The official Dark Knight adjustment and suggestion topic.

[RaenRyong]

DRK should be top DD if they are riding Souleater and other sacrificial abilities because they are just that: a sacrifice. It is stupid that we have to sacrifice so much to still come short of them. Without riding sacrificial abilities, should still be powerful.

Utility and such is lovely but we do need great damage. Without that, we are not useful - this is not a game for hybrids in a party situation.

[Kagato]

The main issue is that DRKs aren't only not needed by most groups, but frequently DRKs are not WANTED by many groups. The reason is because all of our abilities don't have any long-term benefits. WARs and MNKs have long term benefits because a lot of their best abilities are from their main job abilities and last for a long time. The reason we DRKs struggle is because our best abilities are too dangerous, too short or outright useless.

Increasing our Parry skill would definitely make Tactical Parry more useful as well as allow us to live longer. Look at FFXIV. Marauders, basically that game's DRK, are experts in Parry. We have no shields, but we have huge weapons! Let us use those huge weapons for parry! That will give us more defensive options, at least for melee attacks.

Last Resort being too short is still one of the biggest problems holding us back. It needs to have a longer duration.

I like the idea of Stun II being more like a Terrorize. I'd love for us to have a stronger Stun ability. It would actually give us more use in endgame events. Right now, there are too many other jobs who are basically being looked at first for Stunning, such as Black Mages or Blue Mages.

Also, let me make something very clear. Why are we tied with Black Mages in Dark Magic skill? Why aren't we better than them at it? If Dark Magic skill is going to be our #1 magic, shouldn't we have it at A+ instead of A-?

And on that note, why did RDMs, of all people, get Bio III and not us? I can kind of understand since RDMs are mostly enfeeble mages, but come on. I thought Bio was going to be one of our better Dark Magic spells, but it's useless now that RDMs have Bio III to beat our Bio II.

The point about DRK is that sure, we have a lot of cool abilities at our disposal. However, every other job can do the same thing we can at the same level of skill, if not better:

-Red Mages have a stronger Bio than we do.
-Black Mages have the same Dark Magic skill we do plus better elemental magic.
-Blue Mages stun better than we do. RDM and BLM too depending on their setups.
-Warriors and Monks DoT better than we do.
-more than half of other melee jobs have stronger Weapon Skills than we do.
-Every other melee job has more survival options than we do.

This is why we are never needed for anything. There's a job that does something better than us for everything we do. The only exceptions are Apocalypse Dark Knights who can survive from Catastrophe and the Haste Aftermath, but that requires a relic. Needing a relic to be on-par with other AVERAGE players is too much.

Seriously, what do we do better than any other job right now? Spike damage? Since accuracy is nearly useless now, lower-delay, multi-hitting weapons do more damage than our single swings per attack round. Spike damage means nothing unless we literally do enormous damage. The only way to do that is with Souleater, but it costs us HP, reducing our survival which is a major flaw and keeps us from being wanted since survival in events mean everything.

We need something that we can constantly, consistently and permanently do better than other jobs that is both useful and not get us killed for it. That is when Dark Knights will stop being such crap.

[Bulrogg]

I think it would be a nice addition if Dark Knight had one of those spells/abilities that put a mob into a deep sleep where attacks didn't wake it like Nightmare and those new spells/moves in Abyssea.

[Taint]

Crit WS is okay.

First off, please put this on the page: Drain II needs to have a cool-down near or equal to Aspir II, it being on a three minute cool down is god damn retarded.

And second so SE can see this if they ever look at the thread, since they obviously think Dark Knight parries alot, and we already have Tactical parry. Please state that Dark Knight Parrying needs to be raised to a B- MINIMUM.

I wouldn't even be saying this shit if the curveball from left field that is TA wasn't bestowed upon us by the generous FFXI gods. /sarcasm



All that aside...

Full timing last resort or getting things that reduce our survivability even more will suck unless we somehow get SE to raise our inherent toughness, without relying on our subs for 90-100% of our ability to not die.


But Dark Knight isn't supposed to just do the most damage, we are supposed to have a lot of utility as well.

We REALLY need a defensive stat, or a way to survive, what would make the most sense after SE gave us loltacticalparry, is to give us a very high parrying skill rating. Wishful thinking would place DRK at A- parrying.

Even cooler would be passives based on what weapon type you are using, Greatsword / Scythe. Greatsword being a more defensive weapon (LOOKING AT YOU VITALITY CALADBOLG) would grant us a bonus to parrying and defense.

Scythe would give us a bonus to critical hit rate, critical hit damage (which would stack nicely with our new trait), perhaps a small amount of store tp and or a moderate amount of attack.

Damage needs a bit of a boost, but not as badly as other aspects of the job.

