Dark Knight QOL V.2

[Yani-Madara]

I love salted earth. It makes DRK more unique. If anything it needs a buff and a cooldown reduction so it can be continually used. If anyone has a problem setting it down, a macro can be used to drop it on a target.

[cactuarzzzz]

It isn't the ground target system but it is the requirement that the target have to stay in salted earth aoe pool for the full 15 seconds to get the full dot damage that's what make it bad. However if you really want to keep it then you can just ask the dev to make aoe stick to the target instead of sticking to the aoe pool and any target that touch aoe later during 15 seconds would get dot stick to them as well but it could bring the problem about the timing for dot's duration [target touch aoe when salted earth remaining duration is 5 and got 15 secs dot stick to them] also i'm not sure can dev coded it to make it function like that?

[Satarn]

It isn't the ground target system but it is the requirement that the target have to stay in salted earth aoe pool for the full 15 seconds to get the full dot damage that's what make it bad.

I disagree - that's what makes it good. With lower cd and longer duration in SB, the entire fun of Salted Earth was planing placement in such a way that it would cover both the current boss' position, as well as where you know it will be moved for mechanics. While it's not always possible to achieve when the boss straight up jumps from one end of the arena to another - in which case you just may have to delay the use, same as you might delay a burst window if you'll be forced to disengage - you don't need to have the enemy's hitbox entirely inside the AoE range, you merely need to have them connect at all.

It's a skill mechanic that you have to play around, which makes it more engaging than just pressing your rotation buttons on auto with no potential interruption or chance of failure(like current Darkside for example). One of the main issues with current DRK is exactly that its gameplay is near completely lacking in anything you have to think about, as both its upkeep buff and resources are already pre-planned to "just work" by design.

[cactuarzzzz]

For a moment I thought we're talking about the current salted earth in SHB.

[Satarn]

For a moment I thought we're talking about the current salted earth in SHB.

You can try being smug, but it doesn't change the point. SHB didn't alter how the ability works in terms of its interaction with enemy hitboxes and positioning. I did not say there is no issue with current Salted Earth, rather that it's the opposite of what you're trying to say. Being a placeable AoE that enemies have to stay in is not a problem at all - it's a mechanic. The actual issue is that lower uptime and less impact on DRK as a whole(like removal of Blood generation) makes SHB Salted Earth less engaging than its previous iterations - hence the callback to the better version in SB. Outright removing it or changing the ground placement aspect wouldn't make it more engaging, it would be the opposite, making your suggestion bad.

[cactuarzzzz]

You can try being smug

This is the part where the civil discussion starting to end. Don't have to try if you can't keep your head cool.

[shao32]

Well lets see, i will make a list first of you proposed changes to make it simple and be sure i don't forgeth anything.

-DRK feeling slow with his animations, special mention to quietus and bloodspiller

-Living dead with sugestions to dealt with it.

-Dark mind lvl changed.

-Salted earth removed and merged with abyssal drain.

-Blood weapon bunshin proporsal.

-Small Delirium rework.

-Darkside mechanic erased?

-ajustments on learning stalwar soul and his effects.

Maybe i miss something, i did skip the math part mostly bcs i find it unnecesary to analyze and im bad at the art of wizzard math apart numbers can be balanced so i find it unnecesary right now, if i miss something tell me. So lets beging.

-Animations and slow feeling

Well i call this a problem of the current pace of the job more than the animations himself, lets remember DRK use to have a sustained suply of oGCD in the past across the rotation so right now it's way more easy to percive the animations of the soul eater combo and Bloodspiller/Quietus as something slow, they has always been like that, the thing is now we are starving MP and oGCD and see the gap betwen all of them.

Personaly feel like Quietus animation it's ok, the problem is how the skill has been nerfed apart of the lack of oGCD, Bloodspiller is almost the same with the exception bloodspiller is more weird and looks horrible when you interrup the animation with an oGCD, but in resume both skills looks great is they aren't used as much compared to current situation. Let's lookd at SB, nobody really complains about this 2 skills animation bcs they uses where powerful but low uptime skills, now are spamed like madman and Bloodspiller look specially awfull under Delirium for that, both skills aren't mean to be spamed aesthetically wise.

