they removed it. But if they kept it, the MP loss is mitigated by the huge MP gain after Dark Arts expires. Increase the recast timer to 25 seconds to match other Tanks. 2. Oblation and Dark Missionary should have resource requirements. Oblation should make use of the Blood Gauge and provide health regeneration in tandem with its damage reduction. Dark Missionary should make use of MP and give MP regeneration to allies, in tandem with its magic damage reduction. Just make these two defensive skills do something else besides just being "damage reduction". An alternative thought for Dark Missionary: Could be a shield that blocks magic damage(or just overall damage) and provides MP regeneration if broken, for allies. 3. Abyssal Drain should be combined with Salted Earth and use the Blood Gauge. It first starts out as Salted Earth; but instead of a static AoE, it should be a mobile AoE underneath the Dark Knight in a small radius, leaving behind a trail that fades over a few seconds. Then, when it upgrades to Salt and Darkness, it spawns the spiky ball(Abyssal Drain) - up to 3 max - and can be fired as at 3 targets. Now, it could function(both the AoE and ranged attack) similarly to Abyssal Drain and heal the DRK, or apply a damage debuff: Dark/Black Blood - Reduce an enemy's damage by 15% for X seconds. Oh, and make sure it's not tied with Carve and Spit in recast time(seriously, why is this even a thing?). 3.5. Regarding Carve and Spit, alternatively, instead of DRK's 123/AoE combo changing to different animations when TBN/Dark Arts activates, CnS becomes a new combo when TBN/Dark Arts is activated. This new combo is MP regen, while the Delirium combo converts into a heal combo with alteration to Blood Weapon effect. 4. At lvl 88, Enhanced Living Shadow should be changed from damage potency to faster action input - your shadow directly imitates any of your skill inputs. Instead of the slow summon animation, Esteem instead uses Shadowstride to appear next to you, ready to follow you in combat. Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Separate C&S and Abyssal Drain. Add another combo. Put Scourge on Abyssal Drain keep the healing but Abyssal Drain now applied a 15sec DoT that also heals.

I think they could do is remove abyssal drain and make it into a mitigation like other tanks. Make it for you leech onto 3 enemies (in a radius around you) and heal for a certain % for like 10 seconds. Also add tbn into it and lower the shield to 10% (since it’s a mitigation like other tanks now the shield doesn’t need to be as strong) and when the shield is broken it instead gives you back 1k MP or whatever they think is good to balance it

Give us a shadow dragon that gives dmg reduction, does a chunk of damage, and heals for a percentage of that damage.

DRK might not need a full rework, but an *ENORMOUS* overhaul needs to happen because right now there is no other reason to play it over the other tank Jobs except *aesthetic* *TBN* should last twice as long as it does now at a bare minimum, it should give you a damage buff while the shield is live and/or heal you when it disappears (regardless if its broken or not) *Dark Mind* needs a total rework. I have NEVER seen anyone actually use it except maybe in some niche scenarios. It should give you 10% resistance to ALL damage and 10% Lifesteal (Meaning 10% of all damage you do comes back to you as health) *Abyssal Drain & Carve and Split* should NOT share a cooldown. I also really liked the idea in Xeno's chat with just making it similar to Holy Spirit or Holy Circle *Salted Earth* (PvE) really should just be the same as its PvP version Lastly, I think DRK should have some sort of "transformed" state like Reaper. I mean, part of the inspiration was *Guts* , you could see it most blatantly with Plunge where its animation was taken STRAIGHT from how he fights while wearing the Berserker Armor. So them having a "berserk" mode where their animations change to be WAY faster & more brutal would be awesome. Especially if it it makes their Crit Rate and overall damage go up too.

This is why DRK should never have been a tank. They should have kept it a DPS like it was in FFXI, and they never would have even had to make RPR.

