The completely REASONABLE changes to the Dark Knight job thread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hundred

-snip-

---

the evasion of modifier of dark dance works against DRK's other mechanics because of two skills: blood price and reprisal.

blood price requires you to be hit for it to function, evasion counter-intuitive in pulls where it would originally be useful at the start. by the time blood price falls off, more often than not there aren't enough things alive to deem it worthwhile to waste the MP, or you have better cooldowns off cd that don't require MP to use. the second -reprisal- requires a parry to even use, and despite the fact a successful evade is 100% mitigation, it also means potentially another wasted second reprisal could have been put up to mitigate damage in the overall engagement. replacing the evasion modifier with magical parry would allow us to apply it on purely magical bosses, and give us more potential uptime on bosses that use both physical and magical.

1. 10% parry to grit...so you want something -better- than Shield Oath? Haha
2. It's an off GCD attack that deals lots of damage. I don't have an issue with that if it gets a nerf to its damage to compensate
3. No issue here.

On Delirum: You don't always have a monk? There are other, similar debuffs that dont stack in the game (ninja/warrior share one for instance).
On Carve and Spite: Agreed. I think in addition, Blood Grit should be based on damage received--so its not so godly in dungeons, but more useful in raids and bosses.
On Tool Tips: Agreed

I did read the entire thread. I still mean what I say. You have more than enough tools to maintain mp whether you are Mt or ot. Syphon combo, c&s, blood weapon are suffecient to maintain mp. I feel like the majority of mp problems stem from a lack of understanding of resource management. Mp problems when main tank is almost a laughable complaint with the ridiculously short cool down on blood price. The squshiness of the class is also attributed mostly to the people who spec strength and rock str accessories for fights they can't face roll. Remember also that dark arts is optional for dark dance as well. Most of these problems will be ironed out once a better understanding of how to play the class is gained. I haven't had any issues with the class so far. I also accept the fact that I am not a dps when I tank unlike most.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DesFenrir

I did read the entire thread. I still mean what I say. You have more than enough tools to maintain mp whether you are Mt or ot. Syphon combo, c&s, blood weapon are suffecient to maintain mp. I feel like the majority of mp problems stem from a lack of understanding of resource management. Mp problems when main tank is almost a laughable complaint with the ridiculously short cool down on blood price. The squshiness of the class is also attributed mostly to the people who spec strength and rock str accessories for fights they can't face roll. Remember also that dark arts is optional for dark dance as well. Most of these problems will be ironed out once a better understanding of how to play the class is gained. I haven't had any issues with the class so far. I also accept the fact that I am not a dps when I tank unlike most.

---

I like how you say blood weapon is good for maintaining MP and you love being a tank, but don't realize that you can't be in GRIT and use Blood Weapon, you have to drop Grit. Going back into grit requires a LOT of mana and a GCD. It is not recommended to come out of it.

That extra Health does NOT help your sustain in any way. You die just the same wearing vitality or strength accessories. I should know since I have both. Dark Knight lacks the mitigation and sustain Paladin does, and lacks the damage and sustain warrior does.

If you actually do the math, Paladins out damage dark knights in single AND aoe fights in fights that last longer then 30 seconds.

Here is what I would do:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Grit:
Reduces damage taken by 15%
Increases enmity gain.
Drains MP over time. Ends when you run out of MP.
Does not reduce damage at all.

Darkside
Increases damage done by 15%.
Increases accuracy by 5%
Drains HP over time. Ends when you run out of HP or are knocked out.
Does not raise damage done to you, it just increases damage.

Yes, you can use both Grit and Darkside at the same time. However you might have to drop one or the other depending if you have health or MP issues. You can also choose to just stay in Darkside. You can also choose to use neither.

Blood Weapon
Raises attack speed and lowers TP cost by 10%.
Darkside additional effect: also restores 10% of all damage done as HP.
Grit additional effect: also restores 10% of all damage done as MP.
Same duration and recast.

Blood Price:
Raises healing received by 10% and restores a small amount of TP over time.
Darkside additional effect: 10% of damage taken is converted to HP.
Grit additional effect: 10% of damage received is converted to MP.
Same duration and recast.

I want Dark Knight to be a completely different tank from Paladin and Warrior. A class that is about resource management (MP/HP) rather then stances.

---

you can forget about that hp drain thing. devs said they tought about it and dropped it because they didnt want a TANK class to be handicapped by a hp drain.

currently imo considering the INSANE mp costs of dork arts i find that keeping mp up is just plain STRESSFUL for not much gain actually outside of beeing "cool". dark arts definitly needs a mp cost nerf. its not as powerful to justfy such an absurd cost. aroun 800mp would be fine. but over 1000? come on SE. thats plain over the top. you cannot spam it either way.

also just allow blood weapon within grit and mp managed becomes less annoying while adding mirco management to the class like the devs seem to want.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Windklinge

you can forget about that hp drain thing. devs said they tought about it and dropped it because they didnt want a TANK class to be handicapped by a hp drain.

currently imo considering the INSANE mp costs of dork arts i find that keeping mp up is just plain STRESSFUL for not much gain actually outside of beeing "cool". dark arts definitly needs a mp cost nerf. its not as powerful to justfy such an absurd cost. aroun 800mp would be fine. but over 1000? come on SE. thats plain over the top. you cannot spam it either way.

also just allow blood weapon within grit and mp managed becomes less annoying while adding mirco management to the class like the devs seem to want.

