Dark Knight Megathread

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I wasn't saying those abilities specifically are being held down by TBN, but that DRK's kit is leaning heavily on TBN as a catch-all. Those abilities just happen to be clear weak points in the kit.

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How else, exactly, is one to read "'everything DRK is giving up to have [TBN]'" that doesn't include those things --despite having already been had, in former iterations, alongside TBN-- being sacrificed because of TBN?

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But alright, if the "They won't change X skill because of TBN" narrative is insane to you, I hope we never hear "We didn't need Y because TBN" in this thread again.

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Point to any case where that was said on the basis of TBN as the present skill and its given capacity, rather than as a design or button?

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Hard not to wonder "Hmm, now why didn't DRK get anything that measured up to those?"

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Sure. But if your whole point is that TBN isn't even as powerful as the pre-82 on-demands, it's sure as hell not going to be a reasonable answer to that question, even if ignoring that DRK had its highest ever amounts of self-sustain in the very expansion that gave you TBN and had its most extreme amounts of dungeon mitigation+healing relative to other tanks, again, in an expansion with TBN.

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And remember, until Yoshi-P says, the narrative that it has anything to do with TBN being just that good is "literally not sane."

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Correct. Previous expansions have already proven the TBN can coexist with far more self-sustain, with relative power levels wherein Holmgang isn't just by far and away better than Living Dead, and can seem plenty balanced even in a world where Paladin, a competitor, had zero self-sustain without damage loss. So why the hell would you choose it, the one unchanged element that wasn't considered overpowered even in those far more DRK-favoring contexts as the reason that DRK now lacks what it previously had (right alongside TBN)?

They could give us a mini TBN starting at level 15 with a shield providing 10% or more for the total HP. Shadowskin for appearance. Later upgraded into TBN respectively.

Dark Mind should provide physical and magical defense at 10%, being useful in both situations in dungeons and out. Blood Weapon could provide healing for every hit with a potency of 120, for example.

Living Dead can be changed with the player entering Walking Dead status while providing a significant increase in HP generation while this debuff is active, therefore not completly removing the challenge of staying alive.

As for the central theme of gameplay, Dark Arts could be re-introduced. For every succession of a Souleater combo, one pain orb can be obtained. Allowing for a free use of Dark Arts to upgrade weaponskills (Hard Slash > Spinning Slash > Power Slash), without the resource, Dark Arts would cost about 3000 MP and should only be used if there's a surplus of MP.

Once 2 orbs were used, DRK enters a state of frenzy, carrying the greatsword on one hand. Allowing for a devastating combo of 3 weaponskills and one ability called "Reverence", to finish the combo.

Just a rough idea I've had, but it would entail the removal of our current Dark Arts system. I'm not a fan of the current DRK and I think there's much that can be done.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

How else, exactly, is one to read "'everything DRK is giving up to have [TBN]'" that doesn't include those things --despite having already been had, in former iterations, alongside TBN-- being sacrificed because of TBN?

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Again, by viewing TBN as the catch-all for the kit.

The devs took a hard look at tank design for Shadowbringers, and by the end of it DRK was left with TBN and a few other niche abilities for survival. Most of us didn't complain at the time because TBN was effective enough to cover it for 90% of situations... until EW dropped and suddenly tank damage intake was upscaled to fit a new paradigm of tanking that TBN was shockingly not read in on, and TBN as-is wasn't able to do everything single-handedly anymore so that you need to alternate more of your other cooldowns to survive in sustained damage situations.

That isn't "LD and DM won't ever change because it would make DRK too strong with TBN, ergo TBN must change" that's "TBN used to be so strong we barely ever batted an eye at DM and LD before, but even though nothing changed for it, now that regular dungeon encounters are leaning towards making us use everything, we're forced to examine everything."

In short, DRK retains the design philosophy it had in Shadowbringers, while the other tanks have moved forward, and it shows.

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But if your whole point is that TBN isn't even as powerful as the pre-82 on-demands, it's sure as hell not going to be a reasonable answer to that question,

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We would be arguing on different definitions of "powerful" then. The point of my argument has always ever been that in terms of its effectiveness in Wall-to-Wall pulls, DRK falls behind other tanks -- in part because TBN is poorly suited for sustained damage intake, and in part because of its other cooldowns being lackluster in general.

The devs love TBN and LD. I don't think they will ever be changed. Dark Knight is gonna forever be a Raid Tank. That is it's purpose. Dungeon content isn't for DRK. Just use DRK for raids, trials and hunts.

