Dark Knight where is my Identiy

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Your failure to see is nothing new if not amusing at best, but all you need to do is look at how few the complaints are once WAR-lite was released. If that's what silenced the cries, that's what they were begging for.

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I’m sorry, but no. It didn’t silence the complaints about DRK. The fact that we’re talking in a thread complaining about DRK’s lack of identity is proof enough of that. The complaints have just shifted to new complaints. You are blind if you can’t see that. But if we want to talk about things that are amusing, I find your willful ignorance on this quite amusing.

I am not trying to nitpick. I am like a vast majority of the community that is reflecting on how much the job was gutted. The design was for a more advance style of tanking and required more skill to play. It has become a water down version of the original design and a near carbon copy of War. Dot management works and is a system that can be fitted in the tank design. There are no tips on what the new changes to the job will be. SE has a history of gutting skills to add new ones as the level cap increases. Most games this design reaches a plateau and fails. So, a secondary system is added that supports the primary skill system and allows the game to continue to develop. The trait system can be used to advance already exiting skills as we move up in levels, increasing game dynamics.
PLD has a set physical and magic design for its kit, and it all works together well. GNB has the continuation system that the job is designed around and flows well. WAR has the fell cleave system and while it is smooth, there can be a bit more added to really give the job back its flair. DRK has? Parts from some of them smashed together that just gives us another option. There is no self-identity to the job nor any true skill interaction with the current skill set. It is for these reasons the community is voicing what is on there minds.

I think the biggest issue revolving around Delirium is its changes and is probably the most extreme of the tanks when it comes to retcons. In 3.0 it was a combo ender that decreased INT. In 4.0 Delirium was utility, extending blood weapon/price duration and some MP. In 5.0 Delirium is Inner Release but with no damage boost just more spam. As you can see 4.0 was probably the best incarnation of Delirium and probably DRK as a whole. It had the fast (too fast imo) gameplay with Blood buffs, good magic aoe like Dark Passenger, and Abyssal Drain and DA. However heres what DRK lost gameplay-wise:

Blood Weapon's fast playstyle and ogcd weaving went to GNB's Continuation.
DA buffing weaponskills concept went to WAR's Infuriate chaos buff.
Magic aoes Abyssal Drain spam went to PLD's Requiescat.

I can see where all the talk of DRK identity went because it retained nothing of what it originally had, while WAR doubled down on big burst damage and self-sustain heals, and PLD became the iron-wall hold knight it was always meant to be. We also lost awesome animations like Power Slash, Dark Arts, Scourge, etc. A lot of these animations gave the job flavor and the weight of the hits made you feel like Guts but, no job should have one gcd rotation and replacing DA spam with Shadow wasn't a good choice imo. DRK was originally a magic damage tank specialist but now every tank has the same cds except for invuls and their one gimmick job cd so what separates them is how they deal their damage. Funny how we went from choosing a tank because it had specific defensive cds and specialty, to now, where all we want to know is who can deal more damage and how.

Accessibility cannot come at the expense of high-skilled play.

Every role needs to be accessible. If the skill barrier to entry is too high, nobody plays it. But game developers tend to forget that players of all skill levels want to see a skill differential. That's why people like watching streams and videos of skilled players performing mechanically complex tasks. It gives you something to aspire to. If there's no skill differential and no performance differential, that kind of content pretty much dies. Not every job needs to be accessible.

HW DRK wasn't particularly accessible, but it didn't have to be. Even now, the job is locked behind Ishgard, making it one of the last three jobs that you'll have access to. There were more straightforward options available, if you wanted to just focus on tanking. The main selling point was that it was unquestionably the tank with the highest skill ceiling. So when when you performed well on DRK, players on all roles knew that you were good.

You also need to have reward for effort. People are lazy. Skill differentials have to translate into a performance differences. Stormblood DRK was more accessible, but it significantly lagged behind PLD and WAR in performance, especially after the early WAR buffs. So suddenly, it went from being perceived as high skill, high reward, it was suddenly low skill, and even lower reward. And when you could achieve better performance on simpler tanks for less effort, why bother? It's not surprising that its design turned off a lot of previous fans of the job.

