DRK: What tweaks?

Just wondering, there are a lot of people saying DRK is going to have a hard time competing as a tank with PLD and WAR.

So if you are one of that mindset, what would you do to change the DRK to be more competitive in your eyes?

Note I am not saying this is wrong or right, just want to see what people think are the issues holding DRK back.

DRK really don't have the utility the other tanks do. However they do have a niche role themselves. However it is a costly one.

Dark Arts:
Reduce MP cost by 50%. (and remove Grit's damage penalty temporarily whilst its up.)
It simply isn't a big enough buff to cost that much mana. Taking 1/3 of your mana for an attack isn't right, unless its changed to be a more passive buff.

Darkside:
Actions also heal your max health by 3% per action.

Blood Weapon
Make it a permanent buff that can be used under the effects of Grit. However it should also drain your health slowly.

Blood Price:
Sacrifice 15% of your health to give yourself 15% damage reduction for 15 seconds. 40 second recast.

Too soon,

Though a <Not in Combat> MP restore CD would be a nice QoL addition

I think its fine as is. We can't complain about tweaks until we get to Alexander Savage where tanking really counts so until then gitgud.

its hard to say with any real certainty this early, but just from a preliminary standpoint, delirium's debuff could probably stand to be something that is actually unique to DRK to make it a bit more desirable. i don't think DRK survivability or damage is an issue (well, maybe they could up darkside by 5-10%), mostly just the lack of strong utility, that WAR and PLD both have.

I'm still leveling, almost 47, but I really cannot see any reason to bring a DRK into Alexander. Reprise doesn't work as an off tank, and the debuff we have is really only so MNK isn't needed for it. The damage is good sure, but I'm pretty sure that WAR can do the same, and keep the 10% damage down debuff way easier than a DRK.

As for MT? >___________> I'd honestly rather OT as a DRK.

I can honestly see tweaks coming in 3.1. I'd be perfectly content if Reprise wasn't limited by parry, but improved by it. I get the ability nearly ever time it's off cool down, but I'm the only one getting hit. When I'm not getting hit, that utility is gone.

Blood Blade is fine as is. In Grit you're actually pretty good on MP as long as your not spamming everything you've got.

I love what Dark Arts does, but I'm still getting used to the MP cost. You def need to make sure your good to use it first.

I'd say defensive CD's we're well off. One for Parry (with DA its evasion too), one for 20% all damage, foresight, one to reduce magic damage, and essentially sentinel as well. Honestly having more control over Reprise would help a lot and would probably make it interchangeable with WAR for pregression OT, and once gear set's in it'd be great for MTing.

I'm not really sure yet since I'm still leveling my Dark Knight but he feels squishier than my Warrior. I feel like I'm taking a ton more damage and getting low on health way too often, granted I've almost always been in dungeons with Astrologian's so I don't know if its their heals or just drk can't take a hit as well.

This is just my dumb thoughts but I think a health drain aura ability for mob pulls would help some with survivability but I don't know the logistics or numbers of doing such a thing

An ability that converts damage delt into a bubble might be a nice way to help make us less squishy, and it would keep us unique just as a PLD shield/WAR hp boost does for the other tanks.

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Originally Posted by Rhaja

As for MT? >___________> I'd honestly rather OT as a DRK.

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It's the same for me too, which is kinda odd, seeing as it has they highest potency enmity combo. rage of halone give 260 when comboed, and butcher's block 280. power slash gets 300. and it's enmity can be amplified further using dark arts.

if a dark knight wants to rip hate off of another job, it can, and then laugh at the your petty attempts to get it back.

we also get the best DoT out of all the high def classes. Warrior (and by extention, pld) only get fracture (80 tp for 100 potency, plus 20 per a tic for 30 seconds), and drg gets phlebotomize (90 tp for 170 potency, plus 30 per tic for 18.). and then we get scrouge, 60 tp for 100 potency and 40 per tic for 30 seconds.

DRK have the highest threat because they are likely not seen 'using' that combo as often. Because of their mp issues, they will likely spam soul/siphon much more often, meaning that they need their emnity generators to be stronger than paladin or warrior whom generally 'dip' into other combos to put up debuffs and then return to their emnity combo (which was also their damage combo).

DRK is different, their damage combo is also dark arts+soul eater anyways.

Well, at the very least, we can say the didn't introduce the class broken and making the other tanks useles =D

Would like to see their zombie ability have some special mention of solo play so it can be useful for that occasion. Isn't very helpful when there is no way you can get to full life alone.

