A Suggestion for Dark Knight moving into 5.0/Eventual Rework

[Speaks]

Seriously. You say yourself
"Feel free to skip the next section if you are not interested in the kit proposal"

in a thread about suggesting DRK changes.

Titled as such.

The intent was to let you choose to view simply the pros and cons instead of just kit changes as a TL;DR for the suggested alterations. After all most people don't want to read and I took that into account.

[WhyAmIHere]

Grit is not suddenly time limited. The passive defense bonus becomes permanent, you also lose the damage down effect normally on tank stance once you get your buff up. The buff is also maintainable through using gauge for Bloodspillers. You are being rewarded for thinking ahead and planning when you need to use aggro vs when you don't. Not all tanks need to play the same, or we will never see anything interesting done with classes in this game.

...you also nixxed the hate generation of grit. The thing Tank stance is for. And put it on a skill. with a cooldown.
so, you made Grit, a tank stance, only act as a tank stance, as long as BPrice was up.
You made a tank... not a tank.

The intent was to let you choose to view simply the pros and cons instead of just kit changes as a TL;DR for the suggested alterations. After all most people don't want to read and I took that into account.

No. You don't get to pull that card. You posted in a forum, and a "public" one at that. You made yourself open to criticism, and making a throw-away line of "don't read this if you don't care to" doesn't absolve you of feedback.

People are going to read what yo wrote. What you wrote was bad. Very bad. If I had more time I'd go line by line, and show you how wrong and bad they all are.

You'd turn around and defend the points you care to defend, and ignore feedback on any others you don't want to deal with by saying "you don't have to comment if you don't like it" or anything along those lines.

[Speaks]

...you also nixxed the hate generation of grit. The thing Tank stance is for. And put it on a skill. with a cooldown.
so, you made Grit, a tank stance, only act as a tank stance, as long as BPrice was up.
You made a tank... not a tank.

You do realize that currently tanks are only in tank stance for a few GCDs anyways right? WAR only pulls in tank stance for 2-3 GCDs at most, and does so under Unchained. Meaning they basically pull in DPS stance.

Tank Stance for mitigation first and aggro second? Preposterous.

[Jonnycbad]

Maybe by high-end raiders, but not for most players. Also, not during progression--only when optimizing for farming for speed/efficient kills.

[WhyAmIHere]

I am more than open to suggestions for getting DRK's AoE up to speed if you have some. The proposed changes make it's AoE more fluid overall, is there something wrong with doing that?

and

You do realize that currently tanks are only in tank stance for a few GCDs anyways right? WAR only pulls in tank stance for 2-3 GCDs at most, and does so under Unchained. Meaning they basically pull in DPS stance.

Tank Stance for mitigation first and aggro second? Preposterous.

shows you're lacking in how to handle DRK in dungeons.

DRK is, by far, the easiest to use AoE in dungeons.
Yes, WAR as inner release for sweet sweet direct crits... every 90s. Beyond that you've got what, two aoe moves in decimate/cyclone and the conal upheaval?

DRK has Abyssal Drain, DP, Quietus, and if you're really feeling spicy, Unleash and Salted Earth. Q is affected by Blood Weapon, so you can drop grit to really generate massive amounts of MP/Blood, spam Abyssal, hit a Quietus, to fuel more Abyssal Drains. BP isn't a slouch either if you stay in grit if you want to fuel more AD uses either.

I'd say before making statements towards the effect of "I feel that X could be improved by Y, Z, and Q," you should do more class research on how X functions to start with. Right now DRK shines in dungeon content compared to WAR/PLD. Saying that they don't is just you admitting you're not good at it and not recognizing it, or being unable to accept that.

[Speaks]

Maybe by high-end raiders, but not for most players. Also, not during progression--only when optimizing for farming for speed/efficient kills.

I hope you arent saying you know raiders who open with 3 or more aggro combos back to back, because 3 power slashes is what you could get under a 15 second enmity generation buff.

I don't know anyone who even opens with aggro combos at all. Neither me nor my OT do and we are in progression savage, and it isn't like either of us are amazing world first either.

[Raffter]

not sure if this post is meant to be a meme "guys if you play drk wrong it's not a good tank"... same. Leave DRK suggestions for people that know the class. Refer to FFLOGs if you're looking for DRK advice.

