4.1 Dark Knight Feedback and fixes

[MagiusNecros]

Ayup. It's like Warframe honestly. Except Warframe is more fun. There are frames with core abilities but then other frames with similar abilities that can do what other frames do but 100 times better so there is no incentive to run something that is weaker then something else outside of looks.

DRK has no party utility and doesn't bring a party buff so they are unwanted for composition. They also do the least damage among the 3 Tanks, Sole Survivor is hot garbage and unreliable, half their kit was neutered, the list goes on.

PLD/WAR party shields are going to be favored over a MT DRK even in magic fights since PLD/WAR have tools to mitigate all damage types except DRK damage. Which begs the question....as a DRK why aren't we dealing DRK damage ourselves?

[Aana]

IMO this is not an in theory difference in mitigation, and certainly isn't in the case of paladin vs. dark in mitigation. However, for the warrior question I would need a significant amount of time to collect enough of a sample to show it statistically. Part of the problem is that we still have this pervasive idea of warrior being only an OT which makes collecting a large random sample difficult and in groups who actually swap to maximize mitigation we need to compare boss uptime as well. I don't think there is a website which collects mitigation statistics saddly.

However, you claim that the two are equal (or at least differences are washed out) in practice, have you collected the data already and are willing to share it publicly?

Arguing from experience (inherently flawed I admit), healers generally seem to have less of an issue healing warrior through fluff damage and tank busters, the fluff is primarily physical which warrior has more mitigation there compared to dark knight. We will also need to see how the warrior shielding will be used to impact their mitigation as well. Tank busters are usually big one hits, which dark deals with well, but the majority of the damage of a fight is the time between tank busters, which is usually physical and so dark is at a disadvantage there. Maximizing healers time dpsing is roughly equivalent to minimizing the fluff damage, and dark has less tools to do this than the others.

The real disadvantage comes from turns like v3s where the damage is primarily physical including the tank busters. Dark can make it through, but pld and war are definitely at an advantage. How popular physical turns will be in the future we have no idea. Alexander became increasingly physical damage towards the end.

I have run 'theoretical' models of uptime etc which others have done before comparing CDs. But that's right back to the theoretical. As you mentioned, hard data is rare as FF logs doesn't have a lot of war MTs. But I think that is telling in and of itself. But if that shows war's squishiness out of Defiance, or rather, shows Plds strength using its shield is hard to say. But even in Drk/War comps the Drk is largely the MT.

For my own experience, I ran as war in a war/drk combo for all of HW and start of SB. We then replaced the drk with another, less experienced drk who since changed to pld. TLDR: as I was the experienced tank I have been MT as war for 1/3 (2 we swap obviously) and we haven't beat 4 yet. I think war tanking V3 over Drk makes sense for reasons you've stated. Being able to use Raw Int as a tank buster CD makes life much easier. Similarly I hate tanking V1 for the opposite and wish our pld tanked that one. Were at the point where holmgang may not even trigger and just leaves me in dire need of a heal in the lower tiers.

During progression it was really nice. War in defiance is just indestructible. We can heal, we IB everything, more CDs than we can shake a stick at. But as soon as we got comfy and started pushing DPS to clear and dropping stance, it just became a whole new ball game. The loss of both tank stance+IB for virtually every damaging move hurts. A lot. -40%ish mitigation for nearly every move is just hugely painful while drk/pld just loose 20%. The loss of insta heal equilibrium on a short CD for both oh shit moments and recovery is lost. This leaves us with the basic CD suite that every tank has. We have functionally 1 more CD than pld/drk (ToB) but loose the always on (IB/Shelltron/TBN). I think people underestimate how much padding that constantly available mitigation gives. I like to compare it to: Imagine Tanking as Drk out of grit, but we take away TBN (lock behind grit) and give you ToB to replace it. You could also swap dark mind for Raw int, but that is a pro or con depending on the fight. That doesn't sound very appealing, but that's closer to war tanking in deliverance imo.

Its certainly doable, but think of it this way. War has 1 more CD. But when we have no CD available, that's it. Drk/Pld always have a near equivalent to rampart on demand to fall back on. They never 'dont' have a CD. That easily counters 1 CD deficit and (imo) the shorter timers for that reason. If we turtle tank, war has a very distinct advantage. Defiance war is really just silly tbh. But take that away and I find war to be quite rough as MT. But on that note, pld trumps all tanks in that category by a wide margin. Were really discussing the narrow gap betweemn 2nd/3rd, not closing the gap to 1st.