Yeah I like it well enough as is for OT but I really can't shake the fealling it should have just been a dps :/ not to say it won't work as a tank.

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Originally Posted by Tsubakii

Yeah I like it well enough as is for OT but I really can't shake the fealling it should have just been a dps :/ not to say it won't work as a tank.

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Meh I get the feeling. At first I think it should be DPS main because I like Dark Knight lore in FF and wanted to go around butchering things will riding the line at low health with extreame damage.

But I also get why they made it a tank....machinist and Astro wouldnt fit a tank role well and the idea of a steadfast survivor able to take hit after hit and keep on going fits with the DRK as well.

I did get into a hate fight today with a paladin in Ifrit hard mode (farming for the fire greatsword and its a breeze so me and the pally were just having fun)

I won :P he did manage to pull ifrit off me a time or two but overall I had ifrit on me like glue.

Yeah like I said I think it can tank just fine but it could have been anything other then a drk and been a tank, (we have no dodge tank!) And DRK just seems to be a mix of WAR and PLD more then anything new.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

DRK really don't have the utility the other tanks do. However they do have a niche role themselves. However it is a costly one.

Dark Arts:
Reduce MP cost by 50%. (and remove Grit's damage penalty temporarily whilst its up.)
It simply isn't a big enough buff to cost that much mana. Taking 1/3 of your mana for an attack isn't right, unless its changed to be a more passive buff.

Darkside:
Actions also heal your max health by 3% per action.

Blood Weapon
Make it a permanent buff that can be used under the effects of Grit. However it should also drain your health slowly.

Blood Price:
Sacrifice 15% of your health to give yourself 15% damage reduction for 15 seconds. 40 second recast.

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Ppl would drop Blood Price entirely with that...besides that...do you want us to make demigods oO???

Actually thinking about it this could have been rune fencer. Swap out the dark elements for rune magic and it's a 2 handed sword wielding take that utilizes mp......

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Originally Posted by Hypie

Ppl would drop Blood Price entirely with that...besides that...do you want us to make demigods oO???

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Drop blood price? As in not use it? I mean Blood Weapon should drain your health like Darkside does mana.

The only change I see necessary IMO would be to make Blood Weapon usable during Grit, but remove the attack speed bonus while in Grit (ergo, it would only generate MP), and to give Delirium a slashing debuff under Dark Arts (so it isn't outclassed by MNK and DRK can serve a practical purpose if there isn't a NIN or WAR in the party)

Other than that I feel most things are pretty solid. I haven't really had trouble with the class after 50; it generates hate well, and has a fairly potent lifesteal, my only gripe is its synergy with the party (which I feel can be fixed rather easily)

Honestly id say

Dark Arts needs a cost decrease
Dark Wall needs something on it--its got the worst parts of vengeance or sentinel. Maybe it should Trigger Dark Arts for free?
Shadow Skin: Is Fine
Dark Dance: Inferior to Keen Flurry. Actually its pretty funny. For 30 more seconds they get 50% more parry---or compare it to another rank CD. Raw Inuition for Warriors is also 90 seconds and it parries EVERY attack for 20 seconds (and gives them a rage/abandon stack).

There's just something about DRK that is...soft. I don't know why. But whenever I'm tanking as DRK. I feel like I am taking more damage than necessary. DRK doesn't have much going for it progression wise though it is a good tank on its own. INT Down from Siphon(highest combo end outside Dark Arts) will be covered by MNK. So all they have essentially is just a DA Soul eater for days with the occasional Enmity Combo. DRK is just the jack of all, master of none.

Some changes I would like to see:

- Blood Weapon in Grit stance. I would love stance changing, but the MP cost just to ENTER Grit is stupid, preventing us from doing just that. Or take Grit off GCD. One of the two.
- Some other form of Debuff. INT Down is just...They need something else to lower to have them bring SOMETHING to end game.
- Lower CD on Damage Reduction move(Forgot Name). Honestly, what's the point of having something proc to use if it's not going to be up? We have so many utilities to make it proc, but it's usually never up from previous use.

That's all I got right now. :x

Blood price needs to be adjusted to be based on damage taken on a hit imo. On pack pulls it's amazing but on boss fights it slows to a crawl. Or Blood weapon usable in grit.

Though personally I'd rather have a combined skill for both where blood price is always active with either reduced potency (while still scaling with damage taken per hit) and hitting blood weapon would enable weapon and disable price until the cooldown is back up.

