Dark Knight: 5.0x Feedback Thread

[Dragonkat]

But Stormblood Dark Knight was by far the worst tank in terms of utility and could not provide any form of protection for AoE damage (outside of the universal role skill Reprisal) until the introduction of Dark Missionary, and the one utility it had, which was casting TBN on other people, was buffed in this expansion.

Also the game is balanced for savage because savage and ultimate are the only content where balance actually matters. In content below savage a lot of utility skills, such as raidwide AoE mitigators, or healing boosts like Mantra, almost never make a difference because damage is so undertuned. Content with no enrage timers can effectively be cleared without any DPS players, and is in fact perfectly safe to do with a team of 6 tanks and 2 healers, which is why you really can't balance around it.

Spoken like a true savage raider who has no respect for the rest of the games content. So nothing else matters till you get to the "real" game? Which Savage is? We shouldn't worry what happens to anyone in the first 79 levels or the MSQ? Balance doesn't matter at all? Thank god you and your ignorance aren't on the dev team that's all I can say. Given you seem to have forgotten in terms of utility DRK had...

* Dark Passenger to blind mobs for mitigation (oh my god though you had to press an extra button for DA!)

* Carve and spit where you had the =choice= for MP regen or extra damage (OMG DA SPAM!)

* Blood Price where DRK could more easily sustain MP during mass pulls to keep TBN and AD up

* Blood weapon with extra regen AND attack speed to bring more dps to the table if that floated your boat, making DRK excellent OT's since it was a non tank stance buff.

* Delirium providing extra uptime to both of the above instead of just being a warrior wannabe burst window

* Quietus providing a meaningful use in terms of sustain with mp regen per hit, unlike it's near uselessness now, and being rapidly outclassed by stalwart soul combo.

* Abyssal Drain providing mass HP regen on mass pulls, and the "utility" powers to make sure you could keep it going. Without being locked on a cooldown that makes it even more useless

* TBN giving blood instead of this new broken DA where you either lose dps, or gain one extra free hit, and just replacing one brand of DA spam with another for a DPS boost that is barely even noticeable. Unlike the old version where you had a =choice= with 50 blood to deal extra dps or gain extra mp regen. And the MP regen skills that gave a wider skill window unlike the current 123 BS spam we have now.

But DRK didn't have any utility... Ah but I forgot none of the above matters to you, because it's just progression play, and only scrubs do that, we don't need to worry about anything but savage right? *eyeroll*

[Arsthan]

Spoken like a true savage raider who has no respect for the rest of the games content. So nothing else matters till you get to the "real" game? Which Savage is? We shouldn't worry what happens to anyone in the first 79 levels or the MSQ? Balance doesn't matter at all? Thank god you and your ignorance aren't on the dev team that's all I can say. Given you seem to have forgotten in terms of utility DRK had...

* Dark Passenger to blind mobs for mitigation (oh my god though you had to press an extra button for DA!)

* Carve and spit where you had the =choice= for MP regen or extra damage (OMG DA SPAM!)

* Blood Price where DRK could more easily sustain MP during mass pulls to keep TBN and AD up

* Blood weapon with extra regen AND attack speed to bring more dps to the table if that floated your boat, making DRK excellent OT's since it was a non tank stance buff.

* Delirium providing extra uptime to both of the above instead of just being a warrior wannabe burst window

* Quietus providing a meaningful use in terms of sustain with mp regen per hit, unlike it's near uselessness now, and being rapidly outclassed by stalwart soul combo.

* Abyssal Drain providing mass HP regen on mass pulls, and the "utility" powers to make sure you could keep it going. Without being locked on a cooldown that makes it even more useless

* TBN giving blood instead of this new broken DA where you either lose dps, or gain one extra free hit, and just replacing one brand of DA spam with another for a DPS boost that is barely even noticeable. Unlike the old version where you had a =choice= with 50 blood to deal extra dps or gain extra mp regen. And the MP regen skills that gave a wider skill window unlike the current 123 BS spam we have now.