In resume the slow feeling is for the lack of oGCD and the downtime of the job forcing you look at those slow animations during a prolonged preriod of time without any oGCD whatsoever when in HW and SB don't so i don't think they animations should be reduced, more like we need more oGCD betwen them.

-Living dead and sole survivor

It's ok for me i don't see anything bad with that, i personally preffer the sole survivor option due it grant us the oportuniy of use it on livind dead or not depending of what strategic we are using, sometimes we will need walking dead stay up but those situations are like the 0,1% of the game but still neat.

-Salted earth and Abyssal drain

technically speaking there is nothing wrong with this proposition but im with the rest, DRK right now is the most simple and brain dead job of the game, removing salted earth not only will make it even more braindead but will remove the only unique thing outside of TBN the job have to be unique somehow, so while i understand the QoL for a skill that has been unfairly nerfed i wont like that if there is nothing to sustitute his gameplay loss.

-Blood weapon

A bit of the same, nice QoL for a skill that have been awfully nerfed and make it more easy to execute, it will solve the latency problem for sure but design wise i still don't like it.

-Delirium

This one is curious, in fact this one will help on making the job dont feel so slow under his oGCD downtime as adding more oGCD, it will have more sinergy overall with the rest of the kit compared that the current one, but.... and here come the drawback, i can't stop thinking that is a simplified Gnasing fang combo, exactly the same but with only 2 butoms, so we change DRK being a WAR copy to a GNB copy and at the end will solve nothing? well that depends if you goal is make DRK unique or not with this changes.

-Darkside

Maybe i miss something but only saw you removed darkside from both Flood and Edge so DRK will forgeth complety about Darkside? i know the mechanic it's a waste of time and space right now but his comlety removal? well, it won't change anything right now if it was removed but DRK needs complexity somewhere and Darkside needs to be more inclusive gameplay wise not less in my opinion.

-Stalwart soul

Learning Stalwart soul early it's a nice sugestion, i firmly belive DRK need that skill way more early too.

Im a bit indiferent about make them a weaponskill, specially after the bunshin bloodweapon it wont be necesary, but the changes on blackblood generation are another thing, this will make DRK have a combo of 3 in lvl 62 wich is exactly the same way that GNB operate his AOE, using a combo of 2 to generate a cartridge to allow him use his fated circle, will be the same with DRK using his unleash combo to use a quietus rigth after.

in resume your proposed changes stop making DRK being a simplified WAR clone to become a simplified GNB clone with minor diferences and taking way more time to use his "Gnasing fang combo", some things are nice like learning early some skills and the return of sole survivor to help living dead but the rest will make DRK even more simple and don't really help it to find his unique path in my opinion, i hope i helped.

[OdinelStarrei]

Okay okay, now THIS is something I can get behind! Thank you very much for accepting my feedback and refining some of your ideas. I'll skip over the aesthetic changes as I feel that's more up to personal preference (not that I disagree) and go into the revamp itself.

*Edit* After reading more opinion from the other DRK. I got some idea.

=============================================================================

Now let's get to the part about the "idea" I got from reading other DRK's opinions I mentioned earlier


DRK Skill/Ability Tweak 5.3 and beyond
Salted Earth
Removed

Abyssal Drain
Acquired : LV.52 DRK Job Quest https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...t/fe102830cbc/ The Knight and the Maiden Fair instead of Salted Earth

Gain the second Additional Effect: Damage over time, Potency: 40 , Duration: 15s

Blood Weapon
New Effect : Grants 5 stacks of Blood Weapon, each stack allowing your weaponskill to restores 600 MP
Duration increased from 10 secs to 15 secs

Edge of Shadow
Potency reduced from 500 to 450

Delirium
New Effect:
Grants 3 stacks of Delirium, each stack allows the execution of Quietus and Bloodspiller without cost, restoring 3000 MP when landing either weaponskill.