Happy fun times of HW/DB are long past us.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

If a character is receiving continuous damage spikes over a length of time (say, 10-12% of their health a second until mobs start dying)

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Okay but this is a completely fictitious hypothetical that doesn't match any situation in the game. Because that simply doesn't happen - anywhere. The hardest-hitting pulls in any of the current endgame dungeons hit for, at most, roughly 6000 DPS on the tank, completely unmitigated. That's not "10-12% of max HP every second"; that's more like 7-8%, and you're not even taking it unmitigated - with DRK's standard mitigation suite you're almost never taking more than 4k DPS pre-TBN in any dungeon pull. OT damage in P3S during the phases where they take the boss's secondary autos? About 4k DPS unmitigated - only about 5% per second. The very brief windows in P4S where a tank takes more than three auto-attacks consecutively? Still only about 6k unmitigated.

It's all well and good to go "Well, say there's a situation where a tank is taking this amount of damage in this amount of time," but that has absolutely no relevancy if that situation never happens. If I came in here and said "Say there was a fight that hit both tanks with a tankbuster for 120% of their maximum HP every 15 seconds like clockwork..." you would, rightfully, immediately call me out for fabricating an unrealistic scenario to suit my own argument. Yet that's exactly what you're doing here.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Again, by viewing TBN as the catch-all for the kit.

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But who, other than you, does so, given TBN's current strength? Not the concept of a shield. Its being 25% HP, on that cooldown, at that MP cost / refund procedure, in DRK's kit.

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The devs took a hard look at tank design for Shadowbringers, and by the end of it

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Tanks didn't lose defensive value over the course of Shadowbringers.

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DRK was left with TBN and a few other niche abilities for survival.

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Every tank was left with solely their 'on-demand' and a few further abilities. Some (WAR) simply were left with a more powerful on-demand (WAR) or self-heal (also WAR) than others.

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until EW dropped and suddenly tank damage intake was upscaled to fit a new paradigm of tanking that TBN was shockingly not read in on

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Then why would you blame the unchanged tool instead of the relative lack of bonuses come EW?

If I give you the same pay as everyone else and then later give you half the raise that everyone else gets, do you blame your original pay, rather than the difference in raise, for your making less than everyone else?

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In short, DRK retains the design philosophy it had in Shadowbringers

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That's not merely the same design philosophy. It's literally the same skills, outright, plus Oblation and minus Abyssal Drain (having been stuck to Carve and Spit).

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because TBN is poorly suited for sustained damage intake

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And again, the rate of damage has absolutely no bearing on the power of defensive skills outside of nonexistent scenarios whereby one must preheal Cure II every GCD and the single GCD of overheal or delay would therefore cost you your life. All that matters is how much it ultimately mitigates and heals.

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and in part because of its other cooldowns being lackluster in general.

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Not "in part". Almost wholly. Else there's no way in hell people would have been "fine," as you imply, with DRK's defensive kit before Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Seems like combining a parry buff with Dark Mind would at least resolve that particular issue, at least if they want to retain the "slightly better against magic damage" element. Sort of like a personal Addle.

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Personally I say dump it. And Addle as well. I never really found the point of trying to split/target the boss's Damage type. It's either too weak and thus is kinda just there, or it's too strong and people get picked for that.

I mean without watching a guide, what would you use Dark Mind on? That struck me as just odd even back in DRK's 'golden' age in heavenward.

Hi!
I am gonna try to make an attempt at reworking the job, so I kindly ask people to look at THE IDEAS presented and less so at numbers.

1. The job could have 2 combos:
->Hard Slash -> Syphon Strike (600mp ) -> Souleater ( heals + 20 blood )
->Hard Slash -> Delirium ( 400mp ) -> Scourge ( 21 secs DoT + 10 blood )
2. Darkside could stay the same. However its maximum duration could be increased to 120 seconds.
3. ->Living Shadow could be changed to 60 secs.
->When activated, Fray fuses with you and you get to do a new special 5 action combo. This combo would be fast paced, reducing your GCD to 2 seconds ( RDM / Reaper design ) and would be within 1 button.
->Living Shadow would drain your Darkside ( 20 secs per action from the special combo )
4. ->Living Dead could be the same as it is now in matters of CD, Walking Dead, and length.
->Your GCDs and OGCDs heal you for an amount of damage dealt.
5. ->C&S could be 30 seconds to increase frequency.
->Abyssal Drain could be 30 seconds as well. Both sharing a CD is fine, so you get to choose which one you use.
6. Blood weapon could stay the same but 5 stacks. A 40 second CD would be a bit more intuitive since you generate MP which you spend on Edge/Flood to generate Darkside preparing you for your Living Shadow.
7. Dark Arts enhances the next action used, increasing its potency. 20 sec CD. Works on Living Shadow to increase damage of all the combo. Works on TBN to grant a 35% shield, instead of 25%.
8. Dark Arts could also offer Edge/Flood a combo action. If Dark Arts -> Flood you'd get Shadowbringer. If Dark Arts -> Edge -> ? ( Shadowbringer looks like a cooler Flood, this action could be a cooler Edge )
9. ->Blood price replaces Dark Mind. Same CD and duration.
->Heals for a % of damage mitigated via damage reductions or shielding.
10. TBN
-> 25 sec CD, no MP cost
-> If broken grants 1 DarkArts only if it was augmented by DarkArts
-> At lower levels, Oblation is a 15% dmg reduction, at 70, Oblation is upgraded to TBN.