I feel like I'm going schizophrenic with this class, because at the most random times, my tank stance is suddenly turned off even though I didn't select the hotbar to turn it off. Just happened earlier today and the DPS got killed by a tank buster. They asked why my stance was off and I told them "I didn't even turn it off, the game apparently decided it was time for me to no longer tank." I swear, the class is either haunted for me or somehow Square Enix is turning it off manually. Regardless, it definitely does piss me off when it does happen because it's only Dark Knight it happens on for me. I previously leveled Gunbreaker and the stance never turned itself off. I might just wait to level it via beast tribes or the field operation at this point

After using Dark Knight again, I enjoy playing the job again. But with that said, the only changes I would like is make Abyssal Drain a spell instead of an ability, allow TBN to give us 50 Blood Gauge instead, and most importantly give us Blood Price back. For those who don't know, Blood Price gives MP back and builds Blood Gauge from taking damage. Basically, current Dark Knight with some elements from Stormblood.

Make it so standing in your salted earth increases your damage but also increases the damage you take to kinda fall in line with drk lore a bit better

It is suspiciously funny how taking dark knight into a leveling roulette and getting less than level 50, which blackest night is not available. This is my only complaint.

living shadow should be permanent TBN should restore MP and Hp once it breaks enough to reapply it at higher level it should give blood gauge :3

I enjoy Paladins new Atonement Animations way more than Dark Knights new Delirium Animations because I don't even see them because of Animationcanceling.

The new delirium skills feel good to press, with animations/ camera shake. But they don't really add anything outside of upgrades numbers ;_;

I feel like it would be cool if TBN changed so that, once the effect ends (breaking or timing out, either way), DRK gained a major damage boost and a "lifesteal" effect (that had stacks spent on weaponskills, not a duration). Or maybe instead of a damage boost, the "free" Edge got upgraded into a harder-hitting version. Or maybe instead of giving a free Edge, you got a free upgraded Bloodspiller that has sustain added to it.

Its because derp knight has the worst active mitigation in the game, and the 400 extra dps they get on the top end isnt enough to justify it. Compare tbn to bloodwhetting. Tbn is a shield for yourself or an ally. Bloodwhetting is a bigger shield, endless healing, damage reduction and more damage reduction. Or you use nascent which shares its cooldown, and you can send someone to full hp repeatedly for 8 seconds. Oh and lets not forget. If you fail to use the full tbn shield, you lose the cooldown AND dps for it. Warrior just loses the cooldown.

Second combo that empowers the other so there's a reason to alternate enders (Power Slash? Or old Delirium, renamed). Quietus/Impalement give the ability to use Abyssal Drain as an oGCD (potency/healing adjusted accordingly). Souleater/alternate combo ender gives the ability to use Carve and Spit (potency adjusted accordingly), consuming the buff from the previous combo ender. Blackest Night cooldown up to 25s, costs no mana, and when it breaks it reforms again at half the original potency, OR starts off with two shields, one lasting 4s and the other lasting 8s. Make Delirium a haste-based 'berserk' mode with a 4-step chain and a finisher, ala Awaken but not quite as fast. Make Dark Mind heal a percentage of all damage taken. Dark Missionary could do the same thing with a smaller mit that works on all damage types, or a shield. Dark Arts back; make it work on combo enders, Quietus/Impale, Bloodspiller/Torcleaver chain, and the oGCDs they proc (Carve/Abyssal). Make Living Shadow do the Delirium chain and finisher in time with you by making it respond so your GCD presses, so it looks like you're blade-dancing the enemy down in perfect tandem; even if you're not using your Delirium combo, it still does it for every GCD you press regardless, so you're always still in sync. Flood of Shadow upgrades into Shadowbringer and Edge of Shadow gets another upgrade to match, and are tied to charges that can be hastened back by other means, or simply have short charge times. Darkside is no longer tied to them and is activated by some other means (such as using Dark Arts on certain GCDs or abilities), or is just a passive. That's all I've got for now.

