Dark Knight: Still Searching for Your True Identity

[shao32]

Yeah thas part of this is a mmo, and all clases depend to others todo max they dps, even monk the only class how max they own dps get more dps with a dragoon in the team for battle litteany. DRK control they own mana when darkside is up, mage ballad and other mp skills don work on then, all whe know drk never drop darkside excep when bosses leave or out combate, is pretty independet.

[MiniPrinny]

Shao, while yes, this is true, Dark Knight is currently the only job that needs at least three other jobs to function adequately. A considerable amount of a Dark Knight's damage output is locked behind various weirdness. There is little rhyme nor reason to why some of the Job's major mechanics simply disappear or fail to matter outside of niche situations. Just as an example, since I am finally progressing through the fight, let's look at Fist of the Son (Savage), or A5S as many know it.

Looking at what a Dark Knight brings to the table, we have Delirium (INT reduction), Reprisal (all damage reduction), Low Blow (stun), Dark Mind (magic resistance), and strong AoE damage potential (Salted Earth, Abyssal Drain, Unleash).

Now then, let's look at where these abilities apply. Delirium only applies on one mechanic that his multiple small hits to the entire party, Shock Therapy. Reprisal, due to its unreliable nature, is difficult to time with the hardest hitting blows in the encounter Gobstraight, Gobcut, and Gobdash. Low Blow is only applicable to the Glassy-eyed Cobras. Dark Mind is virtually non-existent, since Shock Therapy deals such low damage and is even lower on a tank. Finally, a Dark Knight's AoE potential will most likely also be squandered due the common strategy being to use a caster or ranger limit break on the Pigs.

Now, let's look at how the other tanks abilities apply. Delirium is easily outclassed by both Storm's Path and Rage of Halone, Storm's Path applies to everything, while Rage of Halone applies to the much more heavy physical damage in this fight. On a similar note, Reprisal is again outclassed by those same two weapon skills. Low Blow has a longer cooldown than Brutal Swing, assuming no procs, which increases the margin of error for the Dark Knight compared to a Warrior, while Paladin trumps both since they just have to establish enmity and then can stun the cobra to death. Dark Mind meanwhile, while barely mattering, is outclassed by the unique traits that Warriors and Paladins have, those being a Warrior's higher health pool for taking Gobstraight, and Paladins having an on demand block that has an incredibly short cooldown and that can be easily stacked with other cooldowns.

And this is just looking at Dark Knight as a main tank in this fight. As soon as we remove them from that spot for whatever reason, they lose Reprisal outright, Dark Mind matters even less than it did before, and their AoE potential isn't just squandered, but ceases to exist. And this is on top of the Dark Knight losing total potency-per-second from not having parries available and being unable to drop Grit to relentlessly attack while Ratfinx Twinkledinks is in his normal goblin form. Meanwhile, Warriors and Paladins lose very little. Paladins lose Shield Swipe, which is only every 15 seconds and deals less damage than Reprisal, but a bit more than Low Blow while being more reliable due to Paladins being able to force blocks, so while Shield Swipe is a loss for a Paladin's output, it isn't as painful as losing Low Blow and Reprisal combined. In addition to Paladins only losing one ability, they also gain more freedom to use their support abilities to assist healers, be it spot healing, saving MP by casting Protect, or simply just giving extra wiggle room to the damage dealers through using Stoneskin during Prey. Warriors on the other hand lose nothing, which I still think is a problem, but that is for a different thread. And this is just the stuff for a single encounter, and the easiest encounter of the current raid tier. The situation grows worse as the tier progresses, with each fight stripping more of Dark Knight's capabilities away.

Speaking of their capabilities, Dark Knights, due to their weird mix of magical and physical damage need a total of at least five other Jobs to maximize their own damage output. Those five being Ninja, Bard, Machinist, Dragoon, and Monk. Going down the list, Ninjas are required not only for the slashing debuff provided by Dancing Edge and overall boost from Trick Attack, but also Shadewalker, which allows the tanking Dark Knight to have more leniency in removing Grit. Bards offer Foe Requium and, while I do not suggest this, Rain of Death to grant the Dark Knight not just more damage, but also free up their accuracy requirement a bit. Machinists offers the Rook Autoturret's Hypercharge, which increases their considerable physical damage output as well as the rest of the team's. Dragoons offers Battle Litany, an ability that has made the Job invaluable in any composition. And finally the irony of Monks, while not doing anything directly to boost the Dark Knight's damage, they free up innumerable Souleaters over the duration of a fight, Souleaters that would have been Delirium under different circumstances.

Now, this team could only exist in single-tank encounters, which there are extremely few of in Heavensward, as well as an encounter that would not require heavy magic damage supplied by having at least a single caster. In addition, this is more than any other Job in the game. Every other Job is either exceptionally self-reliant in comparison, or offers more to the party than what they take. Dark Knight is neither, it takes, and gives very little in return, and what it can give, it would rather not. So, while yes, Darkside gives an illusion of being independent, Dark Knights are heavily reliant on the situation at hand as well as possessing the right party composition, a composition that is also very awkward to maximize their output. This is a problem, a huge, disgusting problem that will slaughter the Job in the long run should their skill set remain unchanged.

