Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

Thinking about it now... if PLD lost Divine Veil and went all in on Passage of Arms as its partywide defense, then that would show a push for each tank to get a unique partywide and make room for one of GNB or DRK to replace Dark Missionary or Heart of Light, respectively.

DRK's got some potential, I think, for a PoA-like ability where they plant their sword, kneel behind it and channel an area of defense around themselves. As you say, DRK is the shadow cast by PLD, so it would make sense.
The question then being "what exactly would it do differently." With the big push for DRK as an anti-magic tank, Dark Missionary is already the logical partywide for it; I just find GNB a bit too... thematically vague to come up with an alternative for it, while DRK has untapped potential from the abyss.

It's okay for abilities to be similar, like how Veil and Shake are similar, what really bothers me is that Heart of Light and Dark Missionary are exactly identical. They even have opposite names. I've always found it strange that PLD has a cover and DRK doesn't and I imagined up an ability where DRK gets a "special" shield that is part of an ability with an AoE cover, damage is transferred to the Dark Knight and it is only this damage that can damage this special shield and when the shield is broken the damage transference stops. Functionally this is very similar to Veil since it doesn't actually shield the DRK, but where the PLD is the knight that protects you from harm, DRK is the knight that carries your burdens for you. However, Dark Missionary also suits DRK and keeps the magic-tank gimmick so if it stayed that would be perfectly fine, but then I'd want to see Heart of Light change. This is just an idea that might, mechanically and actually coding-wise, be hard to actually create from a systemic angle. But you're right, Dark Missionary does suit DRK thematically, but again, my issue isn't the ability, it's that it exists twice.

GNB is in many ways treated as an offensive bodyguard in the quest line so something could be done to work with it from there. Perhaps a cartridge (thematically, not an actual spender) is loaded into your gunblade and fired into an area in front of you that makes targets deal less damage if you are behind the wall? The wall being placed in front of the GNB by 3 yalms. Pretty similar to Passage of Arms but still different enough that it would have a unique feel to it. But you're right, there's not much thematically to create from what we have, and balance wise eople would just start using this as a personal mitigation unless it locked the GNB in animation or was unique to a specific scenario, weather it be damage type or something else that would just end up making it niche.