---

Its optional. You can tank without it, and its not a handicap. You can overcome the drain with Blood Weapon and Blood Pact if you actually read it.

It is also bugged atm. If you have read the many threads. Every time you get a buff or debuff it drains your mana.

The developers said they didn't want to increase the damage done to dark knights, or have a health cost for an attack or attack power. If Darkside also gave you access to powerful defensive abilities as well as giving you lifetaps then that is a lot different then what they originally stated.

If played correctly, you can easily outweigh that health cost of Darkside, or choose not to use it.

The developers didn't want to give them abilities like this:
http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Blood_for_Blood

At the risk of being a broken record, but if you could imagine

adding something similar to this:
http://i.imgur.com/my3A0wK.png

to this:
http://i.imgur.com/u8EP0Ix.png

to create a slightly inferior version of this:
http://i.imgur.com/ziSebky.png
..
Let Souleater's HP absorb surpass our maximum HP - when this happens a buff is placed on the DRK.

Like IB, this buff mitigates 20% of all damage received. The downside, the buff wears off the moment the amount of damage received is equal to or exceeding the amount of HP Souleater over-absorbed.

IE: DRK is at 9500/10000 health, Souleater deals 2000. 20% mitigation Barrier is created. Barrier wears off after 1500 damage is received.

If the 20% mitigation effect seems too OP to happen, just allowing Souleater's absorb to surpass our maximum HP would be enough for me (whether it's through a barrier buff or just adding it straight to the HP pool - same thing).

I'd settle with the later, if you think former is too OP.

I'd prefer a change like this before other drastic changes. I like DRK's design, I don't think it needs a rehaul - or 'new' tanking features. It just needs this one aspect - self healing - to be more fore-front. And I'd love the blood tank 'Damage into Mitigation' meta for DRK because that's more FF franchise-friendly. Much better more fitting than a carbon-copy Paladin CD rotation play style.

(Not to mention fun, getting a 3-4k crit souleater would be so exciting, not just the deeps, but knowing it's being converted into a legit EHP increase)

You guys want more defenses, you know you will HAVE to lose offense for that. Right now you have incredible aoe damage, and off GCD damage (over 2K per minute!) and mobility. So yeah, you don't mitigate as well as paladins--the comparison to paladin honestly needs to stop. They have no real aoe, burst damage of any sort, and their heal is interrupted by heavier hitting boss attacks. They are going to out mitigate you and out group utility you.

Not saying you cant use some tweaks, but if you are looking at mitigation, Warriors are your closest comparison and all they get is (in terms of raw damage reduction) is IB for 20%, Vengeance for 30% and a parry buff. Their -kit- is better than yours for tanking, but if you give DRK who already have a rampart and a weaker sentinel access to a spamable damage reducer, you have just created something very overpowered. I.E if you want an IB like effect, you have to give up shadow skin--unless you just want to be broken.

What offenses do we have to lose for that? We already have the worst damage output of the tanks. 2000 damage in oGCDs per minute is nothing when you compare it to the 800-1000 damage PER SECOND that the other tanks are capable of throwing out, and for far longer than the depressing 2 minutes that we can manage to sustain ourselves for as well.

You keep making claims about offenses that we just do not have. And sure, you could nerf DRK's offenses to give it some form of useful mitigation, but I don't really see the point in nerfing the offenses on a class that already has the worst offensive and defensive potential of its role.

Other tanks?

For one, only warrior can do this, Paladins parse lower than Dark Knights. The highest Paladin parse ive been able to find is 700, meanwhile 2 seconds on google netted me a variety of 800 dps parses on Dark Knight (a new class). Until VERY recently, the higher parses i saw on war were 800-900 (same ball park) and today, the 1K one came out. However, warrior is doing NONE of that while tanking--with their tank dps being nothing special.

You are purely wrong on your offensive capabilities, and your AOE and sustained healing is amazing. You have weak points sure, your offense is amazing (the base potency of your soul eater combo WITHOUT dark arts is nearly the same as a paladins Royal Authority Combo, which most Dark Knights dont seem to know (150+200+340 vs 150+250+260=30 potency dif, add in DA every third rotation and it makes up the difference).

Most of those parse you saw are when the Dark Arts bug was still on which alllowed Dkn to be on par damage wise with the other tanks. Dkn lost around 100 dps due to that

And in any case anyone here trade 100 dps or more at any day for some utility instead of being dead weight when offtanking and praying when MT to the random luck gods so we dont get smashed by a tank buster due to limited defensive skills the Dkn has for those cases.

The thing Dkn has right now is extreme aggro gain but its just plain overkill usually.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kiteless

Yes, most DRK parses won't break far above the 700-750 range now that Double Dark Arts has been removed. And in those cases, they won't last much longer than 2 minutes.