[FallenWings]

...

Speaking of their capabilities, Dark Knights, due to their weird mix of magical and physical damage need a total of at least five other Jobs to maximize their own damage output. Those five being Ninja, Bard, Machinist, Dragoon, and Monk. Going down the list, Ninjas are required not only for the slashing debuff provided by Dancing Edge and overall boost from Trick Attack, but also Shadewalker, which allows the tanking Dark Knight to have more leniency in removing Grit. Bards offer Foe Requium and, while I do not suggest this, Rain of Death to grant the Dark Knight not just more damage, but also free up their accuracy requirement a bit. Machinists offers the Rook Autoturret's Hypercharge, which increases their considerable physical damage output as well as the rest of the team's. Dragoons offers Battle Litany, an ability that has made the Job invaluable in any composition. And finally the irony of Monks, while not doing anything directly to boost the Dark Knight's damage, they free up innumerable Souleaters over the duration of a fight, Souleaters that would have been Delirium under different circumstances.

Now, this team could only exist in single-tank encounters, which there are extremely few of in Heavensward, as well as an encounter that would not require heavy magic damage supplied by having at least a single caster. In addition, this is more than any other Job in the game. Every other Job is either exceptionally self-reliant in comparison, or offers more to the party than what they take. Dark Knight is neither, it takes, and gives very little in return, and what it can give, it would rather not. So, while yes, Darkside gives an illusion of being independent, Dark Knights are heavily reliant on the situation at hand as well as possessing the right party composition, a composition that is also very awkward to maximize their output. This is a problem, a huge, disgusting problem that will slaughter the Job in the long run should their skill set remain unchanged.

While most of your post is reasonable; these 'job requirements' are really superfluous.

In particular the MNK argument. You don't really stop rotating Delirium in a standard DRK rotation because you cannot maintain permanent DASE. Even if you argue in niche situations where a MNK would throw it on a newly spawned add instead of you, it really doesn't mean squat because generally adds don't do any threatening magic damage that would require the 10% to be rotated in, and you would rotate it yourself otherwise as the aforementioned inability to maintain perma DASE. This is a marginal and completely niche situation. Delirium has such an extensive uptime, it really doesn't mean squat if it drops for a 3-5 seconds, because more often than not, you'll have it up again because DE > SE.

Thus it really boils down to 'four' jobs that aid in DRK's upper performance in a broader spectrum.
Bard? Foe Requiem at best applies to what... Dark Passenger. Sometimes even. This marginal gain is again, almost equivalent to a War 'needing' a Bard for Warden's Paen.
AoE Situation? You are always going to have a BRD for every AoE situation simply because Casters are flat out > than Phys here, and no physical orientated debuff can be conveniently applied to everything without sacrifice in massive potency loss that would've came from natural AoE GCD.

Three.

Battle Litany, Trick Attack, and Rook Hyper charge. All of which apply to WAR and PLD equally, and all of NIN's utilities are effective on all tanks. You can argue Shadewalker does indeed benefit DRK and mostly PLD more, but again, marginal gain in the grand scheme.

So really, the only janky thing is that you would actually want a NIN DRG BRD MCH to fully feed the DRK parse, and as far as I can tell, that's feasible when everyone has everything on farm. Even then, the BRD is going to be replaced with a MNK because it's own personal DPS outstrips the tiny 15-30pot you would get for a Foe'd Dark Passenger that happens... every 2 minutes?

[Nektulos-Tuor]

While most of your post is reasonable; these 'job requirements' are really superfluous.

In particular the MNK argument. You don't really stop rotating Delirium in a standard DRK rotation because you cannot maintain permanent DASE. Even if you argue in niche situations where a MNK would throw it on a newly spawned add instead of you, it really doesn't mean squat because generally adds don't do any threatening magic damage that would require the 10% to be rotated in, and you would rotate it yourself otherwise as the aforementioned inability to maintain perma DASE. This is a marginal and completely niche situation. Delirium has such an extensive uptime, it really doesn't mean squat if it drops for a 3-5 seconds, because more often than not, you'll have it up again because DE > SE.

Thus it really boils down to 'four' jobs that aid in DRK's upper performance in a broader spectrum.
Bard? Foe Requiem at best applies to what... Dark Passenger. Sometimes even. This marginal gain is again, almost equivalent to a War 'needing' a Bard for Warden's Paen.
AoE Situation? You are always going to have a BRD for every AoE situation simply because Casters are flat out > than Phys here, and no physical orientated debuff can be conveniently applied to everything without sacrifice in massive potency loss that would've came from natural AoE GCD.

Three.

Battle Litany, Trick Attack, and Rook Hyper charge. All of which apply to WAR and PLD equally, and all of NIN's utilities are effective on all tanks. You can argue Shadewalker does indeed benefit DRK and mostly PLD more, but again, marginal gain in the grand scheme.

