DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

Before you go asking for a permanent MP penalty, how about explaining why it's there in the first place? Because I see very little point to it now that PLD has an offensive rotation involving their MP as well.

I think a permanent cancellation of mana generation from outside sources would only end up being a nerf. It isn't a frequent thing, but there are times in fights where there is nothing to hit and so it becomes beneficial to turn off darkside and regenerate mana from supportive abilities. If you trait this you would effectively be giving up the ability to gain mana during phases of fights where there are no adds and the boss is out of range, leading to less mana lowering dark arts usage and therefore lowering dark knight dps overall.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

Before you go asking for a permanent MP penalty, how about explaining why it's there in the first place? Because I see very little point to it now that PLD has an offensive rotation involving their MP as well.

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I agree now that another tank's dps depends on mana I no longer see the reason for this darkside penalty. Originally Dark Arts functioned as dark knights equivalent of berserk or fight or flight, except that instead of pressing it once and getting a % damage buff we press it every time we want to power up certain moves. However, with the potential for a mch refresh, brd refresh, and ewer (ast refresh) this could lead to dark knight being able to use dark arts far more than intended tipping the damage balance in their favor while pld and war had no equivalent. I believe this presented a balance issue for the team because balancing it without recognizing the potential for extra dark arts would lead to dark knight being op in certain compositions, while balancing it with that composition in mind would lead to dark knight being undertuned. So I think they probably decided to cancel the refresh abilities when darkside was active and prevented the issue before it even began.


However, paladin now has an equivalent move, holy spirit, which outside of goring blade and royal authority is their hardest hitting move, the difference is this does not require a combo to get max potency and can be spammed. Paladin, however, does not have the mana regeneration penalty dark knight does, and can therefore greatly benefit from having multiple sources of mana refresh active. The reason for dark side canceling mana refresh no longer exists, as another tank now also benefits from support roles. The dark side penalties are outdated and need to be addressed further with 4.1, imo they should remove the dark side penalty of canceling mana refresh from outside sources which should hopefully close our dps gap.

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I think a permanent cancellation of mana generation from outside sources would only end up being a nerf. It isn't a frequent thing, but there are times in fights where there is nothing to hit and so it becomes beneficial to turn off darkside and regenerate mana from supportive abilities. If you trait this you would effectively be giving up the ability to gain mana during phases of fights where there are no adds and the boss is out of range, leading to less mana lowering dark arts usage and therefore lowering dark knight dps overall.

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Well it takes around 6 ticks to even compensate the cost of turning darkside on. Around 18s of total down time for just a neutral value, and then, 21s to have a minor benefit. (not totally sure about the exact value, let's call them empyreal)

Currently it's pretty rare, and marginal, and happens on some fights like Yojimbo and his 30s downtime which are a pain in the ***.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Well it takes around 6 ticks to even compensate the cost of turning darkside on. Around 18s of total down time for just a neutral value, and then, 21s to have a minor benefit. (not totally sure about the exact value, let's call them empyreal)

Currently it's pretty rare, and marginal, and happens on some fights like Yojimbo and his 30s downtime which are a pain in the ***.

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Yes, looking at your personal mana regeneration it is a small return. But quick fact checking your numbers: in battle no darkside we regenerate 189 mana per tick, making the tipping point 4 ticks or 12 seconds, not a huge difference but thats 1890 mana or half a dark arts when you factor in turning darkside back on over the 30 seconds you cited. Thats a 70 potency gain without doing anything except toggling darkside, before you even consider refreshes as I do below.

Suppose someone helps the healers out with a party mana refresh at the same time and then you can see the benefit. Is it often, no. Is it rare? I would say its rare in dungeons, but dark does well in dungeons regardless. Here is a list of the times I'm familiar with and about how much mana I can get back, historically, bard refresh assumed: (note: these are approximate percentages)

v4s neo ex death during grand cross omega mana restored: about 60%

v4s ex death during decisive battle total mana retored: about 30%

v3s during fifth phase farm mana restored: 25%

Lakshmi while dancing total mana restored: 50%

For Heavensward:

a12s during boss ultimate cast total mana restored: 50% (100% with brd and mch its not really fair)

a11s plane rides total mana restored per plane: 50%

a11s during numbered dots phase mana restored: 30%

Bismark, Ravana, Thordan, Sephirot, Nidhogg, Sophia, and Zurvan EX total mana restored: 30% to 75% depending on exactly which encounter

Again these use bard refreshes requiring darkside droping, if you were lucky to have a bard and mch you could double your mana refresh totals in heavensward but this is no longer a thing in SB. Is it super common? No, is it worth it goining into a new phase with some extra mana? Definately.

