Dark Knight Megathread

Wonder if Oblation is something they'll address in 6.2. Other than that I can't really imagine what else needs changing with DRK that they would fix in a patch, it functions perfectly fine in content. Maybe some potency buffs :D?

Cure potency buffs would be nice. Change Souleater's 300 cure potency to 400, and change Abyssal Drain's Cure Potency to 400 as well. It's not like you can use Souleater while bursting, or Abyssal Drain more than once a minute anyway. May as well make those cure potencies good. Also, for the name of all that is holy, exchange Enhanced Unmend WITH AN ACTUAL TRAIT AND NOT A JOKE ONE!

I'm not a game developer but I honestly don't understand why we can't have a 200-300 (or whatever is balanced) potency cure tied to Bloodspiller/Quietus and then bake Oblation into Dark Mind/Dark Missionary. Outside of a full rework of some kind, this feels like it solves all our tool kit problems and is probably small beans.

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Originally Posted by baklava151

Wonder if Oblation is something they'll address in 6.2. Other than that I can't really imagine what else needs changing with DRK that they would fix in a patch, it functions perfectly fine in content. Maybe some potency buffs :D?

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The low hanging fruit to address for the rest of the expansion for DRK is Abyssal Drain and Oblation imo.
Abyssal they could go a lot of ways on, I dont like that they attached it to carve and spit as if its Upheaval/Orogeny, if it were me this would have been turned into a 30s oGCD for DRK that isn't plunge, which would go a long way in helping DRK in dungeon content, especially in its weakest levels (60-69). This would also give DRK a button to press in their 40 seconds of downtime post burst which I would appreciate.

But even simple cure potency buffs would be nice. The skill either needs to be far more available or just do way more. Either option is fine.

Oblation is significantly less obvious what to do with, I did a big post about why a page or two back so no reason to repeat myself. Its just a redundant skill on a class that honestly already has a lot of raw mitigation.

I typically just treat oblation as a pair skill with TBN, something I will always have at least one of for anything I need TBN for; By itself its rather underwhelming.
Other than that I just use the second charge for...auto attacks I suppose. I'm not doing much else with it outside of specific encounters.

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Originally Posted by Raidriar

I'm not a game developer but I honestly don't understand why we can't have a 200-300 (or whatever is balanced) potency cure tied to Bloodspiller/Quietus and then bake Oblation into Dark Mind/Dark Missionary. Outside of a full rework of some kind, this feels like it solves all our tool kit problems and is probably small beans.

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You don't need to be a game dev to know nothing is stopping them from doing it
The amount that they change to this class they could wipe the whole class and make a new one at this point
the closest thing I could think of would me time and money the former being a real issue since you have to make a window for the change
the latter I don't think it going to cost much to manipulate stats but this also depends on how the crystal engine work
I haven't touched it so thats as far as I can go with the thought

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Originally Posted by Raidriar

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1) baking oblation into another skill is quite frankly a straight up nerf to DRK. the skill's insane flexibility & 60s CD is part of the reason DRK just snoozes so hard during double dragons of DSR and laugh at cauterize w/o invuln while the other tanks have to ration their CDs out. Removing user control is always a bad move imo. Oblation's problem is that outside of niche situations like double dragons where there's tons of high damage tankbusters and not enough CDs to go around in a short period of time, the skill is pretty lackluster, which can be fixed by giving it a side effect to make it more pronounced in all situations, like heals.

2) Imo, it's likely several things:
-As far as we know, there's like, one guy that handles all the tanks on the job team. Dude's probably overworked and just plays it safe on design.
-The dev might have a perceived notion that DRK is meant to be the 'preventative damage' tank through barriers, rather than healing after the fact. Which is a fine philosophy for raiding content, but falls short when barriers rapidly fall behind % mitigaors and heals in mass pulls of dungeons which is where more complaints show up due to how strong DRK's raid kit is. Which would also make sense in the vision that the devs have on how you're 'supposed' to tackle dungeon content, one pack at a time, where TBN's issues aren't really prevalent since it can easily block 2 sets of autos from 2-3 mobs and self heals are less useful due to the much less incoming damage. Thus in his eyes, giving DRK self sustain would be massively OP when TBN already is strong in the dev's ideal dungeon scenario. Without knowing the dev's thoughts however, thats just mere speculation.

