Dark Knight Megathread

DRK already has 3 ressources: Darkside, Blood and MP. They just barely interract (only got 2 skills that spend MP to give darkside) and one that has no actual use (Darkside)

We need to keep this fresh.
Please devs, we are humbly requesting that you read this thread.
We would like many changes to DRK. And as you can see and read here there are plenty of suggestions.

Hi!
I am going to write my suggestions so that everyone can read fast, not get bored and not waste people's time. I hope SE can see this. These are my 10 suggestions that I have thought of for a while, I love this game and I am trying to help it get better - in a way that I can offer my respect and praise to the dev team.

Abilities:
1. Dark Side could be changed to 120 seconds duration maximum. Why? I will explain on point 2.
2. !NEW! Dark Arts would convert 50% current Dark Side timer into HP. The higher the converted duration, the higher the HP. This can solve Living Dead or give you a fighting chance. 90 secs CD.
3. !NEW! Blood Price would convert 20% of current HP into a 10% dmg buff for 20 seconds, dispels that amount from TBN instead of consuming HP if present. 120 secs CD
4. Oblation would give 10% dmg reduction for 8 seconds, with 10% more for the first 4 seconds.
5. TBN would not be tied to damage and it would be free - instead it has another potential use ( point 3 ). 25 seconds CD.
6. Blood weapon would give 5 stacks.
7. Unmend, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Tar Pit ( see point 10 ) would be weaponskills.
8. An additional combo finisher would be Scourge which would be a DoT + 10 blood.
9. Living Shadow would function like Reaper's Enshroud, buffing yourself to do more dmg on your next 10 actions. ( off GCDs + GCDs ) The red shadow next to your Dark Side timer could glow red as it does now, and show you remaining actions while the actions used while under this would be the same ones as normally, they could look slightly more powerful in terms of animations.
10. !NEW! Tar Pit would be your 3rd AoE button, healing you for 25 potency per enemy and giving 20 blood. Stalwart soul would restore MP, but give 10 blood. This would also mean that the 2nd AoE button could be obtained earlier while the 3rd one at a later level.

Removed: Dark Mind , Shadowbringer ( the work on Shadowbringer is amazing and looks cool, put it on standard Flood of Shadow, and make something similar for Edge of Shadow?), Abyssal Drain ( Tar Pit + Dark Arts cover your sustain now )

Important note: I did account for button bloat: you lose 3 buttons, and you gain 4 buttons, and for the fact that Tar Pit would be on 8 mobs a heal of 200 potency every 3 GCDs.

As a DRK main who hasn't browsed the forums too much, I wanted to hop in this thread and provide my opinions, concerns, and possible constructive criticism alongside my fellow DRK players. I am sure many of the things I am about to say have been echoed by others, so I apologize in advance. I would also like to thank the developers for creating a game that has kept me invested for so long, so out of respect for their dedication and hard-work, my suggestions don't aim to fundamentally change the job from its 6.0 iteration - DRK's current kit is solid and performs quite well, so most of my proposals are aimed at addressing feasible QoL improvements that can (hopefully!) be implemented within 6.0's lifespan.

A) Blood Weapon's window is too tight. Blood Weapon is listed as a 10s duration, but the unfortunate reality is that its actual duration is closer to 9s. Due to naturally higher ping as an east coast NA player, this forces me to only double-weave BW on the second oGCD slot, or to painfully time its application when the GCD timer is 2/3's of the way from being available again. DRK is already busy for a tank, and BW's strict timings can easily lead to accidental clipping and lost resources that feel more punishing and limiting rather than rewarding skilled play.
- My feedback for Blood Weapon is to either increase its duration so all 5 GCD's can be achieved more reliably, or change BW to use a charge-based system like the reworked Delirium and Inner Release skills.