So really, the only janky thing is that you would actually want a NIN DRG BRD MCH to fully feed the DRK parse, and as far as I can tell, that's feasible when everyone has everything on farm. Even then, the BRD is going to be replaced with a MNK because it's own personal DPS outstrips the tiny 15-30pot you would get for a Foe'd Dark Passenger that happens... every 2 minutes?

Scourge is a magical based dot not physical (No idea why?). Scourge is also one of the Darks main DPS tools so it does benefit them a lot with Bard.

What hes saying I think though is he raises a good point is they need so much less to reach full potential. They are are not nearly as clunky. Warrior feels so fluid and fun compared to Dark Knight when I feel like I am constantly playing babysitter with my mana pool. It also just has no identity for itself. "Magical" Defense Tank just does NOT work.

[FallenWings]

I don't believe DoT ticks are affected by Resistance down effects hence why I left it out. Although I'm not sure on this so LF> correction in this regard.

[Kabooa]

Scourge is a magical based dot not physical (No idea why?). Scourge is also one of the Darks main DPS tools so it does benefit them a lot with Bard.

What hes saying I think though is he raises a good point is they need so much less to reach full potential. They are are not nearly as clunky. Warrior feels so fluid and fun compared to Dark Knight when I feel like I am constantly playing babysitter with my mana pool. It also just has no identity for itself. "Magical" Defense Tank just does NOT work.

Worked great when there was a ton of magical damage.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't believe DoT ticks are affected by Resistance down effects hence why I left it out. Although I'm not sure on this so LF> correction in this regard.

If not, then Arcanist has been screwed this whole time. Given that their damage really is being increased by approximately 10% with Foe up, and a good portion of that is DoT damage, I'd assume DoT ticks are affected by resistance down, in snapshot (apart from ground AoEs, which would have to be affected live). In which case, Foe can be dropped as soon as Scourge has been applied, Dark Passenger used, etc..

Though then again, I heard that Salted Earth does... physical damage ticks??? Which would require DE or SE on every single enemy in the AoE to pay off...

I feel like DRK's dependence situation would be better if just two things were to occur: Salted Earth were straight magic, and if all attacks during Blood Weapon (and DA-SE individually) always dealt the damage type to which the enemy is most vulnerable at the time (between physical and unaspected magic).

Overall, though, I'd like the idea that DRK is tuned as to be only getting standard slashing (and perhaps Rook hypercharge) support, but can further benefit from Foes as free dps. I'd rather they simply reap more from their dependencies than try to somehow eliminate those dependencies.

. Also, DoTs aren't effected by "elemental" resistance down

That tooltip on Foe Requiem was already corrected back around 2.1 or earlier, from "elemental" (which we assumed didn't work on Arcanist "unaspected" magic) to "magic". I can't quite remember if it was already doing that, and just written wrongly or not though. Iirc, it was already aiding SMN/SCH/Pet damage, including their DoTs.

[MiniPrinny]

For FallenWings, I really wasn't attempting to say that it was required, just pointing out one of the issues with Dark Knights, which is how difficult they are to optimize. Being split between two damage types in this game is extremely painful,. Also, DoTs aren't effected by "elemental" resistance down, for example Storm's Eye, however they are effected by things like Trick Attack, the Autoturrets, and Foe Requium. Also, yeah... magical DoT on a physical attack.

Edit: Shurrikhan and I posted around the same time, but yes, Salted Earth is physical. Because of this, Salted Earth, outside of something like the Balance or Battle Litany, is impossible to boost. Most physical DoTs have this issue though.

[shao32]

yup yup i dont say no, stills DRK give more dps compared to paladin, more problem is what DRK offer to the party, excep the excelent magic mitigation thats make it so easy to heal and the second best tank dps.

im not worried about my max dps by party bonus and im in 1050 without then, sure i can have more but my raid demand me go like ninja so i dont buy more gear for DRK this last weeks, excep faust all raid boses have only dps check for the 4 dps, of course more dps more easy and bla bla bla, but now is more what DRK need for the OT spot that how to max my dps with the party bonus, is more important find a configuration to max DPS dps.

nektulos: yup war is the most easy class to get full dps potency, but is not the most fluid, DRK with all ogc you are all time mix it, when war only have that feeling in berseck mode, at least is when i use my buffs to do the derp mode, the rest of the time is stuck in the gc like paladin except for defensive or infuriate you want to use.

and the magical tank, i remember you before 3.2 drk was the indiscutible MT in all raid, meaby lacks a little in as2 but he can dealt the turn perfectly, dark mind is the best magical defensive in the game, high potency and short recast, if a boss have a magic tank buster that cast more that 60 seconds DRK never run out defensives in that fight.

[Gameplayzero]

nektulos: yup war is the most easy class to get full dps potency

paladin? Its dps rotation is the easiest out of the tanks. You have no stack mechanic, infuriate, triple fell cleave, decimate, raw intuition/vengeance for added stacks, or no storms eye/maim to worry about. Just 2 oGCDS, your dot, and mainly spamming your flashy as fuck dps combo right after your dot.

3 oGCDS if you are main tanking.