Considering DRK's current position as a tank, I've been thinking a lot about its personal sustainability. It all started with asking "Why isn't DRK the vampiric tank, instead of WAR?" and snowballed from there.
Now that we've had a few hours to digest the Live Letter announcement, I figured I'd drop the rework document I've been working on for about a week now.
CLICK HERE
Change Summary:
- Darkside mechanic is completely reworked: now transforms abilities and their functions for a magical burst period; Blood Gauge reworked into "Abyss Gauge" to fuel these abilities
- MP is now used for life-draining abilities (Abyssal Drain and Bloodspiller)
- Blood Weapon and Dark Mind are now tools to facilitate increased healing at early levels
- Stalwart Soul and Dark Missionary are learned at lower levels on par with similar tanking skills
- Living Dead completely reworked: Gives damage immunity but drains health over time
- Carve & Spit, Delirium, Quietus and Shadowbringer now serve to boost the Abyss Gauge
- The Blackest Night no longer has a cost but has a longer CD; Oblation’s effects folded in
- New on-demand mitigation skill: “Dread Spikes”, which shares a CD with The Blackest Night and recovers some HP and MP when struck
- New raidwide defensive skill: “Martyr”, transfer incoming raid damage to yourself to regain MP
As a bit of a disclaimer, I have no expectations we'd see anything of this magnitude in 6.X, nor that this is the only possible vision for DRK moving forward. If come March 4th we find out what I've written is completely outdated, great. At best I expect this to be a jumping-off point for discussions about both DRK's current state and its potential for the future.
This is also not some sort of flex that "I could do it better." I have the utmost respect for the devs and love for this game, especially having played many MMOs with far less communication from their dev team who had far less respect for their players' time investment.
A DRK Rework Suggestion for 7.0 (or beyond)
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02-19-2022, 10:01 PMArchwizardA DRK Rework Suggestion for 7.0 (or beyond)
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02-19-2022, 10:02 PMArchwizard
Aaaand just gonna reserve this spot, just in case.
JOB THEMES:- Similar to the Paladin, the Dark Knight is a self-sacrificing and magic-oriented tank, mixing spellcraft into its swordplay. Unlike PLD, DRK's magics are profane and fueled by the suffering they take on. Where the PLD represents nobility and valor, the DRK represents pragmatism and paying evil unto evil. The PLD is first the shield defending the weak; the DRK is first the blade smiting those who threaten the ones he loves.
- Similar to the Warrior, the Dark Knight uses heavy, impactful strikes. Unlike WAR, DRK does not seek reckless destruction, but rather to force his enemies to suffer. Where the WAR is implacable and endures through battlefield adrenaline and the Inner Beast removing doubt or pain, the DRK endures through spite and Abyssal magic.
- The DRK wields power at a price, whether she pays it or forces her enemies to. She plunges headlong into the Abyss for the strength to protect the downtrodden and cast down the wicked.
- Retool DRK's kit to be thematically appropriate, both to series history ("health as a resource") and its FF14 role/lore
- Rework DRK's primary rotation away from its resemblance to WAR into a playstyle unique to it; maintain the relative simplicity of a tanking playstyle, but expand on its depth
- Amplify both DRK's W2W survivability and personal skill synergy to be on par with other tanks, especially its invulnerability skill
- Reorganize the leveling scheme so that DRK is no longer a "late bloomer" tank
- Self-healing tank by means of life-draining effects
- Gauge allows ability transformation via Darkside effects
- Tank that rewards taking risks and tactical use of abilities
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02-19-2022, 10:36 PMLyth
This would be a great idea, except for the fact that WAR is already is the tank that you describe.
If you were creating a new game from scratch, would it make sense for a darkness-themed knight to have life siphoning/manipulation abilities (like Warcraft's Death Knight)? Absolutely. Would it make sense for a Berserker to ignore pain and shrug off damage (like the quintessential DnD Berserker)? Absolutely.
One of the foremost challenges with any MMO rework is that any time that you rework a job, players will come to you and complain that this isn't the job that they remember. So any successful rework on some level is going to have to be faithful to previous iterations of the job, even if they're difficult to reconcile with each other. What you've essentially done is taken a problem (players are not happy with DRK's design) and translated it into an even bigger problem (rework two jobs, with the risk of even more players being unsatisfied with the result).
My recommendation is this. Forget about lifesteal and trying to swap places with WAR. Bad things lie in wait at the end of that timeline. Instead, deliberately move DRK in a direction that allows it to differentiate itself from the other tank jobs. Right now, DRK is the job with the least amount of self-healing. That's perfectly fine. Commit to damage prevention then. You remember what I said about shrugging off pain?
'So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood.
As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...'
It's in the lore. That's the design aesthetic that you should be looking at. It may mean that your fantasy preconceptions of Berserkers and Blackguards are reversed, but it shouldn't matter as long as each job gets the opportunity to be unique and desirable in its own way. -
02-19-2022, 10:52 PMThe_User
I like when someone telling us how we should forget about life drain and try not to swap with WAR but cheering for red aura and copying reaper
While berserker can ignore a pain it doesn't heal them. When the berserking is wearing off the pain and suffering kick in and that isn't the same with Life Drain. You can check berserk manga/anime about the berserker armor episode. -
02-19-2022, 11:12 PMcurrentlemon
Although your design of the DRK is a lot better than the current DRK, I don't think the job needs lifesteal mechanics because WAR is already that type of tank.