B) Living Dead is painful to press. To put my concerns simply, every time I am forced to use Living Dead, I feel guilty for thrusting all the responsibility onto the healer. (especially in dungeons). This reality is made all the more agonizing by the fact that DRK currently has very limited healing capabilities, so I cannot reliably help my healer cure the Walking Dead status. In a static raid environment, Living Dead's drawbacks can be mitigated with call-outs and pre-planned tactics, and a second healer is available to ease the overall burden. However, even with the additional help, it feels odd that DRK is the only tank with such a severe, punishing fail-state.
- My feedback for Living Dead is to alter the punishment of failing to cure the DRK to 100% HP. I understand that the team likely wants to preserve the lore and thematics of the skill, and I have two possible suggestions to recommend:

a) Failing to remove Walking Dead inflicts weakness instead of outright KO'ing the DRK. This allows the DRK to stay in the fight, while still inflicting a thematic fail-state.
b) Failing to remove Walking Dead immediately deals damage to the DRK equal to the amount of unhealed hit points. As an example, if a DRK is only healed for 60% of their HP when Walking Dead expires, they will suffer damage equal to 40% of their HP.

C) DRK has very poor self-healing. From a balancing perspective, I can understand why DRK has been allowed such limited healing capabilities - DRK has been designed as "the shield tank", so an excess of healing skills might make it too strong. However, it doesn't change the fact that our invuln is directly tied to our ability to heal, which DRK is currently very poor at doing. It feels like a contradiction, especially when DRK is compared against the other tanks that gained an abundance of skills and abilities that provide self-healing and shielding. Currently DRK struggles the most out of all the tanks in large dungeon pulls due its inability to self-heal but once every 60s (Abyssal Drain), which is compounded by the Living Dead concern I mentioned above.
- My feedback to address DRK's self-healing is an inclusion of a new trait that enhances and adds self-healing capabilities to certain skills:

Blood Communion (Lv. 84 DRK trait)
Adds a healing effect to Blood Weapon, Bloodspiller, and Quietus.
Cure Potency: 200

D) DRK gains key skills at late levels. This concern is a slight nitpick, but out of respect for those who still enjoy engaging in challenging, older content I feel it deserves a mention. Compared to other tanks, it takes DRK the longest to gain access to a second AoE combo, its AoE magic mitigation tool, and its short-CD defensive (TBN). This makes DRK unwieldy and inferior at select level tiers, as it lacks the utility other tanks can bring to the party.
- My feedback to address this issue to re-evaluate DRK's leveling path and reshuffle skills around to ensure DRK brings an equal or similar utility to the group, regardless of the level of content being engaged. As an example, instead of giving DRK Dark Missionary at level 76, give them access to the skill between levels 64-68 (the level range which GNB and WAR gain access to their AoE mitigation).

Again, I would like to thank the developers for all the love and effort they have poured into FFXIV, and hope that they understand that my suggestions are meant to be constructive criticism and not bitter lamentations. <3

Honorary Mention, because while I feel DRK doesn't necessarily need the change, it would be a welcome one nonetheless.

E) Oblation could be a bit more impactful and exciting. I understand Oblation is the way it is because TBN has been such a powerful skill for two entire expansions, so Oblation having all the effects of, say, Holy Sheltron would be absurdly powerful. However, I feel the skill could use a bit of buff to make it feel more unique and rewarding when used properly.
My feedback would be to alter the skill by adding the following additional effect:

Oblation
Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 10%.
Duration: 10s
Additional Effect: Grants Penitent's Absolution to target upon effect expiration.
Penitent's Absolution Effect: Increases HP recovery via healing actions by 20%.
Duration: 4s
Maximum Charges: 2

This allows Oblation to be unique, as the target of Oblation can recover from a debilitating attack a little faster, thus rewarding skillful timing and application. As an added bonus, it can even help DRK cure the effect's of Walking Dead faster!

I want to see a "enshroud" ability on DRK or could just be a new visual for the blackest night. I'm looking at the ShB trailer's DRK purple glow.

Honestly, the devs need to do for Dark Knight what they did for Summoner. An entire rework while making key abilities available at lower levels.