I see you've moved the damage from Salted INTO Abyssal Drain. This is actually a consolidation that I can see working, but I think it's too similar to CoS and Bow Shock as you've described it here. But the benefits are very plain to see. You get rid of the clunkiness of a <t> or <me> Salted Earth Macro, and reduce button bloat. But I think there's still potential in Salted Earth, and I'd really hate to see it go, so I offer a compromise. Perhaps you could have default Abyssal Drain at first, but it could be upgraded later on via trait to gain Salted Earth's effects on top of it's default characteristics? We have a skill in the game that works similarly to this already, Enkindle: Earthen Fury on SMN's Titan-Egi, only difference is the AOE puddle effect would proc on the first enemy target, rather than on the spell source like Titan-Egi or in this case, the DRK. I got a mental image of Abyssal Drains dispersing at the end of their animation, the ball instead actually dropping into the ground and creating the Salted Earth effect, maybe granting passive bonuses ala SB Salted Earth, such as an HP or Blood regeneration, while lowering the CD of Salted at the same time to make it more used in the kit. Or perhaps the Abyssal Drain could stick to an enemy and "pulse" for periodic AoE damage that will still continue in the event of enemy death, similar to Ifrit's Searing Wind in UWU. Just a few ideas so we can get the best of both worlds here, even if I do personally prefer the targeted aoe.

Regarding Blood Weapon, as before, I naturally 100% support a Bunshin system to make DRK more reliable on opening pulls, higher pings, and higher SkS thresholds. This is a no brainer, and should have been altered yesterday.


You've also changed Delirium to a true MP generation tool, but I think you may have gone too far. I'll expand on this point in a second with the changes you've made to Edge and Flood, but for right now, you're going in the right direction.

5.3 and beyond DRK Tweaked AOE

Stalwart Soul
Acquired : 40 instead of 72
yes you can accquire 1 skill from level up and 1 more skill from the job quest.
Example :PLD learn Circle of Scorn by simply level up to 50 and get 1 more skill from completing LV.50 Job Quest

Unleash & Stalwart Soul changed from spell to weaponskill
[Having the main aoe that do not benefit sks is bad because at 2.4 sks we lose 1 gcd every 24 gcd [1min]. It also doesn't make sense that these aoe are a spell , it have no mp cost , no cast time but still got disbled by silence debuff and DRK isn't a witch/wizard because DRK is the one who drew power from the darkness within with the help of soul crystal instead of citing incantation and cast spell]

*New* Blackblood
Lv. 62
Allows for Blood Gauge accumulation upon the landing of Souleater or Stalwart Soul.
Souleater Combo Bonus: Increases Blood Gauge by 20
Stalwart Soul Combo Bonus: Increases Blood Gauge by 50

*Enhanced Blackblood Trait will only effect single target weaponskill [Hard Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater and Bloodspiller ]*

*New* Enhanced Blackblood
Lv. 66
Allows for Blood Gauge accumulation upon the landing of Hard Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater and Bloodspiller while under the effect of Blood Weapon

*AOE Weaponskill will no longer gain benefit from Enhanced Blackblood Trait *
*Flood of Darkness/Shadow do not grant darkside*
*Stalwart Soul receive the Blackblood trait at LV 62 and generate 50 Blood instead of 20*
*Salted Earth removed*
*Abyssal Drain gain the 2nd Additional Effect: Damage over time, Potency: 40, Duration: 15s *
*New Delirium grant free uses of Bloodspiller/Quietus without cost for a total of 3 times*
*New Delirium restoring [3000] MP when landing either Bloodspiller/Quietus*

First, I have to commend you for going through the effort of doing potency calculations for both single-target and AoE situations as I suggested to assure that DRK does not become overpowered with a retooling of skills. It is a tedious, thankless, and frustrating effort, but makes your post have actual some ground to stand on. There are some mistakes, some instances of pre-change Edge of Shadow in your calculations, but I'm more into the playstyle changes than the hard numbers. I'm going to split up my feedback in MP, Blood, and Darkside areas to be more specific with my individual concerns.

MP
I do prefer Delirium being an MP steroid, that's a given, but I think that 9000 free MP every 90 seconds is a bit too spread out for it's own good. (I'm assuming it's 90 seconds because you didn't put a CD change here, like you did in your original post, but even if it is 60, this line of thinking should still apply.)

