Dark Knight under review: Feedback to the Developers and Community Team

[Saeno]

I am just glad they are doing something. I remember how PLD was all 3.x

Never forghetti.

[aqskerorokero]

Funny, was there any post like this with so many follow up back in3.x with PLD? If it did, then I can only remember replys as how to play a war or drk without grit, stance dancing blah blah blah then PLD was bad only because of meta...Dev team has a WAR main inside I guess. From my prospective, usage of dark arts should ignore the downside of grit, then rework Blood Spiller's potency in just DA or non DA and make it an ability.

[Sylvain]

I'd personally like the benefit of all tank stance to be highly increased so that going dps stance isn't always the best scenario.

[Ekimmak]

I'd personally like the benefit of all tank stance to be highly increased so that going dps stance isn't always the best scenario.

It isn't.

But people like to think that all groups are 100% fully optimised killing machines, and any situation that you need to go into tank stance for just translates to being a bad tank.

[Jhett_Magnum]

So the only things I’m a fan of is the soul survive and Shadow Wall change.

If DRK is getting reworked for 4.4 ( I doubt) I’d propose this:

Dark Arts - Increases damage dealt by 25%. MP regeneration stops during battle and Refresh statuses granted by others have no effect.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Darkside- Attune with the darkness within you, reducing weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 10% and converts physical damage dealt into MP, while reducing weaponskill TP cost by 20%. Also increases Blood Gauge by 3 each time a physical attack lands.
Duration: 60s (Blood Gauge)
Cannot be used while under the effect of Grit. Effect is canceled if Grit is activated.

Bloodspiller - Delivers an attack with a potency of 400. (oGCD)
Darkside Potency: 540
Grit Potency: 475
Dark Arts + Grit Potency: 650
Additional Effect: Extends Darkside and Blood Price effects by 7s and 8s respectively.

Scourge - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Darkside Potency:
Combo Action: Spinning Slash
Combo Potency: 240
Darkside Combo Potency: 380
Additional Effect: Damage over time
Potency: 75
Duration: 24s

Edit: Nvm, way to similar to NIN

[Megguido]

If DRK is getting reworked for 4.4 ( I doubt) I’d propose this:

Dark Arts - Increases damage dealt by 25%. MP regeneration stops during battle and Refresh statuses granted by others have no effect.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Darkside- reducing weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 10% and converts physical damage dealt into MP, while reducing weaponskill TP cost by 20%. Also increases Blood Gauge by 3 each time a physical attack lands.
Duration: 60s (Blood Gauge)
Cannot be used while under the effect of Grit. Effect is canceled if Grit is activated.

Scourge - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Darkside Potency:
Combo Action: Spinning Slash
Combo Potency: 240
Darkside Combo Potency: 380
Additional Effect: Damage over time
Potency: 75
Duration: 24s

Your iteration of Dark Arts is just current Darkside, and your Darkside current Blood Weapon. You changed a bit some values (like 60s instead of 15/23s, 25% instead of 20%).
There's an issue with this idea of Scourge as a third combo: you don't want a DPS combo starting with an aggro combo. PLD had a similar issue with Royal Authority being tied to Savage Blade back in 3.X. Spinning Slash has a 5x enmity ratio, which would unecessarily raise your aggro while being offtank.

Also bringing a 840 potency combo in DRK's kit and making Bloodspiller oGCD would skyrocket its DPS. Considering how cautious they are about the DRK, and how they buff it little by little, I highly doubt they'll make such important changes without a complete rework of the job (which would be at best with 5.0).

[Tex_Mex]

There's an issue with this idea of Scourge as a third combo: you don't want a DPS combo starting with an aggro combo. PLD had a similar issue with Royal Authority being tied to Savage Blade back in 3.X. Spinning Slash has a 5x enmity ratio, which would unecessarily raise your aggro while being offtank.

Totally agree with you here.

Also bringing a 840 potency combo in DRK's kit and making Bloodspiller oGCD would skyrocket its DPS. Considering how cautious they are about the DRK, and how they buff it little by little, I highly doubt they'll make such important changes without a complete rework of the job (which would be at best with 5.0).