Darkside isn't really a resource worth talking about. you'd have to actually try to let it fall off, still not sure why it has its own gauge but Surging Tempest doesn't when Surging Tempest requires at least 2 brain cells to manage, which is 2 more brain cells than Darkside takes to keep up. in order for Darkside to actually matter as a resource it requires interaction in one form or another. Surging Tempest combo is 10 less gauge for warrior, but DRK doesn't get a single interaction, just make it a buff icon, the only reason to keep it a gauge is attaching the shadow to it, which can also just be a buff or integrated off Darkside timer and onto a little bar on the blood gauge that empties out. It's just fancier scourge anyway.

With the removal of DPS stance, Darkside lost its purpose as a "resource". Whether this was for the best is, of course, subjective, but in my opinion Darkside was never really an issue in the 3.0/4.0 anyways. In those days, our MP regeneration was so abundant that we had little fear of Darkside actually dropping; the only substantial challenge it presented was knowing when you could safely toggle the status off/on to regenerate MP faster.

Maybe in 7.0 DRK will get a skill that consumes Darkside as resource, but I'm dubious such an ability will actually make the job more enjoyable rather than add a layer of unneeded tedium. I'm imagining scenarios where we are stuck in this bizarre loop of spending Darkside before spending MP in our frantic bursts, thus leading to capped resources regardless.

If Darkside has to be a mechanic beyond a passive DPS increase in 7.0 and beyond, I'd rather Edge/Flood increase our Darkside meter in increments of 20, which do not decay. Upon reaching the cap of 60, Edge/Flood becomes enhanced, replacing the respective skills with a new ability that causes the next offensive MP spender to deal increased damage (along with additional effects if needed). Does this make Darkside more complex? Not by much, but ensuring 1 or 2 enhanced Edge or Flood casts land during raid buffs can provide a more engaging challenge without overly complicating Darkside as a resource. However, this change will require that the Darkside gauge is modified to account for the lack of decay, which will likely mean that the 10% passive DPS increase will be impossible to drop once gained (which is more or less the current state of Darkside as a mechanic anyways).

I just wish the Dark Side Aura actually look good.

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Originally Posted by Xrison

Honestly, the devs need to do for Dark Knight what they did for Summoner. An entire rework while making key abilities available at lower levels.

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Sweet Hydaelyn, anything but this. Current SMN barely qualifies as a job, rather than a meme with flashy animations tacked on. We've already got a form-over-substance DRK rework in SHB, getting the job even further destroyed is the last thing we need.

I can certainly get behind redistribution of the skills between levels during a rework, but bringing up EW Summoner is about the worst way you could suggest that in.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Some more detail, please?

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I'll get back to this, but if I am to elaborate properly I will need to sit on it a bit and I'm quite busy this weekend, so hang in there.

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Also Darkside is not a resource at all, it's a maintenance buff that you spend an actual resource on. If it's not something you spend then it's not a resource by definition. You might as well call Storm's Eye, Goring Blade or No Mercy a resource if that's how you see it. There have been suggestions to turn Darkside timer into a resource however, by letting DRKs use skills which reduce the duration of the buff.

Darkside *should* be a ressource.

I really wish we had the option to turn some of these buffs gauges into the status bar
like Huton and Darkside really dont need an entire gauge to itself

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

Hi!
I am going to write my suggestions so that everyone can read fast, not get bored and not waste people's time. I hope SE can see this. These are my 10 suggestions that I have thought of for a while, I love this game and I am trying to help it get better - in a way that I can offer my respect and praise to the dev team.

