Dark Knight Megathread

[ArthurATDayne]

Yes. And? Why should DRK, of all jobs, be immune to lost CD value from forced downtime? Why should DRK, of all jobs, be free to scratch their bum with both hands mid-combat? There's no "getting the best utility out of Blood Weapon" by way of player agency at that point. It'd be uniquely player-irrelevant.

Consider also, if Blood Weapon is deserving of a 30s duration on a damned 5-strike CD, why don't we do use ammo instead for Raging Strikes, Dreadwyrm Stance, Ley Lines, Blood for Blood, Fight or Flight, Requiescat, Riddle of Fire, etc., etc.?

Just give it an extra second's duration to compensate for the delay caused by it checking for Blood Weapon's presence after each hit (therefore some 0.6s later) and it's done. It'd then work as intended.



...This is true of every durationed CD in the game. That's their point: to optimize the time in which they are active. That "rush" is the point. Don't fat-finger. Don't attempt to multi-weave more than you can without clipping if it'd cost you a GCD under the effect. Don't play badly, especially when your core CDs are rolling.

And I think we can all agree already that either the Skill/Spell Speed split needs to be removed or all hybrid jobs need a trait that duplicates the effect of Skill Speed onto their spells.

I never said Dark Knight players should be scratching their asses while playing, but hey when you need to scratch, you scratch. I'm thinking of them too, along with the folks who fat finger keyboard and who got crappy ISPs and high pings. Blood Weapon 30s Duration 5 Stacks, I'm not taking No for an answer.

Besides on my PLD, Requiescat is going 30s Duration 5 Stacks for the Magic DPS combo (and 400 Cure Potency per Holy Spirit/Circle outside of Stacks or while using Stacks), I don't see why Blood Weapon can't get a similar Quality of Life update too.

You should probably ask other Job Advocates why they are OK or Not OK with their situations, I'm mainly speaking for the Dark Knight Job. But on my PLD and GNB, Fight or Flight & No Mercy 60s CD 20s Duration windows aren't an issue because I'm not reliant on them for restoring Mana/Cartridges/Resources, just hit the Damage Buff and DPS away with Any Weapon Skill/Gnashing Fang Continuation Combo/oGCD.

For the Dark Knight, players are reliant on Blood Weapon to restore Mana/Blood with Mana also being the necessary resource to use The Blackest Night defensive CD. 5 Weapon Skill and/or Spell under Blood Weapon replenishes enough Mana/Blood to afford additional 1 Mana Skill and 1 Blood Skill. Blood Weapon looks like it'll still increase Blood Gauge by 10 so even 4 weapon/spell skills used is enough at least for Bloodspiller/Quietus so it doesn't bother me on the blood side of things.

[Shurrikhan]

I never said Dark Knight players should be scratching their asses while playing, but hey when you need to scratch, you scratch. I'm thinking of them too, along with the folks who fat finger keyboard and who got crappy ISPs and high pings. Blood Weapon 30s Duration 5 Stacks, I'm not taking No for an answer.

Except --unless attached to an actual place of need, such as a 1.5s GCD or such weird off-rhythms as PLD's macrorotation-- you're simply making an adjustment specifically to make the game less challenging, less involved, less mechanically demanding, in general, rather than making a deserved adjustment to a given job.

PLD has reason for ammo, especially in the context of Sword Oath's stacks being extended, because of its odd macrorotation. MCH arguably has reason, though only up to a slightly longer total duration, in that its shortened GCD is thereby that much more susceptible to latency.

DRK, however, does not. It merely needs enough duration to fall just short of any reasonable amount of Skill Speed giving it an extra hit within its duration.

Fight or Flight & No Mercy 60s CD 20s Duration windows aren't an issue because I'm not reliant on them for restoring Mana/Cartridges/Resources

There's no difference. It's just extra potency in that given GCD or afforded by that GCD that then has to likewise be spent within raid CDs to maximize its value. Every GCD that generates MP essentially just has at most that GCD's MP generation times Edge's potency over Edge's cost more potency in itself.

You might as well say that DoTs and direct damage are functionally different even when there's no risk of the DoT being overridden. Having a skill with as much more potency in its global over the average ppgcd falling into a damage window is no different from having a Blood Weapon strike fall inside its window and that afforded portion of an Edge/Flood thereafter fall within raid buffs.

