Dark Knight Megathread

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...That... would be pretty slick, yeah. Bit of balancing hazard, though, if Spell Reflect (even after its damage getting capped) is anything to go by.

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I mean, assuming what I said with it mitigating 10% outright and having another 10% magical DR, we can assume the reflection only applies to the latter half.
If it only reflects 10% of the damage, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a hazard as Reflect proper completely negating attacks while ripping the enemy apart.
You're still getting hit with another 80%, so it has plenty of opportunity to kill you.

But that's just wishlisting at that point.

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Granted, I'd honestly prefer we more often allowed for little bonuses here and there in general

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I'm of two minds on this.

On the one hand, I agree that it would be cool to see each tank get their own special "bonus" like partial reflection, Spikes effects, special counterattacks, that sort. Things that don't significantly impact their baseline effectiveness but do give them a slight edge for gaming specific mechanics for bonus damage.

On the other hand, having spent a decade on WoW dealing with the yo-yo of both being forced to take a specific spec due to "optimal" performance and "take the player not the class" as an argument for homogeny, it's an extremely fine line.

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Originally Posted by MHoro

Or get rid of Oblation and give us back Dark Dance and the good old Abyssal Drain

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I'm guessing you mean the Dark Arts-ed version? Dark Dance normal was only, at most ~4% physical mitigation (20% chance of 20% mitigation via parry, which only worked against most melee attacks, as some were arbitrarily made not parryable, and was bypassed by crits), if taken apart from the synergy of Low Blow resets and Reprisal procs, etc.

Old Abyssal Drain would help a lot in dungeons, but it'd do nothing for our also having the least self-sustain in 8-man content, sadly. Not that there aren't plenty of ways to fix that.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

If it only reflects 10% of the damage, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a hazard as Reflect proper completely negating attacks while ripping the enemy apart.

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I wasn't referring to the defensive value, only to potentially having some extra 100 rDPS or the like owed to a specific fight just because it finally has a proper amount of magical tankbusters, and the possible oddities of not wanting to stack mitigation (other than TBN, since barrier-absorbed damaged wouldn't have anti-synergy with it) with Dark Mind against said magical tankbusters just because it'd cost you damage, etc. It'd be small, but, we're a community that gets very touchy even over half-percent disparities in the ultimate metric, rDPS.

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On the other hand, having spent a decade on WoW dealing with the yo-yo of both being forced to take a specific spec due to "optimal" performance and "take the player not the class" as an argument for homogeny, it's an extremely fine line.

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I mean, it can be, but WoW has never had homogeneity to the degree we've had since Stormblood (or arguably even since 2.1), and yet spec participation imbalance has still been far more an issue of tuning (especially as results from borrowed powers) than of inapplicable niches. I tanked up to +15s on every tank spec but Brew (just... wasn't a fan after BfA) back in 9.0 and even the most non-meta among them certainly had their advantages. (Prot Warrior, for instance, was a legit sleeper spec and despite having by far the lowest participation -- heck, I regularly outparsed Prot Paladins on my speedrun build.) And they actually felt and played differently from one another, rather than just having the same base template with 4 different flavors of animation (and the sustain of one randomly being given over to another that already needed it least).

And it's not as if XIV doesn't exclude choices over smaller issues, often precisely because there's just that much less that'd ever be uniquely on offer...

I'd have to think more on it, but personally I definitely lean towards wanting less homogeneity than we have now, especially since --aside from our community, for now, barring participation over much smaller disparities than WoW's does-- we are in a better position to exploit that diversity, what with all tanks being placeable on the same character.

That'd still require that the diversity be designed in such a way that you're performing a fight a little differently each time based on your tank line-up, rather than just one tank being made pseudo-obligatory and nothing else changing, but that seems to me a worthwhile line of effort.

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Originally Posted by MHoro

upgrade TBN so that if the shield did not pop, the remaining shield becomes HP.

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My loftiest hopes are things like:

* If TBN pops early, the target gets a 10-15% mitigation effect for the remaining duration
* The target of TBN also receives a 10-20% boost to incoming healing effects received for a duration
* Damage absorbed/negated by TBN during the first four seconds simultaneously heals the target for the same amount

Pick any two (and +1 sec bubble duration) in place of Oblation, and that would line up with the 82 traits.

... I'd also be fine to see it bumped up to 25s CD and 0 MP cost, but I'm sure I'd get another complaint about homogenizing if I went that far.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

... I'd also be fine to see it bumped up to 25s CD and 0 MP cost, but I'm sure I'd get another complaint about homogenizing if I went that far.

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Well, yeah. If you strip away something's unique gameplay in order to standardize it, that would certainly be yet more homogenization on a job that's already been hit hard by such for its last two iterations.

(And/or then there'd also be the problem of having stuck 4 now-free Edges per minute onto popping TBNs, unless you also remove Dark Arts as a mechanic, causing us to now have 1200 potency per minute tuned around our ability to pop 4 TBNs per minute, meaning our damage is, upon balance adjustments, nerfed anytime we can't accomplish that.)