The overall flow of the job would be the kind of the same as it is now. Use Edge/Flood to generate as much Darkside, every 20 secs augment an ability with Dark Arts which bets fits the situation, every 60 secs go into your Living Shadow form to burst the enemy ( preferably augmented by Dark Arts, since they align and with a high Darkside timer), keep up your Scourge DoT, generate as much blood from your basic combos and spend it on Bloodspiller/Quietus or on Living Shadow.

DarkArts could have straight forward uses: use on Flood/Edge for damage as they combo into Shadowbringer/ ( ? ), use on TBN if you need to mitigate, use on Bloodspiller for a high potency heal ( 600? ).
DarkArts does not work with anything other than what was mentioned.

The one thing that TBN has going for it in dungeon pulls is the fact its up 10s faster than any other mitigation, so you get more uses depending on the timing of it as a whole. It's probably the only thing that makes DRK functional in dungeon content.

Something for the "just remove TBN cost and put to 25s and you fixed DRK" Xeno-parroting crowd should consider. And something the mathematicians should factor in, too; pulls aren't done when your first mitigation runs out.

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Originally Posted by RatCopter

The one thing that TBN has going for it in dungeon pulls is the fact its up 10s faster than any other mitigation, so you get more uses depending on the timing of it as a whole. It's probably the only thing that makes DRK functional in dungeon content.

Something for the "just remove TBN cost and put to 25s and you fixed DRK" Xeno-parroting crowd should consider. And something the mathematicians should factor in, too; pulls aren't done when your first mitigation runs out.

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But tbn is a set hp shield so it doesn’t matter how long it is up. A shield and a mitigation skill aren’t same in any shape way or form. Shields scale better with dmg mitigation but here is the kicker because Drk already has the least dmg mitigation skills. The more hits you take, the weaker a shield gets as a dmg reduce option and in the same moment hard % mitigation gets better. A well timed HoC reduces more dmg then 2 tbn could and you get a heal on top

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Originally Posted by Crater

Okay but this is a completely fictitious hypothetical

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Guess we're nitpicking hypotheticals now. K.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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As the other guy said, you are clearly determined to die on this hill and I do not have the energy to invest in bickering.
I've made my point, you deny it flat out or miss the point, you called me insane, I'm bowing out.

Purely focusing on the feedback I want to give to the devs directly, without having other players gatekeep it: DRK is the worst tank to heal in dungeons.

Two solutions to make Living Dead less of a "Benediction only" mechanic, perhaps even making the skill fun to use:

1. Reduce the healing required to remove Walking Dead from 100% of max health to 50%.
2. Add a buff to Walking Dead that increases all healing received by 100%.

Both accomplish the same goal of halving the healing needed to remove Walking Dead, but the first option potentially leaves the DRK with less HP after Walking Dead expires. That said, the first option may feel more "natural" to remove Walking Dead, as most healers upon seeing a tank hit 1hp will try to heal them enough to that they don't die when their invuln expires. Getting a tank to at least 50% HP may just come more naturally than fully healing a tank to 100% (especially in a 10-second window).

If Living dead hasn't been changed for the past 7 years, why would anyone think its going to change now?

The developers are clearly fine with it existing as "You die unless theres a WM with Benediction paying attention", and don't have an issue with that having a longer CD than Holmgang.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

As the other guy said, you are clearly determined to die on this hill.

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The only "hill" I've made a hard stance on is that the only thing that matters to a defensive tool is its total healing+absorption (that there is no impact of a defensive's duration beyond what is already reflected in that total mitigation).

I've not called DRK's defensive kit fine. You alone are insisting that DRK's current kit must be seen as deserved by way of TBN alone rather that it could possibly be an oversight. Your reasoning relies on DRK, of all jobs, not facing an oversight.

