How to make TBN feel on par with other tank Mit.

There are changes I feel would make "TBN" "The Blackest Night" stand strong along with Heart of Corundum, Bloodwhetting, and Holy Sheltron. It feel that TBN has lost its potency as a Mitigation since Endwalker came out and made every other tank feel better mitigation wise in every way. My solution is simple, there's a couple minor changes that I feel would make DRK feel better both from the DRK's perspective and the healers. Right now there are fundamental issues with TBN.

First change should be how Dark Arts work. I like the system of using MP earlier into the fight and saving the Dark Arts for 1/2 minute burst windows, it makes you feel smart when you do it right, but when you miss-time TBN it doesn't feel like "High Risk High Reward," it feels like "Low Risk, High Frustration." To fix this feeling you should be able to stack 2 charges of Dark Arts. Right now if you already have a TBN proc, but 2 minutes is coming, then suddenly hitting TBN feels like a complete waste of 3000 MP. It would make sense if TBN was a 60 second cooldown but its 15 seconds, which is wasted on the mit as it stands.

Second, change how the TBN proc itself works. I feel that TBN should Always give you a stack of dark arts. You spent the MP, you shouldnt feel punished for mitigating. This change would give you that "free" edge with every use of TBN. This would make Dark Knights less scared to mitigate without feeling punished if they can only take a couple autos. Often times the better you are geared, the harder it is to actually fit TBN into a mitigation plan unless its a buster.

Third, there should be added mitigation to TBN itself. For this I would combine TBN and Dark Mind or Oblation. This would help get rid of button bloat in the job and make it a lot easier to mitigate during a 2 minute burst window. It feel that the devs are placing Tank Busters inside of burst windows, making the already busy DRK insufferable at times while you try to hit all 15 OGCDs if you really needs to Mit during two minute. Sometimes it feels even worse if its a Pot windows like the 6 minute burst of P8S part 1.

Fourth, to keep this balanced the cooldown on TBN should be better aligned with BW and HoC. TBN if these changes are made, should be on a 25 second cooldown.

To unlock this improved TBN, there should just be a trait at around 83-87 called "The Blackest Night Mastery"

Just to Summarize this is what the Tool Tips on TBN would look like with these changes.

Sorry for second post, I ran out of room in initial post.


The Blackest Night:
Creates a barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage totaling 25% of target's maximum HP.
Duration: 7s
Grants Dark Arts when barrier is completely absorbed or upon effect duration expiration. Players can have at max two stacks of Dark Arts.
Dark Arts Effect: Consume Dark Arts instead of MP to execute The Blackest Night, Edge of Shadow, or Flood of Shadow
Additional Effect: Grants Dark Mind
Dark Mind Effect: Reduces damage taken be 20%
Duration: 4 Seconds



Overall even with these buffs to TBN I don't feel DRK will feel any better or worse than other tanks mitigation wise because besides Living Dead, DRK doesn't have any way to regenerate health outside of the very minor amounts we get from our 1-2-3 combo.

I dunno. I would think a barrier that can already negate damage and any effects that come along with it is easily the strongest out there.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I dunno. I would think a barrier that can already negate damage and any effects that come along with it is easily the strongest out there.

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Before Endwalker I would've agreed with you but considering Gunbreakers have Heart of Corundum is effectievely a 30 percent mit, with an Excog, they get a shield from their 1-2 combo, and HoC is completely free to use, Warriors have Bloodwhetting which is 5 GCDs of heals that can crit, 20 percent mit, and a small shield, and PLDs have Holy Sheltron which is 15 percent, plus block, plus their entire magic rotation is free heals, TBN and DRK fall behind solely because TBN can only effectively be used once a minute without losing damage, and its the only mit that requires as stringent of timing, and the other mit in DRK's kit all feel like filler mit that really cant effectively cant be used on half of the damage in the game. On top of all of that TBN is the only shield in the game that you actually need to break to have used it right it feels like crap to use

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Originally Posted by Frostyyy

Second, change how the TBN proc itself works. I feel that TBN should Always give you a stack of dark arts.

