Dark Knight Media Tour Feedback

[TouchandFeel]

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The fact that the expansion is not out and so numbers, values, etc. could very likely change and that things and the way the jobs play may feel different than what people are assuming is a valid point for sure and one that people should keep in mind.

However that was not what you put forward in your post, you questioned and denigrated the experience and competency of those that you disagreed with in an attempt to invalidate their opinion.
You literally said verbatim "a lot of these complaints come from people that don’t tank raid content or tank well at all", as well as "it’s so tiresome to see dungeon tankers complain if you can’t play the job well play another one".
Nowhere in those statements or the rest of your post did you even mention the concept that people my be jumping to conclusions on things that ultimately could change. If that was what you intended to get across as you so state, then you should have said precisely that instead of resorting to put downs.

[KatsuraJun]

My biggest problem is that DRK is still missing utility.

Comparing Utility Skills:

TBN = Nascent = Heart of Stone = Intervention
Missionary = Shake = Heart of Light = Divine Veil
Dark Mind = Thrill = Camoflauge = Sentinel

What do we have to match Aurora?

What do we have to match Cover and Clemency?

What do we have to match Equillibrium?

Cover
Losing the 20% mitigation for free it used to have means it's only good for covering prey mechanics like in guardian rather than being a free rampart every fight.
Guess which of the two uses made it a good skill. (Hint, it's the free rampart)
So while it's still decent for some fights I imagine Cover will no longer be quite as universally good every fight like it is right now.

Clemency
lol

Equilibrium
Calling this utility is off, it's more like a minor cooldown. Like awareness or anticipation. Good for shrugging off/undoing some auto damage.

Furthermore, your comparisons are dubious.
-Sentinel is not equivalent to Thrill and Dark Mind, Dark Wall and Vengeance are its counterparts. If there's an equivalent to Thrill/Dark Mind/Camo I'd argue it's probably meant to be Passage of Arms. Protects the party, but is worse than the 3 others at personal mitigation. These 4 CDs are all tailored to the flavor of each class (except for GNBs) so being less effective on yourself but can protect your party feels like a fitting trade off for PLD.
-While TBN is "equal" to Nascent/Heart of Light/Intervention in terms of the role they play in the kit, they are not equal in terms of actual utility because TBN is a great deal better, sporting nearly half the cooldown, and higher amount of damage mitigated as well as stacking more effectively with typical % mitigation as it's a shield as well. As if that wasn't enough of an advantage it has over the others, it also has a much lower opportunity cost (read:none) and requires nothing other than itself to work at full effectiveness which are things you can't say about Heart of Stone and Intervention. And Nascent just looks like garbage. Hell, you could say that this is the edge that DRK has over PLD's nerfed cover.

I'll grant you that Aurora is pretty decent looking though, especially considering that Heart of Stone is probably the 2nd best OT mitigation tool after TBN. But hardly a gamebreaking edge, it's pretty much sticking another minor cooldown on your ally. Which is great and all, but it's just gonna help with some autos in the end, not break the balance open. And I mean, come on. Clemency? Really? Healers don't even want to spend their gcds on heals and now you're saying the tank would want to? lol

purple/orange drk btw since people are bringing hurr raiding credentials into this.

[Danelo]

The expansion hasn't even come out that's what I am showcasing here. People are asking for improvements for something not even out yet. To me it's one thing like when stormblood came out and DRK clearly had issues. We got to play the content at the time and saw that DRK was falling behind it made sense to complain. Now the expansion is not even out no one touched the job and we have people asking for improvements on something we havnt touched. Now I never claimed I'm the top 1% at all but I do work to play the jobs and build some type of mastery to it before I ask for improvements. My overall point is this why should SE take threads like this serious when nothing is final and no one played the role or the content but people post improvements on work not done. For me I like the changes I hated the Dark arts spam and now we have utility. On top of that it would seem DRK has 2 burst windows while the other 3 tank have one I may b wrong tho. For me I always believed DRK should be a high dps tank. In 11 DRK was a dps job and they made it a tank in 14 but the job has been low on the dps side with little mitigation and utility which made no sense. Based on what I see now DRK and WAR will be a more DPS job while PLD and GUN with be utility and synergy job but that's me I leave that as subjective opinion until I get my hands on the expansion.

