So here is a more comprehensive post on my thoughts and ideas for Dark Knight after seeing the Endwalker media tour info on Dark Knight.
I will start off by saying that I supported and mostly liked the changes made to Dark Knight in the rework for Shadowbringer because I felt that it established a stronger and more refined foundation to have the job grow from. While I overall had positive feelings towards the rework, I will not deny that I also felt that there were issues that still needed to be addressed, especially long-standing issues that had been voiced for a while like the issues with Living Dead’s death penalty and Blood Weapon not always fitting the full number of GCD attacks within it.
Additionally, I also felt that while it was a better foundation, the rework was missing just a little bit of extra gameplay elements to put it at the same level of the other tank jobs, not from a balance perspective but from a game-play perspective. To me it seemed like the rework was primarily focused on cleaning up existing issues and addressing feedback from during Stormblood, but then fell short on going beyond that to add that extra layer of gameplay that would normally come with a new expansion. This left Dark Knight feeling as if it was one expansion behind in terms of game-play design and evolution.
Based off what has been revealed with the Endwalker media tour it feels like Dark Knight is lacking in direction to establish its own distinct gameplay style. The lack of any changes of real substance that would evolve Dark Knight’s gameplay is disappointing to say the least and just compounds with the existing issues and feeling of being less evolved already really make Dark Knight feel lacking as a job in comparison to the other tank jobs.
Below I go over some of the existing problems with Dark Knight and provide suggestions on how to address them.
I then go over what changes I would like to see for Endwalker that would better help evolve the job into something hopefully more fun to play.
Keep in mind the numeric values such as potencies, durations and recast times are only general “guesstimate” values and could be tweaked for the purpose of balance. It’s not the values that are important but the general gameplay concepts.
So let's get to it. First the existing problems and suggested changes.
Blood Weapon
The issue with Blood Weapon is that it’s 10 second duration and the way that it activates, on landing a hit and not on activating/initiating the attack, causes the window to be far too tight and often results in not being able to fit all 5 attacks into the duration window. This is just compounded by the fact that Dark Knight’s AoE attacks are spells and tanks do not get spell speed to lower the GCD recast time of them, making it even harder to fit 5 in.
I suggest making Blood Weapon not work via a duration but to instead work with the stack system that has been established for most other such abilities that used to have short, tight timing windows such as Delirium.
Additionally, I have added a slight self-heal via a trait at lvl.84. This will help bring Dark Knight’s self-healing more in line with other tanks and is inspired by Paladin’s new trait that adds healing to Holy Spirit and Holy Circle. Blood Weapon also traditionally healed the user in the Final Fantasy series, so it is only fitting to have this iteration heal as well.
Lvl.35: Blood Weapon
Ability – Range: Self - Cast: Instant – Recast: 60s
Provides 5 stacks of Blood Weapon for a duration of 30s.
Upon landing a weaponskill or spell, 1 stack of Blood Weapon is consumed. When a stack of Blood Weapon is consumed; the Blood Gauge is increased by 10, MP is restored, and HP is restored with a cure potency of 200.
Dark Mind
The problem with Dark Mind is the fact that it only affects a specific damage type, magic, which greatly limits when it can be used effectively.
I suggest addressing this issue by removing Dark Mind and replacing it with the new Endwalker ability Oblation, which itself is removed from its place at lvl.82. I also increased the mitigation from 10% to 15% since this change would technically reduce the number of defensive abilities that Dark Knight has. Making it able to be used on a party member also helps distinguish it among the tank unique defensive abilities.
Lvl.45: Oblation (replaces Dark Mind)
Ability – Range: 0y -Radius: 30y – Cast: Instant – Charge Time: 60s
Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 15%.
