Dark Knight Megathread

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

But WAR-

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The question I asked was in the context of just the idea by itself, and not within the context of comparing it to current job designs.
Saying "its a nerf" means nothing, if DRK started off with its design this way, before it was given TBN in its original form. (I also dont think WAR should have had Thrill and/or its massive drain abilities, considering job identity of prior FFs. But thats a different argument) Also current thrill does boost heals, but didnt before.
Anyways, I do understand all job changes to DRK also means changes to other tanks (which is what usually happens in each expansion, or major changes to jobs mid patch, unless one job was rly behind compared to the others)

As for the comment about how much more effort a "HP sac tank" requires over a "non HP sac tank" requires, is a different argument, as youre talking about playstyles. Which obviously every tank should have something in their playstyle to manage. It doesnt have to be the same thing. Ex: a tank can press 123 combo (like DRK) having little focus on DPS/Threat, but instead have to focus on managing their mitigation (like HP sac in this case) while another tank gets easy to press/use mitigations, easy threat, but now has to worry about a longer DPS rotation/DoTs/DPS buffs. Kinda like PLD. (not to be confused with less dps, just more complex. also doesnt equate punishing either, as that can be balanced to be less punishing if u fail. thats not part of the argument. I bring this up, because its the #1 thing ppl try to argue back with, despite it being unrelated) as you get the idea. Now, I mentioned 5% Hp because its just within the range of almost seeimg like its enough to matter, but realistically, it doesnt. Heck back when I raided as MT and my healers refused to let me drop tank stance, I eventually sneaked "turning it off", and after awhile i mentioned it to them, and they were surprised it didnt seem any harder to heal me. Thats 20% mitigation through an entire fight. if 20% is mostly unnoticeable, then 5% on an occasion will never be a reason for anyone to actually care. Its pure job lore fantasy aesthetics. (I also mentioned this back when TBN used to be 20% HP shield, and i said "Up it to 25% with a cost of 5%". and thrill at the time had no healing attached.) You could even lower the HP cost even further, along with other alternatives i mentioned prior, but Im not really gonna type all that out. I doubt this is even being read >.>;

But you did mention "fine-tuning" which is of course correct, as my comment was in context of fine-tuning being done, and not just dumping the current HP sac into the game as is.

Over all, such a large amount of tank identity has been improperly divided between the tanks since 1.9. WAR being the heal tank, and PLD being the armor/def tank feels backwards. WARs heals mostly being tied to Drains also feels like a poor fit, if DRK was going to be a tank. They have taken DPS identities from 1 job, and given it to the new job next expansion before, no reason they couldnt have done that with tanks. (While DRK isnt the sole "Drain" user in FFs, it IS the only one of the 3 tanks that used Drains, so its the better fit) and as u mentioned issues like WAR having more HP, drains, and I mentioned HP healed, and something akin to thrill, fit the HP sac playstyle. Too much of what should be DRKs tool kit, was given to other tanks. (Made worse with superbolide going to GNB, so now a 3rd tank has something thats more of a DRK identity.) WARs mixture of Berserker, and Knight(Fighter really) identity should have been more flavored to be like the prior FFs. Berserks pacification didnt quite feel like typical berserk, but inner release seemed much closer. (before 4.0, the "dmg increase" and "repetitive attacks" were separate, where as with SBs inner release, they combined them, feeling more like classic berserk) Berserkers, and non PLD designed Knights, didnt self heal, and solely relied on their armor/defenses. And in a few games, berserkers had a passive dmg mitigation like a native tank stance... WARs invuln should have been something more akin to LD, except dying, some sort of loss of control over your characters attacks (maybe all attacks are just some basic WS for X amount of seconds) , leading to a similar amount of DPS loss as a death/raise/weakness. (what ever that value would be estimated to be) Anyways...
I know SE would NEVER do anything like this, but imo "setting things straight" should have been done years ago, before we got this far. So this is why i think its not a great idea to add HP sac to DRK now.

