3.3~ Job Feedback & Future Changes

[MiniPrinny]

I don't feel like I can speak about the finer details of most Jobs, but as a DRK main, ignoring a wishlist of changed ability names (seriously, they suck and are trying too hard), DRK really only has a few issues I think should be resolved.

First and foremost, their damage type. Should we get Samurai, we'll be at five sources of strong slashing-type physical damage (AST also is slashing). Blunt wouldn't work since the majority of a Dark Knight's weapons are thin or heavy enough to function as swords, magic would. I've said this way too many times, but Dark Knight really should just deal magic damage, it would set them apart and remove their reliance on Ninjas and Warriors to maximize their damage output, as well as just make a bit more sense thematically. Also, there's only really two strong sources of magical damage currently, Summoner and Black Mage, while yes, we may get more in the future, and yes, healers can do magic damage as well, we shouldn't have to rely on a healer to do magical damage.

The second issue is one that many people bring up, and that is that DRK is just weak as an off-tank. Paladins and Warriors both gain clear benefits by removing themselves from the limelight. For Paladin, it's the biggest increase in damage output of the three tanks and allows them to more easily spot heal. For Warrior, they no longer have to focus on surviving and can simply go all out, using their defensive cooldowns offensively as well as contribute by aiding with mechanics where they can by abusing their high HP, defenses, and health regeneration. Dark Knights meanwhile don't really gain much by not tanking, they can drop Grit until they need it, use Blood Weapon and... well, that's about it.

Additionally, Dark Knights don't have the same constant boosts that other tanks do, they have Delirium, but if they're not tanking, they lose Reprisal. If you (for some reason) end up running a Dark Knight and a Monk together, the Dark Knight loses Delirium's entire purpose as well. Delirium really needs to offer more to the off-tanking Dark Knight, maybe if they got a change in damage type, it could act as a magical Storm's Eye/Dancing Edge? Or simply just give Dark Knights something more influential, like -10% ability and spell damage on Delirium instead of the reduced INT.

Finally, let's talk Parry as a stat. Parry is dumb. The anti-magic tank based on parrying that can not parry magic, but can magically induce insanity with a sword swing is dumber. The anti-magic tank based on parrying that can not parry magic, that has an ability to increase their chance to parry, but can not assure a parry is just the dumbest thing ever. Can we please, for the love of the Dawn Father, have the Dark Arts effect on Dark Dance changed to an MP-consuming, 60 second-long recast version of Shelltron? The lack of a reliable third physical damage reduction ability on Dark Knight was exceptionally painful for Sephirot EX and there will be fights in the future where this lack will hurt again. Let's just nip the problem in the bud.

Lastly, let's just have a TL;DR:

• Change main damage type to magical.
• Make Delirium better through either making it a magical Storm's Eye or changing its effect to something more reliable.
• Parry sucks, fix please.
• Dark Knight should be able to parry magic. Their image is one of taking down corrupt mages after all.
• Dark Dance's Dark Arts effect should be an auto-parry.

Edit:

PALADIN
- Make Sword Oath +10% damage or whatever instead of double auto-attack.

Two things, one, it isn't a double auto-attack, Sword Oath adds a 50 potency attack to every auto-attack. Two, Paladin has one of the fastest auto-attacks in the game at a standardized delay of 2.24 seconds between each attack before skill speed. For reference, Ninja and Monk, the two Jobs based on attacking quickly, have weapons usually with a delay that is 2.4 seconds or higher. Simply increasing a Paladin's damage output by 10% while under the effect of Sword Oath would be a nerf to Paladin's damage output, not a buff.

To give you an idea of how strong Sword Oath is currently, let's say for a moment that skill speed didn't effect auto-attack delays, and that we had a Paladin who had stacked enough skill speed to be at a 2.24 second recast on their weaponskills. The only weaponskill that would get close to dealing 50 extra potency with this change would be Royal Authority (350 potency) with a mere 35 additional potency. A Paladin to make up that lost additional potency on more than every weaponskill would have to be hitting on every recast for a ridiculous amount of potency.

If Sword Oath doesn't seem powerful to you yet, think of it as boosting the Paladin's damage by 15% (as compared to their nigh-default -15% from Shield Oath) and then adding an additional 50 potency to every weaponskill they use.