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02-20-2022, 12:51 AMArchwizardQuote:
Originally Posted by currentlemon
Yes, and I asked "why isn't DRK the vampiric tank instead of WAR". Because I consider the positions they each occupy to be... a bit backwards. Nor am I alone in that regard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
Here's the thing: your argument that I'm suggesting reworking two jobs hinges on the assumption that life-draining is integral to WAR's current playstyle... when it is in fact only a big part of two skills, both on-demands.
One of which was changed only two months ago and is considered wildly overpowered, and previously was just raw mitigation.
Okay yes, they previously had Bloodbath too, but they lost that back in Stormblood... in a time when Dark Knight still had spammable Abyssal Drains. And NF came out a lot stronger than Bloodbath ever was, and was intended to be used for off-tanking.
If we look at the historical precedent set by Dark Knight across the Final Fantasy series, two things of importance jump out, central to its identity:
One, their "Darkness" ability uses health as a resource, usually to deal damage. Not something easy to implement on a tank, I will grant. Pin in that thought.
Two, they often supplement this with Sanguine Sword/Blood Weapon or other Drain-type abilities. Including the spammable Abyssal Drains I mentioned. This is... much more doable for a tank.
Going back to Warrior for a minute, since we're on the topic, my opinion is that the job should be focused on tools that bump its EHP to absorb damage... like it did before it had Nascent Flash. Whether that's heavy mitigation skills like Raw Intuition, skills that bump its max HP like Thrill of Battle, or even damage nullifying effects like Bloodwhetting also provides.
I'm not even averse to WAR keeping Equilibrium. A tank having their own Second Wind is fine; the only expressly non-magical tank could even justify it as adrenaline.
It has more of a case to be a barrier tank than DRK, in my opinion. Literally all you would need to change is turning RI/BW back into raw mitigation, or convert the "leech on hit" element into a stacking barrier effect on hit of equal (or ideally more balanced) potency. Nothing about its playstyle would even need to change!
But high-potency vampirism? Unless the Warrior is actually licking the blood off their axe, there's no non-magical explanation for that, especially if they're somehow healing other people more effectively than Paladin. Yes, it encourages them to keep swinging to maintain their life which seems fitting for a Berserker, until you realize that's on its head; a Berserker should be able to keep swinging because they ignore every arrow and ailment that strikes true in the first place.
Now, the line you quoted about Dark Knights? "But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted..."
That's the difference between Warriors and Dark Knights: WARs revel in combat but ignore pain. DRKs use pain as power.
That is 14's reflection of their Darkness ability: they grow stronger the more they're beaten down. It's a sadomasochistic dance for them. Just look at lost skills of theirs like Blood Price. (Which I used as a guiding principle for redesigning its mitigation.)
Which they used to cast more Dark Arts skills, including Abyssal Drain.
And on the flip-side, how much are you bleeding and soaking your armor when your main form of defense is barrier magic that eats tankbusters? Food for thought.
So to summarize,
I acknowledge your counsel, but I retain my agency not to follow it. This is the rework that follows that path to its conclusion.Quote:
My recommendation is this. Forget about lifesteal and trying to swap places with WAR. Bad things lie in wait at the end of that timeline.
Thank you for your earlier compliment. I hope you take the chance to comment on the changes to the playstyle I wrote beyond the sustain. -
02-20-2022, 01:17 AMThe_User
You don't need to use health as a resource since the theme is more like sacrifice hp for damage. Old Defiance&Deliverance already provided that in the past.
When you use Defiance it increase your max hp but you have to trade it for the effect that increase dps of Deliverance. You don't required to paid you hp for every attacks and it still fit the sacrifice hp for damage theme. -
02-20-2022, 01:21 AMArchwizardSure, and on a similar note, the rework here doesn't have you sacrificing HP directly either -- it just fuels off of the damage you were already going to take anyway, turning it into MP that you can use for bonus attacks that will heal you.Quote:
Originally Posted by The_User
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02-20-2022, 01:59 AMLythLike I said earlier, if you were designing the tank jobs from scratch, everything that you're suggesting would be very reasonable. The problem is that the playerbase has expectations of the jobs based off of their prior experiences with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
The primary reason why WAR is currently the lifesteal tank is, unfortunately, because it got there first. There was a period in time during early Stormblood where it could have gone either way, and I've asked many of these same questions myself several years back. But now you have players who have been maining WAR for something approaching 10 years now, and there's a community expectation that's built up over time that it's 'supposed' to be good at lifesteal. If you want to know what you're up against, just take a look at the 'Tank healing is too high' thread to see what happens when you try to take away those toys. And from a developer standpoint, why would you want to risk it? You have players that are really happy with the design of the job. If you start tampering with it to make another job look more attractive, then you just end up with two groups of angry players instead of just one.
I'm likewise not a fan of trying to try to share lifesteal with other tanks. It's dumb enough that PLD now uses vampiric holy magic. Why would you throw yourself into the midst of that competition? I'd personally just like to see DRK develop a unique gameplay style and identity that isn't available on another tank, rather than ending up as a budget WAR just because it's in vogue. And that's the comparison that will invariably be made at the end of the day.
