Dark Knight Megathread

For the DPS roles though, that bonus is for unavoidable damage like raidwides etc. It is a light defensive tool, a small edge for players who have better mastery of the jobs. So it giving a small dps bonus is fine, I think.

It's been an interesting discussion and though I'm not thrilled with the lack of exciting content for Patch 6.0 Dark Knight, part of me is also glad that SquareEnix doesn't just change things without thought from loud vocal minorities on the English Forums i.e. TBN nerfed to 25s CD, etc

Woo woo Endwalker Enhanced Unmend (which I don't like) VERY SOON (Unmend + Plunge Meta Single Target Combo, We really deserve something better than this trash)

Oblation! (I'll use it plenty but why the hell is it level 82 and not available pre 70?)

Salted Earth- TWO effects! Shitty version of Circle of Scorn. (Guess I'll use it but why 90s CD instead of 60s or under?)

Shadowbringer! (I'll take it)

Enhanced Living Shadow II (This doesn't even need to be a trait, it should be a given that Living Shadow will act like a level 90 version at job level 90)

I hope you guys also got your anti depressants and booze ready for Early Access and Next Week, I already got mines. Well, it probably won't be that bad, Dark Knight is still fun & playable and looks to be a capable enough tank going into Endwalker.

I'll still hope for more reliable on demand HP Sustain, MP too but it is what it is.

A hypothetical rework that will solve most DrK issues and preserve or enhance its identity.

A few caveats:

Potencies are me spitballing and are not final, even cursory examination reveals that these numbers need serious balancing.

‘Blood Price’ as outlined here is more or less a blatant ripoff of brewmaster monk’s stagger mechanic from WoW, but LD was ripped from WoW as well, so why not?


“New” passive:

Blood Price- Certain abilities will cause the DrK to accumulate stacks of Blood Price rather than taking damage. 2% of the Dark Knight’s hp = 1 stack. Each stack of blood price will spread its damage out over 10 seconds. Stacks tick off in the order they are acquired. Overhealing will remove stacks. All stacks must be removed before hp can be restored.

Reworked skills:

Living Dead- for 10s, DrK cannot die, all the damage taken during this time is stored in ‘Blood Price’ stacks.

Shadowbringer- Removes up to 10 stacks of Blood Price, does damage proportional to stacks removed.

Delirium- removes 6 stacks of blood price, restores 3k mp.

TBN- Over its duration, all damage taken is stored as stacks of Blood Price, up to a maximum of 15.

Blood Weapon- converted to charge system a la Endwalker Delirum.

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Originally Posted by Lycieus

Blood Price- Certain abilities will cause the DrK to accumulate stacks of Blood Price rather than taking damage. 2% of the Dark Knight’s hp = 1 stack. Each stack of blood price will spread its damage out over 10 seconds. Stacks tick off in the order they are acquired. Overhealing will remove stacks. All stacks must be removed before hp can be restored.

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The mechanic as described here would seem to have a bit of a paradox (you can't overheal a less-than-full-HP target without first healing) and a healing quantization issue. The order, meanwhile, does not matter -- only the rate does.

Additionally, this would likely look and feel quite clunky unless you could first support an intuitive UI solution, such as a healable damage-to-be-taken (over time) component of one's health bar. (Most likely there'd be some color for predicted DoT damage to-be-taken in general and a special one for DRK to indicate that the DoT damage is cleansible.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

The mechanic as described here would seem to have a bit of a paradox (you can't overheal a less-than-full-HP target without first healing) and a healing quantization issue. The order, meanwhile, does not matter -- only the rate does.

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An oversight on my part. In my original draft healing did not prioritize stacks, forgot to remove when changed it, so overhealing was possible.

As for the health bar, I believe in WoW stagger caused a grey overlay on your hp bar (it’s been years, I can’t remember), but I concieved of the UI dealing with the mechanic in a similar way.

I swear I must be the only person who enjoys the simplicity of drk. Then again, I stay out of ultimate e-peen contests.

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Originally Posted by Edewen

I swear I must be the only person who enjoys the simplicity of drk. Then again, I stay out of ultimate e-peen contests.

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But we have three other really simple tanks. DRK's more complex playstyle circa 3.0 was the most fun I've had with this game (serious jank aside), and it hurt to lose that. You can find simple tank to play with any of the other options, but I can't find any alternatives to what I lost. It's not a matter of comparing egos, managing those systems was engaging.