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* If TBN pops early, the target gets a 10-15% mitigation effect for the remaining duration
* The target of TBN also receives a 10-20% boost to incoming healing effects received for a duration
* Damage absorbed/negated by TBN during the first four seconds simultaneously heals the target for the same amount

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The last seems a bit OP (50% total shielding+healing) but fun. The first seems the most reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Well, yeah. If you strip away something's unique gameplay in order to standardize it, that would certainly be yet more homogenization on a job that's already been hit hard by such for its last two iterations.

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On the other hand, given the current MP restriction of it, a fixed 25s CD isn't too far off from its existing limitations.

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The last seems a bit OP (50% total shielding+healing) but fun.

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It's the only way I can think of to match the "double the effect for the first four seconds" value the other 3 receive without making it harder to receive Dark Arts, since the devs seemed very excited about the concept of "timing your mitigation right before the hit for extra reward" in the lead-up to the expansion when discussing the other tank changes.

Yet another reason why TBN is not the most compatible with the shifting paradigm the other mitigations fall under. Unique, yes, but difficult to balance for the same situations as a result.

Still, there's a substantial amount of healing from the other 3 in addition to their mitigation and bonus effects, and at least this would be a unique way of doing it. Two birds, one stone?

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

On the other hand, given the current MP restriction of it, a fixed 25s CD isn't too far off from its existing limitations.

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True, but consider the difference between Holy Shelltron and Heart of Corundum, for instance. Though you'd clip HoT value if using it before 9 to 12 seconds --and mitigation itself if within 8s-- had elapsed since the prior cast, Shelltron's two charges are pretty damn helpful. Meanwhile, there are quite a few mechanics that time out to just 12 or 15 seconds apart from one another, where TBN could still pop if precast early enough on the first to again be used on the second. They're far from frequent enough to make TBN a true mere 15s CD in practice outside of AoE, but they're certainly an element that adds engagement to the kit. If you level up yours through Endwalker, you'd doubtless find quite a few little places to just barely squeeze basically (mechanically) back-to-back TBNs. And, to me at least, that's fun -- certainly more so than being stuck on a cut-and-dry, no-risk 25s CD.

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Still, there's a substantial amount of healing from the other 3 in addition to their mitigation and bonus effects, and at least this would be a unique way of doing it. Two birds, one stone?

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Makes sense. I like it. Honestly, it mostly just reminds me a bit of how strong Nascent was relative to other on-demands back in ShB -- a bit shocking, but not quite so great as to be worth others' complaining about it. Or, heck, it literally is 1.x Paladin's Aegis Boon, but with a %HP cap instead of mitigating (and then healing for) 100% of next hit regardless of its damage.

...Kinda fits the "Oblation" flavor, too: "Feed me your damage." Yeah, honestly, I'd love either the first or last idea quite a bit.

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Originally Posted by battleshadow66

Heard somewhere that the Dev team doesn't take advice or even look at the NA community forums and such when it comes to gameplay. They look at the JP player base only it seems. I forget where, but when asked, Yoshi said something like, "they didn't see any issues when looking at JP databases" or something like that. Might be way off, but at least for me, it sure does feel that way.

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Some english speaking japaneses went on the western side of the forum to express their complain.
Because they thought SQEX only listened to westerners.

If that's not a red flag about feedback, I don't know what is.
...Oh wait, Living Dead unchanged for 3 expansions in a row now.

On the topic of DRK reflecting magic damage back, this mechanic already exists in the game in an objectively more powerful way in the form of Warriors Vengeance. 50 potency reflect on physical attacks, which are significantly more common, on a 30% mitigation skill. That's not to say I'm against it, but the framework is already there from the very job people say DRK is just an edgy copy of. Can't really complain about homogenization just to then ask for it in favor of a less-useful gimmick version of it. I'm not entirely against homogenizing tanks defensive values, there should be a certain degree of it with unique flavors on each one (PLD getting blocks, warrior healing for days, GNB parry etc) but if you don't homogenize just enough while trying to keep them unique one tank will inevitably fall behind defensively, which is exactly what we're seeing with DRK. It's uniwue, but that's why it sucks defensively. It needs a better defensive kit and fixing Dark Mind, taking TBN off DPS resource, and giving Oblation a small 5% buff would probably be all it takes in total honesty.

What if DRK had a skill that would consume Dark Mind for a different effect? Like how WAR gets Thrill of Battle, DRK can consume Dark Mind and maybe Oblation (spitballing here, just woke up and don't feel like big-braining) for another effect and since Oblation has two charges you could theoretically just consume one charge and use another? Just a morning coffee thought.

What would the consumption reward be like?

And yeah, Vengeance has always been a weird outlier, especially since the rest of Warriors kit was standardized. I'd prefer others get their own benefits of similar value than remove that bonus, but since Shadow ringers it's been hard to point at any compensatory weakness in WAR's kit that'd warrant, let alone notably synergize with, Vengeance's reflect damage.

