What about creating an ACTUAL Dark Knight?

[MaraD_]

Attacks that cost HP or that do more damage at lower HP may be "high risk, high reward," but the risk and the resource expenditure is shifted from the player to their healer. In a single player game where you control all of your party members, this is fine, because you have control of both sides of this. In an MMO setting, though, it doesn't work as a job theme. You'd end up deliberately throwing yourself into harm's way for more dps while your healer picks up after you.

The one area that you can work on is the lifesteal angle, as per Final Fantasy Tactics.

I agree with this, but just to clarify, thats not quite what they meant.
But I do agree this style isnt the best thing to do in an MMO, and not just for the reasons you mentioned.
(Thinks on it, actually, I think I just came up with a work around, to make that work. *goes to write that down for personal use*)

[HumanNinjaToo]

You know, these "high-risk high-reward" tanky jobs that sacrifices their own HP to protect themselves or deliver strong blows?
That literally steals vitality from their foes to survive?
Makes shield out of their foes' blood?
That do ACTUAL DARK STUFF.

Does is speaks to anybody?
Or is that just me? '^'

First I have to say that I have never DRK in FF14, so I am basing my thoughts on what I think it should do. To me it seems that DRK would have been better served as a DPS class that focused on sacrificing life to deal exponential dmg. So that DRK did not have to rely on a healer to function properly, I would think that DRK's rotation would build up to losing health overtime, not as a DoT, but as each skill sacrifices a little bit more HP until the final skill in rotation would actually sap a great deal of HP from the target(s). This is where I think the strategy would come into play: making sure the target(s) have enough HP so that the DRK gets something back. And I mean that if you used this rotation against a dying mob or group of mobs, then their would not be sufficient HP to sap and DRK would not get all the HP they spent back. Other risk would be giving yourself enough time to complete the rotation before getting hit and killed due to having low HP. I may even go so far as suggest that once initiated, the DRK rotation would not allow for the DRK to be healed by any means other than completing the rotation, or canceling the rotation (this way a healer would not be able to play safety net, and the DRK rotation would remain high-risk/high-reward).

I could see DRK being a more viable tank be allowing similar tactics to what I described, except that the gain of the DRK, as opposed to being dmg used by the DRK against mobs, would instead be a buff transferred to the rest of the party (or maybe a target DPS role). I could see DRK becoming a tank that utilizes debuffs as opposed to dealing high amounts of dmg. I think causing debuffs on the enemy (i.e. blind, MP/HP DoT, stun, etc.) would still fit into the tank role of gaining enmity, while keeping away from becoming the "ultimate tank/DPS hybrid" role.


IMO, the Dark Knight as a solo-type role has always been about trading HP for DMG and then having some ways of stealing that HP back again. However as a multi-player type role, the Dark Knight seems better suited to being a debuffer class. Just my thoughts.

[Aluja89]

First I have to say that I have never DRK in FF14, so I am basing my thoughts on what I think it should do. To me it seems that DRK would have been better served as a DPS class that focused on sacrificing life to deal exponential dmg. So that DRK did not have to rely on a healer to function properly

And then get hit by an AOE and die, making the healer ress you. Next!

[battleshadow66]

You know, these "high-risk high-reward" tanky jobs that sacrifices their own HP to protect themselves or deliver strong blows?
That literally steals vitality from their foes to survive?
Makes shield out of their foes' blood?
That do ACTUAL DARK STUFF.

Does is speaks to anybody?
Or is that just me? '^'

That version of Dark Knight has never existed. The job was literally a melee heavy hitter that could use an ability called "Darkness" to use its own HP to hit all enemies.

[ADVSS]

A minus strike like a reverse spirits within, would be cool, if there was a combo between the original Blood for blood(now called lance charge) and bloodbath+convalesence, where lowered defense was offset by higher hp gains from healing(and life taps) i dont really see that making them "awfuller" at tanking in some regards. Perhaps the idea of using hp is off limits as a tank, but they could do more lifetapping/and even lower defense for a short time for more damage. But im pretty sure the route they want tanks to be at, less of the self heals/lifetaps, and more reliance on healers. I dont really like that route but im sure lots of people prefer it, probably healers

IMO, the Dark Knight as a solo-type role has always been about trading HP for DMG and then having some ways of stealing that HP back again. However as a multi-player type role, the Dark Knight seems better suited to being a debuffer class. Just my thoughts.

