DRK tanking. A little bit of pain.

[Fluffernuff]

Actually, Soul Eater can reduced by 8% instead 20%, if you use Darkside to boost the strength of the attack.

Clemency has it's own penalty of (A) a ridiculous MP cost for a class with less MP recovery options, and (B) a cast time, so you have to wait until after a big hit before casting it, which risks a healer of topping you off instead and wasting the MP, or you dying. If you try to pre-cast it for a tankbuster, it will be interrupted.

ah yes, i forgot about darkside. in my brain i thought it worked like blood weapon. forgive me, im a bit tired.

and I'm aware of clemency's downsides as well, though my only point was the MP costs are actually farily similar. and clemency just frankly... heals for more, and it's immediate heal is far more useful. even if it's interrupted by a tank buster, its still a 2sec cast as opposed to taking 2 GCDs for a lesser heal from DASE.

MP wise, if youre using DASE for the heal, we lose our BIGGEST MP regen tool in Blood Weapon. We still have CnS and Blood price though. I feel riot blade and syphon strike kinda even out for comparison. Though it's hard to really add those, as CnS is a 60s CD so its not like its always there for MP, and Blood Price's effectiveness drops dramatically single-target. both are still better than Sheltron though, for MP. Though last I checked, PLD doesnt really use all that much MP for single targets and bosses. so that cost isnt as painful to PLD and dark arts is to DRK, though clemency STILL isnt something you can spam, I agree.
Another thing to note about clemency is that it IS a magic healing effect, so it does get that niftly little convalescence boost. I dont know if you would want to consider Divine veil in this either, since its not strictly an effect from clemency

[Ekimmak]

I think in the grand scheme of things, Clemency is terrible to compare with Soul Eater. Soul eater isn't strong, but it's reliable frequently. Clemency is powerful, but expensive to use. Trying to push Soul Eater to the level of Clemency is going to get something broken, and I think it'd be better to come up with a different way to give Dark Knight a potent self-heal.

I personally think it's a bit like a scholar of tanks: it lacks things the others have, but it has things of its own that they don't have, so it's a bit hard to tell where to improve it without making it a far superior choice to the others.

[Fluffernuff]

Oh man, i wouldnt even want souleater to heal like clemency, that isn't what I was advocating at all! I just think Clemency is far more reliable as a self-heal tool than spamming DASE in grit.

What I feel is that DRK DOESNT have "self heals" not when i can see clemency. not when I can see equilibrium. not when my best healing option is "borrowed" from somewhere else.

If i need to kill something to heal, I'm not healing. If thats the design, I need to hit like Fell Cleave. i need to KILL things.

All things said, I adore DRK. I'm still pretty fresh, I'm a filthy casual who doesn't raid, and I'm probably sitting here talking out my chunky rear, but I do think DRK has a legitimate weakness in it's self-sustain. without a healer, a DRK just has to accept their fate...the other 2 can at least sustain themselves for a while

[Drkdays]

Maybe they could do something like a reverse convert if they want to add a simple "click this for health" button. Sacrifice mana for health. That would make sense if they changed it so not everything required mana. You could have the option to cut down your health a bit for an attack and quickly regen it with this skill IF you chose to.

[ADVSS]

DA SE is really comparable to the mp cost of clemency except...shield oath/.sword doesnt constantly steal mp from the tank in passive. im actually glad that you guys address this the amount per DA is very close to clemency's overall cost. you cant break combo to SE either. it isnt on demand, its on the fly in its own combo..sure my mp management might suck compared to true DRK mains, but DS drawback, to me, cancels out the unreasonable mp cost. BP isnt that great on single target, no one is fooled here, it just isnt that good for bosses, its a niche cd that works gathering trash but hey so is abyssal in that one situration over many that tanks face .

[JackFross]

Alright, so. No numbers. Let me title this ^

You are asking for a drastic overhaul of Dark Knight as a tank. That's cool - I'd be down for something that upends a thing and makes it better, more engaging, more fun to play, etc.

The reason I am adamantly against this idea is the simple fact of parity.

The three tanks as they stand right now are well-balanced as much as they can be. We have PLD/DRK vying for one tank slot, WAR taking the third. In the same vein, we have the Casters split evenly on BLM/SMN and ranged working well with BRD/MCH. Melee have 3 slots to fill with MNK/NIN vying for one slot and DRG holding solid in the second. Healers, similarly, have WHM/AST wanting one slot, with SCH firmly holding the second.

That's not to say that you can't run DRK/PLD as your tanks or WHM/AST as your healers or even MNK/NIN as your dps - it is simply just sub-optimal to do so. When aiming for progression, you pick optimal composition as much as possible in order to push harder and minimize things that may hold you back. This is the reason that Bard has fallen out of favor. With comps favoring 2 melee - 1 ranged - 1 caster, MCH having a physical damage buff is greatly preferred to BRD.

But why is this relevant to the discussion? Why does this matter?

