Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

I don't understand why PLD needs to have access to both Passage of Arms and Divine Veil. You can easily limit each tank to just one unique defensive raidwide mitigation tool in a way that is fair and balanced. And if worst comes to worst, just get rid of all of them and give tanks the Troubadour/Tactician/Shield Samba treatment. Why is there so much mitigation bloat?

In fairness and justification to Passage of Arms, your team has to be behind you, and as a tank that usually means you are off tanking or the boss is just untargetable, and you can't actually do anything while in Passage of Arms meaning unless you super quickly snap into it in a 1 second window for raid damage and your group just happens to be behind you, cool, but that scenario is very unlikely to play it. The other situation being an untargetable boss, in which case it's just a QoL for 1 less cast of a party heal from the healers, but functionally serves very little purpose anyway. It doesn't make it any less fair for the other tanks just because PLD has 2, and Passage of Arms is balanced in probably the best way a skill like that can be balanced. Either it gets used fully because your party just happened to be right behind you when you were DPSing and you risked clipping a GCD to use it, or you used it in a way that's just a feels-good casting, or you sacrifice part of your rotation which is already timing-sensitive. I see it entirely as a thematic ability that actually has decent function, and I have no problems with that. It's good flavor that still has good function, unlike Dark Mind.

[Kabooa]

In fairness and justification to Passage of Arms, your team has to be behind you, and as a tank that usually means you are off tanking or the boss is just untargetable, and you can't actually do anything while in Passage of Arms meaning unless you super quickly snap into it in a 1 second window for raid damage and your group just happens to be behind you, cool, but that scenario is very unlikely to play it. The other situation being an untargetable boss, in which case it's just a QoL for 1 less cast of a party heal from the healers, but functionally serves very little purpose anyway. It doesn't make it any less fair for the other tanks just because PLD has 2, and Passage of Arms is balanced in probably the best way a skill like that can be balanced. Either it gets used fully because your party just happened to be right behind you when you were DPSing and you risked clipping a GCD to use it, or you used it in a way that's just a feels-good casting, or you sacrifice part of your rotation which is already timing-sensitive. I see it entirely as a thematic ability that actually has decent function, and I have no problems with that. It's good flavor that still has good function, unlike Dark Mind.

PoA's party damage reduction applies instantly (part of the "Ground target effect" change they did back a ways) and lasts for ~6 seconds. Asylum functions similarly (instant application, lasts for 2 server ticks when not in the area so 4-6 seconds)

The block portion for the paladin only lasts as long as you maintain it.

[Ryaduera]

PoA's party damage reduction applies instantly (part of the "Ground target effect" change they did back a ways) and lasts for ~6 seconds. Asylum functions similarly (instant application, lasts for 2 server ticks when not in the area so 4-6 seconds)

The block portion for the paladin only lasts as long as you maintain it.

Yes but in order to weave it without losing DPS you have to still spend the ~1 second animation time to let the effect apply. That's why I said this.

... Either it gets used fully because your party just happened to be right behind you when you were DPSing and you risked clipping a GCD to use it ...

In that context it's also highly unlikely you'll even apply this effect to everyone anyway and probably makes little actual difference since the healers don't actually change how they heal around that ability in most scenarios because of the people who weren't inside the zone, including the main tank in some cases. If your team actually put in that kind of effort for you to use that skill to that degree that it actually was a real impact, good for your team. They worked for it and should be rewarded. Rewarding effort is good design, not unfair design.

[Lyth]

I've seen plenty of PLD players use it while actively tanking. This game hasn't relied on directionality for blocks and autos for some time now. You should feel completely comfortable doing uninterrupted damage while facing away from your target given how popular gaze mechanics are. If it's really an issue, though, just create a hybrid of Veil and PoA for new player accessibility.

[Ryaduera]

I've seen plenty of PLD players use it while actively tanking. This game hasn't relied on directionality for blocks and autos for some time now. You should feel completely comfortable doing uninterrupted damage while facing away from your target given how popular gaze mechanics are.

I'm not talking about blocking, guaranteeing a block isn't a big deal for balance considering you have RNG block anyway, you're just removing chance from your kit, which is just good design especially on PLD which is short 1 personal mitigation from the other tanks anyway. I really don't understand how PoA could possibly be considered "unfair" especially since even after the buffs PLD still sits low on the DPS charts from the other tanks. It should work the way it does, yes... If that's a problem I don't know what to say. Using it for a block in this way can only block one attack anyway, so I mean... Yeah. That's a good thing.

[Lyth]

My point is that it doesn't matter which way you're facing when you're tanking.

I don't buy the argument about balancing raid utility vs. damage. Everyone was more than content with the status quo during the Media Tour when the action descriptions looked to be massively in PLD and WAR's favour. Now we have dps numbers and those same people won't stop complaining, even with the buffs that PLD has already gotten. And it's much more easy for a job become overpowered after a few potency adjustments when they already have a utility/mitigation/sustain advantage, than it is for the reverse to come true.