I'd like to see Reprisal on a shorter cd and just have it so it doesn't refresh duration so you can spread out the damage reduction in mob scenarios. I hate that I use the move and parry and can't use it for another thirty seconds

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Originally Posted by Xilibrius

I'd like to see Reprisal on a shorter cd and just have it so it doesn't refresh duration so you can spread out the damage reduction in mob scenarios. I hate that I use the move and parry and can't use it for another thirty seconds

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Thank you. Reprisal. That's what it was. But yes, that's what I meant. I just hate Parry procing it and I can't use it because of the massive CD.

Simple fix to reprisal is to remove the trigger, and lessen its potency down to 100, but to have a successful parry increase its potency to the current level if used within the next 10 seconds.

That way off tank Drk can actually you know..debuff.

Or just remove the trigger all together--its not that broken given the classes general weakness.

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Originally Posted by Soular

The only change I see necessary IMO would be to make Blood Weapon usable during Grit, but remove the attack speed bonus while in Grit (ergo, it would only generate MP), and to give Delirium a slashing debuff under Dark Arts (so it isn't outclassed by MNK and DRK can serve a practical purpose if there isn't a NIN or WAR in the party)

Other than that I feel most things are pretty solid. I haven't really had trouble with the class after 50; it generates hate well, and has a fairly potent lifesteal, my only gripe is its synergy with the party (which I feel can be fixed rather easily)

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Agreed, I've had no trouble from 30 to 54 as DRK, in fact most healers I run with commented on how easy it was to keep me standing compared to WAR.

I think your suggestion (Blood Weapon being available in Grit without the speed buff) and a TP restore solution (maybe link it to a Dark Arts combo) are all they need.

I would say it's probably feels squishy because your meant to spam your soul eater while Mt so you self heal more then say a warrior. If you open with dark arts buffed power slashes I usually go for 2 you can literally spam soul eater unless you have a yolo tank fighting you for main hate. So you use dark art to buff soul eater for the extra heal/damage and apply delirium as necessary. Haven't noticed an issue while being MT.

One thing they should fix is Living Dead, on paper it's good to be dead if not heal to full hp, but in real time it's difficult to stay alive after using this skill, it'll be less funny to the party when they hardly reach the 100% HP to erase the effect (i tried on CT3...).

Others things is the MP consuption, it's a bit to much (but we probably get advantage of the bard/machiniste regen mp use for the healers).

As for Damage Mitigation, we get similar defense skill as War, except he can keep the -10% damage full time, we dont.

Sole Survivor should change to: "if a party member die" to "if a party member get a massive amount of damage" (let's say 60~70% of his HP).

I would love Delirium to have same effect as war damage reduction skill.

Here are some little things I'd like to see changed.

Blood Weapon usable in Grit stance, just remove the attack speed bonus. Blood Price isn't effective on it's own in Grit stance vs bosses.
Reprisal not requiring a parry, maybe Grit stance required but please not parry.
Delirium debuff changed to something like slashing debuff. (Yes I know int is still very helpful but if any monk is there it's pretty much only used for damage when you don't wanna soul eater.) (When do you not wanna soul eater?)
Half the MP cost of Dark Art's, it's way too much, especially when comboing it off with Dark Passenger.

I'm fine with the rest of them.

PS: Sole Survivor works on mobs apparently, either bad translation or bug.

I dont understand why you opened another topic when i made one that could be the same ^^"

Anyway i copy/paste what would make the DRK pretty good:

- Remove from GCD the grit stance, and reduce the MP cost for it (in pair with darkside)
In this way we will be able to use blood sword, since blood price is not enough good to regen MP.
In this way the DRK will have to be carefull on when to switch to blood sword, since he will receive 20% more damage (since he turn off grit).

*If you dont want that Grit is kinda used on necessity (only use Grit to handle big hits from bosses), just give blood sword a debuff (+20% damage received and allow to use it during Grit stance), dont reduce the MP cost for Grit but remove it from GCD.

- Since if we use blood sword often (if you change as i said), we will ruin TP VERY (compared to any other tank) fast, i would change the effect from carve and spit, giving TP restore (200 should be enough) instead of MP regain (that at level 60 is a joke when dark arts cost 1800mp and carve and spit regain only 900).

* or remove ss from BS and give determination or critical hit rate

- Maybe to make things more interesting, and to give something "new", you could change the souleater effects, giving shield instead of HP drain (but not sure if it would be OP)