if we got a brand new DRK fresh from the ground up this is the baseline i'd want

Couple of ground rules
A i will not be including potencies as i do not know the scaling/formulas for them.
B i will not include level unlocks but for basic combos they will all be unlocked by level 15 regardless of job (goes for both AOe and single target)
C GCD will start at 2.5 seconds as per usual

Gauge

Torment gauge- builds up to 100 and will have a timer above it for torments unleash

Basic 1-2-3 combo actions GCD CDs

steps of torment- deal x potency to a target
thirst of torment- deal x potency to a target and apply a x potency shield on hit
torments finale- deal x potency to a target and give a x potency cure on hit and 25 gauge gain

AOE actions GCD CDs

2 part AOE combo
darkness surrounds- deal x potency to all targets in an area
darkness explosion- deal x potency to all targets in an area giving a x potency cure and 20 gauge gain

Defensive CDs

Dark magic barrier- 3000MP (the only MP spending ability in kit) applies a x potency shield to target (10second duration) that when broken gives access to torments blade (even while not in unleash) 10 second CD

Shroud of darkness- a 10% DR that also applies a x potency regen to you for 15 seconds 30seconds CD

Unholy light- a party wide 15% DR that allows you to take 15% of the damage dealt to your allies 1 min CD

Utility CDs

Torments unleashed- DRK enters a rage after tormenting himself (100 gauge cost) setting his HP to 5% of max (3 second invuln) all abilities/actions now consume 3% max HP to use (goes through your shield) and grant 5 gauge per usage as well lasts 1 minute 2 mins CD

Bleeding heart- applies a x potency DOT to yourself for 30 seconds gaining 15% potency bonus in return for the DOT duration 1min CD

Vampires kiss- every form of damage dealt now has a x cure potency on hit for 15 seconds 30second CD

Darkness reloaded- instantly resets your gauge timer at the cost of 50% of your max HP 50seoncd CD

Shadows unbound- costs 25 of your gauge to summon a shadow version of yourself that will coat the area in darkness making all enemies within it take 5% more damage

Offensive CDs

Well of darkness- creates a patch of endless void in front of the DRK applying an attack speed slow to all enemies inside and dealing x potency to all targets

Spirits vengeance- unleash a dark spirit to slash the enemy in half dealing x potency and applying a bleeding DOT of x potency for 30seconds 25second CD

Torments blade- (only usable while under torments unleashed) summons a giant blade filled with torment and despair slicing down on the enemy dealing x potency to the first target (50% less potency to all other targets) costs 50 gauge to use GCD

Fall from the heavens- a massive downward strike on the enemy dealing up to x potency (based on missing HP) (costs 10 gauge to use 25 under unleash)

torments regen- for the next 5 hits gain 25 of your gauge 3 min CD

role actions will be 2 single target DRs 1 party wide DR tank stance ranged attack and gap closer

Traits

Dark magics return- dark magic barrier now grants access to torments blade

Dying for power- DRK gains up to x% potency increase the lower his current HP compared to MAX HP is

TLDR: DRK is now a drain tank that rewards high risk gameplay

this was made in less than an hour so do keep that in mind plus i don't now the scalings to apply proper potencies to every thing

also i will be working on more fresh new baselines for every job in the future if you're interested

Torment's a good word, for sure. Not sure I'd want to mingle dark knight thematically with vampires though, even though they do relate to life drain mechanics, vampires are dainty wussy stuff, and dark knights are armored hard-hitting manly men

listen it's 2022 if the big burly man in a 10 ton armor suit wants to be a little bit on the wussy side we let him XD

also i just threw names on there instead of just copy pasting current kits names cause i wanted to avoid confusion or people thinking i'm asking for DRK to be reworked when this is purely just for fun and hypothetical

A tank that uses HP as a resource is, in mu opinion, not a good way to build a tank, especially if you start adding a DPS increase based on how low the tank is.