3) Honestly, calling for a rework is a very bad idea. Every 'rework' they've done in the past few expansions has almost always ended up worse than the original. WAR went from a great gauge management job to unga bunga in 4.2. SMN got intensely streamlined and gets memes for being a 2-4 button job due to how many skills just use the same button. MNK's rework is extremely hit or miss, but in my own personal experience, seems to be a greater miss than a hit. Don't even get me started on the NIN job design at the beginning of EW. Even the hinted at DRG rework sounds like more simplification rather than a meaningful one.

For all we know, the dev might think the reason people are calling for a rework is due to complaints there's too many buttons, and just make it more like WAR by reducing the total button counts and making things hit harder / crit+dh to compensate, remove MP costs and make things static charges to remove any remaining critical thinking, and call it a day.

That's why the calls for buffing Abyssal Drain keep coming up. You don't use Abyssal Drain in single target bosses (anymore), so it having a good cure potency on it would not upset the balance at all. As for Oblation, a Bloodbath-ish effect on it would make it one hell of a good move for DRKs. Anybody hit with Oblation would be able to heal themselves for the next 3 attacks they hit an enemy with a weaponskill/spell, at 400 cure potency. Amazing for helping others get their health up, and with a 1m cooldown on charge, it's not something you're going to be able to spam, encouraging actual thought on using it.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

That's why the calls for buffing Abyssal Drain keep coming up. You don't use Abyssal Drain in single target bosses (anymore), so it having a good cure potency on it would not upset the balance at all. As for Oblation, a Bloodbath-ish effect on it would make it one hell of a good move for DRKs. Anybody hit with Oblation would be able to heal themselves for the next 3 attacks they hit an enemy with a weaponskill/spell, at 400 cure potency. Amazing for helping others get their health up, and with a 1m cooldown on charge, it's not something you're going to be able to spam, encouraging actual thought on using it.

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... so Nascent Flash.

10% Mitigation and a fixed potency Cure on attacks. That's literally NF on introduction, before 82 improves it. It just doesn't heal the both of you, in exchange for a fixed stack system that a Black Mage can use.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

That's why the calls for buffing Abyssal Drain keep coming up. You don't use Abyssal Drain in single target bosses (anymore), so it having a good cure potency on it would not upset the balance at all. As for Oblation, a Bloodbath-ish effect on it would make it one hell of a good move for DRKs. Anybody hit with Oblation would be able to heal themselves for the next 3 attacks they hit an enemy with a weaponskill/spell, at 400 cure potency. Amazing for helping others get their health up, and with a 1m cooldown on charge, it's not something you're going to be able to spam, encouraging actual thought on using it.

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And then we can finally remove healers as intended

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

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1) That's fair. I was just thinking about how tedious it is to double weave defensives while doubling weaving offensives but if oblation was just... better, that'd make sense, too.

2)Also true! I'd be fine with a barrier wizard, too, but I believe it was mathed that in even in a raid setting, it's technically weaker (on its own) than the other tanks' new special defensives (on their own). I don't know. I enjoy DRK but I definitely feel like a gap in the tool kit.

3) As someone who's mained DRK since the dawn of time, I don't really want a rework anymore. I just want my tool kit to be as well rounded as the other three (even if its done different).

EITHER WAY! I appreciate you taking time out your day to provide me some additional insight!

Well, some good news at least: Abyssal Drain is finally a gain on 3+ targets.

Not sure how the new changes will affect Living Shadow (or Automaton Queen for that matter).

So a damage buff on Abyssal Drain, but not a cure potency buff, nothing done with Enhanced Unmend, nothing done with Oblation...ugh.

Its about as bare minimum of a change you can make to a class.