It doesn't matter either way. I can only point out the practicalities of the issue. Enjoy your homebrew. -
02-20-2022, 02:58 AMArchwizardSo one, this paragraph here gives me the vibe that you wrote off the entire doc without reading it when you saw "life steal" on the OP, because you think WAR should have a monopoly on it – which I would normally write off as an outlandish bad faith interpretation of your statement, if you hadn't gone so far as to heckle PLD for healing with its holy spells. The job that has had self-healing since FF1, but only as a ribbon here because of its DPS cost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyth
Or claimed that this would make DRK "budget WAR" when... look at it currently. This isn't in a vacuum of "the only thing I added was more lifesteal."
And to be honest, the idea that you would throw out any type of lifesteal, regardless of its methodology, only permitting Bloodwhetting purely because "WAR got there first" is exceptionally close-minded.
Especially when you pull out the one-two of
... wherein you demonstrate the malleability of these roles and how they aren't set in stone, regardless of "expectations." It's a very "eat your cake and have it too" argument.Quote:
The primary reason why WAR is currently the lifesteal tank is, unfortunately, because it got there first. There was a period in time during early Stormblood where it could have gone either way, and I've asked many of these same questions myself several years back.
And as I already explained, DRK has an even longer precedent than WAR does, predating 14, one where people claiming WAR should life-leech would have less of a leg to stand on if a swap was imminent. Meanwhile DRK's current role as a barrier tank comes out of nowhere. -
02-20-2022, 03:30 AMLyth
I am simply pointing out the very obvious design problem in trying to make DRK swap places with WAR as the lifesteal tank in this particular game, as things presently stand. It really has nothing to do with my personal preferences on the matter, although I've been underwhelmed by most of the design decisions that I've seen around tank self-sustain. But that's a different discussion altogether.
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02-20-2022, 04:23 AMLuizgazen
If DRK were a job available from ARR, it definitely would be the lifesteal tank and WAR the heavy mitigation one, but it werent, so WAR got the lifesteal and PLD the mitigation back then... now DRK magic style of tanking can lend itself to both lifesteal and shielding and since TBN is a thing, that should be the direction they take us.
A direction i tought right now, quickly at that so there may be some serious flaw in my ideas, would be something like this:
get a "Brutal Shell"-like shield on our ST and AOE combos, change Dark Missionary to a 15% maxhp shield to the party, Dark Mind to a big shield and increase its cooldown to balance, and turn Oblation into a trait, giving raw mitigation to the shield we make.
Like this we could keep some light mitigation most of the time so our shields wont break instantly and Dark Missionary would became a very good party utility with a base 10% mit and some shielding, do this and we wouldnt even need much more sustain than Soul Eater and Abyssal Drain, maybe just changing the Dark Arts proc into a heal like the other tank spammables, just have to make sure the Oblation trait won't work with healer shields or it would became too strong. -
02-20-2022, 04:58 AMAluja89
That's because DRK came in HW, but I personally still wouldn't make it a lifesteal tank. Simply because that was never in DRK's identity in FF. It did usually have a drain spell in its dark magic spell list but that's about it.
DRK needs to be a magic shield tank, TBN is what it's known for so it should expand on that, like a personal Haima. Change Darkmind into something that absorbs blood with every GCD into its shield and for HP Abyssal Drain should be a spell with cast time, single target 800P heal with splash damage+healing. Finally, Souleater gives a 200P shield and 200P heal. -
02-20-2022, 05:17 AMThe_User
You know sometime all this Dark Knight is barrier tank is kinda like making a fanfic and force the people who didn't view stormblood as the birth of Dark Knight to accept it
Dark Knight have more than drain spell. Dark Sword attack with life drain sets it apart from the Holy Knight in FF tactic. In FF11 it have something that was like a prototype of blood bath and in HW the life drain contributed a lot to Dark Knight survivability and their was no barrier in Dark Knight's arsenal back then.
I wonder is it still a debate if you can go so far as to change Dark Knight mitigation to have more barrier to support your claim that Dark Knight is a barrier tank?
Make no mistake TBN is a relic of stomblood. The special part is that it allow you to convert resource not the barrier aspect. It wasn't supposed to be the trademark of Dark Knight
I think maybe the middle ground for both Life Drain and Barrier is having blood price that can target ally and TBN revert back to stormblood version then make Bloodspiller grant a heal or life drain -
02-20-2022, 10:30 AMShurrikhan
Expansion: Higher/Lower theme
HW: Evasive/Vampiric tank
StB: Vampiric/Barrier tank
ShB: Barrier/Vampiric tank
If we look at the current expansion as flawed, that leaves us with no more precedent for DRK being a barrier tank than a vampiric one...
________
Separately...
Overall, I prefer WAR as the more integrally HP-generating and -utilizing tank, but it's not as if "lifesteal" alone makes up the core of an identity, nor that any action with both damage potency and cure potency need be identically considered as "lifesteal" any more than Thrill of Battle and TBN ought be considered identically "barriers". There are multiple procedures available to healing from offensive actions that could vary its apparent theme, even prior to situating and using those capacities differently.
What's suggested here doesn't rely on lifesteal as a theme; it's just a capacity bump, varying from WAR in that the capacity is a good deal more choiceful, rather than simply part of the moment-to-moment rotation, a single bursty heal, or part of the "hit me harder" on demand miti CD. The far larger component, gameplay-wise, is the Abyss Gauge and Darkside.
