Patch 3.05 up... NO DRK rework!

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Originally Posted by Zari

That...just supports my point though? They are saying they will be looking at how it does now with 3.05 released before buffs.
They didnt say they are releasing buffs at 3.05

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Never said that your post was incorrect, I was reinforcing it with a direct quote from the Live Letter with the part you were alluding to bolded.

Not every reply is a negative response attempting to say somebody is wrong ;)

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Originally Posted by dragoelete

you do realize that rogue doesn't have the perfect dodge skill anymore right? it was replaced with a different skill that acts similar to stone skin only it shields them for 20% of there hp and only lasts 20 seconds... and it has a 120 second CD... so stone skin would be better for paladin anyway.

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I do, and its a more practical tank cooldown because its off GCD. Even still the entire statement was hyperbole and sarcastic.

The unmend criticism is exaggerated. Deal 0 damage while you wait, or deal 150 potency while you wait. If your a PLD what are you going to do when you hit 0 TP. No damage. Drk isn't in that predicament. Drk isn't in the same TP straights as PLD. As a Main tank PLD has Shield swipe if block is available. As an off-tank the TP expenditure between Drk and PLD is

25.33 PLD vs 26.32 DRK with the presumption that the Drk is using Blood weapon literally off cooldown. A difference of slightly less then 1 TP a second when they're both off-tanking. A difference which makes Drk spend 118.44 more TP in 2 minutes. Which is resolved in 3 GCD's when the DRK hits Unmend does 150 Potency and gets 50 TP back for his troubles. Then the PLD hits 0, and waits.
Again it is largely exaggerated because even with blood weapon on cooldown the actual TP per second of the two is less then 1 point apart and assumes no other duty but being a bootleg dps between the two of them, nor pays any mind to the damage or aggro differences between the two within the same timespan.

Even still in terms of "In house" things. Blood weapon even making your attacks cost 5 TP less would mean using blood weapon on cooldown costs 24.24 TP per second and it would be more efficient then PLD.

Warrior has the same 25.33 costs as PLD. Equilibrium just recovers 3.3 TP per second on cooldown, IB/FC/SC/Decimate regain ~48-50 TP per use depending on skill speed and obviously pacification being 5s means 100 TP since you aren't using any abilities.
If anything PLD is the worst OT for damage based on their TP expenditure. Marginally aided by Shield Swipe if a fight so permits it, if a fight does not permit blocking and if they're main tanking then they are the worst in terms of TP expenditure, given Drk only spends more TP as a result of Blood Weapon which isn't possible if Grit stays on and still maintains *some* damage via MP if they ran out anyways where PLD does not. This doesn't even count that Shield Lob and Shield Bash are tp expensive if they require to be used.

Lets condense the entire thing.
-Damage wise Drk doesn't actually get reduced to just autoattacking just because TP hits 0 but PLD does. Pld has 96% of Drk's tp expenditure while off tanking if Drk is using Blood weapon on cooldown.

-Vs magical attacks while main tanking their TP expenditure is the same but Drk again has unmend to still pump out *some* damage while TP is recovering. Shield Bash & Tomahawk are TP expensive.

- Against physical attacks, Shield Swipe does more damage while recovering TP. Unmend ultimately does less damage and recovers more TP.

The realities of 0 TP aren't the same for DRK as it is for the other two tanks. Now War's struggle to hit 0 TP while off-tanking
but DRK holds their own 'advantages' to PLD in this department.

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Originally Posted by AcaciaTyrannia

Most of the 'Ultra' endgame groups are running with DRK main tank. If you feel DRK is underpowered, it's a matter of your personal skill and ability, not the job.

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That's strange. All the statics on my two servers (Excal & Cactuar) have been demanding WAR/PLD only for the past two weeks.

A couple of top raiders experimenting with + finding temporary success in circumstances where the encounter is basically built to make the job have an advantage isn't really indicative of anything.

How are their 'high skill DRK maintanks' dealing with situations like A2S and A3S? Does every hardcore fight now deal heavy tank magic damage so DRKs can be comparable to PLDs? What will happen when the meta moves away from magic damage fights? What will happen when someone decides that they want HG cheese to skip gear requirements again?

