Dark Knight Megathread

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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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This makes about as much sense as saying "either all tanks should be able to equip a greatsword, or none of them should."

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Originally Posted by Crater

This makes about as much sense as saying "either all tanks should be able to equip a greatsword, or none of them should."

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I don't think that's a fair comparison, considering you're equating something that's essentially a cosmetic decision to a tangible element of the gameplay.

The term here is "risk-reward factor". DRK is the only one that puts a risk on its mitigation, because it has to ante the cost of an attack. However, its "reward" is simply that you get the best of both worlds and the damage loss is net neutral (buff timings aside) if you use it successfully.
Or at least, that's the intent.
Of course, "you don't lose damage" is a pretty lousy reward for the risk posed, especially when such a cost isn't required of any other tank to get the same mileage (two of them even having completely free versions and one having it on its own resource), hence the mindset that you're really being penalized if you didn't get the full value out of the barrier.

There is simply no other tank forced to take a similar risk, even its own "interpretation" of such; it is a limitation that is only levied on the shoulders of DRK. If more tanks did, we'd just consider it endemic to the role or part of the tanking design philosophy. Right now though, DRK is an aberration, which is seemingly unfair.

What if TBN when broken before the timer ends granted a free shadowbringer on a gain? And if it doesn't break before the timer end it instead gives you flood/edge to break even?

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Originally Posted by Runeslayer

What if TBN when broken before the timer ends granted a free shadowbringer on a gain?

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Which brings us to the other facet: the reason TBN's counterattack can only ever be DPS neutral. If proper use of TBN becomes a DPS gain, we encounter three issues.

One, that the value of using MP-consuming skills other than TBN diminishes; there is a calculable damage value of TBN over Flood/Edge, shifting the damage loss onto them instead. Unless you are likely to overcap your MP otherwise, getting the maximum damage value out of your MP requires using TBN.
Two, that you'll be weighing the use of TBN on the damage gain over the situations in which you require the practical defense; TBN becomes a damage tool, just one that happens to be procced by taking damage. (And good luck ever figuring out how much damage you have in Stone, Sky, Sea without the ability to break TBN to maximize damage.)
And three, the myth of "free damage": a job is balanced around consistently achieving its maximum damage potential. We would still consider getting the consolation a damage loss because it's not Shadowbringer, because our damage output would be balanced around pumping out Shadowbringers rather than Flood/Edge.

Not to mention that if you get a consolation Flood/Edge out of it either way, why bother giving TBN a cost shared with them at all?

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

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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Archwizard actually narrowed down my main issue with how TBN is right now. Personally if I had my way DRG and AST wouldn't be getting the reworks in 7.0, it'd be DRK and SCH. Both are punished heavily by their own job mechanics compared to others in their roles, both are clunky for this same reason, both are the unloved children of the devs in their roles...and both of them are what I main in their respective roles.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Which brings us to the other facet: the reason TBN's counterattack can only ever be DPS neutral. If proper use of TBN becomes a DPS gain, we encounter three issues.

One, that the value of using MP-consuming skills other than TBN diminishes; there is a calculable damage value of TBN over Flood/Edge, shifting the damage loss onto them instead. Unless you are likely to overcap your MP otherwise, getting the maximum damage value out of your MP requires using TBN.
Two, that you'll be weighing the use of TBN on the damage gain over the situations in which you require the practical defense; TBN becomes a damage tool, just one that happens to be procced by taking damage. (And good luck ever figuring out how much damage you have in Stone, Sky, Sea without the ability to break TBN to maximize damage.)
And three, the myth of "free damage": a job is balanced around consistently achieving its maximum damage potential. We would still consider getting the consolation a damage loss because it's not Shadowbringer, because our damage output would be balanced around pumping out Shadowbringers rather than Flood/Edge.

Not to mention that if you get a consolation Flood/Edge out of it either way, why bother giving TBN a cost shared with them at all?

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Thats why I pose the question, given I've heard the complaint often. It can be frustrating when TBN just doesn't proc and you just blew 3000mp because Yoshi p wasnt kind to you that day, though I feel this was more common during shadowbringers than endwalker. Didn't they change TBN's priority to be the first thing that pops?