[Kabooa]

To be quite frank, I don't see many of your changes making Dark Knight feel better. I see it being less active, which is not a bad thing, but with little given to make it compelling. If you're removing 'activity' from a class, then something has to be added back in.

Activity level and engagement aren't the same thing. This is part of translating class fantasy to mechanical input. The Black Mage doesn't require much activity / input itself, however, the engagement stems from keeping mind of timers, incoming mechanics, and working around them. The APM of Black Mage is among the lowest, but the attention it utilizes is quite active itself.

Compare this to, say, Samurai who have significantly higher APM but their 'engagement' is on resource management and cheating the GCD to maintain as much uptime, especially if Melee uptime is removed. You're not planning as much around what happens for the Samurai, you're primarily just concerned about keeping in melee range as much as possible.

It doesn't matter if the boss does a zig zag aoe pattern followed by out/in and then two steps back. Odds are you can cheat all of it with one simple backstep and charge, where a black mage must work around every step. The considerations given to the same mechanic are vastly different, and that plays into the feel of the Job.

So with this in mind you are removing "activity" (Dark Arts) but not giving anything back.

Grit being toggled on fully and requiring Blood Weapon to nullify the penalties means it's just maintaining blood weapon as much as you can. If at any point in this kit that Blood Weapon cannot be maintained full time, Grit goes back to never being used, especially since threat generation got removed. This in turn makes the Delirium change kind of meaningless. Blood Weapon is going to be prioritized no matter what. It pretty much has to be, so Delirium will always be the first choice of use, even (and perhaps especially) with the Blood price attached to it for early use.

Thus from a GCD standpoint Dark Knight has received nothing to compensate for the removal of Dark Arts. The considerations haven't changed. You prioritize Delirium and excess blood gets spent on Bloodspiller, which is pretty much exactly what happens now.

The Addle effect is a no go. The primary reason potential full time reduction abilities got removed in Stormblood is because they were simply always factored into boss damage anyways. Having them meant you were fighting the encounter as designed, not having them meant you were in for a bad time.

The actual action changes themselves feel mostly unwarranted and in the wrong direction. Like why did you change Abyssal drain in every way into Unleash, instead of just making Unleash part of the AoE combo?

Why do Dark Passenger and Carve and Spit share a cooldown despite not competing with each other in their use, and on top of that, -why make Carve and Spit better-. Dark Passenger is already considered a waste of time by most.

Why have Delirium if it's just Blood Weapon?

Why curtail MP generation effects to make resources more compelling to manage, but then also remove the primary use of said resource (Dark Arts) by changing it into a tick that's just going to be covered by Siphon Strike.

Why is Quietus removed instead of being part of the AoE combo?

Why does unleash still exist if Abyssal Drain is just a combo version of it?

These action changes seem contradictory with each other for intent and purpose and execution.

You honestly could have just focused on making Dark Passenger be a super cool ability and skipped the rest of this.

[Speaks]

snip.

Only every 90sec? Sure. I only eliminate a single wall to wall 3+ pack pull once every 90 seconds.

IR gives you 5 back to back direct crit steel cyclones or decimates. Decimate is 280 potency AoE. If you infuriate before hand you will get 7 total decimates a pull and 5 of which will direct crit.

You also have vengeance and upheaval/onslaught.

WAR literally pulls double DRKs AoE if not more. By the time you've got your next triple pack pull together IR is already on cooldown or close to it and boom, another triple pull is done.

It isn't that I underestimate DRK AoE, it's that I think most don't understand that WAR AoE is better than most DPS AoE.

[Speaks]

not sure if this post is meant to be a meme "guys if you play drk wrong it's not a good tank"... same. Leave DRK suggestions for people that know the class. Refer to FFLOGs if you're looking for DRK advice.

FFLogs was used for the proposed changes, as was information and tools found on The Balance.

To be quite frank, I don't see many of your changes making Dark Knight feel better. I see it being less active, which is not a bad thing, but with little given to make it compelling. If you're removing 'activity' from a class, then something has to be added back in.