For the Dark Knight, players are reliant on Blood Weapon to restore Mana/Blood with Mana also being the necessary resource to use The Blackest Night defensive CD. 5 Weapon Skill and/or Spell under Blood Weapon replenishes enough Mana/Blood to afford additional 1 Mana Skill and 1 Blood Skill.

You say that like DRK would otherwise be left unable to cast a critical skill and a critical moment just because of the one missing tick despite it being a twentieth of their bankable resource.

Regardless, getting 5 strikes under Blood Weapon becomes a non-issue the moment you add even a half-second of duration to Blood Weapon such that it has a true 10 second duration.

The GCD queues themselves will margin out nearly 250 ms of latency at 0 Skill Speed. By the time you add 2 seconds' duration (11.5 seconds true effective duration), you'd be able to get 5 strikes off at ~325 ms latency even at 0 Skill Speed.

[ArthurATDayne]

you're simply making an adjustment specifically to make the game less challenging, less involved, less mechanically demanding, in general, rather than making a deserved adjustment to a given job.

Why yes I am, I don't see anything wrong with suggesting Blood Weapon going 30s Duration 5 Stacks to make it less stressful and less of a rush to utilize. Less challenging, less involved, less mechanically demanding, so what? I wouldn't mind that. That's why I also call it a Quality of Life improvement, not a Keep It Annoying Because I Love The Pain Baby.

DRK, however, does not. It merely needs enough duration to fall just short of any reasonable amount of Skill Speed giving it an extra hit within its duration.

Yeah but "needs enough duration" isn't good enough for me, it can certainly work out like it is right now, but 30s Duration 5 Stacks please.

There's no difference. It's just extra potency in that given GCD or afforded by that GCD that then has to likewise be spent within raid CDs to maximize its value. Every GCD that generates MP essentially just has at most that GCD's MP generation times Edge's potency over Edge's cost more potency in itself.

Geezus, no difference? It sounds more like you stopped having fun at some point in the past. I will pray to The Twelve for you.

[Shurrikhan]

Why yes I am, I don't see anything wrong with suggesting Blood Weapon going 30s Duration 5 Stacks to make it less stressful and less of a rush to utilize. Less challenging, less involved, less mechanically demanding, so what? I wouldn't mind that. That's why I also call it a Quality of Life improvement, not a Keep It Annoying Because I Love The Pain Baby.

I guess any duration window that doesn't have at least twice as much time in lenience as it has actual use (as per 30 seconds to use 10 seconds' worth of attacks) is just sheer masochism. Who'duhthoughtit?

[ArthurATDayne]

I guess any duration window that doesn't have at least twice as much time in lenience as it has actual use (as per 30 seconds to use 10 seconds' worth of attacks) is just sheer masochism. Who'duhthoughtit?

Well, if Blood Weapon ever does go 30s Duration 5 Stacks like PLD's Requiescat is with their 30s Duration 5 Stacks, you can still burn through those stacks in 10 seconds or less for bragging rights while some of us can decide to take longer than 10 seconds.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, if Blood Weapon ever does go 30s Duration 5 Stacks like PLD's Requiescat is with their 30s Duration 5 Stacks, you can still burn through those stacks in 10 seconds or less for bragging rights while some of us can decide to take longer than 10 seconds.

I feel like you're putting the means before the objective here. Blood Weapon isn't there, ultimately, to generate MP; you could have generated those effects passively or by any other means. It's there for its gameplay ramifications. (Yes, shockingly, kits have predominantly existed for their gameplay, as much as changes towards homogeneity and the "may as well" have muddied that.)

The whole point of having a durationed CD is to create that moment of tension, a moment of "rush", or at the least an opportunity cost for using it at an inopportune time. If nothing at all about your gameplay would change from the skill's presence (except in that you might need to first assign an auto-clicker to its button)... why is it there?

If Blood Weapon itself is something you do not want to actually deal with in any way -- something you specifically wish not to have any gameplay effects -- why not just reduce the MP cost of Edge/Flood such that you can get off one more cast per minute, or slap the 3k extra MP restoration (or a Dark Arts proc) onto Carve and Spit, etc.? You clearly don't actually want it to be a thing, to have any impact, so why have it take up button-space?

