Dark Knight Megathread

[ItMe]

Yo.

So, we've been discussing things pretty actively in this thread.
SQEX uses big threads for feedback.
I popped over to the Japanese forums to see what their tank megathreads are looking like.



This is their PLD megathread.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...82%B9%E3%83%AC

It's been around since September 21st, 2013 and it is 280 pages long.

Contrast that to our DRK thread, which was made June 28th, 2021 (not even 4 months ago) and is already almost 70 pages.

In 1/24th the time this has become 1/4th as big.



Here is their DRK megathread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...82%B9%E3%83%AC

It was made June 20, 2015 and is just over 200 pages long.

It was made almost exactly 6 years earlier than our baby of a thread, and we are already just under 1/3rd as robust.



This thread is growing beautifully.
You guys are rocking keeping this involved discussion rolling. With this passion and this much steam driving this thread it will blossom into something they will be unable to ignore.

I feel I've had very little role in all this, but as a big DRK fan I wanted to say thanks for staying (largely) respectful, insightful, and on topic~

[ArthurATDayne]

I'm a huge DRK fan, the Job Quest Story Arc was Beautifully Written and so was the Shadowbringers Story by the writer(s).

It's really such a shame, an insult, that all that hard work that went into the Job Story, Lore and Context within Eorzea is tainted by half-ass effort on the DRK job development team. Such a jarring contrast.

[Shin96]

People should definitely keep this thread alive as much as possible. Doesn't hurt having an English thread for DRK.

Remember, this is not a tournament. It's a marathon; how long we walk is what ultimately matters. Also a huge thanks from me for all the input. I didn't even think we would get this far.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

same as improved Simulacrum wasting 2 passives instead of getting alll the effects on the last one and giving something useful with the first.

Playing Devil's advocate, Enhanced Simulacrum has an actually important effect in regards to balancing that is also served by the various 'mastery' traits like red magic mastery, lance mastery, etc. across several jobs in EW - Giving the Simulacrum the potency it does at 88 as the default would make it far more powerful in level 80-86 content. An extra 50 potency per hit (assuming new base LS is 250) isn't anything to snuff at, especially when with the redux of physical weapon damage causing the potencies of every physical job to be nerfed across the board to compensate for physical attacks doing much higher damage now, Living Shadow's 300 potency in EW is much stronger than its 300 potency in SHB. (This assumes Esteem also continues to ignore tank mastery in EW though, as a caveat.)

Enhanced Unmend is definitely not a useful trait with their current fight design though and definitely needs to be replaced. My own suggestion would be for it to help alleviate DRK's issue of little self sustain through health by doing one of the following with the level 84 trait:

1) Enhanced Blood Weapon (lvl 84)
-Restore HP with each successful weaponskill or spell delivered (effect doesn't stack with multiple targets)
-Cure potency: 300

2) Enhanced Abyssal Drain (lvl 84)
-Reduces the CD on Abyssal Drain to 30s, while increasing the cure potency to 600 and granting it a 2nd charge.

Both of the above should be obvious, giving DRK more direct lifesteal by means of Blood Weapon or making Abyssal Drain a bit more of a free-form tool once every 30s at half potency compared to say, the other 1200 potency healing tools like Aurora & Equil which is at 1-minute intervals. Ideally in my 2nd trait they'd also just remove the potency on Abyssal and change it to a pure self healing tool to disincentivize using it as just another OGCD during burst windows.

Are you happy getting enhanced Unmend and a new skill called "Shadowbringer", which by animation alone is a knock-off of FoS? Are you happy using Salted Earth and popping some bubbles out of the ground? Again, re-used animation from Dark Missionary.

This isn't exclusive to DRK though; with a keen eye you'll quickly notice Double Down is a re-skinned Prominence from PLD. The third cut is stripped and the character is angled slightly more downward, but the character animation is nearly identical.
The end thrust of Blade of Truth is literally copy-paste of the thrust part of Eye gouge. Blade of Faith & Blade of Valor both appear to be using a modified, sped up Howling Fist animation.
WAR is the only one I can't discern if they're re-using animations with. Though for primal rend, I would likely guess it's not an actual animation during the jump, just the WAR in a static pose with a simple rotational velocity attribute applied to it until the very end.

A lot of the tank animations in EW are being recycled from somewhere, just given new VFX to mask the recycling. It's more likely their development cycle is extremely tight due to all the setbacks they've had so they're recycling what they can.

snip

Our thread is growing faster sure, but I'd be more interested to see how many posts in their topics are filled with non-useful posts like 'delete DRK' without giving any sort of constructive criticism vs ours. Not that our thread doesn't have good constructive criticism, but if they employ word scraping programs, there's quite a fair share of dead posts in this thread as far as information gathering.