(At least back in Stormblood we had stuff like Blood Price and Oath Gauge from blocks.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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My knee jerk reaction is to say a shield, but that literally is Shake it Off (I said Thrill of Battle above, oops... Was still waking up) and DRK does fine against tank busters so a fat shield would be just more of the same problem in that shields are good, but mitigation is better and DRK is fine in the shielding department, only PLD (and arguably GNB with only BS shield) lacks self shielding. Dark Missionary is fine for party wide mitigation since most raid damage is magical, though I have problems with that skill too, but that's another topic. As a skill it's fine so raid-mitigation might not be suitable either. I suppose when it comes down to it, I'd make this the heal with another effect?

15s Heal over time potency of 100 per consumed ability (so 200 max if it's just Dark Mind + Oblation, if my napkin math is right this makes it at most 1000 potency heal after full duration. If I were to add more "consumed" abilities I'd try keeping it at a 200 per tick cap unless it was underperforming.)
Reduce Damage Taken by xx% (not buffed by amount of abilities consumed)

Keeping damage reduction off of other abilities consumed increases versatility since it doesn't necessarily need to consume your other abilities, meaning you can choose strength of the ability, or duration, but you can also always do the Shake it Off thing where you use it with 1s remaining anyway, adding a small skill curve to the ability. It would also give a HoT that DRK so desperately needs without tying the HoT to TBN like people keep saying (Which would be the WORST place to place a HoT for reasons I have said before) and all without actually getting rid of the gimmick of Dark Mind that the devs are so insistent on keeping. I got The Chrysalis today and was pumped because Dark Mind is actually good there, and as much as that was a nice feeling, that comes from a bad place. You should never be excited that you actually get to use one of your abilities, but if it must stay, it should be capable of being used in a different way, in this case turning it into a HoT in all content where it is not useful. I think without doing the math most of the time 20% damage reduction would be more useful than 500 potency HoT so it would still be better used as mitigation in the situations where it is good.

EDIT: I refrained from giving a specific mitigation percent because I'm not sure how much DRK would actually need since healing and shielding does make percent mitigation more impactful, but it could be tuned a little higher if it required the consumption of at least one ability to be used at all, which could be a very real possibility for an ability like this, but might make it a little noisier with oGCD's since using it without needing a heal would be 2 oGCD's instead of 1, but at the same time not using it with Dark Mind in encounters where it makes no actual difference (which is a LOT) is a complete waste of its strength so it may never actually get used without being under the effects of at least one anyway, so it could be made into a 15/20% reduction, but I'm more trying to discuss the principle of the ability rather than the effectiveness. You must first determine how an ability works before you can balance it.

When the patch notes for 6.08 are dropped today we'll find out! If there is nothing for DRK in them I have little hope for the entire 6.xx cycle.

Its crazy how much more survivable Warrior is currently. When I was leveling Warrior, healers died at the l85 and l87 dungeons on me a few times and I could solo both bosses from 60% or more easily.

Can't even do that from the 20s as a DRK.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

My knee jerk reaction is to say a shield, but that literally is Shake it Off (I said Thrill of Battle above, oops... Was still waking up).

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No worries, I kind of figured.

As we've discussed before, I don't think there's anything inherently weaker about stat-based defensives like %HP or potency shields (they're stronger until X damage and weaker thereafter, so they need only be tuned relative to content in such a way as to be frequently --but not typically-- superior, with their side-benefits like debuff nullification or freedom of application [as per self-heals] further compensating from time to time for that balancing point). But, as you've mentioned before, they also work better in a compensating context. For instance, if DRK had something like a Blood Price that increases Defense (a content-scaling effect) with each damage taken or each hit taken, etc., then you have something to supplement the likes of TBN, just as Stem the Flow complements Stem the Tide and Bloodwhetting's heal-per-hit, etc.

Sorry, I'm coming off a really bad cold, so I may be still be a bit ramble-y.

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I suppose when it comes down to it, I'd make this the heal with another effect?

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Just to check, this is consuming Dark Mind (or some fixed version thereof) and/with/via Oblation? I should have asked earlier, but would this work like Shake it Off in the sense that optimizing the interaction involves waiting until the last possible moment to consume it, since the benefit for consumption wouldn't scale at all with the duration wasted? I like the idea of "offering up" an ability, so long as for whatever reason we keep Oblation in (as a name and theme), but its behavior would depend greatly upon how that consumption is rewarded / what factors are included.

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Keeping damage reduction off of other abilities consumed increases versatility since it doesn't necessarily need to consume your other abilities, meaning you can choose strength of the ability, or duration,

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Yeah, absolutely, especially if consumed duration is a factor. More incoming damage -> don't consume. Would otherwise be sitting on the CD, if wanting to get sizeable value out of it, for too long otherwise and have HP margin to spare -> consume.