Even taking Torment's Unleashed into consideration, 5% is not much HP and a 3 second invuln is way too short to react to. Irregardless of that, having an invuln that is essentially Superbolide, but on a 2 minute cooldown is ridiculous, especially if you take into account the fact that you clearly intend for the DRK to heal themselves, so the healing is going to be quite big (also, FYI, 5% of 80,000 is 4000 HP for a tank, I know the joke is auto attacks tickle, but even then they could tickle you to death).

Even then, you have a trait that rewards low HP, yet your basic combo heals you, which is counter to what you want the job to achieve.

Also, adding in a party wide damage boost would inevitably make it a top pick, there is a reason why none of the tanks have that ability after all (the same goes for why none of the tanks can permanently decrease incoming damage).

Overall, it suffers from what I see in most 'reworks/reimaginings', there has not been any thought put into how the kit potentially interacts in a party setting or how the job would actually feel like to play within FFXIVs combat system. I will give the same advice I do to anyone, think critically about your ideas. You have this idea, but how would it work in the game, would it make things unbalanced, would it even feel good to play etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

A tank that uses HP as a resource is, in mu opinion, not a good way to build a tank, especially if you start adding a DPS increase based on how low the tank is.

Even taking Torment's Unleashed into consideration, 5% is not much HP and a 3 second invuln is way too short to react to. Irregardless of that, having an invuln that is essentially Superbolide, but on a 2 minute cooldown is ridiculous, especially if you take into account the fact that you clearly intend for the DRK to heal themselves, so the healing is going to be quite big (also, FYI, 5% of 80,000 is 4000 HP for a tank, I know the joke is auto attacks tickle, but even then they could tickle you to death).

Even then, you have a trait that rewards low HP, yet your basic combo heals you, which is counter to what you want the job to achieve.

Also, adding in a party wide damage boost would inevitably make it a top pick, there is a reason why none of the tanks have that ability after all (the same goes for why none of the tanks can permanently decrease incoming damage).

Overall, it suffers from what I see in most 'reworks/reimaginings', there has not been any thought put into how the kit potentially interacts in a party setting or how the job would actually feel like to play within FFXIVs combat system. I will give the same advice I do to anyone, think critically about your ideas. You have this idea, but how would it work in the game, would it make things unbalanced, would it even feel good to play etc.

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literally take 5 seconds to read how much regens/heals and shields are put into the kit maybe just maybe there's a reason for that? not only does it help counteract torment unleashed HP cost per action but it helps you maintain HP while being at low HP vampire's kiss plus dark magic barrier plus literally any oGCD heal from healer and you're automatically back into good standing defensively wise

B if you actually paid attention to the kit there's no reason to use torment's unleash as an invuln cause you actively lose DPS (costs a full gauge bar to use) if you want to keep it up you have to sac your HP to refresh the timer making the class actually have to work with healers to make sure you don't nuke yourself when you decide to refresh your timer

C in terms of party damage being increased this is a part of a full set of reworked baselines i'm creating where every tank will have a party buffing ability cause my roles are tank (tank/support) healers (heal/support) and DPS (DPS/debuffer) (theoreticllly we'd have more debuffs that actually do stuff instead of just interrupt against bosses>.>) and you act like DRK already isn't basically the go to just cause highest DPS with GNB there will always be go to picks it's what happens when you have any form of a competitive scene in a game with jobs/classes

Ever played a healer? How would you feel if your tanks HP was yoyoing around all the time? Was the damage intentional due to skills or did they get hit by an AoE etc. How is the healing going to be balanced? Are they able to heal themselves completely on their own or do they need healer support? If they need healer support, how much? Where is this balance? It sounds like you want the DRK to have full control, which, if too strong, makes healers pointless. If it is too strong, you would just end up with 2 DRKs as they can look after themselves and replace a healer with a DPS, more damage output after all. This is still just scratching the surface if the issues that come with allowing a tank to use HP as a resource.

B, yes, it is an offensive cooldown, however, if you have the chance to use it to mitigate a tankbuster that is close in timing, do you not think it will be used in that way? especially if the DRK can completely heal themselves after, or, even better, they can heal themselves whilst the other tank takes damage, so there is no danger. Again, this goes back to the strength of the healing of the DRK compared to the healer issue.