Is a tank meta where the MT is a revolving door and the OT is only ever one job actually a healthy and balanced tank meta to people just because "well, every job gets a turn at the table!"?

People did week one clears of content with 2.0 Warrior, too. It didn't mean they kept those Warriors or that Warrior was a good, balanced job.

If there are any fixes needed to the job, I suppose blood weapon could have a 5% increase in damage added along with the 10% increase in attack speed. Also, Abyssal Drain could have it's potency increased from 120 to 150.
Plunge could have a effect added to it where you are healed for 100% of damage done. Carve and Spit could have an effect added to it where if you don't use dark arts you get a 600 potency heal along with the mp recovery and the 100 potency attack.
Otherwise the job is sweet as you can heal up nicely with soul eater.

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Originally Posted by Ipkonfig

I was only trying to show the synergy from MRD could be gained via LNC, but you can be a tool about it instead of being constructive, seems useful, SE forbid we have discussions!

@Falern - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ula_forsights/

Shows the new DEF scaling to be .0001725 * DEF to get your base mitigation %. In his example at i179 he had 1691 DEF which would be 29.16% physical mitigation, add in Foresight, 2029 DEF for 35% mitigation for a gain of 5.8% physical mitigation.

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Let a Tarantula hawk hit me in the back, avg auto attack damage without foresight, 461, with 416. That's a 10.2% difference.
Going by the lowest attack from both had a 13% difference and the highest of both had 7% difference. Not totally relevant stats though.


But then again, his math does say I should be taking 9.5% less damage while under the effect of foresight,
(1000) * (1 - (0.0001725 * 2180 )) = 623.95
(1000) * (1 - (0.0001725 * 1817 )) = 686.5675



= ( | 623.95 - 686.5675 | / ((623.95 + 686.5675)/2) ) * 100
= ( | -62.6175 | / (1310.5175/2) ) * 100
= ( 62.6175 / 655.25875 ) * 100
= 0.095561 * 100

= 9.5561% difference

or am I doing my math totally wrong here?

Not saying foresight is the best cooldown ever, but with it is better in this tier than it was before, and it only gets better with gear.

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Originally Posted by Sir-Meliodas

If there are any fixes needed to the job, I suppose blood weapon could have a 5% increase in damage added along with the 10% increase in attack speed. Also, Abyssal Drain could have it's potency increased from 120 to 150.
Plunge could have a effect added to it where you are healed for 100% of damage done. Carve and Spit could have an effect added to it where if you don't use dark arts you get a 600 potency heal along with the mp recovery and the 100 potency attack.
Otherwise the job is sweet as you can heal up nicely with soul eater.

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Lets make it a god class!

Glad the 50 gladiator has such insight on tank balance;P

What, the guy wanted the job to be improved so I offered suggestions, that is all. Dark Knight is not meant to do as much damage as a Warrior or defend as well as a Paladin as it is a hybrid of Offensive tanking and Defensive tanking.

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Originally Posted by Sir-Meliodas

Dark Knight is not meant to do as much damage as a Warrior or defend as well as a Paladin as it is a hybrid of Offensive tanking and Defensive tanking.

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This is wrong - the the stated tanking styles of the three tanks in the Letter From The Producer is warriors as having more MT damage, Paladins as having superior physical defense, and Dark Knights as having superior magical defense. It's also implied that their OT DPS should be comparable to Warrior's if someone is providing a slash debuff. Of course, right now, that's all DRK does when offtanking, if a Monk is present.

The big takeaway here is that MTing has a decent, if deeply fragile and tenuous balance between all three tanks, and OTing is so hilariously dominated by Warrior (despite obvious attempts to diversify it with DRK joining the game and paladin's new toys that can be used while OTing) due to their irreplacable extra utility and ridiculously good DPS.