Shouldn't we be talking more about that, rather than treating parity in sustain capacity as an entire, overwhelming theme? Yes, this all may have started from the idea of giving DRK sustain, finding use therein for the MP gauge as more than just potency-per-minute (which is certainly a handier, more controlled form than available to the other tanks), but let's not ignore the revised Blood (now Abyss) gauge in terms of playflow and aesthetic. -
02-20-2022, 10:31 AMArchwizardSo are we ignoring that's what's in the design doc now, I guess...?Quote:
Originally Posted by The_User
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02-21-2022, 12:10 AMThe_User
I have yet to find a better middle ground sorry. It could be tough if you have already decided that you won't budge from "Dark Knight's short mitigation must not have a cost". If not, I wonder what if there are alternate choice of TBN as a second short mitigation that's free? [but tbn isn't free]
however my week end is about to over so I can't spend much time with this right now.
*edit*
I take a peek at your tbn vs shadow spike and wonder have you compared the potency gain between the 2?
have you calculated the potency of single target combo vs aoe combo?
what the opener is like?
is there a problem with how gauge and mp build up?
is there a button bloat problem?
can you always expect to take the benefit of raid buff?
are you always have to waste Bloodspiller life drain in raid buff? -
02-21-2022, 07:51 AMUndeadfireIt was, and it dominated the role during Alexander Savage, and it was horrible to balance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
Barriers are a lot more powerful when it's stacked with mitigations, barriers strengths saves a lot of healing, and enables more DPS outputs, SE won't ever do this. Double Barrier Healers have always dominated the raiding scene because of the sheer amount of mitigations. Currently in EW it's Ast with Sge/Sch since Ast has the most broken healing ability Macrocosmos. -
02-21-2022, 09:30 AMArchwizardTo answer point by point:Quote:
Originally Posted by The_User
- None of the numbers are set in stone so I haven't done calculations on potency gains. Obviously the intent is for Spikes to be your go-to in W2W and TBN is your option for off-tanking, but I wanted to make an intentional choice for which one you use when main-tanking to encourage risk-reward. Spikes has higher potential between the uncapped MP gain and instant reprisal damage, but TBN will be more reliable for dealing with slower, heavier hits like tankbusters.
- Your opener would be popping Delirium and going right into your Darkside combo. (Though there's room for you to delay for a few GCDs to line up with raid buffs.)
- I shouldn't think there's any "problem" with the buildup...? I tuned up MP gain quite a bit, especially during the burst combo, but tuned down the gauge so you wouldn't spend significantly more time in Darkside than out of it.
- There shouldn't be any bloat problem; all of the Darkside combo changes existing abilities, I added 3 new buttons (Spikes, Martyr and Darkside) but removed Oblation and the separate Edge/Flood/Shadowbringer buttons. Should be a net -1.
- Aside from Delirium (which has 10 sec shaved off to reduce drift potential), all of DRK's gauge-building oGCDs are on a 60 sec compatible timer. You should have enough tools to burst in alignment with the raid window.
- "Wasting life drain" is a bit of a non-issue in my book, considering you could make the same argument about wasted healing from Souleater, Brutal Shell, Storm's Path or any of PLD's spells, assuming you're off-tanking. You would avoid overcapping your MP per usual and would probably burst your entire bar during your Darkside phase, but MP gains have been tuned upward to allow for keeping some in the tank for use as-needed.
EDIT: Re-added Delirium after all. -
02-23-2022, 01:05 PMArchwizardThat's more because Dark Knight was never meant to be a tank in past FF games, not because of the presence or importance of lifesteal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
It wouldn't do to have a tank who sacrificed most of their HP dealing damage, after all.
Historically though, absorbing the life force of opponents was the only self-sufficient way Dark Knight had to recharge Darkside. XIV is the only case in the series to have Blood Weapon not even act as a healing effect, though this is probably as an artifact of once having an MP-consuming Drain spell.
Meanwhile if we are going on series precedent as you have, there's a sheer lack of barrier effects for Dark Knight due to that usually falling under White Magic, which is Paladin's domain. "TBN is what it's known for", and even its anti-magic bent, is unique to XIV. -
02-23-2022, 01:12 PMShurrikhanSo long as it can make up for the HP spent, that'd actually do fine. It'd be another thing that could go wrong (like mistiming CDs), but equally another thing that could go right (additional burst damage before damage lulls or ways to improve healing-received efficiency during damage lulls, and/or a way to more granularly prepare for damage spikes -- essentially banking HP during lulls for later burst damage taken).Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
I have to agree. Such made BW far less susceptible to drift, as you could build resource at almost any time and every form of potency afforded by MP at least had some sustain value attached. Back then, it was a smart choice. It just stands out now that we can't spend MP on Sustain... which, honestly, your AD/Bloodspiller would rectify, if not for the slight damage loss of using them when you need healing rather than solely during raid buffs (which brings us right back to the old HW DA issue of maximizing direct potency over rDPS-when-accounting-for-healer-GCDs-saved... though that also comes down to healers having been largely changed since then to have very little GCD healing).Quote:
though this is probably as an artifact of once having an MP-consuming Drain spell.
