Your Dark Knight players are unhappy. あなたの暗闇騎士プレイヤーは不幸です

[Lyth]

Just...can the devs bother to listen to the DRK community for once? It's about the same with DRK as it is with the Healing Community at large: We want more things to do during downtime instead of pressing ONE BUTTON(Three in DRK's case).

[...]

It doesn't take an entire expansion to fix the job - just fix the issues people have with it and try to make it "Not Warrior, Not Gunbreaker, and Definitely Not Paladin".

I've seen a lot of people complain about DRK's core gameplay loop and what happens during downtime. This one combo criticism is a common one (although GNB operates off of one combo at baseline as well). Some jobs are just designed around the mindset of burst and chill.

This is an open question for anyone who is interested.

Let's say that you are the designer for this job. Set aside defensives, utility, sustain, and aesthetics for the moment. How would you redesign DRK's core gameplay loop subject to the following considerations:
1) The job has to still be recognizable as 'DRK' to meet the expectations of anyone who has played any previous iteration of the job (i.e. Using either prior or currently existing gameplay elements and resource systems).
2) The job must still be accessible to the broader playerbase (i.e. It can't be more complex than the average melee dps job, you can't leave the player stuck in a resource starved state where they are unable to perform basic actions, and you can't introduce 15 new resource systems with new edgy names).
3) The job should feel distinct to play from the existing tanks.

How would you do it?

I will say that the third condition is a bit of an unfair one in that even the melee dps have a lot of overlap in their respective combo systems. Most jobs we've seen end up using a maintenance/damage combo system (WAR) or just following a fixed string of GCDs in a fixed rotation (PLD), and neither of these really fit with DRK. I have my own thoughts on this, but I'll hold off for now.

[Shurrikhan]

I will say that the third condition is a bit of an unfair one in that even the melee dps have a lot of overlap in their respective combo systems. Most jobs we've seen end up using a maintenance/damage combo system (WAR) or just following a fixed string of GCDs in a fixed rotation (PLD), and neither of these really fit with DRK. I have my own thoughts on this, but I'll hold off for now.

The second condition seems the more limiting, depending on how much illusion of complexity we're allowed to treat as actual complexity. For instance, NIN's playflow presently isn't far off from DRK's at the broad level; it just does more things in its "do the things" moments. Thus, it can be hard to say just where that "average melee DPS" is actually at.

That said, would we be allowed to adjust the other tanks in this thought exercise? (Or the combo system in general to be more than something that makes button bloat of n-1 combo GCDs?)

And I take it we can't go and do anything crazy, like giving tanks more to do in terms of fight design?

[Lyth]

I'm trying to approach this from the developer point of view.

You can bend some of these if its too restricting, as they're primarily there as guidelines. I think the most important condition is the first, and it's probably the most difficult part of a rework compared to a fresh job design. The second condition has the most wiggle room. There's nothing to say that you couldn't have a 'difficult tank', but it's really easy for a more experienced player to underestimate the challenge level for someone new to the game. Likewise, you could follow a system similar to PLD or WAR, but you should be able to predict what the player response will be. I would leave the other tanks out of this; while the development team certainly could make structured adjustments to all tanks if they had to, it would take a lot more resources to rework multiple tanks simultaneously.

[Vyrerus]

Design DRK gameplay loopa

I'd add back in the old Delirium combo whose animation movement was given over to Interject. Instead of an INT down debuff, I'd have it inflict a unique debuff that allows for DRK to get MP upon hitting enemies inflicted with the debuff. Let's say, half of what Blood Weapon would give back. 30 Second duration. Rename it to, "Delirious Slash." I'd also bring back Power Slash and make it the second step of this combo to differentiate the combos a little more, in the vein that DRG's combos still have different second parts to them in Vorpal vs. Disembowl. The potency of this combo would be equal to Souleater's combo, so neither has direct potency priority, but the Souleater combo still has priority due to Syphon Strike's MP gain and Souleater's HP / Blood gain.

