Shadowbringers Dark Knight Job: Complaints, Feedback, and Suggestions

Do you enjoy playing Dark Knight in Shadowbringers?

Sort of?

I think that Dark Knight currently has appealing fantasy and visuals, and many of its rotational aspects have a fun feeling to them.

However, it's also extremely frustrating and stressful to play "properly", due to how cluttered its actions are, how tight the timings are, how much the rotation clashes internally, and how little overall payoff there is compared to a simple, straightforward Job like Gunbreaker that just works cleanly and elegantly and largely without headaches.

Overall, I think that Dark Knight's design is close to being enjoyable and solidified, but I would really prefer that it be significantly cleaned up and streamlined, and also that it finally be brought back much more toward the "play feel" that it had in Heavensward.

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What did you enjoy about Dark Knight in Heavensward?

1. It still had "Shadowskin".

Look, this may be petty, but I'm not a Gladiator/Paladin. I don't want "Rampart". I want "Shadowskin". I don't care if it's the same damn thing, so are "Shadow Wall" and "Sentinel", but they stayed separated. "Shadowskin" felt like it really belonged on the job.

2. It still had "Scourge".

• I really, really liked pressing and maintaining "Scourge".

  Why? I don't know. I get that it was "just" another maintenance dot. But it was a really satisfying button to press, and it felt cool, and looked cool, and did good damage.
  

• I want "Scourge" back. I've wanted "Scourge" back since Patch 4.00. I still want "Scourge" back. Please give "Scourge" back.
• I don't even care if has to be a "Sonic Break"/"Shadow Fang" clone with a cooldown:

  • It could be a 60s GCD-respecting CD with 30s-duration DOT.
  • It could be a 20s GCD-respecting CD with a 20s-duration DOT.
  • Whatever, I don't care about the exact details — I just want to see the "Scourge" icon on my hotbars again, I want to see the "Scourge" animation on my screen again (even if you have to thieve it back from where you repurposed it to).

• Please give "Scourge" back.

3. It still had "Delirium" as a combo GCD.

• The original "Delirium" looked good, felt good to press, and it was satisfying to correctly choose between "Delirium" and "Souleater" based on rotational conditions.
• I enjoyed alternating between "Delirium" and "Souleater" combos much more than mindlessly spamming just "Souleater" over and over and over and over and over again.

4. It still had "Abyssal Drain" as a combo GCD.

• "Stalwart Soul" looks soft, lame, and aesthetically-crude, and has no interesting design feature that makes it fun or distinct. I don't like it, and I don't really enjoy seeing three cheap-looking "Drumsticks of Darkness" constantly rotating around my Dark Knight's head in AOE situations.
• I liked "Abyssal Drain" a lot — its bizarre "sea urchin" appearance became an iconic part of FFXIV Dark Knight, and the ability to expend MP to turn "Abyssal Drain" into a self-healing machine was a distinct and satisfying part of Dark Knight AOE gameplay.
• The Shadowbringers version of "Abyssal Drain" is pathetic and depressing:

  • It has the same potency as "Plunge" :(
  • It does absolutely laughable self-healing even on large packs
  • Its CD is way too long, so I barely get to see the animation any more.

• I really do not like "Abyssal Drain" being converted to an OGCD, and I don't think this was a necessary change, or a good design decision.
• I would like to see "Stalwart Soul" replaced by an "Abyssal Drain" GCD returned to its former glory, and expanded as part of an "Unleash → Abyssal Drain" combo.

5. It still had "Dark Passenger".

• This was basically "The Cooler Flood of Shadow", and more FF-iconic.
• Also, the fact that the Dark Knight wanted to use "Dark Passenger" on-cooldown, but not with "Dark Arts", added a small amount of extra strategy with MP spending that I found satisfying.

6. It still had "Sole Survivor".

• I really liked this action.
• It definitely needs some design modernization to prevent it from being deadweight hotbar clutter in a lot of situations, or going frustratingly to waste if timed slightly wrong (the late Stormblood design was a step in the correct direction).
• However, the basic idea of "Sole Survivor" fit Dark Knight's fantasy and theming very well, and the animation became an iconic part of Dark Knight gameplay visuals, and the satisfaction of timing it correctly on trash pulls was genuinely fun.

7. It didn't have a tacked-on "Blackblood Gauge".

• Dark Knight does not need "Blackblood". It was born with a gauge: MP.

  • MP already functioned as the Dark Knight "gauge" in Heavensward.
  • Tacking on another one in Stormblood was just clutter and design bloat, under the misguided idea that because "GAUGES!!!" was the big new shiny thing in Stormblood, that meant that "EVERYONE MUST HAVE A GAUGE, EVEN IF WE HAVE TO FORCE IT INTO THE DESIGN".

  I'm sorry if I'm coming across as rude or harsh, but I really don't think that a lot of the "gauges" forced in during Stormblood were necessary or even positive design changes, and a lot of Jobs have had their clean Heavensward gameplay hobbled and deteriorated ever since then by the perceived need to have artificially-bloated design features in order to accommodate "GAUGES!!!!!".

• Furthermore, I think that "Bloodspiller" is visually goofy and obnoxious.

  • Doing a giant somersault slash is cool... sometimes? Once in a while? I guess?
  • Spamming it again and again and again doesn't really look cool anymore, it looks... kind of silly and absurd.
  • I kind of miss when Dark Knight's visual theming overall felt like a brooding, sinister, darkened martial knight, rather than being full of over-the-top exaggerated cartoony animations that look much more "goofy" than "intimidating".

• I also miss focusing on managing MP as my "gauge", rather than juggling a cluttered mess including "Blackblood" and "Darkside Timer".
• Dark Knight really doesn't need more than MP; MP management already provided plenty of engagement throughout Heavensward.

8. It still had the original design for "Dark Arts".

• Heavensward:

  • "Dark Arts" felt good because it made Dark Knight feel like a heavy, physical Job that used dark magic to empower its heavy physical Greatsword strikes, rather than a sorcerer with a big sword that just kind of randomly spews darkness out into the world when it feels like it and flimsily waves around its greatsword like a foam pool noodle or magician staff.
  • Rationing MP properly, and timing "Dark Arts" to align with "Souleater" for maximum potency, while using "Delirium" for unempowered strikes, felt like a satisfying and engaging rhythm for the job. I very much miss this design, and the Shadowbringers design isn't even close to the same thing.