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It would also give a HoT that DRK so desperately needs without tying the HoT to TBN like people keep saying (Which would be the WORST place to place a HoT for reasons I have said before)

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Out of curiosity, do you here a mean a HoT specifically, or just in the sense that, say, a HoT can provide more throughput than it'd actually typically be balanced for since it gives up some control/responsiveness? Is this more an interest in just getting gear-based sustain up there whatever way we can without throwing more barrier at BarrierBoy or getting too heavily taxed for on-demand heals (since we're not Warrior and therefore don't get a free pass)? I'd just like to hear why you think DRK desparately needs a HoT in particular (or why a HoT would uniquely meet DRK's needs).

And, yeah, HoT-after-TBN would have comically bad anti-synergy, agreed.

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and all without actually getting rid of the gimmick of Dark Mind that the devs are so insistent on keeping.

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Sorry, I read into your idea more of the earlier contexts regarding Dark Mind than I should have, I think? To be clear, would the above idea of consumption be primarily aimed at dealing with varying damage intake or more of just giving you another way to use Dark Mind for when there's no magic damage to mitigate (a bit alike to the earlier ideas in which Dark Artskresia could toggle Dark Mind to something anti-physical instead)?

To go back to Archwizard and RyuDragnier's earlier DM adjustment suggestions, we could probably get the devs to at least give it the Camouflage treatment and a bit of extra compensation for magic being the less common damage type (such as a shorter cooldown for a given mitigation percentile times duration). If not for bloat, there's also the effect-shifting ideas like a versatile Dark Arts (a al Eukrasia), returning Dark Dance (though obviously stronger than its original 20% parry alone, if it's to compete), but either to lesser total effect or else on a shared CD with Dark Mind.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

It would also give a HoT that DRK so desperately needs without tying the HoT to TBN like people keep saying (Which would be the WORST place to place a HoT for reasons I have said before)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Out of curiosity, do you here a mean a HoT specifically, or just in the sense that, say, a HoT can provide more throughput than it'd actually typically be balanced for since it gives up some control/responsiveness? Is this more an interest in just getting gear-based sustain up there whatever way we can without throwing more barrier at BarrierBoy or getting too heavily taxed for on-demand heals (since we're not Warrior and therefore don't get a free pass)? I'd just like to hear why you think DRK desparately needs a HoT in particular (or why a HoT would uniquely meet DRK's needs).

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I mean, potentially unpopular opinion, but I'd rather DRK didn't get a HoT.

That's not to say I hope DRK doesn't get some sustainable form of self-healing -- I'm a huge advocate of it being a leech tank like WAR (or usurping WAR for that position given their respective histories and aesthetics, not to mention DRK's long-standing precedent through Sole Survivor, AD and Tar Pit) -- and I'm well aware it's the only tank left without a HoT at this point.
But unless it's being slowly leeched from enemies (... I have some thoughts on Salted Earth now actually), I feel like a HoT simply isn't DRK's style or aesthetic, y'know? Especially not giving healing effects to other people, since that strays perhaps too closely to the aesthetic of the PLD that it exists in opposition to.

That being said, as far as "consume Dark Mind to improve Dark Missionary"... I will advise we tread lightly, since if we're arguing for any kind of buff to Dark Missionary, we have to keep in mind that it occupies the same niche as GNB's Heart of Light, much as Shake It Off and Divine Veil do with each other.
... Not to mention that there's the potential for DMind to be relegated to being saved exclusively for DMissionary to consume it for the boost. While that's not an issue for Shake It Off, the effects it consumes have individually strong use-cases and the benefit they give SIO is relatively small, unlike present DMind for a raidwide HoT (just look at RPR's HoT, which even at 50p is still fairly hefty, and for a tank to get value out of it you could expect stronger).

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I mean, potentially unpopular opinion, but I'd rather DRK didn't get a HoT.

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Same, honestly. Whether that come in the form of MP spenders, conditional interactions between other skills and MP spenders, Blood spenders, flexibly-timeable CDs, or whatever else, I'd still generally prefer something that feels a bit... sharper --more precisely timeable and immediately impactful-- than a HoT.

Agreed, also, in regard to any means of improving Dark Missionary, especially if such would follow the "not necessarily a punishment" (so long as you can make use of Vengeance or Thrill their duration's time before hitting Shake it Off) procedure that Shake it Off uses.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Just to check, this is consuming Dark Mind (or some fixed version thereof) and/with/via Oblation? I should have asked earlier, but would this work like Shake it Off in the sense that optimizing the interaction involves waiting until the last possible moment to consume it, since the benefit for consumption wouldn't scale at all with the duration wasted? I like the idea of "offering up" an ability, so long as for whatever reason we keep Oblation in (as a name and theme), but its behavior would depend greatly upon how that consumption is rewarded / what factors are included.

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Yeah I'm thinking working like Shake it Off in that regard, but this was a morning thought so it can always be improved on. Not sure what you mean by keeping Oblation? It would consume oblation but it would not replace it, you'd still have it. BUt this would be a new ability, not a replacement/upgrade to Oblation/TBN. This would technically give DRK the most unique mitigations, but all of their uniques (TBN aside) are pretty weak, so I think it would stay balanced, especially since a "consuming" ability would make it harder to stack mitigations anyway.

