DRK and MP and Damage Dealing.

[Selzak]

Some awesome suggestions

Unfortunately they aren't new/nobody is listening.

[Chriscoffey]

Unfortunately they aren't new/nobody is listening.

A real kick in the nuts would be if they implemented the darkness based nukes then made everything dark resistant. This is the same thing they did with red mage. They give them awesome enfeebling then make it where you can't enfeeble a mob. I could see this being the case with dark knight.

[Rukkirii]

I just wanted to warp in here and let you know that we are thinking about lowering the casting time for dark magic. On top of that, we are also looking into DRK's magic usage.

Great ideas so far! Keep the feedback coming. ^_^

[Quetzacoatl]

Well that just rendered Selzak's comment meaningless

But still, we need to let SE know how to do this right!

[Zirael]

I just wanted to warp in here and let you know that we are thinking about lowering the casting time for dark magic. On top of that, we are also looking into DRK's magic usage.

Great ideas so far! Keep the feedback coming. ^_^

There are already 2 fencer jobs in this game strongly relying on magic with weak meele potential: Red Mage and Blue Mage. Red Mage is in terrible state regarding all aspects of the job, Blue Mage is faring slightly better. Why is the Dev team so intent on adding a third one to that lot? Why not make a strong meele (focused on meeleing) class supplemented with useful dark magic debuffs/buffs?

[Selzak]

Well that just rendered Selzak's comment meaningless

But still, we need to let SE know how to do this right!

If they seriously give some attention to DRK and realize it into an actual useful, unique melee/mage hybrid, I will:

Decorate a room with lovely ambiance.
Set a table and decorate it nicely.
Spend hours lovingly preparing, seasoning, and cooking a crow dinner.
Then finally, sit at that table all by myself and love every minute of eating my crow.

I just wanted to warp in here and let you know that we are thinking about lowering the casting time for dark magic. On top of that, we are also looking into DRK's magic usage.

Great ideas so far! Keep the feedback coming. ^_^

Steps for success when updating DRK:


1. Think realistically
Before you do anything, think about it in the actual context of the game. DRK has a lot of things that look good on paper but become superfluous and useless in application.

2. Let us use our toys
Look back at the Absorb-TP nerf. If it was too powerful, consider changing the recast or resist rate instead of just making it not worth the casting time or MP. A lot of the things that are supposed to set DRK apart amount to nothing more than novelties. For the longest time, Souleater and Last Resort (our two defining JA's) suffered this fate. THANK YOU for fixing that, now leave the JA's alone because we're fine and don't need any more superfluous things cluttering the list. Things like Drain (recast + formula), Drain II (recast), Absorb-TP (nerf into uselessness), Dread Spikes (hard duration- capping damage drained is fine, but the 1 minute duration no matter what is just annoying), Scarlet Delirium (no one is going to ever use this), Absorb-STAT spells (extremely out-dated and unnoticeable), and Elemental spells (absolutely useless in any realistic sense) have not been so lucky. The job is cluttered full of things that it has, but can't really do.

3. Define a role
DRK's identity for a long, long time was the Stun Knight. This was a legitimate role (albeit a somewhat weak one) that we would love to have back. Consider giving us a JA along the lines of Zeid's Abyssal Strike that stuns the enemy and does damage- it can be set to a 60 second recast with moderate damage (something like a melee attack, or less), no TP return, and an added Stun effect. In a tangled bunch of melee jobs fighting for supremecy, DRK doesn't need more melee damage if it's capable of something more. I sincerely hope that this is where DRK goes.

4. Realize the description
Absorb-Attri was a step in the right direction. The job needs more unique debilitating capabilities. The Absorb-STAT spells are a lost, dead art to DRK- consider giving them a considerable buff (or make the amount stolen go up and rate of decay go down scaling with level or something- finally capping at a set duration with no decay at level 99). DRK really needs something to set it apart here: consider giving DRK a currently unavailable, new way to hinder enemies. Something like Terror or Plague comes to mind; obviously balance would need to be taken into account, and it would require a bit of creativity to make it fit correctly...the point, though, is that DRK does need some kind of powerful debuff to bring to a PT that no other job can do better.

5. Be creative
En-Dark was a perfect add. Using magic to add to our damage in a unique way (it's unique in the context of melee jobs) is fantastic. No complaints whatsoever there, great job. Do more stuff like this. One thing that I posted a long time ago, and that I think most everyone is on board with, is the idea of giving DRK a 'Blood Weapon' trait that activates at a low rate and is susceptible to resists.

