Boycotting Dark Knight

oh wow, you want to boycott now that WAR gets its buffs you werent boycotting at beginning why start now.

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Originally Posted by Gojin

oh wow, you want to boycott now that WAR gets its buffs you werent boycotting at beginning why start now.

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Checking the post history, Dark Knights have been complaining since job details were released both unofficially and officially, and it has continued through now. If we do nothing our job issues will continue to be overlooked.

We tried starting a conversation. SE didn't respond and pushed us further out of the meta. We need to raise more awareness about this if we want to be heard.

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Originally Posted by ManuelBravo

As long as you can enjoy the game, changes do make players change their perspective. All good.

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I'm not sure it's "all good". The numbers of DRK players still decreases since SB's launch... And now with the WAR's buff...

Sad thing is some players dont want to play WAR or PLD they want to play DRK and when the DRK balancing is this bad it just pushes them to play DPS which hurts the queue system even more.

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Originally Posted by Deathgiver

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Starting to hate this word "viable".

This is a red herring; if you'd been actually reading these threads you'd know - you keep talking about viability, but nobody else is, and viability has everything to do with content and very little to do with DRK as a job or its balance with other jobs in its role, which is what most of these threads are addressing. Its viable because the content is easy and the job is not broken per se, but it is suboptimal and there is nothing it can do that either of the other tanks can't do better, it has no niche, no speciality.

Piddly potency buffs and +6% mitigation with 15/40s uptime won't fix this. All it will do is make DRK into PLD/WAR Jr. with no raid mitigation tools, which is basically a slightly better version of what we already are.

I detest those that have this mentality of "if a job can clear content then said job is fine". Pffft.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I detest those that have this mentality of "if a job can clear content then said job is fine". Pffft.

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If a monkey can climb a tree a fish can too!

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Piddly potency buffs and +6% mitigation with 15/40s uptime won't fix this. All it will do is make DRK into PLD/WAR Jr. with no raid mitigation tools, which is basically a slightly better version of what we already are.

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Yes it will.
DRK is very easy to bring on par with pld/war.
Buff TBN so it procs a free DA, add DA effect to TBN for aoe shield and maybe a physical mitigation to dark mind (but lower than magical to stay in lore).
DRK fixed.

I was already using my DRK less and less now that I have both WAR and PLD at lv 70, I'm still planing to play it less and less until there is some changes. =/

I mean, I don't know how to play WAR well yet, and I'm still doing simillar numbers in raid content while helping more with Shake it Off. And when doing parsing tests with my tanks, while my DRK is the best equipped (330 weapon against 320 for both PLD and WAR), I'm doing more DPS both as a PLD and WAR. It's really sad, I loved DRK in HW, and I still like it in SB despites the changes.

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Originally Posted by Tanathya

I definitely demand Scourge back. There are literally zero reasons to have taken it away, it was potent and fun to use. That would be a huge step towards a nice fix for me, and it's easy as heck to put it back.

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I, too, want Scourge back, but instead of a dot, I'm thinking it could combo off Syphon Strike like old Delirium and maybe fill your blood gauge faster. Not only does that help with Dark Knight's low DPS by allowing for more Bloodspillers, but adds a much needed alternative to spamming Souleater.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Starting to hate this word "viable".

This is a red herring; if you'd been actually reading these threads you'd know - you keep talking about viability, but nobody else is, and viability has everything to do with content and very little to do with DRK as a job or its balance with other jobs in its role, which is what most of these threads are addressing. Its viable because the content is easy and the job is not broken per se, but it is suboptimal and there is nothing it can do that either of the other tanks can't do better, it has no niche, no speciality.

Piddly potency buffs and +6% mitigation with 15/40s uptime won't fix this. All it will do is make DRK into PLD/WAR Jr. with no raid mitigation tools, which is basically a slightly better version of what we already are.

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Cool the hostility, the comment about viability was in regards to the post directly above my first one in this thread.

The "piddly" buff would equate to roughly 5% dps, which is about how far behind drk is from the other 2 tanks at top level,and the 6% mitigation makes it just slightly less than the average you get from raw intuition (6% with 50% uptime vs 20% with 22% uptime). At that point the only thing they're missing is raid mitigation, lots of suggestions on how to fix it in the various threads.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I, too, want Scourge back, but instead of a dot, I'm thinking it could combo off Syphon Strike like old Delirium and maybe fill your blood gauge faster. Not only does that help with Dark Knight's low DPS by allowing for more Bloodspillers, but adds a much needed alternative to spamming Souleater.

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I would actually greatly prefer this to a combo ender DOT.