---

Thats another important point, unless the Dkn gets some tp outside help you go tp dry in around 2-3 min unlike the Pld and Warr that last quite a bit more (much more in Warrior case due to tp regen skill)

Yes, most DRK parses won't break far above the 700-750 range now that Double Dark Arts has been removed. And in those cases, they won't last much longer than 2 minutes.

I was referring to using c&s blood weapon and syphon when ot not mt. Which means I wouldn't be in grit because I would be spending a lengthy amount of time not tanking. Also please show me what miraculous pld can out parse a drk in an aoe type encounter. Did circle of scorn get a buff I haven't noticed? Drk wipes the floor with pld in terms of aoe damage.

Also you don't die the same way with vit or str accessories. Sure you're not mitigating any more or less damage aside from the 1% you might gain to parry but you have more of a cushion for a healer to manage. That's common sense. Instead of being at critical health in need of an immediate heal after a tank buster and auto attack you are at half and the healer has more time and can use a smaller heal to save you. Meaning less stress more room for error and less mp used by the healer. Warriors mitigation isn't dazzling either but people make good use of what it offers.

Good news is that some things will be tweaked though just probably not as extreme as most of you hope.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Faytte

1. 10% parry to grit...so you want something -better- than Shield Oath? Haha

On Delirum: You don't always have a monk? There are other, similar debuffs that dont stack in the game (ninja/warrior share one for instance).

---

Firstly the issue with Shield Oath is a PLD has a shield adding even more passive mitigation to them. DRK doesn't get anything similar to that or active mitigation to make up for it. Parry is already a pretty crap RNG stat so we need any little boost to it if we want to be able to make it worthwhile.

NIN/WAR buff are equivalent though, a WAR can toss it up and free the NIN up to do more damaging attacks in their rotation. A DRK/MNK combo has nothing, the MNK still has to maintain their debuff while the DRK just gets to sit in the corner wishing they could provide utility.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DesFenrir

I was referring to using c&s blood weapon and syphon when ot not mt. Which means I wouldn't be in grit because I would be spending a lengthy amount of time not tanking. Also please show me what miraculous pld can out parse a drk in an aoe type encounter. Did circle of scorn get a buff I haven't noticed? Drk wipes the floor with pld in terms of aoe damage.

---

AoE damage only matters on trash pulls in dungeons which is a non-starter in raids. The PLD will still be taking less damage over all which is a given with the shield, but the gap is rather large at the moment between DRK and PLD. I'd go so far as to say that WAR is probably more DEF then DRK right now on anything not magic, and even then its a toss up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DesFenrir

Also you don't die the same way with vit or str accessories. Sure you're not mitigating any more or less damage aside from the 1% you might gain to parry but you have more of a cushion for a healer to manage. That's common sense. Instead of being at critical health in need of an immediate heal after a tank buster and auto attack you are at half and the healer has more time and can use a smaller heal to save you. Meaning less stress more room for error and less mp used by the healer. Warriors mitigation isn't dazzling either but people make good use of what it offers.

---

Except the problem isn't that DRKs are all walking around with full STR gear. The problem is the classes main defensive cool downs can't deal with tank busters or sustained damage very well. Not to mention they have longer cool downs. I mean Shadow Wall is basically a crappier Vengeance with 60 more seconds added to the recast.

I haven't read this whole thread, so forgive me if this is treading old ground. Dark Knight seems pretty good to me, but is missing one defensive cooldown and has a couple weird things in its gameplay.


1) Reprisal should have 100% uptime if the DRK is tanking, but not if he isn't. I would make it an on GCD weapon skill with a TP cost of 40 and a potency of 220 or 230 that activates upon parrying or taking magic damage.
2) Dark Dance and Dark Mind should have their effects combined into one ability, Dark Dance.
3) Dark Mind can then be turned into a Sheltron/Inner Beast type move. Dark Mind: Parries the next attack made against you and [restores TP/restores MP/counter-attacks]. 30 second recast. Dark Arts effect: 50% chance that effect doesn't end upon parrying (or increased parry power to 30% or something).
4) Shadow Wall should have a Dark Arts effect to increase its effect to 40% damage reduction.
5) It would be nice if Salted Earth placed directly under you or your target. Using ground targeting as a tank is a little janky with everything in your face.

Also, this is kind of a side thing, but Power Slash feels underwhelming when compared to paladin and warrior enmity weapon skills. Rage of Halone has a debuff (which, admittedly, I usually skip over in favor of Royal Authority) and Butcher's Block is warrior's most damaging combo, but Power Slash has no debuff and is DRK's second least damaging combo, *and* it has no MP restoration from Syphon Strike. They should maybe rethink this combo a little bit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brannigan

Power Slash has no debuff and is DRK's second least damaging combo, *and* it has no MP restoration from Syphon Strike. They should maybe rethink this combo a little bit.

---

Huh?

Power Slash is our second highest damage combo.

DA + Souleater
Power Slash
Delirium
Souleater

Those are our combos in order of potency. Also you need to keep in mind, Power Slash isn't meant to be spammed. A single DA + Power Slash is pretty much hate for days, so you should focus on alternating DA Souleaters, and Deliriums after that point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Killsion

Huh?