Could just have refresh effects ignore DRKs MP penalty now that PLD have 2 viable options to spend their MP on... Also Grit makes all physical attack abilities and weaponskills AoE, with slightly extended range on already existing AoE abilities...

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

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are you really think well all the changes you propose?

Just my 2 Gil, but it would be nice to have mana gain effects such as Refresh and Mana shift affect us while in dark side. I see little to no reason to keep it the way it is when dark side only haunts our natural regen while in combat(which is fine imo, keep it that way).

I think that if you want to understand why DRK changed in 4.x, you need to look at a single design decision. Specifically, you need to look at the removal of Darkside's MP drain.

In 3.x, there was a natural equilibrium between Darkside and Syphon Strike. As long as you were attacking something, your MP would slowly float upwards. If it got too high, either over time or because of BW, you could drive it back down into the middle with DASE.

The removal of the MP drain from DASE broke the equilibrium. Now, your tendency is to cap. DASE wasn't enough; so both Syphon and Souleater had to be capable of burning off a DA. Scourge was also a casualty of this; you can't reliably follow a rotation if you're forced to constantly make adjustments to your MP to avoid capping.

The resulting change also influenced our oGCD system. The number of oGCDs needed to be trimmed down to allow for increased DA usage. A lot of oGCD actions which previously depended on DA usage (like C+S) became forced double weaves, because you couldn't DA early in the cycle and pick up the oGCD after the next combo action.

Crater made an interesting suggestion earlier on with regards to MP bar size. Increasing total MP does influence burst, but it doesn't influence the rate at which you gain MP. What it does do, however, is give you more room to float your MP, without risk of hitting either extreme.

Either way, you now have to exert effort to stay midline, while previously in this happened naturally on its own.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

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Which is why Dark Arts needs to be a constantly active buff due to how outdated its mechanics work that also slowly drains MP but providing 15% damage boost while also allowing refresh effects to work on DRK...

Soo from the looks of the live letter... No DRK adjustments :(. But hey WARRIORS get a Fell Cleave buff and a shield on Shake it off! Not like DRK needed mitigation & damage or anything...

Yeah I think if the translations are correct drk may be the least desired tank. Honestly it seems like the only way to get a response and our issues addressed is to just stop playing dark all together.

Just hope they change their minds when they release patch notes.

I am so sad. I really hoped for some DRK adjustments in 4.1.

But we will get none.

I'll stick to DRK, I really like the job, but the other tanks are getting better treatments.

So everyone who is already playing DRK should keep playing DRK and make sure that DRK is more desired than other tanks...? Feels like this expansion so far has been #DRKisthenewMNK/DRG mostly because of how they are fixing anything BUT DRK... just a slap to the face really... I actually have my DRK camped out where the 1st DRK trainer was located at...

I am sitting on the edge to the shadows, alone, while the other kids are playing, laughing, having fun... I must not have fun anymore, I must suffer. Only the Darkness is my companion... and the silver blade of my greatsword. A reflection of my face in the polished metal - am I... crying..?

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Originally Posted by Tint

I am sitting on the edge to the shadows, alone, while the other kids are playing, laughing, having fun... I must not have fun anymore, I must suffer. Only the Darkness is my companion... and the silver blade of my greatsword. A reflection of my face in the polished metal - am I... crying..?

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http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...85/581/133.jpg

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

So everyone who is already playing DRK should keep playing DRK and make sure that DRK is more desired than other tanks...? Feels like this expansion so far has been #DRKisthenewMNK/DRG mostly because of how they are fixing anything BUT DRK... just a slap to the face really... I actually have my DRK camped out where the 1st DRK trainer was located at...

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Honestly? I'd say do the precise opposite. The devs seem to respond much faster when people abandon a job en masse. White Mage had numerous changes happen after the emphasis backlash prior to SB's release. Warrior, Machinist, Scholar, Summoner and Dragoon all had tweaks or straight buffs applied when people stopped playing them. Granted, Dark Knight did get a buff to Quietus, but it's been ignored ever since.

