Think Dark Knight will have any HP-sacrificing abilities, for Solo or Off-tank roles?

[Yukiko]

Personally I always found having a dark KNIGHT, clad in full plate armor and carrying a two-handed sword, that WASN'T a tank to be insulting.
But then, tanks weren't strictly necessary in the single-player FFs. They are in the MMOs.

I tend to disagree on this one!
There were many fights where only the tank could survive...
On some games we had "tanks" with learning jobs: On each level up you increased stats from that job, so you was able to learn physical meele classes to get many Life Points while when leveling many mage classes you could get many mana...
On other games it was definied from the job bonus itself and the armor you could wear. Bonus on resistance or materia you add...

When the tank survived he could use reviving items or potions to heal up (mostly first the healer). While the healer uses grouphealing (in preperations for the next attack to heal up again after the attack) the tank revived the other party members with items. now when the healer is rebuffing the group (protect, shield, and so on...) the tank may helps with items or skills to survive another incoming attack. because the tank was mostly the HERO with highest stats i had let the mage help with items and rebuffing/healing stuff while the tank hits a strong attack on the boss. Thats called "recovery" in terms of MMOG and thats what many players miss in FFXIV. True its not easy to add in a MMOG but lets have a look at Crystal Cronicles multiplayer or Grandia II - its not impossible, even Final Fantasy games where we could deactivate the "boss is waiting", we had such systems...

My guess is they did not add recovery because the massive problems with lag and syncing players action, even now we still have massive desync in game.

Other situation, when a mage survived (some bosses did insta kills but only single target - never ever use insta kill AOE mechanics, SE - NEVER EVER!)
You could survive fatal blows with using mirror or "jump" ... there were some skills if you timed it right. its harder than when the tank survived but still it was possible to recover from near wipes. I just wonder why we have that stupid weakness in instances? Sometimes it is said: "then the fight will never end". Thats why you just have a max item size of 99 - i can remember fighting Omega in FFVIII for more than 12hrs and running out of potions... we had some challenges back then with not using special items and lowest level possible, but thats anohter story


Back to topic: Please dont name it DRK then, it is not a DRK if not using his own Life - just a sidenote: Thats why we have buffs like stoneskin and such to help DRK, but well FFXIV doesnt stick on the basics and weakens many skills.

[fireslash]

they ll sacrifice hp to bring mp then wreck havoc with that broad sword of theirs , 2h wep tanks suppose to have dps and tnk shifts

[kumo21]

It was said that DRK will generate a dark aura and shroud themselves in it. I have a feeling it will cost MP continuously to keep it up. Also, I think it will function like dread spikes (deal damage to enemies/generate enmity) and snow shield from silkroad mmorpg where a % of damage is taken from the MP pool rather than HP. For ex. 20% dark aura mitigation means a hit for 100 damage takes 80 HP and 20 MP so I'm guessing DRK players will have to make sure that they always have MP, otherwise they're dead.

In addition, since DRK's lore in FFXIV is that DRKs are the punishers/executioners of the unjust and corrupted holy clerics and higher ups, I think it'd be cool for DRK's to have a really hard hitting skill called Sin Harvest where potency is dependent on the amount that the DRK (or party) have taken from the enemy. But potency caps at like 600 or something. Or an inverse spirits within where potency decreases with increasing HP.

[Limecat]

While I can't see them burning huge chunks of HP like DRK normally would, what might work are a bunch of aura-type abilities similar to BRD songs that eat a little HP over time instead, and maybe a self-SSS type effect that eats a bunch of HP when used.

[Shurrikhan]

As long as the health sacrifice gives a buff in longer term use it will likely be ideal for tanking - use it when you're taking little damage for a buff that minimizes the following would-be spike damage. I just hope it *also* has OT use.

[Alacran]

Through all seven pages i could not find the link/info of all the class skills we get through all 60 level of the yet unreleased game. Could someone be so kind as to point in the right direction? I to want to complain as to how my play style is not represented.

/sarcasm

[Zaft]

Through all seven pages i could not find the link/info of all the class skills we get through all 60 level of the yet unreleased game. Could someone be so kind as to point in the right direction? I to want to complain as to how my play style is not represented.

/sarcasm

I found it, here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQuNPOc4Mng

[ruskie]

Looking at how the Warrior was buffed to remove some of the linkage between its survivability and enmity generation, I don't think the devs would make the same mistake again so quickly. Even if there is a skill that consumes HP, either it won't be useful in raids or it will be tied to some defensive mechanism like Holmgang.

Either an oh shit HG type move or maybe something like sacrifice your HP to protect a party member(basically cover).

[Kaethra]

If I'm not mistaken.. the Dark Knight in FFT didn't have any sacrifice abilities either Just drains for MP/HP.

I don't see how you all are getting wrapped up over an ability that did MORE damage to Cecil than it did to the enemy. It was only ever a decent move if fighting like 4+ Imps or Sahugin, and you wanted to one round it without wasting Rydia's MP. It looked cool as far as abilities went in FF4, but that's as far as it went. You were better off using Fight or Item instead of the ability.

Though in all honesty, there's ways to use HPcost abilities with a tank. They just have to be creative with it. Like others have said.. tanks are taking heals anyway. Just don't use something that costs health right before a Mountain Buster or somesuch attack. Heck maybe something that costs HP initially and then restores it back over time.. it gets restored to full in two ticks, and begins giving net heal on the 3rd though however many ticks they wish for it to last.

[Asierid]

Stuff

Yeah, because the healing factor of IB for WAR back in 2.0 worked so well.

Any sort of ability that requires you to take damage first in order to regain said HP is a bad tank ability to begin with. Reactive abilities in tanking is terrible and never works.

Also, DRK was always a DPS. You could get away with HP sac abilities as a DPS, but not as a tank. If there is such an ability on DRK as a tank, they will already be worse off than the other roles and SE will have learned nothing from the whole WAR debacle of 2.0. (Which wouldn't surprise me).