Power Slash is our second highest damage combo.

---

You're forgetting Syphon's +30 over Spinning.

DA Souleater combo > 800

Delirium combo > 680

Power combo > 670

Souleater combo > 660

-
Also, Power combo returns no MP, so overall it will result in an additional DPS loss one way or another, as without Syphon - you aren't building MP for more Dark Arts and/or sustaining Darkside.

IMO this is why DRK's enmity is so strong, why Scourge is so high, why we get the double dot with Salted Earth - because it's necessary. Unlike PLD/WAR, DRK is punished for using it's enmity combo. PLD enmity combo gets dat debuff, and WAR has the comfort of knowing Butcher Block, while lacking the Storm debuffs & Maim buff - is still their highest potency combo - and it still builds Wrath/Abandon stacks like Maim's tree - where as DRK's Power Slash consumes them - Dark Arts buffed or not.

edit: (Pretty much exactly what Brannigan just said)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cidolfas86

AoE damage only matters on trash pulls in dungeons which is a non-starter in raids. The PLD will still be taking less damage over all which is a given with the shield, but the gap is rather large at the moment between DRK and PLD. I'd go so far as to say that WAR is probably more DEF then DRK right now on anything not magic, and even then its a toss up.



Except the problem isn't that DRKs are all walking around with full STR gear. The problem is the classes main defensive cool downs can't deal with tank busters or sustained damage very well. Not to mention they have longer cool downs. I mean Shadow Wall is basically a crappier Vengeance with 60 more seconds added to the recast.

---

Don't forget Shadow Wall is also 5 sec shorter than Vengeance, making it even worse.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaonis

Firstly the issue with Shield Oath is a PLD has a shield adding even more passive mitigation to them. DRK doesn't get anything similar to that or active mitigation to make up for it. Parry is already a pretty crap RNG stat so we need any little boost to it if we want to be able to make it worthwhile.

NIN/WAR buff are equivalent though, a WAR can toss it up and free the NIN up to do more damaging attacks in their rotation. A DRK/MNK combo has nothing, the MNK still has to maintain their debuff while the DRK just gets to sit in the corner wishing they could provide utility.

---

1) They arnt suppose to, they arnt Paladins. Paladins dont have sick aoe, off gcd attacks, spammable self heals for 2-3K with gear. Paladins have no burst damage potential, terrible aoe and many lacking things. For that, they get incredible mitigation---so no----you don't get a shield, and you arn't suppose to mitigate like a Paladin.

2) So you would like it to provide the impact debuff to free up the monk?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Faytte

1) They arnt suppose to, they arnt Paladins. Paladins dont have sick aoe, off gcd attacks, spammable self heals for 2-3K with gear. Paladins have no burst damage potential, terrible aoe and many lacking things. For that, they get incredible mitigation---so no----you don't get a shield, and you arn't suppose to mitigate like a Paladin.

2) So you would like it to provide the impact debuff to free up the monk?

---

Freeing up the int debuff for monks would let them do more damage, similar how war-nin works.

PLD is focused on mitigation.
War is focused on offensive abilities.

DRK seems to be supposed to be in the middle of these, however has less mitigation than a WAR, doing less damage, less burst, the only thing they have is more AOE, not better simply more.

Hey, at least they seem to do slightly more damage than PLD, that's a positive thing.. right?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MuzakFan

A well written post.

---

1. I seriously feel like many DRKs are overlooking Reprisal. First block(-30%) and parry(-20%) only reduce and can only proc on physical attacks and are exclusive to one another with block taking priority should both proc at the same time. A DRK can still parry. Now here's where Reprisal, a 20 second -10% flat raidwide dmg debuff comes in, keeping the focus on the DRK since reprisal reduces both magic and physical damage it stacks parry. To put it bluntly when reprisal debuff is up you are effectively blocking whenever you parry a physical attack. Other CDs are pretty much clones of Paladin cds. PLD/DRK are taking the same amount of damage in this aspect. A Wash. I believe the real culprit here is Halone vs Delirium but that arguement falls under the drk/pld vs drk/war vs pld/war vs 2x same tank debate.

2. No comment at this time.

3. Agreed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aurelinaus

1. I seriously feel like many DRKs are overlooking Reprisal. First block(-30%) and parry(-20%) only reduce and can only proc on physical attacks and are exclusive to one another with block taking priority should both proc at the same time. A DRK can still parry. Now here's where Reprisal, a 20 second -10% flat raidwide dmg debuff comes in, keeping the focus on the DRK since reprisal reduces both magic and physical damage it stacks parry. To put it bluntly when reprisal debuff is up you are effectively blocking whenever you parry a physical attack. Other CDs are pretty much clones of Paladin cds. PLD/DRK are taking the same amount of damage in this aspect. A Wash. I believe the real culprit here is Halone vs Delirium but that arguement falls under the drk/pld vs drk/war vs pld/war vs 2x same tank debate.

