The completely REASONABLE changes to the Dark Knight job thread

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Originally Posted by MuzakFan

Three buffs that actually need to happen for DRK
1. Add a 10% boost to parry rate to Grit.
2. Reduce the cooldown for Reprisal so that it can be kept up full time while MT.

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As for 1, I agree.
As for 2 though... that could be iffy. It stacks with Storm's Path, so it could cause PLD to see a little less attention, and make DRK the go to MT.
I can't comment on 3 effectively though, as my DRK is still only 37, so I haven't had a chance to play with the dark arts.

I'm pretty well in agreement with most things OP said.

Dark Dance especially needs the evasion removed, it's just another RNG that hardly procs, and with Blood Price up it makes it even worse. I never buff it because I find the buff worthless. It really needs a buff from Dark Arts to help us more consistently mitigate damage.

Carve and Spit I also agree with, as it stands it's very underwhelming. Even buffed with Dark Arts feels pathetic. I was hoping it would be something bigger, but it only did about as much as a buffed Soul Eater without the HP regen. It's not worth the loss in MP gain. They either need to buff it's DA effect or remove it altogether.

MP regen as a whole feels off as DRK. Every fight seems to be either I have more MP than I know what to do with, or I'm completely starved for MP. Half of the problem stems from not consistently getting attacked in a fight (bosses namely) or they attack slow, and since Blood Price ONLY restores MP based on attacks received not damage taken, it heavily skews the MP you can get back. I hope they either let us use Blood Weapon with Grit up (and sure, make it lose the attack speed and maybe reduced MP back to be balanced)so we can recover MP consistently, and/or make Blood Price restore MP based on damage received (before mitigation) so bosses that attack slow or inconsistently give us more than just a little MP back.

One alternate they could also do for Reprisal to make it better, is for every parry you make while it's on CD, it reduces the CD by 5 sec. Effectively letting you be able to use it quicker. But ya, as it stands it's a great skill you can't really keep up.

As DRK stands, it's a very variable tank. We're very inconsistent and offer nothing special outside an INT reduction to bosses, which half the time means nothing. The way I best describe it to my LS, DRK is the tank that presently takes the most skill to play, with only being able to at best be at the level of the other tanks. High skill with no pay off.

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Originally Posted by Ryock

As for 1, I agree.
As for 2 though... that could be iffy. It stacks with Storm's Path, so it could cause PLD to see a little less attention, and make DRK the go to MT.
I can't comment on 3 effectively though, as my DRK is still only 37, so I haven't had a chance to play with the dark arts.

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The problem is that paladins are generally viewed as the MT. They have to change this to make all tanks equal in terms of MT and OT, while they might not provide the same utility they should be somewhat equal. A warrior OT offers damage and debuffs, paladin OT offers party utility, dark knight OT has less damage than warriors and no utility. It has to come to the point where all three tanks can do both MT and OT on all bosses without putting the party in a bad spot. Having bosses favor one tank or another is fine as long as it's possible to clear it without that specific class.

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Originally Posted by Tsukotaku

Fully agree with the first post, you basically had my same thoughts. Also, right now this class doesn't offer anything unique to be considered an "alternative" to the PLD for raiding. Which is something that has to be changed ASAP before Alexander comes. Without to mention that 320 seconds of CD for Living Dead is too much for what this ability has to offer, compared to Holmgang and Hallowed Ground.

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I nearly forgot about this. It's absolutely mind blowing how long the CD is on it, considering how it's comparable to Holmgang. When I see a 5 min CD I expect something powerful like HG or Benediction, not something that is only useful if it's actually get proced. If it had a secondary effect at least I could be behind a longer CD, but the way it works, it's basically a resource draining CD for healers if you drop to 1 on an extremely long CD that doesn't reflect what it does.

While I understand WAR's with triple fell cleaves can do insane levels of damage, has anyone actually looked at the DRK numbers? They throw out a ton of high-potency abilities. Hell, spending 8 GCDs, the best case scenario for both attacks to launch a spiked Souleater or Fell Cleave, has the DRK a mere ~10 potency behind the WAR across all skills, and this is before factoring in Scourge, which crushes Fracture on potency per cast, Salted Earth, which the Warrior does not have an equivalent to, and Carve and Spit, which may as well serve as infuriate, which is only 50 potency behind an infuriate into fell cleave, but it is off the global cooldown.

