The official Dark Knight adjustment and suggestion topic.

[Dart]

Lets pray then aren't intelligent then.

Maybe all the DRKs preeching Magic damage don't have the gear to compete on the melee side, or never played when DRK was considered a top tier job. Or they forget how BLM was used prior to Abyssea. Casting in this game will never compete with buffed Melees.

I can't agree more, if we want to be relevant again they must boost our melee/ws aspects. Casting is great and a nice utility but people just seem to ignore the fact that to get a spot as a dd, you have to actually do damage comparable to war, mnk, drg, rng, nin, etc. I'm not saying beat, but being able to hang with the rest is the idea. Otherwise we're a token job suitable for standing in jeuno and looking pretty in our full bale+2

[Urteil]

Lets pray then aren't intelligent then.

Maybe all the DRKs preeching Magic damage don't have the gear to compete on the melee side, or never played when DRK was considered a top tier job. Or they forget how BLM was used prior to Abyssea. Casting in this game will never compete with buffed Melees.

You act as if doing DRK melee in PvE is hard. Your gear argument is ridiculous, I have excellent gear.

You act as if everyone who wants the job with second highest INT, second highest elemental and #1 dark magic to have more magic is asking for something that doesn't logically follow.
On that note I don't believe I ever said "our melee is perfectly fine" it sure as hell is not.

Melee is simple and so is PvE, capped haste set up, WS setups for every WS, research mobs and adjust ATK and Stat Mod gear accordingly.

People preaching magic don't want the job to be Monk, you have a Monk and a Masamune.

So if you are so obsessed with pure Melee go play them?


They don't have MP pools, and I'm sure you have excellent gear.

The argument is not that our melee is fine, and to just boost magic.

The real point is that both need to be fixed, the game has several other damage dealing jobs with no MP pools or magic. Why the hell would we want to be more of jobs that already exist, and that you have: MNK and SAM.

[Jar]

You act as if doing DRK melee in PvE is hard. Your gear argument is ridiculous, I have excellent gear.

You act as if everyone who wants the job with second highest INT, second highest elemental and #1 dark magic to have more magic is asking for something that doesn't logically follow.
On that note I don't believe I ever said "our melee is perfectly fine" it sure as hell is not.

Melee is simple and so is PvE, capped haste set up, WS setups for every WS, research mobs and adjust ATK and Stat Mod gear accordingly.

People preaching magic don't want the job to be Monk, you have a Monk and a Masamune.

So if you are so obsessed with pure Melee go play them?


They don't have MP pools, and I'm sure you have excellent gear.

i do agree we need new magic as well as something like BLM new trait to speed spells up

[Kagato]

With the release of the "Like" system, please rate-up this topic so the dev team might take it more seriously, in case they haven't already.

[Kagato]

I was talking to Urteil earlier and he mentioned Dark Magic "nuke" spells. Dark mgaic spells tailor made to deal damage, much like there is Banish and Holy for Divine Magic.

That may give room for us to make use out of Occult Accument and make us have reason to get INT and Dark Magic skill builds against monsters that normally there wouldn't be any need to DD on.

Urteil's idea so he has that credit. I invite him to mention anything different to his idea from what I posted.


Also, I admit the idea of "Stances" are growing on me. In fact, I think many of our woes can be fixed this way. Think about it.

Melee Stance
Pros: Includes some or All of these

• Increased Last Resort Duration.
• Higher Critical Hit% or Critical Damage added to Weapon Skills
• Higher Critical Hit Damage
• Maybe a little bit of a Haste boost, like 5%.
• Increased Parry Rate

Cons: Includes some or all of these.

• Longer Dark Magic recast time.
• More Enmity Generated (Might be good for those acting as Tanks though)
• Occult Acumen Trait cancelled.
• Longer Dark Magic casting time.

Magic Stance
Pros: Includes some or all of these.

• Greatly Shortened Dark Magic casting time.
• Shortened Magic recasting time.
• Potent Magic Attack Bonus
• Boosted Dark Magic Skill
• Slower decay on Absorb spells
• Attack while casting?

Cons: Includes some or all of these.

• Slower delay on melee attacks (10% Slow or something to that extent)
• Lowered Attack and Defense
• Lowered Parry and Evasion

This could include a lot of our requests into 2 job abilities and balance things out with each ability's cons. We'll get a melee boost when we DD and a magic boost when we can't so we can have more uses overall.

