4.1 Dark Knight Feedback and fixes

[Aana]

Oh, believe me, I tend to agree. You sound like me 4 months ago. I made more than my fair share of simple suggestions inside posts that required no character limit edits before WAR got a free AoE mini-TBN. And before half of WAR's gauge costs were removed, they were even simpler.

The farther we fall behind the more involved the suggestions get, and the more effort put into making them.

At this point any feedback/suggestions help, so long as they are well-thought out. You can find instances in my post history of telling other people to "keep it simple" earlier in the patch cycle. Not anymore though, and for good reason.

Heaven forbid we be reasonable. I just wanted stance swap to cost a flat 20 gauge (or bring it to zero if you had <20). The free didn't make that big a difference over 20, but the free IR/Unchain was just unnecessary. Shake it off needed anything to warrant a spot on a hotbar. Did 3 min of math on day one to realize onslaught was actually a sidegrade or gain in damage in most cases, let alone the use for massive enmity and gap closer making it a highly functional and flexible skill. Just not a 'use on CD dps ability' which is (apparently) the only kind people think are any good. But Oprah gave out the war upgrades. And people still want more. Everyone always wants more. Separate IR/Unchained! Bring both to 1 min! Make onslaught free! Bring back bloodbath! Jesus wars. Calm your tits. Why cant we ever just be like: "Yeah. That's good. Thanks homie!"
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Derailing aside, random thought I just had. One of the principle issues is that Drk has no enmity actions that serve the function of swipe/onslaught as nice snap enmity and a way to maintain enmity without using the dreaded 'combo' every tank avoids like the plague. Passenger is currently a shit skill.

What if passenger got buffed to 140 pot (costs 2400 MP so no loss in damage in ST, becomes more viable multi target) and tack on a large enmity modifier a la onslaught/swipe? Make DA version 280 pot and therefore even more enmity. Costs a lot of MP, but you get the standard DA potency return on it. There is now a reason to have it on your bar. Its a way to stretch that enmity further the same way swipe/onslaught can be with no loss in damage. Doesn't require some major redesign, but one more step in the right direction.

[Chrono_Rising]

Because of slashing, I think dark passenger would need to be buffed to 155 potency to be considered better than dark arts on a single target for the mp cost. Or leave the skill as is and cut its mana cost by 40% to 50%. Either way an enmity bonus would be welcome.

[Aana]

Because of slashing, I think dark passenger would need to be buffed to 155 potency to be considered better than dark arts on a single target for the mp cost. Or leave the skill as is and cut its mana cost by 40% to 50%. Either way an enmity bonus would be welcome.

Forgot about magic vs slashing. Touche'. But ultimately idea was make it at minimum a damage neutral single target, MP cost enmity OGCD which, by default, also makes it a damage gain for AOE to fill the role of non-enmity combo source of enmity freely usable in rotation or snap agro.

[Chrono_Rising]

At minimum it should break even and give enmity, in reality it should be at least a slight dps gain compared to dark arts imo.

[Gojin]

I dont get it no dark knights were whinning til WAR got its buffs.

[Chrono_Rising]

I dont get it no dark knights were whinning til WAR got its buffs.

Yours is a false history. This post, http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ng-Dark-Knight, which you also posted in, has links to threads going back to June talking about the issues and complaints about Dark Knight.

[Crater]

I dont get it no dark knights were whinning til WAR got its buffs.

There were quiet, reasonable criticisms of the class since 4.05.

The result of being quiet and reasonable was that we went from nearly-balanced tanks in 4.00 to overpowered Warriors as soon as Savage released, and then went from having overpowered Warriors to wildly-overpowered, 3.x-esque Warriors in 4.1, while Dark Knight went nearly unchanged from SB launch aside from a couple of (woefully inadequate) 20-potency combo buffs, despite having some serious foundational issues with its class design and balance relative to the other tanks.

Now people are justifiably being loud, because they don't want to have to wait for 4.2 to stop tasting the curb, let alone go right into the next raid tier with no major changes.

[Launched]

The result of being quiet and reasonable was that we went from nearly-balanced tanks in 4.00 to overpowered Warriors as soon as Savage released, and then went from having overpowered Warriors to wildly-overpowered, 3.x-esque Warriors in 4.1, while Dark Knight went nearly unchanged from SB launch aside from a couple of (woefully inadequate) 20-potency combo buffs, despite having some serious foundational issues with its class design and balance relative to the other tanks.

No, the changes after 4.0 took us from having one good tank and two bad tanks to one good tank, one kinda good tank, and one bad tank. For some reason you have some huge bias against WAR even though PLD is by far the best tank of Stormblood.

[Chrono_Rising]

No, the changes after 4.0 took us from having one good tank and two bad tanks to one good tank, one kinda good tank, and one bad tank. For some reason you have some huge bias against WAR even though PLD is by far the best tank of Stormblood.

And Dark Knight is now the worst of the three.

[Crater]

.

No, Warrior was powerful enough to be balanced even before the stance cost was taken away. They still had the highest burst damage, best sustained damage, and best personal defence. At 4.00 PLD and WAR were quite well-balanced against one another, and DRK was behind WAR in optimized runs but was a legitimately good alternative with legitimate upsides in unfamiliar, non-optimized, or progression content. If the only change from 4.0 to Savage had been for PLD to get the slight nerf to Holy Spirit, tank balance would have basically been achieved.

Instead they let Warrior way out in front due to the whining, and so we went into Savage with worse tank balance than we should have. And now 4.1 balance is arguably as bad as it was in 3.x, again due to the whining.

So if whining is what gets things done with regard to class balance, then that's what you're going to see, and you've got nobody to blame for it but SE.