Dark Knight 6.0: Wishlist

[ArianeEwah]

I have no idea what's wrong with DRK, but I want to know why level 50 PLD feels more complete then level 70 DRK. I want to know why the job that gripped me in HW is such an awful mess to play where I legit just feel like I'm doing nothing productive.

Even if we ignore the enmity changes - i.e. aggro combo skills removed - the answer is still clear as bright daylight.
1. DRK used to have another combo finisher - Delirium (the original one): you barely/never used Souleater as your combo finisher if it wasn't DA-buffed. Delirium had a higher potency than Souleater without DA (the debuff was just a bonus)
2. Scourge removed, and thus no dot-management: While many jobs lost their single-button-dot (NIN-Mutilate; WAR-Fracture [also cross-class]; MNK-Touch of Death) DRK probably got hurt the most because it used to be DRK highest potency skill as well as had an awesome animation. Salted Earth as the remaining "dot-management" just doesn't cut it. Neither does Living Shadow!
3. Dark Dance was scraped to Anticipation, then got removed: DRK "special" CD right now is Dark Mind, but it used to have a "physical opposite/sibling" - Dark Dance. While PLD lost Convalescence and Awareness, it was available to all tanks in HW, so ALL tanks lost those CDs. But Dark Dance got stipped off of DRK, contributed towards all tanks in a weaker form, then removed with 5.0. A whole CD lost without any compensation!
4. The increase of mana generation in SB led to the infamous "DA-Spam": DA in HW was fine; the constant MP drain from Darkside made mana management exciting and rewarding. However during SB, Darkside simply stopped your natural MP regen, you couldn't lose its buff anymore, and with the additional mana changes to Sython Strike, MP was overflowing. And the only or most effective way to spend that overflow was DA, DA, DA! A simple mana adjustment change would've been enough to decrease DA usage, but DRK was barely touched in SB, until the very end when they FINALLY buffed their enmity generation and defensive CDs. But nothing has been done to address that design flaw.
5. The destruction of DRK's identity in ShB (5.0): You may have noticed all those "Inner Delirium", "War 2.0" etc. jokes. The difference between Warrior and DRK Dps rotation/actions has become so thin, you can easily tell they are same with very little niches. i.e. (Blood) Delirium is the same as Inner Release, but instead of garanteed crit/direct hits, you gain little mana per hit; "Darkside" is essentially Storm's Eye on an oGCD (gain 30s 10% buff, max 60s); and Blood Weapon is an inferior Infuriate without charges, and yet you still need to get 5 GCDs into its window to "earn" that 50 gauge. No more DA - for better or worse. Also Bloodspiller is Fell Cleave! And don't get me started on the fact that DRK lost its Haste-based gameplay!Add that to the fact that WARs dps rotation is already dull without its stance dance, DRKs dps rotation is just as lame and boring.

The only action that was added to DRK - that wasn't just "press and profit" - is TBN. Tho, in my honest opinion, SE f*cked up here, too.
Firstly, it contradicts with the way, SE tends to design stuff. What I mean is, they introduced or changed actions to make them less punishing, or at least, they wouldn't result in a loss. i.e. SAM Third Eye doesn't cost anything, but grants you a slight dps (or health) gain when used correctly. TBN DOES cost! Namely, mana points. Don't get me wrong, the shield is strong and thus it prevents a lot of damage, it grants high survivability. But it also has a high risk - coupled with dps loss if it fails to break! And there aren't many situations or instances where it could be used (or abused) effectively. In fact, they are very scarce, sometimes even minuscule. (If you don't believe me, check out a certain website that records fights, and watch TBN usage count in optimised - thus "correct" gameplay. Last raid tier, the average usage count was about 1 every 2 minutes!) It being the very only action in the game with that kind of design/mechanic feels... out of place, and unfitting for FF14 (5.x). If it was easier to break, or you'ld have more opportunities to do so, it would be fine.
Yet that brings me to my second point: It used to be better!
First off, the changes that happened from 4.0 to 5.4. It started with a 20/10% shield on 5s (!) duration - in short, alomst unusable - 50 blood on break. The duration was soon buffed to 7s in 4.2. That were all changes to it during Stormblood. A fine action. In Shadowbringers however, the shield got buffed to 25%, in addition to the tank stance/trait changes, while the interaction with blood got removed. And for me, it was a huge downgrade from its previous iteration, because...
1. they removed hte interaction with the blood gauge, and changed it to "mana for mana" (3k MP for 3k MP worth "Dark Arts" - imo a perversion to its predecessor, just to keep using the term).
2. both, the increase of the shield and the passive 20% mitigation via trait, caused the situations in which the shield wouldn't break to skyrocket, and thus limiting usage of TBN in the "correct way" even further.
Right now, it's pretty much limited to (heavy hitting) tank busters, and big pulls in dungeons. There are still niche situations where it could save someones life, i.e. a tank that hasn't enough HP, but it would save healing and/or raising costs, or on a DPS/healer where a shield break is almost guaranteed in every raid aoe. (Tho, it does become obsolete when said DPS/healer doesn't have less HP than the rest of the party because it will be healed anyway.) It's pretty much on the same height as Clemency in those situations.

I think I've ranted enough.

[Lyth]

I have no idea what's wrong with DRK, but I want to know why level 50 PLD feels more complete then level 70 DRK. I want to know why the job that gripped me in HW is such an awful mess to play where I legit just feel like I'm doing nothing productive.