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Originally Posted by Danelo

As a tank hp is being used as a resource already while your being hit. Unless you’d want to tie it to LD in some way it seems it would be a difficult implementation.

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That would only be a problem if we had no control over the pacing of the HP expenditure, unlike, say, our MP spending.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

And how exactly would non-damage utility exactly be balanced to neither be pointless nor too strong when using HP as a resource?

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The same way as any other form of complexity, such as MP at present. It's a tool to be worked with and around that provides a unique form of skill-ceiling.

GNB has its APM tax; while it's perhaps a bit overly restrictive, we cannot deny that it nonetheless seeds identity.
WAR has its Nascent windows; you are expected to optimize around them, but we cannot deny that they seed identity.
Etc., etc.

Unique Merits: Can survive some things others cannot under errant circumstances. Allows for more immediate and/or offensive uses of large heal CDs. Slightly greater downtime effectiveness due to being spend HP just before nonthreatening boss jumps or other forms of forced downtime during which healing is available.

Unique Task: Time HP spending around healer abilities and prior to upcoming damage. Spend HP additionally for further damage (less efficient) before forced downtime during which healers can still heal you (and would have nothing else/better to do).

If there is no appeal to having such, what is the basis for our complaints about identity over the last 4 years, especially over Shadowbringers?
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What point is there to spend one part of eHP (actual HP) to generate another?

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You answered it yourself:

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the output is significant enough for me to do this and consider playing DRK because the output is actually meaningful

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It reduces the spikiness of damage intake. You have, per player pacing, more missing HP during lulls (which in turn means more room for increasedly efficient-over-time), and less during spikes.

Could you survive without it on optimized CD schedules? Yes.
Could you survive things you otherwise could not, making up for a slower top-off or a slipped minor CD at some point? Also yes.

If differences of that level are irrelevant, why would we ever complain about any lack of uniqueness in, say, a defensive toolkit? Would it be better if everything about them were interchangeable, dropping tank job skills names entirely in favor of "25s CD", "60s CD", "90s CD", "3 minute CD", "raid CD" and "invuln"?

There's a reason things like Quietus under Blood Weapon into DA-AD are fondly remembered. They're capacities and playflows that are at best indirectly analogous to other tanks, that actually let the given job feel unique.

I really like the look of DRK's defensive abilities. There's this common aesthetic of spherical arcane barriers. I think they should just stick with the theme instead of mixing and matching different types of defensive effects. There's no reason why every tank has to have % damage reduction effects.

There's an easy solution to Dark Mind and Dark Missionary catering to one damage type only. Just rework that odd Dark Arts proc so that it actually produces ability swaps instead of being directly translated into dps.

Oblation: Sacrifice HP equal to 10% of your total. Grants a barrier on target player totaling 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain Dark Arts. This ability cannot be used if it would reduce your HP to 0. Recast: 15 seconds.

Dark Mind: Absorbs magical damage up to 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP. Action changes to Dark Force while under the effect of Dark Arts.

Dark Force: Absorbs physical damage up to 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP.

Dark Missionary: Absorbs magical damage to self and nearby party members for damage up to 15% of your total HP. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP. Action changes to Dark Emissary while under the effect of Dark Arts.

Dark Emissary: Absorbs physical damage to self and nearby party members for damage up to 15% of your total HP. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP.

Walking Dead: Absorbs all incoming damage. You cannot restore HP while this effect is active. When this effect ends, you gain HP equal to the amount of damage absorbed.

I also think that DRK needs to expand out its range of GCDs. What I'd recommend is that instead of a second branching combo that follows a fixed pattern, you just add in a 4th combo step that procs randomly to give you either a bit more blood or a bit more MP, depending on what lights up. Think Wheeling Thrust/Fang and Claw, except with say Bloodspiller randomly proccing to give you a bit of extra blood on your 4th step, or Scourge randomly proccing to give you a bit of extra MP on your 4th step.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Walking Dead: Absorbs all incoming damage. You cannot restore HP while this effect is active. When this effect ends, you gain HP equal to the amount of damage absorbed.

