Dark Knight Megathread

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

I wouldn't go that far at least dark knight's barrier costs mp.

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Give it some time.
I hope to be proven wrong but i feel that in the long run, with how much people i saw complain about TBN cost, we might even get homogenized on that point

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

I wouldn't go that far at least dark knight's barrier costs mp.

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War only got a bunch of new OGCD's. It lost nothing.
Drk just lost a bunch of cooldowns and the *only* new thing it got is 1 new GCD you'll press once every 2 minutes.
Dark knight will legit be easier and lower APM than Warrior somehow.

Drk lost 2 APM from the gapcloser nerf.
It lost 1 APM from the Blood weapon merge.
And it will lose 1 APM from the lower mana economy with the BW nerf.

By contrast, War gained 2 OGCD's on a 60s cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Kaixern

Give it some time.
I hope to be proven wrong but i feel that in the long run, with how much people i saw complain about TBN cost, we might even get homogenized on that point

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The annoying bald man is still asking for it to be homogenized to a 25s Thrill of Battle with +10% mit, with oblation being deleted as well

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Originally Posted by AlucaDragonheart

Why are they so adamant on linking Dark Knight's identity to that crappy shadow clone??

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No clue, Reaper got the way better deal here, I kind of wish it was DRK instead that got a "dark transformation" then again looking at scholars new skill its likely for the best... I can imagine it would be like some spooky pirate costume with how far scholars transformation missed it's identity

I don't get who actually likes the "shadow clone" It's just a annoying visual DOT, You already have one of those in salted earth.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

Everyone who was telling me that reworking DRK was a good idea so they had a foundation to build on in future expansions

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There are certainly changes to DRK being made for DT that I like, but yeah. I surely do not see more joy to be found in regards to our MP or Gauge being interesting this expansion, let alone kit interplay—unless you count Disesteem, which is like a... step up the very, very long staircase for kit interplay, I guess?

Zero complaints about new Delirium animations, I can say that much. Looks great, sounds chunky. Though in the same vein we are still stuck with the visually monotonous and perpetual usage of Souleater.

At the end of the day, it's just crazy how we were told about good foundation and still all we have at level 100 is seemingly more foundation to construct to create a more enjoyable experience. Maybe I'll actually be surprised by 8.0, but I'm a bit out of faith. It feels like there's a full experience to be found somewhere, it's just being delivered in the slowest way possible. It's like every step forward with this job gives the design team leg cramps which leads to a water break and then... wait, what were we working on again?

Obvious caveat about needing to play it to really feel it, but based on my before and after experiences with ShB and then EW, yeahhh. Might be another case of level and forget or going back out of pure laziness/it's just the tank I end up feeling most comfortable playing. I dearly miss finding a job's design fun in spite of or in conjunction with whatever fight or instance I'm doing, and I think it's a shame it'll probably continue being that way given this particular "foundation" was given to us 5 years ago.

I have tried to be fair, and avoid going too heavily into optimisation or anything.

Bloodspiller changing to Torcleaver combo under delirium: I will need to play it to have a full opinion. I suspect that the variety in animation will make it feel less samey. This is a tentative positive.

Blood weapon: The loss of 2 stacks is a bit of a negative. Stapling BW and Delirium together reduces flexibility for both the devs and players. Currently you regenerate 600mp per attack for 5 hits under BW. In the media tour, it seems that you regenerate 600mp for each hit of the torcleaver combo, being 1200mp short of current. We will also be 20 blood short of current due to the reduced blood weapon effect, but then up 25 per minute due to the reduction in cost for Living Shadow. As a secondary point, it also seems we will be losing another of dark knight's better animations at level cap. *Looking at some footage, it seems that the Torcleaver combo is generating 600mp and 200mp for each hit, which is only a deficit of 600mp, but I can't see that in the weaponskill tooltip.

Disesteem: This comboing from Living Shadow looks like it should further break up and add some variety to raid windows. While it doesn't look like it will quite add some interaction with LS entity itself, the long duration of Scorn and it hinging on LS has the potential to be interesting.

Plunge: I am quite negative on this one. Exchanging one of the better feeling buttons for a highly situational movement tool does not strike me as particularly good. Losing something so strongly ingrained to FFXIV's Dark Knight aesthetic, present since its inception is a bit concerning. It does not really matter that it is commonly used under burst for damage, this is both part of dark knight's high apm playstyle and provides a use for an otherwise highly niche keybind. Since uptime is so central to doing good damage, moving one plunge out of raid buffs to improve uptime more than compensates for the theoretical damage loss there. Unfortunately the loss of plunge also will make odd minute deliriums feel emptier, which is already a not uncommon complaint about DRK downtime.