What thoughts does everyone else have on this?

[Urteil]

I like the stances thing, but reduced defense needs to be taken away, Dark Knight drastically needs survivability not to have things or anything taken away from it.

If anything the Dark magic stance should drastically buff dread spikes; in addition to the other ideas were very plausible and sound.


On that note, dread spikes needs to be buffed to where it has a higher threshold of damage, 75% base, with the AF+2 boosting it to 100% of your max hp. Have you seen the crazy shit BLU gets? It honestly is a drop in a bucket compared to that crap, that and OR:

Remove the one minute duration, extend the duration to three to five minutes so it doesn't wear off before the limit is reached, as it stands its a rather useless spell.

So either have a stance that has the side effect of boosting its power greatly, or the spell needs to be fixed.

And Dread Spikes is nerfed so badly in ballista its stupid, 20%? Come on what the hell.

[Chogokin]

Just recently started playing DRK again, slightly annoyed by how lame we seem to be at the minute!
Here are my suggestions:

Idea 1) First off, a pair of Job traits to make casting worthwhile.
"Job trait 1": When any absorb spell is used on the enemy, for the duration of the absorbed effect, the caster also gains an increased Crit Hit rate. Multiple tiers increase Crit Hit %.
"Job trait 2": When the DRK scores a crit hit, they gain a buff for a very short period of time (~3 sec?). During this window, all direct damage dark and elemental spells have their cast time reduced to near instant (think stun cast time). Wears off after 1 cast. Multiple tiers increase duration of window of opportunity.

My reasoning behind this is thus: A crit hit boost is good for DD... so DRK will want to keep an Absorb effect up at all times (so more absorb casting). Then, when they do get a crit, they have a short time in which to cast a Nuke. Even if it's weak, with a short cast time it's basically free damage (plus free TP from occult accumen). These traits should be gained low enough to encourage casting... lv50 or something?

Idea 2) New spells
Absorb: X II: A second tier of absorbs. These should have near atma levels of stat boosts. I also thought it would be nice if they applied a small "Drain over time" effect.
This DoT would help make up for the melee swings lost during casting. Furthermore, as each Absorb would be its own debuff, you could potentially stack many of these DoTs. Would also add some survivability, esp in longer fights.

Idea 3) Job ability to help with casting
"Blood Price": User sacrifices 10% of their HP in order to instantly cast their next spell.

I personally think this idea is less cool than idea 1, but perhaps "better"... I suppose it would need a suitable recast for balance etc. Would be nice if it could be used when subbed, lv40?

[Karuyag]

GDI... i just typed a really long post just to have it erased cuz the site logged me out automatically... (i knew i shoulda copy-pasted first)

Anyways... here's my 2 cents:

1. I know people want to increase Last Resort's duration... but instead of going with with a mock Berserk... why not just add better job abilities/traits...going by it's name... it should be a LAST resort... not FIRST resort... and maybe if they DO buff it... make it stronger that Berserk... it IS the LAST resort after all... maybe add abilities something along the lines of buffing WS damage/crit rate/crit damage/haste/fast cast/recast reduction or some other stat that affects direct damage...

2. HP/MP/TP... DRK is known to be the job that specializes in sacrificing themselves to damage their foes... Going with that theme... why not take that to the next level... instead of just having Souleater... how about abilities that consume TP or MP to increase their damage (kinda like MP Attack in FFIX)... or maybe an ability to use HP/TP to cast spells... or an ability that consumes MP or HP to use/buff weapon skill... Also someone brought up the idea of having a trait that increases damage as HP goes down... Since most JA's tend to have a trade-off... DRK's trade off is health consumption... or maybe have some overpowered ability's side-effect to be a short weakened state...

3. After using up yourself and dealing all that damage...time for recovery... Since DRK also specializes in draining/absorbing as well... take that to the next level too... first of all... CHANGE THE 2 HOUR ABILITY!!!... DRG had its 2hr changed... why not DRK?... Blood weapon is powerful yes... but why not make the recast more readily available?... it'll be one the DRK's major arsenal as recovery from just ravaging that poor bluffalo with its HP consuming abilities... that being said... maybe the new 2hr should be something that makes your abilities (going from suggestion #2) not consume HP and be in the low-HP-high damage state without having HP be in that level... maybe also add more ways to drain/restore HP... not just with spells... or maybe some ability to restore HP with TP (kinda like Chivalry for HP... not so much a Curing Waltz)... also maybe have some ability that uses HP to recover MP (kind of like a self-use devotion not so much convert)... also... maybe also reduce enmity generation of these abilities... or maybe some ability that consumes HP/MP to reduce enmity... i just think its funny that other jobs get some defensive abilities... and DRK gets.. what... arcane circle?

