Dark Knight Feedback

[Calib0s]

First and foremost I'd like to take the time to say that I find Dark Knight to be an extremely fun class to play. I really enjoy how active the class feels compared to the other two tanks, both in terms of mobility through plunge (something I've always wanted for Warrior!) and the sheer number of off GCD abilities that you have access to. It feels fast paced and fresh compared to the other two tanks, and at its best gives you many second-to-second decisions to make about how to best use your resources.

I also feel that Dark Knight has its place in the current raid environment and fills its niche of anti-magic tank fairly well. I feel that they are likely superior to Paladin as MT in A1, and will likely be so in A4 as well. They aren't in a bad place right now largely due to the current encounter design, assuming they are paired with a Warrior.

There are, however, a few issues I feel need to be addressed regardless.


1. Dark Knight is objectively the worst Off tank.
- A Paladin Off Tank provides extremely potent defensive abilities in Clemency, Divine Veil, STR down, and Stoneskin, while still being capable of putting out significant damage.

- A Warrior Off Tank provides a -10% reduction to all damage, as well as the slashing vulnerability debuff. They require no outside assistance whatsoever since they bring their own vulnerability debuff and have effectively infinite TP due to their free attacks and Equilibrium. They are also able to easily switch from DPS to tanking at a moments notice, and can even do so with almost no significant damage loss if the swap is for a short duration due to Unchained.

- While Dark Knight does competitive DPS with Warrior off tanks (provided they have access to the slashing debuff), they offer very little else to the raid. If your group has a monk, the Dark Knight brings nothing to the table at all beyond resource-limited DPS. And if the Dark Knight needs to swap into tank stance, they are at a significant disadvantage compared to the other two tanks since Grit is so expensive and they lose access to Blood Weapon.

Suggestions: I would really like to see Dark Knight bring more to the raid in the form of buffs and debuffs. The -10% int debuff is fine (though redundant), but they need to be able to provide their -10% damage debuff while off tanking or they will never be a real option vs. a Warrior. It would be interesting to see some other enfeeblements from Dark Knight as well such as, perhaps, a magic vulnerability debuff.




2. DRK consumes TP at an alarming rate, and has no means of restoring it.

- The crux of Dark Knight gameplay is supposed to be skillfully managing MP, however this is currently pretty trivial. TP on the other hand is a constant struggle. I’m running dry 2:00-2:30 into the fight, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it currently other than just sit around for a while.

- It is particularly unfun not being able to continue your basic rotation even when playing optimally. Running out of TP should be a punishment for poor play, not a foregone conclusion.

- This is also somewhat of a problem for Paladins, but at least in their case they can lean on their spells to provide non-DPS benefits to the raid and regain some TP. Shield Swipe also provides some (minor) TP restoration.

Suggestion: Dark Knight either needs access to a TP restoration ability of some kind, or should be more encouraged to use their spells in a single target situation to help alleviate TP expenditure.



3. The mana cost on Grit is prohibitively expensive and unfairly punishes DRK compared to the other two tanks when they need to change stances.

- While the mana cost is fairly similar (proportionally) to Sword Oath / Shield Oath, Paladins do not have the additional MP burden of Darkside and Dark Arts.

- Paladins rarely use their mana for tanking outside of flash, and have tools to quickly restore it in addition to lacking the constant drain DRK has.

- Warrior, of course, has very little penalty since the stances are both free and off the GCD. The 10 second cooldown between stance swaps very rarely matters.

Suggestion: Significantly lower or remove the mana cost from Grit.



4. The Reprisal debuff can only be applied inconsistently, has low uptime compared to Storm’s Path even in a best-case scenario, and cannot be applied at all while off tanking.

- Being unable to provide this debuff consistently, or indeed at ALL while offtank is a serious hindrance to DRKs ability to perform, and makes pairing them with a Paladin undesirable.

Suggestion: Dark Knight should be able to consistently apply the -10% damage debuff while tanking or off-tanking.



5. Unleashed becomes almost entirely useless as soon as you gain access to Abyssal Drain.

- Abyssal Drain fills exactly the same role as Unleashed, but does more DPS and is ranged. It’s extremely rare that I’ll use Unleashed at all (usually only if I get a free proc from unmend). At this point, it is a totally uncessary tool and wastes a spell slot that could be used for something more useful.

Suggestion: I would like to see Unleashed apply some sort of debuff to each target hit so that it will still be used in the dark knight AoE rotation (Reduced damage, magic vulnerability, Attack speed reduction, a DOT effect… anything really).



6. Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain is prohibitively expensive for relatively little benefit.