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Originally Posted by Edewen

I swear I must be the only person who enjoys the simplicity of drk. Then again, I stay out of ultimate e-peen contests.

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Me too actually, but DRK really wasn't that complicated in 3.0/HW. Just had a learning curve because of novelty and required memorization. However, it was really satisfying and felt more rewarding.

They actually (very slightly) nerfed DRK from the Media Tour to 6.0 release. Although admittedly it does (again: very slightly) relieve some of the usability issues.

I just love how on the definitive changes they didn't actually care at all about blood weapon before release that they even nerfed DRK self healing capabilitys on single target by making Abyssal drain sharing recast with carve and spit.
I mean I didn't expect reaching even lower ends but they amaze me more and more every day, I would love to say this is bcs they are restructuring the job complety but I would be really stupid to hold any hope for it.

AD sharing a cooldown with C&S is cracking me up

So...it's as I feared and basically nothing changed from the media tour.

I have a really hard time imagining that Oblation and Blackest Night are going to be enough to let them stack up to the other tanks with how insanely loaded their short mitigations are now.

The recast timer for Flood/Edge of Shadow has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second. Does this mean DRK can now double weave Flood/Edge with itself?

What is this, World of Warcraft's Warlock?

This is actually so scuffed

"But wait until you play it before judging !"

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Originally Posted by Agner

AD sharing a cooldown with C&S is cracking me up

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It's honestly really funny. It's such a middle finger move. It shows that they're aware the class has huge playability problems during burst windows, but that they absolutely are not willing to do more than the absolute bare minimum to make it technically playable.

I think it's pretty clear at this point that they just don't like the idea of DRK healing itself.
Abyssal Drain gains the MP recover from Carve & Spit, while Carve & Spit doesn't get the HP recover from Abyssal Drain.

Why does it seems like it's taboo for a DRK to heal itself ?
Also, for non-dungeon content, DRK just lost their only skill outside of Soul Eater to heal themselves. Because let's be real, in raids nowadays, there's not a single situation where you actually fight 4 adds or more.

I start to believe they do read the forums, and everytime we complain about issue about DRK, rather than adressing them, or make a step in that direction, they intentionnally take a step backward.

I'd rather not search for how many time the Blood Weapon issue has been called out since the media tour build, but i'm pretty sure 80% of the posts since then talk about how it should have been adressed ( wich ... was not )

I guess DRK is only a matter of living under frustration, " Hopes & Dreams " situation.

https://images-ext-2.discordapp.net/...507&height=632

All you can really do at this point is...

https://cdn.streamelements.com/uploa...21efaba2e0.gif

They nerfed Enhanced Unmend.

Media Tour:
https://i.imgur.com/JYVsBvz.png

Job Guide:
https://i.imgur.com/OlhXGox.png

Id have no issue with AD and CS sharing a CD if they were 30 second CD

If they simply were equivalent for multi and single target it'd be fine. But C&S doesn't even have a heal effect, if it was something a 600 or 800 potency heal (more or less what you'd get from using AD on a pack of ennemies) then yeah I'd get it.
But here it's just... bad. Yeah it removes a bit of spammy aspect in openers, but then Edge is now 1 second of CD, so you can just spam that instead.

It looks like it, but it seems like the potency of C&S was buffed by 150 from the Media Tour version, meaning Ad's damage has been folded into it.

I like how it now hits like a truck like a capstone should, and that AD restores MP. I just wish they gave C&S a cure potency to boot.

Yeah at least C&S really feels like a big deal now.

Apparently some are theorizing that DRK will have the highest dps of the tanks. That's all well and good but it doesn't make up for mechanical boredom.

All that Salted Earth and Esteem junk when they are situational, clunky and unsatisfying beyond the Shadowbringers Job Action trailer.

Even without Unmend breaking combos I can probably count in one hand the past month the times I used it mid-fight. The Enhanced trait won't change that, especially with this junk still being a spell for some unknown reason.

Salted needs a cooldown reduction to really matter. The ten potency nerf (!) is hilarious.

LS needs a rework. It should last until Esteem executes its entire move set.

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Originally Posted by Agner

AD sharing a cooldown with C&S is cracking me up

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It would make a ton, a ton of sense if CnS now had a decent self-heal to it. It really should, what possible reason is there for DRK lose all of its self-sustain cooldown against single target? Just why.