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Originally Posted by Krr

This is wrong - the the stated tanking styles of the three tanks in the Letter From The Producer is warriors as having more MT damage, Paladins as having superior physical defense, and Dark Knights as having superior magical defense. It's also implied that their OT DPS should be comparable to Warrior's if someone is providing a slash debuff. Of course, right now, that's all DRK does when offtanking, if a Monk is present.

The big takeaway here is that MTing has a decent, if deeply fragile and tenuous balance between all three tanks, and OTing is so hilariously dominated by Warrior (despite obvious attempts to diversify it with DRK joining the game and paladin's new toys that can be used while OTing) due to their irreplacable extra utility and ridiculously good DPS.

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Or if you just don't need Delirium.

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Pld+Drk is just not a good setup.

It's either..

Pld+War
Drk+War
War+War (ALL the damage)

War = everything and more(inb4 pridewarriors come to defend their position), even trumping Paladins in the MT department with skilled IB usage and stance dancing, and are equivalent, if not better than Drk as MT in magic fights, with a Pld as the off tank. Pld SoO DPS is good, people need to stop undermining it. And then there's the support as OT they offer in Divine Veil, the only STR down in the game (If it's applicable for example with physical auto attacks), Cover (Same deal as STR down), and Clemency, which by the way when used on a Warrior MT, in defiance, has a 180% overall effectiveness (200% with Cov.), because Clemency is modified by Defiance. Meaning that is one HELL of a heal on the warrior (11k+ easily), and 50% of that returned to the Paladin. Throw Stoneskin in there too because Stoneskin is amazing when it's timed correctly.

Pld and War are simply in sync with one another so damn well, it'd be amazing if they were still the only 2 tanks. But Drk is in the mix now, and doesn't exactly make up in what you lose by replacing either of the two older tanks. They're the odd tank out, they don't synergize at all with anyone or anything other than a slashing resist debuff that they need in order to do anything close to the DPS a Warrior can do. They give you nothing in return for choosing one over a War or a Pld, and that is the main problem.

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Originally Posted by Ditto

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This right here, this is what I struggle with a lot. The other tank in my static is a PLD, as a DRK, I bring next to nothing to the group. Bad enough that most of the time I just play my WAR unless it is stupid content. I think DRK is fine in the tanking area. It could use tweaks, but let's be realistic here, which job doesn't beside WAR? The problem is with the PLD/DRK combo...you have to measure yourself against Anything/WAR and you come up short, not even a little short, but a lot. DRK needs something to justify an OT position.

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Originally Posted by Faytte

Lets make it a god class!

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With all those unjustified complains you can read in the forums, SE will eventually have to buff it to a level where it is superior to the other tanks. Before that the "vocal majority" won't be sadisfied. And then we'll have to face the same "complains" from PLD and WAR.

Looking forward to it as I enjoy DRK a lot.

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Originally Posted by MoarLegion

If DRK needs anything, it'd be a utility buff. As it is right now, Delirium is about a step and a half above useless, and reprisal is kinda weird.

Random idea for reprisal: Keep it where it can proc off a parry, but make it so we can chain it off something like Plunge or DA-S&C, which keeps it in its primary purpose, but also lets us have an on-demand OT cooldown.

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Adding my thoughts towards the mentioned abilities.

Change Carve and Spit to having a standard 450 potency but increase recast time. Remove mp restore and add in dark arts effect that Reprisal becomes activated regardless of a parry.

Add to Delirium a dark arts effect that gives a MP regen restoring enough mp over time for 2 dark arts. (adjust mp regen for balance as needed)

Out of all the threads for DRK I figured I'd leave my suggestions here:

- Lower TP cost for abilities across the board or change our Marauder sub class to Lancer
- Modify "Carve and Spit" to drain much more mp than it currently does as currently there's no reason to use it for anything other than damage (450 potency here is fine as is)
- Remove the parry requirement from "Reprisal" and leave it off GCD
- Replace the evasion from a "Dark Arts" + "Dark Dance" w/ more parry (50% total)

Additional Requests (not needed IMO but would improve QoL and synergy):