Abilities:
1. Dark Side could be changed to 120 seconds duration maximum. Why? I will explain on point 2.
2. !NEW! Dark Arts would convert 50% current Dark Side timer into HP. The higher the converted duration, the higher the HP. This can solve Living Dead or give you a fighting chance. 90 secs CD.
3. !NEW! Blood Price would convert 20% of current HP into a 10% dmg buff for 20 seconds, dispels that amount from TBN instead of consuming HP if present. 120 secs CD
4. Oblation would give 10% dmg reduction for 8 seconds, with 10% more for the first 4 seconds.
5. TBN would not be tied to damage and it would be free - instead it has another potential use ( point 3 ). 25 seconds CD.
6. Blood weapon would give 5 stacks.
7. Unmend, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Tar Pit ( see point 10 ) would be weaponskills.
8. An additional combo finisher would be Scourge which would be a DoT + 10 blood.
9. Living Shadow would function like Reaper's Enshroud, buffing yourself to do more dmg on your next 10 actions. ( off GCDs + GCDs ) The red shadow next to your Dark Side timer could glow red as it does now, and show you remaining actions while the actions used while under this would be the same ones as normally, they could look slightly more powerful in terms of animations.
10. !NEW! Tar Pit would be your 3rd AoE button, healing you for 25 potency per enemy and giving 20 blood. Stalwart soul would restore MP, but give 10 blood. This would also mean that the 2nd AoE button could be obtained earlier while the 3rd one at a later level.

Removed: Dark Mind , Shadowbringer ( the work on Shadowbringer is amazing and looks cool, put it on standard Flood of Shadow, and make something similar for Edge of Shadow?), Abyssal Drain ( Tar Pit + Dark Arts cover your sustain now )

Important note: I did account for button bloat: you lose 3 buttons, and you gain 4 buttons, and for the fact that Tar Pit would be on 8 mobs a heal of 200 potency every 3 GCDs.

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It would be cool to see other people's thoughts on these ideas.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

I'll get back to this, but if I am to elaborate properly I will need to sit on it a bit and I'm quite busy this weekend, so hang in there.

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No worries, man. Same-ish or I'd probably be further along on my own, too (so long as I can restrain myself from giving tanks more to do in general).

Looking forward to it!

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

It would be cool to see other people's thoughts on these ideas.

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I'm... not really sure what you're trying to do with a lot of these. Many of the technicals are also unclear (such as how the Darkside timer is half-converted to HP). Initial notes, though:

• I don't like the idea of just leaving Darkside on reserve to consume for HP. That's little, if at all, better than it's currently being removable from one's UI.
• Sacrificing a TBN or 20% HP for a 10% damage buff for 20s, as locked by a 2-minute timer, just seems odd. I don't why you wouldn't just buff Blood Weapon or the like for this purpose. I'd also recommend figuring out what the potency per minute of your suggested DRK looks like and noting that a percentile damage buff and GCDs over average filler ppgcd, or even oGCD potency, can all largely amount to the same thing except in that a percentile damage buff constrains the other two (to be used inside that damage buff).
• I really like the Oblation change, even if it might be faintly overpowered.
• I don't like losing the flexibility and knowledge check of TBN. I much prefer the current version.
• The thing I liked about Scourge in the past was that by being usable without a combo, it had decent 3-target DoT-cleave application. Turning it into a Goring Blade / Storm's Eye-like doesn't really have that appeal. I'd almost rather see it as a means of banking Blood by consuming some amount and then generating an amount per tick (though I dislike that such would further disfavor Skill Speed because I like stats not to be mere traps).
• The Living Shadow change looks fine, but I'd prefer it do more than just increased damage. I'd like for it to feel like it's accelerating and empowering everything to some degree, whether that be through added MP gains, added Blood, or whatever else.
• Frankly, AoE combos are just button bloat that increase the investment cost of doing any AoE. I want nothing to do with a 3rd AoE combo button. Just give Stalwart Soul earlier and then trait it to be more powerful later.

