Fixing Dark Knight, Properly

**Crater** · 10-16-2017 07:49 AM

It's clear at this point that Dark Knight needs massive buffs if it's ever going to become a viable tank class again. It's also very clear, based on how SE has responded to Warrior feedback since Stormblood launched, which sorts of threads and class balance suggestions they consider to be valid and worth listening to - and which sorts of feedback they consider safely ignorable. With that in mind, I've made a small, modest list of changes that I feel are absolutely necessary to bring DRK up in line with the other two tanks, power-wise.

PART I: COMBOS AND WEAPONSKILLS

It's generally pretty agreed-upon that DRK gets the short end of the stick compared to the other tanks when it comes to their basic weaponskill combos. They have one fewer combo than the other two tanks, period, and they're the most heavily-penalized tank for using their enmity combo. And despite this, they're also more reliant on their combos for damage and enmity - DRK has no enmity-generating off-GCD like Circle of Scorn, Shield Swipe, or Onslaught, DRK has no 'cap' on how much MP they can use the way that PLD does, DRK does not have a +damage cooldown on a timer like Berserk, Requiescat, or Fight or Flight that they can use to 'hide' low-DPS combos in, and DRK has no way to 'make up for' any lost damage from their enmity combo, the way that PLD can use Sheltron to recover MP they don't get from Riot Blade.

A complete overhaul of the way that DRK's combos are used and balanced is therefore in order.

- Dark Knight should have stance-based combos, like Monk, allowing them to choose between Spinning Slash/Syphon Strike, and Power Slash/Souleater, on every combo. I'll just call it Low Stance/Mid Stance/High Stance, but the name doesn't really matter: Hard Slash should put you into Mid Stance, you should be able to use either Syphon Strike or Spinning Slash in Mid Stance, both should put you into High Stance, and you should be able to use either Power Slash or Souleater from High Stance.

In addition, the damage gap between their enmity combos and their DPS combos needs to be made smaller. With that in mind:

- Spinning Slash should restore 1200 MP, the same as Syphon Strike. A DPS loss of 30 potency is more than enough of a tradeoff for extra enmity; the loss of 1200 MP is much too high. Spinning Slash doesn't need to return extra MP in Grit the way that Syphon Strike does, but it needs to return the basic 1200.

- Power Slash needs its potency under Dark Arts to be raised to 440, the same as Souleater. In this instance, the tradeoff of enmity versus 10 Blood (and Souleater's HP restore) is fair, but losing 140 potency is not.

- Souleater needs to restore 50% of its damage outside of Grit, and 100% of its damage inside of Grit (or rather, 44%/88% if SE really feels like this "a portion of your damage" nonsense is necessary, but it definitely isn't).

- Unleash should put you into Mid Stance, the same as Hard Slash. This mostly helps low-level DRKs in dungeons, by letting them maintain their MP more easily.

- Abyssal Drain should have an additional Dark Arts effect, where it drains 120 MP (same as a Blood Price tick) for every target it hits. The cost of Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain is exhorbitant - 3720 MP, and this would tend to reduce it down to a more reasonable 2500~3000 or so total cost.

- Quietus needs a substantial damage bump when used under Dark Arts. 210 DA Potency is not enough. 260 potency should be considered the minimum, and 280 is probably a more appropriate figure.

PART II: OFFENSIVE BUFFS

Dark Knight suffers massively in this area compared to WAR and PLD. The 4.0 overhaul to PLD made Fight or Flight obscenely strong, and Requiescat on top of that means that PLD has a strong offensive buff running more than 50% of the time. WAR got a big upgrade to Berserk as well, along with a really strong buff in Inner Release - and then Inner Release got hypercharged post-launch into a truly ridiculous combo. Both PLD and WAR offensive buffs also line up with all 60s party buff windows, allowing them to pack as much of their potency as possible into a Trick Attack+Litany+Chain Strategem+etc window. DRK, meanwhile, had its offensive buffs nerfed from Heavensward, with both Blood Weapon and Blood Price being locked into mutually exclusive stances. On top of that, DRK's cooldowns are on a 40-second timer, so they only rarely line up with party buffs. To add final insult to injury, Delirium is just a really terrible skill, with an excessive Blood Cost (compared to Inner Release now being free) for a weak effect that doesn't even let DRK burst any harder during a burn phase or party buff window, and only lets them "burst" longer, doing unbuffed Dark Arts weaponskills long after TA has worn off.

