Core Issues With 4.x Dark Knight

[Tint]

Except that it has been with the discussion of the core mechanics of the job. Please, tell me what the point of this thread is to you. You've come in, complained, and offered nothing in terms of contribution. You echo the obvious. Well done.

the point of this thread is the first thing the OP wrote in this topic:

In the spirit of being clear, I would like to outline the core issues of what I feel is wrong with Dark Knight currently in 4.0 and beyond, time of writing is 4.1. I encourage others to leave their comments, feelings and interpretations. However, in the spirit of not trying to "suggest fixes" I hope others will follow in not posting how to fix the issues, only post what the issues are in their view.

and the point and reason of this thread came from this person:

I suppose maybe I didn't word my opening post in the best manner. What I feel is a truly complete waste of time are all the people flooding this sub-forum all sorts of ideas of how to fix/balance/improve DRK. Many of which are just down right ridiculous or flat out imbalanced. As a result the threads where people are discussing the main core issues get drowned out. Since fact of the matter is the developers aren't going to use any of those ideas.

In short I'm saying I feel like keeping threads focused on the core issues and making sure we make ourselves greatly heard during the next Q&A is our best shot at getting changes.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

I'm at the point where I won't snub my nose to any suggestion, considering numerous jobs have gotten massive buffs in the last 4 months, some of which weren't even asked for. The ones that make imbalanced requests, and loudly, are the ones SE listens to. Not saying I like it, but its proven to be true.

Literally nobody in the WAR threads back in July was saying "hey guys calm down we probably shouldn't ask for this, it might be imbalanced..."

[Chrono_Rising]

I'm at the point where I won't snub my nose to any suggestion, considering numerous jobs have gotten massive buffs in the last 4 months, some of which weren't even asked for. The ones that make imbalanced requests, and loudly, are the ones SE listens to. Not saying I like it, but its proven to be true.

Literally nobody in the WAR threads back in July was saying "hey guys calm down we probably shouldn't ask for this, it might be imbalanced..."

100% agree. When other classes asked for buffs they didn’t care about being balanced, they cared about being the best.

In my opinion it’s why you see some paladins and warriors in Dark Knight feedback posts shifting the issues and telling us “hey it’s not so bad this is the best things have ever been for tanks”, like you should be honored that no one wants to run Dark Knight. It’s the same people telling us you can not compare skills one on one in a vacuum in one breath and telling us TBN is the answer to everything. They are at the top and they want to stay there, the view is better.

[WhyAmIHere]

100% agree. When other classes asked for buffs they didn’t care about being balanced, they cared about being the best.

In my opinion it’s why you see some paladins and warriors in Dark Knight feedback posts shifting the issues and telling us “hey it’s not so bad this is the best things have ever been for tanks, you should be honored that no one wants to run Dark Knight”. It’s the same people telling us you can not compare skills one on one in a vacuum in one breath and telling us TBN is the answer to everything. They are at the top and they want to stay there, the view is better.

I feel there's a parallel to be made here with healers over this situation, from a (albeit fatigued) casual viewpoint. WHM, SCH, and AST have their issues sure, but their identities are established: WHM can do regen and mass healing, SCH has shields and AoE mitigation aids, as well as their fairy, and AST can both both (stance pending) to a degree. You'll always want, in an ideal setup, a variation of the three, where each job has its role and purpose, and does it well. (Post edit: upon rereading my comment, the notion of AST being the wild card healer hit me with a good chuckle for it's irony/pun)
There isn't that for tanks, despite the two classes both having three options. The core issues are on SE's heads at this point. DRK needs an identity, a reason to be taken into *any* content. The framework is there I feel. We've a rapid self/ally mitigation tool, and despite my protestations of it being the lvl70 job quest reward for how pivotal it is supposed to be, it's a start.

I may be wrong on this, and if so I'll do to improve my knowledge on it, as healing's not admittedly something i really enjoy. But I can't help but see there's some element of balance with the three healers.

[Rhais]

I don't see TBN as the framework for job identity. DRK has been branded "the active mitigation tank" by some, despite the other 2 tanks having equivalents, simply because of over reliance on TBN due to the gaping holes in the rest of its kit.

[Chrono_Rising]

I don't see TBN as the framework for job identity. DRK has been branded "the active mitigation tank" by some, despite the other 2 tanks having equivalents, simply because of over reliance on TBN due to the gaping holes in the rest of its kit.

I agree that TBN is not and should not be our job identify. Paladin does the same thing with sheltron, except that on its own sheltron is increasingly useful and TBN is flat. I feel dark gets its name as an active tank becuase of its potency buffing via dark arts, and now also through TBN. However, I agree it shouldn't be this way with TBN, they need to give us something, and we need a party utility of some kind.

[Derio]

TBN right now is the job's core identity.

And all that really does is show how terrible the job is in any content under lvl70.

The mitigation tools outside of TBN need to be reviewed. And i would even throw that TBN needs to be extended in duration to 6 or 7 seconds to accomodate ping and button response.

[WhyAmIHere]

I agree that TBN is not and should not be our job identify. Paladin does the same thing with sheltron, except that on its own sheltron is increasingly useful and TBN is flat. I feel dark gets its name as an active tank becuase of its potency buffing via dark arts, and now also through TBN. However, I agree it shouldn't be this way with TBN, they need to give us something, and we need a party utility of some kind.

and

TBN right now is the job's core identity.