What I don't understand is, if DrK sux so badly, why do people insist on playing it? It's not like there aren't 3 better choices. Just dye your armor black and slap a title like on your character, or something.

They completely threw MP management out during sb which irked me a bit coming from hw but I enjoyed sb drk nonetheless, then they gutted the job in shb by making delirium a gimped inner release, removed the haste on blood weapon and increased its cd and slapped a dot as a capstone ability. then in ew they throw dark passenger back at level 90, added some bubbles to salted earth and called it a day. now in dt, i'd argue the only decent skill we got is disesteem which is just for uptime bc it has a 10 yalm range but then they completely threw out blood management too with LS not costing any blood. i guess my point is that, every change they make to drk makes it feel worse than its previous iterations and i am genuinely amazed at how they do it. what was once the resource management tank which required a high skill to effectively push the job to its limits is now void of any resource management. in hw you needed to make sure your MP didn't hit 0 so you wouldn't lose your damage buff and miss out on dark arts to buff your attacks/mitigations for certain scenarios and it was really fun to play. in sb when you generated blood like crazy from tbn, salted earth and your 123, you had to make sure you didn't overcap your blood, at least it had a tadbit of resource management in shb everything was gutted, tbn and salted earth no longer reacted with blood, and all you had to do was just make sure you had 50 blood for your burst windows lol. ew was the same as shb, and now come dt. nothing. if you hit your buttons, the job just automatically plays itself and feels awful outside of burst windows because you literally hit 123 and nothing else minus a few edges. a job that automatically plays itself but is fun is vpr, if they can do that for vpr, why can't they do that for drk?

just FYI regarding what you said about mp, they basically made an oopsy when they combined blood weapon into delirium because they reduced blood weapon from 5 to 3 without adjusting resource gains, by that losing out on 1200 mo and 20 blood gauge every minute, and no the new delirium combo does NOT provide additional mp, I don't care what the tool tip says its literally the same amount pre- dawntrail, which is 200 mp per single target and 500 mp per aoe -> for some reason they're not equal like wtf

Moved to paladin. I used the hell out of DRK for EX1 in dawntrail but I think I've finally grown tired of the DRK mistreatment by SE.

Ya know, since they're so hung up on keeping C&S and Abyssal Drain tied together, I was almost wondering what it would be like if they just made C&S work like the new Geirskogul. It doubles the effect of Darkside for 20 seconds, gives you two or three Abyssal Drains to throw out during it's duration, and each one heals a small amount per hit and gives like 10 blood gauge and some MP. I think that'd be cool personally, even if it's just stealing from another class. But like, I like DRG so-

I'm honestly so baffled by DRK's design revisions post-HW. Like every expansion there was something they took away and it felt so bad that I wondered if the devs just didn't like the job. Tbh like are the devs even aware of how dissatisfied people are? I haven't seen them talk about the players' feedback unless it was about Living Dead and that still has problems. I'd feel less cynical if I at least knew they were considering something. We got immediate feedback for AST, for example. I want to know that they have a plan to move forward

One thing that might be interesting is making DK like a Inverse Paladin: Paladin's filler is physical skills and then you burst with your magic skills, why not have DK's basic rotation be magic and then have their burst utilize their giant sword. This allows the basic skill animations to be a lot lighter and flow better and then allows those heavier animations in its big burst windows. They can even double down on the 1/2 minute burst if they want to give it more coordinated raid utility kinda like what Ninja does. As someone who basically only tanks with Paladin(Warrior base class is like level 4, GB I don't like due to not having as many mitigation tools), I don't really have reasons to want to play DK other than it's kinda like Reaper but you don't die as hard which is not exactly enough to make it worth playing

I could imagine some aspects i know from Lord of the rings Online tanks, like one of them is based around a passive that deals damage and increases aggro when you as the tank gets hit, another one marks enemies and gets healed each time he does damage to that enemy, another one plays like a mix out of monk/ninja and pictomancer (ok, that one would probably not help here xD)