We're gonna tackle all those issues, in reverse order:

- Delirium needs to just be scrapped and started over, like Shake It Off. The effect is bad, the cost is bad, and it isn't fun to use.
- New Delirium: Blood Gauge Cost: All.
Improves Direct Hit Rate of self and all nearby party members by up to 10%, depending on how much Blood is consumed. (Essentially, +1% Direct Hit Rate for every 10 Blood).
Range: 15y
Duration: 20s

Used at 100 Blood, this is a useful, fun, but still modest effect - a 10% increase to Direct Hit Rate is only a 2.5% damage buff to people who have 0 Direct Hit, and more along the lines of a 2-2.3% buff given the natural Direct Hit Rates that most players have. Some of that damage is also offset by the DRK losing out on two uses of Bloodspiller - in other words, this is a fair buff to give them.

- Blood Weapon: The cooldown on Blood Weapon should be reduced to 30s, which would then make it line up with 60s Trick Attack windows, just like Berserk and FoF/Requiescat. The duration would, however, have to be reduced slightly. DRK's current design allows for 53 seconds of Blood Weapon out of every 120s (that's three normal uses of 15s BW, and an 8s extension through Delirium). That's 44% uptime. 44% of a 30s cooldown is 13.25s, so the new Blood Weapon will have a 13s duration, on a 30s cooldown. This also fixes the issue where Blood Weapon didn't line up with either Plunge or Carve and Spit.

- Blood Price: The cooldown on BP is also reduced to 30s. In this case, a duration reduction isn't necessary - the Delirium extension brings BP to a maximum uptime of 61 seconds out of every 120, which is on par with having it available for 15s every 30s. However, this doesn't solve the fundamental problem with Blood Price, which is that it's always going to be either be severely underpowered in single-target, or severely overpowered in AoE, as long as it depends mostly on on-hit procs. New effect: Reduces MP costs of all skills by 25%.

These changes so far are mostly Quality-of-Life, and are basically DPS-neutral, making DRK more fun to play and more friendly to party synergy, without actually adding much damage. The problem is that DRK is still woefully behind on damage, for no real reason. Therefore:

- Sole Survivor needs to have its PvP effect imported into PvE.
- New Sole Survivor: Increases target's damage taken by 10%. This damage is compiled, and when the effect expires, you are healed for the amount of damage added. If that target should be KO'd in battle, 50% of your maximum MP will be restored.
Duration: 10s
Recast: 120s

The total party contribution to damage here is basically half that of Trick Attack (same effect and duration, double the cooldown). That is basically in line with what Dark Knight needs right now, to be comparable in total party damage to the other tanks. This is an essential change, and should have been in the game since Stormblood launched, given how much lower they knew DRK's damage was going to be.

PART III: OFFENSIVE ABILITIES

This is a sore spot for a lot of old Heavensward Dark Knights - and rightfully so. DRK used to have a wealth of off-GCD attacks that were all powerful and fun to use in their own rights, most of which had multiple functions and specific ways to optimize them. In Stormblood, DRK's options are reduced to Plunge, Salted Earth, and Carve and Spit, all of which have gone unchanged, and some of which are showing their age and feel really underwhelming to use compared to abilities updated for the other tanks. While it isn't realistic to expect to receive extra skills that require extra keybinds, we can certainly improve on the skills that DRK has left, to at least make the class feel a little more fun and active.

- Plunge: Increase the range from 15y to 20y. Reduce the animation lock and increase the travel speed. Basically, it should be as fast as Onslaught and Shoulder Tackle, it should travel far enough that it functions as a gap-closer instead of basically moving you as far as you could have walked in the time it takes to use it, and you should be able to double-weave it with another off-GCD without clipping.

- Carve and Spit: Restores 1200 MP, and deals 450 potency of damage. No Dark Arts effect. The DA effect on CnS feels antiquated, from a time when Dark Arts was meant to be a skill modifier that would change a number of skills in a number of mechanical ways, rather than just being a potency boost. Those days are gone, which is fine, but there's no reason for CnS not to be the best of both worlds for DRK, in a world where tanks have off-GCDs like Upheaval and Requiescat.

- Dark Passenger: MP cost reduced to 1200 MP. Potency raised to 150. Dark Arts Potency raised to 300. Blind effect removed. Dark Passenger looks great, and is fun to use. It should also be powerful enough to use in single-target. The Dark Arts effect should be powerful enough that it takes priority over using Dark Arts on Quietus, which would now be set at +100 to +120 potency - so +150 on DP sounds about right.

