Dark Knight - I Used To Love You

Heavensward DRK gameplay needs to come back at any cost, it's ridiculous we have to be condemned to remember the best versions of DRK while we dealt whit this new marauder branch painted as our beloved favourite job while no other job in the game really suffer from this thanks to SE ignoring us.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Heavensward DRK gameplay needs to come back at any cost, it's ridiculous we have to be condemned to remember the best versions of DRK while we dealt whit this new marauder branch painted as our beloved favourite job while no other job in the game really suffer from this thanks to SE ignoring us.

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If there isn't any tank talk or at least talk of possible changes for 5.3, I'll just give up hope. They must be either satisfied with how the tanks are "balanced" number-wise or just afraid to change anything. DPS has been getting all of the attention since launch.

The current situation of many veteran tanks - as well as healers - being very unhappy with the roles in general, runs into a rather glaring issue with SE mostly measuring the "job satisfaction" by looking at content clear statistics.

Due to DPS having a much, much wider variety of options to split their numbers over, their job problems appear to be far more severe if clears are the main metric you go by. Moreover, if the issue is with an entire role of casters for example, then you can see that entire role being less played - but this can never be the case with tanks or healers, as you simply can not even clear most relevant content without 2 of each, hence somebody will always have to bite the bullet and play them for the team, regardless of how enjoyable they find the role.

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Originally Posted by jetfire117

If there isn't any tank talk or at least talk of possible changes for 5.3, I'll just give up hope. They must be either satisfied with how the tanks are "balanced" number-wise or just afraid to change anything. DPS has been getting all of the attention since launch.

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i doubt they do anything at all, with DRK is always the same, only expansion changes and dealt with it the next 2 years, despite delirium having the most complains overall everywhere and have time to change it to something more different even like a minor change like making the skill 30s recast and grant 2 bloodspillers only wich at the end will be the same overall as a example they choose to do nothing, i have no hopes to play DRK the rest of expansion and to add more drama GNB sounds are horrible, realle feels like tank and healers are not even a second rate customers but third world, i wish we get the same overall quality the dps have in their gameplays despite balance being a thing they are at least fun and so diverse to play no matter what.

For what little it is worth, just wanted to throw in a show of support for a return of HW Dark Knight's unique gameplay, as it's what bonded my to XIV shortly after joining and switching jobs to check it out. It's a divisive subject of what way DRK could go from here and there doesn't seem to be a middle ground that would satisfy everybody since some like the current iteration and some like SBs even, then there's us HW Dark Knight fans. Was downvoted like crazy on ffxiv's subreddit for suggesting an alternate play style system that could allow from old school style DRK (and AST, SCH, etc...) for casual gameplay, like dungeon roulette and unsynced stuff because it "would divide the player base". So be it. What I wouldn't give to have access to a HW server just to run a few dungeons every now and then as the O.G Dark.

Can understand why things have been homogenized with tanks and healers - even a bit with DPS for that matter - for the sake of an even playing field, but I still feel what I feel and preferred the old gameplay style better. OP, thank you for making this thread, it feels a bit vindicating having someone else who liked DRK how it was.

I've been playing seriously since Stormblood, so I don't know how the class was in Heavensward, but I miss the Dark Arts and MP regen mechanics from the past. As it stands now, DRK is very boring. The rotation is dull and simple, whereas in the past you had options. I think stance dancing was awful in general, but that's not the concern here. Using Dark Arts to empower specific abilities when appropriate was not only a way to keep you on your toes, it also had an insanely satisfying animation to go with it. Using Bloodprice to recover your MP, or Carve and Spit? Also really satisfying. I think, given that an enmity combo is no longer necessary, restoring Dark Arts as an active mechanic should be doable.