C, Why should the tank be responsible for increasing the party DPS and not increasing the parties survivability? Tanks are there to make sure you survive the hit, healers heal you after, DPS kill things. I have made posts in the past on how you can make tanking better, it would require a change to how stuns/interrupts work and I do not know if it is possible, but having stuns/interrupts not stop an attack, but changes it's properties, ie, it could be a raidwide with a bleed, stun it, it is just a raidwide. That is the basics anyway.

As I said, you need to think how it would affect the gameplay, both good and bad. I can give an example below of a thought train I have had in the past to give an idea:

New DPS, Geomancer, what is it's classic trait? Using the environment. Not really possible as you aren't going to get different looking spells for each environment, so give the Geo an area that affects their spells, think like BLM Ley Lines. Problem, how big is this area? Too small and you really restrict where the Geo can go, (my thought being they needed some area to stand in at all times, so it is a constant restriction), make it too big and it might as well not be there, it might be seen as a pointless button. Why does this work for BLM? Long cooldown and can plan, probably too much to do constantly and will be a real detriment in heavy movement parts. If the ground AoE is too clunky, it could be an Aura around the Geo, Then there are 2 ways to go, the Aura affects the spells or the spells affect the aura giving different effects. I never intend to make any sort of real job from this, just idle musing whilst trying to sleep, so there isn't much from then on, however, it should highlight that, for me at least, even in idle musings, I still think about how it will affect the gameplay. However, by thinking critically about how it affects the game, you can then think of ideas about how you can mitigate these downfalls and make the idea (potentially) better.

Also, I suspect MP is used on DRK because the dev team realised that having a tank with a bouncy HP bar is a bad idea, so they used MP as the substitute, it is all generated and used by the DRK (even back in the day) and it doesn't affect healing at all.

yes i played healer for my entirety in SHB and yes i watch my tanks HP yoyo all the time, (knowing what you can and can't get away with is in fact how you get more DPS in), you know what's intentional and unintentional by LEARNING WHEN MECHANICS HAPPEN. and i'm pretty sure you can tell the difference between a 3% HP hit and the tank losing a quarter plus HP to a raidwide or misstepping into an AOE

also once again as i stated i don't know the scalings for potencies meaning the healing factor will remain anonymous cause witout knowing the scalings/being able to actually you know TEST the kit it's nearly impossible to balance actual numbers hence why this is a BASELINE kit aka what i consider to be the "core of the job"

but i want the healing to end up at a slight positive to unleasheds cost so you should roughly end up healing slightly above the 3% loss. with the use of stuff like vampire's kiss allowing you to manually get up after using unleashed, and to the 50% HP mark to reset timer in case healer can't top you off for it (but if you have to use it before then congrats it's either you hope a healer can get your HP up or lose unleashed and have ot fill up the gauge/potentially wait for it's CD)

the entire point of this job is HP management yes you will need to manually be able to at least come out even if not a little bit further HP wise for playing optimally
without that a HP management tank would literally not even be able to work period (unless you want a healer to babysit you but then it's less you managing your HP bar and more the healer)

healers are there to heal you for TB and raidwides and in this jobs case every 50 seconds so you can reset your timer, healers don't have to babysit you so they can focus others/DPS

B unless you're ultimately getting a damage upside (yours/team damage) out of cheesing the TB/hard hitting mechanic no tank would lose the DPS to cheese mechanics

C i'm not even sure i wanna touch this cause based on your logic
1 caster DPS no longer raise/heal
2 ranged phys no longer interrupt
3 melee DPS shouldn't be able to stun
4 no DPS should be able to mitigate for the party/heal themselves

listen i'm not trying to be mean but literally almost everything you have issues with require actual testing. something that without some sort of system to test said kits in is near impossible to come up with best you can do is a baseline and rough estimates/ideas

I have never asked for potencies, just an idea of how things will behave relative to each other. If I deplete 10% of my HP per attack, will the self healing heal it all or not (I know you said just above) and that is the main takeaway, however, you still have not criticised your ideas in how the would work in FFXIV.

