Dark Knight Megathread

[Zordrage]

Yeah and I also dislike this self-sustain crap. In 5.0 we were blue DPS and now we're a mixture of green, blue, and red. I'd rather go back to being a blue DPS.

I Don't and i rather Not.

Btw as a DRK your still a Blue "DPS" sadly thats the issue.

[ThorneDynasty]

I suppose you also have been recording me while playing? Believe me or not that's your problem; not mine.

If you actually couple your CD's and have a capable healer, it'll be just fine. Unlike many on these forums, I don't mind wiping here and there it's part of how games are.

You guys are literally making this job out to be unplayable which it isn't.

Yeah and I also dislike this self-sustain crap. In 5.0 we were blue DPS and now we're a mixture of green, blue, and red. I'd rather go back to being a blue DPS.

The thing that's glaring in every argument defending the state of DRK though is the ever present caveats. When you use all your cooldowns properly, when the DPS is decent, when the healer knows what they are doing, etc. All the other tanks are bringing a ton of adaptability not only to their own survival but the entire party. DRK being perfectly viable when things go right isn't as strong of an argument as you think, that's just less than the bare minimum for the role.

Add "but I don't mind wipes" and "no it's the other tanks that are designed wrong" to the list I guess.

[RyuDragnier]

If you actually couple your CD's and have a capable healer, it'll be just fine. Unlike many on these forums, I don't mind wiping here and there it's part of how games are.

You guys are literally making this job out to be unplayable which it isn't.

Aka get lucky in DF. And let me tell you, most of the healers I've been getting while tanking have been horrible. I leveled GNB up to 90 and encountered more than enough bad healers to where if it wasn't for Aurora and HoC, there'd have been no way I'd have cleared some of those bosses with those healers.

It's easy to say nonsense like you're saying when you don't realize that the only reason why DRK wouldn't be able to survive those circumstances is simply because it has 0 ways to self heal properly and has a big 20% mitigation cooldown that only works against magical attacks (meaning it's useless against physicals). WAR has Bloodwhetting, Equalibrium, Thrill of Battle, etc. PLD has Clemency, Holy Shelltron, and Holy Spirit. GNB has 2 charges of Aurora, and Heart of Corundum. DRK's Abyssal Drain is a useless 200 potency heal (healing the same as a Brutal Shell but without the barrier) every 60s that shares a cooldown with Carve and Spit, while Souleater is your combo ender with a 300 potency heal that cannot be used when you're using Blood Gauge moves. Right there is the problem, the problem ANY tank can see with DRK. It doesn't bloody matter if it "gets the job done", when you're struggling harder than any other tank to get it done!

[Shin96]

Funny thing with you guys is that you literally skip over posts. I said they could utilize Abyssal Drain which is quite literally useless right now beyond a last resort to self-healing. I'm not intrinsically opposed to the idea of having healing options as a tank but I'm disgusted at the idea SE might come up with some Cure spell next expansion, because people can't take any agency or responsibility for their lack of skill, i.e. that includes using CD's properly.

And then once you get self sustain options what's next? You'll be happy? I sincerely doubt it. The nature of this job or shall I say playerbase includes incoherent rambling as to why it's not like the other tanks. Then you wonder why DRK feels absolutely horrendous to play. The developers have no idea what you guys want and I don't blame them. 5.0 was symptomatic of an issue where DRK was way too complex and hard to get into in 4.0, it's conclusion was to simplify everything in 5.0, let's see if 7.0 includes using healing spells and CD's all the time!

I thought our problem was the fact it felt unrewarding to play in every way. I guess if we're complaining about mitigation issues then we're in a pretty good spot.

[ThorneDynasty]

Funny thing with you guys is that you literally skip over posts. I said they could utilize Abyssal Drain which is quite literally useless right now beyond a last resort to self-healing. I'm not intrinsically opposed to the idea of having healing options as a tank but I'm disgusted at the idea SE might come up with some Cure spell next expansion, because people can't take any agency or responsibility for their lack of skill, i.e. that includes using CD's properly.

And then once you get self sustain options what's next? You'll be happy? I sincerely doubt it. The nature of this job or shall I say playerbase includes incoherent rambling as to why it's not like the other tanks. Then you wonder why DRK feels absolutely horrendous to play. The developers have no idea what you guys want and I don't blame them. 5.0 was symptomatic of an issue where DRK was way too complex and hard to get into in 4.0, it's conclusion was to simplify everything in 5.0, let's see if 7.0 includes using healing spells and CD's all the time!

I thought our problem was the fact it felt unrewarding to play in every way. I guess if we're complaining about mitigation issues then we're in a pretty good spot.

The point I'm challenging is that DRK does just fine when you set your standards low enough. And you immediately crumble to "well I'm fine wiping more than other tanks". I just don't understand how you can be so hostile and still unironically write that one. Clearly you actually agree DRK does have a problem.

On the other hand, where the standards are definitely too high: Complaining that the collective criticism of hundreds of people on a public forum is not coming out reading like a coherent design document? No kidding. It's not our job to write that one though. Also it's almost like a job can have multiple problems, what is this whataboutism?

[Shin96]

The point I'm challenging is that DRK does just fine when you set your standards low enough. And you immediately crumble to "well I'm fine wiping more than other tanks". I just don't understand how can be so hostile and still unironically write that one. Clearly you actually agree DRK does have a problem.

On the other hand, where the standards are definitely too high: Complaining that the collective criticism of hundreds of people on a public forum is not coming out reading like a coherent design document? No kidding. It's not our job to write that one though. Also it's almost like a job can have multiple problems, what is this whataboutism?

