TheLogan1156: Speaking as someone who played dark knight in a lot of different scenarios in Endwalker -- speed killing, parsing, hardcore prog, ultimate, etc. -- but has never mained it, I'm probably a bit biased when I say that Endwalker dark knight was constantly teetering on the edge of needing a rework anyway, and the changes they made in 7.0 shoved it off that edge. Dawntrail dark knight is easier and more simple than Endwalker warrior, and Endwalker warrior was REALLY easy and simple. In my mind, the problems have always been there, but a lot of people didn't see them until 7.0 for one reason or the other.

TBN was good in Stormblood and Shadowbringers mainly because Sheltron, Raw Intuition, and Heart of Stone were/are kind of shit. But when the other three tanks got big upgrades in 6.0 -- and Holy Sheltron got further upgraded in 6.3 -- and dark knight got nothing, it made TBN look pretty bad in comparison. While I agree that Dark Mind is good when it's actually useful, it really only puts dark knight on equal footing with the other tanks in those scenarios because it lacks their self-sustain. Oblation is, frankly, just kind of shit in general. It should never have been a unique cooldown and instead have been part of TBN or something else. Shadowed Vigil is cool, but again, it's a day late and a dollar short compared to the other three tanks.

I will absolutely echo your sentiment about level 70 dark knight, as well. It is just complete cancer at that level and brings literally no value to play compared to the other tanks to the point that you're almost griefing parties when you play it in UCOB and UWU. The recent change to Umbral Soul does give me some hope that they'll lower the level you get Dark Missionary, though, as that was a very similar complaint that black mage mains have had for years now and they just got around to fixing it.

Edit: I also think it's worth saying that dark knight being as high in aDPS as it was -- and still technically is -- starting in Endwalker wasn't an intentional design decision. Paladin and gunbreaker were the two highest DPS tanks by the end of Shadowbringers, but dark knight and paladin switched places in 6.0 because of the changes to raid buff timing, which also ultimately led to paladin's rework in 6.3. A job being good incidentally is not good for its long-term health in the game, and we're really starting to see that fruit come to bear in Dawntrail.
D01287410: I notice that a lot of DRK mains have conditioned themselves to have the mind set of "ya this skills is very situational but in the situation it's useful it's amazing". I feel that this shouldn't be the case and the skills should just be useful all around, not worthless or god like. DRK is the only tank that has these skills and they have a bunch of them.
15ironreaver: I was in a dsr static as drk at the start of DT and man the job felt gutted at 90.
MrJjjakey: 100% spot on. I loved DRK so much in EW but it just feels hollow in DT. I'm now less a DRK main and more just a general omni tank, unfortunately. I really hope they do something to bring the job back to the same feel it was before.
Talcor: The fact that drk getting the same mit as every other tank this time is a breath of fresh air really tells you a lot about the state of drk.
MrNikh0o1: I knew i couldn't be the only one who cares about lower level jobs. They literally killed SAM at lv 70 lol
PH03NIX96: I need my Dark Arts (Eukrasia) back, and I need it now.
benjeezyyabeezy: This is the most I've heard Dank's voice and not it be raid call outs. 10/10 analysis
fennyfenris: I'm convinced being miserable is just part of the experience of playing DRK.
mirageowl: Removing both mana management and blood management from the job is also... kind of weird?
filipvadas7602: DRK , in my opinion, suffers from needlessly and consistently overbalanced & obsolete design:

TBN has no reason
anjoumaaka: Dark knight is not fine in dungeons. Please stop simping for the current iteration of TBN and do not even try to crutch on Living Dead. Healers will, without fail, always cuck you out of proccing walking dead, and then you are sitting there with nothing left to get any extra time alive to finish the wall to wall pull because the healer isn't doing damage and the only time they heal is to grief your invul. Dark knight will not be fine in dungeons until it gets some self healing, preferably before level 70.
conroconro: Shadowstride having no damage is fine, but the problem with it right now is it works completely different than Plunge did in 6.x and earlier.

Shadowstrike draws a packs attention first, moves you, then updates your position. This makes enemies run behind you for a moment and it feels awful.

Before, Plunge would move you, update your position, then draw attention.

If they revert it back to how it used to be drawing attention wise, it'll be perfect.
adognamedsally: I started playing DRK because of all the buttons you press. They went from being busy to being boring. Sadge.
I want a 20s CD that does like 500 potency and gives 1000 mana. 123 for 30 seconds is just so damn boring.