Rant warning: The problem with DRK is that is straight boring. You have a tank whose attack animations are almost the same across the board but with different tints of purple. The DRK can't recover MP properly or at all, and it does not have sustain outside of the minimal soul edge. Meanwhile pally abilities drain a lot of mp but the pally has an entire 1-2-3 that not only does damage but also recovers a lot of pm and can be done almost any time you want. Plus pally skills can be used as AoE, to recover yourself or others, and many of them are on instant cast thanks to requiem. Meanwhile DRK uses their defensive CD and there goes a third of your mp. After your mp is around 800, then to go 1-2-3....1-2-3 until you get back those 3000 mp or delirium is up 😂😂 All this was just comparing it to an aspect of what Pally is. As for Warrior and Gunbreaker, both are incredible fun jobs that get better each expansion. Drk gets worse with every expansion. DRK have to wait a full minute for delirium to get 600 mp per action, where its most meaningful actions cost 3000 mp 😂. Ah yes...I forgot about " shadowbringer". That lame OGCD. You can get a War do 4 fell cleaves with crit guaranteed, while the DRk uses 2 stacks of shadowbringers, 1 stack per minute...yay!

Funny thing: Healer jobs all feel the same. They say we got pure healer/regen healer and shield/mitigation healer but in all honesty.... Why did our pure/regen healer got a barrier and mitigation tool at lv 100 and our mitigation/barrier heals got more healing output and regen? Just think about it for once.. My point is: everything lost it's cool and unique identity: Scholar lost it's identity as the fairy Healer, which needed knowledge and farsight to pull it off in an efficient way and became a burst-heal angel-ish kind of healer instead of the focus on barriers and some micromanagement which gave you the feeling to need to know what you do. It still has the best barriers in the game, yes - but it just lost it's flavor. Astrologian never had a better card-system compared to royal road (stormblood). We also never got a real nature themed healer back once they decided to fullfill the white mage theme with holy light - priest kind of way - spells (honestly, Geomancer could've been a thing and they still refuse to deliver) And even Sage heals way more frequently through regens as barrier/mitigation heal AND being depicted as "the damage heal" (without a proper damage rotation or anything that is centered more around healing through dealing damage other than Kardia, and Philosophia now since DT, i guess..)

with abyssal drain and carve and spit tied together doesn't even make sense anymore pld and gnb ocgd st and aoes can be weaved separately only war has a aoe/st version in upheaval/orogeny.

This video makes my blood boil. DRK is a shadow of it's former self and SE doesn't seem to care. everything we used to have has been givento the other tanks and we get nothing.

Call me naive or foolish, but whatever happens in the future, I want the job to maintain the businessand OGCDs. I love weaving abilities together. I want Carve and Spit to stay. I want the delirium combo stay in some fashion. Edge and Flood of shadow to stay. And I want Blood Weapon back in some way.

DRK has been needing a rework since Endwalker.

Its actually super funny my friends and I were talking about how lackluster DRK feels. To the point where we actually looked at Oblation, the 2 charge 10% damage reduction CD? And couldn't help but notice Samurai's Tengentsu damage reduction CD, and it does the same thing.. With a heal over time. Why do DPS, especially one of the ones that provide almost nothing to a group besides big damage, have better mitigation than DRK? When DRK first came out it was the "breaking the rules" tank, because every other tank used TP, not MP and did things differently than every other tank. Now it feels like every tank has moved on from that pre-Shadowbringers era, and DRK's left in some weird limbo where it's still trying to do what it used to do, while every other tank just does every aspect of DRK better. GNB is the new DRK damage-wise, WAR's sustain is WAY better, and PLD this expansion is like S-tier with its kit. DRK feels like I'm pressing 1-2-3 the entire fight, and praying TBN actually gets fully absorbed.