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Originally Posted by AngelyLowell

I am so sad. I really hoped for some DRK adjustments in 4.1.

But we will get none.

I'll stick to DRK, I really like the job, but the other tanks are getting better treatments.

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We dont know if we dont get any change, just the lack of info in the letter for the tank Who need more love make us think we Will just get minor changes and let the WAR destroy us even more in every field, lets wait to the patch notes.

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Originally Posted by Deathshiro

Soo from the looks of the live letter... No DRK adjustments :(. But hey WARRIORS get a Fell Cleave buff and a shield on Shake it off! Not like DRK needed mitigation & damage or anything...

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Shiro, not sure if FC is getting a buff and it remains to be seen if shake it off changes will actually be useful.

That being said...what the heck on ZERO DRK DISCUSSION AT ALL. Not even to say "stay tuned!" What is the point of this thread if they can't even say "working on it"?

(PS, it's me =P)

List of personal DRK changes:

• Hard Slash: Add Dark Arts potency of 300 and generates 1 blood
• Spinning Slash: Add Dark Arts combo potency of 350 and generates 3 blood
• Blood Weapon: Remove Grit restriction, add the effects of "increase damage dealt by 10%" and "convert physical damage dealt as HP" while also adding "Cannot be used with Blood Price" and reduce recast to 30 seconds. Grit effect would be "Ignores Grit damage dealt penalty"
• Power Slash: Add Dark Arts combo potency of 420 and add the effect "increase targets damage received by 10%." baseline with Dark Arts effect "Increase damage dealt by 10%" And generates 10 blood
• Syphon Strike: generates 3 blood
• Blood Price: Remove Grit restriction, add the effect additions of Blood Weapon but with the effect of "increase HP recovery via healing magic by 10%" instead of "Increased damage dealt." Also add "Cannot be used with Blood Weapon." and reduce recast to 30 seconds. Grit effect would be the same as Blood Weapon
• Souleater: Make "convert physical damage into HP" baseline, have Dark Arts be "Increase damage dealt by 10%" and add Grit effect of "Reduce targets damage dealt by 10%"
• Dark Passenger: Change Dark Arts effect from inflict blind to "Reduces damage dealt by 10%"
• Dark Mind: Add "decrease physical vulnerability."
• Dark Arts: Remove "Dark Arts fades upon use" restriction on all effects that are affected by Dark Arts, remove timer on Dark Arts and add the effect "Darkside fades when MP reaches 0"
• NEW Weaponskill at level 49: Scourge Delirium, combos off of Syphon Strike with combo potency off 300 and Dark Arts combo potency 400 with Damage over time potency 50 for 30 seconds baseline effect with Dark arts effect of decreased targets damage dealt by 10%." and uses the Heavensward Delirium animation because it looks cool. Also have it generate 10 blood and 5 blood per DoT tick
• Abyssal Drain: increase potency to 150 and make "Convert Damage dealt into HP" baseline with Dark Arts potency of 350.
• Sole Survivor: add "increase targets damage recieved by 10%." Any enemies that would be nearby in 10yalms radius would be marked with Another Victim that lasts 30 seconds and Increases the damage they recieve for 30 seconds.
• Delirium: change name to "Blood Force" and change effect to "Restores HP and MP by 10%" with Dark Arts effect 20%.
• Quietus: change cost from Blood gauge to TP.
• The Blackest Night: Additional shield break effect "increase HP recovery via healing magic and damage dealt by 5% and decrease damage taken by 5%." Dark Arts effect of making it party/raid wide shield that lasts 10 seconds

These changes can be done in gradually so that way the devs don't have to work on JUST DRK.

Yeah let's just make DRK do 4000 dps in full tank stance(5k without!!) AND bring more utility than NIN MCH Land PLD combined....totally balanced, why didn't SE think of that before!?

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

Yeah let's just make DRK do 4000 dps in full tank stance(5k without!!) AND bring more utility than NIN MCH Land PLD combined....totally balanced, why didn't SE think of that before!?