Here are my suggestions:
Going back to the roots with DRK.
Make blood weapon increase our attack speed and hp per hit.
Make abyssal drain a dot and remove salted earth as well as salt and darkness.
Make tbn a 25-second cooldown skill that costs no mp where when we proc the shield we recover some HP back.
Rework delirium, make it a unique skill that should be very different from inner release and the core of DRK.
Would also be interesting if we got a new third skill combo finisher instead of soul eater, something that does not recover hp and does more damage.
Rework Living dead, first making it a lot easier for a healer to see and hear you just used Living dead and second when you enter the living dead state for the heals to affect you in a higher %.
Make our aoe rotation weapon skills instead of spells.
Give DRK a new skill where he uses all of his resources. (same resource he uses for quietus)
Change oblation into 15% and being healed by a small portion when he gets hit.

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Sweet Hydaelyn, anything but this. Current SMN barely qualifies as a job, rather than a meme with flashy animations tacked on. We've already got a form-over-substance DRK rework in SHB, getting the job even further destroyed is the last thing we need.

I can certainly get behind redistribution of the skills between levels during a rework, but bringing up EW Summoner is about the worst way you could suggest that in.



I'll get back to this, but if I am to elaborate properly I will need to sit on it a bit and I'm quite busy this weekend, so hang in there.

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Also Darkside is not a resource at all, it's a maintenance buff that you spend an actual resource on. If it's not something you spend then it's not a resource by definition. You might as well call Storm's Eye, Goring Blade or No Mercy a resource if that's how you see it. There have been suggestions to turn Darkside timer into a resource however, by letting DRKs use skills which reduce the duration of the buff.

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I guess I should have been more specific. I'm not saying they need to make DRK a snoozefest like current SMN. I'm saying they need to give DRK that MUCH of a rework. They need to put the same amount of effort into a rework for DRK, but just... Good

In any case DRK need a rework of course but if is posible it should be a Reaper level of design rework making the job well designed from level 1 to lvl 90 like it should be. If we go to SMN levels or rework well, i consider DRK still being worse designed compared to SMN so we would win even if almost not much.

I won't ask for the moon at this point but yeah, please Square don't be afraid of bringing back old animations for new skills. it's FINE we loved those animations and would be happy to see them back even with a new purpose.

Replace Soul Eater with Power Slash pls

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

I won't ask for the moon at this point but yeah, please Square don't be afraid of bringing back old animations for new skills. it's FINE we loved those animations and would be happy to see them back even with a new purpose.

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They aren't afraid, literally re-used Flood of Shadow for Shadowbringer and called it a new move.

It's honestly at a point where it needs to be reworked from the ground up or deleted as a job.

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Originally Posted by Monochromatic

They aren't afraid, literally re-used Flood of Shadow for Shadowbringer and called it a new move.

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While they do look very similar, no it isn't just a copy of Flood. It does look too similar to it however, that I aggree. (though the character animation is pretty cool and I wish we could see it more clearly)

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

(though the character animation is pretty cool and I wish we could see it more clearly)

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Makes me wish Shadowbringer was a GCD

It really should of been a Dark Arts ability for flood and edge of shadow

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Originally Posted by Sacrilegion

It really should of been a Dark Arts ability for flood and edge of shadow

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Yep. That's what I thought and even suggested. You get a DA proc, buff Flood to turn into ShB. (Well after that i suggest a multi-layer TBN that can proc DA more than one so you could end up weaving several ShB in a row but well... would have to be balanced)

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Originally Posted by Sacrilegion

It's honestly at a point where it needs to be reworked from the ground up or deleted as a job.

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I don't mean to offend, but I hope that everyone who is desiring a full-blown rework understands that DRK has already received a redesign, so any subsequent revamps will likely result in the job losing even more iconic 3.0 abilities without adding any suitable equivalents. The reason 5.0 didn't preserve Dark Arts and the playstyle associated with it was because casual players hated how prevalent Dark Arts became, how it was nearly weaved into every oGCD window. They bemoaned how the frequent oGCD spam hindered their ability to slot in oGCD tank abilities, and the developers ultimately addressed their issues by removing Dark Arts completely and replacing it with the more costly Edge/Flood abilities. Dark Arts wasn't reworked - it was abandoned, and I have little doubt flavorful skills like Salted Earth (and the new Salt and Darkness) will simply be removed to appease casual fans and have their potencies shifted to other oGCDs, further diluting DRK's original identity.