Salted Earth: I am still not entirely happy that I can no longer manually place it, particularly after the ground targeted aoe qol improvments this past expansion, but it is nice to see it stick around.

Shadowed Vigil: I think the secondary effect, similar to excogitation is a good attempt at adding some sustain to DRK. I do not think this will bring it remotely close to the other tanks as it's a 2 minute cooldown, but its impact should be perceptible in every other trash pull during dungeon content.

Abyssal Drain: This action remaining a shared ability with Carve and Spit confuses me somewhat. Everyone remembers or at least knows that it used to be a spell, and key part of DRK's sustain and aoe rotation. The fact that it is also a drain type spell, historically associated with DRK in prior games, and left to such a niche role doesn't quite sit right. I think that reexamining this could be a particularly strong option to improve DRK sustain in dungeons, be it through conversion to a high (5k-6k)mp cost spell or a reduced cooldown or something more creative.

Enhanced Unmend: As much of a meme as it has been treated, I am glad to see it remain. It's more for flavour than practical use, but does help display DRK's identity. It is somewhat unfortunate that Shadowstride is a less valuable refund than plunge, and that shadowstride is clearly magical rather than being the aggressive sword strike we had before, but I suppose it cannot be helped.

The Blackest Night: I'm happy to see it remain a 15s cooldown with mp cost. I know it could be homogenised to not cost mp, but I am of the belief that it would strongly negatively impact how DRK plays both at high and low competency.

Overall impression: Somewhat apprehensive. I'll give it a go when DT releases, but can't see myself playing it as much.

edit: Astronis has corrected me on the crossed out bit

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Originally Posted by fulminating

*Looking at some footage, it seems that the Torcleaver combo is generating 600mp and 200mp for each hit, which is only a deficit of 600mp, but I can't see that in the weaponskill tooltip.

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Delirium currently gives 200MP per Bloodspiller and 500MP per Quietus, while Blood Weapon 600 MP per weaponskill or spell.

It's all behaving exactly the same way as Delirium + Blood Weapon together does now, just with two less stacks of Blood Weapon. We're definitely losing 1200MP from Blood Weapon.

Its the same job with longer filler and one less free edge to use before a burst window, but the edges you'll use in a burst window is the exact same.
If they hadn't messed the MP generation up and allowed the new gap closer to work on allies I'd probably like these changes but I'm currently very whatever on them.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Its the same job with longer filler and one less free edge to use before a burst window, but the edges you'll use in a burst window is the exact same.
If they hadn't messed the MP generation up and allowed the new gap closer to work on allies I'd probably like these changes but I'm currently very whatever on them.

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Wouldn't mind seeing...

• an on-ally-only gapcloser with a single attack (and lingering second)'s redirection for PLD (simple CD, with CD ignorable via gauge cost),
• a damaging and on-enemy-only gapcloser for WAR (gauge-spending, shorter recharge) and GNB (simple charges),
  and
• an on-enemy-or-ally teleport (shadow-shift, likely single charge with Unmend allowing another use with stacked recharge times and all magic damage/shadowy skills granting it CDR) for DRK.

But... I would be worried about giving every tank the best of all worlds movement skills, and of all, PLD seems to me to most deserve the "to ally" functionality (as per "Intervene", though one could also argue that should be to-enemy with inbuilt flat damage suppression onto next attack, divided if AoE). Even GNB would likely deserve it more than DRK, given GNB's bodyguard theme. Hmm.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wouldn't mind seeing...

• an on-ally-only gapcloser with a single attack (and lingering second)'s redirection for PLD (simple CD, with CD ignorable via gauge cost),
• a damaging and on-enemy-only gapcloser for WAR (gauge-spending, shorter recharge) and GNB (simple charges),
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• an on-enemy-or-ally teleport (shadow-shift, likely single charge with Unmend allowing another use with stacked recharge times and all magic damage/shadowy skills granting it CDR) for DRK.

But... I would be worried about giving every tank the best of all worlds movement skills, and of all, PLD seems to me to most deserve the "to ally" functionality (as per "Intervene", though one could also argue that should be to-enemy with inbuilt flat damage suppression onto next attack, divided if AoE). Even GNB would likely deserve it more than DRK, given GNB's bodyguard theme. Hmm.

