Dark Knight Megathread

[Zedrin]

RE: Living Dead

I dont know why they don't just make LD function like super/holm. Reduce HP to 1, for 10s your HP cannot be reduced lower than 1. No death penalty, and it wouldn't be a mirror copy of either other invuln/immunity skill. Plus it'd still fit in with one aspect of DRK's flavour: paying [HP] (or in this case for 14 as a tank, resource) to use [action].

Wouldn't that just be making it a clone of Holm, though? I guess the HP sacrifice would make it very slightly different and maybe justify a slightly shorter cooldown, but it feels like it'd be super similar.

Though tbh as is it kinda already is like a frame-perfect holm if properly coordinated, it just has some added unnecessary stipulations.

I just proposed the changes as a means to make it feel thematically similar to how it is now, while also removing the clunkiness. If you have a DoT on you instead of the 'Doom'-like effect, healers will more readily notice the missing HP. Plus, it's not instant death for not being brought up to full--and becomes something barriers can actually deal with it, unlike with the current LD.

[Kalaam]

Making it a mix of superbolide and holmgang is pretty terrible though.
Superbolide's makes you invulnerable at the cost of dropping to 1hp
Holmgang doesn't make you invulnerable but you cannot go below 1hp.
Mixing both is like taking the negative side of the two lol

Since DRK seems meant to be "the shield tank" maybe doing an invuln' related to Shields could be interresting. Like converting all healing received to shields equal to 130% (random number) of the initial heal upon proccing Walking Dead. At the end of the effect you can receive actual healing again and the shield stays for like...10 more seconds ? Or it is converted into a heal (like 60% of remaining shield converted to health) ?

[WhyAmIHere]

Wouldn't that just be making it a clone of Holm, though? I guess the HP sacrifice would make it very slightly different and maybe justify a slightly shorter cooldown, but it feels like it'd be super similar.

Though tbh as is it kinda already is like a frame-perfect holm if properly coordinated, it just has some added unnecessary stipulations.

I just proposed the changes as a means to make it feel thematically similar to how it is now, while also removing the clunkiness. If you have a DoT on you instead of the 'Doom'-like effect, healers will more readily notice the missing HP. Plus, it's not instant death for not being brought up to full--and becomes something barriers can actually deal with it, unlike with the current LD.

Living/Walking Dead and Holmgang already are similar, in that they both prevent your HP from being reduced below 1. It's just that now all but LD last a full 10 seconds, whereas LD is up to 10(-ish) seconds.

I'm still a sucker for a Bravely Default (as it's my most recent memory) style iteration of Dark Knight. Heavy Damage, but with a cost. Which was kinda what DRK used to be, albeit in 14's own unique way. Since as a tank, and in an MMO, having to expend HP as a resource to perform abilities is a flat out bad idea, MP was used in lieu. If I could draft up a DRK job to my own liking, I'd still lean in to that ethos, but take what already exists in the game to do so.

Blackblood would have more interaction with MP, and MP would have interactions with Blackblood. There'd be skills that allow a conversion of one to the other, and mass expenditures of one (or both cuz I'd still love to see a capstone skill in Minus Strike) for a massive payoff. TBN would have to be included because of how baked in to the job quests/class lore it is. So, let's lean in to that aspect some more. Introduce a weaker shield earlier on, and have it evolve into TBN at 70; or have TBN evolve somewhere in the 72-90 range. Bring back Scourge. IDK.

It just feels like, seems like, or comes off as, that SE is flat out afraid of DRK design. HW was a fun mess IMO, and rewarded skillful play. SB tried to shake things up and make it easier to play, but they went overboard and made it too annoying to play to the community at large. (DA spam memes.) ShB was in response to that, and DRK was just even further gutted (which, btw, every expansion except for EW seems to have just gutted more and more from DRK's kit) to the point where it became a knockoff Great Value Discounted version of WAR. EW they didn't even really make any attempts to address any of the feedback from the community, because as I'll wager by and large folks were okay with what ShB did. It was more accessible to play, less punishing to new players, and straightforward enough that there wasn't too much complexity to make it intimidating to people. And frankly, I'm kind of okay with that mentality. Change isn't inherently good or bad, I just disagree with the direction ShB took with the class, but I suck it up and moved on to a more enjoyable to me tank, GNB. I like complexity, I enjoy a frenetic pace of play, I prefer resource management instead of timer loops.