And it seems like the Living Shadow change will hopefully mean it comes out faster and not drift into the sunset and miss every raidbuff?
Its either a decent change or a confusing one. The single target potency is the exact same as it was before, and a slight potency nerf to its AOE damage, which in all honestly is already really hard to even use in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Well, some good news at least: Abyssal Drain is finally a gain on 3+ targets.

Not sure how the new changes will affect Living Shadow (or Automaton Queen for that matter).

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It's basically:

+ Living Shadow deals the same single-target potency (2250) but in a smaller window of time (from ~18s down to ~14s, assuming the ~6s windup remains unchanged). Hypothetically, that means that you can get its full potency into a 15s raid buff window.

- Living Shadow loses 300 AoE potency with the loss of Quietus. This is somewhat mitigated by (Living Shadow's) Shadowbringer being increased from 450 to 500 potency, and from Abyssal Drain being raised by 90 potency. Over a two minute cycle, that's a loss of 70 AoE potency, and it's a significant reduction in even-minute burst AoE damage (160 less AoE potency during Living Shadow) though a small increase in odd-minute AoE burst (90 more potency on AD).


Overall, no substantial changes, which is more or less fine. It's all minutiae and the difference will be pretty imperceptible to almost everybody, other than Living Shadow maybe feeling slightly more beefy while it's out and fitting a little better with raid buffs.

So now with the buff to warriors and gunbreaker damage there's literally never a time to pick a dark knight for a raid............. Great job balance team 10/10 time to let sub lapse till they actually sort the class.

Pretty neutral with this changes. The AD buff is whatever, the Living Shadow change fits it more comfortably in raid buffs and fixes the rare issue of it aggroing the wrong target so I guess it's a positive.

The Bloodfest change has me wondering if Salted Earth is gonna follow suit, I think that and Riddle of Wind (lol) are the only 90s damage CDs left in the game

I think it is fairly safe to say that Dark Knight will not be getting any sustain buffs, basically you will suffer and you will LIKE it.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

So now with the buff to warriors and gunbreaker damage there's literally never a time to pick a dark knight for a raid............. Great job balance team 10/10 time to let sub lapse till they actually sort the class.

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I disagree.
Gunbreaker lost 1/4 of Bloodfest usage, the buff just compensate for this. And it's just 10 and 20 potency on the main combo, not meta breaker.
Sure GNB will benefits more from burst phase but DRK is still insanely good with raid buffs.

I think a lot of people underestimate the value of Dark Knight's kit.

While Dark Mind is limited to magic damage, most tank buster so far have been magical. Its 60s CD would also make it broken if other tanks didn't had their 25s CD.
Oblation, while 10% seems low, is lifesaving in content where heavy mitigation is needed. It's been a blessing during DSR prog.
And today, Living Dead is one of the best tank invuln. Due to its lower cooldown it's better than Bolide or Hallowed Ground.

The changes to Bloodweapon makes DRK a very flexible tank when it comes to burst phase.

Of course DRK has the worst survivability out of all the tanks but it excels in mitigation, flexibility and damage.
The best thing DRK could get is a healing potency on Abyssal drain and a rework of Enhanced Unmend.

DRK will be perfectly fine in raid content.

I think its just disappointing that they're so dedicated to homogenizing all the tanks Damage outputs and completely neglecting their defensive capabilities, you know the thing that defines tanks.

I think esteem/queen are a bit more lazy now
unless the stairs in troia (near the last trash pack before final boss) breaks the AI ,they just stand around waiting for you too attack instead of following you so timer just runs out before they get to the enemies.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

So now with the buff to warriors and gunbreaker damage there's literally never a time to pick a dark knight for a raid............. Great job balance team 10/10 time to let sub lapse till they actually sort the class.

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Lmao...

DRK is perfectly fine.

These Warrior buffs are needed but won't make them the highest dps tank, not even close.

The top 2 are still going to be Gunbreaker and DRK.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

I think esteem/queen are a bit more lazy now
unless the stairs in troia (near the last trash pack before final boss) breaks the AI ,they just stand around waiting for you too attack instead of following you so timer just runs out before they get to the enemies.