My point is this - why would Square redesign DRK after stating they are happy using 5.0 as a base for DRK going forward? Why would they purposely include reverions to a design they felt the average player disliked, and one that was certainly less balanced than the 5.0 iteration? Don't get me wrong, I loved 3.0 and 4.0 DRK, but I understand that we will never see a return to those playstyles; that it is increasingly more important to provide feedback on what is feasible to change instead of beating a proverbial dead horse by ceaselessly demanding a reversion to an era the developers are clearly not keen to return to. Blood Weapon's window is too tight, Living Dead is still objectively the worst tank invuln, and DRK's non-shielding sustain is nearly non-existent - these are all desired changes that would dramatically improve DRK across all forms of content while being practical to achieve within 6.0's lifespan.

3.0 DRK is not coming back. The sooner the community accepts this fact, the sooner everyone can move on and begin to find enjoyment in the job again. As job balancing becomes more and more important to the developers with each expansion, I completely understand role homogenizing is becoming a huge concern, but I believe we can find solutions to DRK that respects the direction Square wants to steer the job into while establishing an identity for it other than "the job that people main for years, yet continuously bitch about".

Please, if simply for the developers sake, let 3.0 go.

Have to agree with him, 3.0 Dark Knight was a broken OP Tank and rather it didn't return back. It made War useless than existing to enhance DPS back in the day, Pld made useless, can make Gnb useless depending on DPS levels. 3.0 Drk was a major spamming O-GCD job though out it's whole rotation, and permanent damage downs making any boss a complete wimp, too broken for the game.

Edge/Flood are essentially Dark Arts without the ability enhance and used on pure damage instead, now before you say it isn't, you're spamming the O-GCD as you always did for Dark Arts, isn't that the same thing?

No, no it's not the same thing.

I imagine people would stop bringing 3.0 drk up when we are given an adequate replacement that is comparable in enjoyment. I highly doubt anyone expects 3.0 drk to come back, but everything since has fallen far short of creating the same level of enjoyment as HW drk for numerous people. Maybe if the devs would either bring back the good ideas from 3.0 or give what was removed suitable replacements you would see a diminished amount of comments about 3.0. Slapping the beast gauge, fell cleave, steel cyclone, and inner release on drk just didn't do it for many.

The only feasible, possible skills to return from 3.0 in my honest opinion is Scourge and Sole Survivor. If the former did, it would likely function similar to GNB's Bowshock and become an AoE dot, or straight up replace Salted Earth and absorb S&D's potency. The latter could just be added as a nifty bonus alongside the current kit (using the revised 4.0 iteration).

I've already covered why Dark Arts will probably never return (along with any hopes of AD becoming a spammable self-heal), but other skills fare little better. Hate combos have become redundant, so no Power Slash, weaponskills afflicting resistance down/up are never coming back, so no Delirium, Dark Passenger is essentially Flood of Shadow (and without DA there is no blind attached anymore, but Square seems to want blind removed anyways), and RNG-based procs like Low Blow and Reprisal don't mesh at all with the current design philosophy and balancing. I could maybe see an RNG proc being attached to DRK somewhere, but attaching an RNG resource to a resource-based job hasn't been received well in present times (as evidenced by Shield Swipe being taken from PLD's kit).

The sad thing is because DRK can bring so much damage in a basically braindead manner (Have button? Press button, do damage, get clears.) I think they'll just look at the amount of DRK clears in savage and just say it's fine. DRK is in pretty high demand for tanks because it brings such good DPS to the table despite, as an actual tank, being inferior. And to be clear, by actual tank, I mean defensive cooldowns that are impactful and the ability to move bosses around. DRK isn't as bad as GNB for movement, but the fact that it also lacks the defensives GNB has just highlights the problem even more and Edge/Flood taking the place of Dark Arts just made that problem worse. Still pressing oGCD spam, but now with a range limit in movement phases.