You're vindictive as hell. I don't have a problem with wiping in general because I actually have patience. I'm a highly skilled player and there is a world beyond your skill mayhap? I haven't entered Savage yet so beyond dungeons there's not much I can add to your asinine assumptions. As soon as I mentioned I don't have any problems, most of you go on a tangent to assume I'm some type of major hypocrite, when most of you haven't even leveled DRK to 90 yet.

I also never said "I'm fine with wiping more than other tanks". You can be a curebot as a tank and if your team sucks prepare to die. I'd rather see a bit of a challenge than this insane comfort people want as of late.

Just goes to show this ain't about our beloved job but rather me. I say, reserve your energy. Anyhow, I digress. DRK could use some healing options but I don't need them because so far I wasn't struggling.

It really isn't. When I created this thread DRK was a putrid heap of trashfire forcing you to spam the same weaponskill 5 times. Not only that, but it was too slow. The reason I'm particularly "antagonistic" as of late is because no one gives an ounce of credit regarding that the job just feels way smoother, albeit still with flaws. It's as if people complain for the sake of complaining.

I'm still not understanding why this self sustain needed to happen. They said using Cooldowns will yield benefits but they are nowhere to be seen.

[ThorneDynasty]

I'm sorry if I came across that way, but I do have to also point out you are the one making the personal attacks and strawmen right now. No one here is beholden over the entirety of this thread or criticisms of DRK in general.

[Shin96]

I'm sorry if I came across that way, but I do have to also point out you are the one making the personal attacks and strawmans right now.

Look at everything you've written and it should be clear that's you. Trying to put words in my mouth to make me look like an idiot.

Again, if I wipe and provided the toolkit wasn't enough, I would 100% inform on that. I'm enjoying DRK in Endwalker right now and I'm baffled no one has anything good to say about it.

Level the job to 90, hit a few dungeons and then I can take your words seriously. Given how you doubted my initial statement on me doing just fine, go and see for yourself.

[Kalaam]

Well, just so happen that I did. And it isn't fun. If the healer doesn't follow, I can space out my mitigation as best as a I can, save Abyssal Drain for when i'm at 50% health on big pulls, spam TBN every time it's off cooldown and I will still die.

And you know what ? I aggree, that's kind of how it should be.
Tanks shouldn't be able to basically solo dungeons.
Yet they can, except for Dark Knight.
So either SE rebalances the dungeons to take into account that tanks have high sustain, and give some back to DRK (shorter AD cooldown, bringing back Sole Survivor, maybe with an AoE version etc).
Or they nerf the sustain of other tanks. (Remove the healing on requiescat, remove the 2nd charge of Aurora, lower the HoC excog potency or what have you).

But that's just to even the playing field, it wouldn't make dark knight better in a design sense. Just would it so it doesn't feel like an underpowered tank compared to the others.

[OdinelStarrei]

Where were all these sustain arguments in SB for leveling dungeon PLD or in ShB for leveling DRK?

We're not taking so much damage in casual dungeons that it's unbearable for healers to throw a few GCD heals here and there if a pull lasts too long because no one wants to use AoE. "But healers shouldn't have to GCD heal ever, they don't with WAR!" I really don't think this is a healthy direction to go on, nor a reasonable comparison.

I totally understand why people are having more difficulty in dungeons and why there is so much anger, but I really don't think it's because of DRK's kit specifically. Rather, I think it's a combination of a myriad of factors such as

A. Being in a leveling expansion where stuff typically just hits harder, players are newer/worse than usual/we don't grossly out ilvl everything.

B. Dungeons with DRK in general having a relatively higher skill floor than any other tank to reach BASIC competence from all parties involved, because all of your sustain relies on chaining TBNs with already present mitigation because of it's flat effects and higher focus on killing mobs before they kill you, mistakes/bad play cannot be compensated for as easily.

C. Bloodwhetting is frankly, absurdly unbalanced in casual/midcore content, particularly in dungeons, and particularly because nothing currently does enough damage to one shot or significantly hamper players with mitigation, but without shielding, and won't until the last few savage floors.
The HP recovery scale is not WAR > PLD > GNB >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DRK. It's WAR >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> PLD > GNB > DRK. It's not even a fair fight between WAR and other tanks in dungeons, and honestly, it hasn't been since Heavensward, if not mid-ARR.

D. People are justifiably mad because the things we really wanted to change didn't, and now it's finally cascading out in a feedback loop further emboldened by years of neglect. This is the crux of everything wrong with DRK, everything else is a symptom. This is why you look torwards Square Enix and ask, why did you let it get to this state? Who is playtesting this? Who is designing this? Who is giving our feedback to development staff? Is ANYONE giving feedback to development staff? (Spoiler: No.)


My standards aren't low, it's just dungeon content, and thus doesn't register very high on how I actually rate a job's effectiveness. I could go record a dungeon run right now with no problems, like I've been doing since I reached 90, and it still wouldn't dissuade anyone because the narrative has already been solidified and "my run was lucky because my team had more than a single braincell between them." Because carrying teams who can't dodge the bright circles on the ground is now the rule and expectation, rather than the exception and outlier.

The problem I have is that the legitimate issues that actively interfere with the job have a high chance to get absolutely buried by memes that blow the entire situation out of proportion, just like the SB DARK ARTS THE DARK ARTS garbage, bereft of all nuance, when the focus needs to be on why Living Dead wasn't changed, why Blood Weapon wasn't changed, why the spells/weaponskill discrepancy still exists, and what things ARE actually improved from Shadowbringers. I'm not going to sit here and take this low-hanging fruit of "my dungeon that already is a complete joke with anyone who can actually use their kit gets even easier because SE heard giving DRK triple Abyssal Drain charges was more important than making Living Dead actually worthwhile to use without voice communications."