Dark Knight Megathread

[Sacrilegion]

Nah, they'll probably just buff warrior again. Scream at them enough and they'll listen

[Marxam]

Nah, they'll probably just buff warrior again. Scream at them enough and they'll listen

WAR hasn't been buffed since Heavensward. It's been on a constant decline, albeit slow, but nerfed regardless. Though at least it still keeps its "feel" and "identity" of a burst and high self sustain tank in every expansion instead of being reworked. DRK doesn't have that same luxury.

[Shurrikhan]

Though at least it still keeps its "feel" and "identity" of a burst and high self sustain tank in every expansion instead of being reworked.

That and straightforward capacity (which, for those who care about gameplay, is a bitter reward for identity and iconic elements squandered and then trimmed) are about the limits of its retention, though, sadly.

[Bhearil]

WAR hasn't been buffed since Heavensward. It's been on a constant decline, albeit slow, but nerfed regardless. Though at least it still keeps its "feel" and "identity" of a burst and high self sustain tank in every expansion instead of being reworked. DRK doesn't have that same luxury.

Adding a shield to Shake It Off in my book was a pretty big buff just to mention one in StB

[Mortex]

WAR hasn't been buffed since Heavensward. It's been on a constant decline, albeit slow, but nerfed regardless. Though at least it still keeps its "feel" and "identity" of a burst and high self sustain tank in every expansion instead of being reworked. DRK doesn't have that same luxury.

Wait what o.o they hard changed shake from a useless self esuna to a actual part shield. Inner release on release was that you use only 50 % of gauge costing ability making it have no buff window time. From actually terrible too really good and that changed war from maybe to a always pick tank in stormblood.Yes upheaval was a bad back then and got numerous buffs. War and sch back at the start of stormblood were bad jobs and got buffed so hard they instant became the almost always instant taken roles. Oh and I almost forgot war being one of the only 2 classes bringing the slashing debuff and in comparison to ninja didn’t lose dps for applying it.

[Derio]

The big issue with the changes is the ranged attack is magic which is 2.5 GCD and other weaponskills with skill speed go to 2.42-2.37 depending on your preference. I dont think they will fix this issue along with LD, Blood weapon and Dark Mind.

I hope they look at these after the media tour.

[Rosenstrauch]

Inner release on release was that you use only 50 % of gauge costing ability making it have no buff window time.

This is technically correct, but ignores a few facts. The first is that Inner Release lasted twice as long as it does now (20 seconds instead of 10). The second is that WAR had a second cooldown it used in conjunction with Inner Release: Berserk, which in early Stormblood raised WAR's damage by 30% for 20 seconds. The third is that Berserk and Inner Release had cooldown times of 60 and 120 seconds respectively, meaning that WAR had two separate burst windows: One with Inner Release, and one without it.

Once 2018 rolled around, they changed how Berserk and Inner Release worked. Instead of granting 30% bonus damage, Berserk made all of your damage auto-direct critical hit. It also had its duration cut in half, from 20 seconds to 10. And at level 70, the player was given a Trait that passively replaced Berserk with the new Inner Release, which on top of auto-direct critical hits also made all gauge spending attacks free.

I can't say this was done with the intent of buffing or nerfing WAR, as I'm no number cruncher. But I can tell you what taking two cooldowns encouraging good gauge management to maximize your outgoing damage during your burst windows, and replacing them with a single cooldown that completely removes gauge management from the equation alongside BIG!! BOLDED!! EXCITED!! NUMBERS!! FOR!! TEN!! SECONDS!! looks like: making the job more appealing to casual players.

That said, all of the above is just a tangent, really.

[Kabooa]

I can't say this was done with the intent of buffing or nerfing WAR, as I'm no number cruncher. But I can tell you what taking two cooldowns encouraging good gauge management to maximize your outgoing damage during your burst windows, and replacing them with a single cooldown that completely removes gauge management from the equation alongside BIG!! BOLDED!! EXCITED!! NUMBERS!! FOR!! TEN!! SECONDS!! looks like: making the job more appealing to casual players.

Nah. There's no singular group we can pin the IR change to, given that it was well received by players in every category, but the purpose of giving consistent results to the IR / Berserk window was a sticking point to those who care about the result, not the build up.

Mitigating RNG isn't something I see chief among concerns of the more casual playerbase.

[WhyAmIHere]

Mitigating RNG isn't something I see chief among concerns of the more casual playerbase.

Casuals: Is this easy? Does it feel fun to play? Does it look cool/flashy/badass/tough? Am I rewarded for doing okay?

[AziraSyuren]

The WAR changes in 4.1 were great. It doesn't matter if they made the job easier (which isn't even a bad thing), 4.0 WAR was an absolute mess on every level and one of the bigger job design fuckups we've had in recent memory. Almost nobody liked 4.0 WAR except people who were spiteful towards how good WAR was in HW, which speaks volumes towards how bad it really was.

Even the worst, most exaggerated caricature of what the changes in ShB did to DRK has nothing on just how bad they fucked up WAR, and to claim it was done to appeal to casuals when they were the only group who paid little enough attention to job design to not see how bad it was is completely asinine.