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Out of curiosity, do you here a mean a HoT specifically, or just in the sense that, say, a HoT can provide more throughput than it'd actually typically be balanced for since it gives up some control/responsiveness? Is this more an interest in just getting gear-based sustain up there whatever way we can without throwing more barrier at BarrierBoy or getting too heavily taxed for on-demand heals (since we're not Warrior and therefore don't get a free pass)? I'd just like to hear why you think DRK desparately needs a HoT in particular (or why a HoT would uniquely meet DRK's needs).

And, yeah, HoT-after-TBN would have comically bad anti-synergy, agreed.

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DRK with a Hot in my opinion would be a great boon. Heals are only good if used with intent and calculation, healing is the hardest form of tankiness to use (albeit still easy). Healing at full HP does literally nothing, we all know this. The idea is you're taking damage and taking damage, losing HP between barriers, then consume defensives to mitigate more for longer and heal that damage back up. 200 potency as a HoT is the same as Aurora and Aurora is not exactly making GNB broken in sustain. It would also relive at least some stress in TLD situations (better option being fix TLD but I've accepted that won't happen).

The idea here is that it would reduce damage by less that Dark Mind so that DM is still stronger vs magic damage, but also add usability to the skill in situations where it is not useful. 10% reduction is a good place to sit. PLD gets 20% reduced from their shield and then 15% from raw reduction with a hot, War gets reduction, healing, AND a shield (but that's an outlier, they're just stoo strong), GNB gets 15% with 15% and a fat heal, so I think it's only fair that DRK would be able to get 10% from this skill, get a HoT from it, cast Oblation after casting this ability to stack them and get 10% + 10% with a HoT. Since TBN exists the percentage being lower is fair in the context of tank busters. Sustainability in HoT form is most impactful in dungeons, where DRK suffers the most. I know you don't agree, but the fact is the majority do agree DRK needs help in dungeons.

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Sorry, I read into your idea more of the earlier contexts regarding Dark Mind than I should have, I think? To be clear, would the above idea of consumption be primarily aimed at dealing with varying damage intake or more of just giving you another way to use Dark Mind for when there's no magic damage to mitigate (a bit alike to the earlier ideas in which Dark Artskresia could toggle Dark Mind to something anti-physical instead)?

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Yes and no? Hard to word this... So basically Dark Mind keeps its usability it currently has and can optionally be used to fuel another defensive ability, but only if a heal is desired. Dark Mind is in fact very good when it is useful, the problem is the rarity in which it is used. DRK is not the magic-damage-tank it's just the tank-that-can't-take-physical-damage-well.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

But unless it's being slowly leeched from enemies (... I have some thoughts on Salted Earth now actually), I feel like a HoT simply isn't DRK's style or aesthetic, y'know? Especially not giving healing effects to other people, since that strays perhaps too closely to the aesthetic of the PLD that it exists in opposition to.

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I strongly disagree because of the lore of Dark Knight in this particular version. The abyss empowers you to push on, the abyss is keeping your body alive, the abyss needs you alive to express its fury, and so the darkness within you empowers you to push on. If you want a tank that gets power from slaying, that's Warrior, the Dark Knight gets power by embracing the abyss within them. Their powers come from the inside, not the outside. DRK in lore is very similar to a PLD, always has been, but always the other side of the spectrum. PLD was the light, and the DRK was the shadow it cast.

Also to be clear, this would be a self-cast ability only.

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That being said, as far as "consume Dark Mind to improve Dark Missionary"... I will advise we tread lightly, since if we're arguing for any kind of buff to Dark Missionary, we have to keep in mind that it occupies the same niche as GNB's Heart of Light, much as Shake It Off and Divine Veil do with each other.

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GNB and DRK should not have identical party mitigations. Period. I don't care which one gets what, but the fact that they are literally the same thing infuriates me to no end, especially since DRK gets it so much later. They should be different. For this reason I hate both, even though they are a good ability.

EDIT: Again, this was a morning-coffee thought so I see now it may be read as a replacement for Dark Missionary. I am not against that idea but I'd go back to the drawing board for that. I can see how it would be interpreted like this from what I said.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Not sure what you mean by "keeping Oblation"?

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As in keeping within the kit some effect that's thematically tied to the idea of Oblation (an offering) and would therefore fit its name.

As others have pointed out before, Oblation could as easily go and be replaced entirely; if we're already making significant revisions to the kit, there's no hard rule that there must be a skill named Oblation in what results.

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It would consume oblation but it would not replace it, you'd still have it.

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So, I'm now a bit more confused. What is the triggering action for Dark Mind's consumption? I thought the idea was that when you hit Oblation, Dark Mind is consumed but Oblation stays. You're saying here that they're both consumed? Just Oblation? Or is it a totally separate action that then consumes Oblation?

How does one consume an effect but still have it?

I'd give my two cents on the result, but I'd prefer clarification on this first before I walk myself into a butcher's yard again over an ambiguity (or, my poor comprehension).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

As in keeping within the kit some effect that's thematically tied to the idea of Oblation (an offering) and would therefore fit its name.

