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

[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.

[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?

[Recon1o6]

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?

Thats literally what the original dark arts was and is in my idea. Granted I forgot to make that clear for those like yourself who started in shb or ew

Dark arts was literally a 1/4 mp bar cost ogcd you used to imbue your weapon with to change the effect of a subsequent action. Most of the time it was a weapon skill but there were a couple of ogcds that used it.


Here's an example of the heavensward combo

Hard slash>syphon strike> souleater does the same as it does now, nothings changed
Hard slash>syphon strike^ weaved dark arts> souleater changed does 500 potency with no heal

[Venks]

Thats literally what the original dark arts was and is in my idea. Granted I forgot to make that clear for those like yourself who started in shb or ew

Dark arts was literally a 1/4 mp bar cost ogcd you used to imbue your weapon with to change the effect of a subsequent action. Most of the time it was a weapon skill but there were a couple of ogcds that used it.


Here's an example of the heavensward combo

Hard slash>syphon strike> souleater does the same as it does now, nothings changed
Hard slash>syphon strike^ weaved dark arts> souleater changed does 500 potency with no heal

I didn't play back during HW, but Dark Arts seems really cool and I'd love to see something like that come back for Dark Knight. It'd help the class have a more distinct presence I think.

[Mekhana]

Dart Arts SB was a good idea on paper. Which IMO might be an ongoing theme with the job.

However, it eventually came down to:

1)Are you low/out of MP?

A)No. Use Dark Arts.
B)Yes. Do not use Dark Arts.

There was no depth. There was no thought put into it. All it did was increase your action bloat. You had an extra bind to do something you shouldn't have to use to begin with.

As far I lasted in SB, DRK was the tank you had to work nearly half more to still underperform. Unless you just got out of rave party and are high AF on Ex, there's no way you'd enjoy the DA spam every 3-5 seconds.

[Glaringsoul]

Dart Arts SB was a good idea on paper. Which IMO might be an ongoing theme with the job.

However, it eventually came down to:

1)Are you low/out of MP?

A)No. Use Dark Arts.
B)Yes. Do not use Dark Arts.

There was no depth. There was no thought put into it. All it did was increase your action bloat. You had an extra bind to do something you shouldn't have to use to begin with.

As far I lasted in SB, DRK was the tank you had to work nearly half more to still underperform. Unless you just got out of rave party and are high AF on Ex, there's no way you'd enjoy the DA spam every 3-5 seconds.

because as Recon explained it, it only lasted for 1 attack. What if it it was a "buff" which changes your entire 1-2-3 for 1 cycle if woven before it (imagine it like a Pre Combo action before hard slash that changes it, and gives you access to the augmented version 1-2-3?

That way you would have 3 GCD's following it, while always having a fixed place inside as a part of the rotation.

question is if it should affect the other OGCD's and to what extent. Because if we want to have dark arts change everything else, we end up with both a convoluted nightmare of button presses and "Optimizations", and create a nightmare of "IF" situations for the developers, which will most likely end up creating a bunch of wonky interactions inside the class, or just dismissed outright in the pre-planning phase.