The completely REASONABLE changes to the Dark Knight job thread

[kisada]

I think it's pretty clear that DRK has some genuine flaws. The inverse synergy with a skill that gives you evasion when certain facets of the job give you bonuses to being hit. Extreme TP issues. High MP costs affecting stance swaps. Lack of utility as an off tank. There is quite a list. But I do think this is all fixable.

I haven't read through this thread. I'm sure there are a lot of great suggestions here, probably a lot that echo or are even the same as the ones I have.


TP issues and potential solutions:

1. Blood weapon (and haste) is really brutal on TP, so rework it: In a dummy fight even goad is not going to help a DRK stay afloat the entire fight. Blood Weapon makes sure of that by forcing players to attack faster and thus drain TP faster. This was (still is?) the main issue with skill speed. My suggestion is to make Blood weapon an auto-crit ability like life surge, once every 30 or 45 seconds. If the goal of the devs is to force players to seek TP from other party members, that only makes sense if getting 1-2 boosts a fight is enough. But with Blood Weapon it's still not enough to avoid bottoming out on TP. So either giving DRK a self-sustaining TP ability works or reworking Blood Weapon will work.

2. If giving a self-sustaining ability is an option you can have sole survivor provide a TP boost in addition to HP/MP. 300 or 400 TP would go a long way. While it's an imperfect solution on a fight with no adds, most engagements don't have a lack of them and this is something that can help dramatically.

3. Additionally you can change the crossclass DRK uses from marauder to lancer. I think not only does this solve a lot of issues, the synergy makes sense far more than it does for marauder. Invigorate is an obvious help to TP. Keen Flurry synergizes well for things like Low Blow and Reprisal. In fact I think if you ask most PLD's they'd much rather have LNC as a cross class as well for reasons having to do with TP as well. MRD really just doesn't do all that much to support DRK (or PLD) as a cross class. Bloodbath and Foresight are not very useful skills for DRK.

4. You can change how Carve and Spit works by giving a TP restore. Honestly I have very ambiguous feelings about this ability. As a MT it's quite difficult to generate the MP you want and more often than I'd like, I end up using C/S to generate MP rather than boosting it for damage. One thing that I think would make for more enjoyable gameplay is to adjust the potency for an non-boosted C/S higher (from 100), lower the boosted C/S potency (from 45), but also give the boosted C/S TP return. So, for example: a regular C/S might have 250 or 300 potency while restoring MP. But a boosted C/S might have 350 or 400 while restoring TP. Or you can give both TP and MP return on unboosted C/S and leave the potencies the same, giving the player a pretty solid choice: replenish or go for damage.

As it is now I think C/S is a pretty awkward skill but some adjustments can make it a lot more enjoyable instead of a headache, worrying about sacrificing such an enormous amount of MP for a bit of burst damage.


Skill synergy:

5. Dark Dance when boosted gives evasion. But one of the best skills drk has, Blood Price, requires you to actually be hit to restore MP. Furthermore, Low Blow also activates when you parry an attack. Dark Dance really requires a rework. One thing I think might work is this: Remove Dark Mind as its own standalone ability and make that Dark Dance's boosted ability, replacing the evasion. So a normal Dark Dance would give 30% parry bonus. A DA boosted Dark Dance would give the 30% parry bonus as well as 30% magic damage reduction.

Grit and stance changing:

6. Grit is way too expensive and stance/role swapping in the same fight is made innately difficult. While some might offer that PLD also uses MP and has dealt with stance swapping just fine, there is a glaring, monumental difference: MP is DRK's main resource. In many fights tanks are expected to switch back and forth as necessary to complete their tasks. For WAR it's a matter of pressing a button without consequence. For PLD there is some consequence because switching between oaths costs a GCD, costs MP, and also kills any combo you were in the middle of. While it is clunky, the consequence is minimal because PLD isn't reliant on MP to handle primary actions.

DRK, however, uses MP for everything. If a DRK doesn't have MP, they are seriously hampered in their ability to perform. But as it is, stance switching is currently tied into MP cost at such a high number, switching grit off and then back on can end up destroying your available MP pool. Let's say you have 2k MP, you head to the carapace on bismark to do damage, and you drop grit while maintaining darkside. Bismark pushes you off before you kill the carapace, you now have 1k MP and adds will spawn soon. Unfortunately you don't have enough MP to put grit back on and you don't really have any great immediate options. And unfortunately this is one of the very common occurrences of any fight that will happen because of grit's very high cost. Again, having an oath cost 20% of a PLD's pool is not a big deal because they don't require MP to be functional. But a DRK will have pretty big lapses in function without it.

Right now I have to think twice about taking grit off because it might affect every action I make for the rest of the fight. It makes stance swapping extremely awkward. But at the same time just keeping grit on works counter to the things I might be required to do (like increase my damage for a phase). Stance swapping is an integral part of a tank's ability to optimally handle a fight. It should be independent of your primary resource. It most definitely shouldn't be tied in to MP because doing so prevents said tank from actually being able to complete their task efficiently. So lower the cost significantly, maybe from 20% to 10%. Even to 15% would help take some of the burden away, but in its current state it is tough to work with.