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I just tried it, Living Shadow just wait, standing still, until you attack.
It work with auto-attacks and GCDs/oGCDs but not Salted Earth.

Automaton Queen function the same way, but guess what:
Flamethrower doesn't trigger the attack, meaning the AQ will stand still until you break FT.

After playing around with the Living Shadow changes, I'm curious why they bothered to do anything with it.

All the problems it has still exists, and the long spawn animation does more to hinder its ease of use in burst windows more so than its attack speed or the fact it used Quietus before.

I think Esteem's delayed spawn is a helpful part of the skill's design, because it allows you to use the skill 6 seconds before your burst starts, and so it doesn't eat up a valuable oGCD weave slot during burst. Admittedly it makes the skill feel a little bit funky, but with the way they've taken combat in Endwalker, I think that's actually a valuable part of the skill.

To me, the problem with Living Shadow is just on the opener. You can't build enough Blood to actually use Living Shadow until after your third GCD, which is typically when the burst starts, so despite the 6.2 changes, you still can't actually fit it into burst in your opener, and since the cooldown is 120s, you never can unless a fight introduces a 6~7s delay on burst at some point (eg: Kampeos Harma in P2S, a few places in DSR).

I think the best way to address that would be to either A) reduce the cooldown from 120s to 110s (you would still hold for 120s, obviously, but this would allow you to correct some drift, including the delay on the opener), or B) Let DRK start combat instances with 50 Blood, the same way that PLD and SGE start with full meter when an instance starts or after a wipe.

Or put Living Shadow on a 120s CD with no blood gauge cost.
That's a terrible idea but SQEX could consider it.

IMO, "summons" like Automaton Queen and Living Shadow should just go and be replaced with a simple damage ability. Of course adjust the potency of the whole kit to keep the DPS.
LS is as interactive as one big cooldown like Hissatsu:Senei, the difference is that it's spread over a timer.

Think about it, if you replaced LS with a 120s CD, costing 50 blood gauge and inflicting a dot, it would be the exact same as Living Shadow, minus the flashyness of the skill.

either rework it into Bushin for DRK or give Esteem/Queen stacks so they don't just fizzle out as easily

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Think about it, if you replaced LS with a 120s CD, costing 50 blood gauge and inflicting a dot, it would be the exact same as Living Shadow, minus the flashyness of the skill.

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There's a couple important differences there. The first is that a DoT would be missing Living Shadow's AoE damage, which is still very considerable despite the 6.2 nerf. The second is that DoTs snapshot according to what buffs and debuffs are active when the DoT is applied, and Living Shadow actively gains and loses buffs as you do.

The AoE is pretty self-explanatory, but the snapshotting is also pretty important to consider. DRK's burst window is so busy that it's a specific upside to the current version of Living Shadow that you can use the skill before raid buffs go out; if it were a standard DoT then that would no longer be the case. It's good that DRK's burst window is as busy as it is - it's fun! - but it's also pretty much at-capacity, and you would definitely do harm to the class's design by adding extra things to it without a really good reason.

They could change Blood Weapon to just have it give 50 Blood directly. Then you swap LS and Delirium in your opener and it should catch raid buffs better.

Honestly, yeah, that would also work and be a pretty good change; I've made that suggestion before. Blood Weapon serves no purpose anymore other than to generate exactly 3000 MP and 50 Blood, and there's no reason for it to be a stack-based buff to do that. If it were just Dark Infuriate and applied the resources directly, that would also solve the Living Shadow problem in DRK's opener.

I doubt they'd change it again so soon after making it stack-based, but they did revert the High Jump/Mirage Dive change instead of sticking to their guns on a blunder, so maybe they're more open to that kind of fix than they have been in the past.

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Originally Posted by Crater

There's a couple important differences there. The first is that a DoT would be missing Living Shadow's AoE damage, which is still very considerable despite the 6.2 nerf. The second is that DoTs snapshot according to what buffs and debuffs are active when the DoT is applied, and Living Shadow actively gains and loses buffs as you do.

