It took me awhile longer than I thought it would, but I finally got Dark Knight to 70 over the weekend. I capped it off with an Alliance Raid Roulette—if you’ve not been using those to level, I highly recommend them, as the XP bonus is huge! I had originally picked up DRK to see its Stormblood storyline, which I had seen a lot of praise for on Twitter. Since it seemed to tie back into the 30-50 story, which I greatly enjoyed, I was very interested to see where things went from there. By the end of things, I was actually somewhat disappointed. The core idea of the story is interesting, but the overall quest line suffered somewhat from pacing issues, and it was also a bit muddled in a storytelling sense.

All was not in vain, though. As it turns out, Dark Knight’s pretty fun to play, and I think I like it better than Paladin mechanically (which, I suppose, was always true) even if Paladin is more straightforward to play and really just plain better. I had a good time leveling it, and I think it’ll be my go to tank at the level cap for awhile. I was also more impressed with the Stormblood Artifact Armor than I thought I would be. While the body piece has some frustrating tail clipping issues, the gauntlets and greaves look great, and I’m really fond of the Artifact weapon, Caladbolg. So, as is something of a tradition, I put together a new glamour for Dark Knight after all was said and done, one that I’m actually likely to keep for awhile, I think.

Glamour Components (Required Level: DRK 70)
Weapon: Antiquated Caladbolg
Head: Elegant Rimless Glasses (Dalamud Red)
Body: Lynxfang Cuirass (Metallic Silver)
Hands: Antiquated Abyss Gauntlets
Legs: Werewolf Tail (Jet Black)
Feet: Antiquated Abyss Sollerets

This look is more or less an evolution of the glamour I wore while leveling Dark Knight, which I featured some time ago. I noticed right away that the Abyss Gauntlets and Sollerets worked really well with the Lynxliege Cuirass, and I considered going with that body piece for a quick and easy new Dark Knight glamour. I didn’t want to commit to just using the same thing again, though, especially with the removal of the Scion Healer’s Highboots meaning that the red on the Lynxliege body wouldn’t have as much to key off of with the rest of the glamour.

What’s really cool, though, is that the Lynxfang Cuirass actually works better than the Lynxliege one. It’s a little more muted when dyed silver, which makes it match the Abyss pieces more closely. The halfskirt on it is also shorter, which I prefer, since that makes it seem a bit lighter and more appropriate for Alahra. I’m even overall a fan of the less ornate style. Most of the elements are the same, of course, but the Lynxfang Cuirass lacks some of the embellishments of the higher item level version.

With most of the red from the previous glamour now gone, I needed something to replace the Storm Elite Skirt, but that was thankfully very easy. The new Werewolf Tail from this year’s All Saints’ Wake is a perfectly functional skirt for adventuring. While I’m not completely fond of the way it dyes (with the middle of it looking a bit washed out), the length of the Cuirass and its halfskirt conceal all of the disagreeable sections. Finally, I decided to keep the Elegant Rimless Glasses; I got pretty used to them alongside the collar of the Lynxliege Cuirass while leveling, and the collar on the other Cuirass still has enough red to make the red glasses a reasonable choice.

Of course, now that my Paladin and Dark Knight are sharing gear, Paladin gets the short end of the stick with this glamour, but since I’m currently enjoying Dark Knight more (and tanking only rarely at the level cap, to be honest), that’s not too much of a loss. Even if I liked Paladin more, I think I’d be really tempted to play Dark Knight simply because of how pleased I am with this look!

Since I’ve been getting somewhat regular questions about the weapons included in the header images, I’m going to start including them in the list of glamour pieces. I don’t always glamour with weapons in mind, and when I started the site, it was something I tended to avoid outside of current stage Relic/Zodiac/Anima weapons. As time’s gone on, I’ve started to do it more often, though, and especially since I often favor weapons from ARR that aren’t commonly seen these days, I figure it’s worth including now to save people trouble!