I agree that the changes he listed would probably be too much DPS, but I do believe that aggressively increasing DRK DPS would be one fast way to help the class out. For all other classes, low utility typically means they are balanced with higher DPS. This just isn't true for DRK though. What do they bring to the table? Virtually no utility (lol TBN), mediocre DPS, no burst, mediocre damage mitigation against anything non magical. Wooooo. The only thing they ever really bring is their magic mitigation (though admittedly, it is VERY strong. Dark Mind can be really OP). They could easily increase any one of the other weak items I listed and DRK would still not be better than either of the other tanks. Increasing DPS just so happens to be the easiest of those options.

[Megguido]

I agree that the changes he listed would probably be too much DPS, but I do believe that aggressively increasing DRK DPS would be one fast way to help the class out. For all other classes, low utility typically means they are balanced with higher DPS. This just isn't true for DRK though. What do they bring to the table? Virtually no utility (lol TBN), mediocre DPS, no burst, mediocre damage mitigation against anything non magical. Wooooo. The only thing they ever really bring is their magic mitigation (though admittedly, it is VERY strong. Dark Mind can be really OP).

DRK's defensive toolkit is awesome against magic damage, but it doesn't mean it's shit against physical damage. Compare that to PLD and tell me how PLD's kit isn't mediocre against physical damage either ?

PLD's personnal defensive tools are:
- Sentinel, 40% mitigation, 3 min CD
- Sheltron, 20-28% mitigation, one hit only
- Bulward, basically fluff damage mitigation, 3 min CD

DRK's are:
- Shadow Wall, 30% mitigation, 2 min CD
- TBN, 20% max HP, 15s CD

DRK's TBN covers both the utility of Sheltron and Bulwark. Shadow Wall is a weaker Sentinel on a shorter cooldown. Imo, both kits are really close at mitigating physical damage. Now let's not forget there's not a single savage/extreme fight since 4.0 that is 100% physical damage, where DRK brings an additional 30% mitigation skill on a 1 min cooldown.

In my opinion, utility isn't the best quality a tank must bring to the party. For example, when a WAR has to Holmgang, a DRK can use TBN+DM instead and just reduce the tankbuster to less than 20k damage, which means an Essential Dignity or Benediction can be used on something else. It's definitely not the best speedrun tank, but it is a really good one during progression phase. Kinda makes healers' job a bit less stressful as well (looking at double Wings of Destruction for example).

Also "Mediocre DPS" is nothing but a hyperbole, when you consider that over all 5 Sigmascape fights, for percentiles between 75 and 95th, DRK is 55 DPS lower than PLD in the worst scenario. Does mediocre means 1.4% lower DPS than the 2nd highest tank ? SE could increase DRK's DPS by a flat 200 so it's the highest among all three tanks, and people wouldn't see the damn difference, beside "lol muh deeps". WAR and PLD would still be the kings of speedrun due to LB cheesing. DRK would remain the same except it's a bit better.

[Tex_Mex]

WAR and PLD would still be the kings of speedrun due to LB cheesing. DRK would remain the same except it's a bit better.

You made my entire point for me. I don't want it to be better than the other 2 tanks. I just want it to be in line. If the job is going to have barely any utility, then it should have higher or the highest personal DPS. Mediocre damage was comparing it to WAR, not PLD. PLD has mediocre damage as well, but this is fine because it has a metric crapton of utility. As far as personal mitigation, I didn't say PLD was any better in that department. PLD is ugly there too, but again has a completely insane amount of utility to compensate.

[Megguido]

All tanks have their pros and cons. 150 or 200 more DPS hardly matter, when your own skills and gear are worth much more. Give 200 more DPS to a Grit-and-Power-Slash-only DRK and he still won't go higher than 2000 DPS.

All in all, even with a bit more DPS you wouldn't see the difference. That's why I can't really agree with "please give DRK more damage". Yeah more damage would be nice. It won't magically "fix" the job though.