Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

Tangent, but...

I'd rather have some cheese (or, "features") here and there, so long as such doesn't pushing out more interesting decision-making. E.g., Inner Release lining up to prevent a knockback (or murder your party in O6S), TBN cheese, Cover cheese, and hopefully GNB getting something in turn.

(Invulns, contextually, do push out more interesting decision-making or overly disarm fights for having not been sufficiently accounted for, though, so that's another story.)

Oh don't misunderstand, I, too, love cheesing mechanics, but when discussing game balance it shouldn't actually impact anything because it's a slippery slope to "But I want my job to be able to just do anything I damn well please regardless of game health" on the grounds that if you have an ability with the purpose of cheesing mechanics in mind, you probably don't have balance health in mind. But yes, I love slapping on TBN and mitigations to eat a mechanic that should give me a debuff just to not get a debuff, same goes for the occasional Hallowed Ground and Bolide in some content. Maybe I just don't want to do the thing? So I just won't lol.

[Undeadfire]

You're getting into semantics now and discussing purely conjecture which has nothing to do with the objective state of the job and its kit. I also know you didn't say TBN alone, the math listed in the linked post by yours truly was all considering using TBN with Oblation.

This suggestion was also about combining Oblation with TBN, so you would not be capable of stacking this TNB+ with Oblation because with this proposition Oblation doesn't actually exist, so I'm not really sure what you're on about there.

A miss understanding, apologies.

Cheesing mechanics is a different discussion and arguably shouldn't be plausible in the first place for game balancing, and is therefore also conjecture.

You're right, I spiralled off the subject. For reply, cheesing mechanics has always slipped in throughout the years, shouldn't be plausible, but SE has supported it. Changed the system, 0 Damage: No debuff, barriers as you know, treat it as 0 damage till broken, overlay barriers: no debuff. Oblation + TBN merge is fair, it's a filler ability.

[Shurrikhan]

Oh don't misunderstand, I, too, love cheesing mechanics, but when discussing game balance it shouldn't actually impact anything because it's a slippery slope to "But I want my job to be able to just do anything I damn well please regardless of game health" on the grounds that if you have an ability with the purpose of cheesing mechanics in mind, you probably don't have balance health in mind.

Oh, absolutely. I just don't want to see unique means of cheese ever specifically targeted or outright removed in favor of some ultra-tight balance (which is the only point at which that'd become necessary, far from our [DRK's] current state). If it really comes down to it, we can use arbitrary exceptions, like those debuffs that somehow go through Hallowed Ground.

But yes, I love slapping on TBN and mitigations to eat a mechanic that should give me a debuff just to not get a debuff, same goes for the occasional Hallowed Ground and Bolide in some content. Maybe I just don't want to do the thing? So I just won't lol.

DRKs: Smileton last boss had ground-obstructing mechanics? How did I never -- Oh, oh right.



________________

Lingering Shadow: Heals for 200 HPS over 21 secs.

Should this suggestion have been 200 per tick (total of a still overpowered 1400 potency of healing, down from 4200 healing, every time you break TBN)?

[Ryaduera]

A miss understanding, apologies.



You're right, I spiralled off the subject. For reply, cheesing mechanics has always slipped in throughout the years, shouldn't be plausible, but SE has supported it. Changed the system, 0 Damage: No debuff, barriers as you know, treat it as 0 damage till broken, overlay barriers: no debuff. Oblation + TBN merge is fair, it's a filler ability.

Aye no worries. On the topic of cheesing mechanics, it will always happen, there is no possible way for even the highest budget and perfect and most intelligent and well trained devs of any game to figure out what every single player is going to come up with when given an ability/item/whatever the game has. Many devs even enjoy when something is cheesed and/or broken (*Note on this below). The fact that 0 damage = no debuff even exists proves Squeenix is largely okay with cheesing happens as long as Bolide and Hallowed both nulify all damage. It would be pretty easy to either remove that fact or make it so they cause you to take only 1 damage instead.

*I recall watching the devs behind Doom Eternal watching a speedrun where the speed runner exploited a bug that would essentially launch the player beyond the levels bounds because of a feedback loop in the physics engine. Instead of saying they should patch this out and make sure it can't happen, they instead said they should put little hidden messages behind level borders for speedrunners to discover. Things like this are probably why Squeenix supports it. A player finding something creative to do with an ability you created feels nice sometimes.

DRKs: Smileton last boss had ground-obstructing mechanics? How did I never -- Oh, oh right.

Me in discord with my healer: "I'm gonna eat that mine. burst window is up. Don't worry about it though."

EDIT: I feel like the forum is calling out my fantasia addiction. This stuffs like Skooma.

[Undeadfire]

SE has always put Easter Eggs in 14, one I actually discovered this Xpac and seen no one has mentioned yet, and it's from the game Hearthstone.