Why not knock Dark Mind reduction down to 15% and give it a haima-like stacking shield? This keeps the silly gimmick of being a magical damage cooldown but makes it useful in sustained damage without stacking too high with TBN that tankbuster damage still matters.

The problem with DA in SB was that they removed a lot of its interaction with defensive cooldowns, so it just became an "ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!" button instead of something you had to think about. Imagine if DA returned as an oGCD, and was used to change moves into other ones. Unmend to Abyssal Drain, Unleash to Salted Earth, Dark Mind to Dark Messenger, Oblation (if they change it so it's at a much earlier level) to TBN, etc, without adjusting the damage to our main damage skills, it'd be much better received since it'd be used for multiple defensive and offensive abilities.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

The problem with DA in SB was that they removed a lot of its interaction with defensive cooldowns, so it just became an "ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!" button instead of something you had to think about. Imagine if DA returned as an oGCD, and was used to change moves into other ones. Unmend to Abyssal Drain, Unleash to Salted Earth, Dark Mind to Dark Messenger, Oblation (if they change it so it's at a much earlier level) to TBN, etc, without adjusting the damage to our main damage skills, it'd be much better received since it'd be used for multiple defensive and offensive abilities.

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The problem of DA eating all of our oGCD slots would still remain, if not be become worse than 4.0. In 4.0, DA was mostly used to enhance GCD attacks, yes, but having to use an oGCD to enhance a critical, MP consuming oGCD (TBN for example) would be brutal when you are forced to cram it into frantic opener/dual-TB scenarios. Plus, using DA to make a GCD activate an oGCD (Salted) or using DA to consume a personal defensive to activate an aoe defensive is all forms of jank.

I don't want the entirety of 3.0 Drk to return but I do want some things 3.0 and 4.0 had

Dark knight is/was the speedy counter attack Tank
parry would proc Reprisal and reset low blow

TBN broke and gave you 50 blood

TBN breaks get a ""free"" flood/edge

blood weapon gave haste

but we can't fully grasp this identity because
tying defensive skill to an offensive skill and forcing Drk as MT is bad design.

I don't care if its easy or complex I just want this job to have some semblance of its older self AND have some form of gameplay mechanic which other 3 do just fine

PLD cycles through magic and melee
WAR revolves around cleaves
GNB is cartridge management

Dark knight has what? MP spender the has no real impact outside of damage buff and takes
no effort to keep up, A gauge thats incredibly basic and adds almost nothing to the rest of the kit then just a bunch of random ogcd that also have little to no synergy with the kit and the one ability the tries to tie things together doesn't even work most the time (blood weapon).
the dev team needs to rethink about this jobs gameplay and Kit it does not need an aesthetic overhaul.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

????

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What in Etheiryis are you on about? WAR easily had the highest damage output in Heavensward, in addition to having Path, which was an on demand 100% uptime damage mitigation buff, in addition to having Eye as a 100% uptime slashing buff which, even if you had NIN in the party, it was still preferable for the WAR to apply. That's also not including the fact that WAR was just flat out better at establishing and retaining enmity without outside assistance, with an enmity combo that was a damage gain. If you thought WAR was broken in Stormblood, it was even moreso in Heavensward. There were two tank raid slots in Heavensward: a situational PLD/DRK slot, and a pretty much mandatory WAR slot. And there were fights from a progression standpoint where it was definitely preferential to go PLD over DRK. The WF for A1S, A2S, A7S, and A9S all used PLD. A2S required the use of Cover on your healer if you didn't use the Equilibrium trick. A4S was a close contender when people were figuring out how best to cheese Nisi. PLD was hands down a superior choice for A7S, given the amount of physical damage, the fact that PLD was better to spin and stunlock the heart in a pinch, the fact that Hallowed was hands down a superior choice to LD during second cat phase. Interestingly, many groups did prog on A8S with PLD/DRK due to the duration of the Final Punch/Apocalypse/Beam combo, but then again, some groups did it with double WAR as well. Creator was the point in time where everyone's favorite abacus started excluding non-standard group formats, because speedrun groups just as often dropped the second tank for solo WAR. Useless WAR in Heavensward of all things? No, this is bizarre revisionist history at best.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