[VeolE]

Snip

Now, I mostly agree with almost everything you suggest. BUT i'm going to add a little tweaks to it imo...



Stalwart Soul level acquired at lvl 40

Reason: Every tank gets their 2nd AoE at lvl 40! Like literally. And plus, it will be good for them to start regaining MP at the early lvl


Dark Missionary level acquired at lvl 66

Reason: Hell, PLD get Divine veil at 56 GNB get Heart of Light at lvl 64 DRK get theirs at 66 and WAR gets shake it off at lvl 68.


Feels a lot better now since DRK get their 2nd AoE combo at the same lvl compared to the rest of the tanks. And able to get their raidwide CD at a reasonable level.

AND NOW FOR LVL 72 AND 76

Siphon Mastery acquired at lvl 72

Syphon Strike will gain more mana instead of 600 MP, it will be 1,200 MP it also applies to Stalwart Soul


Scourge acquired at lvl 76

It will have it's own GCD just like Sonic break.

Scourge is back baby. Delivers an attack with a potency of 250
Additional effect: Delivers damage over time. For 75
Duration: 30s
Recast time: Every 60s
(Sorry, i'm not good with potencies and such)

Oh and another thing while we at it...

Dark mind

Reduce damage taken by 15% but if it's magical, it'll be 20%

Reason: I remember they change up feint on making it do physical and magical, but +Bonus points if it's physical. So I want it to apply that logic to Dark mind as well.


EDIT

(Editing some of the typos)

Flood of Shadow and Flood of Darkness will now give out 10% haste effect. Instead of "increase damage by 10%"

While also keeping some aspect from 3.0 DRK identity, while mixing up with 5.0 SHB and heading on to EW.

[Shurrikhan]

You've even called it "a garbage passive," but not because it is a bad skill but because it isn't good enough. Because it is "useless at worst."
It's not like this situational tech is even coming with button bloat like what happened with Monk.

I really don't understand this attitude.

Especially coming from a 2015 player with an 80 Monk... (Heck, Monk's additions went even worse than merely bloated for their situational value. There was just enough value for them to shift gameplay in negative ways.)

I can even understand, say, the "(re)start from scratch" approach to DRK, so long as it isn't JUST "scrap it because it's not good enough (and never will be)."

I don't mean this in a matter of "This could be worse, so don't complain." Rather, it seems that if I've already been deprived of all but a few tools I ought to have, I should keep asking for the other tools -- not discard one such offering on principle. If the tool lacks the qualities to perform its function, you note that it's not actually, for all intents and purposes, one such tool, and demand a replacement. You don't present the trashcan into which you've tossed it as a museum of woe. (The devs' bin is plenty filled for that purpose already.)

I mean fine, some people will like this job in 6.0, probably those with lower standards though.

Neither ItMe nor I are arguing that things are fine as they stand; hell, I've been vocally critical of certain precedents since StB's pre-release class notes. We're merely pointing out where a given angle is painfully unproductive.

The worst thing DRK is facing basically points towards their history. I feel had this job been introduced in the way it is in 5.0, no one would've complained about this job or the lack of identity. You put it in comparison with 3.0? It's the equivalent of a dung pie with a cherry on top. It's like a good middle finger you put in your butt first, to illustrate your distaste for anyone that enjoyed its older design more. Again, it's salt to injury.

Who is this even for? You've only the choir to preach to. We are a community already accustomed to getting our daily salt from our bung-finger, to borrow your imagery. You don't need to whip us up into anger.

Should anyone run their mouths like a damsel in distress; your job could be next. And then what you say. Oh, are you happy other people enjoy it? Don't give me that crap. The worst things come from ignorance and a lack of appreciation

And whom here are you strawmanning?

To say "I like the responsiveness and aesthetic of Edge/Flood shadows," for instance, is not equivalent to "I like Shadowbringers DRK better than the identity and future opportunities implied by its state in Heavensward." Neither appreciating or critiquing a part is an defense or dismissal of the whole.

We can rightly call players who've never seen the previous iterations of DRK ill-informed of what potential has been lost in arriving at its Shadowbringers iteration and put forward those parts lost as precedents, nonetheless, from which DRK may evolve (almost certainly in a better direction than if the view were constrained to only DRK's latest form), but there is no package deal value set by which people either agree with one take on DRK being the best or must be ignorant and unappreciative.

