Dark Knight Megathread

Hello everyone. As of 6.1, Living Dead and Blood Weapon have been changed respectively. This still leaves other issues, namely:

DRK's gameplay identity being too similiar to Warrior, i.e. Inner Release.

(Or in other words not having any identity at all)

Oblation being too underwhelming when performing in dungeons, etc.

Dark Mind only providing 20% defense for magic damage instead of both magic and physical.

Salted Earth not being utilized enough. PvP's Salted Earth provides HP regen which could be useful in PvE, for instance.

Carve and Spit as well as Abyssal Drain being on a shared recast timer.

The use of 1-2-3 buttons and the lack of GCD's while OGC's are thriving in DRK's arsenal.

These are some issues I thought of personally. What do you think? Are there any improvements or possible ideas that this job could benefit from? Let us all know!

(This also goes for PvP respectfully)

Note: The first few pages refer to the original post which was during the ShB era. I edited this post in order for the discussion to be up to date.

...it would be more effective to just join in on the conversations and debates in the other Dark Knight threads, where several people have already been in discussion about various Dark Knight concerns and issues.
a attempt to create a "Dark Knight MegaThread" from scratch is not going to go well... it would be more of ease to just increase activity in any of the Dark Knight threads that already have over a dozen pages of complaints, concerns, concepts, ideas, and suggestions posted, shared, debated, and criticized.

1 / 5.x ShB Dark Knight is boring, dull, simple, gutted to death, the worst of all tanks, had its own identity taken away and never given back, was ruined and destroyed instead of fixed, but doing that was the "fix"; is barely aught more than a copy-and-paste re-skin of Warrior, a mere WAR clone, but most of the copy-and-past WAR clone actions that Dark Knight has, are also inferior to Warrior, at that.
did I mention that Dark Knight had its identity taken away and never given back?, replaced with a boring, dull, simple, inferior WAR clone.

2 / this is what people that used to love Dark Knight have already been doing. other threads are filled with mixed posts of complaints, concepts, ideas, and suggestions.

3 / 3.x and 4.x Dark Knight are in simple words, superior in most aspects to the trash 5.x Dark Knight. especially in the fact that 5.x Dark Knight does not even have its own identity, compared to the other two, that felt a lot more like Dark Knight had its own identity. 3.x Dark Knight was at least actually fun to play, actually interesting, more complex than the other lesser versions, felt a lot more like the identity of Dark Knight than any other version, and its simple problems could have been fixed; but it just had to be destroyed and ruined instead, into a mere inferior WAR clone, with serious issues that were never fixed, like Living Dead and Blood Weapon, because that is apparently(sarcasm) a "fixed" Dark Knight.

4 / I like the Dark, I like the night, and I hate light, as all light ever does is hurt me. Dark Knight's darkness theme was, I naively hoped, going to be the kind of dark and darkness trope that I fairly like representing myself as, in high fantasy and fantasy settings. (if 6.x does not improve Dark Knight, I have a Reaper ready to replace Dark Knight, and that makes me sad.)
I first got interested in Dark Knight because I hate the WoL, I am against Light supremacy BullSchitt, I had already thought that Hydaelyn was evil since the start of post-ARR(V2.1), the WoL gets on my nerves and is just "Warrior, Pawn of The Light", and before I found out the hard way what Dark Knight in-game "actually" is, to my years later still utter disappointment,(Lv50 quest "Our Answer", my #1 most hated part of Dark Knight story) I had thought that Dark Knight would be my chance to forsake the light and ditch what I see as the fairly stupid "nameless / voiceless PosterBoard hero Warrior of Light" identity.
I never signed up to be, or had any interest in being, the Shardbert WoL. if the player is just going to be him, playing his story, why do we even have character creation? the player never gets to be their character, just the Shardbert WoL, but we can irrelevantly change his gender, race, and face into what ever we want.

but FFXIV's rotten story is a different subject, it is just what made me interested in Dark Knight, as I had originally thought that the Dark Knight would actually be what its lore and story falsely portrayed the Dark Knight to be.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

...it would be more effective to just join in on the conversations and debates in the other Dark Knight threads, where several people have already been in discussion about various Dark Knight concerns and issues.
a attempt to create a "Dark Knight MegaThread" from scratch is not going to go well... it would be more of ease to just increase activity in any of the Dark Knight threads that already have over a dozen pages of complaints, concerns, concepts, ideas, and suggestions posted, shared, debated, and criticized.