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Archwizard actually narrowed down my main issue with how TBN is right now. Personally if I had my way DRG and AST wouldn't be getting the reworks in 7.0, it'd be DRK and SCH. Both are punished heavily by their own job mechanics compared to others in their roles, both are clunky for this same reason, both are the unloved children of the devs in their roles...and both of them are what I main in their respective roles.

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For sure, and I've been wondering why they would bother reworking DRG and AST. Both not only perform really well, but are also really fun to play to a lot of people. The only complaints I've seen about the two are DRG's animation locks and AST's RNG. Other than that, they really don't need fundamental reworks.

DRK and SCH are both slowly getting outdated by FFXIV's current design philosophy.

Every 2 mins, DRKs need to press 13 oGCDS, 15 if Salted Earth is up

(5 Edges (one from TBN), Blood Weapon, Delirium, Living Shadow, 2 Shadowbringers, Carve and Spit, 2 Plunges, Salted Earth, Salt and Darkness)

Can we possibly get more oGCDs please?

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

For sure, and I've been wondering why they would bother reworking DRG and AST. Both not only perform really well, but are also really fun to play to a lot of people. The only complaints I've seen about the two are DRG's animation locks and AST's RNG. Other than that, they really don't need fundamental reworks.

DRK and SCH are both slowly getting outdated by FFXIV's current design philosophy.

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It makes you realize just how out of touch the devs are with the players. They literally stated "We don't know what more we can do for SCH." That's a clear confession that the job is not okay and needs a rework so they have a new vision for it. Enhanced Unmend is an unsaid admission to DRK players that they feel the same way about DRK. Hell, they JUST gave us the proper LD fix we'd been asking for since Stormblood.

Enhanced unmend is still the biggest slap in the face to DRK players. They should have given us a better trait. We shouldnt even expect any changes in 6.21

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Originally Posted by Derio

Enhanced unmend is still the biggest slap in the face to DRK players. They should have given us a better trait. We shouldnt even expect any changes in 6.21

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At this point I won't expect good changes until they announce a rework.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Personally if I had my way DRG and AST wouldn't be getting the reworks in 7.0, it'd be DRK and SCH.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

For sure, and I've been wondering why they would bother reworking DRG and AST. Both not only perform really well, but are also really fun to play to a lot of people. The only complaints I've seen about the two are DRG's animation locks and AST's RNG. Other than that, they really don't need fundamental reworks.

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Just gonna chime in to mention that while I agree DRG doesn't really need a rework, AST suffers from the same level of button bloat and double-weaving as DRK and SCH, and its current card system is extremely clunky. Each new iteration of the card system becomes more disparate and disconnected from other elements of the kit; Minor Arcana and Divination are completely divorced from the card system, and the seals only exist to create a reason to use all 6 card assets despite Astrodyne not being worth fishing for. You can argue that it's at least popular and functional, but that's just as true for DRK with its burst and SCH with Expedient.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Hell, they JUST gave us the proper LD fix we'd been asking for since Stormblood.

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I wouldn't even say it was a "proper LD fix", it feels more like a bandaid. A proper fix would have removed the Doom effect entirely, this just added an extra step to negate it.

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Originally Posted by Derio

Enhanced unmend is still the biggest slap in the face to DRK players. They should have given us a better trait. We shouldnt even expect any changes in 6.21

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On a similar note, how do people feel about shadowbringer?
I'm not necessarily against it but I really feel the fact that our level 90 skill, The big thing for this expansion in a sense, Is Dark passenger II.
How many jobs can say that there end skill was a skill that was trimmed from them before.

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Originally Posted by Briarthorn

On a similar note, how do people feel about shadowbringer?
I'm not necessarily against it but I really feel the fact that our level 90 skill, The big thing for this expansion in a sense, Is Dark passenger II.
How many jobs can say that there end skill was a skill that was trimmed from them before.

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Yeah that was a factor among many in my decision to not level DRK. Eventide in PvP is such a better "capstone" ability. Shadowbringer more or less is Dark Passenger without the blind and more damage.

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Originally Posted by Briarthorn

On a similar note, how do people feel about shadowbringer?
I'm not necessarily against it but I really feel the fact that our level 90 skill, The big thing for this expansion in a sense, Is Dark passenger II.

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I wouldn't even say it's Dark Passenger II, since Dark Passenger notably had the blind.

I would say it's more like Flood of Darkness III or High Flood of Shadow -- especially since the Living Shadow is able to cast it as an upgrade to Flood.
Which is already disappointing as it is, because Flood's a really underwhelming ability that only exists to fill the niche of "AoE Edge of Darkness"?

