EW 6.08 Dark Knight: Simple improvements that do not require a major design overhaul
"But why a Dark Knight post?"
(skip this section if you don't care 'why' I'm making a post. The actual Job suggestions begin below)Most DRK feedback posts freely-mix practical ideas, with fanciful or far-ranging ideas that I suspect are unlikely to be implemented during mid-expansion balancing updates.
To be clear, I personally agree with many of the ideas that call for essentially burning the current Dark Knight design to the ground.
However, since 1-2 entire expansions of feedback (depending on your perspective) have failed to motivate the developers to change course about the current Dark Knight design, I think that it's currently most realistic to assume that the kind of improvements that are most likely to be implemented during the 6.x patch series will be changes that do not fundamentally modify the "design" that the developers have set for DRK since Stormblood, and "refined" further in Shadowbringers.
In other words, I have resigned myself to simply trying to make DRK in its current state more comfortable and enjoyable to play, rather than trying to return it to a style that I personally once enjoyed more, nor trying to improve DRK's design in ways that seem empirically unlikely to happen until at least 7.0.
And also to be clear, I think the other posts are great and filled with many interesting and valuable ideas. Those sorts of high-concept or free-thinking discussions are useful for shaping the future direction of the job (well... hypothetically, anyway).
I'm just personally feeling very cynical about FFXIV Job design right now, and so I have shifted my goals to thinking, "Okay, so it's going to be another 2 years of 'Souleater spam, with OGCD-vomit thrown in'. How can I at least make this more comfortable to play?"
000 — Table of contents (for Ctrl+F quick-jumping)- 000 — TOC
- 111 — Dark Arts limitations, and behavioral consequences
- 222 — Living Shadow constraints, and behavioral consequences
- 333 — Blood Weapon issues
- 444 — disorganized AOE system
- 555 — Living Dead issues
- 666 — excessive OGCD clutter
- 777 — futile Scourge request which I make solely out of ritual habit
- 888 — Defensive issues and concerns
111 — Increase the number of stacks that "Dark Arts" can accumulate.To maximize its personal damage output, Dark Knight attempts to spend as much MP as possible to use multiple "Edge of Shadow" inside party buffs every 60 and/or 120s.
In order to do this effectively, Dark Knight is incentivized to reserve as much MP as possible during the periods leading up to each "minute buff window" or "two-minute buff window" (depending on party composition).
The total number of "Edge of Shadow" placed inside party buffs can be further-increased by using "The Blackest Night" to trigger "Dark Arts", in order to hold one extra "Edge of Shadow" in reserve. This allows Dark Knight to avoid "wasting" any MP, due to either overflowing (ie, going over 10,000 MP) or to an "Edge of Shadow" being forced to be spent outside party buffs (to avoid overflowing).
The net result of these goals is a play philosophy of minimizing usage of "The Blackest Night" in order to avoid "wasting" MP outside party buff windows, because "Dark Arts" can only hold 1 stack, meaning that Dark Knight is forced to choose between consuming Dark Arts outside party buffs (undesirable) or over-writing Dark Arts (an objectively-worse alternative).
Thus, the "proper" play for Dark Knight in situations in which it is attempting to maximize its damage output is to flat-out avoid using its signature and Job-defining mitigation tool once it has "banked" one single Dark Arts charge during each one- or two-minute cycle.
(Long encounter timelines can complicate these rules in more subtle ways, but this is the basic idea, and the basic problem.)
Increasing "Dark Arts" to a maximum of at least 3 stacks would allow a Dark Knight to use "The Blackest Night" for personal defense and party support purposes significantly more often, without feeling "guilty" about the damage output that the Dark Knight is sacrificing by forcing multiple "Edge of Shadow" to occur outside party-buff windows.
This change would allow Dark Knight to more freely rearrange the way that it spends MP, allowing Dark Knight to play a more proactive defensive role in all situations (even coordinated raids/trials) without needing to consciously trade-away burst-window damage in order to do so.
222 — Remove the Blood Gauge cost of Living Shadow."Living Shadow" currently deals a significant chunk of Dark Knight's total damage output, especially during party-buffed burst windows.
This causes "Living Shadow" usage to be a high priority to Dark Knight, but "Living Shadow" has several issues that make its usage force unnecessary awkwardness onto the Dark Knight gameplay style.
Firstly, "Living Shadow" requires something approaching 6(?) seconds to finish its "anime villain intro sequence" and begin actually attacking.
Secondly, "Living Shadow" costs 50 Blood Gauge.
On their own, neither of these issues seem particularly-problematic. However, they must be considered in the wider context of what is occurring at the beginning of coordinated party pulls.