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This would be so lovely, but I can already taste the WHM salt from over the learning period, despite it only asking for about a second's more delay.

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There's an easy solution to Dark Mind and Dark Missionary catering to one damage type only. Just rework that odd Dark Arts proc so that it actually produces ability swaps instead of being directly translated into dps.

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Choosing which among, effectively, a pair of a shared-cooldown CDs to use based on incoming damage types isn't my idea of a compelling or DRK-iconic mechanic, but so long as this were taken further (to more than 2 abilities and therefore more than just a single button saved for the extra hoop to jump through), I'd certainly take it.

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Oblation: Sacrifice HP equal to 10% of your total. Grants a barrier on target player totaling 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain Dark Arts. This ability cannot be used if it would reduce your HP to 0. Recast: 15 seconds.

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Why force your minor CD or raid CD to go anti-physical any time you, as a party, save up to 10% of your HP (getting 20% at the cost of 10%)? You'd have to avoid using it before any magical raid-wide, and wouldn't have access to a physical minor CD anytime no one else is being hit.

The better-than-transferred HP concept is plenty neat and pretty darn fitting, though.


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Sorry for the edit, but I'm out of daily posts.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Xeno pointed out that calling the present proc on TBN a 'Dark Arts' proc is superfluous. You don't really need special terminology or a gauge icon for this. Just have it give you the free Edge/Flood as an 'Additional Effect'. If you want to keep something similar to the original, then have the proc apply to defensive abilities and utility actions exclusively. I was tempted to suggest that Plunge either propels you forwards or backwards depending on whether Dark Arts was active, but that have some unexpected and hilarious consequences.

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Ahh, I see. I thought the proc your suggested Oblation was providing was the Dark Arts you mentioned in the line above it (Magic<->Physical switch-flip), rather than the current one (free Edge/Flood).

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Which lead me to thinking: what if you had a job that was effectively like Dissidia's Cecil, where you effectively swap between two sets of parallel abilities?

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Indeed. The concept is appealing. I'd just like to see that route, if taken, go whole-hog. Why not, for instance, a full Darkside approach by which to manipulate your Shadow self (and adjust many a skill, instead of just a few select defensives)? It's not so much a matter of "This is a lackluster idea" as simply "If a large part of the goal is button-efficiency, we should keep in mind that the toggle itself will require a button, and therefore put enough on the system for it to be worthwhile" and "What other thematic elements could benefit? Let's hit their marks, too, while we're at it."

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The original Dark Arts idea was really elegant in that some actions didn't have an unconditionally 'best' way to use them. You might use DA Dark Dance if you're doing a massive pull. But if you're trying to proc Reprisal, especially in single target, standard Dark Dance was better. The problem was that you could equate Dark Arts to potency, which then dictated how you used it.

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I'm assuming here you are referring only to the added Souleater or Power Slash potency -- rather than the more comprehensive, rDPS gains, too, of one mitigation spender outpacing another...

In that case, though, the solution seems fairly simple: Why not have it only enhance (or create) the additional effects, never the potencies themselves? Linear AoE blind, further self-healing (ST), self-healing (AoE), dodge chance, and further magic mitigation, etc. would hardly any outlier to which we'd default 4 times in 5 outside of particularly high damage intake, as per the old SE/PS usage.

I like what they've done this expansion by having more buttons share hotbar space. Reaper is a prime example of how this is done well. Which lead me to thinking: what if you had a job that was effectively like Dissidia's Cecil, where you effectively swap between two sets of parallel abilities? The original Dark Arts idea was really elegant in that some actions didn't have an unconditionally 'best' way to use them. You might use DA Dark Dance if you're doing a massive pull. But if you're trying to proc Reprisal, especially in single target, standard Dark Dance was better. The problem was that you could equate Dark Arts to potency, which then dictated how you used it.