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Maybe, but at the very least this is a place to put new ideas instead of making new threads for them.

that is fair... we will have to see what happens. I am up for chats about Dark Knight just about any where, to be honest, but we do also need to consolidate a little, in the scenario that all of these threads really are ignored by the powers that be, if they are not huge threads with like.. 10,000+ views and 100+ replies or some thing.

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Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

...it would be more effective to just join in on the conversations and debates in the other Dark Knight threads, where several people have already been in discussion about various Dark Knight concerns and issues.
a attempt to create a "Dark Knight MegaThread" from scratch is not going to go well... it would be more of ease to just increase activity in any of the Dark Knight threads that already have over a dozen pages of complaints, concerns, concepts, ideas, and suggestions posted, shared, debated, and criticized.

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The reason I've created this thread was to effectively contain all of the pathological problems Dark Knight has right now. I believe by creating many threads, the problem will be taken less seriously and even might be considered annoying to some when they join the Tanking Forum. In this way, it's compact enough and easy to follow for others that might want to participate and share their views with other people here. I understand the frustration of many players that are unhappy with the 5.0 changes in DRK, myself included. But to put pressure on the developers and become a loud minority never worked well. Time and time again the only thing it proved is that changes are poorly implemented due to stress among many other reasons.

Anything that helps DRK to get his gameplay identity back is good to me, now to the questions well:

1º My issue with 5.x DRK is that is no longer DRK, it's just a simplified WAR using DRK animations and a few extra oGCD every min, no complexity, no job mechanics cohesion since everything is basically independent keep on recast and useless mechanics/gauges on screen aka the whole Darkside stuff, DRK deserve have a gameplay that don't remember at all any job already present in the game like it did on the past not what we have now.

2º Of couse there is, rework the whole blackblood system that is basically WAR's Rage system copy, rework Delirium and repurpose Bloodspiller, Quietus and Living shadow (this one to make Darkside gauge representation mean something at all) and create actuall Darkside management by ajusting Edge/Flood with other skills so the whole mechanic doesn't run on auto-mode, make DRK mechanics interact with each other, make them feel they have a purpose and all of them build somethign together like every other job in the game.

3º Everything, his combos, his MP management, his APM and speed, his mechanics interactivity betwen resources, GCDS and oGCD and his animations, yeah DRK in 3.x and 4.x have his own issues but the job was engaging, was unique and outside of the numbers and passive buffs balance the job was fine and fun.

4º Well i never liked light themed jobs, my love was always the darkness and DRK was going to be my main the moment they announce it, the job mechanics and the whole feel the gameplay experience it offer back in HW click on me so hard that DRK make my FFXIV experience one of the best thing i ever had, no other job has click so deep like DRK did even today, SB preserve in some way that feeling so thats why i keep main it despite the bad place the job was in terms of performance compared to the other tanks but SHB just totally killed that click i haved with the job and FFXIV has been dying really fast for me making the whole expansiona pain to endure in order to keep suporting the game as i offer feedback hoping to be listen so i hope my boy come back on 6.0.

I just hope all the threads abd feedback mean something at the end.

Some current changes I want for DRK:
1.) Lower the level which TBN is obtained.
2.) Dark Mind: Add an additional effect of Reduces damage taken by 10%. So we can have something akin to Shelton for lower levels.
3.) Delirium: Lower the cooldown to 60s so it can be ready when blood weapon is.

Future identity changes:
1.) I want them to get more drain type abilities, like perhaps a shield that drains HP when the Enemy hits. And the iconic drain spell as their clemency (High MP cost/DPS loss).

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Originally Posted by Brightshadow

Some current changes I want for DRK:
1.) Lower the level which TBN is obtained.
2.) Dark Mind: Add an additional effect of Reduces damage taken by 10%. So we can have something akin to Shelton for lower levels.
3.) Delirium: Lower the cooldown to 60s so it can be ready when blood weapon is.

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mn, in the case of QoL changes to the current Dark Knight... let me add to that.