I liked old Scourge because it wasn't behind a combo; it was great for multi-dotting stuff quick. I don't really think a combo DOT like Goring would be all that great for DRK's current playstyle since they break up their three step combos with Bloodspiller/Quietus, and the nature of a DOT that's on GCD is that you want predictability. Delaying your three-step combo with 1 or 2 Bloodspillers could lead to potentially dropping the DOT (or capping on blood to put the DOT up) depending on the situation.

Whereas if they made Scourge not disrupt the combo and be a standalone DOT like old Touch of Death it could work, but they aren't going to go back to non-combo DOTs for most jobs, I feel.

Drk is just not fun anymore....i am switching to warrior once i get my 330 weap.

Its really sad because Drk was my favourite job in 3.0...

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Originally Posted by Deathgiver

Cool the hostility

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You're confusing hostility with firmness and emphasized reiteration, since after the post I replied to I said "viability isn't really what we're talking about" and you went on again about how the job is viable and can clear content, so I came back, again, with "Viability Isn't Really What We're Talking About.

Its about making the job competitive and giving players an actual reason to take it over WAR or PLD. There currently isn't one. Even in Shinryu, a fight packed with Dark Mind Bait, DRK is taken 1/2 as often as WAR and 1/3rd as often as PLD.

Just a quick word about viability and buffs because I think this is important. If a class is not viable in content (not capable of clearing content), this points to an absolute failure on the part of the development team. If we hold every job to this criteria for recieving attention, not being viable, then no buffs so far have been justified. Keep in mind even paladin in 3.x was viable. Paladins were at a disadvantage in many turns, especially in gordias, but plenty of paladins were able to clear all of the tiers. Paladin needed buffs, the raid tier pointed this out more than anything, but the buffs recieved were not about being viable, it was about being comparable to dark and warrior.

Why wasn't it comparable to the other two? It did less dps, mitigated a particular niche that made it difficult to take other types of damage, and its utility was lower/less valuable compared to the other tanks... Wait, wait I know this class. Its SB Dark Knight!

We are not voting on how this should be fixed, this thread is for people to voice in a unified way that repeating this mistake is not ok, it is a failure on the development teams part for letting this happen again, and that we demand changes to our favorite class to address this imbalance.

I feel like I can tell how a class is doing by looking at its forum and the kind of posts being posted. There will always be some griping to some degree but if it's a wide majority there's a problem. If it's mostly people asking for advice then they're pleased with it and it's probably in a good place. If it's all just memes and lols then the class is probably overpowered. Since SB launch warriors have gone from the first group to the last. Paladins got their kicks in and now they're pretty quiet, maybe a few people asking about materia melds. Dark knight players have been consistently unhappy.

Speaking to viability vs competitiveness, yeah DRK is perfectly viable and I feel 4.x DRK so far is still more competitive than 3.x PLD ever was. The general mood of the playerbase seems to be that it still isn't competitive enough.

we lost our prog indenty cuz war buff no1 want drk on ultimate if ultimate is hardest content it will show what class is underperform/overperforming it needs buff/nerf in 4.2 which is smart from SE.Im gonna predicted we will be rejects of ultimate on tanking.But might be wrong tho.

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Originally Posted by Zarkovitch

we lost our prog indenty cuz war buff no1 want drk on ultimate if ultimate is hardest content it will show what class is underperform/overperforming it needs buff/nerf in 4.2 which is smart from SE.Im gonna predicted we will be rejects of ultimate on tanking.But might be wrong tho.

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There isnt anything we cant already predict before it happens with good enough calculations.
(When I say we, i dont mean me, and anyone from here. Just that its possible)

With a large enough group of people bouncing ideas/theories around, eventually we'll get a clearer picture.

Currently DRK isnt needed to be pushed to its max, in order to see the weaknesses it has.

Once we get ultimate, and if its actually the Difficulty SE claims, then there are only so many things in which the jobs can excel at, until a job isnt viable for the content.
Currently, if we push DPS checks to be so strict, that even 200 dps is a failure, then DRK is incapable of winning.
If DRK can clear the DPS check, then there's room for WAR and PLD to help push it further.
If Raid wide dmg is high enough to actually require PLD/WARs shields, then DRK will be unable to fill in for the other.
So if the content doesnt require the raid wide mitigation from DRK, then PLD and WAR will only make it easier.
(Also the content wouldnt be that hard, if they allow you to skip out on abilities, or stack them in other places to make them easier.)
WAR currently has the most mobility, followed by PLD and DRK. (Though PLD has a slight advantage over DRK, in that it can stack sprint and tempered will, where as drk can only rely on sprint alone, as plunge is absolutely useless for gap closing, except on someone elses screen where it looks like the DRK is further behind than it really is on their own screen.)

