The completely REASONABLE changes to the Dark Knight job thread

[Shurrikhan]

What I don't want to see: Grit doesn't need to be an off-GCD ability like Defiance. We already have Darkside for that. Being able to swap freely between their DPS and tank stances is one of WAR's key strengths that the other two tanks don't need to encroach on. The only good reason DRK has to drop Grit while MT is for Blood Weapon, but buffing our other abilities to get MP back when Grit is on should make this unnecessary. Blood Weapon is obviously a tool for keeping up MP when OT, not MT.

That being said, I would like the ability to turn off Grit mid-GCD, much like PLD's oaths. They can't swap in oGCD, but they can drop Shield just before finishing their combo and moving into Sword, whereas Grit cannot be dropped until the next GCD is readied, thereby encroaching faintly into the next GCD due to animation time. I apologize if my memory is mistaken and DRK can already do this.

I'd also love to see Delirium's magic-down debuff able to be up alongside Dragon Kick without stacking, allowing Monk's a bit a more lenience on intensive fights, or reworked.

-- I agree with everything here except for Reprisal's CD needing to be reduced to allow full uptime when parry-capable / MT. I feel like if DRK's MT value at all hangs on this fine a balance, that gap should be made up in some other way.

Also, given that TP seems to be a concern for DRK's as well, a TP refresh over time or cost reduction paired to Blood Weapon might be reasonable, especially if it's attack speed buff were to be increased.

[Brannigan]

That being said, I would like the ability to turn off Grit mid-GCD, much like PLD's oaths. They can't swap in oGCD, but they can drop Shield just before finishing their combo and moving into Sword, whereas Grit cannot be dropped until the next GCD is readied, thereby encroaching faintly into the next GCD due to animation time. I apologize if my memory is mistaken and DRK can already do this.

It seems to work the same way as Shield Oath for me: You can use it during GCD and it will queue it up as the first action, dropping it as soon as the GCD is ready. Then you have to mash your next attack. Neither can drop it mid-GCD.

[Rhaja]

So, the more I play DRk the less I want to play the other tanks. I'm getting used to any short comings it has and learning to love it's tool kit the best I can. Such as in pulls saving Reprisal for the mob that'll cause me the post problems, or not just popping reprisal because it's up (unlike Low blows). But there's one thing I cannot understand now that I've gotten to the level 58 DRK quest.

Why is Sole Survivor an execute? I mean, its great and all and it'd definitely useful in pulls, but this was the ability that could have given DRK a chance to actually offer something unique to the raid.


instead of benefitting from killing an opponent, why doesn't it benefit from being near an ally? A Damage increase, a defense increase, mp/tp regen; any of these would have actually added to the party and given DRK something unique for the raid environment.

Sole Survivor is how mercy strike should work, but buffing you and your selected charge would have worked so much more with the story and supposed theme of DRK.

And I recall someone said something similar to this, but I cannot remember who and I wasn't far enough in the story to see what you meant.

[Falgern]

So, the more I play DRk the less I want to play the other tanks. I'm getting used to any short comings it has and learning to love it's tool kit the best I can. Such as in pulls saving Reprisal for the mob that'll cause me the post problems, or not just popping reprisal because it's up (unlike Low blows). But there's one thing I cannot understand now that I've gotten to the level 58 DRK quest.

Why is Sole Survivor an execute? I mean, its great and all and it'd definitely useful in pulls, but this was the ability that could have given DRK a chance to actually offer something unique to the raid.


instead of benefitting from killing an opponent, why doesn't it benefit from being near an ally? A Damage increase, a defense increase, mp/tp regen; any of these would have actually added to the party and given DRK something unique for the raid environment.

Sole Survivor is how mercy strike should work, but buffing you and your selected charge would have worked so much more with the story and supposed theme of DRK.

And I recall someone said something similar to this, but I cannot remember who and I wasn't far enough in the story to see what you meant.

