A new tank stance to fit Dark Knight better

[PotatoWafflez]

Any tank who say "I have to maximize DPS above all" is already a bad tank.

And yet we have tanks who will switch to STR accessories as soon as they are able and people will say they are good tanks for doing so, there is a strong trend for everyone to maximise DPS this is not a bad thing, and I only take issue to this because people who are "bad" look at people who know what they are doing and emulate without thinking.

Ok, I don't understand. Why do everyone keep saying "No, it's a bad idea because people will be bad at it" ?

Personally I take issue mainly with the bad habits it would possibly bring to the table and it would probably be a huge headache to balance.

Do you want to remove Sword Oath because some bad PLD can say "I have to maximize DPS, I don't care it I take too much damage and can't keep aggro on the Uber-DPS" ?
Or Cleric Stance, because some bad healers might want to keep it 24/7 ?

We are talking about adding something not removing something however, and as I said my issue was with the fact its creates a situation where to "do better" you are taking more damage and in a game where most people DF content that isn't a nice situation for healers who aren't confident or have poor mp management.

Also this isn't something you would be switching in and out of for the average player you will be sitting in your tank stance 24/7 so comparing it to cleric isn't really a fair comparison as you are literally just reflecting damage at 20% every time you get hit with being hit being the only draw back.

In terms of sword oath you are comparing the same kind of person in my opinion the same person who is going to switch to sword for personal reasons not taking in account the group is the same person who would take everything to the face to increase DPS as a DK.

Lorewise, the first thing you learn on your first quest is that "pain gives you power, you have to manage your pain so that you doesn't end up killing yourself in your thirst for power" It'd become the basic tutorial of managing Dread Spikes

Wasn't aware of that, I still see grit as being the more damage you take the more you resolve to keep fighting, fighting through the pain kinda deal. So in terms of naming convention, personally its not super unfitting as it is but it is a bit "meh" and underwhelming.

[Dement]

Sorry, but if a hit can do more than you max HP before mitigation, you'll pop a mitigation cooldown anyway, and you'll also probably have Stoneskin, Adloquium and Sacred Soil.
Just look at the actual coil, no tank will stay there just eating the buster without anything.

It's like saying that Shield Oath is garbage if you have a Pampa boss with "25k needles" on a PLD with 22k HP and a WAR with 26400.

Your right, everyone will try to mitigate it but in an actual fight things don't always go as planned and this was just a simple scenario to highlight the problem. In progression Death Sentence killed plenty of people, Ravens Beak killed plenty of people, Bahamuts claw killed plenty of people and Flatten killed plenty of people, all one shotted against PLDs and WARs, the DRK would be at an immediate disadvantage because it's reduction is tail end..

[Reynhart]

And yet we have tanks who will switch to STR accessories as soon as they are able and people will say they are good tanks for doing so, there is a strong trend for everyone to maximise DPS this is not a bad thing

Yes, but "as soon are they are able too" means that they know they have enough HP to withstand attacks, can avoid unnecessary damage and manage their cooldowns to mitigate every big attack.

In terms of sword oath you are comparing the same kind of person in my opinion the same person who is going to switch to sword for personal reasons not taking in account the group is the same person who would take everything to the face to increase DPS as a DK.

Exactly, and that's why it bothers me to judge an ability based on how bad players can screw it up.

The name "Grit" is not unfitting, but the effect is...too much "sturdy" for a relentless fighter who thrive on blood and pain

Your right, everyone will try to mitigate it but in an actual fight things don't always go as planned and this was just a simple scenario to highlight the problem.

That's why all tanks have an "oh-shit" skill

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I agree completely on this topic actually. The only issue about it is the developers will actually do what they did with an ability like this in other games. Shadowknights for example had this kind of ability, although it wasn't their defensive stance they used it on some end game bosses to one shot them.

You see, they basicly took a hit that was meant to kill them, and reflected it upon the boss and one shot him.

The mechanics of the game are designed to be like that, one shot you if you fail. Which would mean that Dread Spikes would only work on some things but not all things, which would make it significantly weaker.

However, if you designed it to only work for most damage, like living dead and holmgang it would be excellent. However then you would need temporary buffs to counter that as well.

As for people wishing we had more parry. Parry wouldn't be useful at all unless it blocked spells and abilities as well for a Dark Knight, however I think they want to give that to "Samurai".

Dread Spikes:
10% of "most" damage is reflected is reflected upon the target in physical. (Damage reduction reduces this amount.)
Reduces unaspected damage done by 20%.
Also increases chance to hit by 5%.
Increases enmity gain.