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02-23-2022, 06:57 PMArchwizardOh don't get me wrong, I've thought about it (like having an X% of remaining HP cost on Delirium), or even compromising with effects like a "incoming healing is negated up to X% health" debuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
(I really wanted this to be the flavor of TBN in particular, to sell this idea that the DRK cannot normally toss out barrier effects and is shielding you at the cost of his own health, which would also create further incentive to use Spikes unless offtanking.)
Trouble is, whether it's for damage or defense, this leaves you in a really awkward position as either the main tank (especially on Savage raids where autoattacks hit as hard as a tankbuster in Normal, or during W2W pulls where you're already melting) or when tasked with splitting damage with the other tank -- and either way continues the trend of being the hardest tank to heal, unless you have enough self-healing to counter those effects... which would then make you easily the hardest tank to kill if you chose to ignore them for survival purposes. And I don't want to create another Bloodwhetting WAR.
Literally no middle ground so long as the healing demands are relevant, you're either a ragdoll or a juggernaut, which makes it a nightmare to balance. And if the demands are irrelevant, they would exist purely for flavor, and be on the chopping block for being unnecessary.
So I just focused on the element of "The DRK already sacrifices his HP in the course of being repeatedly lashed by his enemies." Mitigation skills give bigger MP returns (yay Blood Price precedent) and Living Dead gets easier to deal with, depending on the damage you were fed by the enemy.
Not to mention that would go against the "pragmatism" of this design. Much as I enjoy the idea of risk-reward based on overcoming self-inflicted penalties (just look at Martyr), such double-edged swords should be relatively rare or outright situational so that they have minimal impact on encounter design or overall tank balance, rather than be central to the playstyle like... oh, gambling whether or not to stack mitigation on current TBN so as not to waste damage? -
02-23-2022, 08:52 PMAluja89First of all, you're not understanding the tank fantasy. Being a "tank" has nothing to with how their abilities work but how they look with their equipment and what sort of role they play in combat. Tanks are those that look like the biggest threat and fight at the forefront, the reason tanks deal less damage is because tanks are the ones that engage with their opponents head-on clashing with their weapons while everyone else pokes from behind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
But, you're also wrong on the barrier and general tank stuff. There are a few cases where something akin to it is employed.
Bravely Default/Second:
Adversity:
For three turns, your P.Atk, M.Atk, P.Def, and M.Def all rise by 10% each time you accumulate damage equal to at least 25% of you maximum HP.
*The upper limit for P.Atk, M.Atk, P.Def, and M.Def is 150%.
Absorb Magic:
Triggers at the start of the turn.
Nullify damage from magic attacks during that turn and restore your MP by the amount of MP used to attack you.
Life or Death:
Your P.Atk, M.Atk, P.Def, and M.Def each rise 50%, but you suffer doom status.
Bravely Default 2:
Strength in Adversity:
Every time you take 25% HP damage, attack, magic attack, defense and magic defense increases by 10% for 3 turns.
Last Resort:
Physical and magical attack power increase as HP is reduced.
FFX-2+Last Mission:
They can have passives for nullifying debuffs/ailments. -
02-23-2022, 11:04 PMArchwizard... What does this have to do with anything I said? How does it counter anything I said? Hi yes hello I know what a tank is. The point I was trying to make is that Dark Knight specifically has little precedent as a tank in previous FF games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
Yes, it was a frontline fighter, but so were all melee jobs in the early FF games, so Monk and Dragoon were too. Didn't make them tanks.
The early FF games didn't have any concept of "threat", just the back and front lines -- and many enemies would just fire randomly into the crowd, especially if they had any sort of ranged attacks to reach the back line too.
If you didn't have some sort of Cover or Provoke option, your White Mage was just as likely to be murdered first as your Paladin. The concept of "tanking" was pretty nebulous until the MMOs, which are an entirely different genre of gameplay.
But when you take certain elements from the strategy game and translate them to an MMO, things like "job centered around manipulating its own health pool" has to become a tank candidate in order to translate that element faithfully, or you end up with a DPS who is constantly examining the floortiles.
So the argument you're making is... what, that Dark Knight's actual identity doesn't matter, just the glamour? Slap Cecil's helmet on a Gunbreaker and call it a day?
In which case, why are you here...?
You really had to scramble for examples there. Ones that leave me quite confused as to your central point, actually.Quote:
But, you're also wrong on the barrier and general tank stuff. There are a few cases where something akin to it is employed.
For starters, as I explained above,
This is pretty much the compromise between "sacrifice HP to deal damage" and "absorb damage so other people won't have to."Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
We agree on this aspect, this is an element I held onto. The difference is I also included the synergy of being able to climb back out of those stages once you have the boosts you want, which is necessary for a sustainable tank. A weakness of the current iteration of DRK.
Second, you have more examples of attack power being raised there than defensive power, and even on the ones that do boost defense, it's an "all stat" booster. Looking at the Bravely Dark Knight they came from as a whole, the defenses are largely incidental.
But also, I never once argued against a tanking job having mitigation. That's kind of a necessary thing for dealing with... taking damage regularly? Every tank has role actions and a 30% mit.
The specificity was whether DRK's tanking style should be based on barrier effects that raise EHP to absorb/negate damage, or on leech effects from the damage it deals, and none of the examples you give cover how it would sustain itself once it's been pushed to cripplingly low HP for moderate defense boosts. Because in the examples you listed... it's not meant to be sustainable by an MMO metric.