Could be something like a buff on the enemy where any party members doing damage to the marked target give you a small amount of HP and MP. Let's say 2% of each, and only work with direct damage spells and abilities and not dot ticks. This would give the class some kind of utility. While it's very minor it's still something

[Kaonis]

For utility, they said they wanted PLD to be the shield for the party, and it shows now between Divine Veil and Clemency helping keep people alive. Why not make DRK utility be the sword? Have us able to buff the DPS of those around us in some way. Say DA +Dark Dance adds a small haste buff to people around us, or DA + Dark Passenger adding a short term vulnerability/magic vulnerability debuff or something? That would help make DRK appealing and bring something to the table the other tanks can't do. PLD keep the raid alive and take the best hits, WAR lower the bosses damage and bring a good amount of damage themselves, and have DRK be the ones to dabble in good mitigation with fair DPS but be able to help boost the DPS of the group a bit.

[InfiniDragon]

An idea I always thought would be cool for DRK if they made tweaks was to make a change to Salted Earth (no, not cast under your feet).

I would make Salted Earth have a bigger circle (like Sacred Soil size or maybe even bigger) and make it have a shield effect like Sacred Soil for anyone inside that stacks with SS, in addition to the DoT damage on mobs. That would give DRK an on demand mitigation increase because the cooldown of SE is so low, give them party utility because they can reduce raid damage for all the people inside (melees and the other tank usually) while also hurting the boss, and not require massive reworking to pull off. Thinking about the possibilities of such an attack, an OT DRK fighting an add could drop it on the MT if needed to give them a shield buff, use it on themselves, or if the party's off killing adds while a DRK is MT they can throw it to the party to help them out and protect them.

Of course this would mean that it may not be wise to use it on cooldown immediately so I'd give minor damage buffs to the WS combos to make up for the lost potency. Nothing crazy, just little tweaks.

Other things I would change:

- Change Power Slash Dark Arts to the damage reduction from Reprisal
- Make Reprisal lower vulnerability like Trick Attack but by a lower percentage
- Make Carve and Spit do full damage without Dark Arts and increase MP percentage restored, change the Dark Arts buff to restore TP instead of MP
- Reduce the cooldown for Shadow Wall
- Reduce the MP cost for Dark Passenger

[Marxam]

Add a immunity to knockback for Shadow Wall and that would make that skill perfect and you wont need to change anything else to that skill.

[Rhaja]

So, somewhat off topic, but who's not going to be surprised when 3.1 changes come and we're looking at something even closer to Death Knight?

Grit -> Blood Presence: same as it is now, but every time you use Soul Eater it'll grant you a shield against Physical Damage
Soul Eater -> Death Strike: See above. Healz plus Shield
Dark Dance + DA -> Bone Shield: In addition to parry you take 20% less damage for the first six hits.

Just for lulz
Dark Mind + DA -> Anti-magic zone: Dark Mind will just give a flat 20-30 percent resistance to magic, when upgrade all nearby allies gain resistance as well.

[Violette]

After taking a 10 day break from FFXIV and coming back to Dark Knight, I feel that the Drk's defensive cooldowns are, for the most part, entirely reasonable and shouldn't be changed. Dark Arts DD is a different story, but let's ignore that for now.

Drk has some TP issues in long fights, but that can be alleviated by using unmade. Now, this leads to a mana issue, which causes you to use more tp skills, which then means you gotta spend mana, etc etc etc. I believe this would be best fixed by:

- Lowering the mana cost of Dark Arts by 10-20%
- Lowering Unmade's cost by 5-10%
- Lowering Dark Passengers cost by 40-50%


As for Dark Dance, I think I have come up with a good way to fix it:
- Dark Arts now causes Dark Dance to double the damage reduced when an attack is parried,

[spelley]

Two simple changes that could fix the main problems they have (aside from bugs):

- Reprisal: Available only immediately following a Parry OR when Dark Arts is active. Dark Arts fades upon use. Up CD to 40s or leave it.
- Dark Dance: When in Grit, same effect as current. When Grit is not active, regain 200 TP, 400 with Dark Arts. It also has a good CD for this type of skill already and a proper name.

- Solves the "Reprisal isn't reliable" issue, giving it an "on-demand" option at the cost of MP
- Dark Dance providing TP helps deal with the TP issues DRK has while OT
- Both skills now are useful OT instead of being completely dead.

This is coming from someone who just unlocked the Job, but seems to be in line with all the posts about the issues they have.