Dark Knight Tank Guide — Shadowbringers 5.5

Dark Knight is a tank job that focuses on burst damage and personal mitigation with especially high resilience against magical threats.

Defensively, Dark Knight's strengths are flexibility and support. While weaker than similar cooldowns gained by the other tanks in Endwalker, The Blackest Night can be used nearly twice as often, and Oblation is a new tool for Dark Knight players to throw into the mix for themselves or for other party members. Dark Mind also provides high value against the very frequent magic damage encountered in trials and raids. These tools enable Dark Knight in its role of smoothing out spikes of incoming damage and aiding the healers in their quest to keep everyone alive.

On the offensive side, Dark Knight brings unparalleled burst damage from the tank role, fitting especially well into parties that bring a lot of buffs to the table. The dual resource system of Mana and Blood plus multiple high-value offensive cooldowns mean that Dark Knight is capable of putting its damage right where it needs to and rewards proper long-term planning.

This flexibility, along with its stylish aesthetic, make Dark Knight a popular pick both for casual play and hardcore progression.

Strengths

• Highly flexible personal and supportive mitigation with The Blackest Night and Oblation.
• Especially good mitigation versus magical damage with Dark Mind.
• Extremely high burst damage that shines in fights with short phases or in parties with strong raidbuffs.
• Flexible, resource management-based gameplay.

Weaknesses

• Very busy burst windows that involve a lot of high-ping-unfriendly weaving.
• Tight timing on Blood Weapon buff windows.
• No party-wide mitigation in lower-level content.
• Little self-healing outside of dungeons.

Whether you are leveling up Dark Knight for the first time or just want a quick refresher on when to use what, our leveling guide presents a handy overview of how the job evolves on the journey to Level 90.

Much like Ninja, Dark Knight's gameplay revolves around executing burst windows and then using basic combos as filler while preparing for the next one.

Every minute, 3-5 casts of Edge of Shadow should accompany Blood Weapon, Delirium, Carve and Spit, and two uses of Plunge. In addition, make sure to keep Salted Earth and its followup Salt and Darkness rolling on their own 90-second cadence, and to throw Living Shadow and two Shadowbringer casts into the mix every other minute.

Between burst phases, keep your Hard Slash → Syphon Strike → Souleater combos going and look for opportunities to use The Blackest Night to help out your healers and keep the no-cost Edge of Shadow proc for the next set of buffs. Also, remember to hit Bloodspiller under buffs where possible, or simply to avoid overcapping on Blood in between.

One daunting aspect of progression can be figuring out which pieces of gear work best to enable your kit or further your damage output. Check out the stat priority guide for information on the decisions that guide Dark Knight players toward their ultimate best-in-slot.

If you are looking for pre-made best-in-slot gearsets, check out the dedicated BiS guide. Here you will find multiple curated options for general use, as well as sets to maximize damage in each ultimate-level encounter.

Once you have familiarized yourself with the basics, you will need to learn what makes the job really tick to maximize your performance in trials and raids. Our rotation guide takes a deeper dive into how to execute a proper opener and manage your resources to set yourself up for success.

If you are looking for further improvement at any skill bracket, these pages will present solutions to the most common mistakes and questions brought forth by Dark Knight players, as well as resources to help guide your own self-improvement.