But it's not just Grit. Darkside itself takes a lot of your MP as well so toggling it off and on sometimes doesn't even feel worth it. And all this adds up to a not so great experience. Playing DRK makes me feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'd rather just play WAR or PLD if I'm forced to make decisions that don't feel fun.

Reprisal and OT utility:

7. Reprisal offers a great effect but only if you are the main tank. As an OT it can't be triggered and as such DRK doesn't bring as much utility to the table as a WAR. I can't imagine too many groups who are built for optimal progression wanting to take a DRK tank over a WAR, ever. And being lower on the totem pole of any job without offering extra benefits is pretty much a death knell for said job. One simple option might be to just put Reprisal on a straight cooldown without needing to trigger the parry. If the timers are the same (30 second cooldown, 20 second duration) it's actually highly useful without necessarily taking away from a PLD or a WAR's role.


I really want to like DRK a lot. But it is hard to justify playing it sometimes. It's awkward, clunky, and the gameplay isn't smooth. Playing it often is like you are fighting a battle against the job itself. But I think if some of these issues were addressed it could be made to be extremely enjoyable.

[Hundred]

Why are you being goons. Just have reprisal, and Low blows also proc off evasion.
I don't think twice about switching Grit off, Blood weapon replenishes a heap of mana and our two strongest damage combos require Syphon strike *anyways*.

The blood price deal is so trivial.

[Cidolfas86]

Why are you being goons. Just have reprisal, and Low blows also proc off evasion.
I don't think twice about switching Grit off, Blood weapon replenishes a heap of mana and our two strongest damage combos require Syphon strike *anyways*.

The blood price deal is so trivial.

The amount of MP Grit costs to put back up at 60 makes stance dancing for Blood weapon almost pointless.

Honestly Blood Price just feels like a redundant ability the way it is now. It would've been easier to just change Blood Weapon to the same thing when Grit is up and save us a hotbar space. Not to mention it doesn't synergize well with a lot of the DRK kit which seems to be a common problem with the class. Dropping Shadow wall to 120 sec, folding Blood Price into Blood weapon when Grit is up, and lowering the MP cost of various spells including Grit could be a great start. I mean Dark Passenger is way more expensive then it actually should be especially with Dark Arts and Darkside combined.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Dark Knight's need some serious changes, or they will not be wanted over the other 2 tanks. They have less dps and kind of silly mechanics. They also have less sustain, and worse cool-downs.

[Hundred]

The amount of MP Grit costs to put back up at 60 makes stance dancing for Blood weapon almost pointless.

Honestly Blood Price just feels like a redundant ability the way it is now. It would've been easier to just change Blood Weapon to the same thing when Grit is up and save us a hotbar space. Not to mention it doesn't synergize well with a lot of the DRK kit which seems to be a common problem with the class. Dropping Shadow wall to 120 sec, folding Blood Price into Blood weapon when Grit is up, and lowering the MP cost of various spells including Grit could be a great start. I mean Dark Passenger is way more expensive then it actually should be especially with Dark Arts and Darkside combined.

You don't drop grit for Blood weapons MP, you drop it to lose the damage debuff.

[Cidolfas86]

You don't drop grit for Blood weapons MP, you drop it to lose the damage debuff.

Most people aren't dropping it for that reason though. They're MP starved. And the MP cost for stance dancing as DRK still makes this prohibitive in the MT position. Grit costs way too much MP for no reason.

[Derio]

Grit cost way to much MP to be dropping it and then putting it back on. Blood weapon will restore just a little bit over the amount of the cost to cast grit and Dark Arts so its not worth it.

I have not had a problem with TP as DRK, unless the fight is insanely long and I dont have to do alot of movement.

I think last survivor should be set to 60s instead of 180s. Many of DRK cooldowns are crazy long. At least they are fixing the Dark Arts bug on Monday.

[DesFenrir]

I find the class functions very well and does adequate dps for its role. I think people are disappointed that it doesn't have game breaking dps. Instead it's a solid and reasonable tank class for people who tank, not try to be pseudo dps.

[Aerya]

The fact that we lose MP when being healed under Darkside is a bug, right? When will it be fixed?

[saber_alter]

snip

read the rest of the topic. DRK has pretty big problems that prevent it from doing well as a main tank or off tank. As a main tank it has (somewhat) gimped defensive cooldowns that don't have much synergy with eachother. As an off tank it's utility is gimped because some of it's abilities require you to be hit or parry to work effectively. stance dancing doesn't work either because of the cost of grit, and the SS boost blood weapon gives us often leaves us TP starved before the fight even reaches a half-way point. some of our abilities are also redundant or work too similarly other skills to justify their existence (abyssal drain- higher cost unmend+unleash in one GCD. blood price could have been combined with blood weapon to function differently depending on stance.)

The fact that we lose MP when being healed under Darkside is a bug, right? When will it be fixed?

yes, and it extends to any cooldown we pop, let fall off, and any DoTs and Hots on us.