4. Spells/Abilities... on top of the abilities suggested above... I agree with everyone about adding more absorb-stat spells and having no decay... What I don't agree with is being able to attack while casting... maybe... just reduce the casting times instead... 1 second or less... maybe along the lines of the length of a JA animation... i also agree about dark-type nukes maybe make them have some added effect as well (plague, virus, amnesia, def-down to arcana or some other non-elementally attached enfeeble) (always thought that Doomed-family ability "Abyss Blast" would be a good example for the dark spell)... dread spikes and endark are good ideas... maybe improve their effects a little... also maybe an ability that turns your weapon damage into dark elemental damage (ala formless strikes)...

5. Weapon skills... my idea would be some kind of AoE drain WS (kinda like blood drain... maybe magic damage based) instead/on top of the PAINFULLY DREADFUL infernal scythe... i mean... with all gear available to drk... it's still not gonna match other WS's in damage... might as well make it useful... Also, i agree with improving modifiers to WS... and maybe increase them at the 100 TP level... as far as a crit based WS... WS's shouldnt be a DRK's main source of high damage... HP-consuming abilities that improve every swing should be the focus IMO... strong enough that it the damage from every swing + WS damage would add up and be comparable to spike-damaged-RR-buffed-crit WS... example: maybe DRK can do 700-1k damage on a buffed critical hit :X... and maybe in brew mode... every DRK swing does 2k damage :X... i mean our main weapons isnt about fast hits... its about strong slow hits...

Gah... my mind is spent... im really pissed that the stuff i typed earlier got erased... now my train of thought is gone... and i might have missed some of the ideas i typed earlier... but hopefully these suggestions would pique ideas... im sure some would disagree.. but hey... this is my opinion...

[FioryGriever]

Meh, don't like the idea of tier II abs-spell. DRK doesn't need any more spells in that aspect, getting rid of the decay is the way to go. Dread Spikes should remain the same % but increase its duration. I like the idea of casting while you melee, it would make DRK much more versatile; the problem isn't so much as casting speed imo as people wanting to not have the negative effects from their /sam, and honestly. ~That's too bad~ People chose to go the heavy DD / TP / WS route, they can't have it both ways, its a good limiter. For WS I'd like to see another level of the Crescent Moon / Sickle Moon line, make it a 3 hit (Sickle Moon + Spinning Slash animation would be cool, I'd name it Full Moon Slash ^^) and that "could" be the crit-hit WS people have been wanting. Scythe WS ... we have an HP return WS already, no need for another imo, BUT to equal out GS new WS I'd suggest Hell Scythe, 3 hit WS, and the animation would basically be 3 "Spinning Slash" in a row.. shouldn't be that hard, but those are just my dream WS that I'd make~ (tho honestly I don't see us getting any real WS to outshine Emp / Relic / Mythic). Our 2hr does seem a lil' underwhelming, but TBH 2hr aren't meant to be more than those things we use in the most dire of situations or as tactical tools, and ours is just that. I don't believe we should have Last Resort changed @ all, I heavily agreed in a prior post about an Impetus style JA that would fit DRK "Grim Fervor" I had originally thought it'd be an Att+ Def- w/ successful swings, but I see others views on survivability so id make it Att+ Def- on successful swings: occasionally convert dmg dealt into HP (% converted would increase on successful hits).. this would work on undead as well which has been a gripe for MANY DRK in the past, as they can Drain us, but we are 100% useless vs them AND I don't think it'd be TOO game breaking as there would probably be a % cap. This is all i really would suggest DRK to get, I don't see a great deal wrong w/ DRK atm other than it's not Abyssea Easy Mode friendly, but that solely depends on the DRK~ ~Fiory Janus Griever~

[Duzell]

An idea that just came to me is Venom Spikes, something that inflicts a poison that gets stronger each time a monster hits us. 1 hit 1/tic 2 hits 2/tic 3 hits 4/tic 4 hits 8/tic etc, just have it double each time and wear off if the monster doesn't hit us for a given period of time, say a minute.