How should DRK be designed?
- Baseline GCD needs to be shorter.
- Target APM should be significantly higher than other tanks when played well (i.e. 50-60). This comes out of having a shorter GCD and more oGCDs. Procs are helpful here.
- The focus should be on sustained dps and maintaining uptime, rather than demonstrating your ability to type out the lyrics to 'Mary had a little lamb' with a 42 step rotation that you could do whilst intoxicated and asleep. The goal should be to glue yourself to the boss.
- Sustained dps should continue to beat burst, as has been the case this expansion.
- Positional tools should be available to maximize uptime, preferably without needing to sacrifice dps to do so. Gap closer to boss. Backstep out of AoE. Swap places with your shadow and start tanking an add. Creativity and risk-taking should be rewarded.
- Do something interesting with Living Shadow, and integrate it into more of our toolkit. I normally dislike pet-based jobs, but this doesn't really feel like a pet. It provides more job definition than adding on more Fell Cleaves to our burst window.
- Don't give a better version of the shadow pet out to every other tank now that you've experimented with it on DRK and know how it works. We don't expect much of the job design team given your track record, but try not to predictably disappoint everyone.
- Living Dead should die and stay dead. Either limit/remove invulns next expansion, or redesign this ability from scratch. It's going to be absolutely awful with healers now separated into 'healing-focused' and 'shield-focused'.
- Omnislash. Multi-hit attacks. 99-hit combos. These are aesthetic alternatives to big Fell Cleave style hits. Experiment with these.

I've yet to understand the fascination with "DoT management" when a given job does not have synergy with said DoTs (and no proposals for that synergy are given in the same requests for more DoT management). There is something to DoT-centric gameplay (though not really worth calling "management" in most cases) on Bard, for instance, but for Dark Knight?

In itself, DoTs provide only two things: a soft cooldown, and a low-target cleave option.

The prior is still subject, where GCD-based, or especially combo-based, on the pacing of its surrounding actions. The latter is quickly outpaced by mere AoE spam unless further mechanics are attached to those DoTs, raising their relative ppgcd.

Is that really anything that'd somehow center a job's identity?

I do not, for instance, think DRK needs to be the Monk of tanks (with high apm, high sustain, and greater need than most to maintain perfect uptime) as per Lyth's proposal above, but that at least has substance by which to make a job feel distinct (so long as Gunbreaker doesn't veer right into it in the next expansion). A job's appeal doesn't necessarily live or die by its center or guiding principle, but those do at least need to be significant.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Your failure to see is nothing new if not amusing at best, but all you need to do is look at how few the complaints are once WAR-lite was released. If that's what silenced the cries, that's what they were begging for.

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Well, this takes disingenuous arguments to a new height.

The complaints in regard to StB Delirium was that it felt incredibly lackluster as a core cooldown (a long CD that at best added a bit of duration to a much shorter CD); nothing in that entailed that it should be turned into 4.1 Inner Release (DRK edition). (Heck, 4.1 Inner Release already got a ton of backlash among Warrior who enjoyed the more nuanced spender loop (who had merely asked for quicker ramp up, such as by also doubling Beast Gauge generation during the effect, rather than only halving BG costs).)

WAR-lite opened floodgates of complaints. Delirium-as-an-Inner-Release was perhaps the most unified point of criticism since Living Dead. Yes, it took time for the new expansion's honeymoon glow to fade a bit before any criticism hit the floor in full, but it was very much there.

Settle down everyone.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

You continue to gripe at the notion that Blood Weapon is more instrinsic to DRK anymore than the others are. Ultimately they're all buffs that grant X amount of potency over your core rotation. DRK doesn't stop generating MP and Blood without Bloodweapon so I don't understand your argument. People whine about abilities being similiar and when presented with abilities that are not similiar they still whine about it. Which is it? The same or different but harder? For all the DRKs that love to bemoan and stroke themselves on playing a class with extra steps, they sure don't like the idea of a skill with extra steps.

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Because Blood Weapon is only trying not to be similar when it's still functionally identical. Put another way, if in 5.5 they suddenly changed it to simply give you 50 gauge and 3,000 MP. What about Dark Knight's rotation or gameplay changes? Absolutely nothing. Well, no. You wouldn't have to worry about potentially ghosting your last hit, thus it'd be an improvement. Therein the lies the problem. An equivalent argument would be if Ninja's Mug required a full combo and one Mudra to be used upon execution. In attempting to be different from Ikkishoten and Barrel Stabilizer, you now have a more cumbersome ability that ultimately does the exact same things. Hence why all three of those abilities are made identical instead. There is no intrinsic benefit or unique gameplay added from such a change.