You are preaching to the choir about hating dark arts spam. And as far as having raid utility, I don't give extra points for that because it should have been given to us in 4.x. I like that it seems DRK will have a DPS focus although I'm not thrilled it seems like a copy and paste of IR with out the buffs (although it does seem an easy solution given it is essentially what PLD has with it's requiescat). I was hoping for more and there is nothing wrong with voicing that.

It all boils down to this: "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". Just like you said, not many complained last time when they felt things could have been better. They waited and so they fell down on the priority list while the most vocal got all the love. I under stand from SE's perspective: If you felt it was soooo bad, why didn't you complain earlier. The DRK community seems to have learned their lesson. Now that they feel something is off they want to call it out. Everyone understands it's early and they haven't personally gotten a hand on it but that doesn't mean it can't be roughly theory-crafted to see where the holes are and where improvements can be made based on previous experience.

[Tint]

It’s so tiresome to see dungeon tankers complain if you can’t play the job well play another one there are like 16 more

Especially as a dungeon tanker I am disappointed. They stripped fluff mitigation from DRK already in SB, now in ShB there is almost nothing left. DRK has 20s Rampart, 10s Shadow Wall and TBN - that's it. The magic only cooldowns are almost useless in a dungeon setting. Parry buff gone, aoe blind gone, healbuff gone, aoe selfheal dumbed down...

DRK has a cooldown for every second pull or so. Meanwhile GNB also has Rampart, his version of Shadow Wall, his version of TBN, 10% mitigation + 50% parry buff, his 15% aoe mitigation tool wich works on himself as well and of course his HoT.


DRK looks perfectly fine for raid content, he has cooldowns designed for tankbusters, but it looks like I have to tank dungeons with nothing but my face >.>

[Hierro]

Especially as a dungeon tanker I am disappointed. They stripped fluff mitigation from DRK already in SB, now in ShB there is almost nothing left. DRK has 20s Rampart, 10s Shadow Wall and TBN - that's it. The magic only cooldowns are almost useless in a dungeon setting. Parry buff gone, aoe blind gone, healbuff gone, aoe selfheal dumbed down...

DRK has a cooldown for every second pull or so. Meanwhile GNB also has Rampart, his version of Shadow Wall, his version of TBN, 10% mitigation + 50% parry buff, his 15% aoe mitigation tool wich works on himself as well and of course his HoT.


DRK looks perfectly fine for raid content, he has cooldowns designed for tankbusters, but it looks like I have to tank dungeons with nothing but my face >.>

CD usage I think will be a minor area of concern.

I love tanking dungeons, and I love using both WAR and DRK .When I tank dungeons on DRK, I do so mostly without grit for most and I tend to use my dark arts on quietus instead of abyssal drain. Despite that fact, data shows I consistently have a lower damage-taken-per-second stat on DRK than I do on WAR, and this is thanks to generous usage of TBN. I take less damage on DRK than I do on WAR even when I'm compounding cooldowns and correctly rotating them on every pull on WAR.

So, when I read we're gaining a tank trait that gives us permanent 20% damage reduction AND a buffed TBN, there's no doubt in my mind we'll be just fine. Besides, healers are just getting more tools to aid in healing, making our lives more secure.

[WhyAmIHere]

The expansion hasn't even come out that's what I am showcasing here. People are asking for improvements for something not even out yet. To me it's one thing like when stormblood came out and DRK clearly had issues. We got to play the content at the time and saw that DRK was falling behind it made sense to complain. Now the expansion is not even out no one touched the job and we have people asking for improvements on something we havnt touched. Now I never claimed I'm the top 1% at all but I do work to play the jobs and build some type of mastery to it before I ask for improvements. My overall point is this why should SE take threads like this serious when nothing is final and no one played the role or the content but people post improvements on work not done. For me I like the changes I hated the Dark arts spam and now we have utility. On top of that it would seem DRK has 2 burst windows while the other 3 tank have one I may b wrong tho. For me I always believed DRK should be a high dps tank. In 11 DRK was a dps job and they made it a tank in 14 but the job has been low on the dps side with little mitigation and utility which made no sense. Based on what I see now DRK and WAR will be a more DPS job while PLD and GUN with be utility and synergy job but that's me I leave that as subjective opinion until I get my hands on the expansion.