• Stormblood:

  • This felt really bad, because the design changes made "Dark Arts" available far too frequently.
  • Also, most of the strategy and timing in using "Dark Arts" was removed.
  • Spamming "Dark Arts" mindlessly and constantly wasn't very fun, it was extremely irritating, and took the satisfaction out of using it that the Heavensward design had.

• Shadowbringers:

  • "Edge of Shadow" just isn't the same, because it's just an arbitrary OGCD strike that I can toss out at any time, without much thought or organization.
  • Also, like in Stormblood, "Edge of Shadow" still heavily-encourages windows of excessive, frenetic OGCD spam.

• I want "Dark Arts" back, and I want "Delirium" back as a combo GCD, and I want the rhythm of empowering "Souleater" with "Dark Arts", and filling with "Delirium" in-between, to come back.
• That is still the most satisfying Dark Knight rotation that I have played in FFXIV, and I feel like both Stormblood and Shadowbringers have been playstyle downgrades compared to the original design.

9. It had a heavier, more physical feel.

• Dark Knight in Heavensward felt like a heavy martial character — ie, a knight — that empowered their weapon attacks with dark energy, and threw out some additional dark magic as an embellishment and flavor.
• Now, Dark Knight feels very "magical", much more like a melee-range spellcaster in a lot of senses. It has largely lost that sense of being a heavy, surly "bruiser" type of class, and replaced it with a much "softer", more "sorcerous" feeling.
• Things that I miss from Heavensward that made Dark Knight feel more physical:

  • "Low Blow" was a Dark Knight move. It felt fitting for Dark Knight: Paladins were noble and followed certain chivalrous rules in combat, using their shield; Dark Knights broke these rules and used underhanded kicks to gain advantage. Additionally, it added another "physical" / "brawling" animation and feel to the rotational kit.
  • "Reprisal" was a Dark Knight move. Similar reasoning to "Low Blow". It felt physical, reactive, and added to a feel of being engaged in swordplay and dueling weapon-based combat. Like... a knight.
  • "Power Slash" still existed and mattered. Even if it was often relegated to just one or two "Dark Arts"-"Power Slash" combos to establish Enmity at pull, the animation was still imposing and heavy, and added to a feel of being a heavy-handed, bruiser swordsman.
  • "Delirium" still existed as a combo move.

    • Delirium looked solid and felt heavy and physical.
    • It also contrasted with the wild, "magical" look of Souleater, which created a good balance, because "Souleater" was coordinated with "Dark Arts", and "Delirium" was used in-between, creating a good visual alternation between heavy physical swings and intermittent magical empowerment.
    • This felt so much more "dark knight" than spending an entire encounter spinning in the air like a demonic ballerina with "Souleater" spammed again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

What do you dislike about the current design for Dark Knight in Shadowbringers?

1.The current version of Dark Knight is way too cluttered and busy in way too many ways, making it often feel more "frustrating" or even "annoying" than "fun" to play.

1a. Cluttered, clashing 60 second / 90 second parallel cycles.

Having a set of 60 second CDs and a set of parallel 90 second CDs — especially the 60s "Blood Weapon" and 90s "Delirium" — means that Dark Knight cannot find a Skill Speed that allows for a comfortable GCD-OGCD interaction without frustratingly clashing, clipping, or desyncing and drifting:

• A 2.50s GCD, which align with both, is not an option due to the need to fit 5 GCDs inside both CD windows in order to have acceptable DPS output.
• But if your GCD is divisible into 60s for "Blood Weapon" (eg, 2.40~2.41), then "Delirium" will come off-cooldown at very awkward times that force you to either hard-clip your GCD, or drift "Delirium" by 1 GCD, which will inevitably cause "Delirium" to begin colliding with "Blood Weapon" in an annoying, clashing mess.
• And if your GCD is comfortable for 90s for "Delirium" (eg, ~2.43), then you will clip and drift "Blood Weapon" instead, ending up in largely the same situation as above, but just arrived at from a different direction.

These two conflicting cycles also have a bad tendency to slowly drift together and then crash into each other over longer encounter durations.

This sort of "overlap event" isn't as much of an issue for a Job such as Dragoon, for example, where it's all just passive damage buffs overlaying what ends up being the same GCD rotation either way.

• However, for Dark Knight, both "Blood Weapon" and "Delirium" require exacting, precise GCD timing in order to make full use of their awkward buff effects.
• This is on top of Dark Knight demanding a truly obnoxious amount of OGCD weaving (which is mandatorily double-weaving, if you want to properly-utilize party buff windows) at the exact same time that "Blood Weapon" and "Delirium" are active.
• The total result is a sense of stressful and frustrating high-pressure chaos when the two cycles overlap with each other.

"But Dark Knight is DARK AND EDGY! It should feel CrAzY and chaotic!"

• Nooooo. No. No thank you. Warrior over there → ...that Job is a raging berserker, he can feel CrAzY and chaotic, leave me out of this!
• The Dark Knight that I was sold in Heavensward was brutal, brooding, and methodical. That's the gameplay I want.
• I want to monitor my MP, juggle my combos correctly, keep everything aligned, and deliver a burst of controlled damage when my MP total is ready.
• I'm really not interested in playing "John Madden: Freebase Cocaine Edition" every 180s, especially since it's not really strategic at all, it's just a cluttered and busy and frenetic race against GCD clock/OGCD animation locks, and also extremely punishing to any small distraction, melee disconnection, or latency.

1b. Way too much offensive OGCD clutter.

Yeah, Dark Knight in Heavensward did originally have a lot of offensive OGCDs, especially for a Tank at that time:

• "Low Blow"
• "Reprisal"
• "Carve and Spit"
• "Salted Earth"
• "Dark Arts"
• "Plunge"
• "Sole Survivor"
• "Mercy Stroke" (I guess)
• "Blood Weapon"
• "Dark Passenger"

But... it balanced that with using "Dark Arts" methodically and judiciously, and generally only before the correct combo finisher (or "Carve and Spit", once per 60s).

Stormblood modified this subtlety to instead be about just spamming the ever-living hell out of "Dark Arts" constantly.

This destroyed basically everything that had made "Dark Arts" interesting in Heavensward, and also caused "Dark Arts" clutter to begin clashing and competing for OGCD weave space in irritating, and often overwhelming and exhausting, ways.

Shadowbringers toned this down slightly...

