I'm thinking Dark Knight's rework will be more extensive than I initially thought.

[DBelmont]

DRK new aura may look like the Shadowbringers trailer. Purple also differentiates it from WAR Inner Release.

[Steelbreeze]

They could sort of do HP sacrifice on DRK tank.

Whenever you steal HP from an enemy it could duplicate the same amount in a job gauge, you could then use that stolen HP to boost damage or add special effects to skills.

It's not quite the classic 'cast from HP' but I think it would feel pretty good and fit thematically. The more HP you steal from enemies, the higher you can keep your own HP, the more you can boost your damage, boosted damage leads to stealing more HP from enemies, keeping your own HP topped up even more efficiently, round and round.

Or, they could have soul eater GRANT hp in tank stance and CONSUME it in DPS stance(to boost the damage). I doubt they would go this route however, because it would kill the soloability of DRK. They would have to add some way to recover HP in dps stance, which sounds interesting in its own way.

[Jandor]

IDK about the red eyes personally. Reminds me too much of Inner Release.

Warrior strikes again

[Kalise]

Warrior strikes again

Yeah... Though, to be fair, Red is usually associated with anger and specifically in the FF series, the Berserk status made characters red (And steamy?) and so it makes sense that the Berserker class gets red glowy eyes and red aura. (I still hope that Defiance/Deliverance gauges give different colour auras at some point...)

I have no idea why the Abyss is apparently red too. Some skills are more purple in fact... Which I guess goes with the ShB trailer's cool purple flames aura. Though, there is still some lore regarding it being red (Such as one of the descriptions that mentions someone fighting a DRK and thinking he's bleeding until it turns out it was just the Abyss powers protecting them). Perhaps they might be switching over to more purple in ShB to help differentiate the classes?

Or, they could have soul eater GRANT hp in tank stance and CONSUME it in DPS stance(to boost the damage). I doubt they would go this route however, because it would kill the soloability of DRK. They would have to add some way to recover HP in dps stance, which sounds interesting in its own way.

Actually I think the main issue with this is that currently, we have no reason to believe that Tank Stances will ever be a relevant thing for Tanks in end game.

Then I can see the complaints from DRK's where they're all like "Whys we gotta hurt ourselves to deal the same damage as every other Tank?"

While if they did more damage than other Tanks then PLD's, WAR's and GUN's will be all like "Whys they gotta do more damage than us?"

As such, I don't think that it's particularly viable to have DRK's sacrifice their own health. Unless of course, it also generated equal (Or greater) amounts of shield so you go net even even though thematically you're still losing health.

In that sense, I could for sure see something like a skill where you lose X% health but then gain a shield equal to X% health and do some bonus damage.

Still having a self sacrifice theme, but with less drawbacks and some upsides (You'd be able to prevent overhealing from HoTs or skills like Adlo that are being used primarily for their shield but also heal)

[Sylvain]

Still having a self sacrifice theme, but with less drawbacks and some upsides (You'd be able to prevent overhealing from HoTs or skills like Adlo that are being used primarily for their shield but also heal)

That alone would make some interesting gameplay imo!

[TouchandFeel]

Warrior strikes again

Personally I feel that WAR can have the whole bright red color-scheme for their abilities to go with their other warm/hot colored abilities.
I would like to see DRK get more of a dark blue, purple and black color-scheme consolidated across their abilities.

[wSnuggles]

If DRK does get re-worked heavily, it would be really cool if they implemented a skill change for DRK's Living Dead skill. Also a trait that increases DRK's dmg when its hp falls under 51%
The idea would be something like this, 50% = +5% damage, so every 10% drop in HP would result in 5% damage being stacked to a maximum of 25% (Feel free to suggest a more reasonable number if you guys like the idea) and the re-work for Living Dead could be changed to something like a Immunity where a DRK can take all sorts of damage but its HP will not fall under 1 till the skill wears off.

[Kalise]

If DRK does get re-worked heavily, it would be really cool if they implemented a skill change for DRK's Living Dead skill. Also a trait that increases DRK's dmg when its hp falls under 51%
The idea would be something like this, 50% = +5% damage, so every 10% drop in HP would result in 5% damage being stacked to a maximum of 25% (Feel free to suggest a more reasonable number if you guys like the idea) and the re-work for Living Dead could be changed to something like a Immunity where a DRK can take all sorts of damage but its HP will not fall under 1 till the skill wears off.

I think the issue with something like that, is it then promotes being at low health, which means that it would become meta to rely on shields to keep a low health DRK alive so they get more DPS.

Also, that rework on Living Dead is just turning it into a better Holmgang (Sans the CD difference)

Which is something to be aware of. We have (Also, had before DRK was created) complete immunity to damage from PLD's Hallowed Ground and have (Again, also had before DRK was created) the inability to go below 1hp temporarily from WAR's Holmgang.

If Living Dead was reworked (Which, given how awkward it can be to use compared to the aforementioned skills) it would need to become something unique in comparison, whilst still serving the same overall purpose (Being an infinitely spongy mitigation skill)

[Derio]

Living dead should be switched to 10s where all attacks heal you. DRK shouldn’t have to depend on the healer. No other tank does for theirs

[Shurrikhan]

Living dead should be switched to 10s where all attacks heal you. DRK shouldn’t have to depend on the healer. No other tank does for theirs

So, 200% mitigation with unkillability for as long as Hallowed Ground lasts, yet on a shorter CD?

Almost any of the factors that could pull that into balance short of a massive CD would probably generate risky play that would make the bane of healers' existences when the fight isn't yet wholly known and the DRK itself imperfect in play.