Now to your credit, the example here that DOES jump out to me as escalating your point is Absorb Magic. (Which is basically a Magic Knight's Runic skill by another name, but fine.)
So there's two interpretations to this:- The literal one -- the one you emphasized before as "DRK needs to be a magic shield tank" with... somewhat ambiguous syntax -- is giving effects that target magic attacks specifically. Which is sort of Dark Mind's deal, except it doesn't give MP, but even if it did it would still be considered niche. In good faith I will assume you didn't mean this.
- The spiritual one, where you have a barrier effect that refunds MP, which we have with TBN. Okay. What's Bravely's Dark Knight spend that on? Well, aside from a CC effect on demons...
... Ah, more damage to complement spamming Dark Bane.Quote:
Minus Strike - Level 5 - Command - 16 MP - Damage one target by an amount equal to the number of HP you have lost. [Single-target] *Damage is capped at 9,999 when not using Bravely Second.
I mean don't get me wrong, if your idea was to have a tank who substitutes 75% of his health for barriers so that he can exploit a buff that gives him increased damage while he's at low health, that would be... a nightmare to balance but at least a cohesive interpretation of the smattering you've tossed out here. Except there's nothing you've written here that goes towards such a charitable interpretation of "barrier tank". -
02-23-2022, 11:51 PMNightHourIf it's got a cap on the amount of damage it can transfer then it'll be good.Quote:
New raidwide defensive skill: “Martyr”, transfer incoming raid damage to yourself to regain MP
We don't need tanks 1 shotting themselves because they used a defensive against a raid buster. -
02-24-2022, 12:21 AMAluja89I actually replayed all 3 games not long ago.Quote:
You really had to scramble for examples there. Ones that leave me quite confused as to your central point, actually.
Quote:
But the kicker is, the demands of a single-player turn-based strategy game are different from those of a real-time MMO.
Turn-based strategy games don't have to follow the Holy Trinity. You can have debuffers, suicide bombers, turn manipulators, jacks-of-all-trades, all sorts of jobs that would be overpowered/underpowered/impossible to translate into competitive jobs in an MMO, and jobs that would be frustrating to play alongside in a cooperative manner if the whole party isn't being controlled by the same person.
That's not really fair is it?Quote:
Bravely's Dark Knight is a job that sits on low health for as long as possible so it can deal damage -- not exactly the pinnacle of reliable tanking, solid example of a DPS that drops from relatively durable to glass cannon though. Based on its optimal setup for maximum stats, if a non-spellcaster looks in its direction, they could sneeze too hard and kill it. Now luckily, its stat boosts are snapshotted based on damage taken and last for multiple turns, so it doesn't have to stay at low HP -- but it needs supplemental HP for the defensive buffs it receives to actually matter. And to replenish them once they run out.
No, you said DRK was never meant to be a tank in past FFs. Yet it had a ton of mitigation tools and boons from getting hit, which is also a tank trait. Calling out its sustainability in a single player game is just bad faith. I mean, the Bravely DRK even has Living Dead basically.Quote:
But also, I never once argued against a tanking job having mitigation.
The point was, use past FF DRKs to form a tank identity in 14 and a DRK that's unique to 14. -
02-24-2022, 12:49 AMArchwizardThe point I was making is that even in the games you mentioned, it was a damage specialist. All as part of my original argument that it historically wasn't meant to be a tank, so no kidding it had little precedent as a barrier tank like you insist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
That's A to B to C, what part of that is unfair?
Again, how?Quote:
No, you said DRK was never meant to be a tank in past FFs. Yet it had a ton of mitigation tools and boons from getting hit, which is also a tank trait. Calling out its sustainability in a single player game is just bad faith.
It's an extremely fair question -- especially when the central conceit of the argument is, once again, over what kind of tank Dark Knight should be. You got Paladin as the damage blocker with healing support, you got Warrior as reckless attacker that boosts EHP, and heaven knows what's going on with Gunbreaker. I'm arguing Dark Knight's prior sustainability was based on leeching, you're arguing... that it had mitigation that got stronger as it took damage, as precedent for being focused on... barriers?
There isn't even correlation between your thesis and your examples.
Even in the single-player games there are any number of jobs that had self-healing and life-leeching, any number of jobs that focused on evasion for multiple turns or negated damage entirely.
And even among them, very few had gameplay loops centered around rapidly spending their own surplus health as a resource for their unique skills. Black Mage didn't even do that, and it could replenish its own MP with Osmose.
So if you didn't have your pocket White Mage, how was your Dark Knight supposed to recharge his Darkside? Or in the examples you listed, his buffs, once they ran out and he was left without all of the health from damage he took to stack them in the first place? It's not like he could just mitigate damage to recharge them -- the effects specifically state how much health he has to lose to charge them in the first place.
So once he shoots his load, how does he reload? Especially if you expect him to pull double-duty of getting beat on to protect any remaining back-row squishies?
In Bravely? He didn't. He needed external healing. If you wanted to go with a Barrier Tank example, he could have used some exploitable substitute to take the damage for him and charge his effects, but that wasn't an option.
In games where he had Blood Weapon or some variant of Drain? He used those, which formed a self-sufficient gameplay loop. Yes he still needed a healer if enemy damage was high, but he didn't just Darkside to death.