- It costs an absolutely absurd amount of mana to DA a single Abyssal Drain, and to be perfectly frank the healing provided is pretty underwhelming in any reasonable scenario. To be honest, I’d really like to see Abyssal Drain *always* drain some amount of health (25%-50% without Dark Arts, 100% with Dark Arts

Suggestion: I would like to see Dark arts increase the potency of Abyssal Drain by 100% in addition to providing the healing. This is less efficient than simply casting Abyssal Drain twice and forgoing DA entirely, but it can be used to cause a large amount of up-front threat / damage and some potent healing. Sacrificing efficiency for effectiveness seems to fits the theme that Darkside/Dark Arts is supposed to represent.



7. Blood price restores very little mana when tanking a single, slow hitting target, or against spell casting enemies.

- Blood price is an excellent MP restoration tool when in extremely large packs of melee enemies, but provides little appreciable benefit against spell casters, bosses, or other large and powerful enemies.

Suggestion: I would like to see Blood price restore a percentage of damage received as mana rather than a set amount per hit so that it is useful against bosses and slower, harder hitting enemies.



8. Dark Dance is an extremely unreliable and fairly weak cooldown against a single target, and using Dark Arts to empower it has drawbacks in the best case scenario and is completely ineffective in the worst case.

- Dark Arts + Dark Dance has two major issues. First off, the dodge rating that it applies is completely useless against raid bosses since nothing of consequence can be dodged. Second, against trash packs it provides significant (though random) damage reduction, but it negatively impacts the amount of mana restored when using Blood Price, generally when you need that mana the most.

Suggestion: Change the effect Dark Arts has on Dark Dance. Instead of providing 20% evasion, which is effectively useless in raid content, I would like to see it increase Parry Chance by an additional 20%, and increase the amount of damage reduced when parrying to 40% for the duration of the buff. This provides a similar benefit in most situations and removes the penalty of using this ability paired with Blood Price.


9. Carve and Spit does not provide enough MP restoration to make it worth using without Dark Arts.

- Using Dark Arts to buff Carve and Spit provides +350 potency. Using it without Dark Arts only provides 50% MP cost of a single Dark Arts (Effectively you can consider this to be worth ½ of the bonus potency provided to Soul Eater by Dark Arts, so +70 from CAS in most cases).

Suggestion: Carve and Spit should provide significantly more MP for the restoration effect to be useful. Currently, it is almost always a loss to use Carve and Spit without Dark Arts except in a complete emergency situation (i.e. you can’t afford to switch Grit on and need it immediately) or very large AoE pulls.


10. Shadow Wall is a pretty lackluster ability given its cooldown.

- Compared to the similar abilities given to Warrior and Paladin (Vengeance and Sentinel) it is strictly inferior to both, and not really made up for elsewhere in the Dark Knight kit.

- It doesn’t provide much more damage reduction than shadow skin, and for half the duration and twice the cooldown. I also feel that its long cooldown leaves a significant gap in the Dark Knight’s defenses where they are vulnerable for a period of time that Warrior or Paladin have no problems covering at the moment.

Suggestion: I’d like to see the cooldown reduced significantly (and perhaps made buffable by Dark Arts).


11. Sole Survivor is a pretty underwhelming ability.

- It’s nice to get a little bit of mana back to continue AoEing during a trash pull or to get ready for the next wave, but doesn’t serve any real purpose in most encounters.

- Even if you can reliably use it on cooldown, the healing is almost never useful and the MP restore is quite low - Not even enough to cover a single Dark Arts.

Suggestion: I’d like to see the “Another Victim” debuff weaken the target it’s placed on for the duration of the debuff.



12. Living Dead has significant drawbacks compared to the other two tanks’ emergency buttons, requiring more coordination and continued throughput from the healers in order for it to be effective at all. On top of this, it has a pretty massive cooldown.

- Hallowed ground is, of course, the king of emergency cooldowns. This can completely trivialize otherwise difficult phases, give your healers a much needed respite and gives them time for some free DPS or to resurrect / heal up the party and ignore the tank.

- Holmgang can be used to survive powerful tank busters without requiring a damage reduction cooldown or significant preparation from the healers, and is available often enough that it can be used several times throughout the fight.

- Living dead’s one advantage is its potentially large duration (up to 20 seconds of safety assuming you take fatal damage at the end of the buff and the healers wait until Living Dead is about to fall off to heal you up), however, this is a pretty unrealistic scenario. It effectively provides very little security, and your healers can’t afford to ignore you for very long due to the possibility of death. Healing early also removes the Walking Dead buff, making the Dark Knight vulnerable again earlier than the other cooldowns.

Suggestion: Living Dead should either be made more powerful to compensate for its long cooldown and inherent drawbacks , or the cooldown should be reduced. In general I would like this to be a bit of a more reliable cooldown.

[Calib0s]

This is by no means meant to be totally comprehensive, nor am I meaning to imply that all or any of these changes are necessary for Dark Knight to be a viable tank, though I do feel that some of these issues will need to be addressed for Dark Knight to feel a bit more complete.