I would just place a automatic timer to spawn the clone kinda like sage bar when it fills and when it full it summons the shadow untill it runs out and during that time you restore health

Some possible band-aids to make DRK enjoyable again: Bring the 2 extra charges of blood weapon back. - mp management fix Make Dark Mind offer 20% ALL dmg reduction. - being too squishy fix Untie Abyssal Drain cd from Carve and Spit, reduce its dmg by 50%, reduce its cooldown to 30 seconds and increase the healing potency to 400 per target. - sustain and trash pulls handling Remove TBN mana cost, remove the free dark arts when popped, give it a 10% dmg reduction for about 15 seconds and a different 10% dmg reduction for like 7 seconds, just like all other short defensive cds do, up the cooldown to 25 seconds. - overall quality of life/tankyness This one is about "job identity" that people love to talk about: Dark Missionary and Heart of Light do the exactly same shit, give those 2 an extra effect to have a difference....idk, make Missionary cast a barrier with 10% of maximum hp for DRK while it applies a regen/burst healing for GNB - ALSO LOWER DARK MISSIONARY LVL TO 70! quality of life and further job identity improvement ERASE ALL THOSE FUCKING TRAITS LIKE UNMEND AND LIVING SHADOW UPRADES! - give us enhancing traits that WOULD improve our GAMEPLAY, like enhanced salted earth: Make it a 60 secs cooldown, this would align that skill better with the rest of our kit. Abou a rework? easy, only one good and fair path for us with uniqueness and choice power mid fights: BRING DARK ARTS BACK, MAKE IT ENHANCE EXISTING SKILLS WITH COOL EFFECTS! list of possible skills to enhance with Dark Arts: Erase Flood/Edge of shadow - bring Dark Passenger back, make it deal Edge dmg to a single target and Flood dmg to all others around, Dark Arts can make Passenger blind enemies just like HW. Dark Mind - Dark arts can give a extra 15% physical dmg reduction on top of the magic reduction. ABYSSAL DRAIN - Double the healing potency, easy. Soul Eater - Transform it into POWER SLASH or SCOURGE, Increase the healing potency, easy. I don't know if yall know, this game isn't called RAID fantasy, there are trials, field operations, deep dungeons, open world shenanigans, roulettes and DRK really sucks in ANY content asides from raids because of its design flaws focused towards being covered by a full party enviroment. Also don't take my opinions as absolute, say your ideas too, this is the time to TALK and maybe make them see how garbage DRK is right now!

Bring back Heavensward Dark Knight that was the last time it was amazing

Dark Knight and Machinist are the most abused and neglected jobs in FFXIV. 😢

Strictly from a casual perspective, I 100% agree. I don’t play enough “hard core” to care about flashy numbers or graphs and tables about optimal anything. I do dungeons and raids and daily stuff here and there. And once I got all jobs to 100, boy was the gap between DRK and the other tanks so apparent. It is NOT fun to play. It’s boring. It’s mediocre to how other tanks feel. Even GNB which I’m not a fan of felt smooth and thought out in its design. I really hope more people see this and it gets brought up to the design team. They did an amazing job PLD, hope they can do the same for DRK.

The only good thing about tbn being 15 secs is p1 of tea for example where pld would kinda just folds

I wonder if it would be a good idea to turn Abyssal Drain into a GCD Blood Gauge DoT that drains the damage dealt into an HoT. It functions similarly to Salted Earth where it's an AoE DOT, but it also stacks HoT procs. I'd say 30 potency for 30 seconds, and a maximum of 5 HoT stack.

Question. Has nothing to do with the topic and more of the vid. On the second boss, when you pulled it, instead of running through and having the boss face away from the party, you faced it to the side. This isn't the first time I've seen tanks do this and I am wondering why or where it came from. Was this a WoW or GW2 thing? As a tank main, I can't see any benefit to the side facing pull unless you know 100% its going to make a mech cleave away from the party that otherwise would have cleaved half of their safe space.