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If you go off story lore, dark knight protects far more people than paladin ever does.

I just think it be neat if these new gap closers had added usages as currently the design of fights basically never gives you a reason to press them in the first place, so giving added utility to these by allowing ally targeting would be cool

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Originally Posted by Oizen

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He seems quite invested in portraying DRK as the unga bunga tank for Dawntrail, so that's really not surprising. It'll take a lot to displace WAR from that spot, though.

I hope SE reads forums and considers this feedback.

Disesteem : Good, functionally a step in the right direction, more interactions with Living Shadow are fun. Only wish they'd happen more often.
Plunge oGDD and 3 stacks of Blood Weapon: Plunge being used for mobility only is great but the MP generation should be addressed by either making each stack give 1000 MP or just give it 5 stacks like before. Losing things without anything to compensate is really bad, its not like the job isn't losing oGCDs ( 2x Plunge ) already.
Delirium combo : Sounds good, it separates it from Inner Release, which was heavily asked for, but perhaps it could've been made to be used outside of Delirium too, costing BlackBlood. The Bloodgauge is just a lazy copy of Warrior's Beastgauge, each action costing blackblood would be functionally different.
Shadow Wall upgrade: Amazing, finally some healing and sustain in situation where multiple hits happen.

Please fix the MP generation so we can still use a lot of Edge / Flood of Shadow, its one of the main ideas of the job. While we are at that, perhaps change Abyssal Drain to cost MP and remove Flood of Shadow so that Dark Arts grants a free Edge of Shadow for 1 target and a free Abyssal Drain for >1 target.

Well thats the big concern isnt it, with the new mp generation the optimal play is still going to be carrying as much MP into a burst window as possible.

The problem with the reduced MP rate is that you can functionally only use TBN 3 times between burst windows before it starts becoming a damage loss, and its honestly the MP Gen should have been made even higher as the existance of Disesteem also skews things slightly by giving us an additional gcd to press.

I know this only really matters if you care about optimizing to the highest level but damn TBN needs to be more available than that.

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

Disesteem : Good, functionally a step in the right direction, more interactions with Living Shadow are fun. Only wish they'd happen more often.

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I think calling that an interaction is debatable, it's just "pressing this button allows you to press this other button", basically the entire design doc of Warrior.
Interaction would be if Esteem actually copied your abilities, making it's output dependent on proper execution of your own burst window.

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

I hope SE reads forums and considers this feedback.

Disesteem : Good, functionally a step in the right direction, more interactions with Living Shadow are fun. Only wish they'd happen more often.
Plunge oGDD and 3 stacks of Blood Weapon: Plunge being used for mobility only is great but the MP generation should be addressed by either making each stack give 1000 MP or just give it 5 stacks like before. Losing things without anything to compensate is really bad, its not like the job isn't losing oGCDs ( 2x Plunge ) already.
Delirium combo : Sounds good, it separates it from Inner Release, which was heavily asked for, but perhaps it could've been made to be used outside of Delirium too, costing BlackBlood. The Bloodgauge is just a lazy copy of Warrior's Beastgauge, each action costing blackblood would be functionally different.
Shadow Wall upgrade: Amazing, finally some healing and sustain in situation where multiple hits happen.

Please fix the MP generation so we can still use a lot of Edge / Flood of Shadow, its one of the main ideas of the job. While we are at that, perhaps change Abyssal Drain to cost MP and remove Flood of Shadow so that Dark Arts grants a free Edge of Shadow for 1 target and a free Abyssal Drain for >1 target.

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The only new thing we got was a button we press once every 2 minutes after using living Shadow.
But we lost our gapcloser, we lost blood weapon, we will be casting edge of shadow less because of our worse mana economy and follow up actions will be consolidated.
The job looks just strictly less enjoyable to play in Dawntrail than it is now, and i wish people would be honest about it.
Pressing living shadow twice like we do with salted earth is not a meaningful gameplay change.

Mashing 123 in our filler will somehow just be worse in Dawntrail than it is now.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

The only new thing we got was a button we press once every 2 minutes after using living Shadow.
But we lost our gapcloser, we lost blood weapon, we will be casting edge of shadow less because of our worse mana economy and follow up actions will be consolidated.
The job looks just strictly less enjoyable to play in Dawntrail than it is now, and i wish people would be honest about it.
Pressing living shadow twice like we do with salted earth is not a meaningful gameplay change.