Xeno pointed out that calling the present proc on TBN a 'Dark Arts' proc is superfluous. You don't really need special terminology or a gauge icon for this. Just have it give you the free Edge/Flood as an 'Additional Effect'. If you want to keep something similar to the original, then have the proc apply to defensive abilities and utility actions exclusively. I was tempted to suggest that Plunge either propels you forwards or backwards depending on whether Dark Arts was active, but that have some unexpected and hilarious consequences.

The Oblation suggestion was based off of your earlier discussion on how HP consuming effects could work on a tank. I do think that using HP to fuel dps actions is a bad idea because it just offloads the costs from you to your healer. But a defensive or utility action could work.

Oblation should have been something we needed to have level 50+ for the fact we're short one phys dmg mitigation until TBN due to Dark Mind and then perhaps gotten a trait for a second charge later.

To make up the fact 10% DR is going to be underwhelming and they won't buff it to 20% or god forbid, do something interesting with it. It should also apply to yourself when cast on a target then its cooldown can be increase to 90 secs idc.

More than simply 'additional effects', I'm talking about having the button itself change to a different utility effect. Here are a couple of examples:

Plunge: Dive forward 20 yalms. Action changes to Shadowstep with Dark Arts active.
Shadowstep: Become ethereal, increasing your movement speed by 100% and becoming immune to knockback and draw-in effects.

Abyssal Drain: Deals unaspected damage to target over time. Gain healing over time while debuff is active. If target dies, Abyssal Drain's cooldown resets. Action changes to Salted Earth when Dark Arts is active.
Salted Earth: Creates patch of salted earth, causing damage over time to targets that enter and healing you for each target in the area. If a target dies in afflicted ground, triggers Salt and Darkness.

Hello all, I have been thinking about how we could add to dark knight without a complete rework. This suggestion
changes one mechanic and from there I believe, allows the current dev(s) for dark to expand for the future. The inspiration is drawn from grease lighting, inner release animation/transformation, and mirage dive. It centers on darkside, adds blood generation, new animations with potency increases, a new delirium, the return of soul survivor and an upgraded abyssal drain.

Core mechanic changes
1. Darkside: activates with edge of shadow per usual.

New: edge of shadow grants a stack of darkness up to four. the stacks work like grease lightning as they allow darkside for ~30s max 30sec (suggested timer). This will add darkside up keep which we know is not hard to do hence this mech adds a layer to the number of edges we do per usual without any major alterations.

New: darkness stacks up to four but can now be consumed at three stacks to use "summon shadow."

New: upon reaching four stacks of darkness we gain darkarts (gold UI icon and all is made visible). We can now activate "endwalker" (place holder name lol) aka inner release- or is it.

Endwalker: GCD animation or ogcd (I don't care) uses the living dead animation with purple and black color and glowing eyes for extra edge.

New: adds 10 blood to all weapon and spells skill. Reduces spell speed to the equivalent of a weapon skill.
Transforms hard slash, syphon strike, and soul eater into
power slash, syphon strike ii (old delirium animation blue), and soul eater ii (old scourge animation red).
Activates soul survivor ability and abyssal drain becomes abyssal chaos. Timer ~30sec (basically same as darkside timer).

***Btw I don't care if we use these animations or not we need new combos.

Why 10 blood? To add blood synergy from the new combo and or spells (this is open to change).

Why change the basic single target combo instead of adding as a new combo string? To prevent the dreaded button bloat and add fresh relatively-new (lol) animations. This will satisfy those who enjoyed the since remove weapon skill of the past.

New combo upgrades:
Souleater ii: doubles health generated or add 100% crit
(Open to change). Adds 10 blood for a total of 30 blood.

Syphon strike ii: double or increased mana gain upon use plus 10 blood (open to change). Returns and influx of mana for edge of shadows or whatever mp based attack costs.

Power slash: because we needed to upgrade hard slash period as everyone else gets new weapon skill upgrades. Adds 10 blood.