Also I'd bring back Scourge so DRK could have a regular DOT, because DOTs aren't hard to manage if they're a singular GCD, and with what Reaper has in the way of no longer breaking combo to apply DOT, Scourge would be a welcome re-acquisition.

[MagiusNecros]

They should just go back to Heavensward. Or overhaul DRK into a new job. Job identity and good synergy with it's kit has always been an core issue ever since Stormblood. If Endwalker is any indication the dev responsible for designing DRK either took an extended vacation or has dug a hole so deep they can't climb out of it and let DRK rot in Shadowbringers.

Stormblood was both the peak and downfall of the job with the obscene gutting of the job's utilities as well as wanting DRK to revolve around TBN. Or rather Dark Arts.

The time has come that the Dark Knight comes into it's own and stops trying to fight the line between being a Paladin or Warrior. When it clearly is neither of the 2.

[Recon1o6]

snip.

Tbh, old hw drk was not more complicated with its gameplay loop at a base level than nearly any job we have today. Its weird parts were always its tanking side (dark mind requiring darkside+da for example)

Let us begin with drk's combos, the core of any job's gameplay loop is what do you do with your gcds. In this drk in HW had 3 combos

Hard-spinning-power for enmity
Hard-syphon-souleater for recovery
Hard-syphon-delirium for damage
It also had 2 other gcds in the form of bloodspiller and scourge in previous iterations. While bloodspiller has only ever been seen as a inner beast clone, in sb it was seemingly fine. Scourge on the other hand was beloved and its removal was met with uproar.

In aoe, drk had 5 gcds. Unmend, unleash, stalwart soul, abyssal drain and quietus. In HW and SB unmend, unleash and abyssal drain all cost mp. Quietus is a decimate clone.

You also had its primary resource of mp to fuel its core mechanic dark arts. As the dev you know that the removal of dark arts has not gone over well with the drk playerbase so this needs to come back in some form. Previously in HW you could use 4 dark arts before mp was gone, in sb it was nerfed to 3.
Mp costs being removed from unmend and the aoe combo made the job more mp efficient in dungeons. The key is to make the mp recovery strong enough to get back from a death but no so high to spam dark arts or its ogcd attacks edge/flood and dark passenger
In sb, another resource was added in the form of blackblood. This was never very popular, often referred to as inner beast gauge for its identical function. It was mandated by higher ups so it has to exist in some basic form even if its as simple as 1 action like sch.

You also want to try and avoid mt/ot situations and the spam that was SB. So if you were to bring back dark arts, the changed effects need to incentivise swapping between each combo.

To this end I would bring 3 combos back with each finisher being different:

Souleater remains as is in function
Scourge is added to a combo step, Delirium would come after it in the combo and inflict a debuff that recovers mp when the enemy is struck
Spinning-power slash gives the most blackblood.

Dark arts costs 2400mp and can change the effect of these combo finishers

Souleater adds a buff that improves the damage drk deals by 10% for X seconds
Delirium gives a buff "lifesteal ready"
Power slash inflicts a debuff that increases the hp restored by soul eater, bloodspiller or abyssal drain when used on this enemy

Blackblood then becomes a resource for your party buffs:
Soul survivor puts a shield on drk and another victim on the enemy that increases the crit/dhit the enemy takes by 10% for 15s. Costs blackblood
Blood price puts a party wide shield. On breakage this restores 1200 mp and a regen equal to X potency for 15s. Costs blackblood

Other buffs
Blood weapon gives haste for 5 attacks. stack lasts for 30s
Darkside allows execution of Delirium/Souleater/Power slash without breaking or meeting combo requirements for 4 attacks.
Turmoil grants 50 blackblood and a heal. Used ooc for 100 blackblood. Uses SB delirium animation.
Oblation grants lifesteal ready and a free dark arts

Lifesteal ready makes bloodspiller and abyssal drain available. Both deal damage with significant lifesteal, 1 aoe, 1 st.

While I do miss having a counter attack, that would never come back because of parsers :/
The core loop boils down to keeping your buff dot and debuff up and swapping between each combo. From time to time, you can even break combo without consequence to keep another effect up.