- Make "Blood Weapon" usable in "Grit" but change the effect to draining HP instead of MP (keeping the mp drain effect when "Grit" is off)
- Change the "Delirium Blade" debuff from INT -10% to magic attack -10% and allow it to stack with MNK's "Dragon Kick"
- Remove the ground placement mechanic from "Salted Earth" and just place a pool directly under the DRK
- Remove the need to be healed to 100% to remove "Walking Dead" OR change the "Living Dead" mechanic entirely (there's too many ways to do this last part to write them down)
- Add additional utility to "Sole Survivor" by allowing it to do damage equivalent to 20% of one's HP or MP (the amount that would've been returned to the user) if the target does not die in the 10 seconds

Side note: An official dev. response would also be nice but it's already been hinted that DRK is on the table to be re-worked by 3.1

What I'd like to see for revisions/adjustments:

To all jobs:

• Skill Speed and Spell Speed turned into a single Speed stat.
• TP refresh ticks reduced to 50 TP but now tick per 'base GCD', which includes the effects of Speed and certain abilities/buffs (e.g. Blood Weapon while excluding the effects of Huton/GL and Slow).
• Stancing abilities that are not timer-locked (like Cleric, WM, and Gauss) can now be dropped off-GCD (primarily aimed towards Shield Oath and Grit).

To Dark Knight specifically:

• Darkside no longer consumes mana upon receiving buffs or ticks of effect therefrom.
• Darkside no longer consumes a tick of mana upon being dropped.
• Mana gains from Syphon Strike and Blood Weapon will now always be calculated before the mana drain from Darkside.
• Darkside’s visual effect has been revised. It should now appear smaller and more concentrated around the Dark Knight’s blade, right arm, (and eyes).
• Living Dead now requires the DRK to be healed for 90% of its health, down from 100%.
• Blood Price has been revised. Blood Price will now give mana per attack attempted against you, rewarding dodges and enemy misses, and factors in actual, pre-mitigation damage for its mana returns. Its value in single-target situations has been somewhat increased, especially during intensive damage phases, while its value versus crowds of weak enemies has been slightly reduced. [Tldr; evasion no longer costs mana]
• Delirium will no longer be removed by Dragon Kick, though their effects will still be incapable of stacking.
• Unenhanced Carve and Spit improved from 100 potency to 220 potency.
• Reprisal can trigger from dodges.

The MP costs of several actions has been reduced:
(Note: DRK has ~6920 - ~6950 mana at level 60.)

• Grit MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 1326 to 440. (Reduced to 33% of past value)
• Darkside MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 442 to 330. (Reduced to 75% of past value)
• Unleash MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 800 to 770. (Reduced to 96% of past value)
• Dark Passenger MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 884 to 800. (Reduced to 91% of past value)
• Abyssal Drain MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 974 to 850. (Reduced to 87% of past value)
• Dark Arts MP cost reduced from (at lvl60) 1764 to 1500. (Reduced to 85% of past value)

(Apart from the Grit and Darkside change, these aren't too important at 60, but I would prefer this scaling for Unleash-DP-AD, as it would allow us to take advantage of our CDs with few enemies, instead of their cost in DA-SE commonly being more worthwhile. I think these values are fairly reasonable, but tied with the BP revision, should add up to a bit more MT dps. -- And I honestly would like it if PLDs, in contingent complaints, also had their MT dps raised a bit closer to WAR's...)

Possibly OP, but fixes DD's randomness and DM's lackluster-ness:

• Dark Mind duration has been increased to 12s (up 20% of prior).
• Dark Dance parry chance bonus increased to 50% (up 67% of prior), but duration has been reduced to 15s (down 25% of prior).
• At level 48 Dark Knight receives a new trait - Necessary Losses. While under the effect of Dark Dance or Dark Mind, the respective ability can be re-triggered to briefly double their effect at cost of duration. Re-triggering Dark Dance will cause Keen Darkness, which will guarantee the next parry and/or dodge but after expiration reduce Dark Dance's duration by 2 seconds + duration equal to twice the damage absorbed or equal to the damage evaded as a percent of your maximum health. Retriggering Dark Mind will cause Dark Mist, which duplicate the resistance bonus of your Dark Mind ability for 4 seconds, but upon expiration reduces Dark Mind's remaining duration by thrice the percent of your health Dark Mist absorbed + 2 seconds. Each effect has a 5 second internal timer.

