Dark Knight Megathread

I think esteem/queen are a bit more lazy now
unless the stairs in troia (near the last trash pack before final boss) breaks the AI ,they just stand around waiting for you too attack instead of following you so timer just runs out before they get to the enemies.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

So now with the buff to warriors and gunbreaker damage there's literally never a time to pick a dark knight for a raid............. Great job balance team 10/10 time to let sub lapse till they actually sort the class.

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Lmao...

DRK is perfectly fine.

These Warrior buffs are needed but won't make them the highest dps tank, not even close.

The top 2 are still going to be Gunbreaker and DRK.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

I think esteem/queen are a bit more lazy now
unless the stairs in troia (near the last trash pack before final boss) breaks the AI ,they just stand around waiting for you too attack instead of following you so timer just runs out before they get to the enemies.

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I just tried it, Living Shadow just wait, standing still, until you attack.
It work with auto-attacks and GCDs/oGCDs but not Salted Earth.

Automaton Queen function the same way, but guess what:
Flamethrower doesn't trigger the attack, meaning the AQ will stand still until you break FT.

After playing around with the Living Shadow changes, I'm curious why they bothered to do anything with it.

All the problems it has still exists, and the long spawn animation does more to hinder its ease of use in burst windows more so than its attack speed or the fact it used Quietus before.

I think Esteem's delayed spawn is a helpful part of the skill's design, because it allows you to use the skill 6 seconds before your burst starts, and so it doesn't eat up a valuable oGCD weave slot during burst. Admittedly it makes the skill feel a little bit funky, but with the way they've taken combat in Endwalker, I think that's actually a valuable part of the skill.

To me, the problem with Living Shadow is just on the opener. You can't build enough Blood to actually use Living Shadow until after your third GCD, which is typically when the burst starts, so despite the 6.2 changes, you still can't actually fit it into burst in your opener, and since the cooldown is 120s, you never can unless a fight introduces a 6~7s delay on burst at some point (eg: Kampeos Harma in P2S, a few places in DSR).

I think the best way to address that would be to either A) reduce the cooldown from 120s to 110s (you would still hold for 120s, obviously, but this would allow you to correct some drift, including the delay on the opener), or B) Let DRK start combat instances with 50 Blood, the same way that PLD and SGE start with full meter when an instance starts or after a wipe.

Or put Living Shadow on a 120s CD with no blood gauge cost.
That's a terrible idea but SQEX could consider it.

IMO, "summons" like Automaton Queen and Living Shadow should just go and be replaced with a simple damage ability. Of course adjust the potency of the whole kit to keep the DPS.
LS is as interactive as one big cooldown like Hissatsu:Senei, the difference is that it's spread over a timer.

Think about it, if you replaced LS with a 120s CD, costing 50 blood gauge and inflicting a dot, it would be the exact same as Living Shadow, minus the flashyness of the skill.

either rework it into Bushin for DRK or give Esteem/Queen stacks so they don't just fizzle out as easily

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Think about it, if you replaced LS with a 120s CD, costing 50 blood gauge and inflicting a dot, it would be the exact same as Living Shadow, minus the flashyness of the skill.

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There's a couple important differences there. The first is that a DoT would be missing Living Shadow's AoE damage, which is still very considerable despite the 6.2 nerf. The second is that DoTs snapshot according to what buffs and debuffs are active when the DoT is applied, and Living Shadow actively gains and loses buffs as you do.

The AoE is pretty self-explanatory, but the snapshotting is also pretty important to consider. DRK's burst window is so busy that it's a specific upside to the current version of Living Shadow that you can use the skill before raid buffs go out; if it were a standard DoT then that would no longer be the case. It's good that DRK's burst window is as busy as it is - it's fun! - but it's also pretty much at-capacity, and you would definitely do harm to the class's design by adding extra things to it without a really good reason.

They could change Blood Weapon to just have it give 50 Blood directly. Then you swap LS and Delirium in your opener and it should catch raid buffs better.

Honestly, yeah, that would also work and be a pretty good change; I've made that suggestion before. Blood Weapon serves no purpose anymore other than to generate exactly 3000 MP and 50 Blood, and there's no reason for it to be a stack-based buff to do that. If it were just Dark Infuriate and applied the resources directly, that would also solve the Living Shadow problem in DRK's opener.

I doubt they'd change it again so soon after making it stack-based, but they did revert the High Jump/Mirage Dive change instead of sticking to their guns on a blunder, so maybe they're more open to that kind of fix than they have been in the past.