I feel like living shadow should just become the ninja shadow clone ability (dont remember the name)

The Dark Magic animations are awesome. The sword animations are a pain to watch, its so damn heavy for the player you womder why they actually use it. Also lets just say it. Creative Studio 3 doesnt know what to do with it. Give us Dark Arts back and the old swoed animations that made weilding it looks effortless.

At this point, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if SE just deleted the job from FF14 given how much they seem to despise it...

drk should be competiable with war in dungeon, by lore and job fantasy. abyssal drain should be a somewhat spamable, or short cd ability.. and yes, TBN and Obli feels, AWEFUL, right now, DRKs mitigation, ultility and damage are both at the worst state, ever

Tell me the truth... are you Ronny Chieng?!

Is the dev team even aware of this problem?

Not sure why the sudden realisation that DRK is in need of a another rework to be honest most pretended it was fine. Damage wise now it's ok again despite the rest of Endwalker expansion it has been shit. I'm unsure if it's because of Xeno, maybe so. People seem to think he knows what he's talking about because he has a lot of viewers or he's rank 3 or something on fflogs as if it's difficult to get when you're in a organised static group. (like it means anything) But getting back on track but yeah DRK is easier and has become as bland as WAR with it's rotation, I get it WAR is for the casual player who doesn't enjoy a busy job and eats vulns because they can simply just heal through it, but I think a job should require more interesting fun rotations, bland boring ones just make them completely boring to play. I can already imagine if DRK got a rework again to make it's rotation more busy again, a lot of WAR mains wouldn't touch it again.

I always wanted Drk HP management. Below X% your weaponskills/abilities gain additional effects that heal shield or regen. You're still "flirting with death" but grow more resilient the closer you are.

as a normal only player that mostly plays tanks, hard agree here. I LOVE DRK. It is by far the best looking tank and thematically the most awesome... Unfortunately, this just means I have bigger reason to suffer its weaker kit instead of playing any other tank. PLD need heals? Push literally any button and you have it. Every single button heals that thing to being near immortal for everything. GNB Need heals? Push these short CD spam skills that heal/shield you and a party member for no cost. WAR Need heals? I think this thing has 3? wouldnt know the other two because bloodwheting alone puts my healers to shame. This thing is immortal solo vs an AOE fate of any size 10 levels+ above it. DRK need heals? sorry, its on cooldown and you are already still dying..... DRK does not feel like a tank. it feels like low damage DPS with higher ilvl gear for defenses. DRK has to worry about dying while the others require no thought to near afk their way through fights. Remove all forms of magic damage resistance from all tanks, this stat no longer works with the direction the game went for years now. Keep that stuff on BLU, I have no idea what an incoming attack is going to be magic or not so I put the button and hope for the best. Why do DRK attacks not all always life drain? isnt that thematically supposed to be what it is? how did it become the worst at this when it was supposed to be its identity?

I have been saying it since Endwalker released, Dark Knight needs a rework. They gutted the job in Shadowbringers, the expansion in which it was the cover job, and have continued to remove more and more of it's identity. Ever other tank dose the same things that DRK can do, but way better and are more fun to play. PLD can negate a Tank Buster with Holy Sheltron and Guardian and feels better than TBN, not to mention how Oblation is just a cheap dollar store knock off of Intervention. HoC on GNB is better, in pure numbers, than TBN in every way. The job is also busier than DRK and is FUN because of it. And not to mention that WAR took every thing that was gutted and removed from DRK and ran off with it while making it simpler and easier to use. DRK used to be my Favorite Tank, my Favorite Job, in FFXIV back in Stormblood because all my buttons felt GOOD to press. but now it is barely a shadow of that job

I darked knighted all over the place in Crystalline conflict a couple of times. I'm not good at it so I went back the Jobs I am good at.

