Dark Knight is playable, but BORING

[Quor]

I find the executive decision-making that comes with a well-used TBN to be both important and challenging. You can save a lot of grief by targeting non-tanks in your party to help absorb damage from a variety of mechanics, not to mention GCD's saved by healers who don't have to heal as much to recover from those mechs (good example here being Hell Wind + Towers in E2S).

[Praesul]

Chances are the people that find current DRK dull don't actually know how to play it very well and assume Edge/Flood = Mash on cooldown buttons and then do nothing until you get MP to mash it again.

I for one welcome the fact that DRK (and to an extent WAR) are resource based and don't fall into a very strict rotation cycle that No Mercy and FoF force GNB and PLD into.

For instance your opener can change quite a bit depending on what comp you have, and what you do during "downtime" (as in, what you do when delirium and blood weapon aren't available) also changes depending on what comp you have. PLD and GNB don't give a squat whether they have a MNK or BRD, they're gonna mash those No mercy and FoF buttons the moment they're available and cram every single off GCDs within that window regardless of what outside buffs they receive.

Then again there ARE people that do understand the resource management and don't really enjoy it which, fair enough.

But DRK has literally ALWAYS been about heavy resource management. That aspect has NEVER changed.

[MerlinCross]

I find the executive decision-making that comes with a well-used TBN to be both important and challenging. You can save a lot of grief by targeting non-tanks in your party to help absorb damage from a variety of mechanics, not to mention GCD's saved by healers who don't have to heal as much to recover from those mechs (good example here being Hell Wind + Towers in E2S).

I don't see how this is any different from how it was before only that TBN is stronger now and thus can be used to block better.

For instance your opener can change quite a bit depending on what comp you have, and what you do during "downtime" (as in, what you do when delirium and blood weapon aren't available) also changes depending on what comp you have. PLD and GNB don't give a squat whether they have a MNK or BRD, they're gonna mash those No mercy and FoF buttons the moment they're available and cram every single off GCDs within that window regardless of what outside buffs they receive.

Expand on this? I don't see why a DRK or WAR would wait to slam their "Go Ham" buttons like the other two.

[Praesul]

I don't see how this is any different from how it was before only that TBN is stronger now and thus can be used to block better.



Expand on this? I don't see why a DRK or WAR would wait to slam their "Go Ham" buttons like the other two.

They still use their HAM buttons at the same time they would normally, but when they use their off GCDs differs. You can move certain off GCDs later on during your opener depending on if you have a NIN or popping a potion, or if you have a DNC etc etc. You got a ton of room to play with edge/flood of shadow. For example let's assume you get 10 uses of Edge of Shadow in an instance, you cannot increase your uses of it, the max will always be 10. You can mash them immediately they're available, or you can wait to use them during more opportune moments when buffs are up.

And that's just the opener, as some buffs misalign you have to decide when it's best to spend your MP. This tends to happen a lot when you have a BRD in the group since it's up every 180 seconds instead of every 60, or AST buffs which are RNG when they're up, the SCH crit buff etc etc.

You get a ton of room for play with DRK, and almost none with PLD and GNB who need to spend their resources during their burst window because the damage increase from their own abilities is much more impactful than anything an outside source can provide. You need X MP going into Requiescat, so you don't use MP outside of it unless you fuck up or emergencies require Clemency uses. For GNB, you need X amount of cartridges going into No Mercy, and you need to spend cartridges to prevent overcapping before that point.

[MerlinCross]

They still use their HAM buttons at the same time they would normally, but when they use their off GCDs differs. You can move certain off GCDs later on during your opener depending on if you have a NIN or popping a potion, or if you have a DNC etc etc. You got a ton of room to play with edge/flood of shadow. For example let's assume you get 10 uses of Edge of Shadow in an instance, you cannot increase your uses of it, the max will always be 10. You can mash them immediately they're available, or you can wait to use them during more opportune moments when buffs are up.

And that's just the opener, as some buffs misalign you have to decide when it's best to spend your MP. This tends to happen a lot when you have a BRD in the group since it's up every 180 seconds instead of every 60, or AST buffs which are RNG when they're up, the SCH crit buff etc etc.

You get a ton of room for play with DRK, and almost none with PLD and GNB who need to spend their resources during their burst window because the damage increase from their own abilities is much more impactful than anything an outside source can provide. You need X MP going into Requiescat, so you don't use MP outside of it unless you fuck up or emergencies require Clemency uses. For GNB, you need X amount of cartridges going into No Mercy, and you need to spend cartridges to prevent overcapping before that point.