In other words, after pulling a Boss, a party in FFXIV will allow a certain period of delay for preparation, and then everyone will activate their party buffs in a coordinated "burst window". This is where "Living Shadow" limitations become a problem.
Because Dark Knight always begins a fresh instanced encounter with 0 Blood Gauge, Dark Knight naturally suffers a long delay before naturally reaching 50 Blood Gauge. This necessarily means a significant delay on activating "Living Shadow".
This delay is further-exacerbated by the long "start-up" delay on "Living Shadow", leading its actual damage output to begin occurring even later.
The net result of these two delay factors is that "Living Shadow" will become completely or near-completely de-synchronized from significant 2-minute party-buff windows, which in turn is a meaningful loss in damage output for the Dark Knight.
The only way to ensure that "Living Shadow" remains entirely within party buffs is, therefore, to somehow reach 50 Blood Gauge no later than the 3rd GCD of a fresh encounter pull.
To compensate for this, Dark Knight is forced to resort to several awkward behaviors when beginning an encounter:• "Blood Weapon" must be activated immediately before beginning the encounter, in a manner that is difficult and awkward to time correctly, and feels unnatural to play. Otherwise, the Dark Knight will be physically-unable to generate 50 Blood Gauge by the 3rd GCD.
• The first action that a Dark Knight takes in combat must be "Hard Slash", rather than "Unmend", even if the Dark Knight is pulling the boss. Otherwise, the 3rd GCD will not be "Souleater", and thus, the Dark Knight will not have 50 Blood Gauge on the 3rd GCD.
• "The Blackest Night" must be activated pre-pull. This prevents the first strike of pre-pulled Blood Weapon from over-capping and wasting MP, which can have long-term rotational consequences over the rest of the encounter.
These constraints combine to make Dark Knight irritating and uncomfortable to begin encounters with, in ways that feel "clunky" and unnaturally-designed, and contribute to Dark Knight feeling like a headache to play.
My suggestion is to simply remove the Blood Gauge cost from Living Shadow. This action is already a 2-minute cooldown, so further constraints on its usage seem to be ornamental and unnecessary.
If "Living Shadow" had no Blood Gauge cost, then Dark Knight would not be pressured to pre-pull "Blood Weapon", and further, Dark Knight would also not be nearly so penalized for beginning pulls with "Unmend".
As for the start-up delay, where Fray RPs for a while before doing his job, I think that this can be left alone for "flavor" reasons as long as the Blood Gauge cost is removed from "Living Shadow", because the significantly-increased flexibility of usage would negate most (not all, but most) of the current problems caused by the "Fray delay".
333 — Switch "Blood Weapon" to a stack system like "Delirium" and "Inner Release".This idea is hardly anything new at this point, and can be found echoed in most Dark Knight posts. But I think that it bears repeating yet again.
"Blood Weapon" is ridiculously-unforgiving compared to many other "duration-based" buff windows, and it is very easy for many players to fail to achieve a 5th strike of MP/Blood generation if "Blood Weapon" activation is not precisely-timed.
Furthermore, even with razor-tight timing on "Blood Weapon" activation during the "GCD spin", it's still possible to miss out on the 5th strike if even slight delays or interruptions occur due to encounter situations, or even just general latency.
It's one thing if a final hit is missed inside a general buff window such as GNB "No Mercy" — of course, this is unpleasant, but it's "just" a flat damage loss.
Missing the 5th strike of "Blood Weapon", however, has cascading consequences for Dark Knight's rotation, since it sets the Dark Knight back on both MP and Blood Gauge, two resources that fundamentally shape the overall Dark Knight rotational — and potentially, even defensive — timings.
And yet furthermore, because the "Skill Speed" stat chooses to disrespect Spells with its effects, "Blood Weapon" being on a strict timing system causes Dark Knight to even further increase (or outright-guarantee) the loss of a 5th Blood Weapon strike whenever using Spells in the rotation.
For example, using even one "Unmend" during "Blood Weapon" can make it much more likely (or guaranteed) to fail to fit 5 strikes inside the "Blood Weapon" window.
Likewise, as the Dark Knight AOE rotation relies almost exclusively on Spells ("Unleash" and "Stalwart Soul"), it becomes awkward and difficult to use "Blood Weapon" fully during even 2-target situations, requiring specific GCD configurations that make use of Weaponskills such as "Bloodspiller"/"Quietus", and generally feeling like an annoying chore.
I think that "Blood Weapon" should be the premier Dark Knight cooldown, an exciting button that Dark Knights look forward to pressing when it is ready again.