2. No comment at this time.

3. Agreed.

---

The main problem with reprisal is that you cannot really decide when to use it. I would be fine if reprisal was our version of a 30 second dmg reduction ability, although it would be the weakest one by far in terms of surviving tank busters, it's just it requires parry. If it was 30 second cooldown, either oGCD or GCD, without a parry requirement, you could use it for tank busters. But now you almost have to use it when it proccs otherwise you might not have the chance for a long period of time. Sure you can use dark dance to try to trigger it when you want, but that puts it into a weird position that forces you to use one tank CD to try to trigger another tank CD. We don't see Paladins running around and having to use sheltron to be able to use bulwark. Warriors can use their vengeance to trigger Inner Beast, but at that point they are already having a guaranteed 30% damage reduction, and getting another 20%, might as well Holmgang.

Yes I do agree that Dark Dance needs to be reworked but I don't think removing the evasion isn't going to work. Think about it. As a tank your job is to reduce as much damage as possible and dodging means you take 0 damage therefore its a great tool to have. However in DRK's current state this is terrible because:

1. Blood Price doesn't scale with damage and goes off # of hits so dodging hits means you loose mp regen
2. You need to use the DA + DP to get the blind to get full use of the evasion which is very costly on mp (currently bugged as the blind only affects the targeted enemy instead of all who got hit)
3. Most bosses (especially in end-game) are immune to blind therefore reducing the need to use DA + DD

As a warrior since 2.0 I didn't think it would be possible to have a skill worse than Foresight until I saw Dark Dance. This skill need some love and my suggestion is to keep the evasion but increase the parry rate to 30% or maybe even 40%. The warrior has a 100% parry skill and Paladin has a 60% block rate skill.

and I know this might be op but have DRK's also parry magic since they use magic in their fighting style.

No evasion isn't bad because blood price doesn't scale. I mean blood price should scale but what makes the spell bad it's that it's unreliable. Unlike others many other MMO tanks are not getting hit tremendously over the course of a fight, they sometimes just take a lot of damage so healers can keep up.

Their magic resistance spell is amazing. High resistance and such a low CD, but it's totally useless on physical encounters.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Croisciento

No evasion isn't bad because blood price doesn't scale. I mean blood price should scale but what makes the spell bad it's that it's unreliable. Unlike others many other MMO tanks are not getting hit tremendously over the course of a fight, they sometimes just take a lot of damage so healers can keep up.

Their magic resistance spell is amazing. High resistance and such a low CD, but it's totally useless on physical encounters.

---

actually blood price does scale ... same with blood weapong but they dont scale with lvl but with your total MP so the more MP you have the more it regenerates per hit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dragoelete

actually blood price does scale ... same with blood weapong but they dont scale with lvl but with your total MP so the more MP you have the more it regenerates per hit.

---

It's still a flat, static ratio, even if it's based off total MP rather than level.

The point is that it is most definitely not dynamically based on damage.

One of the largest issues I have seen with Drk so far is how bad the tp problem is. You run dry in 2 minutes so no matter what kinda damage drk is doing compared to the other two tanks it doesn't mean anything once you are out of tp twice as fast as the other two tanks. That doesn't even get into the fact that their defensive cd's are weaker.

They need to address Tp management for DRK first. You could fix this in many ways such as letting reprisal or dark arts restore small amounts of tp or simply adding a single target melee cheap mp attack to help give you gcd's on bosses where you are not spending tp. unmend's 150 potency doesn't cut it. If they really wanted to get crazy they could actually give them a spell cast with a cast bar damage attack.

Then they need to change Dark Dance to actually be on par with the other tank cooldowns.

Finally they need to either change reprisal to be up 100% of the time or change delirium to be a unique damage reduction debuff so you aren't punished taking a drk instead of a pld/war combo. Right now both of dark's damage reduction debuffs are basically just bonuses that are nice when they happen but not to be relied upon. You cant count of reprisal to be up and if you have a monk in your group delirium is purely for mp regen and 20 more potency than soul eater so you almost literally bring nothing to the table.

Drk's sole strength is Dark Mind and that is completely dependent on the fight design making the class very niche right now. It's a shame because the core gameplay and interactions are fun and they have something good here they just need to take it all the way and bring them up to the other tanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Croisciento

No evasion isn't bad because blood price doesn't scale. I mean blood price should scale but what makes the spell bad it's that it's unreliable. Unlike others many other MMO tanks are not getting hit tremendously over the course of a fight, they sometimes just take a lot of damage so healers can keep up.

Their magic resistance spell is amazing. High resistance and such a low CD, but it's totally useless on physical encounters.

---

The problem isn't the evasion part itself, if we know that we will evade an attack it can be used for tank busters, currently it's I hope I will parry or evade, not I will parry or evade.


About Blood Price, if you really need a tank cd up during blood price we got many alternatives that would be better than DA Dark Dance, so having an evasion cd isn't that big of an issue really.

My issue with the new jobs isn't the how & where they fall in a party configuration -- it's that their play-styles offer nothing new. DRK has no new fresh approach to tanking, AST none to Healing.

http://i.imgur.com/um7mZC6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/P06p4Sj.jpg

Yoshi-P said their first objective in designing new jobs is looking for ways to differentiate gameplay within that job's role, if that was the objective - IMO, they failed. The new jobs don't do that - they don't provide new methodologies to their roles - at least not to the extent that NINJA did for DPS, and SMN/SCH did when they launched. I suppose there's no putting that horse back in the barn, but I think that's my grievance.