Unnecessary but fitting:

• Blood Weapon can now be triggered while in Grit, where it will cause Blood Weapon to drain HP instead of MP and to half-scale with real damage dealt each strike (flat value averaged with scaling value). In most situations, this HP drain is worth less than the MP drain, but if triggered before dropping Grit and swapping out of MT position, the extra dps from OT position can cause a decent amount of health regeneration.
• Consuming Dark Arts via Power Slash now refunds 33% of its mana cost OR now generates enmity averaged between its original value and a Provoke if the Provoke's value would exceed DA-Power Slash's. (The prior improves its general feasibility while the latter makes it useful for reclaiming enemies if Provoke is down, giving it at least situational use).
• Sole Survivor CD reduced to 90 seconds. At the end of its duration it will now deal or heal damage equal to half the health it would have restored if the target has not died. If used on an ally, any parries the target makes will also trigger your Reprisal.
• Soul Eater now still heals when out of Grit, but only at 50% effect.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

• Soul Eater now still heals when out of Grit, but only at 50% effect.

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^My opinion on this would be to see some consistency with the other HP drain self heals. ATM, Souleater's HP drain requires Grit, Abyssal Drain's Hp drain requires Dark Arts, Sole Survivor's comes free.

For SE and AD, I'd like for them to be the same. Both either requiring Grit or both requiring Dark Arts (but not Grit). If the former, I feel like that gives Grit - the tank stance - a little distinguishable aspect setting it apart from Shield Oath (makes it the source of all self heals as well). Same with the later, all requiring Dark Arts (the benefit to this route is getting self-heals without Grit, which I sorely miss when I'm out of Grit - especially in PvP and burn phase).

If Sole Survivor had a Corpse Explode or some other aspect to it, that IMO would justify a (Added Effect: Self Heal) if in Grit or if used with Dark Arts to match with SE/AD. But that's only if it had some other aspect to it besides being a debuff form of Mercy Stroke. As is - just leave it the same, a free self heal: no requirement.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

(Note: DRK has ~5960 mana at level 60.)

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This is wrong. As a Xaela I have 6926 MP out of party.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

This is wrong. As a Xaela I have 6926 MP out of party.

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i think they meant the base amount for the class as i have around 6200 outside of party as a sunseeker mi'quote

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Originally Posted by dragoelete

i think they meant the base amount for the class as i have around 6200 outside of party as a sunseeker mi'quote

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Nah, I just got the numbers reversed. Meant to say '~6950' for in-party values. >.> Most balancing would need to be done for in-party values, after all, and almost every group runs SCH.

Too lazy to redo the percentile mana costs right now, so just deleting them.

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Originally Posted by Habien

This right here, this is what I struggle with a lot. The other tank in my static is a PLD, as a DRK, I bring next to nothing to the group. Bad enough that most of the time I just play my WAR unless it is stupid content. I think DRK is fine in the tanking area. It could use tweaks, but let's be realistic here, which job doesn't beside WAR? The problem is with the PLD/DRK combo...you have to measure yourself against Anything/WAR and you come up short, not even a little short, but a lot. DRK needs something to justify an OT position.

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I dunno, man. I'm watching these Alexander Savage clears with a dark Knight tank on youtube (both on and off tanking) and it just seems like while we're complaining about what DRKs can and can't do, other guys are just out there doing this shit and having fun. It's making me rethink my gloomier disposition.

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Originally Posted by dragoelete

i think they meant the base amount for the class as i have around 6200 outside of party as a sunseeker mi'quote

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That's weird. I'm a sun seeker too and I've got 6930 outside of a party.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

That's weird. I'm a sun seeker too and I've got 6930 outside of a party.

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its possible i got the number wrong then it has been a while since i actually looked at my DRK's MP bar outside of a party... (ever since i hit around 56 i don't think i had ever rlly been out of a party...)