This makes the Dark Knight unique. For he has only 10% reduced damage taken, however he is also more offensive. Temporary buffs are also changed.

Shadow Wall:
45% of all damage taken is immediately healed.
Duration: 20 seconds.
Recast: 60 seconds.
Unlike damage reduction, this does not lower damage taken. If you are hit for more then your health your dead. It only heals upon damage you receive, but if it goes before 1, it does not heal you and you get knocked out.

Dark Dance
25% of all damage taken is immediately healed.
Increases parry chance by 25%.
Increases parry potency by 20%. (Instead of 20% damage reduction, its 40%.)
Duration: 20 seconds.
Recast: 60 seconds.
Same here, it only heals you for the damage you have taken. Take more then your life total and your dead.

Shadowskin
35% of all damage taken is immediately healed.
Increases the damage absorbed from dread spikes by 10%.
Duration: 20 seconds.
Recast: 90 seconds.

The problem with this is. You never want to be below 50% HP. You can get "spiked" and die. It is "NOT" damage reduction, its much worse because say you take 10000 damage and have 10000 health. You will end up at 0 even with the healing. It heals you after you take that damage.

[PotatoWafflez]

Yes, but "as soon are they are able too" means that they know they have enough HP to withstand attacks, can avoid unnecessary damage and manage their cooldowns to mitigate every big attack.

My main point was that it builds on the idea that maximising your damage is a priority not the main one but one of them.

It also goes against avoiding unnecessary damage/mitigating if you simplify it, its basically: the more damage you take = the more damage that you do/return so long as you don't die and you have a CD that lets you not die for a short period of time.
(I know there is issues with this due to the top off required at the end but its still a window of time where the player can just take as much damage to the face as possible)

I know this is a very min/max point however and I'm not looking to get into a huge debate over it was more just highlighting my main concern with the mechanic and in the mentality it could bring on in people.

Exactly, and that's why it bothers me to judge an ability based on how bad players can screw it up.

The main reason I see a problem with it is because of DF, if the game was only pre-mades it would be 100% non-issue because you would avoid the bad and run with people you were comfortable with. But you don't know what you will get with DF and that's where I start to go "we might have a problem here", not to mention the 45 different levels of content it needs to balance around if its not a trait and all the different ilvls. Which just reminded me if we went into another situation we had with level 50 were ilvl isn't synced for older level 60 dungeons your gear would drop your dps loads if it was tied to the damage you are reflecting because you would have more passive mitigation from your gear making that 20% lower.

I was a little OTT and silly with my original posts so apologies not looking for a fight or anything. (Mainly just wanted to say something now just in case )

The name "Grit" is not unfitting, but the effect is...too much "sturdy" for a relentless fighter who thrive on blood and pain

Ah I'm with you now.

I'm not super familiar with DKs yet so I don't really know but what is the thing they get to make up for not having increased heals like WARs or greater mitigation like PLD? Don't want to suggest something that they already have but I've overlooked

Some kind of stagger might be nice though either staggering of damage into a DoT or some kind of minor HoT when tanking multiple targets?
Leeching their blood kinda thing lore wise but doesn't have to cause damage.

[Reynhart]

You see, they basicly took a hit that was meant to kill them, and reflected it upon the boss and one shot him.

Cap the reflected damage and this is not an issue. They seem to like threshold like "Up to 20% of maximum HP"

Dread Spikes:
10% of "most" damage is reflected is reflected upon the target in physical. (Damage reduction reduces this amount.)
Reduces unaspected damage done by 20%.
Also increases chance to hit by 5%.
Increases enmity gain.

This makes the Dark Knight unique. For he has only 10% reduced damage taken, however he is also more offensive. Temporary buffs are also changed.

Yes, but by doing that, DRK has now less eHP than WAR or PLD. The idea was for all three tanks to have the same eHP pool, but with different mechanic.

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It also goes against avoiding unnecessary damage/mitigating if you simplify it, its basically: the more damage you take = the more damage that you do/return so long as you don't die and you have a CD that lets you not die for a short period of time.

Again, the same could be said for Sword Oath and Deliverance. You take more damage than usual for doing more damage. If you do it mindlessly, you'll probably make the fight a lot harder, especially for healers, or simply wipe.

The main reason I see a problem with it is because of DF, if the game was only pre-mades it would be 100% non-issue because you would avoid the bad and run with people you were comfortable with.

Even in Duty Finder, I don't think the majority of tanks will just simply stay in AoE. After the first thrash pull, you can be pretty sure you've upset all your party. I know tanks don't really have a problem for queue time, but if you're kicked from each dungeon because you're doing always wrong, you won't progress very much in content.