You mean he put Doom on himself to increase all stats. Ignoring that Living Dead is getting reworked in 6.1 so this example will age like milk, it's been so bad we've been begging for it to be reworked for years (yet another point in the doc in the OP) and Bravely's version is actually worse, since "increase your defense stat by 50%" isn't even the same as "50% mitigation", and is a far cry from invincibility until the Doom takes you.Quote:
I mean, the Bravely DRK even has Living Dead basically.
But that also goes back to my point of "not having a tank [or any job, really] who sacrifices his HP for damage." Because having a job focused on killing himself is a nightmare for cooperative gameplay and is a big reason BLU is limited. -
02-24-2022, 02:58 AMAluja89If the game doesn't have a visual aid for barriers what do you suppose those mitigation effects are? BARRIERS! This is what I mean when I say unfair. In FFXIV there are visual ways to show the HP of barriers and they literally make use of it in this version's DRK and you're still trying to talk around it.Quote:
Again, how?
It's an extremely fair question -- especially when the central conceit of the argument is, once again, over what kind of tank Dark Knight should be. You got Paladin as the damage blocker with healing support, you got Warrior as reckless attacker that boosts EHP, and heaven knows what's going on with Gunbreaker. I'm arguing Dark Knight's prior sustainability was based on leeching, you're arguing... that it had mitigation that got stronger as it took damage, as precedent for being focused on... barriers?
There isn't even correlation between your thesis and your examples.
Because you still don't understand what tanking actually means, you think Adversity doesn't keep scaling? That you don't heal your DRK ever? It keeps popping all the way to 150% Just like the AI, people also focus on "weak" targets first. Have you played the old version of League of Legends' Poppy? She'd get stronger mitigation buffs the lower her HP got and every single time the enemy group would jump on a Poppy and fail to kill her wasting all their CDs, leaving themselves defenseless. Tanking isn't just about sustain, it's not that simple or linear.Quote:
Even in the single-player games there are any number of jobs that had self-healing and life-leeching, any number of jobs that focused on evasion for multiple turns or negated damage entirely.
And even among them, very few had gameplay loops centered around rapidly spending their own surplus health as a resource for their unique skills. Black Mage didn't even do that, and it could replenish its own MP with Osmose.
So if you didn't have your pocket White Mage, how was your Dark Knight supposed to recharge his Darkside? Or in the examples you listed, his buffs, once they ran out and he was left without all of the health from damage he took to stack them in the first place? It's not like he could just mitigate damage to recharge them -- the effects specifically state how much health he has to lose to charge them in the first place.
So once he shoots his load, how does he reload? Especially if you expect him to pull double-duty of getting beat on to protect any remaining back-row squishies?
In Bravely? He didn't. He needed external healing. If you wanted to go with a Barrier Tank example, he could have used some exploitable substitute to take the damage for him and charge his effects, but that wasn't an option.
In games where he had Blood Weapon or some variant of Drain? He used those, which formed a self-sufficient gameplay loop. Yes he still needed a healer if enemy damage was high, but he didn't just Darkside to death.
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02-24-2022, 01:32 PMArchwizardNo, mitigation effects (including percentile boosts to Defense or Armor, or just bracing for impact) translate into mitigation effects.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
If you wanted a precedent for barrier skills in previous FF games, you would look at examples like:- Completely negate some type of damage for one turn (Absorb MP/Runic like you listed)
- Negate up to a fixed amount of damage (Stoneskin)
- Temporarily raise maximum HP (Bubble)
- Reduce incoming hits by a fixed (non-percentile) amount, nullifying weak attacks
But also, and I need to stress this: You are cherrypicking examples of games where Dark Knight had consolation survivability to ensure it had time to utilize its stacking effects, and not examples that are common or iconic to the job across the series.
Yes, potentially, it could be made a barrier job unique to XIV. But I'm arguing for lack of precedent in this regard, especially due to the job's iconic abilities across the series making it a glass cannon.
Because its most iconic tools for its own survivability are Drain effects like Blood Weapon, so it can recharge its Darkside skills.
We're talking in circles at this point.
I'm beginning to suspect this is projection.Quote:
Because you still don't understand what tanking actually means
One, I didn't say "you don't heal your Dark Knight ever." I asked "If you don't have your White Mage, how does he recharge his unique job skills?"
Two, tanking is quite simply:- Hold enemy attention so that squishier allies don't die
- Survive as long as possible
And also, I assume that her damage output wasn't reliant on her having some amount of health to spend, rather than just sitting on 95% mitigation at 5% HP? -
02-24-2022, 09:26 PMAluja89I don't remember any FF game where you could completely negate damage other than a Dragoon jumping for a turn or Draining a element. I'm just saying I understand why FFXIV's DRK is a barrier/magic defense tank because of the things I listed and I don't understand how I'm cherry picking when I used all the relevant DRKs in FF in terms of gameplay. The only one I didn't use was FFT, that one just has Drain and that's about it. No Cecil isn't relevant for obvious reasons, but if you're going to deny that then I know you're just arguing semantics.Quote:
But also, and I need to stress this: You are cherrypicking examples of games where Dark Knight had consolation survivability to ensure it had time to utilize its stacking effects, and not examples that are common or iconic to the job across the series.
Also, I'm suspecting you haven't played the Bravely games. Each job has elements that can be built around so if DRK has mitigation tools you can practically make it a undying tank if that's what you want to build.
