DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Jandor]

Thinking that DRK needs maybe a little more utility, and a bit of its identity as 'magic tank' back. I'd stuff both of those into Sole Survivor because I'm boring like that.

Sole Survivor:
Increases target's magic damage vulnerability by 10%. (everyone)
A portion of damage dealt to target will be restored as MP. (everyone)
If the target should be KO'd in battle, a portion of your HP and MP will be restored. (the Dark Knight only)

I'd probably make Quietus oGCD as well, maybe. Not 70 on it yet, feel a bit unqualified to add much.

[kashi11]

Thinking that DRK needs maybe a little more utility, and a bit of its identity as 'magic tank' back.

I like this! Although I think it would make everyone use the skill on cooldown for the debuff effect, making the heal kind of niche.

Sole Survivor:

Marks target with the status Another Victim. A portion of all damage taken by the target will be restored as MP. If that target should be KO'd in battle, increases Blood Gauge by 25 and 20% of your maximum HP will be restored.
Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Increases targets magic vulnerability by 10%.
Duration: 10s

Reduce cooldown from 120s -> 90s

This skill is crying out to increase the Blood Gauge as well.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

I do not think giving DRK a magic vulnerability debuff is a good idea.

If DRK is the only job that gets it, that is a huge raid dps boost which would make them potentially mandatory.

If it were to be balanced with the WAR slashing debuff, then that would require other jobs to get buffed in tandem by also giving them this buff. This creates two problems, first being that it messes with the balance of other jobs and second it results in the potential situation we see with WAR where the other jobs are looked to for providing the debuff and the value of the DRK having it is greatly diminished.

It would end up being either OP or of little value.

As for MP return, that could work but I personally would prefer differing effects depending on stance. For example in Grit it could increase the % of damage done returned as health from Soul Eater while out of Grit it increases the amount of MP returned from Syphon Strike.

[Kabooa]

I do not think giving DRK a magic vulnerability debuff is a good idea.

If DRK is the only job that gets it, that is a huge raid dps boost which would make them potentially mandatory.

It's an effective 1% increase on Magic damage (10% at 11% uptime is 1.1%)
This would affect some damage of Dark Knights, some damage of Paladins, healers, and casters.

Also, Summoners bring a variant of this (Contagion from Ranged summons). No one considers them mandatory as it is.

[SyzzleSpark]

It's an effective 1% increase on Magic damage (10% at 11% uptime is 1.1%)
This would affect some damage of Dark Knights, some damage of Paladins, healers, and casters.

Also, Summoners bring a variant of this (Contagion from Ranged summons). No one considers them mandatory as it is.

On the topic of utility -

Dark Knight's utility at the moment probably amounts to simply being the tank that loses the least from being in its tank stance (read: *being* in tank stance, not from the act of turning it on) due to Bloodspiller, and I'd say that's pretty much it. Its a good MT from a raid DPS standpoint, I guess.

As someone pointed out in another thread, TBN qualifying as utility is a very big stretch considering that at no time is a 5K shield necessary beyond what cooldowns the target is already likely to have running, and it also tends to be inferior in the long term to things like Apoc and Palisade, in addition to risking a DPS loss in comparison. So DRK definitely needs something else in this regard. And you can't give DPS-based utility to one tank without giving it to all of them lest you want to go back to huge discrepancies in personal DPS like those we had in HW.

At this point, since DRK's identity is kind of in the dumpster, I wouldn't be opposed to looking at some previous FF and FF-related games' lore for DRK abilities, without any of the HP sacrificing nonsense that would hurt DRK as a tank in this game.

Akin to sacrificing HP, DRK could get something of a defensive equivalent to Wildfire, that compiles all of the damage you take for, say, 15s, and then converts a percentage of the total into a raid-wide shield at the end of the duration. In this sense the DRK is indirectly sacrificing HP to benefit the group.

A possible Living Dead rework could be something similar to Last Resort or Life/Death from Bravely Default, wherein Walking Dead is simply cleansed by an Esuna equivalent, and during Walking Dead you get an added benefit of increase damage dealt/reduced damage taken.

Why we don't have some sort of self heal that costs mana/blood escapes me, as we are a tank, after all, and our self-healing is by far the weakest, and yet we do not have the ability to convert this one resource into HP even though half of our job is converting blood into mana, mana into blood, or either into potency. Seems we should be able to convert at least one of those resources to HP.

Given the nature of our mana as a resource, there's actually a lot of inspiration from BLM that I wish SE would take for DRK. A reverse Convert (sacrifice 20% of maximum MP to restore 30% of maximum HP) feels like a no brainer for DRK, as do abilities like Manaward and the old Manawall. Maybe something like the latter for ourselves, to shore up our physical mitigation, and the former to be cast on party members instead.

[Kabooa]

All dis.

Admittedly strange how blood works.

I had considered starting a discussion topic about the inherent problems with the Tank gauges, which serve as resource lists instead of timers, and how their current implementation and interactions are both flawed but solid concepts.

In the case of Dark, it was the feeling that while gauge generation was suitable (Having both active and reactive components), the ways it gets spent are not. It's between a lackluster cooldown, or a single target or aoe swing. (Quietus gaining the MP per hit though has given it a solid place for what it does, though)

The removal of many fun-if-ultimately-not-impactful OGCDs, but keeping Sole Survivor was a strange move. Sole Survivor itself could serve as the vehicle for some of Dark's current problems, though I personally believe a change to the basic function of Delirium would be a better long term fix.

[Jandor]

Why we don't have some sort of self heal that costs mana/blood escapes me, as we are a tank, after all, and our self-healing is by far the weakest, and yet we do not have the ability to convert this one resource into HP even though half of our job is converting blood into mana, mana into blood, or either into potency. Seems we should be able to convert at least one of those resources to HP.

Reverse convert/self clemency is a great idea, one of those things that once mentioned you wonder how you never noticed it was missing.

That plus a more useful sole survivor and TBN breaking giving you a free dark arts and I think DRK would be in a pretty good spot. Although I'd still miss scourge.