In fact Yoshi-P's explanation at PAX East - now in hindsight - seems like a preemptive acknowledgment of the difficulties they had integrating DRK/AST/MCH. They were rushed for 3.0 release. They add no fresh methodologies to their roles, they just borrow from one class and another. Then, they placed this combination of copied abilities behind a restriction that is MP and Card Draw. That's my grief. Magic Tank and Card Deck Healer - the core designs meant to make these jobs unique - work against them.

/rant

Sorry small derail but an itch I've been needing to scratch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Falgern

Snip.

---

You're bringing bulwark and vengence into the picture now? you suddenly forget about dark dancem shadowskin, and shadowall? And yes you can very well can choose to have it up for tank busters. You know when tank busters are coming, and reprisal has a 20 second duration, I know I parry more than at least once in a 20s period. So as long as it's not being able to have it up for a tank buster is bullcrap.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Faytte

1. 10% parry to grit...so you want something -better- than Shield Oath? Haha

---

It’s not. PLDs have a shield on top of parry, allowing for two types of passive defensive procs when taking physical damage. Shields block more damage than parry (about 30% with current gear) and will scale even more as better equipment is released. Parry is a flat percentage of mitigation; it will always do 20% off a hit and never more. Paladins do not rely on either parry or block RNG for optimization of their other abilities like DRK does. You’re also not considering WARs in this, either. With the changes to Defiance, Wrath stacks now give 2% boost to parry in addition to the +HP% and +healing%. That gives a max of 10% parry with 5 stacks. Wouldn’t that make Defiance better than either Shield Oath or Grit (assuming the WAR holds on to stacks and only uses them for IB burst mitigation)? You don’t seem to be concerned about that.

Quote:

---

2. It's an off GCD attack that deals lots of damage. I don't have an issue with that if it gets a nerf to its damage to compensate.

---

I’m OK with them reducing the damage a bit should they also reduce the CD. However, don’t forget that PLD has a roughly equivalent attack with Shield Swipe (210 potency) that also 1) increases enmity, 2) gives a pacification debuff on non-bosses, 3) despite being on-GCD it saves them TP in long fights, and 4) can effectively be forced to proc every 30s with Sheltron. Again, though the skills work slightly differently it’s not like this would suddenly give something totally unique to DRK. Both Shield Swipe and Reprisal are not useful on pure magic mobs since you can't proc these on non-physical damage, so DRK doesn't even have an advantage in that regard.

These suggestions aren’t about making DRK better than PLD. PLD is already amazing, reliable, and consistent in either MT or OT role. I only want to get DRK on the same level as the other two tanks because of their current utility issues.

Quote:

---

On Delirum: You don't always have a monk? There are other, similar debuffs that dont stack in the game (ninja/warrior share one for instance).

---

I’m wondering if you even read the OP at all at this point. I specifically compared Delirium-Dragon Kick to Storm’s Eye-Dancing Edge in the first post. Why does it matter if I don’t always have a MNK? I’m talking about the scenarios in which you DO. DRK-MNK don’t mesh well together, period. A raid group with this combo is simply suboptimal. My static has MNK/NIN as its melee DPS and that alone is enough to make me consider changing my main back to WAR because at least my OT utility will be more tuned to our group. It’s rare that SE designs a class where this type of versatility is punished, where there are many other cases of varied class design complementing each other, WAR-NIN being a prominent example.

Quote:

---

You guys want more defenses, you know you will HAVE to lose offense for that. Right now you have incredible aoe damage, and off GCD damage (over 2K per minute!) and mobility.

---

This is laughable. 2000 damage per minute is only 33 DPS. What are you even talking about? And the only mobility skill we have is Plunge, which while nice is not quite as useful as you're thinking it is. It's range is only 15y (compare to Jump, Shoulder Tackle, and Shukuchi which are all 20y. Aetherial Manipulation is 25y). I've mostly found it useful as a gap closer for Bismarck EX during the tank swap and it's not like the other tank had a much harder time getting over to the other add.

I report here my suggestion of the other post:


easy fix: put out the marauder sub-class and welcome in Lancer.

-Keen fury fits better with the DrK ability.
-Invigorate can solve the TP issue ( no reason to have a TP issue when you are a MP managing class).
-Blood for Blood fits in the job story and mood, increasing the Dps of the bit needed to keep up with a War to use in OT stance.


Finally for the utility side you can make Reprisal proc based when outside of grit (something like the proc of firestarter).
In that way you can cover the lack of storm path with the Pld+ Drk party, and if you go with War+Drk you are able to cover the lack of a mitigation king like the PLD (and the Strenght down debuff).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aurelinaus

You're bringing bulwark and vengence into the picture now? you suddenly forget about dark dancem shadowskin, and shadowall? And yes you can very well can choose to have it up for tank busters. You know when tank busters are coming, and reprisal has a 20 second duration, I know I parry more than at least once in a 20s period. So as long as it's not being able to have it up for a tank buster is bullcrap.