Duration: 10s
Maximum Charges: 2
Living Dead
This is one that players have been asking to be changed since Dark Knight was introduced in Heavensward. It is the only tank invulnerability ability that has a caveat effect that has a hardline requirement in needing 100% of total tank hp restored or it literally kills the tank. This makes this ability the only such defensive ability requiring such a high level of healing which makes it, as others have deemed it, “a healing black hole”. All other invulnerabilities require only just enough healing so that the tank doesn’t die right after their invulnerability wears off, which is almost always far less than what Living/Walking Dead requires. This problem is then complicated even more by the fact that how the ability even works is not messaged well. There is no good indication of when the transition from Living Dead to Walking Dead occurs, which often leads to being healed too early so Walking Dead never activates and the ability is wasted or not being healed at all or too late because the healer didn’t notice that it triggered. The remaining amount needing to be healed isn’t conveyed at all, making it a guessing game which can lead to over-healing and wasted resources, or not getting healed enough and the tank dying. Then to top it all off, once the healing requirement is met, the ability ends which means that an overzealous healer could heal too quickly and remove the invulnerability effect too early which can easily get the tank killed, and not to mention it guarantees that the Dark Knight will never get a full 10s of invulnerability since when that 10s is reached, the Dark Knight drops dead.
With all the above issues which have been around since Heavensward, making all other tank invulnerabilities 10 seconds long in Endwalker just makes the already problematic Living Dead that much worse by comparison.
At this point Living Dead absolutely must be addressed and preferably completely replaced.
I suggest replacing it with the ability below, Danse Macabre. This ability tries to keep the style and general concept but reworks the mechanics to make it match better with the other invulnerability abilities. It is designed somewhat to be a reverse Superbolide in which instead of being set to minimum HP, you are set to maximum HP and then it reduces you down by 33% per server tick over 3 ticks for a total of 99% of your total health. Functionally they are almost exactly the same asides from two important factors. First, going to full HP is less likely to give your healer a heart attack like dropping to 1HP would. Second, going to max HP and then having it decrease over ~9s makes it easier for a healer to lose out healing through over-healing if they cast the heals too early on. This little extra complication and consideration towards healing is what justifies the lower recast compared to Superbolide.
Lvl.50: Danse Macabre (Replaces Living Dead)
Ability –Range: Self - Cast: Instant – Recast: 300s
Recovers HP to full and renders you impervious to most attacks for a duration of 10s.
Additional Effect: Afflicts the Dark Knight with Death’s March.
- Death’s March effect: Gradually damages the Dark Knight over 10s for a total of their maximum HP. This damage cannot reduce the Dark Knight below 1 HP
Abyssal Drain
The problem with Abyssal Drain is that it is meant to act as Dark Knight’s equivalent to the other tank 60s self-heal abilities, however it is far too skewed towards being effective against large groups of enemies while being extremely weak against single targets.
I suggest the changes to the ability outlined below that instead provide a set potency cure on ability usage. While it may decrease the heal somewhat in large enemy groups of 6 or more enemies, it is far more effective in single target situations like boss fights. I also increased the damage a bit to the primary target while keeping it the same for any other enemies to make it have a little more “oomph” in single-target. Overall the goal was to make the ability better for boss fights, trials, etc. where you are fighting a single target since this is where the ability was severely lacking.
Lvl.56: Abyssal Drain
Ability – Range: 20y – Radius: 5y – Cast: Instant – Recast: 60s
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300 to the target and 50% for all remaining enemies.
Additional Effect: Restores own HP on use.
Cure Potency: 1000
Delirium
I'm not going to go into the complaint of Delirium being a "discount Inner Release" or that spamming a single ability a bunch is boring, it is, because I think that making it 3 uses as opposed to 5 and at 60s instead of 90s will help alleviate some of this and not make it feel as bad.
My problem with Delirium, based on what we saw with the media tour, is that the ability restores far too little MP. I already felt that Delirium returned too little in the Shadowbringer version and with it going from 5 uses to 3 uses with Endwalker, the situation will just be exacerbated.
Personally I would like to see each stack of Delirium restoring 1000MP so that you end up gaining 3000MP from Delirium, enough for a single use of an MP spender ability.