Which just reminded me if we went into another situation we had with level 50 were ilvl isn't synced for older level 60 dungeons your gear would drop your dps loads if it was tied to the damage you are reflecting because you would have more passive mitigation from your gear making that 20% lower.

Does tank-DPS really matters when the party can curb-stomp the content ? Recently, my FC tried turn 9 as à 7 people party of lvl60. They destroyed it in 5 minutes.

I'm not super familiar with DKs yet so I don't really know but what is the thing they get to make up for not having increased heals like WARs or greater mitigation like PLD? Don't want to suggest something that they already have but I've overlooked

I'm only DRK 57 for now, and I haven't tried it in endgame content, or even coil with sync, so I'm not sure of what DRK lacks.
But with a stance like Dread Spkes, what they could bring is damage ouput above the other two tanks as a MT.
This way, as MT, we could have PLD for steady fights or DRK for more agressive fights. With WAR as the king of OT with their buffs, debuffs, and burst of damage in Deliverance.

I was a little OTT and silly with my original posts so apologies not looking for a fight or anything. (Mainly just wanted to say something now just in case )

Don't worry, we're not fighting

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Not really, they have more risky, more powerful, less recast buffs they must now cycle through. They must "always" have a buff up to reduce damage taken in some way.

The trick is. You must always have Shadow Wall, Dark Dance, or Shadowskin on.

Capping the reflected damage would also be an issue, because that also caps your damage reduction from it.

[PotatoWafflez]

Again, the same could be said for Sword Oath and Deliverance. You take more damage than usual for doing more damage. If you do it mindlessly, you'll probably make the fight a lot harder, especially for healers, or simply wipe.

Even in Duty Finder, I don't think the majority of tanks will just simply stay in AoE. After the first thrash pull, you can be pretty sure you've upset all your party. I know tanks don't really have a problem for queue time, but if you're kicked from each dungeon because you're doing always wrong, you won't progress very much in content.

Does tank-DPS really matters when the party can curb-stomp the content? Recently, my FC tried turn 9 as à 7 people party of lvl60. They destroyed it in 5 minutes.

Think my main reasoning was some people can be oblivious to healers and tend to just expect to be healed up to full 24/7 but yeah in a practical sense after a while they will figure out a good balance, think I got hung up on the initial “implementation” aspect and the fact I saw so many questionable tanks in the towers due to gear and obliviousness of what they should have been doing not the best bench mark to compare too not to mention the speed running mentality.

Tank DPS isn’t a huge deal it was more along the lines of it doesn’t feel good to do the same content with better gear and do less damage! :P

Also having just been on my WAR I think % based damage is not the way to go and instead should just have a potency like vengeance has as it’s easier to balance and you also then aren't going out your way to take more damage because you will only get a certain range of damage per hit regardless of the incoming damage be it 4 or 4000.

Basically just have DKs have vengeance while in tank stance only with 10% less mitigation as vengeance is 30% damage reduction not 20% and that is probably the easiest way to go about the change you would like not as flashy in terms of numbers though but same basic principle.

Though I'm not sure as to if their isn't a issue with CDs and mitigation that needs addressing more or if this is just something extra on top to make DKs feel more unique as I said not been to 60 on mine yet so can't really say if its lacking anything, which should take priority over something like this if it is the case.

I'm only DRK 57 for now, and I haven't tried it in endgame content, or even coil with sync, so I'm not sure of what DRK lacks.

But with a stance like Dread Spkes, what they could bring is damage ouput above the other two tanks as a MT.

This way, as MT, we could have PLD for steady fights or DRK for more agressive fights. With WAR as the king of OT with their buffs, debuffs, and burst of damage in Deliverance.

Don't worry, we're not fighting

Not really sure how it would stack up in 8man content never had the schedule to dive into it properly while it was relevant due to work, so don’t have a decent reference to go off. I don’t see PLD going anywhere till after the first few clears though just due to its defensive capabilities, unless they have some really tight DPS check somewhere.

And didn't think we were just thought was better to say something encase something came across wrong you can’t be sure how people might take your text sometimes.