As others have pointed out before, Oblation could as easily go and be replaced entirely; if we're already making significant revisions to the kit, there's no hard rule that there must be a skill named Oblation in what results.


So, I'm now a bit more confused. What is the triggering action for Dark Mind's consumption? I thought the idea was that when you hit Oblation, Dark Mind is consumed but Oblation stays. You're saying here that they're both consumed? Just Oblation? Or is it a totally separate action that then consumes Oblation?

How does one consume an effect but still have it?

I'd give my two cents on the result, but I'd prefer clarification on this first before I walk myself into a butcher's yard again over an ambiguity (or, my poor comprehension).

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It would be a new skill entirely, it would not be Oblation. You could use one stack of Oblation, consume it with this hypothetical mitigation, then use your second stack if it was necessary. Let's call this hypothetical ability Occult Acumen (FFXI reference) for clarity sake. This would give DRK the most personal mitigations but (TBN aside) with all of them being pretty weak, I think it's a matter of trading out strength for duration and requiring stacking them since smaller percentages have smaller diminishing returns. So you'd be able to consume Dark Mind and Oblation, with more consumed abilities making the healing effect stronger, with no heal at all if nothing is consumed.

Patch notes out for 6.08, and DRK got a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

"Remember us. Remember that we once lived."

Dark Knights - June 23, 2015 - June 20, 2017

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

It would be a new skill entirely, it would not be Oblation. You could use one stack of Oblation, consume it with this hypothetical mitigation, then use your second stack if it was necessary. Let's call this hypothetical ability Occult Acumen (FFXI reference) for clarity sake. This would give DRK the most personal mitigations but (TBN aside) with all of them being pretty weak, I think it's a matter of trading out strength for duration and requiring stacking them since smaller percentages have smaller diminishing returns. So you'd be able to consume Dark Mind and Oblation, with more consumed abilities making the healing effect stronger, with no heal at all if nothing is consumed.

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Understood. Thank you.

So, this new skill, Occult Accumen would have effectively no use outside of consuming other skills? Little to no cooldown, either?

Again, though, I'm still worried about how it'd treat duration. If this were to work like Shake it Off, for instance, we'd sacrifice only the final half-second of duration for an effectively free HoT, in which case players would be right to wonder "Why not just make OA like Aurora or its HoT a trait attached to DM/Oblation if the difference from such is already just an annoying but small skill-/weave-check?"

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Understood. Thank you.

So, this new skill, Occult Accumen would have effectively no use outside of consuming other skills? Little to no cooldown, either?

Again, though, I'm still worried about how it'd treat duration. If this were to work like Shake it Off, for instance, we'd sacrifice only the final half-second of duration for an effectively free HoT, in which case players would be right to wonder "Why not just make OA like Aurora or its HoT a trait attached to DM/Oblation if the difference from such is already just an annoying but small skill-/weave-check?"

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I think something like this would have a relatively longer cooldown, no? Duration and cooldown are hard for us non-devs to actually balance. I know from my modding experiences, even if we think we can balance those, trial and error is the only way to truly know if it's "fair" but if I were modding this game, I'd start with a longer cooldown. Something around 90 seconds. It could have an additional "only available under the effects of x" to make it more understandable why it's a consuming ability and not just some trait. You can only turn Oblation/Dark Mind into a HoT every 90 seconds makes it more understandable why it's not just a trait so the heal isn't coming every 30s from Oblation (recharge ability cooldowns are recharge time divided by charge count, so 30s cooldown on Oblation in "perfect" rotation)

Again, just a morning coffee idea that's probably a waste of energy to actually think about lol.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Patch notes out for 6.08, and DRK got a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

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Not even a cure potency increase to Abyssal Drain. Understood, only WAR is allowed to heal big, nobody else.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

I strongly disagree because of the lore of Dark Knight in this particular version. The abyss empowers you to push on, the abyss is keeping your body alive, the abyss needs you alive to express its fury, and so the darkness within you empowers you to push on. If you want a tank that gets power from slaying, that's Warrior, the Dark Knight gets power by embracing the abyss within them.

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Definitely a place of wildly different interpretations.

As I see it, DRK is a job that is first and foremost about the principles of vindication, pragmatism, and paying evil unto evil, all while willfully setting aside their conniptions about "dishonor" or "scarring their soul" for the power to accomplish this task. This (combined with its history) puts it into a position of such profane acts as fortifying itself with the blood and life force of its foes -- as you say, pushing on through embracing the abyss.
I mean hell, one of its signature skills is Abyssal Drain, just a shame about how far it's fallen.
It's not just about the source of the magic, but the depths you would willingly plunge to both for and with it. As you tell Sidurgu, "So long as innocents suffer, I will not forsake the abyss."