6. Open up the gates
Number 4 is, I think, by far the most important aspect to consider. However, the concept of the job seems to be that DRK can do melee damage and magic damage. To make this practical, DRK's nuking capabilities need a complete overhaul. DRK would do well to have one or two high-cost, quick-casting Darkness nukes. I don't think we need more than one to two of these, like Demi and Darkness or Darkness I and Darkness II...just two quick, practical spells for dark damage. Be creative with this stuff...the balance factor could be high resists instead of simply never letting us cast it. Require us to swap in a casting set if we want it to land fully on a regular basis. A big problem holding DRK's magic damage back, as everyone has been stating...forever, is the fact that whatever damage you do with a spell must include a subtraction of the damage you'd have done with your normal swings if you had not casted it. This, coupled with long recasts on spells like Drain and Drain II (which both deserve it for the damage/cost ratio...Drain II perhaps being a bit over-adjusted) make any damage DRK can do with its magic either impractical or inefficient. The Quick Magic trait, which would simply occasionally counteract the side-effects of this, would be perfect for DRK. Spells like Drain, Drain II, and Dread Spikes could become more than just a novelty with this trait.

7. Diversify
I love the idea of Greatsword being DRK's pure melee weapon and Scythe being the utility/hybrid tool of choice (with WS like Catastrophe, Entropy, and magic-based stuff that everyone hates). This is a very cool concept, and you might take it further by defining it with an early Job Trait that differentiates the two weapons. Solidify Greatsword as our pure melee, tough enemy weapon and Scythe as our utility, solo/small party oriented weapon.


Please just try to enjoy the job's concept for a moment and be creative with it...then realize it.

[Quetzacoatl]

I'd also like to suggest a Banish-style spell for DRK, but it weakens arcana defense instead of undead defense:
Demi
Demi II
Demi III

and the Dark Magic Style Holy could be named:
Scathe
Scathe II

If they seriously give some attention to DRK and realize it into an actual useful, unique melee/mage hybrid, I will:

Decorate a room with lovely ambiance.
Set a table and decorate it nicely.
Spend hours lovingly preparing, seasoning, and cooking a crow dinner.
Then finally, sit at that table by myself and love every minute of eating my crow.

Start getting yourself set up now while you can. Then if SE follows through, get that crow ready. Then you can trash everything and show SE what they have done afterwards if they don't go through with it.

[Unctgtg]

Anyone else find it completely disturbing that we have the most powerful weapons in the game, and yet we have some of the worst and weakest WSs.

[Emitremmus]

I was pondering something the other day...

What if DRK were able to use a Sublimation-like effect that drains HP and increases attack? It could be stored up to say...1/4 of your max HP, and when used could bump your attack by a variable of the amount of HP stored? The attack bonus could either be used for one attack round, OR stay in effect for a set amount of time, whichever most of the player base would prefer.

Another idea would be an ability or job trait that utilizes debuffs on the player. Say it has a chance to transfer the debuff on you to the enemy via an "enspell" effect. For example.

-Player is inflicted with blind.-
-Next attack has a chance of transferring blind to the currently targeted enemy.-

Alternatively, the inflicted debuffs could be used to increase the strength of the DRK. Say having 1 debuff increases your attack by X%, but having 2 debuffs increases it even more.

Both of these abilities pay homage to the lore of the Dark Knight, such as using one's own suffering to inflict damage to enemies. I haven't played DRK since 76+ has been obtainable, mainly due to the utility of the job becoming irrelevant to other jobs' strengths.

[Byrth]

In order for elemental magic (and by extension Occult Acumen) to be feasible, DRK would have to instant-cast it. That's not feasible, but if you act now you can make more reasonable changes that will give DRK a more versatile role.

The four basic changes I'd propose:
1) Decrease the casting time of all dark magic (including Endark but excluding Dread Spikes) to be equal to Stun. - You could do this through a job trait like Elemental Celerity or Divine Benison.
2) Eliminate Stat-Drain decay. - Kind of an unnecessary mechanism, don'tcha think?
3) Double base Absorb duration. - It's pitiful at the moment.
4) Increase the cap on absorb-stat spell potency (up to 30?).

At the end of the day, what do you have? DRKs that cast Absorb-STR, Drain II, and Endark more than once a month. Heaven forbid they use the spells you gave them. If you fail to do number 2~3, I don't think absorb-stat spells will really see use.

Other more off-the-wall ideas:
* One of the problems with Absorb spells is that you're forced to choose between enhancing yourself (Absorb-STR) or helping the party (Absorb-VIT) from a feasibility standpoint. You could counter this by introducing "Siphon-VIT" and "Siphon-AGI", if you wanted. Siphon VIT would steal a monster's VIT and turn it into STR. Siphon-AGI would steal a monster's AGI and turn it into DEX. Problem solved.
* Absorb-Attack (You get +Attack, monster gets -Attack) and Absorb-Haste (You get Haste, monster gets Slow) would both be assets to DRK. The latter one might be useful even if you don't make the four changes recommended above, and would give DRK a magic Haste source for better lowmanning.


It would be interesting if you could figure out the number of times DRK-specific spells have been cast since 75 and compare it to other Spells. I would bet that Blizzard IV has been cast more times than all the absorb spells combined.