The AoE is pretty self-explanatory, but the snapshotting is also pretty important to consider. DRK's burst window is so busy that it's a specific upside to the current version of Living Shadow that you can use the skill before raid buffs go out; if it were a standard DoT then that would no longer be the case. It's good that DRK's burst window is as busy as it is - it's fun! - but it's also pretty much at-capacity, and you would definitely do harm to the class's design by adding extra things to it without a really good reason.

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I understand the argument, yet...

For the AoE, you can simply shift the lost potency to other abilities such as Shadowbringer to not lose any aoe potency. To fully benefits from LS AoE, it requires a good positionning. Shifting the AoE potency from LS to player abilities would offer more flexibility and control over it.
As for the Snapshot, I don't think DRK would have much troubles weaving another ability. Even then, you can still keep the windup, as short debuff that release the attack when running out.

I understand your arguments, I think there are many ways to keep the benefits from current LS while changing its nature, giving more control and flexibility to the player.

I've seen a lot of people saying TBN should be free/punish free. Please, for the love of god, don't change TBN.

DRK is the only tank that has it's defensive kit directly tied to it's offensive kit, and I think that's super cool. Everyone's saying how that's a bad thing, and while I can see where they're coming from, removing the cost only homogenizes it more. Yes it could use improvement, but it's super fun to do wacky stuff with it and incentivizes you to get better if it fails.

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE MANA COST FOR THE BLACKEST NIGHT.

Edit: I've been hearing this from outside the forums, but I still wanted to throw my opinion on here just in case

Why does Living Shadow still use AD? I know it was buffed but it is just as useless as Quietus was. No adjustments to oblation. Guess we will have to wait until savage dungeons to see how the meta unfolds how unbalanced defensively the tanks are.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

I've seen a lot of people saying TBN should be free/punish free. Please, for the love of god, don't change TBN.

DRK is the only tank that has it's defensive kit directly tied to it's offensive kit, and I think that's super cool. Everyone's saying how that's a bad thing, and while I can see where they're coming from, removing the cost only homogenizes it more. Yes it could use improvement, but it's super fun to do wacky stuff with it and incentivizes you to get better if it fails.

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE MANA COST FOR THE BLACKEST NIGHT.

Edit: I've been hearing this from outside the forums, but I still wanted to throw my opinion on here just in case

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No, it needs to be like the others in cooldown. DRK should not be the only tank punished for mistiming a cooldown via DPS loss. Either all the tanks should have this problem, or none of them should.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

No, it needs to be like the others in cooldown. DRK should not be the only tank punished for mistiming a cooldown via DPS loss. Either all the tanks should have this problem, or none of them should.

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Why? Its not like Dark Knight is hurting for damage output right now.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

I've seen a lot of people saying TBN should be free/punish free. Please, for the love of god, don't change TBN.

DRK is the only tank that has it's defensive kit directly tied to it's offensive kit, and I think that's super cool. Everyone's saying how that's a bad thing, and while I can see where they're coming from, removing the cost only homogenizes it more. Yes it could use improvement, but it's super fun to do wacky stuff with it and incentivizes you to get better if it fails.

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE MANA COST FOR THE BLACKEST NIGHT.

Edit: I've been hearing this from outside the forums, but I still wanted to throw my opinion on here just in case

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You don't need to have mana cost to have defensive and offensive parts of the kit tied together. If feels awful when you use TBN and you get some value out of it but it doesn't break - so no damage for you. In high-end-duty that's not really a problem since pretty much everything breaks TBN, but in normal content it's quite difficult to break it. I feel like right now DRK feels bad and if they made TBN free it would still feel bad becasue it would basically make mana menagment not a thing lol. I don't really know how to fix it but both of those sound horrible to me lol. DKR needs overall rework imo 'cause right now it's just weirder clone of Warrior.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

No, it needs to be like the others in cooldown. DRK should not be the only tank punished for mistiming a cooldown via DPS loss. Either all the tanks should have this problem, or none of them should.

