How would YOU make DRK work ?

Considering the balance between PLD and WAR, how is SE gonna make DRK work? Well we obviously have no idea, but for the time being, how would you make DRK work without being OP or overshadowing WAR or PLD?

I'd prefer something heavily dps based, even more so than war is. Primarily speced for off taking and possibly taking mitigation skills out of its mp pool. Honestly it could be anything and I'd still probably wanna play it but having it put out at least war level deeps I think is only right for a class with this kind of flavor to it.

i think DRK will be mp based more than war and pld. it will have a huge mp pool instead of pure hp like WAR. these mp will somehow be used as a shield aka hp or mitigation. but since its a new class itll likely be way more polished out than WAR or PLD. and at release i except DRK to be stupidly good compared to the other two. however SE will nerf it about 1 patch later to bring it in line again. new addon classes on mmos tend to always be OP compared to OLD ones since it boosts sales for the publisher in the end tough they will be balanced somehow.

drk will have either better mitigation than war in that case it has to have worse dps otherwise why play war ever again?
OR it will have superior dps to war and pld but have the lowest amount of mitigation of all 3 tank classes. it will either of those. otherwise why play WAR at all?^^

It'd make sense to me if it wound up utilizing absorption as a main tanking mechanic, maybe you can use drains or something like Dread Spikes to create an HP buffer for yourself sort of like how Drain II functioned in FFXI.

Maybe have some passive abilities or self buffs that increase in effectiveness the lower the Drk gets in HP- that'd take some serious work to make viable though.

Also, I doubt it'll ever be a thing but I really liked the Dark Knight ability "See you in Hell!" From Bravely Default, take a big chunk out of an enemy's HP as a parting shot when you got killed.

Stat manipulation and balancing HP/MP draining.

Dread Spikes(MP): buff that absorbs health when hit

Drain (MP): drains health

Absorb [stat]: temporarily lowers enemy stat while buff your own. Should atleast be one for STR, VIT, INT.

Punishing Barbs: self buff that redirects a % of damage back to the attacker.

Sanguine Rite: self buff that temporarily converts a small portion of incoming damage to MP.

Corruption: self inflicted DoT that slowly drains health, and stores the damage in a pool. Hate generation and damage output are increased while it is active. Re-using this ability stops the effect, consuming the pool to deal the stored damage to the target.

Souleater (TP): single target attack. Creates a debuff that causes a small % of HP Drain from all attacks for all party members.

Reaper (TP): single target attack. If the target is under the effect of Souleater debuff, the effect if changed to Reaper which drains a small % of TP from all attacks for all party members.

Consume (TP): single target attack. If the target is under the effect of Reaper, it changes the effect to Consume, which drains a small amount of MP from all party member attacks on the target.

Darkness: consumes a small % of health each cast to create an AoE blast with high hate generation. Each cast causes a stack of Darkness buff on yourself which increases the hate generation and damage output of the next Darkness cast, but also the self-HP drained (sort of like Astral Fire stacks).

Dark Harvest: consumes all stacks of Darkness to unleash an AoE HP Drain. Power increases per stack of Darkness.

^So, you can spam Darkness for damage and hate generation at the cost of your own health. Risk vs reward. Follow it up with Dark Harvest to reset Darkness stacks on yourself and recover HP to survive.

Souleater, Reaper and Consume can be rotated to aid the group and allow them to drain the target. It would add support similar to Bard, but by debuffing the boss rather than buffing the party. It would work similar to Drain Samba from Dancer in FFXI.

Ideally, the DRK will need to be able to fit into raid compositions without being oppressively overpowered, but also not be extremely weak to the extent that everyone will continue to run PLD/WAR compositions.

There's already a dynamic where 3 roles fight for 2 slots in a party: Melee dps. Post-DRG buff, each dps can do comparably high numbers, but you still see many progression groups prefer 2 of the 3: MNK and NIN. Despite the very good buffs and QoL changes to DRG, they are typically still 3rd preference due to the fact that they don't really provide much utility. MNK has Dragon Kick, while NIN has Goad and Trick Attack.