I dont feel DRK is incapable of handling TBs, though some like to argue it, its just not realistic enough of an arguement based on what happens in real content.
But it does struggle in "filler" CDs to mitigate auto attacks/constant cleaves. (Slower cleaves are fine with some TBNs.)

The current content hasnt been hard enough to really push DRK, and if content was more like Alexander, we'd see DRK struggling a bit more.

If Ultimate wont require mobility, light mitigation, common raid mitigation, and DPS checks, then its just not an ultimate. WAR and PLD ARE capable of being pushed further. DRK isnt.

EDIT: slightly wrong, DRK can be pushed to use TBN on the MT as a requirement in TB potency, but then PLD and WAR just wouldnt stand a candle in frequency, unless this TB is once every 3mins, then they can help shield the MT.

Lol ran void ark to level my ninja with the new alliance roulette. Thought I'd capture this.

https://imgur.com/a/ZELWw

Typical 24 player content, no one actually picking anything and a Bard ended up tanking sawtooth. Needless to say jokes about dark knight started a flying.

But hey, DRK has a new utility, drk brings joy to people's lives through humor :)

PLD in Heavensward was nowhere near as bad as DRK is in Stormblood.

In Heavensward PLD was better than DRK in Physical fights given their unique kit to handle physical damage alongside their natural shield blocks and as well as their potentially permanent 10% str down. It was not optimal, but it was an option they possessed that had a significant defensive effect. Alongside that, their CD kit has also remained unchanged with the role skills system. If anything, their kit has been boosted with the ability to now block magic damage as well as the introduction of their 3 unique new defensive tools, Passage of Arms, Intervention and boosted Cover.

In Heavensward, PLD had 3 skills over DRK in RoH, Sheltron and Bulwark. Whilst DRK had 2 over PLD in Magical fights with Dark Mind and Delirium. Why DRK was taken over PLD was because of it's superior damage and Delirium(and Reprisal) was way more useful than Divine Veil was for Raid Wide damage.

Come SB and DRK literally lost most of their skills to the Role System with no way of recovering their skills back in their old forms AND only gained a shallow gauge mechanic with 3 abilities that only somewhat patched the gaping hole in their damage.
PLD in SB deals more damage, has more raid-wide utility by miles, and has a better self CD kit.


3.0
PLD
Uni CD: 3 (Rampart, Sentinel, Hallowed Ground)
Situ CD: 3 (Bulwark, Sheltron, Rage of Halone)
Fluff CD: 0
Raid Support: 2 (Divine Veil, Clemency)
Situ Raid Support: 1 (Cover)
Total options: 9

DRK:
Uni CD: 4 (Shadowskin, ShadowWall, Living Dead, Reprisal)
Situ CD: 1 (Dark Mind)
Fluff CD: 1 (Dark Dance)
Raid Support: 2 (Reprisal, Delirium)
Total options: 8

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4.0
PLD
Uni CD: 6 (Rampart, Sentinel, Hallowed Ground, Sheltron, Bulwark, Passage of Arms)
Situ CD: 0
Fluff CD: 0
Raid Support: 5 (Intervention, Cover, Divine Veil, Clemency, Passage of Arms)
Total options: 12

DRK:
Uni CD: 4 (Rampart, Shadowwall, Living Dead, The Blackest Night)
Situ CD: 1 (Dark Mind)
Fluff CD: 0
Raid Support: 1 (The Blackest Night)
Total options: 6

TL:DR
PLD had issues that could simply be circumvent by not playing poorly i.e one perma main tank whilst also giving back to their team. It even excelled in fights that weren't mindlessly catered to DRK.

DRK has no redeeming qualities in SB. It is harder to play for no greater reward, gets slapped around under regular auto damage, and has no clear optimization path because of the poorly adjusted potencies and balance between Blood and Mana, has legitimately dead skills on its hotbar, it's only single support now is TBN, and has to use it's main resource for either Defense or Offense.

DRK now, is truly garbage in comparison to even 3.0 PLD.

That's a HUGE difference holy crap glad you brought that up that we're down to 6 vs PLDs mega 12 I hope SE realizes this, also can you edit into War as well?

Posts like these really make me want to level my DK... Have warrior at 70, and dk and paladin at 60.... Goin to level one of them next, and the forums have actually convinced me to level Dark knight....Alot of really good feedback here, and honestly I'd be surprised if at least some of these suggestions doesnt make it live... All I can say is the quality of life changes made to warrior are great.... Especially the ones made to shake it off...

