Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

The argument to use something else such as hp has fallen on deaf ears and prob wouldn’t be a great idea since DRK is a tank.

Why is this so often echoed? A tank is the ONE role on which HP sacrifices actually MAKE sense, since it's the one role that already, until Shadowbringers, made regular use of its eHP as a resource.

And even following Shadowbringers, tanks still make use of eHP as a resource, just in the sense of timed expenditure rather than comparative spending (against offensive opportunities).

Consider a DPS using it instead. Its restrictions would instead be purely a matter of avoiding its use before raid AoEs while essentially just offering a healer attention burden for in order to shift aDPS from healers to that damage-dealer, all without having higher rDPS for the party as a whole (else the job would be imbalanced). No, the only role that should have HP-spending mechanics are those that already have eHP mechanics -- essentially just allowing the job to bank resource via HP spending during damage lulls to then further fortify itself during damage spikes, an altogether very tank-themed mechanic.

[Danelo]

Why is this so often echoed? A tank is the ONE role on which HP sacrifices actually MAKE sense, since it's the one role that already, until Shadowbringers, made regular use of its eHP as a resource.

And even following Shadowbringers, tanks still make use of eHP as a resource, just in the sense of timed expenditure rather than comparative spending (against offensive opportunities).

Consider a DPS using it instead. Its restrictions would instead be purely a matter of avoiding its use before raid AoEs while essentially just offering a healer attention burden for in order to shift aDPS from healers to that damage-dealer, all without having higher rDPS for the party as a whole (else the job would be imbalanced). No, the only role that should have HP-spending mechanics are those that already have eHP mechanics -- essentially just allowing the job to bank resource via HP spending during damage lulls to then further fortify itself during damage spikes, an altogether very tank-themed mechanic.

I did say “prob”ably.

As a tank hp is being used as a resource already while your being hit. Unless you’d want to tie it to LD in some way it seems it would be a difficult implementation.

Again, the devil is in the details, and it could be cool if they poor the time into it but considering they can’t seem to get things right where they have more wiggle room in not going to hold my breath.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Why is this so often echoed? A tank is the ONE role on which HP sacrifices actually MAKE sense, since it's the one role that already, until Shadowbringers, made regular use of its eHP as a resource.

And even following Shadowbringers, tanks still make use of eHP as a resource, just in the sense of timed expenditure rather than comparative spending (against offensive opportunities).

Consider a DPS using it instead. Its restrictions would instead be purely a matter of avoiding its use before raid AoEs while essentially just offering a healer attention burden for in order to shift aDPS from healers to that damage-dealer, all without having higher rDPS for the party as a whole (else the job would be imbalanced). No, the only role that should have HP-spending mechanics are those that already have eHP mechanics -- essentially just allowing the job to bank resource via HP spending during damage lulls to then further fortify itself during damage spikes, an altogether very tank-themed mechanic.

I personally am in the boat that it is absolutely possible to use HP as a resource on a tank, however to facilitate this, one of two things needs to happen to not put unreasonable burden on healers for the DRK to up his damage:

A.) DRK needs a significantly bigger pool of HP as a buffer for using HP as part of your damage mechanics, between 25-75% more than other tanks, either in form of a low CD ability or passively.

The downsides of this option is threefold:

- it makes surviving mechanics or busters tremendously easier by using heals instead of shields to boost this buffer or by underusing HP spenders which could be seen as an issue of imbalance for progression

- mechanics requiring full HP for completion (think Seat of Sacrifice: True Living Dead) will be more difficult proportional to the increase of maxHP

- problem #2 applies for Living Dead and unless LD has its effect reworked or contains "while under walking dead: hp spenders are now free", it will become extremely counterintuitive to use.

B.) DRK would need significantly more available self sustain akin to having Bloodbath, with uptime matching intended use count for HP spenders.

Funnily enough, the tank that would qualify for HP spenders the most is WARRIOR, given the insane amount of HP recovery it will boast coming Endwalker.

[Shurrikhan]

I personally am in the boat that it is absolutely possible to use HP as a resource on a tank, however to facilitate this, one of two things needs to happen to not put unreasonable burden on healers for the DRK to up his damage:

A.) DRK needs a significantly bigger pool of HP as a buffer for using HP as part of your damage mechanics, between 25-75% more than other tanks, either in form of a low CD ability or passively.

...Why, though? Why would that be necessary? You don't spend HP in the moments you need the HP. You spend it when you don't as to prevent HoTs from being wasteful and to, say, prepare defensive resources thereby afforded for the moments you do need added eHP.