Meanwhile, WAR's style of tanking is about persistence and shrugging off hits due to a mix of the Inner Beast suppressing their ability to feel pain, and battlefield adrenaline.
I see its shift into being the "drain tank" more as just an evolution of the popularity of using Nascent Flash over Raw Intuition. And it getting Nascent Flash in the first place as a copout to not really knowing how to have WAR be the offtank by this interpretation, given "pain suppression and adrenaline" are all-natural and hard to stretch beyond what is self-serving, where at least the other three tanks have some magic for flexibility in this dimension.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Patch notes out for 6.08, and DRK got a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

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I'm not sure what y'all expected, the devs said weeks ago that 6.08 was just number adjustments.

DRK's survivability is a mechanical issue, not a numeric one. Our hopes for that would only ever have been for 6.1.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I'm not sure what y'all expected, the devs said weeks ago that 6.08 was just number adjustments.

DRK's survivability is a mechanical issue, not a numeric one. Our hopes for that would only ever have been for 6.1.

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They could have at least buffed Abyssal Drain's Cure Potency to 300 so it at least helps more than it does now.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

They could have at least buffed Abyssal Drain's Cure Potency to 300 so it at least helps more than it does now.

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We'd still be in the same boat, with it only available once a minute and tied to C&S.

Plus, would y'all be any less upset if that was the only thing we got? We'd be seeing the threads flooded with how it's meaningless.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

DRK's survivability is a mechanical issue, not a numeric one.

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Actually it is numerical. Oblation should be 20%. And as stated the heal potency on Abyssal is shit. And Souleater heal potency needs to be buffed big time since DRK's sustain is laughably low and 2x worse then Brutal Shell.

For Abyssal to be good you need 6 targets. Will you have 6 targets in Raids? No.

Abyssal is only marginally good for a wall to wall pull if it hits everything.

May as well remove Abyssal and stick with CnS since damage is king.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Oblation should be 20%.

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Which is very different from a potency adjustment for attacks.

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For Abyssal to be good you need 6 targets. Will you have 6 targets in Raids? No.

May as well remove Abyssal and stick with CnS since damage is king.

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Which is an entire discussion that also involves either disconnecting it from C&S or empowering C&S to make up for it in single-target -- either of which is a mechanical adjustment.
Without such consideration, you're just swinging the pendulum to "may as well remove C&S because Abyssal is king."

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And Souleater heal potency needs to be buffed big time since DRK's sustain is laughably low and 2x worse then Brutal Shell.

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Souleater's better than Storm's Path in that regard, Brutal Shell is an outlier and its effects are tied to its on-demand DR.
Plus if Souleater's healing was that significant to DRK's survivability, that would bring up an entire discussion about its Blood Gauge and AoE skills -- which is another mechanical discussion.

The numbers you're talking about here would at best be bandaids on a way bigger issue.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

We'd still be in the same boat, with it only available once a minute and tied to C&S.

Plus, would y'all be any less upset if that was the only thing we got? We'd be seeing the threads flooded with how it's meaningless.

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Yes, because it's not like being ignored is making any of us feel any better, now is it? Just a simple potency increase would make us feel better and give us hope for 6.1. Which btw, could be at the end of Feb or beginning of March. Instead, we're being told by the lack of changes that DRK is fine, when we all know it isn't.

Do your mental gymnastics if you want. This patch is just a baby systems change. It does literally nothing to address problems a multitude of other classes are having when it comes to damage. PLD/DRG patch more like and is well deserved.

Healers were lambasted.

Souleater currently is not significant to DRK's survivability because it has none. It needs it's hand to be held by a healer or a Warrior. Pretty sad for a Blue DPS.

They could have done something. Chose not to. Just like they have for 6 years. It'll be 7 years soon. Holy shit.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Yes, because it's not like being ignored is making any of us feel any better, now is it? Just a simple potency increase would make us feel better and give us hope for 6.1. Which btw, could be at the end of Feb or beginning of March. Instead, we're being told by the lack of changes that DRK is fine, when we all know it isn't.

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I'm not saying "it's fine," I'm saying nothing they could have done for 6.08 would have satisfied anyway, and that even with the foreknowledge of "just numbers", a lot of people were getting their hopes up for nothing.
Especially with how little discussion was made prior to exactly now that was just number changes they could have made.

This is the first I'm hearing someone blaming Souleater for DRK's poor survival on wall-to-walls.

If 6.1 drops and there's zilch for DRK still, or nothing that couldn't have been in a numbers pass and thus screwed us unnecessarily for a month, fine. But I fully expect they're looking at DRK on the whole for 6.1 and saving adjustments that might screw up their plans for a rework (or would need to be reverted when it dropped anyway) until they have their ducks in a row.
Does that still screw us over until end of February or beginning of March? Yes. Am I steaming about this fact? I already was before. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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WHY?

I agree that we were never going to see anything meaningful this patch. But I don't have any hopes for 6.1 either, because I'm literally just setting myself up to be disappointed. They haven't done a single mid-expansion patch for DRK that was turned out in our favor since 4.3. Why would that change now, because we're slightly angrier this time about LD and BW?

They can't be trusted. I'll believe it when I see it, and not a moment sooner.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

WHY?