[Ceodore]

This could be good, if it wasn't so wrong from what a tank actually needs. There is no suggestion of a higher HP pool to be able to soak big hits like warriors, or a flat damage reduction to be able to add mitigation to tank crunches. Essentially, it's a Warrior with a Paladin's HP, but reactive healing instead of a healing % increase or a proactive damage reduction. This would be great, if we weren't playing a game that time after time has bosses with damage that will one shot a tank for 150% to 200% of their HP. A simple "pop a cooldown" isn't going to fix damage from a skill that requires not only your cooldown, but also shields from your healers to survive. There's more problems too when you take into account interactions with skills from other classes. For instance, damage that is done to a healer's shield is not damage the tank receives, and thus can't trigger this skill's effect. That means the mitigation is far less, since the shield doesn't receive a boost in potency like Adloquium gets from Defiance, and doesn't receive a boost to durability like with Shield Oath. This tank stance effectively causes less benefit to very important parts of fights, particularly for tank crunches. It's a good idea, but ultimately flawed in its capabilities.

So many people are trying to suggest skills within the "theme" of the Dark Knight. The theme they believe a Dark Knight must fall into is almost always taking more damage in some way to do something. Square has already stated that they were not going to do that, so why people continue to beat that dead horse shows just how idiotic they are. The theme for Dark Knight here is not an HP soaker, like Warrior, with a high HP pool to take more damage to generate skills or sacrifice HP to do so. It isn't a turtle tank like Paladin where they have blocking and naturally high mitigation. No, what was attempted was a Parry magical tank, which frankly fell flat on it face. If you're going to make suggestions for changes, at least keep them within the ball park of what was intended so that Square might actually incorporate them into what they have already created instead of trying to steer the class away from what was really intended.

What needs to happen are small changes to the skills already supplied to us for more intelligent use. Take Darkside... no tank has a toggle like this that just stacks with their tanking buff to increase damage. What was the point here? Why would you stack a DPS buff after a tanking buff that reduces the effectiveness of the DPS buff by 20%. I say this to remind everyone that the percentages don't just cancel each other out. No, your tanking toggle is calculated first. That 20% damage down sets the base damage to be effected by Darkside when they are both activated. So it isn't a situation where you only have 5% reduced damage while both are up, no, it's actually 8% reduced damage. So what was the point here in making Darkside able to be used with Grit when the effect of Grit makes the benefit of Darkside only a 12% increase instead of its full 15%? What this is is clearly a sign of bad planning on a class. Somewhere along the lines in development, someone in all likelihood suggested for a DPS stance, just like how Paladins and Warriors have their own DPS stances, however, what happened was wires likely became crossed, and what was created was a single target buff that acted like a Bard song but wasn't restricted from being used with Grit. Guaranteed that someone somewhere, with likely more intelligence than their superiors, probably said that this skill should be a DPS stance for Dark Knight, and it should be unable to be used with Grit, and that it should just cost MP to switch between them, not that it should drain your MP. So this is my first suggestion. Make Darkside what it was probably intended to be, a DPS toggle for off tanking and remove its MP hindrance. It shouldn't drain MP, and it shouldn't make it where things like Mage's Ballad can't recover your MP.

My next changes are to Blood Price and Blood Weapon. These skills are funny really. Their cooldowns are exactly the same. Their durations are exactly the same. Their trigger effects offer the same kind of benefits (MP recovery) yet ONLY Blood Weapon is restricted to Darkside (more evidence that Darkside should have been an OT DPS stance). So here are my changes in combination to my changes to Darkside. Restrict Blood Price to only being used when under Grit. Now, with more restrictions on these skills to being only accessed when under the proper stance, there are some changes I would make to them both to make them a little bit stronger as well as more unique to the skills' names with Blood. First, on Blood Price, change the effect to be instead of returning a flat amount of MP based on your level, absorb 10% of all damage taken as MP. Essentially, this would be like a weakened form of Rampart, only instead of just mitigating damage, that mitigated damage is absorbed as MP. This leads me into my suggested changes on Blood Weapon. Currently, it returns a flat amount of MP based on your level for each physical attack you land, and increases your attack speed by 10% for 15 seconds. My issue. If your attack speed is 2.5 seconds, and you reduce it to 2.25 seconds, you have to perform 10 attacks to land an additional hit during this skill's up time. Further, no matter what your attack speed is, this is always the case. In 15 seconds, even at an instant attack speed with a 2 second recast, there is absolutely no way to perform 10 global cooldowns (20 seconds worth) which is the requirement to get another attack in with this buff. Effectively, this skill's attack speed buff is useless. So this is why I believe it needs to be changed to a 10% damage increase for 15 seconds with an added effect of the 10% increased damage done to enemies ALSO be returned as MP, and for it to include all sources of damage, not just physical attacks. These changes would be more in the theme of the "blood" aspect seen in past Final Fantasies, like Blood Sword, which absorbed a percentage of HP when doing damage, but since we already have several skills that absorb HP when doing damage, these two skills would be better suited to restoring the resource so vital to Dark Knights.