These are merely suggestions, and of course there are myriad other possible solutions that could yield good results for Dark Knights.

[Edit] I've decided to reel this in a bit and removed most of my specific ideas for possible solutions in order to keep the discussion focused on the issues themselves.

[TouchandFeel]

I agree with the issues presented but have mixed feelings on some of the solutions.
The list you present hits on most of my issues with DRK, however I would add that the evasion buffs from DA'd Dark Passenger and Dark Dance seem to not synergize with the job very well.

(Edit: you added on to it after I posted XD )

[Hundred]

Just remove the healing requirement of Living dead or drop it to 25%. Then it falls right in line with Holmgang...which also has no healing requirement puts you to 1 health and comes of CD 2 minutes earlier.

If I were a creative person... Living dead would boost the Health absorb of Soul Eater if not all actions to fit thematically with this "zombie" idea, but themes =/= balance so eh.

I don't compare Reprisal to Storm path. I compare it to Shields swipe which is also technically damage mitigation but is a status effect that many enemies are immune to rendering its damage mitigation irrelevant in most situations. To this end Reprisal is pretty good as it is.

I think carve & spit gives sufficient MP. While players think primarily of damage, Carve & spit gives a emergency small burst of MP if required in a pinch with a small damage addition. This just makes the MP useage niche, not useless.

As a side comment.
Outside of a change for Living dead. I wouldn't say there's much wrong at all you can basically put it up as
Living Dead, Utility, relative mitigation value as things to consider.

Blood price doesn't restore a lot of mana on a single target because you basically don't consume a lot of mana on a single target. Abyssal, Unmend, Unleash, Grit, Dark Passenger (aoe_ and Dark arts are where your mana goes. Dark side is covered simply by using Syphon strike once every 20 so thats not a problem. Unmend, Abyssal and Unleash basically get thrown out the window once you have aggro unless you run out of TP for Unmends. If Grit needs to be put up that means Blood weapon was available prior so thats not an issue. Basically once you establish aggro its just Dark Passengers and Dark arts all that eats up mana. There isn't much requirement to waste mana on a single target, given Dark Mind is the only reliable mitigation offered. It'll basically just go to Soul eaters otherwise, but that gets remedied by just holding off a DA SE combo to do 1 delirium/SE combo.

[Allyrion]

11. Sole Survivor is a pretty underwhelming ability.

- It’s nice to get a little bit of mana back to continue AoEing during a trash pull or to get ready for the next wave, but doesn’t serve any real purpose in most encounters.

- I’d like to see the “Another Victim” debuff weaken the target it’s placed on for the duration of the debuff.

Suggestion: “Another Victim” reduces the amount of damage the target deals to the Dark Knight by 15% and Increases the damage the target receives from the Dark Knight by 15% for 15 seconds.

Sole Survivor is underwhelming. I love that ability. Using it well is one of the most fun parts of playing DRK to me.

It's 20% mana at the very least. The heal randomly helpful - can be amazing, can be entirely overheal - but that's okay, since the mana is always useful.

There are few fights in this game where you can't use this. Actually, it's reliably useful on every Alex fight and the Ex Primals, so pretty much all serious Endgame Content.

Though it's limited to certain parts of the fight in some cases, it's off cooldown on others. That's just the type of ability it is.
Not all abilities have to always be useful, it's a powerful niche ability. And by niche, I mean it should still get used in every fight and has decent returns when it does get used.
Also it's very reliable due since it has a 15s wait for the target to die.

I would only want the CD to be like 90s instead of 120s. Otherwise, I love Sole Survivor.

Also, I don't like your suggestion because I find the most usage on adds that don't attack me or I don't necessarily attack. I.e. Ravana's Ghana, Dolls in A4, Robots in A1, Adds I'm not tanking in A2 and Bismarck.
Like your idea sounds like a very good CD, but I don't think Sole Survivor needs that tacked on to it.
It currently has that freedom that anything that dies around you, you can eat. If that was added, you'll be using it on the boss and it's just another boss CD.

[Faytte]

Overpowering suggestions.


DRK have great aoe and good single target. You provide a debuff which is used in many encounters at the moment, and you trade a paladins utility for much better damage. A war tanks has better debuffs, for certain, but your debuffs are in line with a paladins (one debuff, effects only one type of damage).

If you want things like utility or defensives to compare to a paladin, id say you should then loose some damage.


Not every class gets a tp regen. Paladins --again-- dont. You are *not* a dps--and while warriors do, they are meant to excel as off tanks. Between ninjas, astro, machinist and bard, you can regain tp. More so, you can simply throw in unmakes to your combo for 150 magic damage that allows you to recover 60 tp every time its used. If you use 3 unmakes every 1.5 ish minutes, you have mimicked all the tp regen from equilibirum.