Seeing as how our counterpart the Paladin possesses shield.


It honestly would be better and more interesting to give our job more spells that are useful.

Darkness based debuffs ie -plague, a way to increase the damage a monster takes from incoming damage via a spell / JA, the ability to actually reduce a monters stats to the point of it mattering (and having the absorb spells not decay.)

Stun II, a way to terrorize.

God forbid we get some survivability ourselves through magic as well, the magic side of Dark Knight is the most heavily overlooked. I'm not really a fan of nuking on it to be honest, but being able to get some unique ways to hinder the enemy would be super.

All that the other martial jobs have is damage, they don't have magic (granted monk has obscene survivability).

Giving us a crit WS is hardly a fix its probably the bottom of the barrel, there are many other things that can be done to the job.

If we posses the #1 damage slot + magic, what do the other jobs have? I agree our damage is lacking, but it doesn't need to be the endall for what DRK is.

And if you want it to be, please go play something else. Monk or warrior perhaps, because smacking and punching shit is /all/ they have, we are supposed to have damage + 'a lot of other cool shit we don't.'

If your vision of DRK came true it would continue to be a pointless part of any party/alliance. We already have some utility but it is over shadowed by our lack of damage. DRK used to be a main part of this game because it could put up very solid DD numbers and also toss a stun.

[Siiri]

I think DRK needs some boosts but at this stage of the game a lot of the overly complicated suggestions are not going to be done. More realistic are suggestions like up Last Resort to 2 or 3 minutes, give scythe and g. sword a critical based weapon skill that compares with Drakesbane, etc. Also reduce casting time of spells so they are used more, because every moment casting is a moment not swinging and affects DPS. Dread spikes is a good example of this, by the time we cast it we lost hate. Also possibly make absorb spells not decay and make them close to instant cast. Its time DRK got some melee buffs.

If SE is going to majorly rework job, I think 2 stances would be appropriate. A melee stance like Hasso and a casting stance where spells go off quicker, native MAB, lower recast etc. I am sure most DRKS would be in the melee stance 99% of the time, but since SE wants to push casting at least it would be there. I am not sure SE is that interested in doing that much work at this time though, hence my first paragraph of the easy adjustments. Stun 2 would be nice as well, so many jobs have stun now.

[Urteil]

RDM and BLU do just fine by themselves and in an alliance, they have solo capability as well as the ability to bring damage and or utility that benefits the party to the table.

I want Dark Knight to be able to have some of that as well through the addition of utility, and being able to solo would be nice to. Its pretty irritating to be a job that has to have at least 1 other job behind it, mainly a cure bombing White Mage, to be effective and I am pretty sure that we are the only job that can't use its own job abilities effectively.

On that note SE really has to take a serious look at souleater.

That being said my ideas do nothing but benefit party play as well and allow Dark Knight to become something more than a job I switch from my TP set to my WS set, from my TP to my WS set and ignore the 600mp below my health bar. If I wanted to do just that, I'd go play Monk or Warrior and go afk.

I'd rather have four Dark Knights that do 20% less damage than another job with the ability to terrorize, bounce damage with dread spikes, etc, as long as our ability to use magical options and abilities are useful. Which they are not at this current point in time.

Damage + Utility > Damage. Even though WAR can WS through the roof I'd never play it, I'd be more inclined to play MNK because in addition to damage it has utility in its ability to tank and survive.

All other jobs have is damage, but if we had the ability to influence combat effectively we could bring that to a party or alliance, a really good example is the ability for us to curse a target therfore increasing the damage dealt to it by everyone including ourselves. A magical version of angon perhaps but that would give a % increase to incoming damage for a short amount of time.

This would help everyone in the party, everyone would want a DRK and it would boost our numbers too. Thats /really/ what party play is, them just boosting our numbers for damage just brings us closer to being a WAR or a MNK. The game already has those jobs, and all that serves to do is make Dark Knights who really have no idea what the job should encompass feel better about doing something that WAR does best already, and honestly is all that WAR has.

The above fix would also help is in solo play boosting our drain damage from a target or having a multitude of applications other than something as simplistic as raising a ftp mod on a WS of ours.

If your final vision of Dark Knight is only to do the largest number, it seems like you just want to be another simple martial job, and we already have those.

But if it came down to a choice, at this rate I'll take anything.

Anything, because its just sad what has become of our job in PvE situations.

[Taint]

RDM and BLU do just fine by themselves and in an alliance, they have solo capability as well as the ability to bring damage and or utility that benefits the party to the table.

I want Dark Knight to be able to have some of that as well through the addition of utility, and being able to solo would be nice to. Its pretty irritating to be a job that has to have at least 1 other job behind it, mainly a cure bombing White Mage, to be effective and I am pretty sure that we are the only job that can't use its own job abilities effectively.