Now I know you haven't played it. Bravely default and Second work on a party order, meaning your entire party acts first then the enemy's party, if you want a DRK you build it around the fact you're going to hit till you're 1HP then heal that and bolster its defense for the enemy's turn. You don't just stay at low HP the whole fight, your whole party has to be built around sustainability otherwise it simply doesn't work, at least be upfront on what you're arguing about instead of talking in circles.Quote:
And I keep pointing out to you that the example you gave of Dark Knight, whose skillset is focused around churning out damage from low health, is counter to the second point without some element of sustainability. Unless the devs decide to go the Poppy route (for something other than an Immune skill), who judging by the use of "old version", I assume was horrifically overpowered and got nerfed in the end?
And also, I assume that her damage output wasn't reliant on her having some amount of health to spend, rather than just sitting on 95% mitigation at 5% HP?
Poppy was one of the first champions on League so she needed a rework. She still has that passive but the game has too much outgoing damage now and HP based percentage damage so old Poppy wouldn't work either. -
02-24-2022, 11:32 PMArchwizardI literally said. That Absorb counted. Twice now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
As do things like Null spells, Reflect magic, Barrier and Magic Barrier (in games outside FF7R where they act more like Protect and Shell), even that quirky Interceptor Guard from FF6 -- an event where something else takes the hit for you.
Not exactly a "gotcha" if that's what you're going for, FF as a series is expansive. Which is also why from the outside of that perspective, using examples largely specific to spinoff titles releasing during XIV's lifetime as your precedent reads as obsessive rather than constructive, especially given that Drain magic/Blood Weapon skills are more iconic to the Dark Knight across its history.Quote:
Also, I'm suspecting you haven't played the Bravely games.
Now I know you haven't played it.
I've been upfront about my argument the whole time, I haven't been dancing around it, nor has it actually changed from the very first time I quoted you. You've just been missing the point, repeating yourself, and arguing for the sake of arguing.Quote:
You don't just stay at low HP the whole fight, your whole party has to be built around sustainability otherwise it simply doesn't work, at least be upfront on what you're arguing about instead of talking in circles.
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02-25-2022, 12:09 AMAluja89It wasn't meant to be a gotcha, it just clears things up and why you think I'm talking in circles. Simply because you keep talking about how it can't be tank when in fact, if you played it you'd know it can and more if you wish it.Quote:
Not exactly a "gotcha" if that's what you're going for, FF as a series is expansive. Which is also why from the outside of that perspective, using examples largely specific to spinoff titles releasing during XIV's lifetime as your precedent reads as obsessive rather than constructive, especially given that Drain magic/Blood Weapon skills are more iconic to the Dark Knight across its history.
I'm mainly using Bravely because it has the most expansive Dark Knights, 3 games worth while FF only has 2 and only one is worth mentioning. Besides, the point simply was that I understand the direction they went with XIV's DRK. It's a heavily armored relentless magic knight, the idea shows in Bravely and in FFXIV. Sometimes the reasons speak for themselves but you keep saying no for some reason. -
02-25-2022, 03:21 AMSeverianLyonesseHmmm my count is different:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aluja89
FFIII: M. Knight (somewhat retooled to Dark Knight)
FFX-2: Dark Knight
FFXI: Dark Knight
Plus:
FFII: Leon
FFIV: Cecil
So it's definitely more than "two-but-really-only-one-of-note" -
02-25-2022, 04:47 PMArchwizardI'm not sure I would count II (Leon only has the title, not the abilities), but III's was named "Dark Knight" in most releases, and I would also add:Quote:
Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse
Rev. Wings: Ba'gamnan
Tactics: both the job and Gafgarion
Type-0: Machina (Sice is more of a RPR example)
And probably a number of other side-entries (Crystal Chronicles, Dimensions, Chocobo Dungeon, Record Keeper, etc).
... And a bit over half of those have access to some sort of siphoning magic to offset Darkside's cost. In addition to XIV's own already having multiple siphoning skills since inception.
(This is ignoring customizable characters such as Zack or several FF8 characters who could be given Darkside, and also Siphon Strike or Drain.)
The assumption that most of the FF Dark Knight entries are in Bravely is... appalling, because it would be far from an iconic job if true given how recent Bravely is. -
03-02-2022, 12:40 AMArchwizardIt gives the DRK a barrier for 100% of her max HP and can be stacked with personals. In exchange, it transfers 15% of raid damage to the DRK instead of her team.Quote:
Originally Posted by NightHour
Bearing in mind, this does not come in lieu of Dark Missionary and can be stacked with it, reducing magic damage by an extra 10% (and possibly even double-dipping, just to add a layer of appeal to DM, unless they specifically write a bypass of DM into the transfer effect).
So at worst in an 8-man team the DRK takes 205% damage from a raid buster, which initially sounds like 5% overkill... assuming she would have lost 100% of her max health in the first place if she hadn't pressed it.
If she's topped off going into it, the raw damage would have to be at least 97.56% of the DRK's max health in damage -- after all raid buffs -- to be fatal to her. Given tanks have more health than any other role, that's enough damage that most of her raid team will be dead anyway, including any rezzers.
I mean theoretically there's a scenario where a DRK is already at low health before the buster and the transfer is what kills her, but mathematically there's a very slim margin of health where DRK would have died taking 2.05x damage even with a barrier for 100% of her max HP, when she would have survived without the barrier by only taking 1.00x damage.