The DRK is deceptive in its damage, but it is putting out a lot of it all the same.

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Originally Posted by Ryock

As for 2 though... that could be iffy. It stacks with Storm's Path, so it could cause PLD to see a little less attention, and make DRK the go to MT.

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True, this is a very nice debuff for DRK, especially stacking with Storm's Path makes it strong with a DRK/WAR combo. I disagree that this necessarily takes away from PLD in MT still but simply adds to DRK's value. As I stated in the OP, the fact that it can only be applied while actively taking damage is a major intended weakness of this debuff. Fights with built in tank swap mechanics ensure that it can't be up full time on the boss anyway. Even with it active, DRK takes more damage than PLD on average due to lack of a shield. Add that can only be up 66% of the time under perfect conditions makes it the most unreliable tank debuff in the game by far.

Keep in mind that after Reprisal and Delirium, DRK offers no party utility whatsoever with its current toolkit. If you find a DRK OT with a MNK in the group it is at that point merely a tanky DPS class. PLD on the other hand bleeds support while MT or OT and is still the most consistent performing job at either. I doubt one more reliable tool on DRK changes the meta that much.

I've seen all tanking classes, clear all the content currently available. The Alexander Raid isn't out yet, and that will be the real big test. However a lot of people are jumping to conclusions w/o submitting the proper data, and or performing proper testing to conclude why their <insert class> needs a buff, or changes.

It has been 5 days sense the official release, and 9 days since the early release. I think people just need to get their 170/180 gear sets, learn how to properly manage cool-downs, and perform correct dps/threat rotations. Then when Alexander we will see how the tanking classes stack up against one another.

But I feel a lot of the people complaining, or asking for buffs for any class, haven't really attempted to push their class to its limits, or actually put in the effort to really learn their class.

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Originally Posted by MuzakFan

I doubt one more reliable tool on DRK changes the meta that much.

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Well, I didn't mean that it would just flat out throw PLD away, but I'm just noticing DRK's defensive toolkit is very similar to PLD's in that it's off the GCD, and has similar protection numbers. Like you said, DRK has pretty much nothing to bring to the table that the other tanks can't already do better. Kinda like Warrior did on 2.0(and by no means am I saying DRK is the trainwreck that WAR was in 2.0. DRK is fine from what I can tell, maybe just a tweak or two and I'm sure it's perfect), but some of its skills feel like they're lacking an effect that could make it stick out a little better. Direct damage reduction on an enemy is extremely valuable, so I know Path and Reprisal being up 24/7 could make some bosses a little easier than intended up until the tank swap. DRK I feel is pretty good, just gotta be careful they don't overstep it.

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Originally Posted by Kaonis

I nearly forgot about this. It's absolutely mind blowing how long the CD is on it, considering how it's comparable to Holmgang. When I see a 5 min CD I expect something powerful like HG or Benediction, not something that is only useful if it's actually get proced. If it had a secondary effect at least I could be behind a longer CD, but the way it works, it's basically a resource draining CD for healers if you drop to 1 on an extremely long CD that doesn't reflect what it does.

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Seems to be something related to dark knights, a lot of dark knights abilities have a long CD for no reason, shadow wall being 180 seconds, and it's worse than Vengeance. Carve and split, 1 minute cd for a 450 dmg attack. Reprisal, 30 second cd for the same type of debuff as Storm's Path which is just a normal combo spell.

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Originally Posted by Falgern

Seems to be something related to dark knights, a lot of dark knights abilities have a long CD for no reason, shadow wall being 180 seconds, and it's worse than Vengeance. Carve and split, 1 minute cd for a 450 dmg attack. Reprisal, 30 second cd for the same type of debuff as Storm's Path which is just a normal combo spell.

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Drk abilities don't have long cooldowns. Reprisal stacks with storms path, , and its off the GCD, not the same deal. Though I feel reprisals parry requirement is clunky. Shadow wall is the same CD as Sentinel and operates under the same premise (mind you shadow wall is 10% more potent). Rampart & Shadowskin are the same CD. Dark dance is on a 60s CD. Carve & Spit is off the gcd mana. If darks actually have anything really odd its that they're given 5 skills to help them keep their mana in check...