To play the job is bad but the one redeeming thing about dark knight is the storyline associated with it. Warrior and paladin's story is weaker

You're right, and Xeno's right

TBN is incredibly fun. It doesn't fill the full niche that bloodwhetting does. That said, if they removed or changed TBN's versatility then you would lose one of the last bits of fun DRK has going for it. It's very satisfying throwing TBN on a caster when a raidwide goes out, or when a DPS or healer is about to take damage from not knowing mechanics, and then you're rewarded with extra damage. It's great. I find I can use TBN very consistently and get use out of it. I'm terrified of Square hearing this disdain for TBN, and the finger on the monkey's paw curling in.

Disagree. I like the way dark knight plays right now. I love how visceral the burst windows feel and I love the chill rotation rotation that lets me focus on mechanics. I agree they need a little something to make their sustain reach the other tanks a bit, but using 2-3 tbns during big pulls keeps me alive just fine along with abyssal drain if I dip. I understand you like the theme of dark knight, but I dont want it to be a tanking reaper or to get a full rework. I just want a touch more sustain.

Dude, it's obvious from your video that you don't do high end content. Missionary and HoL are great for almost every single raidwide. Dark mind is situational, but makes drk a great option for fights involving magic damage because of its shorter 60s cd. If they made it 30%, that would be great because in magic fights, drk could use it and shadowed vigil for tankbusters, and use rampart and oblation for boss autos. And yes, in savage, ultimate, and extremes, I LOVE oblation. It's freaking great. Even in some trials I've been able to save a party by having it. Popping it on a healer with two vuln stacks while also using rep is enough to keep them alive so they can heal, lb3, focus on res, etc. Or keep a dps alive so healers don't have to res. Oblation is epic, and it sounds like you shouldn't rate drk skills on only dungeons. TBN breaks after two or less EXT. Savage, or ultimate boss autos. In that content, you can almost keep that skill on cooldown. It feels great. I do agree that abyssal drain and carve and spit need separate cooldowns. They shouldn't have done that in EW. In Dawntrail, they fucked up by removing plunge(damage ogcds, not gap close) and removing blood cost from living shadow. No point to a gage if you don't have a choice to make using the build up you receive from doing your stuff. You can see that in how awfully boring warrior is to play. Pally and gunbreaker are ok, but I'm not a fan of the inflexible gcd rotations. You start drifting in either class and it feels bad. Dark knight is supposed to be the busy burst class that doesn't have an inflexible gcd rotation. It does that, but it needs more ogcds. That's why it needs work. Put a leech effect on salted earth. That would be awesome. Maybe a second charge on abyssal drain. Add a couple quick low potency ogcds to replace the removal of plunge. Idk. I feel like shadowed vigil, living dead, and abyssal drain provide more than enough sustain to make it feel good, if you use TBN and other mits properly. Then there is what you said about living dead. I feel like it's objectively false. Living dead is one of the best invulns in the game. Here is why. War and gunbreaker require other skills in their tool kit to heal up after using it. If their stuff is on cooldown and they just don't have anything, they die as soon as the invuln window is up. Paladin doesn't take damage, but theirs can only really be used once a fight. The cooldown is stupidly long. Now dark knights invuln timer is so short you can usually get 2, sometimes 3 uses out of a raid boss or a dungeon. 4 gcds is the most it takes to heal 100% of your health. That's it. No cooldown skills at all. No heals needed from a healer. Living dead makes it super easy to pull large in dungeons during no healer runs. I will do a LD+Rampart followed by oblation and TBN spam for first pull, Shadowed Vigil+ arms length followed by rep+oblation and TBN spam for the next. Bosses are ezpz on drk. Rinse and repeat. Drk mitigation feels good, but you have to use all your buttons,amd I love it. It sounds like you want Dark knight to have the same level of healing and mits that pally or war has, but they are a different style of tank. Dark is more in line with gunbreaker, and I would argue that Dark mits feel better. So, a rework, no. Not necessary. Some minor fixes and maybe an iconic new skill.... Yes.

NO Drk doesn't have to be easy mode like War. I like it the way it is

OK here goes: I personally think Dark Knight is best it's been since Stormblood. Ty for your time