Mashing 123 in our filler will somehow just be worse in Dawntrail than it is now.

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Don't forget that without the 2 stack of plunge we are also in the hole on damage during our burst as you're now down 2 OGCDs to fit inbetween blood spillers so big drop in dps

Remember when we were told, hey dark knight I know you hate this rework in Shb but we want to build a strong foundation to build it up, then 3 years later they did nothing but take away more abilities than they added. Now another 3 years and they have taken away more abilities than they added again........ DoN'T wORY GuYz 8.0 WiL fiX.

With the massive hit to SE financials lately and with how much this team is pissing off the player base with BS designs they aint gonna have an 8.0

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Don't forget that without the 2 stack of plunge we are also in the hole on damage during our burst as you're now down 2 OGCDs to fit inbetween blood spillers so big drop in dps

Remember when we were told, hey dark knight I know you hate this rework in Shb but we want to build a strong foundation to build it up, then 3 years later they did nothing but take away more abilities than they added. Now another 3 years and they have taken away more abilities than they added again........ DoN'T wORY GuYz 8.0 WiL fiX.

With the massive hit to SE financials lately and with how much this team is pissing off the player base with BS designs they aint gonna have an 8.0

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Well i'm certainly not excited for Dawntrail raiding anymore.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

The only new thing we got was a button we press once every 2 minutes after using living Shadow.
But we lost our gapcloser, we lost blood weapon, we will be casting edge of shadow less because of our worse mana economy and follow up actions will be consolidated.
The job looks just strictly less enjoyable to play in Dawntrail than it is now, and i wish people would be honest about it.
Pressing living shadow twice like we do with salted earth is not a meaningful gameplay change.

Mashing 123 in our filler will somehow just be worse in Dawntrail than it is now.

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I am honest, its true they didn't do much and I don't like it but I think its good to offer feedback on the "changes" they made. I have made many many posts on this forum to try to help DRK such as:
- Remove Flood of Shadow, replace it with Abyssal Drain so you can spam it for 3000 MP or 1 Dark Arts
- Delirium gives a free use of a combo, which otherwise costs Darkside
- Living Shadow copies abilities or grants a Darkside overdrive increasing skill/spell speed for 20 seconds

A lot of things can be done to make DRK unique and not a Beastgauge copy or throw every oGCD every 2 minutes job but I guess they just don't want to.

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

I am honest, its true they didn't do much and I don't like it but I think its good to offer feedback on the "changes" they made. I have made many many posts on this forum to try to help DRK such as:
- Remove Flood of Shadow, replace it with Abyssal Drain so you can spam it for 3000 MP or 1 Dark Arts
- Delirium gives a free use of a combo, which otherwise costs Darkside
- Living Shadow copies abilities or grants a Darkside overdrive increasing skill/spell speed for 20 seconds

A lot of things can be done to make DRK unique and not a Beastgauge copy or throw every oGCD every 2 minutes job but I guess they just don't want to.

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Yeah but that would require the Dev team to give a damn about the Drk job, I'm pretty sure, 3 expacs in a row have proves otheriwise.

I saw this post where Yoshi P was talking about improving job identity in 8.0 while using 7.0 as a harder encounter design concept. Yoshi P with all the respect and admiration, if you are reading forums, please consider the fact that most people's favorite iteration of DRK is Heavensward or Stormblood. Not Shadowbringers, not Endwalker and not Dawntrail.
DRK has these multiple mechanics taken from other jobs but dumbed down so they are very simple and the "flavor" is probably the ability to manage multiple smaller things at the same time but the issue is that's not a unique thing.
Please consider for 8.0 to look at the Darkside meter and the Bloodgauge and change it to something unique to the job. Other jobs have smaller simpler mechanics ( NIN's gauge / SAM's kenki gauge ) but those are on top of an already existing core unique mechanic. ( Mudras / Iaijutsu )

A simple idea would be to look into what made the job fun when it was created:
- augmenting abilities with another oGCD - gone
- very good against magic damage - still here, but nothing has been built on top of it sadly
- fast GCDs - gone
- many oGCDs - dumbed down in Dawntrail
- high risk / high reward job - gone
- big burst - still here

Notice how most of the stuff has been removed or dumbed down? The only thing is big burst.