people complained before SB came out about how DRK looked like it lost a lot. Which it did, and got little in return for that. Folks complained, but WAR was objectively worse in 4.0. They very vocally complained, and come 4.2 WAR became an absolute beast. DRK was still complaining, but the few changes we got, while appreciated (SW recast reduction, TBN 5->7s duration, Q getting mana draining added to it, etc), were just not enough to really make DRK feel as good as it used to.

And I'll give you that caveat. The frenetic pace of DRK in HW was what drew plenty of folks to the job, and losing that in 4.0 people hoped to get back to that in 5.0. We are not however. DRK's gameplay is now very much akin to WAR's gameplay loop, with more resource management to manage.

But firstly, it's not hard to see what has been given as of the media tours and have initial "this does not please us" reactions. They're entirely valid, and dismissing them outright "because you haven't had the chance to play it" is dismissive of people's analytical ability. It's not beyond some folks ability to look at DRK's 5.0 kit, guesstimate a rotation, and reacting to it, which you did yourself saying "they have two burst windows."

However, you're right. people should also wait to play it when the servers go live, and for those that will stick with it to 80, should be able to speak their concerns then about how they feel the job plays.

Ideally we'd have both, the initial impressions pre-launch, and cross reference what we get on release, and have a solid write up of all the things wrong with DRK. At least, I know that's going to happen with how many eyes are going to be on DRK this expansion after 4.0.

[MenmaEmiya]

I only want one thing. I think if Dark Mind was kept 30% then it would be ok but it being reduced to 20% should have it be all damage. The reasoning behind them wanting dark knight to be the magic tank is no longer valid since Warrior has cooldowns that are for both magic and physical. So warrior having that basically negates dark knights "identity" as warrior will still be able to mitigate all types of damage (including magical) and it has more available to them. Not only that but paladin now having automatic blocks with sheltron which also works on magic damage. I feel that if that was adjusted and that alone it would be extremely fine.

[ADVSS]

I only want one thing. I think if Dark Mind was kept 30% then it would be ok but it being reduced to 20% should have it be all damage. The reasoning behind them wanting dark knight to be the magic tank is no longer valid since Warrior has cooldowns that are for both magic and physical. So warrior having that basically negates dark knights "identity" as warrior will still be able to mitigate all types of damage (including magical) and it has more available to them. Not only that but paladin now having automatic blocks with sheltron which also works on magic damage. I feel that if that was adjusted and that alone it would be extremely fine.

ill take 20/10 even, 10 phys, 20 magic. Lets not forget that mdef was added to pld shields its literally another passive cd like new tank trait

[Chrono_Rising]

The expansion hasn't even come out that's what I am showcasing here. People are asking for improvements for something not even out yet. To me it's one thing like when stormblood came out and DRK clearly had issues. We got to play the content at the time and saw that DRK was falling behind it made sense to complain. Now the expansion is not even out no one touched the job and we have people asking for improvements on something we havnt touched. Now I never claimed I'm the top 1% at all but I do work to play the jobs and build some type of mastery to it before I ask for improvements. My overall point is this why should SE take threads like this serious when nothing is final and no one played the role or the content but people post improvements on work not done. For me I like the changes I hated the Dark arts spam and now we have utility. On top of that it would seem DRK has 2 burst windows while the other 3 tank have one I may b wrong tho. For me I always believed DRK should be a high dps tank. In 11 DRK was a dps job and they made it a tank in 14 but the job has been low on the dps side with little mitigation and utility which made no sense. Based on what I see now DRK and WAR will be a more DPS job while PLD and GUN with be utility and synergy job but that's me I leave that as subjective opinion until I get my hands on the expansion.

Well you can imagine a few things yeah? Asking myself what elements have actually changed and will take some thinking/decision making.