In my opinion, what's going to make or break DRK in progression raiding is not necessarily the raw stats in tankiness and dps, but what kind of party utility they can bring to the group. The reason almost all groups run WAR/PLD instead of WAR/WAR or PLD/PLD is that each class brings something that the other does not (Storm debuffs for WAR; Halone STR debuff, ability to silence and stun lock for PLD). We'll have to see what utility DRK brings to the table to warrant subbing out either WAR or PLD, and I don't think its going to be something like "It's tankier" or "Deals more dps."

I am extremely interested in DRK, it was my main in FFXI for 10+ years and I was always on the forefront of tanking on DRK in FFXI. (I was in a big HNM LS that could support it) It was by far the best HNM tank in FFXI for years but very few players ever even tried it, or didn't have the support to make it work.

The stole a lot of DRKs ideas when they made WAR so it will be interesting to see what direction that take this.

My thought is in the tank stance DRK will build stacks through taking damage and then unleashing the stacks for hate/DPS.

Simple moves like Bio,Drain,Absorb would be cool and effective if they give us multiple choices.
TP Absorb, STR Absorb, INT Absorb etc.

Dread Spikes is a no brainer. Maybe even make it more of a crowd control move then one for single tanking.

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Originally Posted by SirTaint

I am extremely interested in DRK, it was my main in FFXI for 10+ years and I was always on the forefront of tanking on DRK in FFXI. (I was in a big HNM LS that could support it) It was by far the best HNM tank in FFXI for years but very few players ever even tried it, or didn't have the support to make it work.

The stole a lot of DRKs ideas when they made WAR so it will be interesting to see what direction that take this.

My thought is in the tank stance DRK will build stacks through taking damage and then unleashing the stacks for hate/DPS.

Simple moves like Bio,Drain,Absorb would be cool and effective if they give us multiple choices.
TP Absorb, STR Absorb, INT Absorb etc.

Dread Spikes is a no brainer. Maybe even make it more of a crowd control move then one for single tanking.

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Thats one thing i was concerned about, SE has already used some of DRKs abilties and motifs on WAR.

Terror Blade combo - This would be the Drks main 1, 2, 3. The 3rd hit would do the typical increase enmity, however the FIRST hit would simply add a stack of Terror to the target. Terror would have both a stack cap and a duration. Terror does nothing, until. . .

Darkness - OFF-GCD skill that consumes stacks of Terror on nearby targets to grant the Dark Knight a shield/damage reduction/etc.

I think this would be a cool way to let the Drk mitigate the big hits that we've come to expect in tanking raids in this game (Death Sentence/Raven's Beak/etc), while keeping it different from just a boring Cooldown to pop. The stacking with a duration and a stack limit means gives the move this pro and con that I find interesting.

1. You'd have to pay attention to your stack number and time left so you can't just set it and forget it.

2. However because it does cap out, after you reach the cap as long as you hit it with a combo every other rotation or so, you can use the downtime to cast other moves/taunt adds/use a different combo/etc without feeling penalized for not using your basic 1, 2, 3 over and over.

(continued)
Nightfall - Copy target's current number of Terror stacks to all targets within 10 yalms.

I think Nightfall would be interesting if Darkness had either an enmity plus component (based on # of stacks?) or if Darkness straight up taunted targets with Terror stacks. This way you could build up Terror stacks on a boss, then once adds come Nightfall the Terror stacks to all the adds and then Darkness everything for an aoe taunt + mitigation which would reduce the spike of damage you'd be tanking by suddenly gaining a bunch of mob aggro.

Fading Light - A self-buff on a decently long CD that grants max Terror stacks on a target immediately. This would be the Drk's "Oh Snap" move. Did your Terror stacks fall off (or they're only at 1 or 2) and Boss is about to use a huge move that you need max stacks to defend against? Did the OT just drop and now all the adds are about to go wild? Falling light to get max stacks of Terror on boss, Nightfall to spread Terror to everything nearby, then Darkness to immediately regain control of the situation.

(continued)
My main concern, though, is on the two debuffs that War/Pld provide. Although you CAN do content with two Plds or two Wars, it's nice to get one of each for the debuff stacking.

So I hope DRK has an ability that provides which ever tank debuff is currently not on the boss. That'd be an easy way to make sure it can fit in raid teams who want both debuffs.