NO enhanced Unmend.

Why does literally every other effin job get attention and love. Did the developers at any point in time consider this addition is ridiculous.

Dude, how about upgraded Plunge? Make Plunge available at an earlier level with no charges to give people something to use, y'know, when it's most important. Then give us an upgraded version later on.

But nooooooooo, enhanced Unmend. That is what they want! And the dev with this idea got a promotion too most likely. What a twisted joke, if they hate us then just tell us to GTFO this game. I would appreciate the honesty behind that.

Having Enhanced Unmend, or anything else for that matter, does not prevent Enhanced Plunge, getting Plunge at an earlier level, or anything else short of filling up more than DRK's 8 empty skill/trait acquisition slots relative to other jobs. (And even that still disregards that a single trait can bundle the effects of what would otherwise be multiple traits, or a trait and skill can be given over the same level, thus effectively doubling that number of slots, or that a job can have uniquely more skill acquisitions than others, especially prior to level 50, rather than just uniquely fewer.)

Consider, again, as what the iconic substance of DRK, especially as seen in XIV, might be defined. What are the opportunities or niches, thematic and procedural, still available to it, assuming gameplay weren't constrained to pitiful homogeneity?

In that regard, your original aims in this thread were far more productive, as only Lyth and perhaps two others have ever come close to a decently well agreed upon idea of what DRK ought to be, or even to just defining what doesn't work under some semblance of actionable criteria.

[ArthurATDayne]

N
Dark Missionary level acquired at lvl 66

Reason: Hell, PLD get Divine veil at 56 GNB get Heart of Light at lvl 64 DRK get theirs at 66 and WAR gets shake it off at lvl 70.

I don't mean to rub salt in the wound (no DRK pun intended) but Warriors get the super nice Shake it Off 90s CD, 15s Duration, 15% Max HP Self+Party Shield at Level 68! And soon to get a 300 Potency heal extra on SIF for all affected players in Endwalker.

Dark Missionary is TRASH... 10% Reduced Magic Damage taken by self + party. At least make this Garbage Skill a 10-15% Reduced Damage Taken or even a 10% of Max HP Bubble Shield similar to Shake it Off. Going into Endwalker Dark Missionary is still the same Trash Tier Garbage Skill.

SquareEnix couldn't even be bothered to put even a 100-300 Potency heal on affected players for Dark Missionary in Endwalker to make this Trash Tier Garbage Skill more appealing.

Additional Rant on Dark Missionary: Not only is it a measly 10% but it's on MAGIC Damage only, like WOW that's double measly, truly a worthy winner of the Trash Tier Garbage Skill awards.

[VeolE]

I don't mean to rub salt in the wound (no DRK pun intended) but Warriors get the super nice Shake it Off 90s CD, 15s Duration, 15% Max HP Self+Party Shield at Level 68! And soon to get a 300 Potency heal extra on SIF for all affected players in Endwalker.

Dark Missionary is TRASH... 10% Reduced Magic Damage taken by self + party. At least make this Garbage Skill a 10-15% Reduced Damage Taken or even a 10% of Max HP Bubble Shield similar to Shake it Off. Going into Endwalker Dark Missionary is still the same Trash Tier Garbage Skill.

SquareEnix couldn't even be bothered to put even a 100-300 Potency heal on affected players for Dark Missionary in Endwalker to make this Trash Tier Garbage Skill more appealing.

I don't blame you one bit my fellow DRK brother, but honestly. I don't know what to do with Dark missionary tbh besides putting it at the reasonable level.

[ArthurATDayne]

No worries, I'm glad you did. It takes context and comparison to other Tanks' similar party/raid wide mitigation skills to better appreciate how bad it is.

And Dark Missionary is still the same going into Endwalker so the awfulness is preserved for all to see.

[Nivarea]

Dark Missionary (and Heart of Light since it's the same effect) is not bad. There is advantages to them compared to Shake it off or Divine Veil. While they are undeniably better on single hitting raid AOE and can work on physical AOEs (which to be fair are very very rare, I actually don't have any exemple on the top of my minde this expansion), the value of Missionary/HoL are on their duration being flat mitigation, making them better for spamed raidwide AOES. Exemples of this are for exemple E12S second part enrage, or the J-Waves in TEA. In those cases, HoL and Missionarry are miles better than Veil/Shake. So no, I can't let you say that it's an awfull skill when it does have advantages over its couterpart on other tanks.

I would, of course, not say no to an increase of its mitigation to 15%, but the skill is more than fine.