The damage you inflict to yourself is a massive consideration, a healer like WHM is going to wait until you are low before healing if they Benediction, they have an idea of how much you are taking, so you suddenly take a chunk out, it can catch them by surprise, or is it a small chunk where the healer doesn't really notice, but at that point, is it worth using HP as a mechanic.

I would honestly say the tank's HP is more at the mercy of healers than the tank, the healer knows how the HP is fluctuating, yes, but they do not know when you are going to be losing HP to your actions, or do you plan to have healers keep track of that as well?

How is it going to be affected by gear? As we get better gear, our HP increases, is it a fixed damage per level or a % of your HP. If it is fixed, you get more worth the better geared you are, which could mean more effective damage, a benefit the other tanks currently do not have, if it is % based, how is that going to affect a case where you are well geared and the healers might be lesser geared.

If you are healing what you deal to yourself, can you really say your HP is a resource to spend? Might as well cut out the headache of balancing with your HP and different gear levels between the tank and healer.

This has been discussed alot, especially when DRK was first released. The general consensus, IIRC, was that there is too much to try and balance to make it an actual intuitive way to use HP as a resource.

i will also mention, it works in a solo player experience as you have control over when you want to use your HP, you know when you want to heal, you are in control of everything, make it multiplayer, you lose some of that control and with that, introduce many more problems that need to be solved.

As for my stun/interrupt, yes, I am well aware of potential consequences, I have made longer posts in the past, that was literally a TL:DR version. If it was to be implemented, yes, stuns/interrupts would probably have to be removed from DPS, however, there is also the consequence of 8 man content, having 2 tanks with short cooldowns could be an issue, but do you make the cooldown longer? How would this then affect 4 man content etc. There is alot to consider.

You don't necessarily require actual testing to find potential issues, especially more glaring issues. Testing takes time, the less variables you have to consider or work around, the better. Again, you need to think about how it will impact gameplay and no just go, this is a good idea, without thinking of the consequences of the system.

literally read the kit jesus christ

Torments unleashed- DRK enters a rage after tormenting himself (100 gauge cost) setting his HP to 5% of max (3 second invuln) all abilities/actions now consume 3% max HP to use (goes through your shield) and grant 5 gauge per usage as well lasts 1 minute 2 mins CD

3% MAX HP PER ACTION/ABILITY USED IT IS A SET PERCENT OF MAX HP PURELY CAUSE GEAR AND LEVEL HP DIFFERENCES EXIST

secondly yes it's the healers job to make sure you don't die but if they're beneing you immediately after using say unleashed, after knowing what your kit does that is not YOUR kits fault that is the fault on the WHMs part for not learning what your kit does it's the same thing that affects AST card prios based on burst windows if you know the 1 min burst window for NIN is coming up you make sure if you have a melee card it goes to them MCH wild fire coming up? hand them the ranged card etc..

a players inability or more so laziness to not adapt is not an excuse to say a kit is flawed or won't work well

also the HP gain being neutral is key as i stated healers don't have to babysit you cause you can remain at a stable HP if you're playing well (not including the fact there is alot of single player content without any NPC healers as well) and the management comes form the fact you are still a tank you still need to make sure you can eat the timer reset and survive with little to no healer assistance (you're still at way more risk without coordianting with your healer) you still need to make sure you have enough HP before the raidwide to eat your allies damage taken that is where the HP/defensive management comes in making sure you're at a stable HP at all times to not die to auto attacks and making sure you know when and what healing/defensive options you have to prepare yourself for bigger hits

also for the love of god learn how actual class making/balancing works you can in no way shape or form give an accurate represention/know majority of the flaws of how it'll work in a team based game without being able to test it in game first why do you think PTRs and the such exist? it's almost as if even "flawless" kits that work on paper with the game and it's systems can still be majorly flawed when put into practice cause on paper and in the field are two completely different animals