[Ryaduera]

My point is that it doesn't matter which way you're facing when you're tanking.

Yes, I understand that, I just don't understand why it's relevant in the slightest. The ability works as intended and as it should and that upsets people???

I don't buy the argument about balancing raid utility vs. damage. Everyone was more than content with the status quo during the Media Tour when the action descriptions looked to be massively in PLD and WAR's favour. Now we have dps numbers and those same people won't stop complaining, even with the buffs that PLD has already gotten. And it's much more easy for a job become overpowered after a few potency adjustments when they already have a utility/mitigation/sustain advantage, than it is for the reverse to come true.

PLD knew their opener was awkward from the beginning and questioned why they'd need to use their buffs the way they do, that was not new, so I'm not really sure where you were getting this idea, I at no point saw PLD mains excessively excited t have scuffed cursed openers. Warriors were excited, but I mean they are kinda insane right now, so that makes sense. The reverse already is true, DRK has a lot of damage but lacks utility next to the other tanks so it feels imbalanced so I'm really not sure why you're pointing all of this out?

Seems like you're upset PLD has something it should instead of being upset DRK is missing something it needs...

[Lyth]

You seemed to not understand how Passage of Arms gets used in practice. You really don't need to channel it. That's why we corrected you on the subject.

As for why it matters? Well, every expansion seems to give us more and more mitigation tools. I don't think there's a point for every tank to have two raidwide mitigation actions on top of Reprisal as a role action. It just seems like overkill. It makes more sense to dial back PLD, than to add an additional action on every other tank. If you're struggling with using PoA correctly, which it sounded like you are during your initial complaint, then perhaps they should develop a functional hybrid between PoA and DV that serves as PLD's single raidwide mitigation tool. You really don't need to have access to both.

[Ryaduera]

You seemed to not understand how Passage of Arms gets used in practice. You really don't need to channel it. That's why we corrected you on the subject.

As for why it matters? Well, every expansion seems to give us more and more mitigation tools. I don't think there's a point for every tank to have two raidwide mitigation actions on top of Reprisal as a role action. It just seems like overkill. It makes more sense to dial back PLD, than to add an additional action on every other tank. If you're struggling with using PoA correctly, which it sounded like you are during your initial complaint, then perhaps they should develop a functional hybrid between PoA and DV that serves as PLD's single raidwide mitigation tool. You really don't need to have access to both.

No I understood it fine. We are on the same page, just disagreeing. Believe it or not the only thing I'm saying is that it is in fact fine for it to have both, they have their own functions and I don't think very many people see it as a problem given the design of PLD. I like how it's easier for you to assume I'm just an idiot than to think maybe I just... disagree.

EDIT: Also, I never complained about PoA at all? I complained that Dark Missionary and Heart of Light are identical and then someone else complained about PoA which I defended saying it was fine, so I'm not really sure where this is coming from in the first place. I said you could weave it for a quick use, give up DPS to sustain it, or use it when there was incoming damage in downtime... Those are in fact 3 ways of using the ability...?

[Malthir]

The problems with DRK is more than just fixing a couple moves, the issues are endemic of all tanks it show a complete lack a crap given about tanking by the devs and it's not a quick fix, it's just more visible on Drk because they have the worse end of the stick. Here is a long winded tale of tanking in FF14

Realm Reborn, Paladins were off tank. Mechanics were basic for classes back then and although Warriors couldn't block white damage, their massive health pool basically made them primary tank in all content.
Gaining enmity was also alot harder back then, you had to use tank stance which reduced your damage, by I believe 15%, and only some moves gave enmity...... I know right, imagine having to actually have to do things to tank instead of being DPS with more health.

Heavensward came out and they started to improve class mechanics, Paladins are now the physical resistance tanks with some support moves, they also had buffs to increase block and moves that were triggered when they block.
Drks have always been the opposite of Paladins in FF lore so they became the anti magic tank, they had magic resistance and where paladins had support moves DRKs had debuff they could apply via dark arts, Drks had a buffs that increased their parry chance and moves that were triggered when they parried *cough* Reprise *Cough*, they were also built specifically with the tank stance in mind which is why they had a move called darkside which they would activate to give themselfs a 10% damage boots at the cost of constant mana drain.

Nothing changed fundamentally though, Warriors massive health pool kept them as main tank and you basically took a Paladin or Drk depending on content.

If they just buffed some numbers making Paladins and Drks more competitive with warriors things would have been fine, however that's not what they did. Instead they scrapped the idea of having any unique features to the tanks and gave them pretty much the same buffs, they removed the tank stance/damage stance feature of the tanks but seemingly forgot that they literally designed Darks and slightly less so Paladins around this feature. Paladins lost a buff and their identity as the physical block tank, Drk lost it's entire class identity, most of the debuffs from DA, removed the parry increase buff and reprise was given to everyone, just cause. Warriors weren't affected because they never really had a class identity outside of unga bunga hit things with axe (totally cool if you like that just saying they have always been simple). To be continued........