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

I saw this post where Yoshi P was talking about improving job identity in 8.0 while using 7.0 as a harder encounter design concept. Yoshi P with all the respect and admiration, if you are reading forums, please consider the fact that most people's favorite iteration of DRK is Heavensward or Stormblood. Not Shadowbringers, not Endwalker and not Dawntrail.
DRK has these multiple mechanics taken from other jobs but dumbed down so they are very simple and the "flavor" is probably the ability to manage multiple smaller things at the same time but the issue is that's not a unique thing.
Please consider for 8.0 to look at the Darkside meter and the Bloodgauge and change it to something unique to the job. Other jobs have smaller simpler mechanics ( NIN's gauge / SAM's kenki gauge ) but those are on top of an already existing core unique mechanic. ( Mudras / Iaijutsu )

A simple idea would be to look into what made the job fun when it was created:
- augmenting abilities with another oGCD - gone
- very good against magic damage - still here, but nothing has been built on top of it sadly
- fast GCDs - gone
- many oGCDs - dumbed down in Dawntrail
- high risk / high reward job - gone
- big burst - still here

Notice how most of the stuff has been removed or dumbed down? The only thing is big burst.

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Read the EU forums, don't be silly, all our feedback goes straight in the trash, in fact that implies they put that much energy into it. No our feedback just sits there collecting dust. The Dark Megathreads been top of the tank forum for 3 years now...........

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I think calling that an interaction is debatable, it's just "pressing this button allows you to press this other button", basically the entire design doc of Warrior.
Interaction would be if Esteem actually copied your abilities, making it's output dependent on proper execution of your own burst window.

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Agreed, but...

The funny thing is, that's then literally just a +% damage window, which tends to have redundant impact if running a comp that already supplies you with 2-minute damage windows through raidbuffs.

Does look a hell of a lot cooler, though, and gives DRK a damage window even in solo play and groups without raidbuffs (for better or worse, as that raises skill ceiling while reducing unpunished flexibility).

Similarly, could effectively replace an oGCD per GCD's time with a GCD that the shadow self then performa instead for a sort of extreme haste window. Technically less rigid in itself, but offering more palpable variance. Etc., etc.

I'd just like to see the action pair amount to more than a DoT and an unlocked attack.

So
DRK and GNB's "new" gap closer... rip to one of the best animations on DRK.
But does anyone else think it looks kinda slow compared to Atherial Manip / Icarus / whatever the MNK skill's called?

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

But does anyone else think it looks kinda slow compared to Atherial Manip / Icarus / whatever the MNK skill's called?

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They actually are slower, certainly slower than Monk's Thunderclap. Dark Knight's gap closer isn't too bad but Gunbreaker's is especially lethargic from what I've seen.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

They actually are slower, certainly slower than Monk's Thunderclap. Dark Knight's gap closer isn't too bad but Gunbreaker's is especially lethargic from what I've seen.

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Don't they literally use the exact same animation?
Esteem uses it too and it *massively* delays his attacks.
Either way, you won't be using it more than once per encounter on average anyways.
Unironically button bloat.

Iuno.
I get the devs reasoning for wanting to cull rough divide and plunge, but... I think it's a stupid decision. Like, I get wanting to reduce the number of double weaves on tanks, but removing the damaging gap closers from the two most oGCD heavy tanks, and just giving them a pure-utility one whilst the other two tanks get theirs unadjusted feels... wrong.
Enhanced Unmend is even more of a "lmao really" trait.
Have they just... not listened to any of the DRK feedback throughout the years? Shame.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

Iuno.
I get the devs reasoning for wanting to cull rough divide and plunge, but... I think it's a stupid decision. Like, I get wanting to reduce the number of double weaves on tanks, but removing the damaging gap closers from the two most oGCD heavy tanks, and just giving them a pure-utility one whilst the other two tanks get theirs unadjusted feels... wrong.
Enhanced Unmend is even more of a "lmao really" trait.
Have they just... not listened to any of the DRK feedback throughout the years? Shame.

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Yeah they have. They listened to the feedback of people who don't play Dark knight.
That's why they remove ogcd's and gave us heals.

I guess I'll just throw-in my exhausted feedback for 7.0 Dark Knight, here.

DRK was my favorite Tank by-far in Heavensward, and even though I disliked the Stormblood changes to the original HW design, DRK was still my favorite Tank in Stormblood-era, and "The Blackest Night" was an absolutely-great idea, and a great addition to the DRK Job's overall "play-feel".