If they were hellbent on this magic tank idea, DRK should have been given a dot spell that drains hp/tick(tarpit for pve?), Theres so many things they could have thematically given them, that would def draw a distinct line between the tanks, this current iteration though, is the byproduct of what once was a really unique tank, that offered so much what the others didnt, despite it being slightly clunky and out of place, then they just took everything off their kit and divvied it around to the other tanks. Since we got nothing left, they could now just give it its own flavor. And get rid of the term "delirium" that skill is cursed. I love berserk, but come on-that was the hw inspiration, this thing we got now resembles nothing of that job.

[Reynhart]

The problem with a DRK sacrificing its HP is the risk of dying when big hits come.
So what if, instead of having mitigation oGCD, he had HP refill ones ?

He could have skills like the current Thrill Of Battle or TBN, that could compensate for having lower HP most of the time, or even a skill to swap HP with someone that could also be used to give a good portion of HP back to the MT when you're the OT, or a Drain line of spells. And, instead of having GCD that would heal you (Like SoulEater, Clemency, Storm's Path, etc...), he would have GCD that would mitigate damage, so roughly the reverse concept of how tanks play right now.

[HumanNinjaToo]

And then get hit by an AOE and die, making the healer ress you. Next!

And that's where the high-risk/high-reward part comes into play. If you are good at the job and aware of the mechanics at play in the moment, you survive the AOE by getting out of the way. People are already making poor decisions and getting killed by AOE and needing healer to ress them, so...

If they were hellbent on this magic tank idea, DRK should have been given a dot spell that drains hp/tick(tarpit for pve?), Theres so many things they could have thematically given them, that would def draw a distinct line between the tanks, this current iteration though, is the byproduct of what once was a really unique tank, that offered so much what the others didnt, despite it being slightly clunky and out of place, then they just took everything off their kit and divvied it around to the other tanks. Since we got nothing left, they could now just give it its own flavor. And get rid of the term "delirium" that skill is cursed. I love berserk, but come on-that was the hw inspiration, this thing we got now resembles nothing of that job.

Unfortunately, I never got to see the older versions of DRK in action. I first got this game when HW came out, but only played for a month. I hear a lot of people saying the job was more unique earlier on. Dark Knight has always been a class/role that's held my fascination in every game I play in which it makes an appearance. I am so close to having the job unlocked now. I really don't know what to expect with it at this point though. Some people are saying that 5.1 may bring changes to DRK, I guess we'll see.

[Aluja89]

And that's where the high-risk/high-reward part comes into play. If you are good at the job and aware of the mechanics at play in the moment, you survive the AOE by getting out of the way. People are already making poor decisions and getting killed by AOE and needing healer to ress them, so...

Would this kind of DRK have a self sustain? If not then it's just going to bother the healer since the tank is always the primary focus, which is why it could potentially work.

[SakiKojiro]

I'd like if Living dead instead set your HP to 1, and gave you a shield of blood like the size of your HP bar that would eat hits instead of your HP, but it takes up actual space in your HP bar so you're unable to be healed until you take damage again.

[ADVSS]

I'd like if Living dead instead set your HP to 1, and gave you a shield of blood like the size of your HP bar that would eat hits instead of your HP, but it takes up actual space in your HP bar so you're unable to be healed until you take damage again.

I'm not sure I follow entirely, but it sounds interesting..does the rehealing apply to the first hit chipped off of the shielding, or does that mean you cant be healed until your health hits 1 again?

The problem with a DRK sacrificing its HP is the risk of dying when big hits come.
So what if, instead of having mitigation oGCD, he had HP refill ones ?

He could have skills like the current Thrill Of Battle or TBN, that could compensate for having lower HP most of the time, or even a skill to swap HP with someone that could also be used to give a good portion of HP back to the MT when you're the OT, or a Drain line of spells. And, instead of having GCD that would heal you (Like SoulEater, Clemency, Storm's Path, etc...), he would have GCD that would mitigate damage, so roughly the reverse concept of how tanks play right now.

I agree with you but I'm a little on the fence. This was literally 2.0 WAR and as cool as it was, it was a nightmare to heal imo. But again, during 2.0 levelling WAR I didnt believe DRK was ever going to be a job, because 2.0 WAR was pretty much how I thought DRK would be like as a ff14 job. I was def wrong come HW(but by then we were having discussions of new tanks they might add), but WAR did get that work in 2.1 which took a lot of those things away from it. TBF, the identity problem between the two might actually be stemmed from early dev hindsight, but idk, Your idea makes sense, but then theres WAR original identity. A hard sell for sure. I get why they made the 2 so similar this time around, but its totally just not in good taste to me.

Drain line of spells would be great though. Its too bad they took debuffing away from tanks, they couldve made cc or more utility-like debuffs work, but thats not how the meta is sadly.