[Maksimum_Fire]

I think very few classes in a standalone sense measure up to be incredibly strong.  Black Knight works phenomenally well as a support class in multiple ways because you have various different passives that you can hone in on depending on what you want to focus on, and likewise- various utility skills to shore up your weaknesses.  Not every build wants every skill from BK because things aren't generically good, they're designed to synergize in one way or another.

I don't think that BK is a 'gimmick' class right now.  It does work very well as a subclass because... Well, the only mainclass things it has are Bulwark from Soldier, the flatfoot bonus or w/e from Charge/Bash, and then bonus DR from Indomitable when using Black Wind.  Like Priest, there's not much, if any, encouragement to run it mainclass unless you're a shield build, in which case it suddenly becomes much, much harder to hurt because of how Bulwark works, and because of how frequently Black Knights can trigger black wind if they'd like to.

when it comes to 'protective' tactics in Sigrogana Legends 2, we don't have many skills meant to just, block things.  We have personal defensive measures, and then we have mobility.  Protect exists as a skill, and while it's not perfect, it still shuts off options for enemies.  It doesn't need to become something present in every fight, as long as it has places where it takes the spotlight.  I think if you want to take a defensive role beyond that, it should involve repelling opponents from your allies, taking advantage of your knightly strength to zone off opponents or otherwise force them into positions where they can't harm your allies.

I don't think anyone wants a world in which squishies entirely stop worrying about positioning, because it becomes the meta for a Black Knight to follow around puppyguarding them.  That'll lead to even slower team fights than what we have now, and it's not something I'm super keen on seeing.

A Black Knight is meant to be flexible in tactics due to their great training.  I think they need to range to more jobs than just bodyguarding, like you explained, Lone.

I'm actually glad bright bishop got brought up.  It's a very wacky skill and rarely seen, but I'm honestly a fan of it.  It's a long-range diagonal skill, something that I don't think we see anywhere else in the game- it's almost like a shinken out of the corner of your square.  I think it's a perfect tool for catching kiters off-guard, since, typically, attacks come out of the front- of if they don't, they're not super long range, since they'll be free targeted.  Bright Bishop circumvents this, and has appreciable bonus effects, especially from elemental impacts.  I think its only real weakness is being Faith scaling, which makes it tricky to run on a lot of builds, and the fact its scaling in general is a little lower than it could be.  It's another example of 'niche, but good' in the series of skills that BK has.

You just gotta pick the niches you're interested in fighting, kinda thing.  Black knights get hella options, and seriously, all of them are good except board shaker.  Board shaker rework and maybe less SP for skills is all I think that Black Knight really wants.  So, basically the same treatment Boxer got not long ago.

Edit:  I actually took another look at board shaker.  with the 100% strength part of it, honestly, it's not that bad aside from FP costs.  I can see great use being made of it.