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Funny enough it actually benefits more on 2min bursts having MP costs. Drk would need to skip a GCD on their openers before opening Blood Weapon if it became a cooldown only making Living Shadow longer to setup.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Either all the tanks should have this problem, or none of them should.

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I think this needs some clarification.

In the discussions about making TBN "more in line with other on-demands", the topic that comes up a lot is homogeneity. If every tank plays the same, then there's no distinction between them and tanking as a whole is less fun.

However, the discussions overlook two simple facts:
1) Encounter design is balanced around certain elements of roles and raid compositions being consistent. For tanks, that's equal access to a required amount of mitigation and recovery tools to survive the encounter. In other words, a baseline of homogeneity is to be expected just for equity within the role, and everything else is built off that.
2) There's more to a tank's playstyle than mitigation. In fact, because of that first point, homogeneity is best staved off by making the rest of the playstyle more distinctive.

When it comes to on-demand mitigation, DRK is the odd man out. It's the only one that weighs mitigation against damage output, the only one that has a 15 sec cooldown on its on-demand instead of 22-25, and the only one that has a hard limit on its on-demand's defensive value.
Now, if another tank had a similar system with its mitigation, we wouldn't be having this discussion because DRK wouldn't be alone; there'd be some division between the tanks, like there is between barrier and pure healers. We'd just be comparing the benefits of TBN versus that other tank's specifically, or arguing if someone else should swap places with DRK in this system, or whether one system or the other is superior overall.
Likewise, there'd be no space for comparison at all if every tank had a wildly unique mitigation system -- it'd be impossible to compare fairly, forcing us to look at DRK in a vacuum -- though that would be way more difficult for the devs to balance.

But at present, DRK is alone. Which means that we can see encounters being balanced for every other tank, and DRK either pulls way ahead (as in ShB) or has to tough it out -- beating a dead horse here, but we see that very early in EW dungeons where DRK's barrier is quickly overwhelmed at a point when your tank is expected to have some massive boost in self-healing and instant mitigation. I've seen it brought up several times that "it doesn't matter if DRK's harder to heal, its damage output is so high the encounter ends sooner"... but ignoring that the difference between tank outputs just became even more marginal, damage numbers are ever a capricious thing, and eventually we may see DRK overtaken with nothing to show for it.

Another part of the issue that presents is that a lot of people equate DRK's playstyle largely with its unique mitigation system, and overlook its other flaws as a tank as a result of that. For instance, we regularly point out that after the opener, DRK's current rotation feels like a bare-bones offshoot of WAR, with several skills having 1:1 comparisons. And now we don't even get to lean on "well DRK gets more value out of Crit and DH boosts than WAR."

The point I'm getting at is, there are other avenues to set DRK apart than just focusing on its bubble... and frankly it needs those way more than the illusion of a counterattack.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Either all the tanks should have this problem, or none of them should.

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Archwizard did an excellent job at clarifying this.

I'm no stranger to knowing that TBN is holding the job back in other forms of being unique. Like, if I could exchange TBN for a unique mechanic like Dark Arts (before Eukrasia), I'd do it. However, can we really expect them to change the other aspects about DRK's job identity and not *just* homogenize the only thing that sets DRK's defensive kit apart?

I'm still aboard for this job to get a proper rework, but I'm not on board with this job getting mechanics removed and having nothing replace them.

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Originally Posted by fourteenroads

I feel like right now DRK feels bad and if they made TBN free it would still feel bad becasue it would basically make mana menagment not a thing lol. I don't really know how to fix it but both of those sound horrible to me lol. DKR needs overall rework imo 'cause right now it's just weirder clone of Warrior.

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Agreed on both, I can really see why some people might hate it with the current tank meta. A rework would do DRK wonders, but we've all seen the SMN rework by now...

For MP management, they'd need to involve it with the DPS rotation and keep it the hell away from the defensives. Blah blah 3.0 DRK.. but it would be really good if we got a simplified 3.0 DRK rotation with Souleater and Old Delirium. Of course, I'd want them to try to be a bit more original, but that looks like the best possible outcome if we don't go the SMN route.