Blood Weapon is only "different" because they didn't want the Infuriate comparison to be even more obvious than it already was. Ironically, it's original design did give Dark Knight a unique characteristic: Haste.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Because every tank has a a direct comparative skill to their respective buttons? TBN is literally the button to compare to Nascent/HoS/Sheltron. You don't compare Equilibirum to Sentinel lol. DRK is not pressing only ad when dealing with specific tankbusters or sequence of high autos. You like to conflate the idea that I'm spinning this for my argument when you can't even make that proper comparison to further your own DRK whining.

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Of the following five abilities, which is different?

Heart of Stone: 15% + Brutal Shield
Sheltron: 100% Block
Blackest Night: 25%
Raw Intuition: 20%
Nascent Flash: 10% + Bloodbath

Pretty obvious which one stands out. So why are we comparing Nascent to TBN when Raw not only exists but has a directly similar effect? You are correct in one aspect at least. Comparing Equilibrium to Sentinel would be silly because they're functionally different. Abyssal Drain and Nascent, on the other hand. Do exactly the same thing. Nice try though lol

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Because my comparison is not a literal 1:1 copy but the importance of a skill being a high impact button within their respective class. Fell Cleave is a point of design in which the Warrior unleahshes a truly powerful built up attack compared to the rest of their other GCDs.

Edge of Shadow not only seen in SoSex as the DRKs tankbuster but follows the similiar vein moreso than Bloodspiller in being the power button to press after building up the resources for it. Bloodspiller is a gain of 250~ potency as a button press and is more infrequent outside of Delirium. Edge is 500 potency that grants Darkside 10% damage buff. It is the DRK equivalent moreso because of those reasons and flavoured for DRK specifically as an oGCD unga bunga mana go damage button.

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If you're going for the "truly powerful attack," then your comparison should be towards Inner Chaos. Even if we follow your comparison. It only serves to reiterate how similar the two jobs are. Dark Knight is spamming it's "big hitter" in the same manner Warrior spams theirs. Both are incredibly similar in their overall execution.

Nevertheless, Bloodspiller cannot be ignored here even if it's the weaker ability. The similarities are simply too noticeable not to draw a comparison towards Fell Cleave. And this yet again is why people have been so critical of DRK being a WAR clone. No matter how you break down their respective rotations, they both function is a very similar way. More so than any other tank.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

And I don't know if you play any of these classes but WAR does not use Inner Release in buff windows like DRK uses Edge in buff windows lol. One is by pure coincedence and the importance of Inner Release usage and its cooldown goes against the majority of buff windows whereas Edge is *chosen* to be added to buff windows where it otherwise doesn't *need* to.

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Admittedly, I meant Inner Chaos spam but didn't properly edit my response. Speaking of, this yet again highlights the similarities. WAR wants to fit its IC in burst windows... in the same manner DRK uses Edge. Hence why these two abilities are better comparisons. The only difference is WAR has less Inner Chaos stacks to work with but they're functionally the same idea. Which is what others have highlighted as the direct issue with Warrior and Dark Knight. Regardless of potency numbers, the core idea of the jobs are far too similar.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Edge/Flood *is* Dark Arts. It serves the same functional purpose of being an oGCD button that expends mana for potency. It just so happens that the potency is seperate from a following action and is larger.

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Correction. Edge if similar to the Stormblood iteration of Dark Arts. You know, the one every complained about. Both essentially boil down to spamming the same button. It's no wonder Shadowbringers DRK isn't well liked either. The Heavensward iteration differed due to its less frequent use, interaction with other abilities and forcing you to pay direct attention to your MP instead of passively glancing at it every now and again.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Mitigation is a fine idea to have a key skill built around a tank *when it doesn't cost them damage* to which TBN does not and infact aids in damage at high optimization. TBN is a truly powerful skill and should be *one* of the highlights to a TANK classes kit. I don't see how this is a bad thing even in a game built around optimizing damage when it doesnt imepede said damage, can actively aid the production of damage through healer GCDs and is actively used in optimized DRK.

Because since you like to conveniently strip down DRK to just TBN, I've illustrated the idiocy of that line of logic by using PLD and WAR as a comparison.