Now, one issue many Dark Knights are facing is their TP drainage. Unlike Warriors who now have a 200TP return on a 60 second cooldown, and Paladins who now have enmity added to Shield Swipe which allows them a Global to restore a fraction of TP, Dark Knights have no TP recovery options other than just waiting or using a high MP consuming skill that provides very little utility when fighting a single target enemy. So my next suggestion is this: Skills effected by Dark Arts, when used under Dark Arts, have no TP cost. This is just one issue I have with Dark Arts. Others include that it is REQUIRED to make the most use of certain cooldowns. This is poor planning considering the high necessity for quickness when it comes to properly using cooldowns. So my next suggestion for Dark Arts is make the effects it adds to cooldowns (things that do not trigger a Global Cooldown, and things that are also on long cooldowns, and generally skills that can be used during a global cooldown) the stock effects of the skills. So, with Carve and Spit, the potency should always be 150 per hit to total 450 (and actually make it three hits... if we can make something like Barrage work for Bards, how was the ball dropped on this skill?) and recover MP with each hit. On Dark Passenger, always make the potency 250 with an added Blind effect to all targets. I'll talk about Dark Dance later, because this cooldown is all kinds of messed up. So now, you have a high MP consumption skill that triggers additional effects on ONLY skills that trigger a Global Cooldown, and removes those skills' TP cost. For Abyssal Drain, keep the MP cost. If Unleash is going to cost MP, then so is Abyssal Drain.

So I mentioned Dark Dance... WTF happened here Square? You do know how your game mechanics work, right? You put a 20% evade on a skill that raises Parry? What were you thinking? If you Evade, you don't Parry at all. This skill subtracts from its own usefulness! Why would any developer do this? It feels like a tact on piece of junk onto a cooldown that could really help the class. So, here's my suggestion. Remove the Dark Arts Effect, increase the effect of the Trait from 30% to 40%.

One last thing, remove the requirement to be in Darkside on Dark Dance, Dark Passenger, and Dark Mind.

And... I'm done. TL;DR below.

Darkside - DPS toggle Buff. Initial MP cost. No MP drain. Can not be used with Grit.
Blood Weapon - Increase Damage by 10% and absorb the 10% increased damage as MP.
Blood Price - Decrease incoming damage by 10% and absorb the 10% decreased damage as MP.
Dark Arts - Activate additional effects on certain skills. Skills effected by Dark Arts do not have a TP cost. No longer effects Carve and Spit, Dark Passenger, or Dark Dance
Dark Dance - 15% increase in Parry, 40% with Trait. No Dark Arts Effect
Dark Passenger - Linear AOE with a 250 unaspected magical damage with Blind. No Dark Arts Effect
Carve and Spit - 3 (THREE) attacks with potency 150 each. Recovers MP with each hit.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Lots of stuff!

I don't like any of your ideas except Carve and Spit, Dark Passenger, Dark Dance, honestly. I have no problems with TP and your suggestions just make me want to play a Warrior. Your making them way too much like a "way" worse version of a warrior. Everything you suggested is how a warrior plays, however they also get damage reduction temps, a LOT of them. As well as debuffs and lifetaps that are honestly a lot better then Dark Knights.

However, your idea to remove Dark Arts from those abilities is an idea I had myself. It is WAY to clunky to put them on defensive or offensive temps.

The OPs idea is a unique suggestion that really goes with the Dark's Theme, and is different from both warrior/paladin. I also like the fact that the class can use both their stances. It makes it unique to both Warrior and Paladin. I actually think they should remain buffs like they are.

I actually want them to make Grit more like Dark Arts and Dark arts a bit different.

Grit:
Reduces damage taken by 15%
Increases enmity gain.
Drains MP over time. Ends when you run out of MP.
Does not reduce damage at all.

Darkside
Increases damage done by 15%.
Increases accuracy by 5%
Drains HP over time. Ends when you run out of HP or are knocked out.
Does not raise damage done to you, it just increases damage.

Yes, you can use both Grit and Darkside at the same time. However you might have to drop one or the other depending if you have health or MP issues. You can also choose to just stay in Darkside. You can also choose to use neither.

Blood Weapon
Raises attack speed and lowers TP cost by 10%.
Darkside additional effect: also restores 10% of all damage done as HP.
Grit additional effect: also restores 10% of all damage done as MP.
Same duration and recast.

Blood Price:
Raises healing received by 10% and restores a small amount of TP over time.
Darkside additional effect: 10% of damage taken is converted to HP.
Grit additional effect: 10% of damage received is converted to MP.
Same duration and recast.

I want Dark Knight to be a completely different tank from Paladin and Warrior.