Dark Knight Megathread

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I wish that they would just redesign DRK's mitigation effects so that they were are consistently flat damage reduction bubbles across the board (i.e. Oblation and Shadow Wall) to match the animations. You don't actually need to use %DR on every job, and it's a nice flavor choice.

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I'm not sure if the bolded part is true. Tankbusters in this game can be tuned to almost 300% of a tank's maximum HP, unmitigated. It's difficult to imagine a system of flat-HP mitigation skills that would allow DRK to survive something like Soul Tether, even if it's married to something like Rampart which remains percentage-based as a role skill. It's more difficult still to imagine a system that would allow DRK to survive it without effectively giving DRK the ability to completely nullify the majority of "normal" Savage-sized (80~100% of max HP, unmitigated) tankbusters.

In general, flat-value mitigation is a bit tricky to balance, because at certain ranges of incoming damage, it very quickly becomes overpowered, but as the damage scales up, it pretty quickly goes from "average" to woefully underpowered. In FFXIV, I don't think you could build a tank around the concept that relies on it much more than DRK already does without creating a situation where certain things are needlessly easy and others are overly difficult to deal with.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

Honestly I think they should split the tanks in the same way they split the healers. You have have flat mitigation tanks, PLD/GNB (shield oath) and eHP tanks, WAR/DRK (Defiance). The bigger HP pool would buff TBN and would differentiate the tanks enough at a glance just by looking at their HP. It would also pair well with shield healers. Throwback to WAR/SCH synergy of the older expansions.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I'd think if they were going to split the tanks in any way, it would have been between Main Tanks and Off-tanks, like they planned when they added Gunbreaker.

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I think a split would work as long as they give both subroles opportunities to shine (maybe also magic vs physical?). I just haven't heard any particularly positive or negative feedback about the healer split so I couldn't make a call on if it'd be worth doing the same with tanks too or if it'd just be some arbitrary distinction.

Dunno if this has been answered in the thread before, but... how does DRK fare in solo play, in comparison to the other Tanks? Was thinking about gearing up for some solo content, such as the Bahamut Coils and Extreme fights, but I was wondering if it would be worth it to use, in comparison to stuff like WAR, PLD, and RDM; I've heard those three are the best, but how does DRK measure up to them?

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Originally Posted by Travel

Dunno if this has been answered in the thread before, but... how does DRK fare in solo play, in comparison to the other Tanks? Was thinking about gearing up for some solo content, such as the Bahamut Coils and Extreme fights, but I was wondering if it would be worth it to use, in comparison to stuff like WAR, PLD, and RDM; I've heard those three are the best, but how does DRK measure up to them?

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For a lot of it, DRK's burst honestly makes it good enough to kill things before its sustain becomes an issue. And with the 6.1 change to Living Dead its honestly not the worst at keeping itself alive anymore.

I've rather easily soloed content up through Stormblood, not sure how much further I could go but I've never really had a reason

Thanks for that. Was planning on going for the Garo gear, was trying to decide if I wanted a huge axe or a huge sword; just trying to compare Warrior and Dark Knight, see which one to use.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

For a lot of it, DRK's burst honestly makes it good enough to kill things before its sustain becomes an issue. And with the 6.1 change to Living Dead its honestly not the worst at keeping itself alive anymore.

I've rather easily soloed content up through Stormblood, not sure how much further I could go but I've never really had a reason

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If it is of any interest, I'm going for a POTD 200 solo run as DRK, I can give my input once it is done.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I'd think if they were going to split the tanks in any way, it would have been between Main Tanks and Off-tanks, like they planned when they added Gunbreaker.

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MT/OT has a different definition pre SB than it does post. Back when boss fights had adds it was the OT that had to deal with it. Now all fights a singular boss and the OT just tag teams with MT for tank busters with nothing to do in between with regards to tanking outside of reprisal. Literally no reason to even have an OT now and it's only there as an antiquated design and forced on the player due to mechanics. For reference compare T1 to P1 boss fight and its literally night and day and see how MT and OT function in both.

