Dark Knight Megathread

One of my main complaints other than the increased difficulty to wall to wall in dungeons is I feel that the blood gauge skills don't do enough. I'm not even talking damage. They just feel one and done, they don't lead to anything, buff anything, heal me or give MP. They just feel bland. Lets also unsplit Carve and Drain OR add healing to carve, since abyssal got MP gain. Dark just feels not fully complete. Especially with how the other tanks got treated

Honestly, Dark does have enough defense cooldowns, the problem with them is that they got too many abilities. If someone removed the entire Delirium phase from them than the defense cooldowns fit perfectly and it would give the DRK player a better shot at deploying mitigation when needed.

Unlike the other tanks they have to mit + TBN to get the same benefits since they don't have as much regeneration as the other tanks. That's sort of why they feel clunky. It also makes it scary since that means they have less compatibility with healers that primarily shield, as they shield themselves well enough, but can't heal themselves as well.

I mean they could keep the current pattern by doing some kind of button merge to cut down the number of apparent moves.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Honestly, Dark does have enough defense cooldowns, the problem with them is that they got too many abilities. If someone removed the entire Delirium phase from them than the defense cooldowns fit perfectly and it would give the DRK player a better shot at deploying mitigation when needed.

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I wouldn't say Delirium is the issue since it just replaces a 1-2-3 with 4-4-4, the problem is DRK has so many oGCDs packed into a small time period that if you need to mitigate anything there aren't many weave slots available. On top of that the most effective mitigation is hitting 3 different buttons as opposed to 2 like the other tanks (Shadow Wall/Rampart/Dark Mind + Oblation + TBN) which just compounds the issue. Ideally they'd figure out a way to spread DRK's abilities out more, and they could also remove potency from our gapclosers and free up two slots easily.

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Originally Posted by baklava151

I wouldn't say Delirium is the issue since it just replaces a 1-2-3 with 4-4-4, the problem is DRK has so many oGCDs packed into a small time period that if you need to mitigate anything there aren't many weave slots available. On top of that the most effective mitigation is hitting 3 different buttons as opposed to 2 like the other tanks (Shadow Wall/Rampart/Dark Mind + Oblation + TBN) which just compounds the issue. Ideally they'd figure out a way to spread DRK's abilities out more, and they could also remove potency from our gapclosers and free up two slots easily.

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Yeah I mean I think I had made better suggestions before on the job. My suggestion mostly just softens the issue since if we have to push so many mits having the Quietus be something that appears during delirium only, and having the single target and aoe version of the attack take the place of another move, would at least let someone bind the buttons more conveniently. Although really what it needs is some kind of combo button mod that lets you merge two different oGCDs into one action. Also two of their mitigation skills are only useful in savage and specific fights due to magic damage being so prevailent.

Dark Knight has to be a choir to balance out on the damage front though with how it got set up with the TBN and Flood using the same resource. Like do they balance the damage off of someone using all the MP for damage or do they balance the damage on someone always reserving for TBN or having to be ready to recharge to use TBN? That's probably why the damage on it was higher than other tanks for a while.

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Originally Posted by TrustyPeacemaker

One of my main complaints other than the increased difficulty to wall to wall in dungeons is I feel that the blood gauge skills don't do enough. I'm not even talking damage. They just feel one and done, they don't lead to anything, buff anything, heal me or give MP. They just feel bland. Lets also unsplit Carve and Drain OR add healing to carve, since abyssal got MP gain. Dark just feels not fully complete. Especially with how the other tanks got treated

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This but i personally include Shadowbringer, Living shadow, Plunge and Salt and earth, i would spare Edge/Flood if it wasn't bcs the whole Darkside mechanic has zero gameplay value, DRK is just a WAR with a huge amount of fluff that lead to nothing saddly but i doubt they will fix the cohesion problem the job has ever after all this years.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm partial to flat damage shields myself, so I would actually have a lot more fun with Oblation if was a bubble. I don't think the damage reduction mechanic that I described works with that concept, though, unless the shield triggers at the end of the duration all at once like a 'defensive Wildfire' of sorts. You could very easily do it with %DR mitigation, though.

I was thinking of the description from the DRK quest series:
'As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...'

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The best choice would seem to most come down to what kind of timing you want to incentivize for thematic reasons, no?

For instance, back in Stormblood there was a decently common suggestion that Shelltron, which until ShB could take only a single hit, instead offer a small %HP barrier during which all attacks (including the one that would break it) would be automatically blocked. It dealt with what they saw as the main issue of StB Shelltron --that its use versus tankbusters could be prevented by an unfortunately synced auto-attack-- but would still keep it far more precise and bursty than the more lenient and basic change it would later receive in ShB (a simple duration). It also offered a small element of optimization: you'd want to snapshot the block onto as much effect as possible, meaning you'd ideally want the barrier to be nearly broken before a tankbuster.