[Kalaam]

I like your ideas, tho Sole Survivor seems too strong (unless the buff only applies to the DRK, like Death Mark from RPR).
Would Blood Price's shield give back MP each time someone's shield breaks ? So on a 8 player group it'd give you back full MP ?

[Glaringsoul]

Let's say that you are the designer for this job. Set aside defensives, utility, sustain, and aesthetics for the moment. How would you redesign DRK's core gameplay loop subject to the following considerations:
1) The job has to still be recognizable as 'DRK' to meet the expectations of anyone who has played any previous iteration of the job (i.e. Using either prior or currently existing gameplay elements and resource systems).
2) The job must still be accessible to the broader playerbase (i.e. It can't be more complex than the average melee dps job, you can't leave the player stuck in a resource starved state where they are unable to perform basic actions, and you can't introduce 15 new resource systems with new edgy names).
3) The job should feel distinct to play from the existing tanks.

1. I personally like the feeling of Weaving powerful OGCD's in between GCD's so i feel like that actually makes for a good core gameplay loop, since it sync's up well with most Utility/ Mitigations being OGCD as well, so you have a "Simple" baseline where you add things into it. The Current Problem is that most other tanks have convoluted rotations (Pala has its magic Phase, Warrior needs Utility Upkeep, and GNB has 1 minute Burst Windows), meanwhile DRK has nothing of the sort, which makes it seem "Boring" to a lot of players.

One thing I'd however do is to merge the amount of OGCD's together, giving you more Impact in what OCGD you want to wave, while reducing the amount of available OGCD's while balancing their uptime to the previous levels.

2. Yes and NO.

For Melee you worry about 3 things: Your Rotation / Positionals, Boss Mechanics.

Tanks have a bit more: Rotation, Mitigation, Boss Mechanics, Boss Control (how you move/ turn the boss and interrupts) , having to know most if not all boss mechanics

Which is why Tanks usually have a more Simplified Combo to offset the added responsibilities.

My point being, it should be that tanks are Mechanically simpler because they do less damage overall, and have agency to take care of other things.

3. I Agree,

Weaving is something that other tanks have to a lesser extent; having one tank lean more heavily into it, makes it unique in its own right.

Paladin has a Magic Rotaion, GNB has a secondary Burst Rotaion, Warrior has a Utility Upkeep + 1-2-3, and DRK has 1-2-3 with weaving as its combo which makes you more "Busy" at the balance of being simpler because your OGCD's are your upkeep.

Which feeds back to point 1 as i believe heavy weaving requires you to have a "stronger" 1-2-3 to even out the weaving unavailability. Not specifically for damage, but for utility and for Healing, especially if you dont have any dedicated healing Abilities that serve only the purpose of healing you and dont have a shared CD.

[Kalaam]

Spreading the OGCD along the rotation would likely be better, maybe have some buildup for some of them or a way to get them as a reward (ShB as a Dark Art version of Flood, along with a multi-breakable TBN so you could use it several times in a row in some situations)

[Glaringsoul]

SNIP

so you want to turn the class into a more convoluted mess than current DPS's ?

I see the 3 Rotations only turning out well, if you Cast a OCGD to "Modify" your rotation kinda how GNB has its entire combo tucked into 1 button now, but that you have your standard combo 1-2-3 as we have now, and can "Imbue" your weapon to grant you a buff with certain effects for X Seconds.

Kinda like how the Mystic Knight works in the other FF Games. with 1 having augmented damage only (Shadow Augment), 1 restoring hp (Blood Augment), 1 restoring Mana (Soul Augment) etc. that way we can reduce the total amount of buttons to fight hotbar clutter while still having a unique playstyle, that gives you quite a bit of utility and management of the buffs you have, as they dont stack.

This would be a compromise between your Idea of Dark arts and 3 Different Combos. Mechanically they stay in line with other tanks, but get more utility/ Interaction with Dark Arts.

These Buffs would of course also extend to Bloodspiller/ Quietus.

Or is that idea stupid?