...Then, Shadowbringers basically ruined Dark Knight for me — the removal of Dark Arts, and replacing it with yet another generic "Shinten-clone" attack-spam OGCD, completely-killed the feel of what made DRK feel unique and interesting to me, rotationally.

And turning Darkside into a completely-mindless clone of WAR's "Storm's Eye" only made the 5.0 changes even worse-feeling to me.

Add-in the change of Delirium to a boring "Inner Release" clone, and so much of what I liked about DRK was removed in a single Patch.

On top of that, the capstone skill being a glorified DOT with annoying animations was... "disappointing".

In Endwalker, rather than improving any of these issues, the designers apparently thought that it would be funny to add "Enhanced Unmend", "Salt and Darkness" as a... lame joke about the "Salt and Light" Hunt-mark? ...and, mechanically, a pointless follow-up to Salted Earth... and a cheezy "title drop" action called "Shadowbringer" as the L90 capstone, which was functionally just an extra 2 Edge of Shadows crammed into 2m burst windows, and which I would have considered satire if I had been informed of it before seeing the actual EW Media Tour tooltips.

...so I just gave-up and didn't even bother using DRK in EW, it's just not fun for me to play any more, and hasn't been for a long time, even though it's the Tank that I "want" to play, in terms of concept and aesthetics (not because of the cringe-y edge-lord stuff, but because I just think Darkness / Shadow powers are cool in RPGs, and enjoy the "Shadow Knight" theme and aesthetic).

And then... in 7.0 ?

...Even more of the same, with once-again none of the fundamental issues being addressed.

On top of deleting Plunge, yet another of the animations / ideas that initially made Dark Knight feel so memorable and cool to me when I first played it in Heavensward.

And just piling-on more of the "Vomiting incoherent red-and-black smears all over the place" visual "theme" that has increasingly-predominated since Stormblood, replacing the original HW presentation as more of a "Heavy physical Greatsword-swinging fighter / dirty-fighting and dishonourable anti-Paladin, who empowered her swings with bursts of Darkness". (compare Bloodspiller vs. HW Power Slash, Edge of Shadow vs. HW Reprisal/Low Blow, etc.)

Except now with cheezy 1990s Hot Topic Black-plastic Angel Wings, too... and as the L100 capstone, no less.

So yeah, non-sarcastically happy for anyone still enjoying it, because I want to like Dark Knight, so I'm glad someone can have fun with this, still.

But yeah, personally, I'm just... tired, and done.

Maybe I'll like the changes in 2027.

I have to get a new Dark Knight wishlist ready because my previous one became obsolete and I don't know to put a line through the words that I typed...

The single worst part of DRK is that TBN is a job quest skill, meaning you cannot swing a bat without finding a DRK in Holminster Switch who literally has not unlocked it. It is cursed.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

No clue, Reaper got the way better deal here, I kind of wish it was DRK instead that got a "dark transformation" then again looking at scholars new skill its likely for the best...

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Nothing would make me more sad than to see DRK's identity get fumbled as badly as SCH's but it's clearly on the way there.

One of the biggest complaints I have about Dark Knight is the fact that the Darkside gauge, and by extension, the Living Shadow timer are essentially non-factors. This did not change in DT, which is a shame.

The thing is, I think there was an opportunity that was missed with Disesteem. Yes, I know that "2 min followup" skills in DT are...not the most liked thing. However, the way I've always seen SE promote Living Shadow is synced attacks with Esteem. You see it in the Shadowbringers and Endwalker job action trailers, because it's cool. I agree with this, there are times where if the Blood gauge syncs up just right, I'll do a double Bloodspiller with Esteem and that does proc some kind of positive feeling inside my dead heart.

What I was thinking, why not lean into that with Disesteem? Give us the Scorn buff when summoning, fine fine, but match the buff duration (20 secs) with Living Shadow's timer. Why not have the potency of the skill scale inversely with the amount of time left on the Living Shadow timer? Disesteem is the last skill that it uses, and with the ease of pre-summoning and no blood gauge cost, it can act as an effective "end point" or "cap" to the burst phase by sending off a combined attack. Like, the two of you are doing different things, you'd be doing the Scarlet Delirium combo with EoS weaved in, Esteem would be using an actual useful Abyssal Drain, and no cost gauge spenders, until you sync at the end, together as one, blah blah blah.