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Originally Posted by DM_Rankin

I've been playing seriously since Stormblood, so I don't know how the class was in Heavensward, but I miss the Dark Arts and MP regen mechanics from the past. As it stands now, DRK is very boring. The rotation is dull and simple, whereas in the past you had options. I think stance dancing was awful in general, but that's not the concern here. Using Dark Arts to empower specific abilities when appropriate was not only a way to keep you on your toes, it also had an insanely satisfying animation to go with it. Using Bloodprice to recover your MP, or Carve and Spit? Also really satisfying. I think, given that an enmity combo is no longer necessary, restoring Dark Arts as an active mechanic should be doable.

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i was planing to use this link in a threat im planing to make with feedback after confirm there wont be changes for DRK in 5.3 but it wont hurt post it here now.

This is a full guide explaining every skill and mechanic of DRK in heavensward posted here in this forum almost 6 years ago back in heavensward, i hope this helps everyone who wasn't here in HW or just didn't care about it back there have a clear view of how use to work and why so many veterans like me want it back.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...k-Knight-Guide

enjoy it, and sorry for any veteran if read this guide make us painfully miss it a lot more.

That guide was as painful to read as it was when i found an old heavensward astrologian job action guide on youtube. Both equally painful wrecks to my favourite jobs in tank and healer.

Hell I even made a thread a while ago about a half thought through idea to bring some HW flavour back to this marauder clone (yes marauder clone, not Warrior, Warrior has been pruned back to a level 50 marauder with a gap closer and shake it off)


I miss my debuffing and high skill magic tank from 3.0

What is it about Dark Knight that fits the Dark Knight flavor since 5.0? How I see it, they've basically become rescource assault rifles who can go berserk on their rescources with little consequences. HP isn't being sacrificed and now MP has no important role anymore (AoE enmity, Abyssal drain) for party survival, so there's no risk or sacrifice made, ever. Only thing you need to save for is TBN but it's just not nearly enough of a risk.

They're spellblade berserkers now, not Dark Knights imo.

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Originally Posted by shao32

i was planing to use this link in a threat im planing to make with feedback after confirm there wont be changes for DRK in 5.3 but it wont hurt post it here now.

This is a full guide explaining every skill and mechanic of DRK in heavensward posted here in this forum almost 6 years ago back in heavensward, i hope this helps everyone who wasn't here in HW or just didn't care about it back there have a clear view of how use to work and why so many veterans like me want it back.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...k-Knight-Guide

enjoy it, and sorry for any veteran if read this guide make us painfully miss it a lot more.

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As someone who only started playing in Shb (and doesn't mind DRK, though it does feel similar to WAR), why did they change this?
It looks so much more interesting here... I mean some of these abilities look really cool. That entire Darkside stance, along with abilities interacting with it? That's super cool.
So... what happened?

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Originally Posted by Rivinhal

As someone who only started playing in Shb (and doesn't mind DRK, though it does feel similar to WAR), why did they change this?
It looks so much more interesting here... I mean some of these abilities look really cool. That entire Darkside stance, along with abilities interacting with it? That's super cool.
So... what happened?

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The curse of being the poster boy? Devs hating us? Leaving the job for the last of the list and find they run out of time so they go trough WAR gameplay to fill they huge holes they left after removing everything to released it on time?
I don't know, the only thing I know the job I use to love doesn't exist anymore, they ignored us and give us this Frankenstein filled with useless mechanics like darkside and living shadow with his new gauge and the whole rage system copy pasted from WAR with oversimplification to his MP management making it non existed.

what I know nobody ask for this, we claim how much we loved HW gameplay in SB and they give us a black WAR with a oGCD burst window on raid buffs, they solved the problems by removing the problems so no more problems right?.

Sorry I know I sound a bit frustrating when I talk about DRK, it's just the wound still bleeds for me, I have no real answer about why they did this, some will say we asked for this and defend it but I will always disagree with them, if I knew DRK will become this I would never support any change to the job honestly, what I know if we want to DRK being unique and fun like HW we have to fight for it and pray the devs listen to us for once.

I can only agree with shao. Nobody knows because nobody asked for this.

I can only imagine that the dev team felt the urge to dumb down DRK because nobody was really playing it in SB... but for the wrong reason.