And all that really does is show how terrible the job is in any content under lvl70.

The mitigation tools outside of TBN need to be reviewed. And i would even throw that TBN needs to be extended in duration to 6 or 7 seconds to accomodate ping and button response.

This is how I feel about DRK. TBN has been shoe-horned into being the big draw of the class. It's the "big skill" you get when you reach the level cap of 70. It's the skill that alongside bloodspiller was teased leading up to SB's launch, and for all its hot air, it's just a big dumb black, hexagonal-tiled balloon. A lot of what made DRK was taken and made into "tank general" skills, showing that SE screwed the pooch in making DRK have too many good things in HW.
Compare TBN to IR and Passage of Arms. PoA is a big, flashy skill that's eye catching and stands out in the party as long as you have party effects enabled. IR is just this big, huge, kaboom of energy and fury, and it's ability is immediately useful, as is PoA. Then there's TBN... just a piddly little ~woosh~, you lift your sword into the air, and go into your safe space that reality breaks as soon as you realize how useless it is.
TBN needs to do and feel more like an end-cap skill, something deserving of being the skill that you get at 70.

Dark Arts has outlived it's usefulness in simply being a +140 potency boost I feel. I posted elsewhere in these forums somewhere in another thread an idea I had to make DA be a skill modifier, akin to how C&S is effectively two skills with or without DA. (Either it's snap MP gain in dire straights, or 9._/10 times a big chuck of oGCD damage.) Tied to that, darkside's blockade of MP refresh skills is an outmoded way of thinking that only hinders how DRK plays in any team composition.
(An aside: I've seen it before here, where DRK is to a party of mages as WAR is to a party of melee, and to some extent I like that vein of thought. Tho the only reason I really can cotton on to this idea is to try and "shake up the meta" as it were, but more when I ran through a dungeon as an AST the other day, both of the DPS classes were casters. WAR effectively only boosted it's own damage in that set up, and while that's not a bad thing, it does point out a glaring issue that many more astute people have brought up with regards to pierce/slash resist down debuffs.)

When I said that TBN is a good start, I really meant it. DRK has a snap form of damage mitigation that can be used on itself, or an ally and, when burst, adds to one of our resources... but why? Does it really need to be used on an ally? Or on us at all? How can that resource generation be made better / an obvious gain? How can it be made to fit into the lore of the self-sacrificing fallen knight seeking to redress the wrongs done to the ignored? Without going largely into "what-ifs" and "what abouts," and even less so "this is what I think the DRK needs;" TBN is, as far as I can see, what we're stuck with at 70. But, in light of SCH/SMN getting back sustain after much outcry, and WAR getting SiO made into a skill that makes DRK obsolete (as well as removing their cost to go from tank-to-offense stance), I feel like it's entirely within SE's capacity to repair the damage done. That's as far as my hope will go, as otherwise i'd likely be setting myself up for disappointment.

[Crater]

4.x DRK is sometimes framed as or suggested changes are made with the idea of making it an "active mitigation" tank because: A) if you're trying to bring DRK up to par with the other tanks defensively, you require the fewest steps and the smallest number of skill effect changes to center its defensive identity around TBN, compared to the 2.1-WAR-esque overhaul you would need to adjust its suite of traditional cooldowns to do the same thing, B) TBN is, in sort of a general sense, the strongest of three tanks' active mitigation skills: Inner Beast, and Sheltron in particular, are situationally better, but neither really has the flexibility or overall potential of TBN, C) It seems a little silly to have three tank classes who all handle their mitigation duties by scheduling out 'set and forget' mitigation tools that have long-ish durations and longer cooldowns, when you could easily change it up and have one class that plays very differently, D) It matches up fairly well with DRK's current offensive identity, which is all about using Dark Arts as kind of a per-GCD Berserk, and E) If you commit to making TBN the centrepiece of DRK mitigation, then there are a lot of creative and fun ways that you can build on to that, whereas adjusting DRK's other defensive cooldowns is mostly a matter of just going "Okay, make these a little bit more like the other, better cooldowns that the other tanks have".


There are definitely some big issues that need to be addressed with TBN, if it were to be used that way (For instance, the cooldown would need to be substantially shorter, so that its use is essentially governed by MP regeneration rather than a cooldown timer; it would need to be available at or before level 50 so that it's usable in "max level" content from each x.0 iteration of the game; the interaction it has with Blood is also kind of not-great and could be greatly improved; the specific way that MP converts to damage in 4.x DRK makes further adjustments really touchy; etc). But given DRK's current position, and the likely/realistic expectations that we can set for how much work SE is willing to do to address the class's issues, I think that going all-in on TBN as a defensive identity is probably DRK's current best bet.

[SyzzleSpark]

Hmm... what if we did this:

->Remove TBN's MP cost.
->Remove TBN's Blood return upon breaking.
->If TBN breaks, cut Shadow Wall's recast by 5s. (If you spam TBN and it breaks every time this would whittle Shadow Wall down to about 120s recast).
->Add +50 Blood Gauge effect to Dark Passenger. Potency and MP cost unchanged.
->Halve Delirium's recast.
->Halve the duration increases to Blood Weapon and Blood Price granted by Delirium (+4s/+8s respectively).
->Sole Survivor = Medica II on 120s 90s recast.