Let's be clear, though, your hypothetical situation by which a single GCD of overhealing, as caused by having a shield rather than just percentile mitigation, would put a tank into a death spiral does not exist. If a shield skill and percentile DR skill both prevent the same amount of damage, that is the end of it; there is no more an inherent weakness to a shield over a percentile DR of the same total in-practice mitigation than an 800p direct heal as opposed to a 800p HoT. On the other hand, being able to keep a DRK up through double-pulls on oGCDs alone, same as any other tank, is normal practice for any competent DRK and healer (even Sage). Maybe actually level a DRK or find one who actually uses their defensives?

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you called me insane

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I called insane only your obsessive insistence on blaming for our lack of capacity in other areas a tool that has already proven itself not to be the reason for said problem (since it literally existed, unchanged, at no cost to those capacities before --those capacities even being increased upon DRK's being granted TBN). When you insist on saying "We can't have X because of Y" despite having previously had both X and Y and there having been no changes to Y, yeah, that reasoning is not sane.

"We can't have self-sustain because TBN." -> No, our highest self-healing was in the expansion that gave us TBN. They've clearly never been mutually exclusive.
"TBN covered up the problems with Living Dead." -> No, Living Dead complaint threads did not decrease between HW and Stormblood. They've clearly never been mutually exclusive.
"We can't have identity because of TBN." -> TBN coexisted with multiple combos, Dark Arts interactions, the greatest amount of vampiric healing we've ever had, a unique Delirium, Blood Price, and original Blood Weapon. It did not remove Low Blow, Reprisal, or Dark Dance; each was turned into a Role Action, as was a fourth of PLD's defensive kit and a sixth of Warrior's. TBN cannot be the limiting factor.

I don't get why it's so hard for you to believe that DRK might, just might, be suffering from a lack of attention, rather than solely because TBN is "so strong" that we're firmly not allowed anything more.

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Originally Posted by Pyitoechito

Two solutions to make Living Dead less of a "Benediction only" mechanic, perhaps even making the skill fun to use:

1. Reduce the healing required to remove Walking Dead from 100% of max health to 50%.
2. Add a buff to Walking Dead that increases all healing received by 100%.

Both accomplish the same goal of halving the healing needed to remove Walking Dead, but the first option potentially leaves the DRK with less HP after Walking Dead expires. That said, the first option may feel more "natural" to remove Walking Dead, as most healers upon seeing a tank hit 1hp will try to heal them enough to that they don't die when their invuln expires. Getting a tank to at least 50% HP may just come more naturally than fully healing a tank to 100% (especially in a 10-second window).

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Either one of these options need to be paired with “invulnerable status remains for 10 seconds after WD phase begins regardless of when cleanse occurs”.

That being said, the death mechanic is not fun and “but lore” is a slap in the face by Yoshi when you look at all the abilities that have been deleted, passed out and shuffled around in this game for the sake of appeasement alone.

Last thing I want to see is additional buttons at this point really. Shadowbringer and Oblation have pushed hotbar real estate to the brink already.
If you want to invent wholy new combos to suddenly work into the Dark Knight kit, then I hope it involves a lot of Reaper-esque hotswaps by action changes.

give drk an excog on oblation, living dead fixed

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Originally Posted by Oizen

If Living dead hasn't been changed for the past 7 years, why would anyone think its going to change now?

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Because MNK hadn't changed since launch, and now it has.

At this point, I almost feel like the devs are fu*king with us. They announced a DPS increase for PLD coming in the next patch but are completely silent about DRK's survivability, which has the most complaints by FAR of all the tanks. I'm half expecting them to give WAR more self heals before DRK gets fixed.

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Originally Posted by Xrison

At this point, I almost feel like the devs are fu*king with us. They announced a DPS increase for PLD coming in the next patch but are completely silent about DRK's survivability, which has the most complaints by FAR of all the tanks. I'm half expecting them to give WAR more self heals before DRK gets fixed.

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Don't think it as they're ignoring you, balance patches have never done re-works of jobs, exception of performing so bad.

At the same time Dragonsong Ultimate is coming in 6.1, and making wild changes can really end up with problems than solving, this is all schedule planned, I assume the rework would come 6.2 if I'm being realistic. If it's 6.1, then, ok was all planned.

The big problems with current DRK are these imo:
1. Delirium feels like an Inner Release copy.
2. Living Shadow doesn't do anything. Its a 1 button press every 2 minutes with no interactions.
3. Dark Mind is not so good in general.
4. Shadowbringer while cool looking is just 2 button presses per 2 minutes.
5. Living Dead

How these could be fixed:
->Delirium could go as a GCD for a new combo, along with Scourge making a comeback.
->Living Shadow could be on a 1 min, and offer you a new combo ( like Paladin's Confiteor combo, but around 5 or 6 gcds, granting you a Reaper like Enshroud effect )
->I got this idea for Dark Mind to be renamed Blood price and heal you for a % of damage mitigated and shielded. Would work well in dungeons, and with the kit of DRK in general.
->Shadowbringer could be a combo for Flood. Edge could have the same treatment.
->Someone posted here before that Living Dead could just grant you a 300% max HP shield if you were to die.