I get that they're trying to push this iconography on DRK of firing off Dark Waves from its sword as a nod to franchise history, and I have no issue with that whatsoever, I just have take issue with the fact we've had like... four of those? Two of them at the same time now?
So if the entire point of Shadowbringer is to be thematic, it's already redundant while we have Flood.

The most disappointing part of it to me is that it's just a fire-and-forget free damage effect, it doesn't build off the kit or shake up gameplay in any notable way besides being an extra button to weave into our burst window.

That is kind of the issue with a lot of DRK's kit since Shadowbringer: it is disconnected. Most of it does its stuff alone with minimum interraction between the moving parts.
Edge/Flood and the Darkside gauge don't have any interraction with anything but Shadowbringer which needs the buff up to be used, Blood Gauge is used for 2 skills that don't interract with neither MP, Darkside or defensive abilities (unless they are under the effect of delirium, in which case it compensates for the 1 missing Syphon Slash). Living Shadow does use Blood Gauge too though, almost forgot about it. And while it does add some depth, it's very little.
The dark arts effect from TBN is just a MP refund, and as discussed at length ealier I understand why it can't be a "free 50 Blood gauge at break/end of effect" like it was in Stormblood, as it'd likely be too strong and punish even harder for not breaking it (or would it, if you get the effect on the end of timer anyway?), but there has to have ways to make it more interresting. Be it enhancing defensive abilities or slapping effects on some offensive ones that give a defensive benefit (blind, slow, damage down, sole survivor like effect...) without increasing damage.

There is a lot of way a DRK upgrade could go, with or without changing our current base. One thing I kind of hope for tho', is for the animations to get more satisfying. Most of them feel very weak somehow.

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Originally Posted by Briarthorn

On a similar note, how do people feel about shadowbringer?
I'm not necessarily against it but I really feel the fact that our level 90 skill, The big thing for this expansion in a sense, Is Dark passenger II.
How many jobs can say that there end skill was a skill that was trimmed from them before.

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WAR

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

I wouldn't even say it's Dark Passenger II, since Dark Passenger notably had the blind.

I would say it's more like Flood of Darkness III or High Flood of Shadow -- especially since the Living Shadow is able to cast it as an upgrade to Flood.
Which is already disappointing as it is, because Flood's a really underwhelming ability that only exists to fill the niche of "AoE Edge of Darkness"?

I get that they're trying to push this iconography on DRK of firing off Dark Waves from its sword as a nod to franchise history, and I have no issue with that whatsoever, I just have take issue with the fact we've had like... four of those? Two of them at the same time now?
So if the entire point of Shadowbringer is to be thematic, it's already redundant while we have Flood.

The most disappointing part of it to me is that it's just a fire-and-forget free damage effect, it doesn't build off the kit or shake up gameplay in any notable way besides being an extra button to weave into our burst window.

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I would I hate floods animation should have just slapped shadow bringer on it and called it a day not make two and one is better aesthetically dmg and doesn't use mp but cant fire as much sounds like alot but if you just up the pot of one would there be a difference im dps

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Originally Posted by Briarthorn

On a similar note, how do people feel about shadowbringer?
I'm not necessarily against it but I really feel the fact that our level 90 skill, The big thing for this expansion in a sense, Is Dark passenger II.
How many jobs can say that there end skill was a skill that was trimmed from them before.

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Another unrelated oGCD that does damage.

It is not terribly interesting and it does exactly what it does, being nothing new for the job as a whole.
I don't hate its inclusion, but when I sync down I can't say I miss it.

I think the devs got confused when players said they wanted a fast and fluid DRK from HW back. And they thought oh they want 15 oGCDS that don't synergize with each other.

Oh well at least Living Dead got a half baked improvement after 6 years.

Honestly the thing that disturbs me the most with DRK as it is now, is that all of its GCDs feel like slow but supposedly heavy hitting abilities. And its burst is full of oGCD clipped in cancelling animations and such. It's kind of contradictory and if the animations worked better within each other, it wouldn't be much of an issue and I think it would make the job more enjoyable. Because as it is now, the GCDs feel too weak (in animations), the weapon seems unwielding but weightless in the strikes it is so weird. Reaper has GCDs that feel like they are actual hits, so do Warrior or Gunbreaker within the tanks. (I guess it's the presence or not of hitstops and slight screenshakes, and sound design)

I know this is the result of Dark Knight using animations dating from a 3.0 design, so not thought for the current version of the job.