But DRK didn't have any utility... Ah but I forgot none of the above matters to you, because it's just progression play, and only scrubs do that, we don't need to worry about anything but savage right? *eyeroll*

While the leveling process could get some tweaks, the answer is still no - balance does not matter one bit while leveling up. Balance comes into play when it's truly required; and that is in Savage and Ultimate on the current max level. Hell, even current balance under max level is very iffy, some jobs are far better than others depending on when they get their core skills. Heck, you don't even need a proper balance for EX trials and still can clear without issues as long as everyone doesn't just press 111111 until the end of the fight.

What I don't get on the statements "why is balance not done around dungeons/trials instead?" is that balancing affects all content, not just Savage - but you'll never see something like peope kicking you from groups for being a NIN on trials or dungeons, literally no one cares about what job you have as long as you clear with a reasonable time and no wiping to mechanics. You could be kicked for getting carried by the rest of the group but that is hardly a balance issue.

Basicly, this is far from a "respect other content" and more like "it doesn't matter, you'll clear either way." Other content to savage and ultimate exists and everyone does it - be it trials, dungeons, leveling, crafting or whatever else. But what is there to balance when everything works just fine? For example, you don't need raid buffs for dungeons or trials.

As for the "utility" you mentioned in your post:

1) Dark Passanger's blind ate up 50% MP, you could have used that MP for DA+AD instead. Mobs in dungeons in general rarely missed even with the blind. Also it didn't affect bosses. It was mostly like an evasion buff for the tank. That is not utility.
2) CnS is not utility either; you'd want to DA it whenever you could or use it without if you absolutely needed MP for large dungeon pulls - you'd never use it for the MP on bosses though. You had Blood weapon and Syphon Strike for that.
3) A personal buff rather than utility.
4) BW is not utility, it's a personal buff. It also didn't make DRK an excellent OT, as you'd use the tank stance only at the start of the fight to get the initial aggro and turn it off right away. Tank stance was a learning tool and the person playing was the one to decide if it was time to tank without it or not. Not that it mattered if you stayed in tank stance for everything that wasn't savage or large trash pulls.
5) I miss old Delirium, I agree with you on that. However, it is not utility either. It was a... mix between additional resources and extention of your personal buff.6) Not utility, but again, I agree with this statement. I have no clue as to why they removed the MP gain from it. It certainly wouldn't be broken with Stalward soul.
7) Neither is this utility. It was your aoe rotation. And it was freaking awesome and fun.
8) TBN itself actually is utility, and by that I mean the shield. It could be used on anyone in the group in case of emergency. Also, technically the new TBN is better than the old one. Old TBN was a very small DPS loss, but it felt better to use as you could convert MP to blood, making it more about resource management. But you didn't really have a choice on what to use though, Delirum on CD while BW is up, if not then Bloodspiller.

So yeah, DRK didn't have utility outside of TBN, which on itself was kinda... meh as utility, but it existed. You seem to misunderstand what utility means; it's party wide stuff - be it party wide damage increase, crit rate, direct hit, mitigation, shields etc. And that kind of utility doesn't mean much outside of savage anyway as I've stated earlier. But it certainly helps if you have utility in any content, especially if used correctly. Just imagine having a full party of raid wide buffs for crafting, you'd never fail at HQ ever again! (That is a joke if it wasn't clear)

[RadicalPesto]

Spoken like a true savage raider who has no respect for the rest of the games content. So nothing else matters till you get to the "real" game? Which Savage is? We shouldn't worry what happens to anyone in the first 79 levels or the MSQ? Balance doesn't matter at all?

Yes, in fact, "balance" doesn't matter at all in content below extreme difficulty. You might be thinking of "fun", which several classes lack severely while levelling due to some of them having really strange skill distributions (Black Mage for example turns into an entirely different class when it obtains Fire IV), but "balance" is utterly irrelevant when it comes to content where the performance requirements are so low that you can reasonably clear them with people sleep at the wheel.

I have to admit its funny to use "Savage raider" as some kind of bad thing to call someone, it seems you just wanted to say "elitist", when its a simple fact that every single balance element of this game is designed around 8 man parties engaging against content with tankbusters, raidbusters, and DPS checks, hence why skills like Trick Attack only achieve their correct potential with 8 players. Also, more than half of what you described isn't even utility, Blood Weapon was a rotational buff, Carve and Spit could hardly be called a choice and wasn't "utility" either, Delirium was also a rotational buff, TBN giving blood was meant to be a return for your DPS expense and is in fact, also, not utility. The definition of utility you're using here is so off that it would define Lance Charge, Inner Release and even Hissatsu Kaiten as utility skills.