Instead, in its current form, "Blood Weapon" is a huge chore for me, an action that I dread every 60s, because I know what a micro-management nuisance it is to make sure that a butterfly in Meracydia does not flap its wings at just the wrong moment and cause my 5th strike to land just after "Blood Weapon's" fussy timer expires.
I think that switching "Blood Weapon" to a 5-stack system, or at least extending the timer to a firm 11.0-11.5 seconds, would be a significant improvement to both the "quality-of-life" and enjoyability of this action.
444 — Adjust the current AOE target-threshold disjunctionIn interviews about Endwalker, Mr. Yoshida mentioned a deliberate choice in EW design philosophy to streamline AOE target sizes, to better-accommodate players that use separate hotbars to switch between ST and AOE action sets.
In general, this goal has been respectably-accomplished for many Jobs in EW.
However, Dark Knight remains a disjointed mess in this regard:• At 2 or more targets, it is a DPS gain to switch to the AOE combo of "Unleash" → "Stalwart Soul".
• At 3 or more targets, it is a DPS gain to switch to "Flood of Shadow" and "Quietus" instead of "Edge of Shadow" and "Bloodspiller".
• At 4 or more targets, it is a DPS gain to switch to "Abyssal Drain" instead of "Carve and Spit".
This makes it awkward and difficult to create a clean ST/AOE bar-swap.
Of course, there are many possible approaches to adjusting these ST/AOE parity issues.• One possibility is to simply buff the AOE tools: increase the potency of "Flood of Shadow" to at least 230, the potency of "Quietus" to at least 250, and the potency of "Abyssal Drain" to at least 255. This would cause Dark Knight to switch to its AOE tools universally at 2 targets.
• Another possibility is to simply nerf the AOE combo to the point that it is not worth using until 3 targets. Due to how powerful the AOE combo currently is, however, the extent of reduction that would be required might be viewed quite negatively by Dark Knight players.
To clarify: the ST combo currently deals 770 potency over 3 GCDs, or 256.6 potency-per-GCD (PPGCD), and generates 600 MP (Syphon Strike) and 20 Blood Gauge (Souleater), or 200 MP-per-GCD (averaged) and 6.6 Blood Gauge-per-GCD (averaged).
The AOE combo currently deals 260 potency over 2 GCDs, or 130 PPGCD, and generates 600 MP and 20 Blood Gauge (Stalwart Soul), or 300 MP-per-GCD (averaged) and 10 Blood Gauge-per-GCD (averaged).
In addition to being slightly-weaker flat average potency at 2 targets (256.6 vs 130x2=260), it's difficult for the ST combo to compete with the inflated resource-generation rate that the AOE combo holds.
Therefore, I think that it would be difficult to "reign in" the AOE combo without nerfing it in ways that feel unpleasant to Dark Knight players.
• A third possibility (mentioned in other posts, as well) is to take the much-abused "Abyssal Drain" and work it into the AOE combo, extending it to a 3-GCD combo like the ST combo.
For example, something like "Unleash" → "Stalwart Soul" (+600 MP) → "Abyssal Drain" (restore HP, +20 Blood).
This would give the ST combo a clean mirror-image in AOE, and would reign-in the resource-rate advantage that the AOE combo currently holds.
And the potencies could be set at something like 100 → 120 → 140, for an average PPGCD of 120, causing the combo to fall just shy of outcompeting the ST combo at 2 targets.
555 — Reminder about core issues with Living DeadThere is probably not much that I can say about "Living Dead" that has not already been repeating ad-nauseum across various discussion sites and posts. This Defensive CD is a well-established mess, and the developers have signaled clearly the intention for a change in Patch 6.10.
However, to try to be diplomatic, the FFXIV Job designers also have an established history of, ah... "not quite understanding" exactly what the community wants or needs from Job and action changes.
So, I would instead just like to add my own critiques here as a further reminder to the developers of what I think are the core problems affecting "Living Dead".
1. "Walking Dead" can be removed early.No other Tank invulnerability can be accidentally wiped-off by an over-zealous healer partway through its duration.
I have personally encountered way too many situations in which my "Walking Dead" status is "helpfully" cleansed before a "tankbuster" actually lands, especially during multi-hit tankbusters, or tankbusters that have a follow-up attack, or even just being splatted by the auto-attack after a tankbuster hits.
I would prefer if my X seconds of invulnerability is a guaranteed number, like Holmgang, Superbolide, and Invincible, rather than having to always tense up and hope that my invulnerability doesn't vanish right before I need it most.
2. "Walking Dead" penalty is unevenly-difficult for healers to deal withThe healing requirement on "Walking Dead" is ridiculously-high, making it a huge chore/nuisance for healers like Scholar to deal with, compared to a healer like White Mage who can simply "wish it away" with a single Benediction.