As far as I can tell in SB, paladins are great, warriors are also great at the moment, leaving dk the only tank job....Pretty sure they'll have a look at that next....

Nice in you, DRK is in a horrible state and SE needs to hear you guys.

I only wish Monks were as loud...

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Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

Nice in you, DRK is in a horrible state and SE needs to hear you guys.

I only wish Monks were as loud...

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Monk was my first DPS class in HW I leveled up to 60, and I finished to level it to 70 3/4 days ago.

While its damage is mostly fine compared to other DPS contrary to DRK compared to other Tank, it shares the same problems of being noticibly harder to play to have the same result (I also got my Samurai to 70). Tackle Mastery is a total joke, RoE is disapointing and also makes TK more undesirable as of now (which is unchanged, another disapointement) and RoF feels sooooo slow. Concerning Deep Meditation and Brotherhood, I like the idea behind, to play more with chakras, but there is two problems : 1, we only use it on forbidden chakra, purification is useless now that Monk basically have infinite TP, why not add more chakra skills ? ; and 2, it's composition and luck dependant.You got a caster heavy party ? Well, you're out of luck. And even without composition, it's RNG dependant, so when parsing, doing the exact same performance on how you play, the numbers varies heavily depending on your luck with procing chakras.

I'm focusing to DRK right now as it's my Main, but Monk is not fine on a playstyle level. Sad for what was at first "Monk expansion" (but it isn't, it's Samurai expansion). So you have my sympathy, and I hope it'll get fixed alongside DRK.

I'm gonna join this protest too.


Currently levelling my Warrior but leaving my beloved DK behind really break my heart.


Besides all the problem on the individual skill, and the weak one without any reason (pointing at you living dead), the worst part is that DK is not fun anymore.


Outside AOE environment, the single target tanking became boring and lackluster.


on top of that my static run with 3 ranged 1 drg meele static, due to preferences on job playstyle. So i've no reason to trade off the slashing debuff, the warrior dps AND the raid mitigation utility that warrior now offer.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Just a quick word about viability and buffs...

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Yeah, this, a million times over, for every person that sticks their heads in these threads and is like "hey DRK can clear content" as if to say of a '73 Dodge Dart "hey I can crank the ignition".

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Lol ran void ark to level my ninja with the new alliance roulette. Thought I'd capture this.

https://imgur.com/a/ZELWw

Typical 24 player content, no one actually picking anything and a Bard ended up tanking sawtooth. Needless to say jokes about dark knight started a flying.

But hey, DRK has a new utility, drk brings joy to people's lives through humor :)

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that just sounds like a bad drk , drk really isnt that horrible , and seems like people hate it more with the new shake it off buff

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

that just sounds like a bad drk , drk really isnt that horrible , and seems like people hate it more with the new shake it off buff

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I’m pretty sure no dark knights were in the party, it was paladins and a warrior. But I’m not 100% sure.

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Originally Posted by Awful

That's a HUGE difference holy crap glad you brought that up that we're down to 6 vs PLDs mega 12 I hope SE realizes this, also can you edit into War as well?

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Not that it changes the conclusion but you can’t just look at the # of skills to compare their options.
TBN alone is a weaker alternative to intervention, cover and even clemency (i.e. raises your eHP in a different way). Due to the short CD, it can cover scenarios where you’d need multiple skills from other jobs.

For every situation PLD uses cover/intervention/clemency, DRK can use TBN as a weaker alternative.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I’m pretty sure no dark knights were in the party, it was paladins and a warrior. But I’m not 100% sure.

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im confused then haha , but I just hate how much a fav job of mine is getting hate, it could be in a better spot for sure but it isnt like horrible like all these threads are suggesting

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

im confused then haha , but I just hate how much a fav job of mine is getting hate, it could be in a better spot for sure but it isnt like horrible like all these threads are suggesting

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This isn't hate, its love. We love the job that's why we're pointing out how screwed it is, we want it to get attention.

Well at least DRK can still pull hate right. >_>

DRK is viable to baseline clearing content I guess. It just isn't fluid or fun anymore. And that's the problem. If it isn't fun it isn't worth playing as far as I am concerned.

Wasn't that the devs mantra? Make it fun? Or is it on basis of if the devs find it fun instead of the community paying their bills?

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

Not that it changes the conclusion but you can’t just look at the # of skills to compare their options.
TBN alone is a weaker alternative to intervention, cover and even clemency (i.e. raises your eHP in a different way). Due to the short CD, it can cover scenarios where you’d need multiple skills from other jobs.