A higher MP amount being granted similarly to the PvP system is a change I've historically been a fan of, but there is a reason why that number is so low there, and I think it's because they are still trying to push the "mana stockpile, mana dump" playstyle in that content. You're still achieving that here, sort of, but you've drastically shortened the mana stockpile phase by adding in a preemptive dump every 90(?) seconds to avoid overcapping from the sheer amount of MP gain, and then demanding an immediate MP dump within the Delirium itself. Compare this with both your current and new version of Blood Weapon MP generation. We press it pre-raid buffs with the intent of gaining mana, but BW itself does not have any innate damage bonuses, so no actual damage is lost as long as you don't overcap. This is more of a problem during your 180/360/etc... re-openers compared to opener, because in order to get the maximum benefit of your new Delirium, I think it'll require you to dump at least two MP spenders to avoid a potential overcap after standard stockpiling and blood weapon applications, despite no actual raid buffs being applied. You would want your Bloodspillers to be inside of the buffs, so you need to delay Delirium to not miss out on the buffed GCD damage. I don't know exactly how long you are intending for Delirium stacks actually last, so I'm just assuming the next 3 GCDs need to be Bloodspillers, and in terms of button presses, operate identically to the PvP version.

In short, you're putting a lot of weight into Delirium that I don't think the skill can realistically support within the current sandbox of DRK. It's essentially putting 3150 potency into 3 GCDs that only come up once every 90 seconds, with that semi-awkward stockpile > dump pre-raid buffs because BW > stockpile via Delirium > dump during raid buffs system. That's a bit too clunky for my liking. I think the 3 GCD burst system like this works best on GNB due to it's frequency, CPM increase, and most importantly, need for a job resource to be maintained pre and post burst to prevent losing said resources evenly. (cartridges) For example, when Bloodfest comes up before every third GF combo, at worst, you can press the Bloodfest after dumping one Burst Strike and starting the combo. And even if your combo will end on the Solid Barrel, you have enough time to use another Burst Strike to prevent overcapping, which would make Solid Barrel a overall potency loss compared to Burst Strike if you did. To translate what you've done to GNB, is like you've given Blasting Zone or Sonic Break a cartridge gain on top. At that point, I think you've gone too far, too quickly with generating resources. Hopefully this analogy makes SOME sense? I can see what you're trying to do though, and I will elaborate on a tweaked system once we get down to the Darkside section of my post. But compared to the last version you had, which was essentially Dark Requiescat, there's room to work with at least.

Small note I couldn't fit it anywhere else:
DOES ANYONE ELSE WANT TO REMOVE MANA REGEN TICKS OFF DRK? I AM STARTING TO HATE THEM, I THINK. BUFF SYPHON?

Blood
This mainly pertains to changing Stalwart Soul to 50 gauge accumulation. I realize why you've done this, it's to make parity between Fated Circle and Quietus, but I think you've missed the mark here by not doing a 2 target potency calculation. To avoid bloating this post even more, I'm just going to use BJ/CC or LL/hand as examples. Demon Slaughter > Fated Circle is an objective gain at two targets, literally drop GF. But Stalwart Soul > Quietus isn't. Even currently it's like that. But because you've increased the amount of blood you gain via Stalwart, you've forced DRK to use Bloodspiller over Quietus even more than we do in two target situations currently since Quietus' potency is unchanged and doesn't have an additional effect like mana generation to make it worth using over Bloodspiller. Right now, you can get 9-10 GCDs of pure AoE (depending on Blood Weapon) without needing to Bloodspiller once, but with your change, you will require dumping every 4 at least, less under a Blood Weapon or coming into a phase with >0 Blood. I'm not exactly criticizing this path you've taken, I'm just wondering if that was your intention. I do support moving Stalwart Soul down though, and Flood of Darkness' (not Shadow) potency nerfed a little bit to compensate for the increased MP at those lower levels. Let me know what you think about this point.