Other than that, I hope it can hold it's own with Pld in terms of mitigation. I'd like to see them ditch the HP for Dmg that the class has traditionally had as it's now a tank role and not a dps role.

As far as defensive vs. offensive, I feel it will sit somewhere between PLD and WAR so as to not overshadow either in their preferred play-style.

As far as how their tanking will work, that is a tough one.
My guess is it will pull a little from both and then have its own thing on top of that.
It will probably have both some drains like WAR and will have a slight emphasis on Parry sort of like a PLD and block.

It would be pretty neat if they used self-shields sort of like insta-cast stoneskins to mitigate damage, going with a "cloaked in darkness" defense method.

Dark Knights have always been a risk/reward type of class. Sacrifice HP to do obscene amounts of damage. This is the theme I hope they stick to.

If I had say over how it was though.

DPS focused tank.
Most attacks would burn HP to do more damage. (and probably some kinda self buff to make all your attacks burn HP for more damage)
Higher over all defense but a much lower HP pool then the other tanks.
Status effects would lower defense ratings and accuracy.

Risk / reward for a tank sounds tricky because you're not just risking your own neck, you're risking everyone who you're protecting. As much as I like the idea of a high adrenaline tank who needs to live on the edge, I think a safety net still needs to be in place where a low enough threshold of HP means a higher buff for... damage, defense, healing received? Something.
Considering the size of the weapon, I certainly hope they've got more AoE potential than PLD.

The only way I see a risk/reward system working is if it were specifically their DPS stance, such as Sword Oath for PLD, that uses it. Using it while a tank would be awful.

Balance should be the #1 concern, but they need to "feel" different from the other 2 tanks too.
How would I make them work?

-I'd give DRK the same eHP as PLD/WAR in tank stance. (This is important. DRK must be able to tank every encounter in the game but not be any better at it than the other tanks.)

-I'd have DRK's dps stance involve sacrificing HP for dps, but DRK would sacrifice slightly less mitigation than the other 2 tanks do in their dps stance.
Somewhat like how WAR has a unique resource just while tanking (Wrath), DRK would use HP as a resource just when DPSing. I don't think using this kind of thing while in defensive/tank stance is a good design idea. (Balance is important here -- DRK needs to sacrifice enough HP so that they can't tank in dps stance any more often than the other 2 tanks can, but they need to not sacrifice so much HP that they must constantly be babysat by healers.)

-I would NOT give them self-healing abilities since both tanks already kind of have this. Also self-healing would counteract the HP-sacrificing mechanic in an undesirable way.

-I'd have DRK's dps be slightly higher than PLD & WAR while in dps stance (compared to the other 2's dps stances)

-I'd have DRK's dps be in between PLD & WAR while in tanking stance (compared to the other 2's tank stances)

-I'd have DRK's mitigation tools be slightly stronger than WAR but weaker than PLD. However I'd give them longer CD's on their mitigation tools than what WAR has with IB. (kind of like how PLD has more mitigation tools but cannot be used as consistently as IB)

-I'd give DRK an AoE that is weaker than Overpower but can be used more (more sustainable, but not infinitely) that builds Enmity about equally to OP spam or Flash spam.

-DRK would be more complicated than PLD while tanking, but less so than WAR. While DPSing, DRK would be the most complex of the 3 tanks with a unique dps rotation different from the tanking rotation and a HP-sacrificing mechanic.

-DRK would use the power of darkness, NOT the power of evil. Final Fantasy is not (and imo should not be) a franchise where you play a badguy. Kind of like how BLM's use destruction for good and Ninja's use the shadows, but neither are evil.

To summarize:

eHP: PLD = WAR = DRK
overall mitigation: PLD >= DRK = WAR
dealing with longer periods of sustained high damage or unpredictable damage: PLD > DRK > WAR
dealing with frequent, predictable burst damage: WAR > DRK > PLD

MT dps: WAR > DRK > PLD
OT dps: DRK > PLD > WAR

sustainable AoE dps: DRK > WAR >> PLD
burst AoE dps: WAR > DRK >> PLD
AoE Enmity generation: PLD = WAR = DRK

Well obviously you can only attack the DRK'ness with Magic Missile. Immune to all other attacks.