Oh and TBN and Oblation combined into one. 20 sec CD. No MP cost. Its horrible to have to weave while bursting TBN , Oblation, Dark Mind, Shadow wall and the many other OGCDs for damage.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Guess we're nitpicking hypotheticals now. K.

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It is absolutely not a "nitpick". We're making a comparison between mitigation via a flat-value shield that scales with your stats, and percentage-based mitigation that scales with incoming damage.

If you then go on to choose a hypothetical that just casually presumes incoming damage that is at least 150-200% the amount of incoming damage found anywhere in the game, you are being dishonest, whether you mean to be or not.

It matters that you do some basic research if you're going to participate in these discussions. This is simple arithmetic; there's a right answer and a wrong one.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

A well timed HoC reduces more dmg then 2 tbn could

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For HoC to nullify more damage than 2 TBNs, you'd have to have nullified, off a mere 30 and/or 15% mitigation, 50% of your HP over 8 seconds.

That means, at minimum, you'd have to take what would have been 167% of your HP (enough to kill you, through a non-crit Catharsis of Corundum, from full HP) in the first 4 seconds. If the damage was taken over more time than the first 4 seconds, the would-be damage would have to be doubled, because the mitigation at that point nullifies only half as much (15%, down from 30%).

What, in this game, deals 167% of your HP, after all other forms of mitigation (as in, leaving out only TBN/HoC), in under 4 seconds without you having taken unnecessary vuln stacks?

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

-How these could be fixed:
->Delirium could go as a GCD for a new combo, along with Scourge making a comeback.
->Living Shadow could be on a 1 min, and offer you a new combo ( like Paladin's Confiteor combo, but around 5 or 6 gcds, granting you a Reaper like Enshroud effect )
->I got this idea for Dark Mind to be renamed Blood price and heal you for a % of damage mitigated and shielded. Would work well in dungeons, and with the kit of DRK in general.
->Shadowbringer could be a combo for Flood. Edge could have the same treatment.
->Someone posted here before that Living Dead could just grant you a 300% max HP shield if you were to die.

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[1] Please not this. If the problem with Delirium Release is that it's spammy and thoughtless, copying anything like Confiteor combo would just be spammy, thoughtless, and even more constraining.

[2] Does that actually do anything different, except to fetter Shadowbringer slightly?

Fully agreed on the problems you mentioned, though.

Honestly after playing them both a bit the TBN problem could be solved with a simple 2 stack of AD on a 30 to 45s cd

(this is not to say that tbn is good gameplay wise simple it gets the job done but needs a buffer)

I think HoC has a solid buffer and that's what makes it so good that 900 pot heal after dropping is a nice safety net (comfy but not too comfy) and TBN is not about safety more of brace for impact (gameplay wise)

TLDR I don't hate the EW Drk but its definitely a dice roll when you play it in dungeons but raids and bosses no worry actually its pretty dam good in those
I feel like a dps in content with cds kinda like GNB in early ShB
I for one am a fan of spamming all your abilities and double weaving etc but I feel that's for more dps then anything. Makes it more hard to mit when your in a dps rotation as a tank

I am still for a redesign of Drk Im not a fan of bubbles or my back breaking when I swing my sword (and don't give me that crap about its heavy that excuse is dead)
BUT the DrK got if they were do anything to just bandage the living problem for now I would think that a simple solution
They job does have a form of synergy but not in the conventional way though this isn't benifital to anyone(especially casual players- not to mock just stating-)
More direct and real synergy would be better

Also get rid of LD like IDK about lore anymore this is just neglect at this point or pride.

From a casual perspective, I just think TBN should heal, and should have synergy with oblation.
If the whole shield is not broken -> you recover HP depending of how much of your shield is remaining (so, at least when you are soloing a dungeon boss, you can heal between the "busters". Would also allow to heal a teammate before the next raid-wide if the healer is down)
If you use TBN while in Oblation -> you recover HP on top of getting the shield. That to make the level 82 ability a bit more "on par" with other tanks.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

Don't think it as they're ignoring you, balance patches have never done re-works of jobs, exception of performing so bad.

At the same time Dragonsong Ultimate is coming in 6.1, and making wild changes can really end up with problems than solving, this is all schedule planned, I assume the rework would come 6.2 if I'm being realistic. If it's 6.1, then, ok was all planned.