SIDE BAR: A NOTE ABOUT DARK ARTS

As I said a moment ago, in 3.x, Dark Arts functioned more of a 'modifier' skill, and changed a number of skills in a number of ways. Because of this, it made sense and felt good to use it in ways that didn't increase damage, like to boost Dark Mind from 15% to 30%. In 4.x, however, the role of Dark Arts has largely been changed into straight damage boosts that are used very frequently, and it's clear that all the attempts to balance Dark Knight against the other tanks have been done assuming that the Dark Knight can pour all of their MP into using Dark Arts to boost their damage.

Because of this, a necessary rule of thumb for any properly functional version of 4.x Dark Knight is that DRK should not have to give up damage simply to use DA to modify skills between two different versions. As a result, some of the skills I'm about to talk about will have a DA effect of "Restores 2400 MP". I just want to make very clear going into this, that all this is doing is refunding MP that the DRK should not have to actually spend, when they are already sacrificing one form of the skill to use the other. This allows DA to properly work as a modifier, and restore some of the fun and flexibility to DRK's defensive kit, without forcing them to give up their damage in a way that isn't enforced on either of the other tanks.

PART IV: DEFENSIVE BUFFS (OTHER THAN THE BLACKEST NIGHT)

There's a pretty strong consensus, for good reason, that DRK's cooldown kit is weak compared to both of the other tanks. They have fewer defensive cooldowns to begin with than either PLD or WAR, and the cooldowns that they have are almost universally weaker than the ones the other tanks get. They're the only tank with a major cooldown that serves no function in any fight that decides not to include tankbusters of a specific damage type, and the only tank that has to give up damage to use their cooldowns properly. Living Dead, as an invuln skill, tends to occupy an uncomfortable, not-entirely-fun middle ground between Holmgang's outrageously short cooldown, and Hallowed Ground's overwhelmingly powerful effect, with few areas where its advantages really shine, and lots of places where it puts undue stress on the healers. And to finish it off, as of 4.1, Dark Knight is the only tank that is incapable of putting up any sort of party-wide defenses to the massive raid damage that has become a staple of high-end fight design. And while The Blackest Night is powerful enough to make up for some of that lost ground (more on TBN in the next section), it's not even close to enough, and compared to both the other tanks, DRK feels like it's working with half a toolbox. We're going to use Dark Arts as a modifier key here to close much of that gap.

- Dark Mind: The baseline reduction of magic damage needs to be increased to 30%. In other words, the current DADM needs to be the new baseline DM. The new Dark Arts effect will take an entirely different form. The duration and cooldown are unchanged.
Dark Arts effect: Restores 2400 MP. Reduces magic vulnerability on self and all nearby party members by 10%

This is Dark Knight's answer to Divine Veil/Passage of Arms and the new Shake It Off. The effect of the new DADM is not outrageous: A 10% damage reduction is universally weaker than both Divine Veil and Passage of Arms, is universally weaker than Shake It Off if the Warrior has consumed even one buff to boost SiO, and in most cases will actually be weaker than the baseline 8% SiO effect. In addition, the Dark Knight has given up their 30%-reduction, tankbuster incarnation of Dark Mind (PLD gives up nothing for DV and only a GCD or two for PoA, which may not even matter if the boss isn't targetable; WAR gives up nothing for a baseline 8% SiO, and can almost always boost it with at least one cooldown without actually sacrificing any use of that cooldown), and DADM would be restricted to magic damage only, while all three of Divine Veil, Passage of Arms, and Shake It Off are usable on both physical and darkness damage. And the 10s duration of DADM is lower than the 30s duration of DV, the 15s duration of SiO, and even Passage of Arms can technically be up for 18 seconds. Therefore, DM can retain its 60s cooldown and be balanced, rather than overpowered, even as a party mitigation tool.

- Shadow Wall: Baseline damage reduction increased from 30% to 40%. Dark Arts Effect: Restores 2400 MP. Damage reduction lowered from 40% to 20%, duration increased from 10s to 20s, and recast time reduced from 180s to 90s.

In other words, Shadow Wall is brought up to be on par with Sentinel, and the DRK is then given the choice between having an extra copy of Rampart, or an extra copy of Sentinel. This gives DRK much more flexibility, without giving them an undue amount of extra defensive power.

- Living Dead: Dark Arts effect: Restores 2400 MP. No longer triggers Walking Dead when your HP reaches zero, and will no longer prevent your HP from being lowered below 1. Instead, reduces damage taken by 50%.

This sacrifices the safety and the actual 'invulnerability' effect of LD, but reduces the strain on your healers. In practice, I think that this would be used in basically the same way that LD is currently used, but would be more amenable to playing with unfamiliar healers.