Because a shift in the gameplay and core design element of Dark Knight from Mana as a primary resource to Health instead would fundamentally shift the current meta to favor - one hundred percent of the time - a PLD/WAR split or 100% of the time a DRK/WAR split... Not an option - one would be strictly better in all ways. I'll explain why below, but by all means, feel free to raise other points I do not argue in following posts. It's a discussion, and this is just my opinion.

The basic idea is obvious. DRK now uses Health for its attacks and gets more self-heals to justify it, allowing it to maintain sustain while dealing damage in the flavor of past incarnations of the Dark Knight - High Risk / High Reward. Excellent gameplay choices, if this were a solo endeavor. Unfortunately, it isn't. As I see it, there are two different ways to manage such a health-cost system for the Dark Knight - either one makes it completely imbalanced one way or the other.

Basic issues

Costs for skills scale with level. TP is a constant value, so TP costs are constant. Mana costs are level-scaling, and Mana is a sub-stat that you can choose whether or not to increase. Health is a primary stat which is naturally increased over the course of a patch cycle from start to finish. This will fundamentally alter how much each skill costs - it will either render skills with static costs less expensive as health increases or it will render skills with percentage costs MORE expensive as health increases (because as health increases, defense rises with it, so every point of health becomes more valuable - 20% of 25k health is a much higher cost than 20% of 20k health).

Secondly, not counting the health damage, we're also looking at self-heals that need to be strong enough to offset such health damage. If they are sufficiently powerful, you run into a Tank who - logically - would become the best possible slot for main-tank. You could simply eschew wasting your Health on any of those offensive/defensive options and instead just lean on your self-heals to keep yourself alive. Regardless how much dps or even mitigation you lose by doing this, you'll gain it ALL back by way of having what would have to be the most effective/efficient self-heals in the game.

Option 1 - Full Health Costs

Dark Knight's Darkside move now constantly drains health. All skills now cost health instead of Mana. All Mana regens become Health regens instead. I won't talk numbers, since it would all change.

The issue with this method is that Dark Knight instantly becomes the straight up weakest Tank. Granted, it could be modified to make Darkside a DPS stance that you'd only ideally use as the Off-Tank for a high-risk/high-reward damage-dealing role. Which sounds cool! Sure, let's do that... but then DRK becomes the only Tank Job which cannot realistically utilize their OT stance while tanking. Sword Oath only loses 20% mitigation. Deliverance loses 25% health. Darkside loses 20% mitigation AND causes you to leak health on top of the damage coming in.

Hands-down, this method would decrease Dark Knights currently comparable DPS to a level that would essentially make it outmoded by Paladin. If they upped potencies across the board to account for it, you would have a massive skill gap between normal Dark Knights and the top-end Dark Knights who have healers babysitting them to maintain their drastically terrible Health management.

See - Darkside works as it is because it is an independent state of being. No one on the outside can impact how much Mana you have. It's your resource to manage. You need to take a hit to your damage - and a MAJOR one - to restore Mana mid-fight from an outside source (except during downtime). Switching this to Health beat-for-beat does one of two things:

A) It makes your Health your new resource, thus NO outside heals can help you while under the effect of Darkside. Suddenly you will either be THE WORST TANK FULLSTOP or your self-heals will be so powerful that you won't need a healer healing you - thus full-time DPS from both healers outside of raid damage. #broken

B) Your offensive and defensive power lives and dies by the skill of your healer. Your health drops and you're only saved by the healer's good graces. Now, people complain enough about Living Dead being worthless because healer skill in DF is below average. Imagine applying that to EVERY SINGLE TIME you press Dark Arts and chunk your own health, thinking you'll be fine, only to be slapped down to near-death, healer is slow OOPS you died. This sort of scenario would be common under this assumption/change.

I have more points to make, but I'll leave it at this, for now.

Option 2 - Some Key Skills Cost Health

Dark Knight remains largely unchanged, but a few key skills now cost Health instead of Mana for two reasons - to make Mana management easier across the board and to fulfill the requirement of past lore adherence. I won't pretend to know which skills these are or would be, but the fact remains Dark Knight would spend health on some skills, now.

Everyone knows and agrees that, in order to counteract this and remain a Tank, the Dark Knight will need to get a buff to its ability to heal itself in combat. These heals NEED TO offset the incoming damage from your offensive (or defensive) skill spending, otherwise you will require additional heals from the healers and thus fall out of use in the meta. This is bad.

So, you now have a few skills here and there that cost health for reasons and also more potent self-heals to offset it. Great. Bully for you. Now, what's stopping you from pulling a boss and tanking it while never touching any of the skills that cost Health? If you never do, you could then just use your improved / better-than-PLD/WAR self-heals to keep yourself up with less healer involvement, thus actively outmoding Paladin, straight up.

And then - on top of this - there's another glaring issue with this. Dark Knight already currently has an identity crisis. It's being pulled in a hundred different directions with Parry synergy, Dodge and Blind effects, half-assed Leech abilities, and a poorly-thought-out Dark Arts skill that barely affects anything. You want to add on to this design another complication by making them now be unsure whether Mana or Health is their primary resource - rather be half-and-half instead. Why? Just to fulfill a fantasy of being a Dark Knight from a prior game? I don't think that's a strong enough reason to inject further issues to the design of the tank.