• ... but basically just replaced "Dark Arts" spam with "Edge of Shadow" spam, which feels almost as frenetic and cluttered during key burst windows...
• ...and also demands about as much or more double-weaving...
• ...and also still compresses all the MP-dumping into a frantic window, rather than spreading it out more methodically to align with combo finishers.
• It also added a second charge of "Plunge" that needs to be crammed into the burst-window weave space.

It's all just... annoying? Exhausting? Frustrating? It's... something, and it's not really comfortable or good.

It feels like way too much work, that's way too sensitive to even small disruptions in melee uptime, and all for way too little payoff, especially compared to the smooth, "chill", straightforward rotation that Gunbreaker gets to put on its sunglasses and slide through every 60 seconds, while also casually kicking Dark Knight's face in for total damage done.

Especially when too many different cooldown windows overlap, and Dark Knight deteriorates into a tense, frenetic juggling act between:

• Not clipping the GCD too much (and thus losing an action inside "Blood Weapon" or "Delirium", which is disastrous for personal DPS output).
• And yet also not leaving any MP unspent or overcapped (which is also disastrous for personal DPS output).
• And also not leaving any OGCDs unsmashed (which... yeah).

Dark Knight gameplay just gets cornered and boxed in from multiple angles during burst windows, making it feel claustrophic and pressured.

2. The current version of Dark Knight is saddled with multiple uncomfortable or awkward offensive design issues that cause its rotation to stumble or feel frustrating.

2a. "Salted Earth" is clunky and unintuitive to use.

Due to the sluggishness of FFXIV's game engine, as well as just the general awkwardness of trying to click ground-targeted actions in environments crowded with multiple close-packed models, it is difficult and uncomfortable to try to consistently activate "Salted Earth" without clipping into the Dark Knight's GCD and losing personal DPS.

Furthermore, the fact that Dark Knight is overloaded with OGCD actions in Shadowbringers means that there is high pressure to double-weave "Salted Earth" with another action in order to maximize personal performance. But, successfully double-weaving a ground-targeted action is difficult, if not impossible, for most players.

For these reasons, it is almost mandatory for a performance-conscious Dark Knight player to macro "Salted Earth" to automatically cast at the location of the Dark Knight's target.

• However, if the center of a target's hitbox is not located in a valid location for ground-targeted actions — which actually happens somewhat frequently with large encounter designs, such as "Eden's Verse: Iconoclasm" — then a "Salted Earth" macro set to <t> will automatically fail.
• Therefore, the Dark Knight must also keep another entire bind reserved for a <me> macro to place "Salted Earth" at their own location.
• In either case, because the developers do not allow macro'd actions to utilize the action queue, the "Salted Earth" macro must be hammered unusually-aggressively, and has a much higher chance of clipping into the next action compared to "queueable" keypresses.

Overall, the design of "Salted Earth" is punishing to the player for reasons entirely out of their control, and the hypothetical advantages of being able to target the location of the AOE effect are, in practice, rarely if ever actually realized, due to the impracticality of using the interface to do so.

2b. "Living Shadow" is visually-cool, but also a design mess.

This action ended up being somewhat disappointing, in actual practice, for multiple reasons:

It's just a glorified damage-over-time effect.

• It would be interesting and actually add to the rotation if it actually imitated the exact attacks that the Dark Knight executes.
• Instead, it's just a DOT with extra steps.

It's too infrequent.

It would be a lot more fun on a 60-second cooldown, so that I got to see it happen all the time, as my shadow buddy, rather than being a vague afterthought in my rotation on most encounters. (A very high-DPS afterthought, granted, but functionally, adding very little to my conscious rotation or visuals)

The sluggish start-up delay of about 5-6 seconds is very frustrating.

• It causes Dark Knight to easily miss party buff windows with some of its largest rotational potency, and that feels awful in a coordinated party.
• It would be much better if "Living Shadow" either appeared instantly, or "snapshotted" buffs when it was summoned, allowing it to be summoned flexibly at a much looser timing.

It costs 50 Blackblood.

This is just a tacked-on nuisance, because it's not difficult to generate this gauge and requires almost no thinking. However, it clashes frustratingly with certain GCD speeds, causing a situation where the Dark Knight literally cannot make a good decision:

• The player either needs to spend Blackblood at 90 and then drift "Living Shadow" by 1 GCD (terrible option, due to how poorly "Living Shadow" manages to coordinate with party buffs already)...
• ...or stop the GCD entirely to allow "Living Shadow" to finish its cooldown (terrible because stopping the GCD is a severe DPS loss in almost all cases)...
• ...or use "Souleater" at 90 gauge and overcap 10 gauge (which feels terrible because it's conditioned into players not to waste rotational resources by over-capping).

So, ultimately, the 50 Blackblood cost doesn't add any real interest or challenge or strategy, it just adds frustration as the player uncontrollably hits a wall where no decision feels good.

Furthermore, the 50 Blackblood cost messes up Dark Knight's opener and necessitates bizarre behavior like running in without using "Unmend" and activating "Blood Weapon" at the last possible moment pre-pull in order to try to ensure that the 50 Blackblood for "Living Shadow" is generated as soon as possible, to try to not miss any more raid buff potency than necessary.

Its irrelevant timer clutters up my HUD.

I really don't need to see a big obnoxious icon for the duration remaining on "Living Shadow", because once I summon "Living Shadow" there's literally nothing that I can do to interact with it.

ie: This information does not matter. I don't like that you're basically uncontrollably polluting my HUD space with borderline-useless information that I can't even turn off. Please stop doing this. It's been a trend since Stormblood, and it's annoying.

I understand that you're trying to appeal to players as if they're 6-year-olds via BIG FLASHY COOL STUFF in the UX design, but for players that are just trying to actually focus on playing the game's combat, "Living Shadow" duration could easily just be a normal buff in the normal "Status Info (Enhancements)" tray, especially if it's going to remain little more than a glorified DOT effect.

Overall, "Living Shadow" looks very cool, and is almost a really nice addition to Dark Knight, but it would be much-improved by several changes:

• Make it more engaging and interactive rotationally. It should actually mimic my GCDs, rather than just being a glorified damage-over-time effect.
• Remove the pointless tacked-on "Blackblood" cost that creates a lot of clutter and clashing issues, and creates weird problems for the Dark Knight opener.
• Remove the slow start-up delay after casting it, or snapshot all active buffs at the moment of summoning.
• Reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds, so that it sees significantly more visual uptime and feels like a more distinct presence in the rotational kit.

2c. "Blood Weapon" is much tighter than other buff windows.