For every situation PLD uses cover/intervention/clemency, DRK can use TBN as a weaker alternative.

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Oh for sure yeah I agree with you on TBN being weaker alternatives not to mention Drk still has to be babysat with Living Dead whereas a War and Pld have "safer" ultimates and better CD usage at their disposal as Drk went from the 8 options we had in HW VS to the 6 that we have now. Pld just has like you said, in every situation Cover/Intervention/Clemency and Drk just has TBN and even War who has IB/Equilibrium/Shake it Off, Drk doesn't have those options it just has TBN which is what it revolves around and it's honestly not enough.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

im confused then haha , but I just hate how much a fav job of mine is getting hate, it could be in a better spot for sure but it isnt like horrible like all these threads are suggesting

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It's not hate we're all upset that SE hasn't addressed Drks glaring problems this xpac where Wars have had tons of love and tweaks and Pld is just all around a better Drk with better damage and utility. We want our favorite class to shine, as does everyone including the person that posted about Monks, which is very true, we love Drk and want it to get the attention it deserves.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Wasn't that the devs mantra? Make it fun?

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No, you're thinking of "Make it balanced so we don't have to make a 4th tank."

IDFC what the doomsayers said back in the day, having a 4th tank to potentially open up new synergies and team compositions within which to create balance is 100% preferable to whatever this is.

"Why add a 4th tank when they can't balance the ones they have now?"
"Because they can't balance the ones they have now."

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Well at least DRK can still pull hate right. >_>

DRK is viable to baseline clearing content I guess. It just isn't fluid or fun anymore. And that's the problem. If it isn't fun it isn't worth playing as far as I am concerned.

Wasn't that the devs mantra? Make it fun? Or is it on basis of if the devs find it fun instead of the community paying their bills?

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Fun is subjective. What you may not find fun can be fun for other people.

Very true. I'm having a blast playing drk now compared in HW. Granted, I only play casually.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Wasn't that the devs mantra? Make it fun?

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Not the mantra, but what they supposedly have learned back from 1.0.

http://odinwatch.com/wp-content/uplo...-gdc-panel.jpg

Needless to say, they have long ago ditched that in favor of:"If it isn't fun, it needs more rewards."

Which now begs the question: Will DRK get double clusters in the future?

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Originally Posted by Awful

Oh for sure yeah I agree with you on TBN being weaker alternatives not to mention Drk still has to be babysat with Living Dead whereas a War and Pld have "safer" ultimates and better CD usage at their disposal as Drk went from the 8 options we had in HW VS to the 6 that we have now. Pld just has like you said, in every situation Cover/Intervention/Clemency and Drk just has TBN and even War who has IB/Equilibrium/Shake it Off, Drk doesn't have those options it just has TBN which is what it revolves around and it's honestly not enough.

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Also it needs to be taken into account that TBN costs DRK a decent chunk of it's main resource, MP, which it needs to fuel basic performance in it's other areas such as DPS and aggro generation. It's an often ignored issue that DRK has to burn their main resource just to get their "equivalents" when the other two tanks often just get theirs for free.

I get that resource management is sort of DRK's schtick, but how the usage and reliance of that resource affects balance shouldn't be overlooked. Being married so closely to a single resource results in a great deal of sacrifice, having to give up one thing for another. This by itself is fine and can be really fun when implemented well and tbh I feel fits the concept of DRK, but when you have to sacrifice parts of your performance just to reach a state of being equal (or in DRK's case still falling behind) to the other tanks who don't have to make these sort of sacrifices, that in of itself is imbalance. Sacrificing something should yield more noticeable gains, not result in just barely, maybe if you're lucky keeping up with everyone else.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Also it needs to be taken into account that TBN costs DRK a decent chunk of it's main resource, MP, which it needs to fuel basic performance in it's other areas such as DPS and aggro generation. It's an often ignored issue that DRK has to burn their main resource just to get their "equivalents" when the other two tanks often just get theirs for free.

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Agreed, the other classes don't have resource starvation like Drk does it's very noticeable VS Pld and War with their gauges and CDs where if Drk were to use DA + DM and TBN in conjunction that's your resources gone, not to mention Grit STILL costs tons of mana if you factor that in. Aggro generation with no Nin is super noticeable too as they struggle with threat VS War and Pld with their short CDs and tools that Drk wishes they had, not to mention how strong Pld and War DPS CDs are too.

It's honestly sad that Drk falls so short against the other tanks whether it be resource management, DPS, Mitigation, and threat, very unacceptable.