Although, to be clear, even a White Mage probably does not appreciate being "surprised" by "Walking Dead", because without tools banked in advance for dealing with it, it's... a huge nuisance.
As a result, it sometimes feels like I actually caused more disruption by using Living Dead than by not, due to forcing healers to drop what they're doing and hemorrhage resources — or even dreaded healing GCDs — just to pull me out of "Walking Dead".
This leads to trying to plan encounters and react to situations as if "Living Dead" does not exist, compared to other Tanks, where their "ultimate defense action" is seen as a helpful part of the overall encounter strategy.
I think that these are the primary issues with "Living Dead". I think that other concerns with the action are comparatively minor.
For example, the fact that "Living Dead" can expire without actually doing anything is shared with WAR "Holmgang". However, "Holmgang" is still considered an extremely-useful defensive tool.
So, I think that the core problem with "Living Dead" is the massive burden that it places on healers (a unique problem that is not shared by any other Tank CD), and the fact that "Walking Dead" can be accidentally removed early by well-meaning or oblivious healers (a unique problem that is not shared by any other Tank CD).
In many cases, "flavor differences" that differentiate Jobs are, of course, a good thing. But in the case of "Living Dead", these differences seem to only result in universally-inferior functionality, which is why I consider it an actual problem in this case.
666 — Reduce Dark Knight's OGCD ("Ability") over-loadJobs in general have been suffering from increasing amounts of "OGCD overload" over time, and Endwalker has exacerbated this problem further for many Jobs.
Dark Knight is no exception, and its burst-window key sequences — which were already over-loaded in Shadowbringers — have intensified further in EW.
The fundamental issue is that Dark Knight already has an MP bar full of OGCDs ("Edge of Shadow") to spend inside narrow party-buff burst windows.
Therefore, adding even more non-MP OGCDs to Dark Knight is attempting to insert even more into an already-overcrowded window of time and actions.
It's not reasonable to say, "Just spread your actions out more!", because frankly, the developers should know as well as the players that this isn't how cooperative environments like FFXIV work: the most competitive players are capable of "double-weaving" a massive number of OGCDs during burst windows, and this sets the standard by which the Job's performance is judged.
The only practical way to reduce this burden is at the actual Job design level, because asking players to intentionally push their actions outside of FFXIV's powerful party-buff windows is neither fair to players that want to perform well numerically, nor a realistic understanding of how community-based performance expectations and pressures evolve and function.
Currently, in order to remain aligned with powerful 1- and 2-minute party buffs, Dark Knight needs to fit anywhere from 14-17+ OGCDs into the span of the primary 7-8 GCD party-buff window:- Living Shadow (technically this should be prepped outside the window, but "things happen" sometimes)
- Tincture of Strength (during major burst windows)
- Blood Weapon
- Delirium
- Edge of Shadow #1
- Edge of Shadow #2
- Edge of Shadow #3
- Edge of Shadow #4
- Edge of Shadow #5 (sometimes, depends on planning and alignment)
- Edge of Shadow #6 (sometimes, depends on planning and alignment)
- Salted Earth
- Salt and Light
- Shadowbringer #1
- Shadowbringer #2
- Plunge #1
- Plunge #2
- Carve and Spit
This number increases further if the Dark Knight needs to weave any other actions, such as Defensive CDs (like Oblation or Shadow Wall) or support CDs (such as Dark Missionary or Arm's Length).
The result is an intense, frenetic, finger-snapping burst sequence. And for some players that are not privileged to play on strong connections, or to afford a strong VPN service, or willing to resort to TOS-dubious 3rd-party latency-adjusting solutions, it can be difficult or even impossible to accomplish this cleanly without "clipping" GCDs, and thus causing as much loss as gain.
Commentary on why I think FFXIV's "OGCD overload" is a problem
(skip past this to the next section if you just want to see the OGCD suggestions)Speaking personally, I am privileged to have a connection that can fit these kinds of double-weaves in consistently (and also play jobs like Machinist consistently), and so I can personally both understand and experience the enjoyment that comes from executing an intense and OGCD-packed burst sequence correctly.
However, I do not think that this is good for the overall game, because it creates a hostile and frustrating environment for many players, whose concerns are then repeatedly-marginalized by both other players, and the developers themselves (!!), because these issues aren't shared by everyone, and because nebulous and mysterious "internal testing" at "a wide variety of latencies" claims that everything is fine (a frankly obnoxious response that flatly-ignores the empirical experience of real players around the world).