My guess: the dev team saw WAR as the most favoured tank in its previous iterations and copy-pasted it for DRK because they had no freaking idea what to do with the job. And/or because YoshiP once said in an interview they wanted to have 2 MTs+2 OTs this expansion - probably with PLD+GNB prefered OT, and WAR+DRK prefered MT, looking at their current toolkit. After they copy-pasted WAR they had little time to actually design it, and called it a day after the uproar from the community about the upcoming MT/OT design... in hindsight the prefered MT/OT design might have been the better choice here. Who knows?!

€dit: found the interview (reddit link)

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Q: Right now, the three tanks are well-balanced. What will happen when you throw another job into the mix? Can you tell us roughly what Gunbreaker's special characteristics will be?

A: Honestly, please wait until May for the answer. We'll show you how the four tanks will differentiate themselves, including their new actions. We've had three tanks up to Patch 4.5, and we see tank players' preferences with regards to MTing, OTing, tank stances, etc. I don't think it'd be good for the three tanks to form a "triangle", so maybe we'll balance them by having two MTs and two OTs, or make them capable of both. Right now, we're working towards a compromise as we adjust the actions. We'll announce the battle system details in May, so please wait until then.

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Originally Posted by ArianeEwah

My guess: the dev team saw WAR as the most favoured tank in its previous iterations and copy-pasted it for DRK because they had no freaking idea what to do with the job. And/or because YoshiP once said in an interview they wanted to have 2 MTs+2 OTs this expansion - probably with PLD+GNB prefered OT, and WAR+DRK prefered MT, looking at their current toolkit. After they copy-pasted WAR they had little time to actually design it, and called it a day after the uproar from the community about the upcoming MT/OT design... in hindsight the prefered MT/OT design might have been the better choice here. Who knows?!

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I suspect the DRK fell victim to the more broad fight design, tank and general mechanics changes. HW's Darkside MP Drain caused problems when they started using full cutscene transitions in Zurvan and StB's "No MP Regen/Refresh" Darkside meant that the cutscene transitions that were meant to be semi-reset points failed to do so for the DRK if they forgot to turn it off, removal of all external sources of MP recovery/Refresh made the No MP Regen pointless, WARs cheesing Phantom Train adds meant that all fights and Tanks needed to be designed to account for Tank burst dps to prevent a repeat, Enmity combos were culled, Counter and Hit base resource recovery actions and abilities were mostly removed so that MT/OT dps was equal and dps resources and defensive resources were for the most part disentangled or made almost always dps neutral.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

I suspect the DRK fell victim to the more broad fight design, tank and general mechanics changes.

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Partly, the biggest changes still happened to BW and (Blood)Delirium. They are copy-pasted actions from WARs Infuriate and Inner Release. But I can't recall anyone asking for them to become (such obvious) clones.
If their goal was simply to make tanks easier/more accessable, the change from Dark Arts+Darkside to Darkness/Shadow actions+Darkside would've been enough.
I doubt it had anything to do with mechanics, but rather the dev team becoming lazy to balance 3-4 different tanks, and thus laid a "new basement" for DRK as it was the most unique/different tank prior ShB.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

HW's Darkside MP Drain

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I actually thought about giving a statement about this in my previous post, but decided not to. Anyway, I agree the trend going toward easier/less punishing gameplay, especially on DRK. You had to "not forget" to turn it off, or think twice before turning it off and on again after x seconds, i.e. was the gain greater than the activation cost. The changes in SB made it less punishing. And in ShB the Darkside-buff applied by Darkness/Shadow actions would've been fine... tho... strange.

The last remains of "Counter and Hit" from HW is just Vengeance (and to a degree TBN), Shield Swipe was the previous victim that didn't survive ShB. Let's see what the next expac will bring.

(But honestly, if they doesn't change directions, I doubt anything good will come of it. Healers and tanks have been hit hard, way harder than we actually thought at first. And aside from a few QoL changes, SE keeps quiet about those roles.)

not like the way it moves lol