Overall, I genuinely like "Blood Weapon" as a cooldown — it feels distinct in terms of gameplay, and iconic to Dark Knight as a job. As far as Job buff effects go, I enjoy "Blood Weapon" about as much as I loathe the Shadowbringers version of "Delirium".

However, most Job buff effects have an extra hidden window of "leniency" before they drop off completely, after their timer expires, which allows a wide range of latencies to successfully fit all possible GCDs inside the buff.

"Blood Weapon" inexplicably lacks this leniency, making it extremely tight to get all 5 GCDs inside it (even at fast Skill Speeds, such as 2.38 GCD), requiring a very late weave that often risks clipping if done slightly wrong, and being unusually-punishing to players with unfavorable connection or FPS latency, or any Dark Knight that experiences an even brief melee disconnect at the wrong time (which adds unnecessary gameplay stress in many encounter designs).

I think that "Blood Weapon" should be propped-up and enhanced as "the" de-facto Dark Knight cooldown window, possibly absorbing some of the design ideas of "Delirium" in the process, and that it should either be granted the standard "expiration leniency" that other buffs have, or just turned into a Stack system, similar to Ninja's "Bunshin".

2d. The Shadowbringers version of "Delirium" is absolutely awful, it doesn't fit the established Dark Knight design, it's annoying to use, and I don't want it.

"Delirium" in Shadowbringers is just a barely-repainted "Inner Release". And I don't want "Inner Release" — I stopped playing Warrior already because I hate the playfeel of "Inner Release". And then you chased me down all the way into Dark Knight, tackled me to the ground, and shoved "Inner Release" down my throat anyway. I dislike that.

Furthermore, the 90 second cooldown of "Delirium" (you even had to copy that from "Inner Release"...) clashes horribly with the entire rest of the Dark Knight rotation, causing "Bloodspiller" spam to occur at points where it's easy to inadvertently either overcap "Blackblood" or drop your combo while you desperately try to also not lose your 5th GCD of "Blood Weapon" and also double-weave a shipload of "Edge of Shadow" and cooldown OGCDs.

I really don't think that the Shadowbringers version of "Delirium" needs to exist at all. It has nothing to do with any aspect of Dark Knight that has historically made me like the job. This was a bizarre, arbitrary, and completely unnecessary addition in Shadowbringers, and I wouldn't miss it even slightly if it was removed.

2e. The Shadowbringers version of "Darkside" is a pointless chore.

There's almost nothing interesting about the current "Darkside" implementation: Maintaining it is not difficult, and it requires essentially no thought whatsoever, because the player must trigger the "Darkside" duration refresh with "Edge of Shadow" in an amount that is far in excess of its expiration timer in order to not over-cap MP.

Therefore, "Darkside" in its current form is just design clutter:

• It forces yet another gauge onto the HUD, taking up space and adding distracting information that is borderline-pointless.
• It adds almost no gameplay strategy or interest.
• It pointlessly hobbles the Dark Knight's damage output by 1 GCD whenever the Dark Knight is forced to start a pull fresh, either in their opener, or whenever resuming from a long phase disconnect.

Seriously, this version of "Darkside" is pointless. It should just be cut out, because dull and easy nuisance-maintenance buffs like this add almost nothing positive to a Job's gameplay.

3. The current version of Dark Knight has several overly-convoluted defensive designs that negatively affect play comfort and usability compared to other Tank designs.

3a. "The Blackest Night" is needlessly convoluted compared to other short-cooldown Tank defensives.

To be clear, I think that "The Blackest Night" was an excellent addition to the Dark Knight playstyle in Stormblood, and one of the best developments that has occurred for Dark Knight post-Heavensward. It's an excellent part of the Dark Knight's defensive toolkit.

However, the offensive/DPS resource cost is now an unnecessary and annoying relic.

• "Heart of Stone" doesn't cost Cartridges (Soil).
• "Nascent Flash" doesn't cost Beast Gauge.
• "Sheltron" doesn't cost MP.

Other than stubbornly wanting Dark Knight to be the quirky hipster Tank, I think that there's really just no balance reason at this point for "The Blackest Night" to cost MP:

The design already allows for "The Blackest Night" to be effectively used without penalty or an effective MP cost.

• This is due to the Shadowbringers version of "Dark Arts" effectively just turning "The Blackest Night" into a time-delayed "Edge of Shadow".
• So the MP cost is not actually an effective trade-off or concern, but rather just a way of adding convoluted extra steps.

MP does form a vague, sort-of rate-limit on "The Blackest Night", but this barely actually matters, and mostly punishes newer or struggling players that least need to be punished.

• Between all of Dark Knight's ways to restore MP per 60s, the ultimate effect is not to curb the total possible number of "The Blackest Night" per minute, but instead to just punish Dark Knights for using one too many "Edge of Shadow" at just the wrong time (ie, during one of the lull points in MP regen).
• This is basically just malicious design, and is not something that other Tanks have to deal with — the risk of causing themselves a defensive penalty by trying to do their DPS rotation effectively.
• Furthermore, this is another of FFXIV's design penalties that "punches down" — it's trivial for skilled players to avoid this issue, adding almost nothing to their gameplay, while it's a deadly trap for less-skilled or less-experienced players to easily stumble into.

The DPS penalty for misjudging "The Blackest Night" timing is annoying and malicious design.

• Every Tank is implicitly penalized for mis-timing their short-cooldown defensive on weak damage, in the sense of not getting much benefit from it, and possibly not having it available for more important damage.
• So, every Tank already has a "skill target" to try to hit with mapping and timing short-cooldown defensive usage.
• For this reason, I don't think that "The Blackest Night" needs to double-penalize the Dark Knight by also unrecoverably losing a significant amount of personal DPS if the player even slightly misjudges the rate of incoming damage, or for some other external reason outside the Dark Knight's control the absorb effect doesn't break in time.

It results in the "correct" usage of "The Blackest Night" for a player trying to maximize their output being bizarre and counter-intuitive, because Dark Knight is the only Tank that has productive "cross-talk" between their offensive and defensive designs.

• To maximize personal DPS, a Dark Knight wants to use exactly one and only one "The Blackest Night" per 60s.
• Due to the hard limit of exactly one Shadowbringers-version "Dark Arts" charge, failing to ration "The Blackest Night" usage in this manner will force the Dark Knight to start pulling more and more "Edge of Shadow" uses outside of the 60s-multiple raid buff window. Since "Edge of Shadow" is very high-potency, this will add up to a large relative loss.
• However, not using exactly one successful "The Blackest Night" per 60s will result in Dark Knight losing one "Edge of Shadow" inside buff windows, due to the "banked" "Dark Arts / Edge of Shadow" allowing the Dark Knight to exceed the limits of the MP bar and fit 5 rather than 4 "Edge of Shadow" into burst windows.