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... Because what other recourse do we have?

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They haven't done a single mid-expansion patch for DRK that was turned out in our favor since 4.3

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

They could have done something. Chose not to. Just like they have for 6 years. It'll be 7 years soon. Holy shit.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Naive fool. DRKs have been doing this for 6 years?

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No, really, this is the problem. I'm refusing the mindset of choosing to believe "Job I Play is the devs' whipping boy", taking every opportunity they aren't looking directly at us personally, and piling it on to a list of bereavements. That just leads to grudges against the devs, which doesn't make for objective feedback they can use, only lambasting they wouldn't want to listen to anyway. If anything, it's a form of self-harm.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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Naive fool. DRKs have been doing this for 6 years? What makes you think anything will change after they've gutted the job and given 60% of their kit to other Tanks, removed Parry, can't be bothered to address BW and LD in any shape or form and have a perpetual raging boner for TBN. The devs are trying so hard to make it fluctuate between being a PLD and a Warrior that there is no identity left.

Best tank tho. Does the most damage. Masochism is your class identity at this point. Too much focus on 15 seconds of oGCD ham with no flow whatsoever.

ShB killed the job and EW killed it even more.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

... Because what other recourse do we have?

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To actually delete our gearsets and never touch DRK again until they actually change it. Keep in mind the JP playerbase for DRK has a lot of the same complaints we do, and probably have had them for the same amount of time we have. They've been ignoring the DRK playerbase for years now, so why the hell should we give them the benefit of the doubt? We saw the massacre of DRK going from HW to SB, we saw how they've treated MNK and SCH for years, we've seen how they take everything good DRK had originally and thrown it onto newer jobs. We have no reason to give them any such thing. Just like respect, they have to EARN the benefit of the doubt.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Naive fool. DRKs have been doing this for 6 years? What makes you think anything will change after they've gutted the job and given 60% of their kit to other Tanks, removed Parry, can't be bothered to address BW and LD in any shape or form and have a perpetual raging boner for TBN. The devs are trying so hard to make it fluctuate between being a PLD and a Warrior that there is no identity left.

Best tank tho. Does the most damage. Masochism is your class identity at this point. Too much focus on 15 seconds of oGCD ham with no flow whatsoever.

ShB killed the job and EW killed it even more.

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I remembered when people complained so hard about SB DRK only for the devs to straight copy and paste PLD and WAR onto DRK. Rip Dark Arts and since they've said that they won't be going back to HW design DRK will continue to be this way.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I remembered when people complained so hard about SB DRK only for the devs to straight copy and paste PLD and WAR onto DRK. Rip Dark Arts and since they've said that they won't be going back to HW design DRK will continue to be this way.

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Yet they were perfectly fine with giving Sage Dark Arts in the form of Eukrasia.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

To actually delete our gearsets and never touch DRK again until they actually change it.

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Okay.

Then put your money where your mouth is, buckaroo.

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We saw the massacre of DRK going from HW to SB, we saw how they've treated MNK and SCH for years, we've seen how they take everything good DRK had originally and thrown it onto newer jobs. We have no reason to give them any such thing.

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... do you understand how toxic this would be in any other context? Keeping a list of grievances dating back years and claiming they hate you for it, despite the fact that they can't change the past and you wouldn't clear that list if DRK was in a good spot like it was most of last expansion, and just pulling it out any time you don't get your way? The insinuation of their incompetence despite still forking out money for them?

Like, go ahead and be disappointed, but there's a certain limit to what's healthy before I have to wonder why you're still here if you have so much pent up anger about it and venom towards the devs.

Because right now I'm hearing a lot of hyperbole and rage over not getting something they never said or promised we were getting. Kinda feels like a hair-trigger.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I remembered when people complained so hard about SB DRK only for the devs to straight copy and paste PLD and WAR onto DRK. Rip Dark Arts and since they've said that they won't be going back to HW design DRK will continue to be this way.

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Here lies Dark Knight.

June 23rd 2015 - June 20, 2017

Gone. Too. Soon.

They will rename the job to Rune Fencer eventually.

Such a shame.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Okay.
Like, go ahead and be disappointed, but there's a certain limit to what's healthy before I have to wonder why you're still here if you have so much pent up anger about it and venom towards the devs.

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Is it healthy if you are optimistic for changes towards a job class that's been kicked in the face over and over again and you are still willing to hope for change? No better then dangling a carrot in front of a horse to keep it trodding along.

Edit: Wasn't going to mention Eukrasia but Eukrasia is literally Dark Arts yeah. Enjoyable even.

And reaper just gets to give everything a "Dark Arts Heavy Thrust debuff" to boost the potency of any attack for free. Forever at no cost. Feels good.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Is it healthy if you are optimistic for changes towards a job class that's been kicked in the face over and over again and you are still willing to hope for change?

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It is that I'm not taking it personally and claiming they've "kicked us in the face over and over again", trying to make an argument that they owe us by comparing their actions to abuse?

It's not about "optimism" versus realism, because you've already gone past what is realistic.