Disappointed by the media tour build and they made it actually worse. I literally do not care if I am going to be the highest DPS tank as rumored if the kit feels just loaded with a bunch of ogcds that are gated by CD only with no interaction.

...and PLD gets to have lower MP costs so they can theoretically use more Holy Spirit / Circle for healing while being decent in damage AND they get to keep their two target AOE efficiency under Req AND they start with full Oath now.

Literally, f*** this. Bravo Six, going Deus Vult, I refuse to play this.

PLD starting with full Oath makes sense, other tanks have their defensive CD usable from the start of the fight too. That, I wouldn't be mad about.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

PLD starting with full Oath makes sense, other tanks have their defensive CD usable from the start of the fight too. That, I wouldn't be mad about.

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Oh make no mistake, Im happy for PLD, this was a massive gripe of mine for ever since they axed Bulwark.

It's just they made PLD endlessly better while actually managing to make DRK worse. Im mad at the devs, not the jobs.

They really need some dedicated tank devs (same for healers and ranged)

It just feels so bizarre because at lv60, DRK could really do with a decent self heal, and tying it to C&S makes sense especially now with this change.

But no, we have a shield ten levels later so no dice. And no we don't get any changes to Living Dead, why would you want that??

Yea, someone on the Dev team really hates DRK or are just incompetent as fuck. People already complained about how shit DRK looked from the Media Tour and yet they somehow doubled down on how fucking stupid they are and made DRK even worst. People praise the Dev's for listening to players but when it comes to actually fixing Jobs, its like their brains decided to have a meltdown and stupidity took over.

Even with the Japanese players complaining about DRK, they did nothing to fix its issues and continued down this path. I can only assume at this point that they want DRK to die in a heaping fire of their own shit and hope everyone migrates to Reaper so they can finally delete this fucking job.

LD is still the same, and enhanced unmend would probably not work on the target immune to damage. Big sadge

to say this is a disappointment would mean i had any hope left for this job.

Endwalker DRK is worse than a disappointment, it's a disgrace, and a disgusting out-of-season joke, the punchline to which is "enhanced unmend."

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Untether AD from CnS. They aren't DRK's analogue to WAR's Nascent/Raw Int.

Well I'm on the boat of believing that the dev in charge of DRK doesn't love his job when they make it work on DRK, like seriously looks like he only cares to make it in line number wise and don't care about the gameplay and all the complains about it from both communities, EW DRK feels like let's get rid of this job as soon as possible so I can implement all the good ideas and feedback to the others.

Yeah devs, sorry if this sounds extra rough and direct but your actions with DRK gameplay design are just so awful.

*pours one out of the DRKs*

I just gotta say: Yikes.

And, I'm a (former) SCH main.

I am actually impressed that they made the Job even worse. No changes to Blood Weapon, no changes to Living Shadow, shared recast on Abyssal Drain and Carve & Spit, Salt and Darkness has damage fall off, and Enhanced Unmend just doesn't even work on some enemies I guess. Can they just fire whoever is in charge of DRK Job design? They clearly don't give a shit about what they're doing, and it's embarrassing.

The changes have persuaded me that DRK is Meme Territory (Savage) now. Gonna go check if the JP forums are reacting in the same way.

Edit: nevermind, only one new post in the JP DRK thread.

Adding a shared recast between Carve and Abyssal without adding a healing effect to Carve is reaaally odd to be honest...
Also, what is the point of the 1s recast on Edge? Was there an issue with it being 2s? Or does it mean they want to give players more options regarding what skill to double-weave?

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

to say this is a disappointment would mean i had any hope left for this job.

Endwalker DRK is worse than a disappointment, it's a disgrace, and a disgusting out-of-season joke, the punchline to which is "enhanced unmend."

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Untether AD from CnS. They aren't DRK's analogue to WAR's Nascent/Raw Int.

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Like, Raw Intuition is getting the Bloodspiller effect back because people complained. How did they miss the mark that hard?

Why not just put HP absorb on Flood/Edge (and Shadowbringer)? Those are the skills you're smashing most of the time. Turn Abysal into an MP absorb like C&S. And, why is Missionary still lv72?! Like, why is Dark Knight like this?!

Welp bois and gurls..... DRK is OFFCIALLY DEAD. I'm not touching this job anymore.... this is saddening for real.