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You should avoid speaking like that in the forums, yoship said is he not pleased the way we speak and make complains so maybe be patient and a bit more humble.

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Originally Posted by Vatom

Also get rid of LD like IDK about lore anymore this is just neglect at this point or pride.

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Living Dead isn't bad. *Chorus of booing DRKs*

Lemme put it a different way; as design it's bad. As an idea, I like it. People joke about being "Too Angry to die" and that's basically what Living Dead gives me, too angry/vengeful to die, can't bother to be in the ground when people need saving and monsters need killing.

The Problem is that kinda by design, it really feels like "OH I hope you have a Benediction on hand." Even prepared healers can flub this from another of factors. Though GNB has a simliar issue, the fact they don't have a built in death timer and only have the boss to kill them makes it feel and behave different.

Living Dead can stay but it needs to have a way of lessening the stress on both the DRK and any healer that they're partnered with. I'm sure there's a number of ways to fix this; Have our blood gauge affect our HP when going into it, massive Lifesteal, boosted incoming heals, something. I believe there's a couple ways you can make this to be easier but also more interesting. Heck they could just bake in more Healing/Life steal into the kit as a whole to help out.

OR. We just make "ShadowDouble - Make all instances of damage miss. 10s duration", make it have a shadow/Fray double take the hits instead, and just roll only.

Well the idea would be to have Living Shadow act like a Reaper's Enshroud allowing you 23 seconds to pull of a new fast paced combo ( like RDM, RPR) of 5 or 6 GCDs. You have 23 seconds to use it since you will be in the Living Shadow form, that's plenty of time, and other shouldn't interrupt it.

Shadowbringer could contribute as a heal or maybe just as damage.
At the end of the day DRKs identity should be Living Shadow as a "I go crazy mode", and Dark Arts to augment abilities.
If you strip down the design of something like Edge to its core, it does damage. Now what's the difference between an Edge with 500 potency and a Dark Arts which makes Edge stronger by 25% but Edge has 400 potency?
They are the same, except the choice of using Dark Arts on it, when you coould perhaps use it on something else for another use.
If Dark Arts would return it should have clear uses:
-augment one ability for better defense
-augment one ability for more damage
-augment one ability for healing

If you can augment 2 abilities for damage when they are the same, it becomes bloat, if one is weaker than the other, it becomes not so good.

I was trying to include work on Shadowbringer into a more interactive kit. Like what if using Dark Arts on Flood/Edge allowed you this combo into Shadowbringer / "stronger Edge" and that'd be the damager oriented use for a new Dark Arts? Use it on Bloodspiller and you get a bit of a damage loss, but you heal for a lot. Use it on TBN for defense and you get a 35% shield, and the DarkArts back if TBN breaks.

Little interactions like this giving you a choice between mitigation, sustain and pure damage would be pretty cool imo for DarkArts.
Of course, mitigating properly should be rewarded so you do not lose damage, doing more damage should do more damage, and if you made a mistske you can have the flexibility to recover, with a small damage loss.

I especially think Dark Mind turning into Blood price which would heal you for a % of damage mitigated and shielded would bring some synergy. ( Thrill of battle but DRK style?)

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Originally Posted by Xrison

At this point, I almost feel like the devs are fu*king with us. They announced a DPS increase for PLD coming in the next patch but are completely silent about DRK's survivability, which has the most complaints by FAR of all the tanks. I'm half expecting them to give WAR more self heals before DRK gets fixed.

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Did you see yoship complaining about users being abusive with comments? Maybe you should be way more polite and humble instead of using that kind of language.

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Living Dead isn't bad. *Chorus of booing DRKs*

Lemme put it a different way; as design it's bad. As an idea, I like it. People joke about being "Too Angry to die" and that's basically what Living Dead gives me, too angry/vengeful to die, can't bother to be in the ground when people need saving and monsters need killing.

The Problem is that kinda by design, it really feels like "OH I hope you have a Benediction on hand." Even prepared healers can flub this from another of factors. Though GNB has a simliar issue, the fact they don't have a built in death timer and only have the boss to kill them makes it feel and behave different.

Living Dead can stay but it needs to have a way of lessening the stress on both the DRK and any healer that they're partnered with. I'm sure there's a number of ways to fix this; Have our blood gauge affect our HP when going into it, massive Lifesteal, boosted incoming heals, something. I believe there's a couple ways you can make this to be easier but also more interesting. Heck they could just bake in more Healing/Life steal into the kit as a whole to help out.

OR. We just make "ShadowDouble - Make all instances of damage miss. 10s duration", make it have a shadow/Fray double take the hits instead, and just roll only.