I remain stubbornly-convicted that in a broadly-appreciated, cooperative game like FFXIV, having such harsh, latency-sensitive, exclusionary performance margins is neither fair nor healthy, and furthermore, only pressures and encourages many players to resort to dubious 3rd-party methods (which are, generally, then further exclusionary toward console players) in order to try to feel like they are contributing adequately to team content.
Suggestions for possibie ways to compact the OGCD burden on Dark Knight:• A feature could be added to "Salt and Light" that causes it to automatically trigger when "Salted Earth" finishes its natural duration.
• Alternatively, "Salt and Light" could be triggered by using another action, such as "Bloodspiller" or "Carve and Spit" (and their AOE equivalents).
• The damage component could be removed from "Plunge", converting it to being strictly a movement tool, and thus removing the pressure to spend both "Plunge" charges inside burst windows.
• "Blood Weapon" and "Delirium" could be fused into a single offensive cooldown that combines both effects in one keypress.
• "Shadowbringer" could be modified to spend all of its charges with a single keypress. Thus, if Shadowbringer currently has 2 charges, pressing the key once will automatically use both charges in succession.
Concluding OGCD commentaryI realize — and freely-admit — that slowing down Dark Knight's intense burst windows has the risk of making the job feel "more boring".
However, I would frankly argue that in such a case, what's actually happening is that Dark Knight's current, paper-thin design is simply being exposed for what it is: a bland GCD loop artificially-inflated by a cacophony of cluttered and artless OGCD vomit.
By bringing Dark Knight back down to a more modest OGCD burden, I think that it would ultimately begin the process of forcing Dark Knight's overall rotational design to become more interesting or engaging — or at least more reasonable.
777 — Scourge...?I realize that FFXIV is moving away from target-maintained effects more and more with each expansion, but "Scourge" remains one of my favorite original actions from Heavensward Dark Knight.
So, I just ask that the developers at least consider resurrecting "Scourge" if, while making modifications to Dark Knight, they decide that the job needs a new GCD action added as rotational padding.
I feel that having a powerful, nasty damage-over-time effect, especially one that is accompanied by a dark, slick-looking animation, is a very good "flavor fit" for Dark Knight.
888 — Dark Knight defensive design concernsI personally agree with many of the concerns that have been exposited repeatedly on this and other discussion sites about Dark Knight's current defensive design issues. But I also feel that this has mostly been discussed adequately already, and thus, that I can't really add much myself.
However, for the sake of "trying to be really certain someone listens" (hope springs eternal), I will try to briefly summarize my own perspective here:• "The Blackest Night" feels like a relic of a bygone era. It still carries a heavy resource cost, whereas other Tanks have evolved to have similarly-powerful short-term mitigation tools that can be used much more freely, and without a penalty to personal DPS.
• "Oblation" feels like bloat and clutter, both in terms of finding OGCD slots to weave it into, and in terms of finding keybinds to fit its various targeting possibilities. As "Oblation" is such a disappointingly-minor effect, it feels weak to use "Oblation" alone, but it's a nuisance to constantly combine "Oblation" with more powerful CDs as "defensive padding".
• Dark Knight is currently lacking in self-healing compared to other Tanks, which can make Dark Knight feel more burdensome to heal for Healer jobs. This issue feels especially-pronounced in large Dungeon pulls, but it is also apparent even in sustained single-target encounters. This effect is exacerbated further by Dark Knight's DPS design discouraging it from using "The Blackest Night" freely during coordinated party situations.
Perhaps it would be appreciated to simply fuse "The Blackest Night" and "Oblation" together somehow, although doing this elegantly is actually no small challenge while also remaining balanced.
For example, an "extremist" solution (that is potentially imbalanced) might be something like:- Remove the MP cost from "The Blackest Night".
- Increase the cooldown of "The Blackest Night" to 25 seconds.
- Remove Oblation.
- Add 10% damage reduction for 10s to "The Blackest Night" (independent of the damage-barrier effect).
- When "The Blackest Night" expires, heal the Dark Knight for the same amount of damage that "The Blackest Night" absorbed while active.
Perhaps this "extreme" idea can be used as a framework from which to walk backwards and arrive at a more balance-acceptable solution.
Concluding thoughtsAgain, my hopes for 6.x are just for the current Dark Knight design — such as it is — to become more comfortable and fun to play, via weeding-out some of the more awkward, rough, or irritating aspects that it currently is plagued by.
Beyond that, I suspect that more sophisticated design changes are either never going to happen, or will not occur until 7.0+.
However, I think that Dark Knight can be made at least reasonably-enjoyable in its current state if its remaining rougher edges are just sanded-down and polished-up a bit more, and that's the basis for my requests and suggestions in this post.
