Would this help balance the Tanks out?

Paladin - Nerf Fight or Flight\\'s physical damage buff to 10% or 15%.

Dark Knight - Give Dark Dance, and Dark Arts boosts the parry rate up to 40%. Instead of giving evasion.

Thoughts?

Shh, PLDs would throw a fit if you said to nerf them. It would be best to bring DRK up to the level of the other 2 rather than drag one, the other or both down. I do like the idea of giving DRK Dark Dance Back though, would help shore up our defensive kit, which is one of the areas we're lacking. Also Dark Dance was always parry there is no evasion, or rather parry IS evasion (kindasortanotreally).

dont mention PLD nef u will bring whole hell into this thread XD

We know SE think evrything is ok whit DRK untill 4.5 or 4.6 when DRK has become meme class and then they promise rework of balance in 5.0 whit main focus on DRK whit resould DRK being owerbuffed and one of 3 tanks neffed into ground

And circle of dispair will continiue.

it was 2.0 war 3.0 PLD 4.0 DRk i quess 5.0 meme class is war again

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Originally Posted by 347SPECTRE

Also Dark Dance was always parry there is no evasion, or rather parry IS evasion (kindasortanotreally).

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Dark Arts + Dark Dance was evasion, and Parry is not Evasion because Evasion can completely negates damage. And that's probably why we always had very few evasion skills.

Unfortunately, no, I don't think those changes would do much to solve some of the underlying tank balance issues.

First, Paladin damage just isn't really a problem. They do good damage, but they never really burst particularly high, and they're a slave to multiple cooldown timers. The issues with balance re: tank damage are, basically: 1) DRK isn't performing up to scratch - low maximum damage, low average damage, optimization is the hardest among the tanks but the reward for optimizing is a fraction of what you get by optimizing the others, etc, and 2) WAR is being over-rewarded, as per usual, by having both the highest burst damage and the highest total DPS.

Second, Dark Dance was basically a useful cooldown in conjunction with the rest of DRK's 3.x toolkit. Pairing it with Foresight for 'fluff' physical mitigation is gone, using it to proc Reprisal is gone, DADD+DADP was extremely expensive MP-wise even when Blood Price was literally 4x as strong as it is now and DP cost half the MP; now it would basically be nonviable even if it were replaced exactly as-is. And wasting a DA worth of MP on Dark Mind is already generally a losing move, and that's with an actual powerful effect - tacking the same cost on to anything short of a 100% chance to parry would honestly be pretty irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Unfortunately, no, I don't think those changes would do much to solve some of the underlying tank balance issues.
WAR is being over-rewarded, as per usual, by having both the highest burst damage and the highest total DPS.

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disagree on WAR being over rewarded for their dps, if anything it's the opposite because their best burst damage only come once every two minutes,can easily get messed up by mechanic and PLD can match WAR DPS without needing to give as much effort.
inner release should be a 1 minute cooldown, or if they decide to keep the 2 minutes cooldown it should at least increase the fell cleave damage significantly on that duration

Well, seeing that the animation for scourge was not reused, and possibly can be brought back to be a 3rd part of a combo. How do you guys feel about it applying a debuff instead of a dot? Or maybe apply both? What if the debuff could could benifit magic damage dealers? Maybe lower the targets magic damage resistance by a small %. Like how war bring slashing resistance and dragoon brings piercing. Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, if scourge could be brought back, animation and all, it doesn't have to be a DOT. It could be a debuff or a buff along similar lines as Storm's Eye.

there is nothing wrong with warrior and pld damage its the fact that dark knight should be doing more damage I am thinking of a rework on dark knight might improve on it and if you nerf Fof your bringing down pld damage lower than dark knight.

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

if you nerf Fof your bringing down pld damage lower than dark knight.

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Well isn't Dark Knight suppose to do more dps than paladin? I mean paladin has waaay more mitigation and party helping tools than dark, along with a long range spell that does 400 potency, to keep uptime when forced to be at a distance. I thought the direction square was currently going for was "Damage: WAR>DRK>PLD" then "Mitigation and Party Utility: PLD>DRK>WAR. Making Drk a mixture of both.

PLD/WAR are in a good spot, tbh nerfing is not the answer to this, the fact DRK was gutted moving into 4.x but nothing was given in return to really address the loss is the issue. Making huge changes to the job is not a solution neither but can't really see a third combo giving a constant dmg increase or decrease buff/ debuff as most have been scrapped or reworked with limitations bar slashing/piercing/blunt dmg debuff. Also DoT like scourge as a possible third combo is possible but moves towards the realm of making jobs a degree generic which also needs to be avoided. Main changes are reducing high mp costs to a degree and some slight potency increases, maybe give some sort of unique raid utility and some third combo so it doesn't feel like a 1 2 3 job with oGCDs inbetween. As for one big potency skill on PLD, think after going so long without one we deserve one.

PLD main here, wouldn't give two f**ks about losing a bit of damage if at least Dark Knight got something like oGCD Grit and a 10-15% damage boost within blood weapon and / or 80s Delirium.