Nor is there any reason for increased %HP; HP has no difference from eHP provided by any other means outside of having been thematically attached to Warrior. And again, you don't need that permanently or as any compensation to the kit beyond what the HP spending should, itself, rightly afford.

Damage is the least sensible use to design for spending HP. Consider instead, for instance, when MP was spent for augmented defensives, (increased) self-healing, or increased enmity (with any potency bonus being part and parcel with the latter two, even if perhaps very slightly overwhelming). Such would be a far more sensible direction for what HP spending would ultimately offer -- even if the exact mode of that spending would still determine if DRK must be, say, more proactive that most tanks -- if we must borrow from past approaches (in this case, that of HW).

[Duskane]

just putting a though here

what if DRK stoped using MP as way to limit what u can do ? to me it feels like that mp is what makes the job chaincuffed

funny thing that on PLD u dont feel like MP is there to stop u ... outside not being able to spam clemency / Holy but that makes sense ....

I don't think MP is what holds DRK back just the design right now isn't very interesting because of TBN and only MP spenders are Edge/Flood
if they made Shadow bringer a MP spender as your main MP damage spender and Edge was just your buff skill plus TBN having no MP cost it would be a big improvement

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Damage is the least sensible use to design for spending HP. Consider instead, for instance, when MP was spent for augmented defensives, (increased) self-healing, or increased enmity (with any potency bonus being part and parcel with the latter two, even if perhaps very slightly overwhelming). Such would be a far more sensible direction for what HP spending would ultimately offer -- even if the exact mode of that spending would still determine if DRK must be, say, more proactive that most tanks -- if we must borrow from past approaches (in this case, that of HW).

And how exactly would non-damage utility exactly be balanced to neither be pointless nor too strong when using HP as a resource?

What point is there to spend one part of eHP (actual HP) to generate another? Either the output is significant enough for me to do this and consider playing DRK because the output is actually meaningful especially when having their HP healed once spent, or I play a tank that does this equal or better without requiring additional HP or HoTs to generate this utility.

While I can see that people still seek to relive the days of HW where spending MP (or HP) on enhancing utility was at least relevant, it had massive issues that come to light once you take the rose-tinted glasses off and try to think how this would be affected by the current PVE design - leaving aside SE / Yoshida clearly said they will not go back to class design based on HW times.

Again, I am all in for using HP as a resource, but spending it for survival is either really good (Superbolide) or not worth it, depending on the conversion. It can have a middle ground of power level, but is only helpful if the DRK player can generate the lost HP at least partially on their own - again, see Warrior.

"Wasted HoTs / heals" are by nature wasted and not something to base on, but YMMV.

[Kaixern]

I don't think MP is what holds DRK back just the design right now isn't very interesting because of TBN and only MP spenders are Edge/Flood
if they made Shadow bringer a MP spender as your main MP damage spender and Edge was just your buff skill plus TBN having no MP cost it would be a big improvement

Speaking about TBN and mp spenders i much prefered the iteration of blackest night in stormblood due to the synergy it created between blood and mana.

By breaking this shield you would have access to a great amount of blood in exchange for a starting amount of mana which was a good gameplay design idea for ressource management so that both of these bars would be linked in a way, thus creating skill synergy.

Now there is really nothing that links them alltogether.

You just use blood weapon and souleater and (and stalwart soul for aoe) and get as little blood as possible with absolutely no interaction created between those two ressources bars nowadays. (from what i recall from before)

[Beddict]

Yeah, the interplay between MP and Blood was more interesting, and where it really shined was in Dungeons. Do a big pull, toss down Salted Earth to generate Blood and use Blood Price to generate MP, use TBN to shield, it pops to give 50 Blood, use Delirium to increase the duration of Blood Price, Dark Arts Abyssal Drain spam for healing, Quietus using the Blood generated from Salted Earth, TBN, Quietus, more DA-AD spam, just keep churning out MP spenders and Quietus. Having your resources work together felt more engaging to me. Now, MP doesn't affect Blood, Blood doesn't affect MP, and Darkside is completely worthless since if it ever falls off you may as well set your Job Crystal on fire.

[shao32]

This is just perfection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW6c...annel=LucyPyre

[MagiusNecros]

Yeah that video just encapsulates DRK.

Have some sad music as an outro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1o4O2SfQ5g

RIP. 2015-2021.