If tanks should be split, it should be the result of their tool kits and not damage. Making OT the "damage tank" was never a good idea and the only reason WAR got that rep was because it was way over tuned in HW when compared to other tanks. Slashing debuff, 100% uptime on reprisal effect via SP, negate dmg penalty while in tank stance, seamlessly swap tank stances, ogcd that boosts ATK power, bloodbath synergy with defensive and offensive cds, etc. Yeah jobs can only dream of what WAR used to have and no other job has come close to as broken (and fun) as that.

Makes me wish they went back to the old style of MT handles the boss while OT handles the rest as opposed to what we have now.

Before DSR, i also thought Oblation was " meh " at best, but now, my POV is completly different.
To make it short : Oblation is basically " not that usefull " in 90% of the content, because those 90% of content don't hit hard enough, or doesn't push your team back in the wall.
But when the content hits like a truck, having 2 charges of 10% mitig you can throw at anyone, is actually REALLY good.

People saying that TBN and Oblation should be merged together is the WORST idea possible, and here is why in my opinion :
- TBN is your go to for everything, while oblation is not ( you specifically save it for specific situations, or wait for the 2 charges to be up for back to back TB ), merging them together would make us loose CONTROL over what we can do.
- TBN and Oblation's usage are completly different, one is a Shield, the other is %mitig. TBN and Oblation are the only " signature " tank CD's without diminushing return over time ( they don't loose %mitig or the shield doesn't disappear bit by bit ). Because of that, whenever you can, you want to use TBN as EARLY as possible for a TB, so that your shield breaks just before it fades off ( so you can have it earlier ), and for multi hit CD, you want to use Oblation as LATE as possible, so you can benefit the most of it.
If you merge those 2 together, they would work against each other, not to mention that being able to Oblation X person, but TBN Y person for the same mechanic, is massively good. The worst about changes, for any job really, is when they REMOVE the ability for players to have CONTROL about what they can do.

So yeah, merging TBN / Oblation together in my sense, is really bad. And about Oblation being " meh ", well, it's just that majority of content doesn't make it shine to it's true strength, since it doesn't make it " needed "

Merging TBN and Oblation could be rather easy.
When TBN breaks, the oblation effect would last full duration still.

Not to mention I believe it's time to make TBN give its 'breaking' reward, when the duration ends, even if not broken through damage. The only requirement really being that you need to be in combat, does that make it far easier to obviously use TBN so its duration ends right 1 second or so, as you go into combat then? Yeah, and would make it even more impressive tool, because now you would have complete control of when you want TBN to 'break' or its duration to end, to give its "free" Edge.

And wouldn't mind them increasing the TBN cd to 25 seconds, if it gave them more bonus effects, like, pld, gnb, and war has. Like, Oblation's inclusion to TBN effect lasting 10 seconds even after the shield breaks, then when TBN shield effect ends, by either breaking or duration, the Drk gains a regen, "Lingering Night", with some dark smoke lingering around the Drk, its regen potency could be similar to Pld's Knight's Resolve regen from Holy Sheltron, or if fitting to Drk Lore, be a lingering shield regen that keeps pulsing for x seconds, every server tick, giving Drk an odd form of "sustain".


For anyone wondering about Drk in Deep Dungeon, they are pretty good. 180 boss with the new LD change makes it very manageable, along with landmine plays(TBN bonus points as well). However Drk is the tank who suffers the most from "no ability" debuff, along with "no items" debuff, at the later floors. All other tanks keep either core abilities or high potency attacks to manage those. Would be nice if Drk could keep their Edge mp attacks in "no ability" debuff, thus able to have their 10% dmg buff. In Comparison, GNB has its Burst strike, Gnashing Fang combo(no continuation), Warrior has Fell cleave and Storm buff uptime, Paladin has goring blade and clemency(!). Had a run end late 90s(HoH) specifically because I was on Drk.

oblation would be even better skill if it could have a regen effect 12sec for 250 potency if used above 50% hp or 1000 potency heal if below 50% hp also increase duration of TBN by 3sec and when shield breaks you get all mp back if it doesn't break you get 50% back.

if using oblation on another target they get regen effect 12sec for 250 potency if used above 50% hp or 1000 potency heal if below 50% hp and 10% damage reduction and increase parry rate by 50% 10sec upon parry an attack gain 5 black blood.