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GNB : Heart of corundum triggers when gnb uses his invul = instant 20-30% hp back + aurora if you want. Does not die when hp did not fully recover.
DRK : Rely on healer, often dies even with healer focus without benediction. Needs to recover 100% of hp to not die after invul.

Both invuls are not equally bad (not even close) if you take the tanks toolkit into account.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seife

GNB : Heart of corundum triggers when gnb uses his invul = instant 20-30% hp back + aurora if you want
DRK : Rely on healer

Both invuls are not equally bad (not even close) if you take the tanks toolkit into account.

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Not to mention that Superbolide is 10 seconds of true invulnerability, whereas Living Dead still has the DrK get the crap smacked out of them.

XIV Dev Team,

I may have a suggestion for how to adjust Dark Knight going forward. Please consider these suggestions as they may make ithe job enjoyed by the player base again but without wildly affecting the hierarchy of other tanks. I will justify each change beneath its description:

1) Blood Weapon lasts 30 seconds, 5 weaponskill/spell charges, and gives mp for every target hit.
-Removes the clunkiness and demand for a specific skillspeed (and/or ping) to use it. MP return per target hit gives it value in dungeons so it doesn't feel as bad to use in multitarget scenarios.

2) The Blackest Night mp cost removed, Dark Arts proc removed, recast timer extended to 20 seconds.
- Removes punishment for not maximizing the cooldown's value (something no other tank gets punished for), does not become tied to damage,
and does not become an overpowered short cooldown to the other 3 tanks comparatively as they will still have healing effects. The Dark Arts proc removal is explained next.

3) Delirium ability renamed to Dark Arts. Grants Dark Arts effect for 20 seconds.
Dark Arts effect: allows execution of Bloodspiller without Bloodgauge cost (3 charges), and grants ability to use Spinning Slash -> Delirium -> Power Slash as combo'd weaponskills 1 time. (Spinning Slash replaces Hard Slash, Delirium replaces Syphon Strike, Power Slash replaces Souleater).
- gives single target combo variety that other tanks have but DRK does not (while avoiding button bloat), and allows enough time for execution of the 3 Bloodspillers and the new 1-2-3 combo.

4) Abyssal Drain no longer shares a recast timer with Carve and Spit.
Abyssal Drain damages all targets in a 5y radius for 100 potency, and grants 8 seconds of Soul Drain: restores HP with a potency of 400 when landing weaponskills or spells.
Recast timer: 60 seconds
-Gives self sustain on a fashion similar to Holy Spirit but without being a strong as Bloodwhetting.

5) Dark Mind reduces magic damage taken by 20% and physical damage taken by 10%.
Recast timer: 90 seconds
-Allows more flexible use of the cooldown, especially in dungeons during trash packs. Would act similar to Gunbreaker's Camouflage.

6) Living Shadow: Esteem "pet" able to be resized to small and large just like Bahamut.
-Quality of life change for those who mistake it for an enemy during an encounter.

7) Living Dead: grants the effect of Walking Dead when HP reduced to 0.
Living Dead duration: 10 seconds
Walking Dead: most attacks cannot reduce your HP to less than 1.
Walking Dead Duration: 10 seconds.
Recast timer: 300 seconds.
- Removes the punishment for using an invuln ability, and gives it the Holmgang effect without being a strong as Holmgang due to recast time.

I hope this message finds you well, and thank you for all you do.

-Beat Steele (Behemoth)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seife

GNB : Heart of corundum triggers when gnb uses his invul = instant 20-30% hp back + aurora if you want. Does not die when hp did not fully recover.
DRK : Rely on healer, often dies even with healer focus without benediction. Needs to recover 100% of hp to not die after invul.

Both invuls are not equally bad (not even close) if you take the tanks toolkit into account.

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I’ll be honest I had to look up Corundum. I was just rolling with the rest of the info. Corundum included really just blows the comparison out of the water.

Why the heck don’t we have something like that?

That said the idea of “Oh no I need to hard heal the DRK now” vs “Great I JUST hard healed the GNB and it’s gone” was what I was getting at. One is annoying, the other can lead to death. And I think we all know which is which.

Still I would like to see something done to it than just “Fine here’s an invulnerable” with a fancy name and animation. I know they’ll bring back the animation for Sole Survivor

At this point I would be okay if the devs just turned living dead into Holmgang. Living dead, as is, needs to die one last time and forever.

Some spitballing ideas:

Blood gauge becomes a duplicate of HP gauge, whenever you use an effect that restores your HP it also fills up this gauge for the same amount.

Blood weapon gets 5 stacks. Hits restores MP and HP.