I also cant ignore that the game is more than savage. War just doing normal stuff by normal players can sit in defiance and be REALLY forgiving and EZ mode. When we talk about top level performance its practically a different game. Does the fact that war has an easy time tanking lower stuff factor into balance at high end speed run style raids? Should it? /shrug.

[Chrono_Rising]

Edgy Aesthetics and the fact that we shine in dungeons sadly, with careful management of cooldowns and mana you can TBN more than a couple of times in a pull. Nullifying damage from mobs for a short time while getting procs for blood, using quietus and DAAD (If you have enough mana spare for DA.)

I don't think anyone is saying that DRK can't clear content, its just why bring a DRK when the other two can do everything the class can but better and with little cost to their resources.

I agree Dark Knight can clear content, but slotting a Dark Knight is done at the expense of party wide dps and mitigation. As you said the issue more comes down to “why bring a Dark Knight?”

[Chrono_Rising]

I have run 'theoretical' models of uptime etc which others have done before comparing CDs. But that's right back to the theoretical. As you mentioned, hard data is rare as FF logs doesn't have a lot of war MTs. But I think that is telling in and of itself. But if that shows war's squishiness out of Defiance, or rather, shows Plds strength using its shield is hard to say. But even in Drk/War comps the Drk is largely the MT.

For my own experience, I ran as war in a war/drk combo for all of HW and start of SB. We then replaced the drk with another, less experienced drk who since changed to pld. TLDR: as I was the experienced tank I have been MT as war for 1/3 (2 we swap obviously) and we haven't beat 4 yet. I think war tanking V3 over Drk makes sense for reasons you've stated. Being able to use Raw Int as a tank buster CD makes life much easier. Similarly I hate tanking V1 for the opposite and wish our pld tanked that one. Were at the point where holmgang may not even trigger and just leaves me in dire need of a heal in the lower tiers.

During progression it was really nice. War in defiance is just indestructible. We can heal, we IB everything, more CDs than we can shake a stick at. But as soon as we got comfy and started pushing DPS to clear and dropping stance, it just became a whole new ball game. The loss of both tank stance+IB for virtually every damaging move hurts. A lot. -40%ish mitigation for nearly every move is just hugely painful while drk/pld just loose 20%. The loss of insta heal equilibrium on a short CD for both oh shit moments and recovery is lost. This leaves us with the basic CD suite that every tank has. We have functionally 1 more CD than pld/drk (ToB) but loose the always on (IB/Shelltron/TBN). I think people underestimate how much padding that constantly available mitigation gives. I like to compare it to: Imagine Tanking as Drk out of grit, but we take away TBN (lock behind grit) and give you ToB to replace it. You could also swap dark mind for Raw int, but that is a pro or con depending on the fight. That doesn't sound very appealing, but that's closer to war tanking in deliverance imo.

Its certainly doable, but think of it this way. War has 1 more CD. But when we have no CD available, that's it. Drk/Pld always have a near equivalent to rampart on demand to fall back on. They never 'dont' have a CD. That easily counters 1 CD deficit and (imo) the shorter timers for that reason. If we turtle tank, war has a very distinct advantage. Defiance war is really just silly tbh. But take that away and I find war to be quite rough as MT. But on that note, pld trumps all tanks in that category by a wide margin. Were really discussing the narrow gap betweemn 2nd/3rd, not closing the gap to 1st.

I also cant ignore that the game is more than savage. War just doing normal stuff by normal players can sit in defiance and be REALLY forgiving and EZ mode. When we talk about top level performance its practically a different game. Does the fact that war has an easy time tanking lower stuff factor into balance at high end speed run style raids? Should it? /shrug.

As far as V1S Warrior has an excellent defensive rotation because of the physical cleaves that come before the magical tank buster. Mitigating those two hits is a major boon to healers, and can be mitigated further by using rampart or vegeance shortly after the first one to catch the second cleave for free as well as the tank buster for bonus healer helping. thats good practice for both groups of runners. The new HP shields (which apply to warrior as mitigation) are a helpful addition for healers for the double roar mechanics and other such party wide damage, which depending on your CD rotation can be snap shot and turned into bonus shields at the end.

In Ex death the 16K autos and holmgang basically mean its cheese time for warrior, you can have mitigation up for everything HG the buster, then swap and have your cotank do the same, and then swap back to war and repeat, and this is without touching your new shields which are up for every fire phase again lowering raid wide healing and reducing party wide deaths. The shields are what make warrior really stand out over dark knight in neo.