Stalwart Soul
The problem with Stalwart Soul is not the ability itself but when it is acquired. All the other tanks get the second step for their AoE combo at level 40 while Dark Knight doesn’t get theirs until level 72. This makes the leveling process for the job or doing level synced down not as smooth or enjoyable as the other tanks.
My suggestion is simple, lower the level at which Stalwart Soul is acquired to 40 or somewhere thereabouts.
Living Shadow
While Living Shadow is a bit of a controversial ability with part of the community feeling that it is good while another part feeling that it is boring because it has zero interactivity with the player or with the rest of the kit.
I won’t be addressing those concerns here, addressed in later changes, and instead just wanted to suggest a very simple tweak that I have seen mentioned here and there for a while, to simply remove the Blood cost on the ability since it is already gated by a very long recast time for an offensive ability and having a resource cost in addition to the long recast is just excessive.
Additionally, effective uptime of the simulacrum can be diminished during periods where the target enemy moves around a lot which is a huge detriment to this ability. The base movement speed of the simulacrum should be increased to compensate for this.
Lvl. 80: Living Shadow
Ability – Range: 0 – Radius: 0 – Cast: Instant – Recast: 120
Conjures a simulacrum of your darkside to fight alongside you.
Simulacrum Attack Potency: 300
Duration: 24s
Now I will go over my suggested changes and ideas for levels 81 – 90 in Endwalker. I will outline all ability and traits gained during these levels, so you may see some things like the Melee Mastery trait in there or other stuff that is unchanged from what was shown in the media tour.
The main goal of these suggestions is to provide changes and an evolution to abilities more inline with changes made to the other tanks, as well as introducing new gameplay elements that would provide a more defined and unique feel to Dark Knight. Basically a bit to make DRK more like the other tank jobs where it should be more similar and a bit to differentiate it where it should be more different.
Lvl.82
Lvl.82: Enhanced the Blackest Night
Trait
When the barrier from The Blackest Night is absorbed the following additional effects are granted.
Additional Effect: Restores HP to self or target with a Cure Potency of 800.
Additional Effect: Grants Shadow’s Embrace to self or target for a duration of 10 seconds.
- Shadow’s Embrace effect: reduce damage taken by 10%.
This change is just simply to more closely mirror the buff changes made to the other tank frequent use defensive abilities. Seeing what was done to them while TBN went unchanged felt wrong and giving DRK Oblation was not enough to even things out.
Having the new additional effects be triggered from TBN breaking keeps the additional mitigation from potentially getting in the way of TBN breaking and while you don't get the benefit of the defensive effects stacking like the other tanks get, it does result in the effects being more spread out and therefore giving DRK a longer period of increased defenses which I feel is a worthwhile trade-off.
Lvl.84
Lvl.84: Melee Mastery
Trait
Increases the potency of Hard Slash to 210, Syphon Strike to 110, and Souleater to 110.
Same as media tour.
Lvl.84: Enhanced Living Shadow
Trait
Increases the potency of attacks dealt by your simulacrum to 300.
Same as media tour.
Lvl.84: Enhanced Blood Weapon
Trait
Provides the additional effect of restoring HP with a cure potency of 300 when a stack of Blood Weapon is consumed.
This change just adds the self-heal to Blood Weapon as mentioned in the previous section.
Lvl.86
Lvl.86: Shadow Blade
Trait
Executing Edge of Shadow provides the effect Shadow Blade for 12s.
- Shadow Blade effect: allows the execution of Scourge.
Lvl.86: Scourge
Weaponskill – Range: 3y – Radius: 0y – Cast: Instant – Recast: 2.5s
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 200 and additional damage over time with a potency of 60 for a duration of 15s.
Additional Effect: Restores MP and increases Blood Gauge by 10.
Can only be executed while under the effect of Shadow Blade. Effect fades upon execution.