This brings me to my final point:
A High Risk / High Reward Tank would be a welcome addition.

I STRONGLY disagree with this sentiment! The kind of risk you're injecting would absolutely be an enjoyable new mechanic for Dark Knight - I would LOVE to play that Job. That's not what's up for debate here. Hell, Bravely Default had a Dark Knight with EXACTLY that gimmick - it's one of my favorite Asterisks in that game.

The problem isn't a matter of "what would be the most fun" or "what SHOULD Dark Knight be, according to past lore" - it is "what should Dark Knight be in order to keep it as a relevant option for endgame content and not make it either too strong or too weak"... and this big idea completely flies in the face of making Dark Knight syphon its own health for damage.

It works in a game like Final Fantasy IV where you can build strategies around Cecil spending health on Darkness. It works in BD, where you can design character builds to prevent the health drain from being an issue. It just doesn't work nearly as well as you or I would want it to in the context of Final Fantasy XIV. Like - find me another successful MMO where they have a tank-style class that sacrifices its own health to deal damage while tanking enemies, and I'll cede my point. I highly doubt one exists, because it's a balancing team's nightmare and would be damn near impossible to implement in any reasonably competent way.

tl;dr: Health as a resource for Dark Knight makes it either too weak or too strong and nothing in-between. Right now it's in a good spot. Changing that drastically alters the Job in a negative direction.

[Fluffernuff]

Here's a thought that I haven't fully thought through that might fall in line as a potential compromise here;

Instead of abilities chunking HP and overhauling DRK entire kit and throwing everything into chaos... how about changing darkside akin to "Minus Strike" from the Bravely series.

I am unsure how balanced it would be, but why not have this passive effect that increases our Damage dependant on our % of HP?

I feel this would fit past "lore" in the fact that DRK would now prefer to have lower HP (rather than outright cutting themselves open), and still fall in line with how DRK lore in EORZEA (that being freelance protectors against everyone alone).

This would also feel in line within DRK's currently confused design, as well as give a higher DPS option in order to captitalize on and take advantage of healing granted from sole survivor and mercy stroke. In addition, it would make Living Dead a MASSIVE DPS cooldown without having to ever touch it- 0 Hp= maximum DPS for 10 seconds? healers having the same benefit of hallowed ground for DPSing? all at the cost of dying after? seems actually kind of fair, to me. a big ol' "F**k you" button that means something. I like that, actually.

The issues I have are;
would this massive damage increase phase out the other tanks viability?

how low % of HP would mean how much % damage?

Is it a good idea to give insensitive healers to wait even LONGER to heal 1 tank specifically?

how low should a DRK be and for how long would be "optimal"?

Is it a good Idea to have a tank with low recovery options to sit at low HP?

[Drkdays]

@Fluff: I really like the sound of this. It would challenge healers as well. Make them wonder just how low can I go to speed a kill. And ya it would make LD much less miserable to have to use. Now we're getting places! Well done. Though I've never played the Bravely series personally. Is that a PsP thing?

[JackFross]

Minus Strike Would Be Useless. Fullstop.

If your DPS is dependent upon how much health you have remaining, you'll be completely at the mercy of healers.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Why the hell would we want the Job to become MORE beholden to another person's skill level and knowledge of OUR Job's mechanics than it already is with the skill that WE ALREADY DISLIKE BECAUSE OF THIS REASON - Living Dead??

Nonsense.

you cant break combo to SE either. it isnt on demand, its on the fly in its own combo.

False. Souleater's drain effect is tied to Grit, not a combo bonus. Out of combo, you can even Dark Arts it for ~260 potency.

[Fluffernuff]

Minus Strike Would Be Useless. Fullstop.

If your DPS is dependent upon how much health you have remaining, you'll be completely at the mercy of healers.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Why the hell would we want the Job to become MORE beholden to another person's skill level and knowledge of OUR Job's mechanics than it already is with the skill that WE ALREADY DISLIKE BECAUSE OF THIS REASON - Living Dead??

Nonsense.

Well the thought was to give us a bonus the more damage we take, not to beg our healers to never heal us. increasing the effectiveness of our kit as it is now. Reliance on healers in this situation is kind of a weird 2-way thing.
we'd rely on them to treat our "effective" max Hp as lower than it is, yes. our mechanics would be lessened the more they heal is- that is true.
However, in that same vein, we're LESS reliant on them healing us. if they want to DPS more and let our health drop to 30%, great! our kit is better for it. we dont NEED them healing us all the time

but yes, that reliance is still a huge weakness of ours and this wouldnt exactly fix that. like I said. just the first thing that popped into my head trying to merge the ideas. I didnt promise it would be good

ALSO: i meant minus strike as an effect rather than a singular attack... although the idea of a "Reverse" Spirits Within seems kinda adorable to me


ADD-ON: I suppose the core fundamental idea was that if we're already relying on healers, lets have the ability to compensate for that by getting better the "worse" they are. I don't know how balanced that would end up- or even if thats a fully positive direction. I wouldnt want a big damage bonus for being at 25% if it meant PLD have no place in the game anymore.