Anyway, I'm on GNB now. I get buttons again, and also the bursts are interesting. Unlike DRK, where I press the glowy buttons in a random order and then spam 123 for a minute.
shinjimikej: great video, agree with you on most, if not all points and this seems like a more informed opinion on the absolute (current) state of dark knight in dawntrail while most people seem to repeat some points that would do more harm than good to drk only because it's the "safe opinion"

the blood weapon change felt like something they did to try out and never revisited it, that mp loss makes drk feel more rigid, when 7.05 dropped i thought they'd add it again and just go like haha it was a joke but no, however, could definitely see it going back to 5 in the future but i think that won't really solve its mp issues (rigidness) as a whole
the idea of reworks or current changes in this game seem to be more of a thing of not punishing the player for messing something up and allowing them to recover where, as you said, if before you didn't have 50 blood entering a burst then it meant you were fucked out of living shadow and you can see this with viper too, it was changed so that before 7.05 you were soft punished for dropping noxious gnash, you still had your rotation but you lost some potency, now it makes it so that that failure state for the player isn't present, what this means for drk's future is uncertain if they ever plan a rework for it
your idea of cns healing is very good, i don't like the idea of homogenizing sustain across tanks and yeah it's an overblown issue, you can survive in dungeons with just your mits specially now that you have a 15 sec reprisal it means that rep and then your oblation charges can last you for almost an entire minute before you have them again, going back to mp changes it may be better if you could have more uses of tbn during dungeon pulls but in content where you aren't getting auto attacked every time or constantly or often you have more ways to survive, having drk be the big mit little sustain tank is actually a good way to differentiate it from its peers, me personally i never had any issues with healing or dying in dungeon pulls but i know that's not everyone's experience, however, we do have a rampart that increases healing, a tbn that is guaranteed to break with a lot of mobs (just wait for the whm holy stun to be fully resisted if you're concerned about that), 2 10% 10 sec mits and now shadowed vigil which is absurdly strong that the only reason someone may or could die in dungeons is a misplay, yes there may be more healing required at lower levels but come on... who is thinking of sustain and balance for older DUNGEONS? and don't healers wanna heal more?
and on that note of having great mits, changing tbn to just be another 25 sec cooldown is just removing a core identity of the job itself to be just another hoc/bw/sheltron, more tbn uses will be better so the best idea imo is not to change this to be 25 sec cooldown but instead give it more uses without the risk of losing dps, tbn is only bad when misused and or when you have enough ilvl that using tbn won't break at which point, does it matter? you probably already cleared or have more than enough gear to clear, i think the idea of changing tbn is that some people just don't want to use it smartly, my main concern about its future is that it may just turn into dark paladin or gunbreaker without continuation, it was already memed to be dark warrior but the community has to make an effort to avoid just spouting changes that will turn X job into Y with different animations and then they'll proceed to complain about how all these jobs in this role feel the same... HUH, i wonder why that is, tbn as it stands now being a risky tool that rewards smart usage will always be GOATed and drk as a mit machine is very strong, changes that would boost the uniqueness of the job are better than changes to make the job in-line with other jobs so i think the community as a whole should aim for that, if they change tbn or oblation to just be like the other 25s cds then you know a core part of drk's uniqueness died in favor of homogenization to avoid complaints of differences between jobs

also agreed with your take on lvl 70 drk but i think this is just a general problem, having your full kit or very important parts of it locked in old replayable high level content is just miserable, hell i would also like to have at least 1 oblation charge before 70


very good video i'm glad it was smarter than the usual complaints you see around, i love this job too it's been through some rough changes since its conception but it is still the king of cool and very fun to play in a lot of scenarios, i will keep playing it and i'm sure it'll do great in FRU since it's also the best tank for downtime phases but it needs more sauce or at least more mp gen to fully utilize its kit

yoship please collab
XanaverForge: I don't think I'm ever dropping DRK, the class fantasy is way too strong for me to give up, but at least at level 70 I'll be picking up Gunbreaker or Paladin. Honestly, I like the class fantasy of being a tank who gives up their sustain for damage, doing everything they can to do damage, but the lack of buttons makes it feel like I'm not doing as much as I really am.
ShoryukenPizza: I only dabble a bit in DRK in UWU and some dungeons, but it really feels like I'm griefing just bringing DRK in any hardcore content, especially UWU.

Aug 10 2024

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