Dark Dance has no real place if you ask me, they might as well make Dark Mind omni-damage based or bring back Shadow Skin. There is no reason for massive parry play without a skill that goes off after a parry similar to PLDs shield swipe after blocking.

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Originally Posted by Crater

2) WAR is being over-rewarded, as per usual, by having both the highest burst damage and the highest total DPS.

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That's debatable. While war burst is good its the overall raiddps that counts. As a WAR main, the change to SiO is good however we still have to juggle Infuriate timers and match them perfectly with Berserk and Inner Release to even get a chance at matching or even exceeding pld. PLD just needs to keep goring up and use its off gcds when available and its gg. If there is one thing I would change about DRK is to make TBN six seconds instead of five. I find this to a reasonable change. Other than that SE doesn't see anything wrong with DRK. I mean world first UBcoB had a drk in it.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

That's debatable. While war burst is good its the overall raiddps that counts. As a WAR main, the change to SiO is good however we still have to juggle Infuriate timers and match them perfectly with Berserk and Inner Release to even get a chance at matching or even exceeding pld. PLD just needs to keep goring up and use its off gcds when available and its gg. If there is one thing I would change about DRK is to make TBN six seconds instead of five. I find this to a reasonable change. Other than that SE doesn't see anything wrong with DRK. I mean world first UBcoB had a drk in it.

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The world first may have had a dark in it, but only about 3 confirmed dark knights have cleared compared to 22 Warriors and 25 paladins. World first doesn't mean much as a metric, and most groups seem to be choosing warrior paladin to run and clear. This doesn't seem to strictly be a theoretical argument, strategically people are bringing in a certain composition, and it doesn't appear that most groups are choosing dark knight as part of that strategy. Not shockingly, there doesn't appear to be many of places where a 5.5k shield on one person would save the raid.

I cannot stress this enough, it is too small a sample to draw any conclusions from, but right now dark knight is behind in the numbers game by 20% dps in ultimate. This could be because of playing cautiously paired with an extremely small sample set, but many have pointed out harder content could force more tank stance on dark because its kit is weaker than the other tanks. If that holds up, again really too small a sample to generalize from, that is a way more important metric than which tank was brought in first.

If you want the tanks "balanced" then DRK and WAR need to bring more DPS to the table. Of course, this still leaves the issue of their actual kit design. Even outside of the numbers, WAR's kit got hurt pretty badly by silly design choices, and DRK got the equivalent of a cactus slathered in hot sauce jammed you-know-where. I'd be fine where they are numbers and utility-wise right now if they were any fun to actually play.

Warrior, at the very least, needs to come off the "Fell Cleave plus Fell Cleave Accessories" train it's on right now. Landing a triple fell cleave felt decently satisfying, but the design team pulled a fat kid and slammed their face into the cake because the slice they got was tasty. Warrior's damage is so dependent on fell cleave that RNG becomes a much more powerful influence on DPS numbers than should be expected. DRK I don't need to go terribly in-depth on because people much more familiar with the job than myself have already made their wishlist.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

PLD main here, wouldn't give two f**ks about losing a bit of damage if at least Dark Knight got something like oGCD Grit and a 10-15% damage boost within blood weapon and / or 80s Delirium.

Dark Dance has no real place if you ask me, they might as well make Dark Mind omni-damage based or bring back Shadow Skin. There is no reason for massive parry play without a skill that goes off after a parry similar to PLDs shield swipe after blocking.

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I vote this.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

That's debatable. While war burst is good its the overall raiddps that counts.

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No. Burst is utility; it has value beyond just contributing to overall DPS, and class balance should reflect that. The class that deals the highest burst damage should never be the class that also deals the highest overall DPS, and this game is going to have severe balance issues until SE realizes that and starts changing class design accordingly. Both Paladin and Dark Knight should be dealing higher overall DPS than Warrior, to balance out the fact that Berserk + Fell Cleave is always going to result in Warrior dealing 30-40%+ more damage during a burst window.

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Originally Posted by Crater

No. Burst is utility; it has value beyond just contributing to overall DPS, and class balance should reflect that. The class that deals the highest burst damage should never be the class that also deals the highest overall DPS, and this game is going to have severe balance issues until SE realizes that and starts changing class design accordingly. Both Paladin and Dark Knight should be dealing higher overall DPS than Warrior, to balance out the fact that Berserk + Fell Cleave is always going to result in Warrior dealing 30-40%+ more damage during a burst window.

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Burst type damage is always going to be king over stable. But other than phase pushing(which the DPS classes have more influence in than WARs slight edge over the other tanks has), 'balanced' content design is never going to make a burst phase where only WAR can handle it versus a PLD or DRK, both of which are also capable of 'bursting' but agreeably not to the degree of a Berserk/IR window. It's a flavour of damage type for the most part and is of little consequence because its not that big of a gap between the other tanks.

WAR just needs to not have all its eggs in Inner Release. 2 minutes of pool noodle damage for 20 seconds of chainsaw damage is not all that fun.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

WAR just needs to not have all its eggs in Inner Release. 2 minutes of pool noodle damage for 20 seconds of chainsaw damage is not all that fun.

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Inner release was a mistake?