I think that "The Blackest Night" should be disconnected completely from the resources and timings of the Dark Knight's DPS cycle.

• This would allow Dark Knights to plan offense and defense separately, like other Tanks.
• This would allow Dark Knights to not feel pressured to avoid using a defensive tool "too much" in order to avoid hurting their personal DPS.
• This would allow Dark Knights to not feel pressured to "force" usage of a defensive tool where it doesn't actually matter (such as by deliberately taking avoidable AOE damage) just to be able to execute their 60s burst cycle to its full potential.

3b. "Living Dead" is needlessly punishing, convoluted, and frustrating to use compared to other Tank "ultimate" defensives.

This issue definitely isn't new, and has plagued the job's design since Heavensward. But, yes, "Living Dead" is... still awful, and one of the worst aspects of Dark Knight design and usability, especially in a coordinated or difficult environment.

I think that it is bizarre to design one Tank with an invulnerability action that is disproportionately punishing to a certain combination of Healer jobs.

• Scholars and Astrologians absolutely dread having to pull a Dark Knight out of "Walking Dead", which they struggle to resolve through heavy and wasteful resource-dumping.
• Meanwhile, White Mage barely even noticing "Walking Dead" due to "Benediction" serving as a one-button solution.

Additionally, "Living Dead" functionality is fundamentally unintuitive and confusing.

• A Healer faced with "Invincible", "Holmgang", or "Superbolide" can easily figure out what to do: heal the Tank so that HP is not too low when the invulnerability effect expires. ie, normal Healer behavior.
• A Healer faced with "Living Dead" has to unintuitively not heal the Dark Knight too soon, or the Healer will effectively execute their Tank by removing the "Walking Dead" invulnerability effect too soon before the dangerous damage finishes hitting the tank.

  • For example, "Eden's Gate: Resurrection (Savage)": If the party chooses to use invulnerabilities on "Spear of Paradise", and the Dark Knight drops to 1 HP from the first or second hit of "Spear of Paradise", and then an over-zealous Healer heals too quickly and cleanses "Walking Dead" early, then the second hit or the immediate, subsequent auto-attack will instantly KO the Dark Knight, even though the Dark Knight player did nothing wrong.
  • The same sort of issue applies in large Dungeon pulls, in Alliance Raids, and so on, throughout the game.

• I think that this is poor design: actions in a cooperative game should be fairly intuitive for other Roles that need to interact with them, and these actions certainly should not be subject to accidental sabotage from another playing who is genuinely attempting to do their Job correctly using the gameplay logic that has been established in every single other situation that the Healer has encountered.

It's very frustrating to be the only Tank that is guaranteed to die even if you do everything correctly, simply because the Healers don't understand how your invulnerability works.

• And I don't blame Healers for this nearly as much as I blame the developers for designing an action which another Role cannot properly understand how to handle without external (ie, outside their Job) research.
• Even Gunbreaker's "Superbolide" and Warrior's "Holmgang" can be intuitively handled by a Healer just making sure that the Tank's HP is brought to a high enough level to survive the next autoattack.
• Meanwhile, Dark Knight requires a disproportionate and often objectively-unnecessary amount of "fake healing" dumped into the player just to cancel out the obnoxious "Walking Dead" requirements.
• "But Living Dead is up to 20s of invulnerability if..."

  • Okay, please, just stop. I do understand what you're trying to say, but...
  • Yes, a hyper-optimized "Living Dead" could hypothetically be a very long window of not needing to heal the Dark Knight at all, if everything is timed and planned out perfectly under ideal circumstances.
  • In actual practice, in almost every situation that a typical FFXIV player will encounter, this level of coordination and timing is not realistic and does not happen, nor will a given encounter necessarily even support it, even if the party is capable of coordinating it.
  • In actual practice, "Living Dead" will be active briefly right before a tankbuster or unexpected near-KO, then be triggered quickly soon after, and then "Walking Dead" will be frantically spam-healed off by an exhausted and stressed Scholar (or the non-White Mage healer is out of resources, and so the Dark Knight just falls over anyway).

This action just... doesn't work in actual practice. Or, well, it doesn't work very well, at the very least. It's a clunky chore, and I literally feel guilty every time I show up to a party without a White Mage in it.

It's bizarre to me that after about 6 years, the developers continue to allow Dark Knight to be stuck with an invulnerability action that basically mandates the presence of a specific other Job in order to not be an irritating and hazardous burden on the logistics of the party's encounter strategy.

What changes could be made to Dark Knight in Endwalker to make it more comfortable and enjoyable to play?

1. Add back removed actions that I enjoyed much more than most of the replacement actions that have been added since then:

• "Shadowskin" instead of "Rampart".
• "Scourge".

  • either as a freely-maintained damage-over-time effect...
  • ...or a "cooldown DOT" similar to "Sonic Break" and "Shadow Fang" (preferably with a short cooldown, close to the duration).

• The real "Delirium".

  as a combo GCD that gets alternated with "Souleater", rather than continuing to subject the Dark Knight rotation to dull, endless "Souleater" spam.

• The "Power Slash" animation.

  The era of "Power Slash" having a niche as an Enmity tool has clearly passed, but I want to see my Dark Knight doing this heavy, satisfying animation again.

• "Sole Survivor".

  • I guess I'm not 100% sure about this one.
  • On the one hand, "Sole Survivor" was always kind of awkward to use, and ultimately very niche in application, and even the final Stormblood version was still pretty awkward to use effectively.
  • On the other hand, "Sole Survivor" was satisfying to pull off cleanly, and the animation became an iconic part of the FFXIV Dark Knight rotation.
  • Perhaps it could come back in visual and spirit, but redesigned for usability.

    • For example, as a debuff with a duration of 30s and a cooldown of 60s.
    • It can only be on one target at a time, and increases the Dark Knight's damage done to that target by 10%.
    • If the target dies or becomes untargetable while "Sole Survivor" is active, then "Sole Survivor" immediately resets it cooldown.

  • ...etc... The basic idea is cool, and it feels like a fitting action for Dark Knight, but the historical design of an unpredictable or "timed" resource return is an awkward and often-unfun mechanic in actual practice.