[Deceptus]

Yes, in fact, "balance" doesn't matter at all in content below extreme difficulty.

Bull. . .

You can't ignore 95% of the game. That would be extremely stupid.

Currently all tank jobs are extremely simple in their DPS rotations and very similar in mitigation. We could afford to make just one of them more demanding for people who enjoy something different.

If you want complex DPS rotations, play a DPS. At least, that's what everyone seemed to be screaming at the healers when we provided push back on our 2 button dps rotations.

[Satarn]

If you want complex DPS rotations, play a DPS. At least, that's what everyone seemed to be screaming at the healers when we provided push back on our 2 button dps rotations.

Yeah, I'm sure taking your salt with a couple of forum princesses out on tanks is gonna make SE fix your healers. You go fight that good fight. /s
Also if the plural "you" provided push back, then clearly it wasn't "everyone" screaming against it. In fact I keep seeing plenty of people both here and on reddit being(understandably) displeased with the state of the healer role.

Actually it's not just tanks and healers - the one DPS I liked to play in SB(MNK) got dumbed down just as much as tanks and sounds like NIN's gonna follow suit, so that's not even an option lul. That's disregarding the fact that I enjoy tanking for what the role itself is: planning mitigation, positioning and making fights as comfy for everyone else as possible. I just also happen to like having something more on top of that.

Perhaps instead of getting snarky with each other, we could all show SE that there's still audience for more complex jobs in this game and thus leaving a couple of them more complicated would be a more widely appealing design, regardless of role.

[Reynhart]

You can't ignore 95% of the game. That would be extremely stupid.

That's not ignoring. Balance is only relevant so that no job is excluded in party setup. For 95% of the game, people don't care about party setup.

[Absimiliard]

That's not ignoring. Balance is only relevant so that no job is excluded in party setup. For 95% of the game, people don't care about party setup.

Tell that to all the ninjas getting kicked out of roulettes now just for existing. :P

[Kabooa]

Tell that to all the ninjas getting kicked out of roulettes now just for existing. :P

I'm sure they're getting kicked for reasons other than being ninjas.

[DemonicNeko]

That's not ignoring. Balance is only relevant so that no job is excluded in party setup. For 95% of the game, people don't care about party setup.

Right now we get the devs saying. "Ninja's have to be shit classes because of Trick Attack." Yet shadowbringers they where like. "You know in Stormblood utility was a major problems. So we got rid of a lot of Utility in the game." Seems like Utility in the game is a problem. Then again it might just be bad boss design. Devs are like. "You know what would be a good savage mechanics? Tripple tank busters." *face paws.* Yes, Bullet spungy boss fights that hit like a truck makes wonderful boss fights.

If bosses and utility where not such an eye sore problems. People would not care for party set up. It would be more about. "Can you stay alive? Can you not wipe the group?"

[Reynhart]

Right now we get the devs saying. "Ninja's have to be shit classes because of Trick Attack." Yet shadowbringers they where like. "You know in Stormblood utility was a major problems. So we got rid of a lot of Utility in the game." Seems like Utility in the game is a problem. Then again it might just be bad boss design. Devs are like. "You know what would be a good savage mechanics? Tripple tank busters." *face paws.* Yes, Bullet spungy boss fights that hit like a truck makes wonderful boss fights.

Getting rid of utility is a big problem because it remove lots of uniqueness in jobs, and how you would decide which job to take. But, from my point of view, the biggest problem is the "one size fits all" party setup. Basically, the optimal setup is the same for every content you do. Depending on the content, some jobs shouls have pros and cons, somehow forcing you to not bring the optimal setup in raids since the weekly lockouts mostly prevents from gearing several jobs at the same time.

But, on the other side, I think people care too much about being "excluded". 95% of the content is done in pick-up where no one wil kick you just for being a "non-optimal" job, and for the other 5%, chances are you play with friends that will focus more on everybody playing jobs they like than them being optimal.