Darkside/More Delirium talk

Since Darkside as a mechanic and Delirium's cooldown and implementation is central to why DRK feels so bland currently, I would also like to bring up that you have not solved my issue of the gap of 1-2-3 single target spam during post-burst/mana stockpiling. I'd like to keep your idea, but change Delirium's CD down to 45 seconds, nerf the mana acquisition to +1500 or +1000 instead of +3000 each, and reduce the potency of Bloodspiller down to 500 base, with a reduction of Living Shadow's potency to compensate for doubling the Bloodspillers. The goal of this is to intentionally dealign Delirium and increase it's usages, but still get a similar amount of MP regen overall.
"But you just said a problem with the Delirium was that it forced Edges of Shadow outside of raid buffs, now you're dealigning Delirium from the buffs outside of 3 min burst phases?"
Yes, that's because I think that Edge should be the primary damage source on the job, augmented further with more party buffs during dump phases.

I don't know if you've read shao32's DRK thread(i'll post in there someday), but a change in there that I really like was that Flood of Shadow applies the Darkside, and Edge of Shadow doesn't. You have it in reverse here, and I think that's for the worst, you have not changed the core issue of Darkside being brainless by being automatically re-applied and overcapping the Darkside timer during burst. You'd just use Edge one time in AoE to get the buff and spam Flood, emulating a similar problem to WARs being forced to Storm's Eye before beginning their AoE rotation, though not as nearly as pronounced I will admit. I think you could have your Delirium also be your stop-gap solution to this problem, by having it be your free Flood of Shadow to keep your Darkside timer going, but still having a place in opener/reopener damage burst by retaining the Bloodspiller usages. By tying the two together like this, I also think that there are enough differences between it and Atonement/GF 3 GCD burst skills on the other tanks. You'd also have a direct punishment for applying Flood too many times, not only by overcapping Darkside gauge unnecessarily, but also by just losing out on potency versus Edge. It'd be up to you to make sure your Darkside lasts throughout your entire Edge burst each minute after Delirium/BW mana boosts. Think Storm's Eye vs Storm's Path, and yes, I know WAR clone, I know, but there is a significant difference between GCD combo investment (Eye) vs Mana investment (Darkside) that I do think makes them sufficiently unique from each other. With Eye you are never losing out of potency as long as the buff isn't dropped, and Mythril Tempest will extend it in AoE, but it's a lot more inflexible by the nature of being a GCD combo. With this Darkside system, you WILL lose out on potency because Flood isn't as strong as Edge, while still requiring the same amount of MP, but will become a potency gain overtime because of Darkside, which you trade for instant application, range, flexibility, a gain on 2+ targets, and free upkeep like Mythril Tempest in AoE. Eye = Keep it running as long as possible without dropping. Darkside = Use as few Floods as possible to maximize total potency.

An example of this from an optimization perspective would be E6S Garuda/Ifrit. You can get in two Floods on the two of them before they apply their invuln buffs, you've just given yourself 60 seconds of Darkside at a DPS gain, while other players will be forced to re-apply on only one target at a loss if they delay. Even better if you come out of solo Ifrit at 12 or so seconds to get the maximum amount of duration applied, possibly giving you an Edge over a Flood in the long run.
Thoughts?

Thanks for re-tooling your topic, and taking feedback from others. Think of it this way, you've already changed more stuff about your own post than the development team did with the live game. :^)

[Satarn]

This is the part where the civil discussion starting to end. Don't have to try if you can't keep your head cool.

I disagreed with your proposition and then presented a clear, logical explanation as to why and you responded with a sarcastic non-argument. I'm a little confused as to how I am the one who's supposedly not keeping a cool head here or incapable of civil discussion, when it is you who's being snarky, instead of actually addressing my position whatsoever.

[cactuarzzzz]

I disagreed with your proposition and then presented a clear, logical explanation as to why and you responded with a sarcastic non-argument. I'm a little confused as to how I am the one who's supposedly not keeping a cool head here or incapable of civil discussion, when it is you who's being snarky, instead of actually addressing my position whatsoever.

Take a look at what you start your replies with in the your previous posts recently. It's show how your mood are. You kept insulting and calling me being smug, snarky but what I wrote when I thought it's the current salted earth is genuine feeling of surprise. I never forbid nor will I fight to keep the old salted earth from coming back. I'm not the one who try to offend you. Save your hot debate & aggressiveness for the job identity thread please.

Last warning : you don't look like someone who's in a good mood or calm.