Dark Arts + Drain is meant for mass aoe pulls, where blood price gives you a ton of mana back. The cost in these cases is irrelevant.

On the opposite hand, blood price is not meant to be free mana on single targets--where you are not using that much MP (note: all of your AOE is heavily mp focused, ergo why Blood Price works really well in AOE situations). Basic mana management is needed here.

Dark dance is 20 seconds, 1 minute cd for 30% parry and 20% dodge. Even without the dodge (since some things ignore it, especially in raids) you have an ability that gives you half the benefits of Bulwark (considered an iconic paladin cd) but has 33% more update (20 seconds vs 15) and 1/3 the cd (60 seconds vs 180 seconds). This is a great cd. Not all cd's are supposed to be straight damage mitigation.

Stopped reading at this point. Tiresome to read so many DRK's not understand how their class actually is balanced against others -.- Reading them you think they want to dps like a war, and mitigate like a paladin, as well as have equal utility.

Paladin: low damage, -no- real aoe, good mitigation (mostly physical), good utility
DRK: Amazing AOE, best magic defense, access to many short cds, the most OGCD attacks of any tank (over 2K potency is OGCD per minute), best damage while staying in tank stance.
War: Best OT, best burst damage, good debuffs, most anal as far as MT given IB takes a GCD to proc and its buff does not last through all types of busters.

Dark needs some fixes but mostly in duplicity. Their power is -just- fine. Savage is being cleared with darks in the party and I've heard no complaints from those FC's yet. More an issue of people new to tanking.

[Calib0s]

There are few fights in this game where you can't use this. Actually, it's reliably useful on every Alex fight and the Ex Primals, so pretty much all serious Endgame Content.

I'm aware of the situations in which Sole Survivor is usable. I take advantage of it whenever I can, because why not.

However, that doesn't make the ability good or particularly useful. It restores roughly 1300 MP, so not even enough for a single Dark Arts. It grants you one additional Abyssal drain every two minutes in the absolute best case scenario. The HP restore is largely inconsequential since it's not something your healers will be anticipating. If you're low enough for the healing to matter, they likely already have a heal queued up for you. It is almost always overhealing, or causes the next healing spell to be so.

Not saying my suggestion is even a great solution - these are really just throwing ideas at the wall in order to spark a discussion about potential solutions to what I feel are pretty underwhelming parts of the Dark Knight kit. I personally feel that this ability needs to provide more than what it currently does.

Do you feel that it's really useful in its current incarnation?

[Habien]

Snip

Your bias is a bit blinding, you may want to see a doctor.

[Calib0s]

Words

From reading your reply, it's pretty obvious that you barely skimmed the post. That's fine.You're entitled to your opinion, but quite frankly if you're not even willing to read through the full post you can't offer much to the discussion. And to be perfectly blunt, based off of your response here and looking at your lodestone profile, it seems like you probably don't have much relevant end-game experience.

But yes, Dark Knights are perfectly viable main tanks at the moment. I say as much in my post. It's not like this is a Warrior 2.0 situation, and if you gathered that I was trying to imply that (even though I went to lengths specifically to avoid that...) I apologize. However, I feel that they are useless as an off tank and can't imagine a serious progression group using one as such in Savage and that's something that does severely impact place in a raid comp.

I also find several abilities in the kit redundant, weak, or borderline pointless in the end-game environment. That doesn't mean that Dark Knight is bad, nor are they the only class with weak or bad skills in their kit. I think that all such skills should be improved, but it would take more effort than I'm willing to give at the moment to go over them all.

You're focusing on the suggestions, but that's really not the point of my post. Just me throwing a few ideas out. I don't expect most of these to be considered as a real solution. The point is mainly to highlight the areas in which I feel Dark Knight is lacking.

[Faytte]

My end game? I did t13 before it was put into duty finder on two characters (my balmung toon and later, on my lamia toon). We havn't done A1 savage yet (our dps is having a hard time) but I'm not sure what that means.

Dark Knights are perfectly viable. They need tweaks. Your suggestions are seen in many other similar posts, and I picked apart what needed to be picked apart. Your solution for Dark dance was to make it give you 50% total parry for 20 seconds/1 minute cd? While Bulwark is 60% block for 15 seconds/3 minute cd? Lots of what you posted is power mongering, and on the point that I agree (abyssal drain makes unmend useless) is hardly holding back the class.


My point is, your class is fine--not perfect,--it needs a tweak but leagues away from the scope that you are asking it to be (which since you are seeing my load stone--you'll note I've gotten all 3 tanks up to 60, and yes--i've been alternating between all of them at the moment to get a good feel on each before I end up throwing my lot to one with esoterics---which will probably end up being WAR. Paladins are in an awkward situation atm).