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All you've illustrated is your failure to understand the point I was making. I'll reiterate. Paladin is not solely defined by Passage of Arms. Its gameplay and identity aren't rooted in that one ability. Dark Knight is. It lacks any real defining characteristic which truly sets it apart, thus it's labeled a WAR clone. In a game where damage ranks ahead everything else, you simply can't build an identity around defensive skills. They simply aren't valued enough. Like I said in my previous post. They tried this same approach with White Mage for years. Notice how White Mage is now known for Misery; a damage ability. The "raw healer" identity couldn't work. Dark Knight is similar in that while TBN can help it stand out, it can't be the only thing it has going for it.

I think that a lot of the comparisons to WAR come out of how the job feels to play on an aesthetic level. WAR is your Black Mage equivalent for tanks. Slow, ponderous wind-ups, with big impact and big damage. DRK, historically, has been on the opposite end of the spectrum. An endless whirlwind of fast strikes weaved with even more strikes, rewarding uptime and sustained dps. This worked out pretty well in Heavensward, as there was enough skill overlap for a good DRK player to outperform a weaker WAR player by maintaining consistent uptime and having superior knowledge of the fights. Stormblood's biggest failure was that it stretched out the gap between burst and sustain in the wrong direction. Burst was always better, despite requiring less effort. This was counteracted by giving everyone burst, with some jobs having more burst than others. Delirium was underwhelming because it was just inferior burst.

Shadowbringers rectifies the design philosophy somewhat. Damage output is pretty similar, but good uptime on a more sustain orientated job wins out over burst. Delirium is still underwhelming, but it's less underwhelming than it was before. It's a step forward, but Stormblood was two steps backward to begin with.

While you'd expect bigger weapons to have slower swings, that isn't Final Fantasy's take on greatswords. FF7 set the standard that if you're swinging a giant sword around, it's has to be fast. Blood weapon felt correct; normal attacks (and by extension Grit) felt wrong. I do think that Edge/Flood are a definite improvement, despite being functionally similar to Stormblood's Dark Arts. You're not winding up between swings. You're attacking between attacks. We just need the baseline rate of attacks to go up.

Most damage cooldowns can be reduced to increasing resources or boosting damage output. That doesn't make them all identical. Is Bunshin follow the same principle as No Mercy and Fight or Flight? In a reductionist sense it does. Aesthetically they feel different, however. Blood Weapon has always forced you to have continuous uptime while it was active. Would turning it into a stack-based system make it more flexible? Probably. Would a 'Shadow Weapon' in which you gain 5 stacks, gain blood on each stack use, and have your shadow clone take a fixed potency swing at the boss on every hit be a more fun version? Certainly. But none of these, strictly speaking, are Infuriate.

I don't think that there's anything intrinsically wrong with Delirium. I think the real problem is with Bloodspiller. It adds variety, but it shouldn't be the central part of DRK gameplay. You can't ever make it bigger or more powerful than the newest variety of Fell Chaos. It just needs to be something that supports the rest of your toolkit, either by stealing resources, making shields more powerful, or reducing recasts on abilities. Natural Bloodspillers are fine. Instead of keeping Delirium in competition with Inner Release, which is a losing battle from the start, I would double down on shadow mechanics, and have Frey pop in more often to help you pull off 99-hit combos.

1. Lots of little hits = 1 big hit. These are functionally identical, but aesthetically different.
2. DRK needs to be a speedy uptime job, which rewards you for being glued to the boss. This is intrinsically more interesting and challenging than being burst Black Mage tank.
3. What does DRK have that no other jobs have? Frey. So double down on that. Tag team in little ways across the entire skill set, with Living Shadow culminating into the crown jewel of your damage output. Again, this is an easy way to do multi-hit/Bunshin style attacks. Also, don't copy this over to every tank.
4. Bloodspiller is going to always lose to Fell Cleave. That's okay. Bloodspiller shouldn't be the focal point of DRK gameplay anyways. Turn it into a resource gain/cooldown reduction tool, and reduce its importance to being effectively a fourth combo step that shows up every so often.

How to improve DRK:

Add Bloodspiller into the 1-2-3 combo. Remove the Souleater combo and replace it indefinitely.
Remove most OGC's. Effectively the job should be easier than this, it's hard to press them and I don't mind them gone.
Delirium needs to have a reduced cooldown. We should be using Bloodspiller and Quietus more often.
As for Living Dead, the healer should have to heal double the amount of HP. It's too easy to use otherwise.
Remove all defensive CD'S for DRK and make them only use TBN. If you don't agree with me I don't care.
Last but not least, DRK should always be behind WAR. There's no reason to make this job unique at all.

Overall, I would be quite pleased with this rework. As of now, the job is just too difficult for me.