The game is more than savage, but IMO these issues are a non issue outside of difficult content. Theres no real time where I felt 1 more thing would have saved me in a dungeon. However, on the note of "one more" mitigation I believe with the new shake it off we are at two more now, also if dark or paladin were to fall back into their tank stance, war presumably could do the same and gain access to a oGCD self heal as well as the third mitigation which is IB. The disparity becomes worse bringing tank stance into the conversation not better, IMO of course.

...As you mentioned, hard data is rare as FF logs doesn't have a lot of war MTs. But I think that is telling in and of itself. But if that shows war's squishiness out of Defiance, or rather, shows Plds strength using its shield is hard to say. But even in Drk/War comps the Drk is largely the MT. ...

The final thing I will say about this post, is that warrior is thought of as the go to OT and these prejudices are likely from misunderstandings of wars kit. For all of HW people agreed that warrior was likely the better MT and OT, but paladin and dark knight relied on taking damage for their numbers, and war did not. Therefore to maximize dps warrior became the "OT" while pld and drk were viewed as the go to MT, and going back to Gordias, this was only true for the parties that didn't run double warrior. That was time before LB penalty. This idea has persisted into SB, but there is really no reason for it anymore. Just because the community runs warrior as OT still does not imply that they are an inferior MT, they just likely have held onto the old meta ideas.

[Zero_syndicate]

I haven't played DRK long enough to really know what it needs. I think that Dark Arts uses far too much MP for the benefits it gives. I like the OP's ideas, DRK doesn't seem up to snuff, and other than offering a challenge to how I tank and MP management I'd much rather have a far easier time going back to my PLD.

[WhyAmIHere]

I haven't played DRK long enough to really know what it needs. I think that Dark Arts uses far too much MP for the benefits it gives. I like the OP's ideas, DRK doesn't seem up to snuff, and other than offering a challenge to how I tank and MP management I'd much rather have a far easier time going back to my PLD.

I don't really feel like I can offer much, as I only really do casual content. I don't have a static, I only pug'd v1/2s just to get the clears, haven't bothered/dont care enough to ask people to let me come into raiding with them, whatever. The extreme primals and the 24-man are about as hardcore as I play. But the point of DA should bring more to the table is one I've thought about for a while.
Yeah, everyone wants scourge back, "we miss the animation, womp womp." I get it, but at this point I just want the DoT effect tacked on to a DA'd bloodspiller. ( i mean seriously, it's in the damn name of the skill.) If that meant lowering the potency of it's dark arts'd potency to add like a 20s, 30 pot DoT effect, I'd enjoy it. Whether or not it'd be overpowered I cannot say. Also having it's use tied to the GCD, but using it not affect the GCD so it can somewhat be weaved in as a combo finisher might be nice.

Shadow wall should be obtained at a lower level and improved. Why it is fundamentally inferior to other similar skills is beyond me. you get Rampart at 8, and SW at 46. so, from level 8-45, your only mitigation being rampart is okay in the sense that nothing "hits hard" anymore... excepting for people that are new to the game / healing / tanking, that's an issue. (Not including DM because it's mitigation for magic damage.)

Beyond that it's still a fun enough class to play. I can't really say I enjoy WAR, tho i haven't leveled it up much to have an informed opinion on it. PLD being reliable and sturdy is a great selling point, but I do agree with someone who earlier said that DRK was the rapid-action tank, weaving in oGCDs left and right, having to manage resources and making split-second decisions. It was engaging and enjoyable, which is something that's still lacking in the job's current state. But with how easy it is to regain MP now, and with how simple the job's usage has become, i can't say I enjoy it as more as I used to.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

DRK works in practice because of raid design. This past raid tier was one of the easiest in the game. As soon as we get something more on the level of Midas, that isn't overflowing with TBs that are Dark Mind Bait, I guarantee you'd start seeing problems.

I also don't buy that WAR suffers when it is not turtle tanking. All of its CDs have relatively short recasts, and its invulnerability CD shares the same recast as Shadow Wall, whereas WAR's equivalent to Shadow Wall has recast that is a full minute shorter, and lasts 5 seconds longer. PLD and DRK may have Sheltron/TBN frequently, but neither of those will mitigate a TB individually without also being stacked with something else, so you still need another non Sheltron/TBN CD for every buster, i.e. its a moot point.