Why spell speed reduction. Um, do we need to cover this one. I want to make the implementation as easy as possible without a system stat rework. It allows aoe listed as spell to now benefit from "blood weapon" which btw has not changed (I guess).

Soul survivor: "spell" or ogcd (I don't care) wether you were a fan of the animation or the timed optimizing, this is for you. Single use during "endwalker state" you can stock mana and hp for later. Have fun (open to changes adjusted potencies).

Abyssal drain ii: Aka abyssal chaos. A potency increase perhaps but more so an opportunity to add a new animation (for job growth as we hit higher levels) and increased direct hp sustain. Some people even consider adding charges to abyssal drain. (Open to change).

***To summarize, our new transformation is "endwalker" aka inner release- if you like warrior mech. It builds from the edges of shadow we already do and adds darkside maintenance. The stacks are capped at 4 because due to our mp pool we can only get 3, but TBN and blood weapon as of currently grant us an edge of shadow If I recall. This allows us flexibility on how we reach darkarts>endwalker (stack 4).

The darkside guage dump is now summon shadow at 3stacks. This allows us to delay "endwalker" (I don't know why lol). Consider it as a consolation and adds depth to the darkside guage. And with the new changes we may be able to summon shadow during "endwalker stance" anyway with mp regen adjustments.

**But wait if summon shadow consumes darkside, don't we lose our 10% damage increase. But in return we get a dot and we can simply bank a edge for reactivation anyway (open to change)

**But wait if it takes 4 stacks to reach darkarts "endwalker stance," how can we do our opener.

Introducing "Delirium"
New: 120sec cd grants "darkarts". Basically enter endwalker and activates our new abilities. What!? everyone else does it. (Open to change).

This was my first post and I'm totally fine with criticism and suggestions. I really wanted to share this idea. My hopes is that much of this is easy to implement and can add depth to a job which many want to see grow. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I really like the look of DRK's defensive abilities. There's this common aesthetic of spherical arcane barriers. I think they should just stick with the theme instead of mixing and matching different types of defensive effects. There's no reason why every tank has to have % damage reduction effects.

There's an easy solution to Dark Mind and Dark Missionary catering to one damage type only. Just rework that odd Dark Arts proc so that it actually produces ability swaps instead of being directly translated into dps.

Oblation: Sacrifice HP equal to 10% of your total. Grants a barrier on target player totaling 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain Dark Arts. This ability cannot be used if it would reduce your HP to 0. Recast: 15 seconds.

Dark Mind: Absorbs magical damage up to 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP. Action changes to Dark Force while under the effect of Dark Arts.

Dark Force: Absorbs physical damage up to 20% of your total. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP.

Dark Missionary: Absorbs magical damage to self and nearby party members for damage up to 15% of your total HP. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP. Action changes to Dark Emissary while under the effect of Dark Arts.

Dark Emissary: Absorbs physical damage to self and nearby party members for damage up to 15% of your total HP. If you prevent damage this way, gain HP.

Walking Dead: Absorbs all incoming damage. You cannot restore HP while this effect is active. When this effect ends, you gain HP equal to the amount of damage absorbed.

I also think that DRK needs to expand out its range of GCDs. What I'd recommend is that instead of a second branching combo that follows a fixed pattern, you just add in a 4th combo step that procs randomly to give you either a bit more blood or a bit more MP, depending on what lights up. Think Wheeling Thrust/Fang and Claw, except with say Bloodspiller randomly proccing to give you a bit of extra blood on your 4th step, or Scourge randomly proccing to give you a bit of extra MP on your 4th step.

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If living dead was changed to what you propose it could possibly be the best invuln in the game. But sadly devs wont do that.

It would be the most fun invuln, at least. For all their FFXI nostalgia, the dev team is still yet to bring in a Dread Spikes type effect. I think that it would make a lot of sense.

The place that you would run into trouble is if you procced it just before an intermission, because you would be unhealable while also not receiving damage to heal up yourself with.