And yet if you don't use those 10 Edges in your example during the most opportune times, you're bad because your DPS isn't maxed so what's the point of blowing them early? You CAN blow them early, but then you're just putting unneeded pressure on the DPS to make up for your misused damage right?

Doesn't matter that you can use them differently if the community gives you flack for not using it 'right' and playing the job 'wrong'. For something that's supposed to have more room to play, it's disheartening to be told "It has to be used this way". Much like how Dark Arts was previously, if you didn't use it "THIS WAY" you were bad and your opinion discarded. If you don't use Edge/Delirum right, your opinion is bad, you're a bad player, and thus can't address anything on Dark Knight it seems.

[Quor]

I don't see how this is any different from how it was before only that TBN is stronger now and thus can be used to block better.

It's drastically different. In SB you wanted to avoid TBN usage because DA was almost always more of a gain per MP than TBN was. Hence, TBN was used almost exclusively to absorb incoming tank buster damage, instead of being something you used more or less on CD for what amounts to free mitigation on top of damage. Buster's are scripted to the point where you can safely manage your other CD's plus TBN and still have plenty of TBN uses on non-tanks to help with a variety of mechanics, and you're now actively incentivized to do so due to the feedback loop of popped TBN = free Edge/Flood. This, on top of the saved healer GCD's with TBN's 25% max hp value for everyone (instead of the 20 self/10 other it was in SB).

[Praesul]

And yet if you don't use those 10 Edges in your example during the most opportune times, you're bad because your DPS isn't maxed so what's the point of blowing them early? You CAN blow them early, but then you're just putting unneeded pressure on the DPS to make up for your misused damage right?

Doesn't matter that you can use them differently if the community gives you flack for not using it 'right' and playing the job 'wrong'. For something that's supposed to have more room to play, it's disheartening to be told "It has to be used this way". Much like how Dark Arts was previously, if you didn't use it "THIS WAY" you were bad and your opinion discarded. If you don't use Edge/Delirum right, your opinion is bad, you're a bad player, and thus can't address anything on Dark Knight it seems.

It's skill expression. Having way to separate good from bad players is good, we should want more of this type of thing rather than less. Being able to adapt to your party makeup and your party's skill (for instance if they're late on their buff timings you can't just go on auto-pilot and have to change your edge timings) is a great way to separate yourself from other DRK players.

Also I'd like to add that a significant portion of DRK's damage coming from off GCDs means that you can pool resources to burst something down during prog in harder encounters, sure blowing a bunch of edge of shadows longterm is a DPS loss but not killing something before it explodes and murders everyone is an even bigger loss.

[LegolasT]

Just to throw my own two cents into the hat, after putting more time into the new Dark Knight [Mind, that I played all iterations of it], this variant feels just uninspired.

Blood Weapon, being gutted and has an odd cooldown just puts a bad taste in my mouth every time I use it, with such a low duration. 10 seconds to gain 10 more blood per attack and a bit more MP... on a 60s cooldown? If I am not wrong that\\'s about 2 blood spillers and an Edge (maybe)? every 50 seconds. And you can\\'t EXTEND the duration either?

Among other things that get pointed at, and yes you can say "It works". But when better options loom over it. Which is every other job, why not have it changed? Make DRK the stance dance class. Give it back Blood Price, and the old Blood Weapon.

Blood Price being like camouflage for GNB, but instead of giving it a parry chance increase, they get mana back per hit they take, or better based on how much damage they take, they gain more MP. That then can have its duration slightly increased with Delirium.

Blood Weapon gives Haste and Mana on hit. Which just like blood price, can have its duration increased by Delirium.

I don\\'t know why they still have Salted Earth, it\\'s so forgotten, I rather they give us a single target dot back. And give back spammable abyssal drains instead that apply an AOE dot, that drain based on the ticks applied.

I don\\'t know... just an idea. But right now, if you keep saying that DRK is fine, please tell what does it do that other tanks cannot do better? What does IT have that other tanks can\\'t compete with? PLD is the best Defense Tank, GNB is the best Damage, and right now Warrior is the best middle of that. And DRK drags itself to keep up.