On that note SE really has to take a serious look at souleater.

That being said my ideas do nothing but benefit party play as well and allow Dark Knight to become something more than a job I switch from my TP set to my WS set, from my TP to my WS set and ignore the 600mp below my health bar. If I wanted to do just that, I'd go play Monk or Warrior and go afk.

I'd rather have four Dark Knights that do 20% less damage than another job with the ability to terrorize, bounce damage with dread spikes, etc, as long as our ability to use magical options and abilities are useful. Which they are not at this current point in time.

Damage + Utility > Damage. Even though WAR can WS through the roof I'd never play it, I'd be more inclined to play MNK because in addition to damage it has utility in its ability to tank and survive.

All other jobs have is damage, but if we had the ability to influence combat effectively we could bring that to a party or alliance, a really good example is the ability for us to curse a target therfore increasing the damage dealt to it by everyone including ourselves. A magical version of angon perhaps but that would give a % increase to incoming damage for a short amount of time.

This would help everyone in the party, everyone would want a DRK and it would boost our numbers too. Thats /really/ what party play is, them just boosting our numbers for damage just brings us closer to being a WAR or a MNK. The game already has those jobs, and all that serves to do is make Dark Knights who really have no idea what the job should encompass feel better about doing something that WAR does best already, and honestly is all that WAR has.

The above fix would also help is in solo play boosting our drain damage from a target or having a multitude of applications other than something as simplistic as raising a ftp mod on a WS of ours.

If your final vision of Dark Knight is only to do the largest number, it seems like you just want to be another simple martial job, and we already have those.

But if it came down to a choice, at this rate I'll take anything.

Anything, because its just sad what has become of our job in PvE situations.

I do most of my soloing on DRK, its hardly a bad solo job if played right.

I'm not saying DRK has to be #1 but it has to be in the top 5 which it is not even close to atm.

WAR has way more utility then MNK, you can AFK play MNK on a Tier2 NM in Abyssea. I have a capped gear DRK, capped gear SAM, very nice geared MNK and WAR and guess what jobs my LS wants me to play 90% of the time? A year ago I was perma DRK and SAM but both of those jobs took a huge hit in the last year. My 90masa SAM still gets some burn but my DRK is for Jeuno AFK only. I dont care how many spells a DRK can cast, how long it can terror a mob, if WARs are dropping 5k RRs while DRKs are doing 2k Guillotines nobody will care for that terror, stun etc. Factor in our DPS is stupid low and our TP gain is among the slowest even when 5hitting and you got yourself a dead job.

Your vision of 4 DRKs bouncing terror and hate sounds a ton like a group of BST, which makes sense because we are view as useful as a BST atm.

[Dart]

technically bst is more useful than us atm. Just to be fair~

and before you lump me in with the haters, please don't. While I haven't had an apoc as long as you have. I have had one for a very long time. I've been a career drk since middle of 04, but i'm in the same boat. Just to be useful for my ls I got a ukon. ._. ,but if they ever do actually fix drk (and i'm not holding my breath) I'll be back on fulltime drk status faster than anyone.

Btw, for all of you guys trying to add all these overly complex ideas, please just stop.

Drk is and always has been a dd job (with stun!), but we're a dd job that can't complete with even a pup atm. Stop with the spells bullshit.

Two simple things that would get us back into the fight. (hell i don't want to break the job, I just want to be in the fight)

All jobs should have a Crit ws for our main weapons (gsword and scythe), this includes sam as well, and have good modifiers. Honestly we have the highest base dmg weapons in the game. We should be able to keep up with Raging Rush numbers (imo we should be able to beat it), however war and mnk should win in pure melee dmg imo.

increase LR effect time. Combined with desperate blows this would be quite a boost.

[Jar]

The Haste effect isn't that big of a deal anymore, its easy to hit the 80cap with a number of different setups. Making LR last 3min like Zerk would help the job tremendously. DRK is sitting at the bottom of the DD pool, not the middle, it could use a couple big boost and not be broken.

No only DRK can get to the 25% job ablity haste cap(other than 2houring DRG).... and because haste is exponential that extra 5-15%(you can get 10% from hasso and 10% from a DNC but almost never have a dance so 15% is more notable) is huge when capping or close to capping equipment and magic haste...

[Raelia]

No only DRK can get to the 25% job ablity haste cap(other than 2houring DRG).... and because haste is exponential that extra 5-15%(you can get 10% from hasso and 10% from a DNC but almost never have a dance so 15% is more notable) is huge when capping or close to capping equipment and magic haste...

With the enormous and glaring assumption that you aren't already hitting 80% total haste cap?