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It's suggestions like this that are why complexity is being eroded from the game. If that's what everyone wants, it's fine, I'm just pointing it out.

If TBN doesn't break then it's not worth using in that situation again. If the incoming damage is barely enough to take 25% of your health bar, then it's not even denting you enough to make a healer concerned enough to heal. This was the logic I used in Shadowbringers when I mained DRK and it worked fine. I revisited this whenever my gear upgraded and over time stopped using TBN in situations it had stopped breaking in.

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Third, there should be added mitigation to TBN itself. For this I would combine TBN and Dark Mind or Oblation. This would help get rid of button bloat in the job and make it a lot easier to mitigate during a 2 minute burst window.

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I agree that one of the main problems with TBN is that it is not as versatile as the other tank mitigations became in Endwalker. Every other one contains a mixture of raw mitigation, heals and regens. Individually, these things are not useful in certain situations, but together, they are almost always useful for something. TBN is just a shield, so if it is not useful for something, then it's useless.

TBN is useful even against the dots in the latest raids, but technically it doesn't reduce the potency of those dots so once it's gone, you have nothing to save you unless a party member, such as a healer, cares. Whereas I can just about survive longer than a DRK because of the regen that PLDs have.

You have to weave even more to reduce the potency of the dot, which is not necessarily a problem but DRK has a lot of abilities to press for attacks as well. To be fair, other tanks run into this problem a bit because if you combine two mitigations for a tank buster (which I would recommend in Abyssos), it's easy for the timing to fall right when you also need to weave an attack. Easy to time an attack or a mit a bit differently, but easy to get wrong as well.

Overall, any suggestion that involves something other than adding a heal I would find interesting. I like the tanks to be different. Whether Souleater is buffed, a Painhaima effect is added to TBN, raw mitigation is added to TBN or a second shield is available, something other than heals is welcome. Because all the other tanks have that and it would be boring to copy them.

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Originally Posted by Frostyyy

Sorry for second post, I ran out of room in initial post.

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If you hit edit on your post, you can type a lot more. The limit isn't something feasibly attained in an edited post.

It's a 25%-scaling MaxHP Shield that gives you back a damaging skill when broken. That's quite strong.
And Oblation is a defensive mitigation, and you get 2 stacks of it. Paired up with TBN and this is honestly pretty cool too.

My personal problem with both TBN and Oblation is that Oblation's got a long cooldown because you're expected to have TBN... but TBN has a cost. Sure, it's refunded, but only if it breaks. And while proper use of TBN ensures it will, the fact that it has a potential to not refund the cost + the fact that the cost implies you can't spam it makes me feel like Oblation's cooldown is a little on the high side.

TBN is strong for what it does, and Oblation is nice for what it does. I assume they can be improved upon, but there isn't much you can do to these skills that won't interfere either with eachother or with other parts of their kit. Even just merely making TBN have a Haima effect isn't a good idea, because it scales off of 25% Max Health, and it can be used on other people. It's not a fluctuating value like crit shields from healers are.

imo if DRK wants sustainability like other tanks, either Abyssal Drain should be a bit more accessible (which will interfere with TBN and Oblation a lot), or Stalwart Soul can give a very small heal when it hits anything. Not "per enemy", just proc on use. And that will interfere with TBN and Oblation also, but at a lesser scale. And let Abyssal Drain be the per-hit heal.

My real question is about Dark Mind. Because it's great to use in magic tankbusters... but what if you're in a physical-heavy fight? You're just gonna use Shadow Wall for hard mitigation? Sure, paired up with other stuff of course... but really, that's the only other answer we got? Better than nothing, I guess, but least Camouflage doesn't just give a Parry boost. But that I agree is just me asking dumb questions and derailing the thread a bit.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's suggestions like this that are why complexity is being eroded from the game. If that's what everyone wants, it's fine, I'm just pointing it out.

If TBN doesn't break then it's not worth using in that situation again. If the incoming damage is barely enough to take 25% of your health bar, then it's not even denting you enough to make a healer concerned enough to heal. This was the logic I used in Shadowbringers when I mained DRK and it worked fine. I revisited this whenever my gear upgraded and over time stopped using TBN in situations it had stopped breaking in.