Your latter design seems to have the same optimization despite a near-opposite theme: You'd want to take as much damage, hits, or attempted attacks (as not to have anti-synergy with evasion buffs) as possible, building up the eventual barrier before the tankbuster. It'd be less responsive but, I'd imagine, would have a higher ceiling.

From that, the simple question forms: Does that procedure and its implicit theme ("armored in blood" / "bring me nearer death, and I will only become all the more unkillable") fit DRK (more so than other jobs)?

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Originally Posted by shao32

This but i personally include Shadowbringer, Living shadow, Plunge and Salt and earth, i would spare Edge/Flood if it wasn't bcs the whole Darkside mechanic has zero gameplay value, DRK is just a WAR with a huge amount of fluff that lead to nothing saddly but i doubt they will fix the cohesion problem the job has ever after all this years.

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They will get to DRK eventually. They had to completely redo summoner from the ground up to fix it and DRK feels like it is one of those situations, which is why I'm kind of expecting that it's going to get a revision in the upcoming expansion. They sort of did a huge class revision with Shadowbringers on all the jobs from ARR / HW, and given they were working on changing DRK probably near the end of HW all the way through Stormblood, they'd probably have to spend at least an X-Pack doing a major revision to how it works.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

They will get to DRK eventually. They had to completely redo summoner from the ground up to fix it and DRK feels like it is one of those situations, which is why I'm kind of expecting that it's going to get a revision in the upcoming expansion. They sort of did a huge class revision with Shadowbringers on all the jobs from ARR / HW, and given they were working on changing DRK probably near the end of HW all the way through Stormblood, they'd probably have to spend at least an X-Pack doing a major revision to how it works.

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Please forgive me for sin of mistrust, i just look around at the current state of jobs and and what is happening right now with SAM, Healers and let's see what they are going to do with AST and DRG, i don't see any sign of that is going to happen at all.
Just by judging this expansion adjustments and additions on DRK kit just screams they don't care at all bcs adding Shadowbringer as a generic oGCD when we asked for more GCD and cohesion, the salt bubbles fror the same and Obliation as a separate skill when Dark mind need help for years ignoring what ppl wanted for the job and then they put Carve and Abyssal together in recast and how ridiculous are the new traits it's just like they waste EW on purpose to (sorry if if sounds strong) make this pile of garbage instead of you know, build on the so solid new base many has been claimed the SHB DRK was to make it unique and fun again vs "let's just do nothing meaningfull this expansion and keep them complain about the rework 2-3 years more, we think about something in 7.0" thing.

What is happening tells me this is going to be the new norm and we can't really do anything to prevent it, beliving the devs will reconsider that the current direction with the jobs it's actually wrong and is not what the game needs and what players actually want seems like exposing yourself to be complety dissapointed and betrayed from they part considering how harder they keep pushing they Direction over everything else right now no matter how much that's starting to alineate the comunity against them.

All being said please don't let my opinion about the situation mine your hopes.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Please forgive me for sin of mistrust, i just look around at the current state of jobs and and what is happening right now with SAM, Healers and let's see what they are going to do with AST and DRG, i don't see any sign of that is going to happen at all.
Just by judging this expansion adjustments and additions on DRK kit just screams they don't care at all bcs adding Shadowbringer as a generic oGCD when we asked for more GCD and cohesion, the salt bubbles fror the same and Obliation as a separate skill when Dark mind need help for years ignoring what ppl wanted for the job and then they put Carve and Abyssal together in recast and how ridiculous are the new traits it's just like they waste EW on purpose to (sorry if if sounds strong) make this pile of garbage instead of you know, build on the so solid new base many has been claimed the SHB DRK was to make it unique and fun again vs "let's just do nothing meaningfull this expansion and keep them complain about the rework 2-3 years more, we think about something in 7.0" thing.

What is happening tells me this is going to be the new norm and we can't really do anything to prevent it, beliving the devs will reconsider that the current direction with the jobs it's actually wrong and is not what the game needs and what players actually want seems like exposing yourself to be complety dissapointed and betrayed from they part considering how harder they keep pushing they Direction over everything else right now no matter how much that's starting to alineate the comunity against them.

All being said please don't let my opinion about the situation mine your hopes.

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Yeah, I think the thing I dislike the most about DRK is that carve and drain sharing Recast. They were never equivalent abilities before and that was just baffling.


Wasn't a fan of the ShB changes personally either, but I stuck with it up till now and I can say I'm used to it now. But I really liked DRK in SB, so call me biased.

I basically leveled it up during Eureka back in SB and found it fun. Then Shadowbringers came and I sort of enjoyed it at first, but then I went to other tanks and just never went back to DRK.

The reason they made Abyssal drain and carve the same cooldown was probably to make it so that Abyssal drain wasn't a required component of single target rotation. Albeit it was one of the few ways to get HP back so it kind of made them feel worse in the end. It feels like a rushed job.