This trait and new ability is to try to change up and add more of a unique feel to Dark Knight's rotation, specifically in the GCD aspect to break up the Soul Eater combo more. To me Dark Knight is supposed to be somewhat the antithesis of Paladin. PLD having a very strict and defined rotation fits very well with the overarching delineation that exists in the Final Fantasy series between Light/Order and Darkness/Chaos, with PLD representing order with a very ordered rotation and DRK representing chaos. To then build on this thematic difference, the idea of making DRK having a more freeform rotation made up of oGCDs and GCDs that are gated by resources moreso than a strict linear rotation or timers would hopefully result in a more dynamic and "chaotic" rotation.
The idea of having the GCD follow up from an oGCD came from the initial interpretation from the media tour teaser where the Shadowbringer ability was thought to be a weaponskill that seemed to follow from Edge, sort of like a reverse Continuation or sort of like the old version of Dark Arts.
I then made it a DoT to force spacing them out a little bit to remove the potential of having to spam it and in the hopes that with it being spaced out at more regular intervals that it would be more effective at changing up the GCD gameplay for the job.
It was made "Scourge" because people have being saying that they want that ability back and here was a way that fit.
Lvl.88
Lvl.88: Enhanced Dark Arts
Trait
Increases the number of Dark Arts that can be stored to 2.
This change adds more flexibility and strategy towards Dark Arts, essentially turning it into more of another resource to utilize and plan around.
Lvl.88: Salt and Darkness
Ability – Range: 0y – Radius: 0y – Cast: Instant – Recast: 15s
All enemies standing in the corrupted patch of Salted Earth takes additional unaspected damage with a potency of 500.
Additional Effect: Increases Blood Gauge by 30.
This is basically the same as the media tour version, I just added a bit of Blood gain on usage just to have more abilities tie back into the resource gameplay of Dark Knight.
Lvl.90
Lvl.90: Shadowbringer
Ability – Range: 10yx10y line - Cast: Instant – Charge Time: 30s – MP Cost: 3000
Deals unaspected damage to all enemies in a straight line before you with a potency of 700 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Maximum Charges: 2
Can only be executed while under the effect of Darkside.
If executed while under the effect of Dark Arts, a Dark Arts will be consumed instead of MP.
This change is meant to do a few things.
First it changes it from just another independent oGCD to one that is tied into your primary resource MP. This then connects Shadowbringer and Edge/Flood so that they will not compete for space in your opener/burst periods since Shadowbringer will be used in place of an Edge instead of having to fit it alongside. Making it cost MP also makes Shadowbringer less of a "fire when available and forget" ability since it will require at least a little bit of planning to make sure you have the resources to use it.
Second, it is changed from a 60s recast with 2 charges to a 30s recast with 2 charges to make it available more frequently. You will already be trying to use both charges in a single burst period and doing that every 120s is just too infrequent and so making it every 60s felt right.
Additionally the potencies were adjusted to compensate for the MP cost, rolling in the potency of edge/flood as a starting point and then layering on the additional potency of the media tour version of the ability to make my rework relatively equitable.
Lvl.90: Enhanced Living Shadow II
Trait
Allows the execution of Living Shadowbringer.
Lvl.90 Living Shadowbringer
Ability – Range: 10y x 10y line – Cast: Instant
Causes your simulacrum to use the ability Shadowbringer which delivers an attack to all enemies in a straight line in front of it with a potency of 500 for the first enemy, and 20% less for all remaining enemies. Your simulacrum will dissipate after execution. If not manually activated while your simulacrum is active, it will be triggered automatically before dissipating.
Additional Effect: Restores MP based on the amount of remaining duration for the simulacrum when used. No MP is restored if the ability is automatically triggered.
*This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.
This change is basically a revision of Machinist's Pile Bunker for their Automaton Queen with the intent of taking the passive "your shadow now uses Shadowbringer" trait and turning it into something a little more interactive.
Originally Posted by TouchandFeel
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