EoS - This is the new dark arts, it applies its potency directly as an oGCD instead of adding it indirectly as an oGCD through the GCD. This isn't really a change other than tuning the damage to replace the frequency of dark arts. With cuts to mana regeneration from siphon strike and blood weapon we can see a lowering of the frequency of oGCD spam. I.e if you are playing dark knight because its a faster paced tank, then this is the first hit to slowing us down. EoS also applies darkside, looking at it on a spreadsheet you will be using this ability more often than once every 30 seconds which means darkside will be kept up indefinitely without much thought, which is essentially what it is now.

Living Shadow - according to the people who played the job this is just a once every two minute button press with no interaction. It is available, you use it, it does its thing for 24 seconds, you need not pay attention to it after you hit the button. This is an extra button to press.

Blood weapon - Haste removed, abilities no longer proc the resource regeneration, duration shortened, while the inactive time on the cooldown has gotten longer. Again, if you have been playing this job for speed, we just lost speed in three ways, less frequency using this skill, without a haste buff, and lower resource generation meaning less oGCD action use. if you liked getting extra mana from when Blood weapon aligned with your ability timers, this synergy has been removed, this is almost the end of synergy within the kit.

Salted earth - recast doubled. Again less buttons to press on oGCDs, and another hit to speed.

Since we have all of the tooltips and relevant skill information at we can back this up with spreadsheets of probable rotations and see if we have been slowed down. The result? We have losts several casts per minute, not surprising.

There are some aoe game play elements that look interesting, and that is fine and well, I'm not criticizing that. Oddly enough I think dungeon tanking will probably be fun, its the single target raid scene that I think will take a game play hit. As a raider, that is actually important to me.

Double burst window is not unique to dark knight, paladin has had a double burst window for all of 4.0 and it looks to have survived into 5.0.. and may even be a triple burst window at this point but I'm waiting for game play to confirm before agreeing with the video evidence.

Synergy? Warrior has it, but it has been tightened some with the homogenization that has gone on, but it still has plenty of synergy in its kit.

Based on who you ask the numbers for where the tanks will fall for dps order also disagree with you. Paladin looks to be ahead dark and warrior appear to be neck and neck. But this is one element I did not give feedback on because the numbers are likely not final, there will be tweaks, and not all of the available information is consistent on things like potency. Carve and Spit doesn't appear to match the tool tip, depending on language Fell cleave is either 520 potency or 580. Again, this area is subject to change.

I haven't studied gun breaker enough to make a reasonable assessment of it yet. And I will hold my opinion. Its fine to disagree with me, maybe I'm wrong. I have done what I can with the tools available to me. But even the Xeno video you point to didn't have a glowing review of dark knight. A far more constructive route would be to point out what you think is changing on dark knight and how that is going to increase your enjoyment of the class. If it is based on slowing down the game play, you are absolutely right, it has been slowed down and if thats what you want then it appears to be coming. If you wanted a fast paced tank then I have bad news.

[Inuk9]

Especially as a dungeon tanker I am disappointed. They stripped fluff mitigation from DRK already in SB, now in ShB there is almost nothing left. DRK has 20s Rampart, 10s Shadow Wall and TBN - that's it. The magic only cooldowns are almost useless in a dungeon setting. Parry buff gone, aoe blind gone, healbuff gone, aoe selfheal dumbed down...

DRK has a cooldown for every second pull or so. Meanwhile GNB also has Rampart, his version of Shadow Wall, his version of TBN, 10% mitigation + 50% parry buff, his 15% aoe mitigation tool wich works on himself as well and of course his HoT.


DRK looks perfectly fine for raid content, he has cooldowns designed for tankbusters, but it looks like I have to tank dungeons with nothing but my face >.>

If you time your abyssal drain properly youll get a lot of life steal, TBN, rampart and SW are more than enough to do big pulls. TBN is a 15 sec 25% heal, with delirium you can spam quieus, with blood weapon you will have a lot mp to spam at least 4 TBN (and 4 flood of shadow) in a pull, and Im pretty sure you should have Blood weapon on every pull.