    On the other hand, Astrologian has a similar mechanic in "Earthly Star" that still feels satisfying to use (although admittedly quite difficult, in unfamiliar encounters), so perhaps there's nothing wrong with just bringing back "Sole Survivor" as a timed burst of healing and MP.

  • In any case, though, I think that any return of "Sole Survivor" absolutely should reset its cooldown every time the target dies while the effect is active, because this fits the fantasy, and is also just a fun kind of mechanic to game and take advantage of (for example, see World of Warcraft's "Marked for Death" on the Rogue class).

• "Dark Passenger".

  • This looked better and felt more iconic than "Flood of Shadow".
  • It was also a more satisfying AOE OGCD to both use in general, and to use correctly, than the Shadowbringers version of "Abyssal Drain".

• The real "Abyssal Drain".

  • This looked better than "Stalwart Soul".
  • This was more iconic than "Stalwart Soul".
  • This was more fun to use than "Stalwart Soul".
  • So, since Dark Knight already had two AOE GCDs even in Heavensward, I would prefer to get "Abyssal Drain" back as the second part of my AOE combo.

• The real "Dark Arts".

  • I think that "Edge of Shadow" is boring and generic and unsatisfying, and also annoyingly "spammy".
  • The ability to stategically empower my weapon attacks using MP was something that felt iconic to Dark Knight as a job, and was part of the gameplay style that made me originally like Dark Knight. I want that gameplay back.
  • Also, remove "Syphon Strike" consuming "Dark Arts" — this was an annoying design feature that cluttered and "trapped" the Dark Knight rotation unnecessarily.

2. Streamline Dark Knight fully onto a 60-second offensive cycle.

The Job is almost there already; by removing the Shadowbringers version of "Delirium" — or, in a worst-case scenario, at least reducing its CD to 60s — the Dark Knight cycle would lose its current uncomfortable "clashing" buff cycles, and also be able to find a Skill Speed that allows it to comfortably keep its OGCDs activated without being forced to clip or drift them.

3. Streamline the current OGCD overload that Dark Knight suffers.

• Dropping both the Shadowbringers "Edge of Shadow" design and the Stormblood "psychotic Dark Arts spam" design in favor of the methodical and deliberate Heavensward "Dark Arts" pacing would already do a good amount to resolve this issue, by spacing out Dark Knight's OGCD MP dumping actions much more.
• Also, reduce — or at least productively-replace — the amount of junky "filler" OGCDs that serve little purpose other than to bloat up keybinds, such as the Shadowbringers version of "Abyssal Drain".

4. Improve the usability of "Salted Earth".

4a. Fix the awkwardness and clunkiness inherent in trying to use Ground-Targeted "Salted Earth".

• One option is to stop punishing players for the game's design shortcomings, and allow Macros to queue. This would allow players to handle "Salted Earth" however they wish to via Macro options, without being penalized.
• Another option is to remove the Ground Targeting design, and simply make "Salted Earth" automatically cast at either the Dark Knight's location, or the target's location (and hard-code a solution for targets that extend outside the arena boundaries, such as "Neo Exdeath" and "Idol of Darkness"), and thereby negate the need for Macros entirely.

4b. I would also prefer that "Salted Earth" be on either a 30 second or 60 second cooldown.

• I enjoy using the "Salted Earth" action (yeah, even despite the interface clunkiness), and I enjoy the visual.
• I think that "Salted Earth" is one of Dark Knight's more iconic and visually-satisfying actions, and I would prefer to use it more often.
• Also, this would make the Dark Knight rotation feel more smooth and streamlined, with everything lining up nicely in 60-second bursts, which Gunbreaker (for example) demonstrates is a very satisfying feeling, especially in a well-coordinated party.

5. Improve the quality and usability of "Living Shadow".

• Make the action more interactive and interesting than its current state, where it is basically just a glorified, passive DOT effect.
• Reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds, so that Dark Knight players get to enjoy the visual and effect more frequently, and it can become a core part of the offensive rotation, alongside "Blood Weapon".
• Remove the 5-6s "summoning delay" before Esteem begins attacking, or design Esteem to snapshot all active party damage buffs at the moment it is summoned for its entire duration. Or both.
• Remove the Gauge cost.

  • This is borderline-pointless, and ends up being little more than a nuisance, a punishment, a trap, and a chore, especially at "bad" GCD speeds that cause Gauge to fill at the wrong time. It's just not actually an interesting or challenging gameplay addition.
  • Alternatively, keep the Gauge cost, and remove the cooldown, if you really want to get wild — that would at least be an interesting gameplay addition!

6. Improve the usability of "Blood Weapon".

Either convert "Blood Weapon" to a stack system, like "Bunshin", or significantly increase the "expiration leniency" on the duration, to make it much more feasible for Dark Knight players to successfully get 5 GCDs out of each "Blood Weapon" usage, regardless of Skill Speed or latency.

7. Remove the Shadowbringers version of "Delirium", and then also take all of its source code and put it inside a capsule and launch it directly into the Sun.

I really don't have anything forgiving to say about "Shadowbringers Delirium". It's a cheap, lame, copy+pasted "Inner Release", it doesn't feel fitting for Dark Knight, I don't like it, and I don't think it's fun.

I'm really not interested in "rehabilitating" this version of "Delirium". I'd rather just have Heavensward GCD combo "Delirium" back, and then pretend that this Shadowbringers version never even existed.

8. Remove the Shadowbringers version of "Darkside".

Since this is little more than an unnecessary, tacked-on, trivial maintenance buff at this point, that barely even actually requires maintenance, I think that nothing meaningful or interesting would be lost from the Dark Knight rotation if "Darkside" was simply removed entirely.

I'm also sceptical that anything much would really be gained from adding back in the Heavensward version of "Darkside", since FFXIV's design does not lend itself well to mechanics that encourage the player to frequently toggle a "kiss/curse" type of effect on and off; this almost always just becomes an annoying chore, rather than a satisfying gameplay element.

It's possible that "Darkside" could be redesigned in yet another way, just to keep the action "around", but to be honest I feel that the Dark Knight design is already overloaded and filled-out enough, without needing to add in yet another buff to pop on cooldown or maintain in the background.

However, one interesting possibility would be to convert "Darkside" into a permanent (passive) "Bunshin"-style buff, causing a shadowy version of the Dark Knight to appear and add extra damage to each of the Dark Knight's attacks (If we can steal "Inner Release" whole-cloth, we can steal "Bunshin" too).