It's literally like comparing Berserk 1997 to 2016. 3.0-4.0 was slow deliberate and a bit jank like the 97' anime but there was weight and feel to it. 5.0+ is like 2016 with all the flipping and dipping with questionable animations. I was drawn to DRK in 3.0 for the Guts fantasy but fell out of it after it turned into Kirito.

It's ironic that WAR used to have this problem with Berserk/IR. Before, you clipped it to fit everything in the window but since they changed it to stacks you pop IR after a gcd so most times you see the full animation of IR which is a really cool effect imo. It's like going ultra instinct before sonic light dashing on the enemy.

Some irony I find with DRK, and apologies if I ramble a bit:

The kit uses both spells and MP, because it's intended to be a magic-wielding tank.
None of its MP is used on spells anymore though (fine, whatever), and its MP is only used for one spell-like effect, a barrier.

Meanwhile its MP-consuming offensive abilities are all glorified weapon blows with no innate magical effects. Maybe you can argue you're enchanting the weapon like RDM does, but then there's no practical reason you can tell me why Edge of Shadow is somehow considered magical, but Bloodspiller (which uses similar visual effects) or Souleater (which actually has a supernatural effect) shouldn't be equally so, so that's not really consistent.
In fact, of its offensive spells and spell-like abilities -- Unmend, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth -- you would only bother with one of them in single-target when weaponskills (or Carve & Spit) are available.

I'm not saying we need to have any kind of cast-times in the rotation, but it's just bizarre to me that for a job so associated with "mixing magic and weaponry", you hardly do any spell-slinging in your rotation.

To be fair Edge/Flood swing a pretty massive amount of magic within the strike, so it doing magic damage makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

To be fair Edge/Flood swing a pretty massive amount of magic within the strike, so it doing magic damage makes sense.

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Yeah, but like I was saying, Bloodspiller has an explosion of dark energy on impact, and still isn't considered a magical hit any more than SAM's Yukikaze is. (Sure, SAM has a practical reason to keep the latter physical thanks to Bloodbath, but DRK is not affected by any such divisions since Embolden and Brotherhood became general damage buffs. And even then, frankly Bloodbath could stand to change for NIN's sake.)

At any rate, my issue is more just the reduction in spell-work for the job in general. I get the devs not wanting DRK to be too close to PLD, but they could still have the MP spenders manifest as magical blasts from your offhand or curses or explosive projectiles so we can actually do some quick spellcasting, rather than just quick swings. If anything it might feel more natural, and make room to have the actual physical swings feel more impactful.

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Originally Posted by Briarthorn

On a similar note, how do people feel about shadowbringer?

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The Darkside requirement would have been a neat interaction if it weren't for the fact that Darkside is near impossible to drop, but I'll give some props for the attempt. I'd like to see them take it a step further and have it drain Darkside, we generate so much excess per minute anyways.

Honestly if darkside was used as a ressource it'd be neat.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

Honestly if darkside was used as a ressource it'd be neat.

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Have a bit of the duration of Darkside lost whenever we use a Blood move, and then suddenly we have DRK go from somewhat braindead to having to manage and avoid overcapping Darkside while still using it for attacks in the heat of battle.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Have a bit of the duration of Darkside lost whenever we use a Blood move, and then suddenly we have DRK go from somewhat braindead to having to manage and avoid overcapping Darkside while still using it for attacks in the heat of battle.

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So HW DRK with Darkside draining MP and Dark Arts? :) Man I miss those days. I like this DRK too but HW DRK was my favorite.

Having a communicating vessel thing going between MP/Darkside/Blood could be neat. Not necesseraly complicated but having moves giving darkside, using darkside to get blood, using blood to get MP. (and some outliers here and there) could be nice.

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

Yeah, but like I was saying, Bloodspiller has an explosion of dark energy on impact, and still isn't considered a magical hit any more than SAM's Yukikaze is. (Sure, SAM has a practical reason to keep the latter physical thanks to Bloodbath, but DRK is not affected by any such divisions since Embolden and Brotherhood became general damage buffs. And even then, frankly Bloodbath could stand to change for NIN's sake.)