---

You cannot know that you will parry once within 20 seconds. You can assume that you will, and you can increase the chance of parrying by using Dark Dance.

The reason why I brought up other tank cds is because of the ridiculous idea that a tank cd requires another tank cd to work properly. None of the other tanks have to "waste" a cd to get another cd up.

The three big changes I'd probably make to DRK are:

1) Reprisal changed to no proc condition but potency reduced to 150 to compensate.
2) Living/Walking Dead removal condition changed from fully healed to recover at least 75% of max hp
3) Dark Arts new effect: Restores some TP(20?) upon ending Dark Arts.

Maybe they need something else as well(Enhanced Unmend or Sole Survivor changed to something more impactful in real fights) but I think this is a good start.

My biggest problem with current Reprisal is bosses attack so slowly so even using Dark Dance, its hard to get a parry proc in time for a big hit. Unless Alexander is filled with stuff using Hundred Fists, bosses just don't have the constant stream of damage needed to reliably have Reprisal for what you really want it for, tankbusters.


Healing someone a total of 75% of their max health in 10s is usually good enough to keep a tank up and it isn't going to require non-WHMs to burn half their emergency healing resources, just a quarter of them. Also it fixes the issue with benediction and not taking any more damage results in death for the DRK.

DRK is TP starved. My Dark Arts refunds a bit of TP. Maybe on DA activation instead of when you use the buff? Either way everyone's happy!

I made a post earlier in this thread and mentioned some ideas to other people. It seemed to be pretty well received. After thinking on it, I wanted to refine my list in terms of concrete changes that I think should be made. I should add in advance: I am not looking to have infinite MP or TP or any other resource. I would expect any of these changes to have the right tuning such that DRK isn't an invincible tank that can sustain themselves indefinitely. I really just only want the job to be as competitive as possible with PLD and WAR while also being as fun as possible. And right now, I am unfortunately having very little fun on the job. I don't think I am alone.




1. Change Scourge: Make it replenish TP with each tick of damage it deals to the enemy (every 3 seconds). Reduce the TP cost to 0 or make the ability cost some MP. This is one change that I think can significantly help out DRK's inherent TP issues as well as make it far more tactical, and as a result more enjoyable to play. Scourge is already one of the highest damage abilities in the game, but its effect is only fully realized by players who apply it intelligently and with care. Adding a TP refresh to it makes the ability even more enticing to newer players who don't fully understand the power of dots. Furthermore, it smooths out the TP curve over time and allows for the devs to better control that particular aspect. Obviously this would be limited to just one mob at a time to prevent TP restoration from multiple targets.


Personally I really like this ability as a true "fix" for this and other tank classes (PLD mainly) as up until now, they've only really had band-aids. PLD, for the longest time, has been the victim of the worst TP issues. And now that PLD has their own job-specific dots just like DRK, adding a slow TP restore to these dots would alleviate quite a few of said TP issues.


2. Change Carve and Split. Give a TP restore to C/S unbuffed, i.e. C/S will restore MP and 200 TP. Buffed version should be unchanged. I'm sure the number would need some tuning but I think it provides a very fun gameplay choice: should I replenish my resources or go for damage? It allows players to make smart, educated choices in the right circumstances and be rewarded for it, as well as helping to solve one of DRK's main issues.

3. Change Grit: Make Grit cost 0 MP. Or, reduce the cost to 5-10% MP and make it an off-global instant cooldown. Or make it free and instant the way WAR's stances are and give it an overall 10 second re-use time (my preference). Grit is just far too expensive and the MP costs are prohibitive. It prevents the player from stance swapping the way any other tank job easily can. The fact that the MP cost of stance swapping is tied into the job's main resource just makes things extremely awkward and difficult at times to juggle. Stance swapping should be completely independent of primary resource. As it stands, I feel imprisoned by my choices on DRK because I cannot effectively change stances or do the things I would normally do on any other tank without compromising my overall functionality. But that is what grit does to a player the way it works now.


4. Change Blood Weapon: make BW an auto-crit ability like Life Surge. By replacing haste with auto-crit, the overall damage boost can be the same without making the player burn out on TP faster than they have to. Personally I also would enjoy having to tactically manage my rotation such that I could auto crit my dark-arts boosted souleater every time while juggling all the other skills DRK uses. That said if 1 and 2 were implemented to a strong enough degree where TP issues were no longer a problem then BW might not even need a change.


5. Change Reprisal: Put this on its own set timer of 30 seconds and completely independent of needing to parry to activate it. Add a new function where, if the player gets hit, it reduces the cool down by "x" second(s). Keep the duration the same. Doing this will keep the job competitive in an off-tank role, as well as competitive as a main tank. Warrior has storm's path while paladin has rage of halone. Both can easily be applied as either MT or MT, but DRK really only gets to do this as a MT. With this change, DRK can do either, and it also creates enjoyable gameplay where getting hit actually becomes something you want and something fun. Furthermore it keeps the ability balanced properly so the job won't necessarily be taken over others.

6. Change Dark Dance: if you boost DD, this just doesn't work with blood price. IMO the boosted ability should be Dark Mind's 30% magic damage reduction ability, and that ability itself should be removed as a standalone one. Alternatively blood price can just be changed so that it activates when a mob misses you.