Dark Arts is back. Costs 3000MP. Can hold 3 charges. Bloodspiller and Quietus use a DA charge instead of blood. Delirium gives you 3 stacks for free.

Bloodspiller and Quietus restore HP. Grant 30s of Darkside.

Flood removed. Edge is now AoE. Standard 2 charge oGCD. Upgrades to Shadowbringer.

Dark Mind becomes current Oblation, Oblations becomes an upgrade to Dark Mind. 20% DR. Doesn't stack.

TBN uses 25% of your blood gauge.

Blood Price is back, when you are hit, HP equal to 50% of the damage inflicted goes into your blood gauge.

New skill: Exsanguinate. Swaps your Blood and HP bars. Or if the potential for abusing it for back to back to back to back blackest nights proves to easy to abuse/too potent when abused, then I guess it could just dump your blood gauge into your HP bar.

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Blood is essentially purely defensive, with MP functioning as your DPS job gauge.

Some rough maths gets me a figure of roughly 3 or 4 souleaters to restore 25% of your HP, our about 30 to 37.5s to gain a TBN.

That's a bit slow by default, but under this system you've also got bloodspiller, blood weapon and blood price helping build up that pool. Blood weapon alone should give you a third of your HP bar back every 60s, assuming you're not tanking you'd get about 3 TBN's a minute.

Exsanguinate just seems like a neat idea.
Blood pricing during a big pull then using all those hits to refill your HP bar
Could also be used to fix yourself up after a big tank buster, or to stop your invuln from killing you.

Now that I do some crappy napkin math, this might be a little bit too much self sustain. Numbers would have to be tweaked.

The main idea is that as you attack you "steal" your enemies life force and use it to keep yourself and your allies going, the more frenzied your attacks (dark arts, delirium, bloodspiller) the more you take and the more you can survive. It's not the using your HP to power attacks of older Dark Knights, but I like to think it would have a similar "feel" to it.

Maybe.

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I know it would still be a fairly simple job, but I tried to keep the ideas in realms of the theoretically possible given the design outlook from Shadowbringers onwards.

I stopped playing DRK for a little bit in order to get the other three tank jobs up to the same level so that I have options for current dungeons. I recently went back to DRK and I have to say, the overall playstyle feels very clunky. Nothing seems to "flow" if that makes sense. Also, after leveling WAR up, I can see why some people say DRK is just a poor imitation of it. Some of our skills are just watered down versions of the same abilities WAR has.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Living Dead can stay but it needs to have a way of lessening the stress on both the DRK and any healer that they're partnered with. I'm sure there's a number of ways to fix this; Have our blood gauge affect our HP when going into it, massive Lifesteal, boosted incoming heals, something. I believe there's a couple ways you can make this to be easier but also more interesting. Heck they could just bake in more Healing/Life steal into the kit as a whole to help out.

OR. We just make "ShadowDouble - Make all instances of damage miss. 10s duration", make it have a shadow/Fray double take the hits instead, and just roll only.

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Funny I had drop this same idea back im ShB but not many cared for it lol oh the days fly.
No its not bad other then its death or heal me and those terms dont work for Drk at all

Though I did have a new concept for LD

It feel along the lines like nullify haft the damage and the other haft becomes a dot that last for 15s that can be mit by TBN
The other one was the mass shield that pop up when you enter walking dead and percentage base will sap your MP to return health equal to the shield
but the shield will diminish based off of the amount of heals you receive lowering the cost of MP at the end
like a uber beni that you that cost all your MP but your current HP reduces the amount of Mp taken to give that heal me aspect in a less dire situation

another:
Living Dead change
While Living Dead is active, healing received is increased. (idc by what amount, even 5% make it worth using)
When Walking Dead activates, the DRK receives "Weakness". Only removed if healed by 100% of their max HP before Walking Dead wears off.
Its pretty much the same thing, but would feel more like a reraise, with the possibility of removing the weakness, AND if benediction goes off quick enough, you still keep the "unable to die" factor.

(also same recast as holmgang. idc what u think)
(lastly, this isnt how id actually want it to function. this is more of a "the devs are being stubborn, so maybe this would meet them in the middle")

Just make living dead capture all damage received, your health cannot go past 1 while active. Upon effect end heal for all damage received while living dead was active. I know thats taking a slight copy from AST ability but its different from other tank invulns.

Devs already said living dead is fine so dont hold your breath for changes.

People are excluding PLD from savages so that will be addressed before any DRK changes anyway.

I'm a GNB main and leveling drk to 84 was enough for me. Cds don't line up, TBN is absolute trash with a resource cost, mitigation is HW outdated and you will die. This class is like a beta version of what it should be and what it is, is baaaaad.