At any rate, my issue is more just the reduction in spell-work for the job in general. I get the devs not wanting DRK to be too close to PLD, but they could still have the MP spenders manifest as magical blasts from your offhand or curses or explosive projectiles so we can actually do some quick spellcasting, rather than just quick swings. If anything it might feel more natural, and make room to have the actual physical swings feel more impactful.

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Now you put the idea in my head of replacing Edge's animation with the part of the Power Slash animation where he shoots energy from his hand, that would be sick.

Overall I see what you mean, not necessarily just animation wise but also with how few MP spenders there are in the kit.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

Having a communicating vessel thing going between MP/Darkside/Blood could be neat. Not necesseraly complicated but having moves giving darkside, using darkside to get blood, using blood to get MP. (and some outliers here and there) could be nice.

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Perhaps with Shadowbringer becoming a single use move with big damage attached to it, at the cost of draining 30s off Darkside, 50 blood, and 3000 MP. So it becomes a move with a calculated cost that will be sacrificing your other attacks for it. Note that we don't have to keep the costs for Blood and MP as they are in the example, it's just an example.

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Originally Posted by baklava151

Overall I see what you mean, not necessarily just animation wise but also with how few MP spenders there are in the kit.

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MP spenders I can sort of understand. We had that period where you would have a utilitarian spender versus damage spenders, and the damage spenders would be prioritized.

If they were going to add more MP spenders at any point, they would have to have other values and limitations. For instance, a higher damage spender on a lengthy cooldown (even Shadowbringer could have worked for this), or a utility spender with such a high raid value that you would be shooting yourself in the foot to ignore it regardless of damage loss (I've previously suggested a PoA-like effect for this that returns MP if it actually reduces party damage).

Defensive stuff could be put on Darkside spenders exclusively. So spending MP to generate darkside while doing damage fuel the ressource used for defensive abilities. Further discourage overcapping and spending too much of your MP so you can always refuel on darkside after using lots of defensives.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

Defensive stuff could be put on Darkside spenders exclusively. So spending MP to generate darkside while doing damage fuel the ressource used for defensive abilities. Further discourage overcapping and spending too much of your MP so you can always refuel on darkside after using lots of defensives.

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Except that Darkside can only be generated if you hit a target and has a timer, so opening a fight or experiencing significant downtime without a target means you can't use those defensives.

This is unlike PLD, who enters instances with a full gauge, has no time limitation on its gauge, and has PoA to force block during downtime. And unlike WAR and GNB who continue to defend for free.

Not all defensives would need to be under darkside spend. Maybe they can be enhanced at the cost of Darkside, or have some exclusive ones using it.
Could also have one ability with a large CD to generate Darkside after long downtime, or a channeling one to generate it on downtime like some of the monk and sam stuff

Or just an ability that pauses darkside ticking down as long as you not attack.

God I hate Dark Mind and Oblation. DRK needs better Mitigation.
TBN is weak in comparison too now.

It's fine in Raids (assuming you use Illegal 3rd party tools to confirm what Dark Mind and Dark Missionary actually work on!), but running dungeons as DRK is a pain in the butt!
Oblation is a measly 10%?
Dark Mind is Magic only?
TBN got no buffs?
Abyssal Drain needs 13 targets for a 50% heal on a 60s cooldown?

What is going on here?

You might want to edit that.
It's relatively simple to tell what will be magic damage anyway, all raidwides are and a lot of tankbusters are too.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

I really wish AD was the MP spender and not Flood. No Darkside gain, has the same initial damage as Edge, but with a 400 Cure Potency and a 35% drop in damage for each enemy hit other than the original target. Cure Potency would drop to 200 per other enemy hit as well (if you really wanted to avoid it being busted in dungeons).

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But yeah, I never really was a fan of FoS. Spamming AD was great fun back in the day and would put DRK in line with the other tanks in terms of dungeon balance. Which could be needed since extreme dungeons are now a thing.

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Originally Posted by Sazuzaki

But yeah, I never really was a fan of FoS. Spamming AD was great fun back in the day and would put DRK in line with the other tanks in terms of dungeon balance. Which could be needed since extreme dungeons are now a thing.

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It also somewhat fixes the issue of Darkside being a braindead buff that's permanently up all the time. It becomes more useful to use AD on cooldown, and thus Edge is just used to keep Darkside up, which makes it possible for the buff to actually fall off.