[Aana]

DRK works in practice because of raid design. This past raid tier was one of the easiest in the game. As soon as we get something more on the level of Midas, that isn't overflowing with TBs that are Dark Mind Bait, I guarantee you'd start seeing problems.

That's my point though. If they keep throwing magic tank buster during fights, then does it really matter that in magical theory land Drk CDs aren't as good? Cuz in the real world, Dark mind is friggin amazing atm. Just like the old days when Int down from Drk was AWESOME cuz virtually all raid aoe was magic and people laughed at silly little halone Str down. But if every raid aoe was phy, Drk would have been in the dog house. On paper the abilities are of equal value. In real life play, there were very big value differences. Sure, SE 'could' stop using magic damage all together and make Drk even worse. Or they could make everything magic and make it more powerful. But a buncha mights and coulds doesn't mean jack when we decide what tank to bring to my raid tonight. Your entire statement is 'what if SE does a thing that makes drk worse! Therefore it needs a buff for the thing that hasn't happened.". Do you see the questionable logic there?

We cant just use theoryland for balance when the real world gives no shits about imaginary fights that do perfectly mixed amounts of damage.

[SyzzleSpark]

Do you see the questionable logic there?

No, because we're only asking for the same wiggle room that every other tank has. Saying that we should can it b/c what we have is *enough* is antagonistic when our competition has *more* than enough. WAR can Holmgang every other crit in o3s and Awareness/Vengeance the rest, having Thrill, Raw, and Rampart left over. The typical DRK rotation in there leaves them with only Rampart left. Its lovely that your particular raid group doesn't decide what you should bring based on what is actually optimal. I dunno how much bearing that should have on balance discussions though. My co-tank back in Gordias/Midas was a WAR that I frequently out-DPSed on DRK, who had a horrid CD rotation, low eye uptime and excessive path uptime. We didn't come to the forums and say that WAR needed buffing. We replaced him.

Its tiresome, that in discussions about buffing tanks, PLD asks for buffs, people argue about it, PLD gets them. WAR asks for buffs, people argue about it, WAR gets them... DRK asks for buffs and people like you come in here and are all like...



I see some questionable logic there too.

[Chrono_Rising]

That's my point though. If they keep throwing magic tank buster during fights, then does it really matter that in magical theory land Drk CDs aren't as good? Cuz in the real world, Dark mind is friggin amazing atm. Just like the old days when Int down from Drk was AWESOME cuz virtually all raid aoe was magic and people laughed at silly little halone Str down. But if every raid aoe was phy, Drk would have been in the dog house. On paper the abilities are of equal value. In real life play, there were very big value differences. Sure, SE 'could' stop using magic damage all together and make Drk even worse. Or they could make everything magic and make it more powerful. But a buncha mights and coulds doesn't mean jack when we decide what tank to bring to my raid tonight. Your entire statement is 'what if SE does a thing that makes drk worse! Therefore it needs a buff for the thing that hasn't happened.". Do you see the questionable logic there?

We cant just use theoryland for balance when the real world gives no shits about imaginary fights that do perfectly mixed amounts of damage.

So we role out dark mind for 1 attack then go right back to physical attacks and that is perfectly balanced. Second, no one is claiming dark is unusable, what is claimed is that it has less mitigation. Using TBN and dark mind for one attack while mitigating none of the damage around it is the whole point, other tanks mitigate and they have mitigation before during and after, we have this one and done button for 2/4 fights, a not at all in 1/4, and alot of usage in 1/4 (v2s). Thats hardly "amazing". If only someone outlined some examples of one tank having in practice better mitigation practices.

As far as V1S Warrior has an excellent defensive rotation because of the physical cleaves that come before the magical tank buster. Mitigating those two hits is a major boon to healers, and can be mitigated further by using rampart or vegeance shortly after the first one to catch the second cleave for free as well as the tank buster for bonus healer helping. thats good practice for both groups of runners. The new HP shields (which apply to warrior as mitigation) are a helpful addition for healers for the double roar mechanics and other such party wide damage, which depending on your CD rotation can be snap shot and turned into bonus shields at the end.

In Ex death the 16K autos and holmgang basically mean its cheese time for warrior, you can have mitigation up for everything HG the buster, then swap and have your cotank do the same, and then swap back to war and repeat, and this is without touching your new shields which are up for every fire phase again lowering raid wide healing and reducing party wide deaths. The shields are what make warrior really stand out over dark knight in neo.