7. Change Abyssal Drain: I love the ability, but it's unwieldy as a GCD. It breaks your combo if you're in the middle of one, which is when you would use it anyway because it's only meant as an aoe drain emergency ability. Using it, MP wise, is even more unwieldy because it's extremely costly and MP inefficient. I'd almost never use it in any normal scenario since boosting it on top of the normal cost is just too much. Make this a free, instant OGCD ability that can be used every 45 or 60 seconds and let it drain for the same amount and hit for the same potency.


I think this list, whether these specific changes or ones that are similar, are pretty much what I'd need to see to feel like the job is fun again. And right now it is not. But doing away with some of the awkward and clunky gameplay as well as adding some more interesting situation dependent choices would help improve things dramatically.

Change DARKSIDE's MP degeneration from Server Ticks to added MP cost of GCD Weaponskills & Spells?

Haven't heard this one before, and it's a bold adjustment - it would change the feel of Dark Knight a lot - but IMO to a better, more predictable, and more controllable state.

Instead of DARKSIDE draining MP on ~3 second server ticks (127 MP @ lvl60) as it does, how about instead - when activating DARKSIDE - an additional 127 MP cost is added to every Global Cool Down Weaponskill and Spell?
---
No Darkside: Hard Slash cost 70 TP.

With Darkside: Hard Slash cost 70 TP & 127 MP.
---
No Darkside: Unleashed cost 795 MP

With Darkside: Unleashed cost 795 MP + 127 MP.
---
etc
---

The MP penalty would only exist for GCD Weaponskills and Spells - oGCD should be Penalty free. GCD is around 2.4-2.5 seconds, so adding the DARKSIDE degeneration to the GCD exclusive Actions would mean faster degeneration if a DRK is keeping the GCD wheel spinning - but I'd gladly make that trade for a more predictable amount of degeneration. (and if it's too much than the MP cost can be adjusted to compensate)

This would be helpful for establishing DRK's rotations - when to DARK ARTS - and when (if necessary) to drop DARKSIDE all together. It would make for more forgiveness in phase transitions in Raids when a DRK forgets to drop DARKSIDE and has their MP sucked dry for it.
--
It's a very big change - it would impact a lot of gameplay and feel of the Job, but maybe all for the better(?). I feel like - as is - there is too much instability & inconsistency with DARKSIDE's server tick based degeneration. Moving that degen to the GCD would make players feel more 'in control' of DARKSIDE and their MP management.

Thoughts? (Didn't want to create a thread - it's against my religion).

Man, I dunno about you guys, but I am having absolutely ZERO trouble playing this job, clearing content with it, or contributing to groups. Feels great. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xenosan

Change DARKSIDE's MP degeneration from Server Ticks to added MP cost of GCD Weaponskills & Spells?

Haven't heard this one before, and it's a bold adjustment - it would change the feel of Dark Knight a lot - but IMO to a better, more predictable, and more controllable state.

Instead of DARKSIDE draining MP on ~3 second server ticks (127 MP @ lvl60) as it does, how about instead - when activating DARKSIDE - an additional 127 MP cost is added to every Global Cool Down Weaponskill and Spell?
---
No Darkside: Hard Slash cost 70 TP.

With Darkside: Hard Slash cost 70 TP & 127 MP.
---
No Darkside: Unleashed cost 795 MP

With Darkside: Unleashed cost 795 MP + 127 MP.
---
etc
---

The MP penalty would only exist for GCD Weaponskills and Spells - oGCD should be Penalty free. GCD is around 2.4-2.5 seconds, so adding the DARKSIDE degeneration to the GCD exclusive Actions would mean faster degeneration if a DRK is keeping the GCD wheel spinning - but I'd gladly make that trade for a more predictable amount of degeneration. (and if it's too much than the MP cost can be adjusted to compensate)

This would be helpful for establishing DRK's rotations - when to DARK ARTS - and when (if necessary) to drop DARKSIDE all together. It would make for more forgiveness in phase transitions in Raids when a DRK forgets to drop DARKSIDE and has their MP sucked dry for it.
--
It's a very big change - it would impact a lot of gameplay and feel of the Job, but maybe all for the better(?). I feel like - as is - there is too much instability & inconsistency with DARKSIDE's server tick based degeneration. Moving that degen to the GCD would make players feel more 'in control' of DARKSIDE and their MP management.

Thoughts? (Didn't want to create a thread - it's against my religion).

---

imo that would be a terrible idea... your makeing an already MP heavy class even more MP heavy without actually fixing anything?...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dragoelete

imo that would be a terrible idea... your makeing an already MP heavy class even more MP heavy without actually fixing anything?...

---

I agree. Are people really having that much trouble watching their MP? Or turning Darkside off when they aren't actually getting to hit anything for an extended period of time (Bloody Fuller in RavEx)? Remember DRK CAN benefit from Ballad, etc. when DS is off. There are times where this is smart. I really don't see why people are stuggling so much with this job. You have more buttons to push that you have to think about whether or not to push more often than usual. Fate worse than death D: