Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

...That... would be pretty slick, yeah. Bit of balancing hazard, though, if Spell Reflect (even after its damage getting capped) is anything to go by.

I mean, assuming what I said with it mitigating 10% outright and having another 10% magical DR, we can assume the reflection only applies to the latter half.
If it only reflects 10% of the damage, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a hazard as Reflect proper completely negating attacks while ripping the enemy apart.
You're still getting hit with another 80%, so it has plenty of opportunity to kill you.

But that's just wishlisting at that point.

Granted, I'd honestly prefer we more often allowed for little bonuses here and there in general

I'm of two minds on this.

On the one hand, I agree that it would be cool to see each tank get their own special "bonus" like partial reflection, Spikes effects, special counterattacks, that sort. Things that don't significantly impact their baseline effectiveness but do give them a slight edge for gaming specific mechanics for bonus damage.

On the other hand, having spent a decade on WoW dealing with the yo-yo of both being forced to take a specific spec due to "optimal" performance and "take the player not the class" as an argument for homogeny, it's an extremely fine line.

[Shurrikhan]

Or get rid of Oblation and give us back Dark Dance and the good old Abyssal Drain

I'm guessing you mean the Dark Arts-ed version? Dark Dance normal was only, at most ~4% physical mitigation (20% chance of 20% mitigation via parry, which only worked against most melee attacks, as some were arbitrarily made not parryable, and was bypassed by crits), if taken apart from the synergy of Low Blow resets and Reprisal procs, etc.

Old Abyssal Drain would help a lot in dungeons, but it'd do nothing for our also having the least self-sustain in 8-man content, sadly. Not that there aren't plenty of ways to fix that.

If it only reflects 10% of the damage, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a hazard as Reflect proper completely negating attacks while ripping the enemy apart.

I wasn't referring to the defensive value, only to potentially having some extra 100 rDPS or the like owed to a specific fight just because it finally has a proper amount of magical tankbusters, and the possible oddities of not wanting to stack mitigation (other than TBN, since barrier-absorbed damaged wouldn't have anti-synergy with it) with Dark Mind against said magical tankbusters just because it'd cost you damage, etc. It'd be small, but, we're a community that gets very touchy even over half-percent disparities in the ultimate metric, rDPS.

On the other hand, having spent a decade on WoW dealing with the yo-yo of both being forced to take a specific spec due to "optimal" performance and "take the player not the class" as an argument for homogeny, it's an extremely fine line.

I mean, it can be, but WoW has never had homogeneity to the degree we've had since Stormblood (or arguably even since 2.1), and yet spec participation imbalance has still been far more an issue of tuning (especially as results from borrowed powers) than of inapplicable niches. I tanked up to +15s on every tank spec but Brew (just... wasn't a fan after BfA) back in 9.0 and even the most non-meta among them certainly had their advantages. (Prot Warrior, for instance, was a legit sleeper spec and despite having by far the lowest participation -- heck, I regularly outparsed Prot Paladins on my speedrun build.) And they actually felt and played differently from one another, rather than just having the same base template with 4 different flavors of animation (and the sustain of one randomly being given over to another that already needed it least).

And it's not as if XIV doesn't exclude choices over smaller issues, often precisely because there's just that much less that'd ever be uniquely on offer...

I'd have to think more on it, but personally I definitely lean towards wanting less homogeneity than we have now, especially since --aside from our community, for now, barring participation over much smaller disparities than WoW's does-- we are in a better position to exploit that diversity, what with all tanks being placeable on the same character.

That'd still require that the diversity be designed in such a way that you're performing a fight a little differently each time based on your tank line-up, rather than just one tank being made pseudo-obligatory and nothing else changing, but that seems to me a worthwhile line of effort.

[Archwizard]

upgrade TBN so that if the shield did not pop, the remaining shield becomes HP.

My loftiest hopes are things like:

* If TBN pops early, the target gets a 10-15% mitigation effect for the remaining duration
* The target of TBN also receives a 10-20% boost to incoming healing effects received for a duration
* Damage absorbed/negated by TBN during the first four seconds simultaneously heals the target for the same amount

Pick any two (and +1 sec bubble duration) in place of Oblation, and that would line up with the 82 traits.

... I'd also be fine to see it bumped up to 25s CD and 0 MP cost, but I'm sure I'd get another complaint about homogenizing if I went that far.

[Shurrikhan]

... I'd also be fine to see it bumped up to 25s CD and 0 MP cost, but I'm sure I'd get another complaint about homogenizing if I went that far.

Well, yeah. If you strip away something's unique gameplay in order to standardize it, that would certainly be yet more homogenization on a job that's already been hit hard by such for its last two iterations.

(And/or then there'd also be the problem of having stuck 4 now-free Edges per minute onto popping TBNs, unless you also remove Dark Arts as a mechanic, causing us to now have 1200 potency per minute tuned around our ability to pop 4 TBNs per minute, meaning our damage is, upon balance adjustments, nerfed anytime we can't accomplish that.)

* If TBN pops early, the target gets a 10-15% mitigation effect for the remaining duration
* The target of TBN also receives a 10-20% boost to incoming healing effects received for a duration
* Damage absorbed/negated by TBN during the first four seconds simultaneously heals the target for the same amount

The last seems a bit OP (50% total shielding+healing) but fun. The first seems the most reasonable.

[Archwizard]

Well, yeah. If you strip away something's unique gameplay in order to standardize it, that would certainly be yet more homogenization on a job that's already been hit hard by such for its last two iterations.

On the other hand, given the current MP restriction of it, a fixed 25s CD isn't too far off from its existing limitations.

The last seems a bit OP (50% total shielding+healing) but fun.

It's the only way I can think of to match the "double the effect for the first four seconds" value the other 3 receive without making it harder to receive Dark Arts, since the devs seemed very excited about the concept of "timing your mitigation right before the hit for extra reward" in the lead-up to the expansion when discussing the other tank changes.

Yet another reason why TBN is not the most compatible with the shifting paradigm the other mitigations fall under. Unique, yes, but difficult to balance for the same situations as a result.

Still, there's a substantial amount of healing from the other 3 in addition to their mitigation and bonus effects, and at least this would be a unique way of doing it. Two birds, one stone?

[Shurrikhan]

On the other hand, given the current MP restriction of it, a fixed 25s CD isn't too far off from its existing limitations.

True, but consider the difference between Holy Shelltron and Heart of Corundum, for instance. Though you'd clip HoT value if using it before 9 to 12 seconds --and mitigation itself if within 8s-- had elapsed since the prior cast, Shelltron's two charges are pretty damn helpful. Meanwhile, there are quite a few mechanics that time out to just 12 or 15 seconds apart from one another, where TBN could still pop if precast early enough on the first to again be used on the second. They're far from frequent enough to make TBN a true mere 15s CD in practice outside of AoE, but they're certainly an element that adds engagement to the kit. If you level up yours through Endwalker, you'd doubtless find quite a few little places to just barely squeeze basically (mechanically) back-to-back TBNs. And, to me at least, that's fun -- certainly more so than being stuck on a cut-and-dry, no-risk 25s CD.

Still, there's a substantial amount of healing from the other 3 in addition to their mitigation and bonus effects, and at least this would be a unique way of doing it. Two birds, one stone?

Makes sense. I like it. Honestly, it mostly just reminds me a bit of how strong Nascent was relative to other on-demands back in ShB -- a bit shocking, but not quite so great as to be worth others' complaining about it. Or, heck, it literally is 1.x Paladin's Aegis Boon, but with a %HP cap instead of mitigating (and then healing for) 100% of next hit regardless of its damage.

...Kinda fits the "Oblation" flavor, too: "Feed me your damage." Yeah, honestly, I'd love either the first or last idea quite a bit.

[CKNovel]

Heard somewhere that the Dev team doesn't take advice or even look at the NA community forums and such when it comes to gameplay. They look at the JP player base only it seems. I forget where, but when asked, Yoshi said something like, "they didn't see any issues when looking at JP databases" or something like that. Might be way off, but at least for me, it sure does feel that way.

Some english speaking japaneses went on the western side of the forum to express their complain.
Because they thought SQEX only listened to westerners.

If that's not a red flag about feedback, I don't know what is.
...Oh wait, Living Dead unchanged for 3 expansions in a row now.