What in Etheiryis are you on about? WAR easily had the highest damage output in Heavensward, in addition to having Path, which was an on demand 100% uptime damage mitigation buff, in addition to having Eye as a 100% uptime slashing buff which, even if you had NIN in the party, it was still preferable for the WAR to apply. That's also not including the fact that WAR was just flat out better at establishing and retaining enmity without outside assistance, with an enmity combo that was a damage gain. If you thought WAR was broken in Stormblood, it was even moreso in Heavensward. There were two tank raid slots in Heavensward: a situational PLD/DRK slot, and a pretty much mandatory WAR slot. And there were fights from a progression standpoint where it was definitely preferential to go PLD over DRK. The WF for A1S, A2S, A7S, and A9S all used PLD. A2S required the use of Cover on your healer if you didn't use the Equilibrium trick. A4S was a close contender when people were figuring out how best to cheese Nisi. PLD was hands down a superior choice for A7S, given the amount of physical damage, the fact that PLD was better to spin and stunlock the heart in a pinch, the fact that Hallowed was hands down a superior choice to LD during second cat phase. Interestingly, many groups did prog on A8S with PLD/DRK due to the duration of the Final Punch/Apocalypse/Beam combo, but then again, some groups did it with double WAR as well. Creator was the point in time where everyone's favorite abacus started excluding non-standard group formats, because speedrun groups just as often dropped the second tank for solo WAR. Useless WAR in Heavensward of all things? No, this is bizarre revisionist history at best.

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If you think permanent -10% INT and near permanent Reprisal isn't OP, then you seriously need to drop the Copium, Virus was nerfed to the ground for being spammed, and classic Reprisal uptimes 20s with a 10s downtime, except reduces all forms of damage. Enmity doesn't mean crap no matter how strong it was, every team mate willing to optimise used all means of enmity reductions, and using Ninja for shift, one DA Power Slash, Tank stance is never used again.

World First doesn't mean anything, it's a content rush fast as possible using terrible strategies just to kill it asap, every raid tier. Every raid group killing the new raid tier again are extremely advised not to do first week strategies, they're very tended to suck balls, and very relied on RNG, and time waste... a lot...

DRK was good but its never been WAR good
MNK and PLD also had a permanent 10% debuff

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Originally Posted by Duskane

DRK was good but its never been WAR good
MNK and PLD also had a permanent 10% debuff

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Drk removed any means of needing Mnk since it also did -10% INT, except it was on Dark Knights rotation, and they did not stack, meaning useless. Paladin only had Veil, and Halone for -10% Str, Drk did both STR/INT -10% and clipped Plds DPS 200-300 more. No one took an Ast since it was useless till it received crazy buffs in 3.4 the Creator raid, Bene always kept for LD, 2 mins advantage.

Also going through the fastest top 5 runs on every Savage raid, Paladin hardly existed to any of them, DRKs DPS even level with Warrior, or Below/higher than Warrior, which is essentially Crit RNG game at this point, except Fell Cleave Crit RNG valued higher. Drk low blow spamming crushed Paladin. Raid DPS enhancing is a DPS enhancement, major damage reductions for every raid member over any other tank is broken, Reprisal had to be changed to all tanks, it was Virus 2.0 exclusive to Drk, original Virus all casters/healers could use on a rotated spam for -10% strength.

Edit: My Mistake -20% INT for the raid group, Delirium -10% INT, Reprisal -10% INT/STR.

Dark wasn't OP Paladin was just terrible in HW and MNK did not stand a chance between NIN and DRG ,DRK at the time was just the final nail in the coffin for MNK.