DRK is not dragging it is the best middle in fact WAR is dragging At this point. My ask to you is this Do you raid??
Alot of these opinions bank on that question and my reasoning behind that is there is no other content in this game that gauges job complexity besides raiding. If your a dungeon runner you will never understand the jobs complex roles period. I don\\'t care what anyone agrues to it each tank has a similar air rotation and you can easily mitgate dungeon Buster\\'s with just rampart. That\\'s how lamest terms dungeon running is. Now raiding (extremes and savage tiers) is how you truly judge the tanks. Right now from the balance discord and my experience DRK and GNB are 2 of the best tanks in raiding one for GNB DPS and 2 DRK TBN. DRK does more DPS then WAR in savage and works very well with raid party synergy like DNC and NIN and DRG. WAR is only good in one fight Leviathan because of nascent flash. Honesty this is my opinion people need to stop baseing job "complexity" of dungeon and get there butts in raid content.

[Satarn]

Chances are the people that find current DRK dull don't actually know how to play it very well and assume Edge/Flood = Mash on cooldown buttons and then do nothing until you get MP to mash it again.

Oh boy, the irony...
No dude - this, this right here, is how people complained about SB DRK "mindlessly spamming DA on everything all the time".

People who complain about current DRK are, for the most part, those who knew and liked the resource management and pooling and are dissatisfied with how that aspect of the job has been in fact diminished(as well as the considerably lowered APM required).

Before you needed to constantly manage your MP/Blood to avoid overcapping, while still keeping most of it for party buffs. Now the job is actually way more linear like PLD/GNB, because all cooldowns and the rate at which you gain MP have been made to naturally align with said buffs, requiring very little management. The way everything is calculated, you regenerate entire bar of MP within a minute, which aligns perfectly with emptying all that into Trick Attack for example.
It's not that noticeable without a NIN, but the other buffs you get to work with are on two and three minute cooldowns, so you still pretty much operate on that minute-to-minute basis, with not much else in between.

Moreover, SB removed all interaction between the two resources - you can no longer spend MP to gain Blood and vice versa, which really hurts the synergy within DRK's kit and further simplifies the management aspect.

But DRK has literally ALWAYS been about heavy resource management. That aspect has NEVER changed.

It used to be "heavy" resource management. I'd say now it's more on the lighter side and that's the issue.

It's drastically different. In SB you wanted to avoid TBN usage because DA was almost always more of a gain per MP than TBN was.

Except that was not actually the case. The whole TBN+BS vs DA issue was pretty complicated on the case-to-case basis, but overall it turned into being DPS-neutral over the course of the fight, as long as you didn't spam it literally on cd.
In fact you were more encouraged to use it on raidwides and even autos in between other cds, simply due to it being more likely to break than now and hurting you less if it didn't.

[LegolasT]

Oh boy, the irony...
No dude - this, this right here, is how people complained about SB DRK "mindlessly spamming DA on everything all the time".

People who complain about current DRK are, for the most part, those who knew and liked the resource management and pooling and are dissatisfied with how that aspect of the job has been in fact diminished(as well as the considerably lowered APM required).

Before you needed to constantly manage your MP/Blood to avoid overcapping, while still keeping most of it for party buffs. Now the job is actually way more linear like PLD/GNB, because all cooldowns and the rate at which you gain MP have been made to naturally align with said buffs, requiring very little management. The way everything is calculated, you regenerate entire bar of MP within a minute, which aligns perfectly with emptying all that into Trick Attack for example.
It's not that noticeable without a NIN, but the other buffs you get to work with are on two and three minute cooldowns, so you still pretty much operate on that minute-to-minute basis, with not much else in between.

Moreover, SB removed all interaction between the two resources - you can no longer spend MP to gain Blood and vice versa, which really hurts the synergy within DRK's kit and further simplifies the management aspect.



It used to be "heavy" resource management. I'd say now it's more on the lighter side and that's the issue.



Except that was not actually the case. The whole TBN+BS vs DA issue was pretty complicated on the case-to-case basis, but overall it turned into being DPS-neutral over the course of the fight, as long as you didn't spam it literally on cd.
In fact you were more encouraged to use it on raidwides and even autos in between other cds, simply due to it being more likely to break than now and hurting you less if it didn't.

So what are your parces with DRK when it was the "heavier resource management" tank how much raid content did you complete? Have you complete o12s or if you didn't like DRK then how about a12s??? Have you doing in extremes?