[Beddict]

The GCD queues themselves will margin out nearly 250 ms of latency at 0 Skill Speed. By the time you add 2 seconds' duration (11.5 seconds true effective duration), you'd be able to get 5 strikes off at ~325 ms latency even at 0 Skill Speed.

See, I do think this would be fine. An 11.5s Blood Weapon is enough to allow an easy five Weaponskills with no risk of a sixth, and it provides just enough time for a five Spell Blood Weapon. Spells aren't exactly used in Raids, but it's always been annoying as hell that DRK struggles to get a five GCD Blood Weapon in AoE scenarios unless they are able to sub in a few uses of Quietus. However, people are typically asking for the Ammo system because it's an easy solution. It means DRK isn't getting screwed out of a fifth GCD when using Spells, it prevents a DRK from SkS stacking to try and get a sixth Blood Weapon for some reason, it gets rid of the current less than 10s duration that screws people with poor ping, and it's a system that SE is already leaning in on. Delirium Inner Release, and Requiescat are all moving to the Ammo system in Endwalker, and they already moved Bunshin over to it back in Patch 5.1, so why not give Blood Weapon the same treatment? Or buff the duration, who cares, both are viable options that are better than the current state of Blood Weapon.

[Lyth]

I don't think that having skill speed thresholds are a bad thing, as long as it's a target that everyone can reasonably reach after accounting for variations in latency. The main issues with Blood Weapon are in its execution/buff application delay and the fact that your GCD is always slower in AoE due to Skill Speed/Spell Speed being separately scaling haste stats despite all the gish jobs that are out there.

[Shurrikhan]

However, people are typically asking for the Ammo system because it's an easy solution. It means DRK isn't getting screwed out of a fifth GCD when using Spells, it prevents a DRK from SkS stacking to try and get a sixth Blood Weapon for some reason, it gets rid of the current less than 10s duration that screws people with poor ping, and it's a system that SE is already leaning in on. Delirium Inner Release, and Requiescat are all moving to the Ammo system in Endwalker, and they already moved Bunshin over to it back in Patch 5.1, so why not give Blood Weapon the same treatment?

I get that; it just seems 5 steps sideways (complete with a bundle of very mixed precedents) to replace 1 step forward and one fine-detail correction.

The Spell Speed trait or merger ought to happen regardless, and Blood Weapon would never have been problematic in the first place if it were actually 10 seconds' long.

I'd rather not, in effect, remove durations and their gameplay over a mere "Why not?"

For instance, I'd have preferred that Bunshin remain a duration; it'd at least be that tiny bit less fire-and-forget and would allow it to still scale (albeit by particular thresholds) with Skill Speed. (Of course, much like with Living Shadow, I'd have rather have gone further with it, but that is outside our scope here.)

Hell, the prospect of getting one more GCD under a duration isn't a unique benefit of Skill Speed; it merely means that Skill Speed can provide some benefit, just as Direct Hit, Crit, and Determination already contribute -- albeit by relatively chunky thresholds. A capped effect count is just one more way to make Skill Speed even more of a trap stat. We shouldn't have trap stats, nor --so long as we're not going to balance stat weights individually for each job-- stats that are only valuable for jobs with little to no unscalable oGCD contribution.

It's worth noting here that durationed oGCDs like Raging Strike, No Mercy, and the like do scale with Skill Speed while skills like Drill, etc., effectively do not, because you still need to align them with Trick Attack, making any overclocking (forward drift) counterproductive.

We should, of course, set those thresholds at a equilibrium between compensating for latency at 0 Skill Speed (still easily getting our n hits out) and between feeling obliged to take a bit more Skill Speed and barely manage a n+1th hit (i.e., start at some n+0.5 hits' time, rather than a mere exact n hits or n+0.8 hits), especially if any player would be forced to double-weave within the particular duration. However, I don't think having some value for Skill Speed, for once, is a bad thing.

[Mekhana]

Blood Weapon is the same ancient issue the devs play on a zero latency LAN test server and they forgot to adjust the skill like so many other things in the DRK kit.