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We're not asking for an asinine, ludicrous buff like that. I'm fairly certain most are asking for
1. Another defensive CD or a revamp to Dark Mind to make it more worthwhile
2. An actual self heal AD and SE just don't cut it.
3. A second dps combo finisher. It'd be nice if they brought back Scourge as a third combo finisher. And it wouldn't be an on demand DOT like it was originally, it'd have 2 GCD behind it.

I was just poking fun at the above poster's changes xD

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Originally Posted by 347SPECTRE

We're not asking for an asinine, ludicrous buff like that. I'm fairly certain most are asking for
1. Another defensive CD or a revamp to Dark Mind to make it more worthwhile
2. An actual self heal AD and SE just don't cut it.
3. A second dps combo finisher. It'd be nice if they brought back Scourge as a third combo finisher. And it wouldn't be an on demand DOT like it was originally, it'd have 2 GCD behind it.

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So you're asking for everything that they took from the class in the transition to be given back basically lol

My other thread is more and more spot on.

Though scourge would be very helpful I think they could replace it in a slightly different way. For example, imagine if we could dark arts TBN to deal dot damage or something of that nature. There are a lot of ways they could buff our dps though.

As far as more mitigation the only thing I really want is a lower cost on TBN (1800 feels more right) and a shorter cool down on shadow wall.

Here are a sample of the job adjustments planned for Patch 4.1

THIS MEANS THERE ARE MORE JOB ADJUSTMENTS! WE DRK PLAYERS HAVE A CHANCE YET TO GET SOME MAJOR CHANGES! YAY....*sobs*


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Update-Thread

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

Here are a sample of the job adjustments planned for Patch 4.1

THIS MEANS THERE ARE MORE JOB ADJUSTMENTS! WE DRK PLAYERS HAVE A CHANCE YET TO GET SOME MAJOR CHANGES! YAY....*sobs*


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Update-Thread

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I'll believe it when I see it, as of now that really doesn't indicate any sort of worthwhile changes to DRK.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

Here are a sample of the job adjustments planned for Patch 4.1

THIS MEANS THERE ARE MORE JOB ADJUSTMENTS! WE DRK PLAYERS HAVE A CHANCE YET TO GET SOME MAJOR CHANGES! YAY....*sobs*


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Update-Thread

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The only change I can foresee is a substantial number of Dark Knight mains switching to Paladin or Warrior.

DRK resource management needs some tweaking. I think the class would be better off with an extension of its MP cap to slightly above the cumulative cost of 4 Dark Arts, rather than slightly below.

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Originally Posted by Keldion

The only change I can foresee is a substantial number of Dark Knight mains switching to Paladin or Warrior.

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We may actually see some results if that happens. Either that or continue waiting till 5.0 :I

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Originally Posted by Keldion

The only change I can foresee is a substantial number of Dark Knight mains switching to Paladin or Warrior.

DRK resource management needs some tweaking. I think the class would be better off with an extension of its MP cap to slightly above the cumulative cost of 4 Dark Arts, rather than slightly below.

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Maybe SE will listen then. I hope people do drop DRK. I know I barely play it anymore. All I do is spam souleater + Dark arts.

I don't even understand how one of the most simple rotations in the entire game with no real pressure to align everything perfectly can have dps so much worse.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

I don't even understand how one of the most simple rotations in the entire game with no real pressure to align everything perfectly can have dps so much worse.

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Probably because DRK is the red-headed step-child of the 3 tanks, like PLD was in 3.xx. You would think SE would learn from this and keep it from happening a second time.

I made a mistake people. I posted on Reddit seeking discussion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...have_happened/

All those people thinking DRK is perfectly fine lol Where is SyzzleSpark? She'd get a heart attack reading it I think.

I'm honestly shocked at how many people think DRK is perfectly fine. I mean, they are entitled to their opinion. But IMO, they are dead wrong. I don't see how people do not see how bad DRK is right now.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

I posted on Reddit

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I think I found your problem.

Seriously, Reddit is like the hospice care of rationale and decency, it's where they go to die.

Yep. Would ditch it in a second if I ever found an alternative. I like forums like this much better. It's just that I can't find one that talks about books, video games, and holds similar values that I do and doesn't allow for toxicity and harassment.

I like these forums. I highly doubt I'd find great discussion about my main gaming platform (Xbox) here lol

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

I made a mistake people. I posted on Reddit seeking discussion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...have_happened/

All those people thinking DRK is perfectly fine lol Where is SyzzleSpark? She'd get a heart attack reading it I think.