PART V: THE BLACKEST NIGHT

The Blackest Night is probably the most controversial tank skill in the game right now. It's very powerful, and it needs to be very powerful, to make up for DRK's otherwise sparse/limited toolkit compared to the other tanks. However, it's not all-powerful, and in many cases is actually weaker than the equivalent skills on other tanks.
For instance, while TBN allows you to survive up to 1.2x your maximum HP in damage, Sheltron (with the 26% mitigation on a Genji shield) allows you to survive up to 1.32x your maximum HP in single-hit damage. Inner Beast is a less pronounced difference, allowing you to survive up to 1.25x your maximum HP in damage, but also A) provides a heal beforehand, and B) continues to mitigate damage for the rest of the 6s duration, even if you take multiple hits during that window (for example: attacks like Ahk Morn can do much more than 1.2-1.3x your HP in 6 seconds, and Inner Beast will continue to mitigate the following hits even after Sheltron and TBN have fallen off).
In addition, if a PLD or WAR saves up enough gauge, a PLD can use Sheltron twice only 5s apart, and a WAR can use Inner Beast back to back consecutively (three times, in fact, if they're willing to sacrifice Infuriate to do it). TBN is limited to a 15s cooldown, even though there are many cases where powerful incoming hits are placed only 10 seconds apart.
On top of all this, there's controversy over whether TBN is a DPS loss or a DPS gain, and people who try to avoid using it because of a small perceived loss in damage, whereas the other tanks' equivalent abilities are very upfront about what you're gaining or losing by using them.

To deal with all this, I'm first going to introduce a stacking debuff that I'm calling Despair:
Despair: For every stack of Despair you are inflicted with, the MP cost of The Blackest Night is increased by 33%. Stacks up to five times. Duration: 15s.

The Blackest Night: MP cost reduced from 2400 to 1800. Increases Blood Gauge by 40 when full 20%(10%) is absorbed, and by an additional 10 if you are inflicted with two or more stacks of Despair. You are inflicted with one stack of Despair(15s). Duration: Increased from 5s to 10s. Recast: Reduced from 15s to 2s.

In other words: The "TBN is a DPS loss" issue is resolved by reducing the base MP cost by 25%, but reducing the base Blood gain by only 20%. This shifts the balance in TBN's favor by just enough to make it a good idea to use frequently, but not by enough that Dark Knights will have to start eating every dodgeable AoE to maximize DPS.

The cooldown reduction seems obscenely powerful on first glance, but it's important to keep in mind that A) The frequency of use will be far more limited by MP than time, and B) The Despair mechanic keeps things in check.

With one stack of Despair (meaning that the DRK has used TBN twice in a 15s interval), the second use of TBN costs 2400 MP and restores 50 Blood, the same as it is right now. With two stacks of Despair, the third use of TBN will cost 3000 MP but still only give 50 Blood, which is a markedly inefficient use of MP, damage-wise. And with a full five stacks of Despair, TBN will cost 4800 MP, still only returning the same 50 Blood.

The end result of this is that TBN is able to deal with mitigating attacks that occur closer together than 15s apart (for example, Evilsphere and the preceding Paranormal Wave in v2s, or Aero III into Earthshaker in v4s), the way that Sheltron and Inner Beast can, and using TBN for mitigation (with no stacks of Despair) is definitively encouraged DPS-wise, without having to make Bloodspiller or TBN itself an imbalanced offensive juggernaut of a skill. The most efficient use of TBN is still to wait 15+ seconds in between uses, to avoid incurring MP penalties from Despair, but the option is there. Despair functions as a 'soft' cooldown, where penalties for repeated use become more severe over time, until it's both nearly-impossible to keep up with the MP requirements, and a waste of MP to do so even if you can keep up, which keeps the skill from running away and becoming too powerful.

CONCLUSION

These changes work in a variety of ways to improve the many aspects in which Dark Knight has fallen behind the other tanks. The switch to a stance-based combo system allows them to manage enmity in a flexible way, and the changes to various weaponskills make these options viable, to compete with the enmity-increasing options that PLD and WAR have, while alleviating some of the issues that DRK has with being the "one combo" tank.

The changes to their offensive buffs turn DRK into a true team-player class, both by allowing their personal buffs to line up with the rest of the party's team buffs, and by giving them damage-based party utility that makes the rest of the group actually want to see a DRK in the party.

DRK's off-GCD attacks have felt really weak and limited since Stormblood launched, compared to both the Heavensward incarnation of DRK, and to the Stormblood incarnations of both WAR and PLD; the suggested changes give some much-needed love to most of DRK's skills that have fallen behind, and should make the class feel much more fun and active, similar to its 3.x version.