Activity level and engagement aren't the same thing. This is part of translating class fantasy to mechanical input. The Black Mage doesn't require much activity / input itself, however, the engagement stems from keeping mind of timers, incoming mechanics, and working around them. The APM of Black Mage is among the lowest, but the attention it utilizes is quite active itself.

Compare this to, say, Samurai who have significantly higher APM but their 'engagement' is on resource management and cheating the GCD to maintain as much uptime, especially if Melee uptime is removed. You're not planning as much around what happens for the Samurai, you're primarily just concerned about keeping in melee range as much as possible.

It doesn't matter if the boss does a zig zag aoe pattern followed by out/in and then two steps back. Odds are you can cheat all of it with one simple backstep and charge, where a black mage must work around every step. The considerations given to the same mechanic are vastly different, and that plays into the feel of the Job.

So with this in mind you are removing "activity" (Dark Arts) but not giving anything back.

Grit being toggled on fully and requiring Blood Weapon to nullify the penalties means it's just maintaining blood weapon as much as you can. If at any point in this kit that Blood Weapon cannot be maintained full time, Grit goes back to never being used, especially since threat generation got removed. This in turn makes the Delirium change kind of meaningless. Blood Weapon is going to be prioritized no matter what. It pretty much has to be, so Delirium will always be the first choice of use, even (and perhaps especially) with the Blood price attached to it for early use.

Thus from a GCD standpoint Dark Knight has received nothing to compensate for the removal of Dark Arts. The considerations haven't changed. You prioritize Delirium and excess blood gets spent on Bloodspiller, which is pretty much exactly what happens now.

The Addle effect is a no go. The primary reason potential full time reduction abilities got removed in Stormblood is because they were simply always factored into boss damage anyways. Having them meant you were fighting the encounter as designed, not having them meant you were in for a bad time.

The actual action changes themselves feel mostly unwarranted and in the wrong direction. Like why did you change Abyssal drain in every way into Unleash, instead of just making Unleash part of the AoE combo?

Why do Dark Passenger and Carve and Spit share a cooldown despite not competing with each other in their use, and on top of that, -why make Carve and Spit better-. Dark Passenger is already considered a waste of time by most.

Why have Delirium if it's just Blood Weapon?

Why curtail MP generation effects to make resources more compelling to manage, but then also remove the primary use of said resource (Dark Arts) by changing it into a tick that's just going to be covered by Siphon Strike.

Why is Quietus removed instead of being part of the AoE combo?

Why does unleash still exist if Abyssal Drain is just a combo version of it?

These action changes seem contradictory with each other for intent and purpose and execution.

You honestly could have just focused on making Dark Passenger be a super cool ability and skipped the rest of this.

All of these are fair criticisms and I will adjust the main post to reflect these better.

A few notes though; Assuming you get at least one Bloodspiller (which would extend Blood Weapon by 5s per use) you will be able to hold over to recast Blood Weapon while only losing a single GCD. But I would hope that under optimal play you could get 3 or even 4 Bloodspillers and thus refresh your buff effect like Greased Lightning, which was the original thought process. Unlike GL or Enochian though I would prefer it be a little harder to maintain to, like you said, increase activity and engagement.

As for Dark Arts you will still use it. I would like to see Scourge brought back too, giving us yet another off global to use.

You are correct on the Addle effect. I will remove it and allow Bloodspiller to simply refresh Blood Weapon as it's main extra gain.

Abyssal, Delirium and Unleash will have their names corrected, thank you. I am sure it only made things harder to follow.

Syphon Strike should not be able to cover new DA's mana consumption. With the only other source being the refresh effect from CaS you would at best be able to prolong it for a few GCDs extra. I would like to see DA drain all of your mana in 2 combos or less.

DP and CaS sharing a cooldown was to keep DP from being used in single target since your main source of mana would be fueling DA and TBN. Otherwise it is just free off global damage.

A good question is why unleash or abyssal exists at all on current DRK. Abyssal is strictly better right now, unless you are too low a level to have it.

The action changes was to reinforce having Grit up to survive Busters and to enforce use of TBN. Shadow Wall and Dark Mind exist as extra cooldowns, but if you give DRK a lot of lifesteal and also mitigation in large amount you end up with a tank who doesn't need a healer at all, which is also a bad thing.