I'm honestly shocked at how many people think DRK is perfectly fine. I mean, they are entitled to their opinion. But IMO, they are dead wrong. I don't see how people do not see how bad DRK is right now.

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Originally Posted by Tegernako

Yep. Would ditch it in a second if I ever found an alternative. I like forums like this much better. It's just that I can't find one that talks about books, video games, and holds similar values that I do and doesn't allow for toxicity and harassment.

I like these forums. I highly doubt I'd find great discussion about my main gaming platform (Xbox) here lol

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"This other group disagrees with me! I cant understand why anyone would think this other way."
"I like this forum because I cant find other ones that agree with my values"

I think you just unwittingly described the reason for your online community predicament.

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Originally Posted by Aana

"This other group disagrees with me! I cant understand why anyone would think this other way."
"I like this forum because I cant find other ones that agree with my values"

I think you just unwittingly described the reason for your online community predicament.

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First of all, I never said that I don't understand why people would disagree with me. I understand perfectly why they disagree with me, just because I don't add a disclaimer to my post saying "even though I didn't write an entire essay explaining everything" doesn't mean I don't understand where other people are coming from. Nor did I say that they were wrong to have that opinion. It's hard to properly convey all nuance online, you should know that by now.

I said I was shocked to see that so many people thought the class was fine. There's nothing wrong with me saying that. Because again, I never said they were wrong to hold that opinion and I was joking around anyways. I also added "lol" to demonstrate that I wasn't being serious. I mean, I don't know how else to showcase that. Do you need big bold letters and neon signs and big essays so people like you don't end up with the wrong idea?

I also never said that I liked these forums because they agree with me. (Many, many people do not agree with me) I like these forums because it's a traditional forum with posts and signatures and such over reddit which doesn't have that. I also said I was looking for a place that didn't allow harassment and talked about things that interest me (Like Xbox, video games, and books). When I mentioned values, I meant my personal beliefs like "nazis are bad". Reddit has way to many people who think nazis are good and many other places are filled with sexist or discriminatory people. I want a place that's inclusive. It had nothing to do with everyone agreeing with me on issues in this game and everything to do with finding a place that matches all of the criteria and more that I listed. It's not easy.

So you were wrong on every point. It's a waste of my time to have to clear up simple concepts for you and it derails the thread. This is the last I will talk about this, this is about DRK not your self vendetta's and I'm sorry I started this line of conversation in the first place.

I think SE don't want to do to much ajustement to drk because the way all skills are interconnected meaning change 1 force to change another and so on so they are still balance among themselves so SE change nothing so the cards castle that is drk dont fall apart.

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Originally Posted by garret_hawke

I think SE don't want to do to much ajustement to drk because the way all skills are interconnected meaning change 1 force to change another and so on so they are still balance among themselves so SE change nothing so the cards castle that is drk dont fall apart.

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it's not thaaat diificult.

lower mana cost of Dark Passenger, shorten the cd of Shadow Wall, let Dark Mind reduce physiscal damage too (the Dark Arts effects 30% mitigation is still magic only or simply just removed) and / or give Blood Price a 10% mitigation.

i think that's the tl;dr of this thread's reasonable ideas.

the biggest problem of DRK is his lack of personal mitigation. dps is low, but okay, making Dark Passenger usefull again should solve this. and TBN is also an okay utility skill, just single target, but you can basically use it every 15 seconds if you wish.

I would also add removing grit requirement on soul eater self sustain and working on sole survivor.

For a job with so many finishers, resources to track, a 15-23 second no tank stance hyper-mode, a 2 second power up in Dark Arts; I feel like they intended this job to be the damage dealer of tanks.
So why can I do the same damage as Paladin with less stress and more utility? At the moment I don't want to play Dark Knight at all outside dungeons (where they do shine, somewhat).

Living Dead is a huge source of salt from me.

1= You pop it too early and you die right after it wears off
2= You pop it and the game doesn't register it and you die anyways
3= You pop it and the healer can't get you up fast enough
4= The CD is too long and isn't intuitive enough.

Just awful design really. It wasn't as bad as in 3.x when we had great self-healing but its shortcomings are really sticking out right now.