Dark Knight: 5.0x Feedback Thread

[Satarn]

I don’t want to talk balance, because frankly all 4 tanks are pretty well balanced right now. The issue is how similar and unenjoyable(for me at least) they all feel, so this is purely about the job being engaging and unique again.

Spamming a single, slow-ass combo with an occasional Bloodspiller, while waiting for a burst window to shove everything into it is horribly boring. This is largely due to very slow, streamlined resource gains and replacing 40 second cooldowns with 60/90 ones. Give DRK its fast pace back.

Increase the MP generation by returning Blood Weapon to its high uptime from SB and buffing Syphon Strike back. Probably also return the speed buff in some form, possibly even with 100% uptime. This would obviously require to tone down the damage of Edge and Flood of Darkness/Shadow to scale with more frequent usage. To avoid going back to an issue of constantly spamming a single skill, make MP abilities more varied:

All MP spenders should not extend Darkside, it makes the entire mechanic of maintaining it utterly pointless. It doesn’t require any looking after, because it will just automatically stay on as long as you’re spending MP. Make Flood the only ability which extends the buff, so that we need to use it every 30 seconds instead of spending all MP on Edge. Alternatively bring back Dark Arts as an ogcd which applies Darkside and adds some potency to your next gcd for old times’ sake.

Add an MP cost to Carve and Split and make sure its potency is higher than the new Edge of Shadow so it feels impactful again, rather than being just some crappy ogcd we press once every minute without a thought.

Juggling two resources was main mechanic of DRK in Stormblood, but the interaction between them has been completely removed in Shadowbringers, killing the internal synergies within the job’s kit. Shifting resources with Delirium, Quietus and The Blackest Night was fun and interactive, give us back these mechanics.

Moreover, currently The Blackest Night proc simply granting a free MP spender makes it a painful loss of potency whenever it fails to break, but also feels flat and unrewarding on proper mitigation – you sacrifice an Edge cast to use TBN and you just get back another Edge cast. Getting to counter attack with a gcd Bloodspiller or Quietus, which in AoE could even return more MP than you’ve spent, felt much more satisfying.
TBN’s 25% shield also feels just as detrimental as it is helpful at times and frankly I think it could be better to bring it back to the old 20% value instead. While powerful in Savage, it’s often pretty much unusable in more casual content, as there’s nothing that could actually break it within the seven second window. Even tank busters in dungeons and sometimes normal raids fail to get through it. In return for the slight nerf, Dark Mind could be buffed back to its old 30% reduction.

New. Delirium. Is. Garbage.
Making resource spending skills completely free is just overall a terrible mechanic, because it kills the actual mechanic of managing the resource, but it’s extra bad when it means spamming the same button 5 times in a row. Spending Blood to extend BW and gain lots of MP was much more interesting and synergized with DRK’s kit.

Salted Earth used to be an important ability with decently high uptime, good damage contribution and an impact on one of our resources. Planning its placement to account for boss’ movement to make most of its ticks was engaging. Now it’s just another weak, long ogcd you throw for a small dot and barely remember it exists. Not much else to say here other than: make it back as it was.

Abyssal Drain being turned into a 60 second ogcd doesn’t give back the satisfaction of great sustain it used to provide. Turning it back into an instant cast spell gcd with an MP cost would give some variety to our bland AoE rotation and improve DRK’s survivability on trash packs.

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.