The changes to defensive buffs give DRK the defensive party utility that is now necessary for all tanks to have, in a way that fits thematically with the class's design, and in a way that is balanced mechanically with the tools that the other tanks have. In addition, the new version of DRK's personal defensive toolkit would regain much of the flexibility that it was felt to have in Heavensward, without simply boosting its raw ability to mitigate.

And finally, fleshing out The Blackest Night would fill the remaining gaps between DRK's defensive toolkit and the other tanks, giving it the added flexibility required to boost its overall defenses to the level of the other tanks, while retaining its unique, 'active' playstyle.

Obviously I can't expect changes like this to be in the game for 4.11, but it would be nice to see them implemented by the time 4.15 rolls around, and it's absolutely necessary to give the class an overhaul of this scale in time for 4.2.

**SyzzleSpark** · 10-16-2017 10:08 AM

I strongly agree with 90% of this.

My only disagreement, and this is really more personal preference than anything, are the changes to Delirium and Sole Survivor, turning them into party DPS buffs. I know that mathematically these aren't likely to provide a huge advantage, but the community seems conditioned to believe that raid dps> personal dps even in (admittedly rare) cases where the latter is numerically and measurably greater than the former. I also think its a bit strange lore-wise to turn DRK into essentially the 3.x NIN of tanks (I say 3.x NIN because 4.x NIN, from what I've seen is a bit overpowered from a personal DPS standpoint).

Instead of those party buffs I'd rather see proportionate boosts to our personal DPS. For example you say that the new Delirium would be offset by costing the DRK up to 2 uses of Bloodspiller... Why not simply boost Bloodspiller's potency? Perhaps a %-boost based on the blood remaining/stockpiled when it is used (i.e. Bloodspiller deals x% more damage equal to [total Blood Gauge upon use-50]. So if you have 90 Blood Gauge and use Bloodspiller, its potency is boosted by 40%. 60, 10%, etc. Or perhaps that may be too convoluted, and it should simply see a flat buff to raise our PPGCD proportionately. Maybe even just buff Darkside by another 5% or something. Or we could even do what you mentioned in another thread (I think it was you) where we just cut Blood costs, or allow DRK to stockpile more than 100 Blood. Just my two cents.

Everything else you said sounds 100% brilliant. +1

**MagiusNecros** · 10-16-2017 10:36 AM

I'm all for recastable damage shield on demand.

**Kabooa** · 10-16-2017 10:45 AM

The weapon stance system proposed is simple and wouldn't matter in the slightest, all things considered.

Everyone loses on using their threat combos. Dark isn't unique. The discrepancy between the three threat combos isn't even that large to make the term 'worst' have any weight and I'm pretty sure that goes to Paladin.

Syphon might as well not exist with Spinning Slash gaining the MP return (which undermines the proposed stances further). No, one of them doing +30 potency but having the same basic function -while one also does threat- doesn't warrant having two buttons. That's like literally a case of where they'd cut abilities in the next set.

Blood Weapon would be 10 seconds, not 13. Removing Delirium from the equation means you can't use Delirium's duration to factor in uptime on the switch.
Blood Price should simply restore Blood Gauge proportional to the damage taken. That alone makes it worthwhile to use in Boss Scenarios and is a side bonus to AoE tanking in dungeons.

Dark Arts being refunded just to act as a button consolidation method is really awkward.

Carve and Spit: There's no reason for it to have the MP gain. Given Darks have been asking for a high HP heal, Carve and Spit is the perfect place to put that, perhaps as a 200% HP drain.

Dark Passenger is just another button you spam now. (And like, I feel I need to say this, is that I'd want -more- OGCDs to require some thought put into them, not less). It could be 140/280 and it'd still be a braindead spam because it's twice as efficient as Dark Arts in the base form, and then you can dark arts it again to double its effectiveness. 150% of the DA cost for 200% of the power.

Dark Mind: It is objectively good. I guess even Dark Knights need Divine Veil though (Because that's basically what this boils down to.)
Shadow wall: I want shadowskin back too, but I wouldn't do it like this.
Living Dead: Why, when you have Shadow Wall? This kind of highlights the issues I have with how you're setting up the mitigation tools. "I want this back. Oh but wait, if I do that I won't have the other one. Well I'll have this one swap to that. But wait, if I do that..."

Blackest Night: But...it'd be DPS loss at 1 (2.4k for 40), a DPS loss at 2 (because it'd be 3k for 50 blood) and even larger DPS losses higher than that. You can just make the ability cost Blood and refund a greater amount of blood and that solves the 'DPS loss' issue. Despair only serves to punish a Dark Knight even more for needing the shielding.

**SyzzleSpark** · 10-16-2017 11:06 AM