Each expansion, we remove several actions from the game in the name of making room for the new ones. Most of the PLD choices have either been fairly conservative, or they've been kept in game as role actions. When we complain about the DRK actions that have been removed, they add them back in next expansion as a 'new action'. Reprisal is now role action and DRK doesn't have it's own raidwide mitigation ability? Well, how about a magic only raidwide defensive, obtained at level 76? What they should do is something similar to Total Eclipse in Stormblood, where a missing, essential action is added in at an appropriate level, and isn't treated as counting towards your 'new actions'.

Here's a list of actions removed from each job:
Stormblood
PLD
Convalescence
Provoke (Role)
Rampart (Role)

DRK
Dark Dance
Low Blow (Role)
Reprisal (Role)
Scourge
Delirium

Shadowbringers
PLD
Shield Swipe
Sword Oath
Flash
Savage Blade
Bulwark
Tempered Will (Role)

DRK
Darkside
Spinning Slash
Power Slash
Blood Price
Dark Passenger
Dark Arts


It's also worth noting that PLD (26 actions) has a higher action budget than DRK (23 actions). So you don't really even need to remove actions from DRK at this point to add in new actions.

[shao32]

snip

This has been one of the best post i saw that descrive how DRK has just evolved backwards expansion after expansion, i wish i could give it more likes.

[ArianeEwah]

This has been one of the best post i saw that descrive how DRK has just evolved backwards expansion after expansion, i wish i could give it more likes.

Thank you very much. While I did try to keep it short, I feel like I barely scratched the surface.

Oh, and I also forgot to mention in the TBN section that the new "Dark Arts", namely Edge of Darkness, is worth twice as much in potency than the old Dark Arts. Not to mention it upgrades to Edge of Shadow, then it is almost thrice as much as Stormblood DA was worth. So... yeah... I don't like the odds here given to us. The flaws just pile up.

[ItMe]

People are bringing up a lot of interesting ideas and raising good points.
But me? I am a simple Lala. I just want to lose Salted Earth lol. I frickin hate the bubbles on controllers.

[Lyth]

There's a simple workaround that lets you drop Salted Earth centered on your present target. Salted Earth is interesting and has some nuance to it, but I'm certain they'll remove it in the interest of simplifying DRK gameplay down as much as possible. This despite the fact that DRK is running an action deficit to begin with compared to other tanks.

If it has to go, though, I'd rather they kept it as a proc off one of the AoE combos, leaving a residual pool behind for some DoT damage.

[ItMe]

There's a simple workaround that lets you drop Salted Earth centered on your present target.

That doesn't work for bosses that hover off the edge of the arena, like E7.
I've also tried macro-ing it to center on myself (after all, all the rest of DRKs AoEs are centered on themself other than Flood of Darkness/Shadow), but it seems to misfire and clip my rotation too often.

If it has to go, though, I'd rather they kept it as a proc off one of the AoE combos, leaving a residual pool behind for some DoT damage.

That'd be fine by me.
I just hate aiming it on a controller.

[Derio]

This is really good write up of a wishlist. I do hope all tanks can have their AOE combos and gap closers either before or at lvl 50 going forward. TBN needs to be moved to at least lvl 60 preferebly lvl 50 skill.

I really wonder what they are going to do with Dark Mind. I wouldnt mind if it was changed to 10% magic and physical damage mitigation

[Shin96]

As a DRK main since 3.0, this class got gutted the worst way. Animation wise they couldn't have screwed it up more than they did with the introduction of patch 5.0. While it feels consistent now, there is just a lack of identity and style. Particularly removing Scourge alongside Shadowskin, they looked so badass. I feel like with every expansion they are struggling to find a balance on how the job is supposed to work. The Souleater combo looks absolutely goofy to me, and the Delirium spam feels brainless. Bloodspiller and Quietus have no real impact, the former feeling like you're hitting a sponge on a flat surface instead of a greatsword crushing the ground.

I'm no expert on the potency and mathematics on jobs but what DRK needs is a DoT similiar to Scourge and another finisher/combo. They need to rework Delirium and give DRK its own identity, perhaps introduce a combo like GNB with 3-4 actions weaving into each other working alongside Dark Arts, give the class a wider array of options basically. I don't see this happening however, I expect more simplification down the line in 6.0. I'm very disappointed personally.

[SuSpence26]

I do agree that the Souleater finisher doesn't really fit as a combo finisher, but based on the DRK in the background of the Sage reveal for 6.0, it looks like Souleater combo's here to stay sadly.

In regard to giving it something akin to GNB's weaving combo stuff, I feel that would just bring out a similar issue like how people don't like Delirium being a discount Inner Release. It would just become a "Edgy GNB" instead of discount WAR and wouldn't help DRK's identity issues. There's very little they can switch around at this point that wouldn't just be a form of homogenization, be it for better or worse (i.e. giving it a DoT like Scourge and an alternate combo finisher).

As for reworking Delirium itself, maybe one thing the devs could do is incorporate an attack speed aspect like Blood Weapon used to have, among other possible effects. But at this point who knows what they'll do. Based off the Endwalker trailer with PLD blocking with a very telegraphed and glowing and then smacking the one enemy, I wonder if tanks will get a sort of SAM Third Eye-esque "get hit and then counter" system. That might open up cool ways for each tank including DRK to have their own means of retaliation that effects and interacts their gameplay and other skills.