• In exchange for this extra damage, each attack would consume a small amount of extra MP/Blackblood.
• This would incentivize the Dark Knight player to "pool" a certain maintenance amount of MP/Blackblood, in order to ensure that as many attacks as possible benefit from the extra "Darkside" damage.
• In this way, the spirit of the original "Darkside" design remains with Dark Knight, while having the more annoying aspects streamlined away and modernized.

9. Dump or consolidate the excessive Gauges that Shadowbringers Dark Knight is burdened with in its HUD and rotation.

9a. Dump or consolidate "Blackblood" or "MP".

• Dark Knight already had a gauge: MP.
• It doesn't need two, and "Blackblood" has always felt conspiciously unnecessary and tacked-on.
• "Blackblood" and "MP" could just be merged into one gauge, "Blackblood", or "Black Mana", or whatever I don't really care.
• This gauge would naturally regenerate at the same rate as "MP" currently does in combat, and also rapidly refill when outside combat.
• Then "Bloodspiller" and "Quietus" (I sometimes forget that "Quietus" exists, because it's such a lame action) can just... get deleted, or sod off somewhere, for all I care.

• • Or, if you're just absolutely stubbornly in love with the goofy somersault animation of "Bloodspiller", you could upgrade "Blood Weapon" to convert "Souleater" into "Bloodspiller" for the duration.
  • Or make "Bloodspiller" an OGCD with a 60s CD.
  • Or something. I don't really care what happens to "Bloodspiller", because "Bloodspiller" is so goofy and makes me laugh every time the animation goes off.

9b. Remove the Shadowbringers version of "Darkside".

This is a nearly-pointless minor maintenance chore that basically plays itself and adds very nearly nothing to Dark Knight gameplay.

9c. Stop displaying "Living Shadow" duration as a giant obnoxious gauge.

• This is nearly useless information, because I can't interact with a summoned "Living Shadow" in any meaningful way, so I don't actually care about the remaining duration except as a vague afterthought to see if I'm losing uptime due to phase changes or something (which does not need an entire gauge, and if it does, then hundreds of other actions should have a big obnoxious gauge tracker too [note: please, by the gods, do not do this]).
• ...Anyway yeah, "Living Shadow" duration could just be a small normal buff in the normal "Enhancements" tray.

9d. Remove the Shadowbringers version of "Dark Arts".

I think that the cross-talk and pollution between Dark Knight's defensive and offensive actions should be removed, because it clutters the Job in ways that other Tanks aren't, and doesn't seem to add much positive gameplay effect from it.

10. Change the effects of Dark Knight's "defensive combo effect".

• This is... not very important or necessary, but I think it would be a good "concept" adjustment.
• Change the Dark Knight defensive effect from self-healing (current "Souleater" design) to an absorb shield (similar to the current Gunbreaker "Brutal Shell" design).
• I think this better fits Dark Knight's theming in FFXIV, with its signature defensive action already being a significant absorb shield ("The Blackest Night"), and positioning Dark Knight as a "preemptive" / "heavy shielding" Tank design, contrasted with Warrior's "reactive" / "heavy self-healing" design.

11. Change the effects of "Delirium" (combo GCD) and "Souleater" (combo GCD).

• The Heavensward version of "Delirium" added an "INT Down" effect to the target (reducing Magical Damage caused), but this no longer makes sense in the context of the current FFXIV design, where maintenance debuffs have been phased out.
• I'm honestly not sure what resource effect these two combo GCDs should have, in order to not penalize the Dark Knight for choosing one during "Dark Arts" buff, and the other outside of "Dark Arts" buff.

  • I guess that the difference of higher potency inside or outside "Dark Arts" may actually be all the only differentiation needed, but that also seems kind of boring.
  • Then again, when balanced against all of the other aspects of the rotation simultaneously going on, maybe it's not a problem to have just a simple differentiation here.

• Or, another possibility is that "Delirium" and "Souleater" both do something similar, but "Delirium" is better at it outside of "Dark Arts", and "Souleater" is better at it inside of "Dark Arts".

  • For example, outside "Dark Arts", "Delirium" is combo potency: 400, healing potency: 300, and "Souleater" is combo potency: 300, healing potency: 250.
  • Under "Dark Arts", "Souleater" is combo potency: 800, healing potency: 500.

• Another possibility is that both "Delirium" and "Souleater" are equally-beneficial under "Dark Arts", but in different ways, offering the Dark Knight a situational choice.

  • For example, both are 400 potency normally and 800 potency under "Dark Arts".
  • "Dark Arts Delirium" grants a 300-potency absorb shield, while "Dark Arts Souleater" grants a 400-potency heal.
  • Or, "Dark Arts Delirium" grants a 30-second "Magic Vulnerability Down" Dark Knight, while "Dark Arts Souleater" grants a 30-second "Physical Vulnerability Down" to the Dark Knight.

• Of course, yet another possibility is just to make "Dark Arts" only apply to "Souleater".

  This is simple and straightforward, and makes the "penalty" for choosing "Delirium" while "Dark Arts" is active simply that the buff does not get consumed in a timely manner under raid buffs, or fast enough to prevent MP from over-capping.

• Yet another option is to move the defensive effects of the combo cycle to "Syphon Strike", allowing Dark Knight to alternate between "Delirium" and "Souleater" as the combo finisher without any concerns about defensive penalty.
• ...etc. I am personally not sure if any of these rough ideas would actually be satisfying in practice, but I'm just trying to provide examples of ways that the Dark Knight can be granted combo choices and "Dark Arts" choices again without feeling trapped or punished defensively or offensively.

12. Clean up and standardize "The Blackest Night" to be more in-line with other Tank short-cooldown defensive actions.

• Remove the MP cost from "The Blackest Night".
• Remove the "Shadowbringers Dark Arts" interaction with "The Blackest Night".
• Change the bonus for successfully consuming "The Blackest Night" before expiration from an offensive bonus, to a defensive bonus.

  • For example, 25s CD baseline, reduced to 15s CD if fully-consumed.
  • Or, when "The Blackest Night" is fully-consumed, the Dark Knight takes 20% less damage for the next 5 seconds. (call it "The Brightest Dawn" or something, idk)
  • Or, if the "The Blackest Night" is fully-consumed, the Dark Knight is healed for 50% of the amount absorbed.
  • ...etc...

• If deemed necessary, increase the cooldown of "The Blackest Night" to match other Tank short-cooldown defensive actions.