- Will have the most use for mana among the three tanks.
- Uses unique blinding debuffs, increasing the effects of the DK's evasive effects against affected targets.
- Can consume health to raise defense (creating a bleeding-edge sort of playstyle that can run healers dry for bonus dps but can also do quite well at keeping a constant stream of healing needs).
- Decent leeching, but damage as healing effects are less bursty than Warrior; some restoration via magic effects are as bursty as even old-Warrior (300% healing on IB era), but are less straightforward.
- Has some passive suppression (offensive mitigation) of nearby enemies based on damage dealt. --> Useful for some soft AoE threat automatically and for magic AoE dps/utility.
- Places some manner of stacks on self and enemies, and can transfer these between self and enemies for different situations/priorities.
- May swap places with (stack-)affected enemies during certain abilities.
- One of your magic single-target abilities that consumes stacks will also finish off enemies (vaporizing them into a puff of blue-black flame, for instance) if they drop below a certain threshold, transferring some of its stacks to you and rewarding bonus stacks.
- Decent snap-hate CD ranged attacks that can also act supportively (causing blindness, vulnerability, and/or reduced evasion).

Risk / reward sounds like FFXI DRK. This DRK is not a DPS, it's a tank (sadly-but will do). I like the absorb ideas. Sponging up DEX/STR will be nice for the parry DRK will supposedly use. ABS VIT will be nice for HP boosts. So many possibilities with absorbs. Acc/Eva/Int...etc. These absorb spells would definitely generate threat. I can also see DRK using enfeeblements to assist in threat gen and their specialized tanking. The way WS are set up now, perform an action that has X effect, I can see this working. Spells, if DRK has any at all, will probably be like mudra's. Castable in between WS.

WS might have added effect of weight, acc down, blind, etc. The casting, if mudra like, cold be absorb spells, enfeebs, etc.

All I know is I can't wait to unlock that shiz and lvl it up.

Dark Knight will probably have a continues buff that will drain hp from what their hitting will also have cleave weapon skills to fit a big weapon like the great sword.

I heard some one say that miasma II would also be a good use for hate control on drk.

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Originally Posted by Mykll

Well obviously you can only attack the DRK'ness with Magic Missile. Immune to all other attacks.

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Where are the cheetos!?!

Make Darkness a stance that gradually drains HP in order to enable certain skills that deal extra damage and/or build emnity faster or grant certain buffs/debuffs (fear, terror and the like). The major skills would have an additional HP cost added onto them. Outside of Darkness there should also be a Soul Eater stance which allows you to drain hp with each auto-attack and other basic skills at the cost of not being able to utilize Darkness skills.

http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...ark_Knight.png

Threat combo is going to be

Hard slash > Power Slash > Sickle Moon

I'd like to see the various 'Spikes' spells make a comeback from 1.0.

They could have various effects such as: paralyze, build enmity, drain hp, drain tp, drain mp

Lots of AoEs

A magic-based 'Stun' spell, just like in FFXI - that would be great utility

A buff that when placed on healers or dps would transfer enmity to the tank.

I'd like for the Dark Knight to be the absorption tank. We have the high health mana sponge in the Warrior, we have the Blocker in the Paladin. I want the Dark Knight to have relatively similar health to the Paladin, but using an Absorption Shield instead of an actual Shield. SE said that they're more magical then the other tanks, which could be from the animations to actually using more MP then the other tanks, but I really dont think they'll be a MP heavy class like some people are saying.

I don't think they'll be sacrificing health to deal more damage like original Dark Knights, as that would be a bad design for a tank. Instead I could see them building up a temporary shield through a combo, that will either mitigate damage or for the "health" draining abilities of a Dark Knight be consumed instead of you actually using health. Obviously the damage of these abilities without absorbing a shield would be pretty meh, and they'd have a cooldown to give them a hefty Shield right away for when they need it. I'd also really like if the Dark Knight excelled at AoE Tanking, and doing a fair chunk of Damage.

The way I imagine it, the Paladin is the "main" tank, and the Dark Knight is the "off" tank and the Warrior would be a balance between the two. Able to fill either role.