[Ryaduera]

On the topic of DRK reflecting magic damage back, this mechanic already exists in the game in an objectively more powerful way in the form of Warriors Vengeance. 50 potency reflect on physical attacks, which are significantly more common, on a 30% mitigation skill. That's not to say I'm against it, but the framework is already there from the very job people say DRK is just an edgy copy of. Can't really complain about homogenization just to then ask for it in favor of a less-useful gimmick version of it. I'm not entirely against homogenizing tanks defensive values, there should be a certain degree of it with unique flavors on each one (PLD getting blocks, warrior healing for days, GNB parry etc) but if you don't homogenize just enough while trying to keep them unique one tank will inevitably fall behind defensively, which is exactly what we're seeing with DRK. It's uniwue, but that's why it sucks defensively. It needs a better defensive kit and fixing Dark Mind, taking TBN off DPS resource, and giving Oblation a small 5% buff would probably be all it takes in total honesty.

What if DRK had a skill that would consume Dark Mind for a different effect? Like how WAR gets Thrill of Battle, DRK can consume Dark Mind and maybe Oblation (spitballing here, just woke up and don't feel like big-braining) for another effect and since Oblation has two charges you could theoretically just consume one charge and use another? Just a morning coffee thought.

[Shurrikhan]

What would the consumption reward be like?

And yeah, Vengeance has always been a weird outlier, especially since the rest of Warriors kit was standardized. I'd prefer others get their own benefits of similar value than remove that bonus, but since Shadow ringers it's been hard to point at any compensatory weakness in WAR's kit that'd warrant, let alone notably synergize with, Vengeance's reflect damage.

(At least back in Stormblood we had stuff like Blood Price and Oath Gauge from blocks.)

[Ryaduera]

-snip-

My knee jerk reaction is to say a shield, but that literally is Shake it Off (I said Thrill of Battle above, oops... Was still waking up) and DRK does fine against tank busters so a fat shield would be just more of the same problem in that shields are good, but mitigation is better and DRK is fine in the shielding department, only PLD (and arguably GNB with only BS shield) lacks self shielding. Dark Missionary is fine for party wide mitigation since most raid damage is magical, though I have problems with that skill too, but that's another topic. As a skill it's fine so raid-mitigation might not be suitable either. I suppose when it comes down to it, I'd make this the heal with another effect?

15s Heal over time potency of 100 per consumed ability (so 200 max if it's just Dark Mind + Oblation, if my napkin math is right this makes it at most 1000 potency heal after full duration. If I were to add more "consumed" abilities I'd try keeping it at a 200 per tick cap unless it was underperforming.)
Reduce Damage Taken by xx% (not buffed by amount of abilities consumed)

Keeping damage reduction off of other abilities consumed increases versatility since it doesn't necessarily need to consume your other abilities, meaning you can choose strength of the ability, or duration, but you can also always do the Shake it Off thing where you use it with 1s remaining anyway, adding a small skill curve to the ability. It would also give a HoT that DRK so desperately needs without tying the HoT to TBN like people keep saying (Which would be the WORST place to place a HoT for reasons I have said before) and all without actually getting rid of the gimmick of Dark Mind that the devs are so insistent on keeping. I got The Chrysalis today and was pumped because Dark Mind is actually good there, and as much as that was a nice feeling, that comes from a bad place. You should never be excited that you actually get to use one of your abilities, but if it must stay, it should be capable of being used in a different way, in this case turning it into a HoT in all content where it is not useful. I think without doing the math most of the time 20% damage reduction would be more useful than 500 potency HoT so it would still be better used as mitigation in the situations where it is good.

EDIT: I refrained from giving a specific mitigation percent because I'm not sure how much DRK would actually need since healing and shielding does make percent mitigation more impactful, but it could be tuned a little higher if it required the consumption of at least one ability to be used at all, which could be a very real possibility for an ability like this, but might make it a little noisier with oGCD's since using it without needing a heal would be 2 oGCD's instead of 1, but at the same time not using it with Dark Mind in encounters where it makes no actual difference (which is a LOT) is a complete waste of its strength so it may never actually get used without being under the effects of at least one anyway, so it could be made into a 15/20% reduction, but I'm more trying to discuss the principle of the ability rather than the effectiveness. You must first determine how an ability works before you can balance it.