I'm not even saying make it a major difference. Either make it a linear scale with the buff itself, kinda like how Eventide's damage scales inversely with HP in PVP, or have Esteem give you stacks of Scorn overtime that cap out at 4 (it's Bloodspiller being the final stack) to prep your Disesteem to do the highest amount of damage. Maybe a small gain in 50 potency per attack that Esteem does before Disesteem. Therefore, it would be optimal to use Disesteem when Living Shadow is at 5 seconds or less of it's timer. With many buffs now being 15-20 seconds anyway, and pots still staying at 30 seconds, it still conforms to the current design while adding a bit of flavor.

Of course, this would be optional. You could use it anytime in Living Shadow as long as there's a target. But I would actually might look at my Living Shadow gauge if something like this was implemented.

My biggest gripe with DRK is the leveling process. They really need to introduce a weaker version of TBN for the early levels and have a trait that upgrades it at lvl 70.
Dark Mind is not a cooldown in most dungeon content and it really sucks to have a mitigation tool that is only used in the very high end content.

Sure there are other issues with DRK but the issues above affects most of the new player experience with DRK which was ok at launch and during SB, but seems to have been forgotten about after the reworks.

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Originally Posted by Derio

My biggest gripe with DRK is the leveling process. They really need to introduce a weaker version of TBN for the early levels and have a trait that upgrades it at lvl 70.
Dark Mind is not a cooldown in most dungeon content and it really sucks to have a mitigation tool that is only used in the very high end content.

Sure there are other issues with DRK but the issues above affects most of the new player experience with DRK which was ok at launch and during SB, but seems to have been forgotten about after the reworks.

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Highlighted the actual issue here.

Take a note from Addle, add an additional reduces physical damage taken by 10% to it. Beyond this, a slight rework to Abyssal Drain making it a 30s CD on two charges and essentially all damage stats halved (healing kept same). That should help to make DRK not too painful early levels but not overbearingly powerful.

The first change will be globally beneficial without having to butcher or rework TBN + Oblation and keeping their flexibility intact, especially in content where significant magical damage does not occur (Endwalker had many situations for this in raids and dungeons in general). The second one is simply to make Abyssal Drain usage more attractive without making the healing power broken (see Bloodwhetting on WAR) as it would still be only 400p heals per target over 1min.

Both of these would make the levelling experience more attractive without dreading dungeons below Lv70.

Abyssal really should be a 30s oGCD, uncouple it from Carve and Spit, do whatever you want with the damage potency, we could handle it with the loss of plunge.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

we could handle it with the loss of plunge.

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Yeah, i don't think i will ever be able to handle this kind of loss.
starts to weep while thinking about Guts and Artorias

Why not merge dark dance with dark mind and increase parry rate instead of mimic the dps role action?

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Originally Posted by The_User

Why not merge dark dance with dark mind and increase parry rate instead of mimic the dps role action?

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Two reasons:

[1] Dark Dance, even with the trait, only provided +30% parry rate, which with current 15% parry power would only net us an average 4.5% of physical mitigation over the course of only 10 seconds rather than the old 20 seconds. Not only that, slapping Dark Dance onto Dark Mind is antithetical to current equivalents like Camouflage from Gunbreaker, where the parry rate is coupled with a base mitigation that it can synergize with, not a magic mitigation that is completely at odds with.

[2] It is not reliable mitigation for physical tankbusters to increase parry rate to anything less than 100% (see Bulwark readdition), making it undesirable for this purpose as well, where a cheap alternative like using Addle's mitigation distribution would actually be reliable to use.

The absolute last suggestion I could give would be reintroducing Dark Dance, which shares a cooldown with Dark Mind and does something like 10-15% physical mitigation and the parry rate increase as well.

Nobody says the Parry Rate couldn't be increased to 100%

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Originally Posted by The_User

Nobody says the Parry Rate couldn't be increased to 100%

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You are right, but at that point you could also just make it 10-15% physical mitigation instead. Making it 100% Parry Rate generally performs exactly as that, but actually can be pierced with critical hits, which matters in Lv70 and below content. Similar to Block, it will also not mitigate damage-over-time effects that are applied with certain busters like Proto-Carbuncle's savage version of Toxic Crunch or Themis' darkness Upheld Overruling.

Last but not least, it would essentially remove passive parry since it is now an active effect, but with all of the downsides of block/parry where the other combination could allow for lucky extra parries on top.