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Originally Posted by Rubytoe

Well isn't Dark Knight suppose to do more dps than paladin? I mean paladin has waaay more mitigation and party helping tools than dark, along with a long range spell that does 400 potency, to keep uptime when forced to be at a distance. I thought the direction square was currently going for was "Damage: WAR>DRK>PLD" then "Mitigation and Party Utility: PLD>DRK>WAR. Making Drk a mixture of both.

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Dark knight should never be a mixture of both. and that 400 poteny holy spirit is only good for every 60 secs and which you can get 5 which is 2000 every 60 secs unless you got a Bard that does Refesh at that moment. Most of our damage comes from our Flight or fight Combos.. and right now the damage should be Dark>war>pld and mitigation and party utility should be Pld>war>Dark.. right now dark knight needs a major buff to its damage to make it viable due to its low utility. Please do not talk about tanks if you do not know anything

I think maybe 5% off the top of FoF is more appropriate, especially if you want a DRK buff as well. the point isn't to just make PLD the worst DPS tank significantly because we'll just end up doing this argument with the roles reversed. Ideally tanks need to be doing very similar damage really. DPS should not be a major metric for tank preference (admittedly that's as much a game design flaw devaluing mitigation as anything else)

Do agree with the idea that things should be brought up and not nerfed down if any changes are necessary.

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Originally Posted by CaTi

I think maybe 5% off the top of FoF is more appropriate, especially if you want a DRK buff as well. the point isn't to just make PLD the worst DPS tank significantly because we'll just end up doing this argument with the roles reversed. Ideally tanks need to be doing very similar damage really. DPS should not be a major metric for tank preference (admittedly that's as much a game design flaw devaluing mitigation as anything else)

Do agree with the idea that things should be brought up and not nerfed down if any changes are necessary.

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you do you realize that 5% is somewhat huge in the long term.

I don’t think paladin should be nerfed, I think Dark Knight should be raised closer to or above Warrior in dps.

I have an idea to boost DRK DPS and also (possibly) make it more fun, still mulling over it and looking at basic numbers.

I would say make scourge a 3rd part of a combo. Since dark knight only has 2 combos, while the other 2 tanks have 3.
Syphon strike would combo into the new scourge. Scourge would work like ninja's shadow fang, giving a dot and a magic resistance down debuff instead of slashing. Make scourges dot powerful enough to make drk follow closer to WAR's dps. Thoughts on this?

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

you do you realize that 5% is somewhat huge in the long term.

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Oh I do, but compared to the original post suggestion of knocking the buff down to 10-15%? Definitely more palatable if it absolutely had to be nerfed in 4.2 (although it really doesn't need to be)

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Originally Posted by Rubytoe

I would say make scourge a 3rd part of a combo. Since dark knight only has 2 combos, while the other 2 tanks have 3.
Syphon strike would combo into the new scourge. Scourge would work like ninja's shadow fang, giving a dot and a magic resistance down debuff instead of slashing. Make scourges dot powerful enough to make drk follow closer to WAR's dps. Thoughts on this?

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There's enough argument against any new DoTs that I don't see Scourge making a comeback as one.

Maybe a self-buff. Grants 5 blood with each weaponskill used? Grants a free Dark Arts? Increases damage dealt by Blood skills? Or maybe a buff that, over the next fifteen seconds, gradually grants 25 blood.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

There's enough argument against any new DoTs that I don't see Scourge making a comeback as one.

Maybe a self-buff. Grants 5 blood with each weaponskill used? Grants a free Dark Arts? Increases damage dealt by Blood skills? Or maybe a buff that, over the next fifteen seconds, gradually grants 25 blood.

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Or what about a speed boost rather than a traditional damage boost?

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Or what about a speed boost rather than a traditional damage boost?

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If we think of DRK being the Magic tank, we could add a magic debuff to the attack. (Combining this with Ekimmak's idea.) With this, Scourge could be:

"Delivers an attack with a potency of 180.
Additional effect: applies the effect "Scourge" on the player, increasing Blood Gauge by 50 over 30s (or 25 over 15s).
Additional effect: Increases target's magic damage taken by 5% for 15s."

The increase to magic damage taken could be a Dark Arts effect, but if so it might need to be a 30s duration? I would have to actively crunch the numbers, but for just the healers this would be a combined ~150-200rDPS increase during this time, not even including if the comp had casters.

Just my 2 cents. I don't have my DRK past 61, but have been enjoying it so far. I don't want it to end up being a clone of another job, however, so I don't think adding "yet another combo-ender DoT" is a good idea.

would it be better? no..because ff was like this from 2.0 , why should it not worth mentioned and now should be nerfed?

The thing that should be avoided is for Soul Eater or Scourge to become a superior choice. If Scourge isn't as good a blood gain as soul eater and inferior damage, it might as well not be there. Hence, why I thought of the blood over time effect: it can have superior blood gains, but spamming it is a blood loss, so you just use it to reapply the buff.

There are arguments for why Tanks should never directly boost the damage of other jobs, but I think by this point DRK needs any help it can get. But would the vuln debuff compete with the likes of Contagion, or be it's own class of debuff?