Stalwart Soul / Lv72, seriously? it needs to be available at a considerably lower level.
Blood Weapon / still never had its 9.8 duration nonsense fixed. increase the duration to 11 or 12 seconds, so that the skill functions proper.. the fifth hit in BloodWeapon is BS-tight to hit. with my 2.4 CGD, the fifth hit is 9.6 to 9.8... I have 0.2 of a second, only one-fifth of a second, to not miss and lose the fifth hit in Blood Weapon.

and here is a thought... Salted Earth / the current is is a 90sec CD and the AoE-DoT is P60 ticks for 15 seconds... the old Salted Earth had a 45sec CD and the AoE-DoT was P75 ticks for 21 seconds... can we like.. very serious, at least have the old Salted Earth back? this comparison is worse than just a cringe.

Let me levy some further questions while we're still on the first page. I'll edit them to include others if anyone quotes this and adds a question of their own they'd like to be more (i.e., first-page) visible.

1. Assuming that spending MP or a similar resource on a defensive skill could sometimes be an rDPS gain (i.e., is worth using even in optimal play, given the right circumstances), would you want the ability to spend MP or any similar core resource defensively?
   
   
2. How reactive would you like DRK's playflow to be, and what kinds of things do you imagine it ought to react to. These can be external cues, such as from damage, healing, shields, or HoTs taken, or internal, such as procs.
   
   
3. Assuming that attacking quickly were part of DRK's identity, would you prefer that come from a baseline speed increase or, say, a bankable resource that you'd want to time precisely for stronger but limited-duration bursts of speed?
   
   
4. What thematic centers do you think DRK should be based around, insofar as Blood, Void, Dark/Shadow, Soul, or whatever else?
   
   
5. Do you want any manner of stance on DRK (any kind of stance, perhaps more like Witcher or Nioh 2 than the old Grit toggle)? If so, to what purpose?
   
   
6. What are the sort of things that you want your attention to be drawn to on DRK? For instance, in HW, much pivoted around your Blood Price, Blood Weapon, Carve and Spit, and Dark Passenger timers and your Scourge duration, alongside perhaps Dark Dance or Dark Mind if you didn't much trust your healer and thus may need to bank MP for their augmentation. What would be pivotal to or direct your attention from moment to moment on your ideal DRK? What, if anything, would you be actively trying to sync to or capitalize upon?

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1. What issue with Dark Knight do you have since 5.0?

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For context, I should admit the problem goes back further than 5.0. In 3.x, I felt that the defensive spending options weren't quite satisfying enough, and often made it feel like we just had a weaker base kit and less responsive defensives (if the augmented versions were to be considered their "true" or "normal" form. While they could salvage the occasional sh*tshow, they mostly felt a bit bloated. I'd rather have better tuned them, and added more secondary characteristics to each (rather than the augment just being, wholly or just in effect, more of the same), however, than scrap them entirely. Moreover, Grit needed to have far less opportunity cost, Blood Price needed less flattened scaling, and the healing available from Souleater probably ought to have been, well, elsewhere so that it could be more precisely timeable, such as by Souleater building a bankable resource that we could then spend at moments more precisely of our choosing. And LD was designed terribly.

4.x's problem was that the weaponskills were paired down in such a way as to not necessarily have a non-DA-spending weaponskill available, and MP generation (and thus DA frequency) felt excessive over time. And LD wasn't fixed.

5.x's problem is that it's a barren, braindead shell of a tank. It's not unique in that fact, granted, but it's still a problem. Moreover, they somehow found something more irritating than LD still not being fixed: all the promise of Living Shadow... being a click-and-forget DoT. Oh, and Stalwart Soul, like all of the new AoE combos, are effectively just bloat; granted, I'd be more okay with them if they either didn't break combos, progressed or were progressed by other combos, and/or used only one button. In fact, all combo actions that have only one choice by which to competitively continue in a given GCD should probably be one button, or (my preference) revamped to actually offer choice instead of just button bloat.

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2. Is there a viable solution to your problem? If so, write it down.

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Yes, but it's no simple process. I'll save that for later.

Put (overly) simply, though... you rework it from scratch to be a distinct and entertaining tank. /shrug

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3. What did you like about previous iterations of Dark Knight?

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Versatility, (at least the pretense of) variety, and the aesthetic. And 4.x's Quietus-Blood Weapon self-refunding shenanigans, largely because it required that one go all in, rather than relying on Grit and Blood Price, but made you effectively invincible vs. hordes of weak mobs.

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4. How did DRK capture your interest while playing FFXIV?

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See above.