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While I understand what you're saying, the main issue is that what breaks a TBN is ever so slightly inconsistent. Sometimes 2 autos break it, sometimes it takes 3, it gets pretty stupid. But, the way TBN currently is, if it doesn't have any free proc of dark arts, I don't want use it at all otherwise Ill be punished for playing the job with its current design at a whim, or if someone else throws a mit me without my knowledge (Divine Benison.) Considering you can only use it effectively once a minute without sacrificing damage I would rather just not use it, and I don't think that's how the button is supposed to feel. I feel that DRK feels unique enough Mit wise because the whole point of DRK is to stop as much damage as possible, but if too much comes in you dont have a way to recover it so it creates a completely different feel that warrior where you dont really care if you take a lot of damage because you can heal a lot of damage. Same as PLD. GNB honestly, has mit heals and regens for everything. As for the current tank busters in Abysoss the main issue is that if your progging and not BiS, even when you are BiS for Dark Knight, if you dont use 3-4 Mits with TBN you just die, you have no way to save yourself, and healers are often paying attention to other things and will just let you die then blame the DRKs lack of mitting the hits. To go back on one last thing, "If the incoming damage is barely enough to take 25% of your health bar, then it's not even denting you enough to make a healer concerned enough to heal" I disagree because its often not the 1 hit massive damage that kills Dark Knights, its the consistent autos/multi hit busters that you cant really mit properly without placing yourself in danger for the next buster.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

It's a 25%-scaling MaxHP Shield that gives you back a damaging skill when broken. That's quite strong.
And Oblation is a defensive mitigation, and you get 2 stacks of it. Paired up with TBN and this is honestly pretty cool too.

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While yes TBN itself is decently strong at single bit hit busters, it falls apart in almost every other aspect. You cant use it for autos, or it wont pop, and you need to have 3000 mp just to use it. All of the other tanks have so many free mitigations that can save them and their kits all synergize. DRK has next to 0 self sustain, and adding and extra button back to the rotation for healing will just honestly make the already OGCD heavy job Miserable to play as a tank. Its effectively already high BPM dps that also has to mit as well, which get miserable for any buster that's on a 1 or 2 minute window. During Bursts DRKs are effectively too busy to add anything in for over 12 seconds while they get everything off cooldown. As for oblation and Dark Mind, they both at best filler mitigation. Dark Mind is mostly useless except for a couple busters, and oblation honestly feels like filler. The CD on Oblation being long is fine, but its only 10 percent mit which doesnt exactly do much considering its only active for 10 seconds. Look at warriors Bloodwhetting, which is already super stong, but paired with equillibrium and ITS FREE. Its a better mit that is completely free. Gunbreakers Heart of Corundum is just the best mit in the game due to the 30 percent plus 900 pot heal, but it also has Camo, which is a 20 second 10% mit plus 50 percent parry. its on a 90 second cd which means with the parry its better than both charges of oblation immediately. Half of paladins rotation heal them and they can spam Holy Sheltron since gauge for PLDs is never an issue. To continue "TBN being too strong with a guaranteed refund" I firmly disagree. If you go too hard in burst, you don't have MP suddenly you're screwed because its not a free mit. Its a costly mit that at best is frustrating and stressful to use in its current state.

Two issues I see with this.
TBN at 25 seconds would be absolute ass in dungeon content, where DRK is already incredibly weak. Even adding mit to it wouldn't make up for the severe loss in spammibility increasing its cool down by over 50%.
And more importantly, your changes would give DRK a 50 second Pre-pull of getting two Dark Arts stacks. No one wants to put up with that.

If we're going to look at DRK mits to change, I'd focus on Dark Mind as its a borderline useless skill at the level you get it, and wont start to feel like a real skill until you get to high end raid content.
Its also far more redundant with Oblation than it is TBN, both being deceptively good short cd mits, Dark Mind is in no way the baby version of TBN.