These changes would allow the Dark Knight offensive rotation to be entirely decoupled from the Dark Knight defensive toolset. While this may technically be "less interesting", I think that it would ultimately also be more practical and more comfortable to use, and put fewer awkward and strange constraints on Dark Knight defensive and offensive behavior.

13. Clean up and standardize "Living Dead" to be more in-line with other Tank "ultimate" defensive actions.

• Remove the "if something entirely outside of your control doesn't happen, you die anyway" punishment design.
• Remove the obnoxious pressure on Healers to waste resources on clearing off the "Walking Dead" debuff.
• Remove the invulnerability period being contingent on not getting healed too much, too soon (which is also obnoxious and counter-intuitive for other players).

For example, this is one idea that would be a much more enjoyable and usable "Living Dead" design, without compromising on the overall Dark Knight "fantasy":

On activation, grants the Dark Knight the "Living Dead" effect.

• While the "Living Dead" effect is active, the Dark Knight cannot be reduced below 1 HP.
• While the "Living Dead" effect is active, the Dark Knight's HP cannot be brought above 1 HP by any source or any method.
• While the "Living Dead" effect is active, all incoming healing on the Dark Knight is instead absorbed by the Dark Knight's undead flesh.

On expiration, triggers the "Walking Dead" effect.

• "Walking Dead" immediately grants the Dark Knight healing equal to the amount of healing that was absorbed during the duration of "Living Dead".
• If the Dark Knight remains at 1 HP after "Walking Dead" triggers its healing, then the Dark Knight instantly KOs.
• If the Dark Knight has greater than 1 HP after "Walking Dead" triggers its healing, then the Dark Knight survives.

Basically, the "flavor" of "Heal me, or I die" would still exist — so the Dark Knight is still at risk if they pop "Living Dead" while their healer(s) is KO'd — but it is significantly less punishing, because essentially any amount of incoming healing during the "Holmgang"-like invulnerability period will allow the Dark Knight to at least survive the expiration effect.

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All of this his may make it sound like I heavily dislike Dark Knight, but that's actually not the case.

Overall, I find Dark Knight appealing and enjoyable, which is why the "rough edges" stick out so obviously to me.

It is true that I would like to see massive portions of the Job changed or reverted to previous designs, but at the same time, I feel like most of the core of the Job is still solid and appealing. It's not the fantasy, or quests, or lore, or visuals, or basic theming, or core elements like "Blood Weapon" and "MP for power", and so on, that are the problem.

The problem, for me at least, is all of the bizarre, clashing design decisions, and uncomfortable excessive clutter, and annoying loose ends, that are dragging the Job down and making it frustrating to play compared to elegant, streamlined designs like Gunbreaker and Paladin.

What I'm really asking for is to:

1. Clean up all the dirty design clutter that pollutes current Dark Knight gameplay
2. Stop "fixing things that aren't broken" and over-designing the Job in ways it doesn't need, when the fundamental Heavensward design already came very close to being just fine on its own.

What I would most like to see is for Dark Knight to be reset back to the Heavensward rotational and design elements that worked well and felt satisfying, such as weaponskill "Dark Arts", combo "Delirium", and "Scourge", while keeping the positive things that Dark Knight has accumulated since that time, such as "The Blackest Night", a design for "Grit" that's actually usable, the support tool of "Dark Missionary", and "Living Shadow".

Oh god it's you.
Here to hit us with a wall of text and then not participate in your own threads.

Real talk though, why not add these thoughts to one of the dozen DRK Dissatisfaction threads?
Especially if you wanna "be heard" then adding to existing conversations > starting a new thread

I for one actually appreciate the thought, effort and detail involved with the post. I feel far too much of these forums, and to be fair most forums, skew towards too much noise and too little substance.
So while there is plenty in there that I definitely disagree with, I laud the method in which it was expressed.

While i agree at literaly most of the OP points the format presented here and other threads made by him is really tedious to and exhausting to read no matter how much agree with him, if you read and take feedback about this particullar matter a more short and concise post would help to make your opinion being more easy to read and debate, for no mention there is already a fair amount of DRK threads discussing the same and posting them would be better.

On topic as i say i agree with almost everything except 2 things, 1 is refering DRK as hard, the job is brain dead and lack complexity, is basically the most easy job of the game with WAR saddly and a shame considering how the job was, using the word hard on a job that is not could be interpreted by the devs in a way to simplified the already oversimplified job and if you are refering to another kind of being hard better use other words to descrive it, DRK don't need to be dumped down again bcs the devs miss interpret what you say as they usually do already.
And the second one is TBN, while the current version of TBN punishment is way severed compared to SB (140p punishment if the shield didn't broke) something i agree i don't consider it sould be changed, TBN is literaly the only thing that make DRK unique, have a minimun of engaging and diferenciate his mitigation kit from the rest, yes is a really small thing but is the only thing it have right now and is not hard to manage, the punishment is the actual limitation of his usage not his recast or his cost and i thing is fine being like that but i would support changes to lower the punishment.

The problem with posts like these is the amount of text. I share your dissatisfaction in how the job was handled, but there's no need for such specifics.

The job isn't "hard", what you're asking for is basically a more complicated version of the job. DRK is the easiest tank to play right next to GNB. If anything it needs to be more "complicated". Or just go straight back to HW DRK and avoid another ShB scenario.

Better yet, people should make YouTube videos and make it a Wishlist. That would definitely gain more traction.

How do you make a career of this dude, and how do you not know about editing your own posts to consolidate it into one to avoid the word limit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shin96

The problem with posts like these is the amount of text. I share your dissatisfaction in how the job was handled, but there's no need for such specifics.

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Disagree I adore these breakdowns, its alot to digest sure but it comes from heart. Most posts about job dissatisfaction are just "dislike job, make it better" with zero specifics

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Disagree I adore these breakdowns, its alot to digest sure but it comes from heart. Most posts about job dissatisfaction are just "dislike job, make it better" with zero specifics

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Fair point. I agree with alot of the points made by OP but some people struggle to read all that text. I just think if you made it a bit more compact with a post less it would reach more people willing to scroll through everything.

I can appreciate just how much effort did seem to be put into this detailed and specifics-included essay(?) of thoughts and opinions, though.

reading detailed posts like these helps me better think out and work out my own Dark Knight ideas, at that.

I am probably going to even re-read all of it enough times to implement the good parts and good ideas into my own, or at the least, find good inspiration and guide-lines in it, to further improve my own Dark Knight ideas.