But whether it's due to negligence or disinterest, or ignorance or vaingloriousness, that's not up to me to declare. All I know is that DRK was okay enough in ShB, and it was okay because the silent majority were okay with it. Now in EW, and due to all the changes they've made to it leading up to EW, and in response to those changes and lack thereof, now DRK is lagging behind the other tanks in all but one area, the metric that ""mAtTeRs MoSt,"" it does a lotta damage. But hey! If that's all someone cares about? More power to them, I'm not gonna tell someone how to enjoy themselves, or that they're enjoying something wrong / enjoying the wrong thing. That's callous as all hell. But I also won't be satisfied with stagnancy due to developer apprehension or disinterest, or a lack of understanding in what the community, specifically tanks, are asking for. There's obviously a clear break in the communication due to the language barriers inherent in this game, but there's also a disconnect from the developers and the players by and large. (E.G. Ninja having one rotation set out by the developers, and the community making a better one; Xeno's interview with YoshiP and him bringing up Living Dead straight to Yoshida's face; presently MNK and the community finding a way to fit Blitz into a 2 minute burst window consistently, despite the developers stating that they didn't want that to happen.)

I didn't mean for this reply to go on like this, but it is what it is.

[Bhearil]

The ironic thing is that DRK damage is BARELY superior to GNB to the point that you could switch to GNB deal almost the same damage and having a better, more solid kit (sadly not that hard considering the mess DRK is right now)

[Sazuzaki]

I still don't get why they just didn't make Abyssal Drain back into an MP spender GCD if they wanted to reduce button bloat... Like, WAR has basically a better Abyssal Drain with a 400 cure potency on a 25 second CD, meanwhile DRK has a 200 cure potency on a 60 second CD??? Just makes no sense. You're gonna be spamming FoS for a DPS gain anyway, so Abyssal Drain being changed to a 3k mana cost GCD would just do the job wonders, since it's only used in emergency situations.

[LalafellDown]

Living Dead needs a better visual effect so that the healer see that something is off. Maybe add a thick black aura or cloud surrounding the player when DRK has 10 seconds to live. We shouldn’t have to make a macro to let the healer know.

[Kalaam]

Dark Knight needs a lot of better visual effects on a lot of things ahah.

[Zedrin]

Unfortunately it's questionable if they'd even see it if they have battle effects turned down, though, unless it had an on-field effect. Like, having run CLL and DR and DAL, I needed to turn off visual effects other than my own just to see what was going on with the bosses, and I'd imagine that a lot of other players are the same way.

[Kaixern]

For me it's not much the visuals, but mostly the animations of dark knight that are lackluster nowadays
Nowadays we either constantly jump into the air or throw lasers, all with no sensation of impact from our greatsword.
(Worst is if we look at the removed animations from heavensward, like shown in another thread, not the visual effects but really the animations and the fell of those in combat, really a huge loss with many of them)

Living Dead needs a better visual effect so that the healer see that something is off. Maybe add a thick black aura or cloud surrounding the player when DRK has 10 seconds to live. We shouldn’t have to make a macro to let the healer know.

Agreed, they could have least either made a visual indicator on your health bar (for example being glowing purple during walking dead and being "normal" when the healer manages to save you), or even a "barrier" with a differents look to show how much is needed to be "healed"/gone to save the drk.
At this point anything would have been appreciated when it comes to get a visual indicator for living dead, really anything, and it would have been still been an upgrade for this ability.

[Derio]

The problem with DRK is it doesnt have a sustain option.

The simple solution is to give all blood gauge attacks lifesteal. That would compensate for DRK for all dungeons and help DRK in content prior to lvl 70.

Or they could give oblation a regen. But that would only help from lvl 82 and above which doesnt completely solve the problem in terms of leveling.