Edit: I should get back on topic, I have nothing else to say.

[Shurrikhan]

Me in discord with my healer: "I'm gonna eat that mine. burst window is up. Don't worry about it though."

I just do it every time. I rarely get significant damage windows enough to warrant worrying about the faint potency loss. Just for fun, I've got the 2nd boss down pat enough that I can break TBNs with little delay (which is really just to get a Sage friend ticked that he can't even use a single oGCD fruitfully), but outside of the infrequent TB, there's just... nothing else to play around with on boss 3.

EDIT: I feel like the forum is calling out my fantasia addiction. This stuffs like Skooma.

Yeah, sorry about that.

But, here, I can distract with a couple hot takes:

• AoE heals should be smart-heals* but less potent (especially in 8-man, perhaps as a result of being partly split instead). "Smart-heals" here refers to heals which split would-be overhealing to the remaining allies that would still be wounded even after the initial heal. Or, basically, heals split by HP to be restored rather than merely by allies in range. (No, really, this would make personal defensives feel so better since they wouldn't just be healing what would have been healed anyways.)
• I want back the old Shake it Off (but also the post-Berserk debuff and/or some sort of Stagger mechanic in place of pure miti on Vengeance, and for SiO's cleanse to apply to more, rather than less, than all Esuna can apply to). Give a Leech window raid buff instead if need be. ...This is mostly because I want another means to cheese stuff if it lines up well enough. Though maybe I should be satisfied enough with just having Holmgang.

[Undeadfire]

I just do it every time. I rarely get significant damage windows enough to warrant worrying about the faint potency loss. Just for fun, I've got the 2nd boss down pat enough that I can break TBNs with little delay (which is really just to get a Sage friend ticked that he can't even use a single oGCD fruitfully), but outside of the infrequent TB, there's just... nothing else to play around with on boss 3.

You really don't have to detonate the mine to be melee uptime safe, there's a small spot between Safe/Mine you can stand at, it's next to the arrow, Smileton final boss.

[Ryaduera]

I just do it every time. I rarely get significant damage windows enough to warrant worrying about the faint potency loss. Just for fun, I've got the 2nd boss down pat enough that I can break TBNs with little delay (which is really just to get a Sage friend ticked that he can't even use a single oGCD fruitfully), but outside of the infrequent TB, there's just... nothing else to play around with on boss 3.


Yeah, sorry about that.

But, here, I can distract with a couple hot takes:

• AoE heals should be smart-heals* but less potent (especially in 8-man, perhaps as a result of being partly split instead). "Smart-heals" here refers to heals which split would-be overhealing to the remaining allies that would still be wounded even after the initial heal. Or, basically, heals split by HP to be restored rather than merely by allies in range. (No, really, this would make personal defensives feel so better since they wouldn't just be healing what would have been healed anyways.)
• I want back the old Shake it Off (but also the post-Berserk debuff and/or some sort of Stagger mechanic in place of pure miti on Vengeance, and for SiO's cleanse to apply to more, rather than less, than all Esuna can apply to). Give a Leech window raid buff instead if need be. ...This is mostly because I want another means to cheese stuff if it lines up well enough. Though maybe I should be satisfied enough with just having Holmgang.

Smileton last boss autos are all magic and I'm not 100% certain but aren't the mines also magic damage? It's one of the few times Dark Mind is actually Chef's Kiss.

Maybe not all heals are smart heals, but having some as an option for oGCD would defenitely fill that purpose. I also have no opinion on that Shake it Off comment as I was least active throughout Stormblood. My static kicked me out for having a full time job that required me to go in to work when called in (They knew in advance this was a possibility) and left me sour so I was very casual and so I'm not really familiar with old SiO as I also was playing RDM at the time.

You really don't have to detonate the mine to be melee uptime safe, there's a small spot between Safe/Mine you can stand at, it's next to the arrow, Smileton final boss.

I did not know this and will proceed to abuse this. Thanks!

[Undeadfire]

I did not know this and will proceed to abuse this. Thanks!

https://youtu.be/UUz_Cyo5ybI?t=273

4:33, stop the video there, you'll see an open spot you can stand, it's mirror for other side.

[Shurrikhan]

You really don't have to detonate the mine to be melee uptime safe, there's a small spot between Safe/Mine you can stand at, it's next to the arrow, Smileton final boss.

Oh, it's not for me (well, unless I'm too lazy), hence my doing it ahead of time if it'd be an actual obstruction in the coming round of mechanics. Have you met the average DF goer?

Smileton last boss autos are all magic and I'm not 100% certain but aren't the mines also magic damage? It's one of the few times Dark Mind is actually Chef's Kiss.

They are, but I don't think they hit hard enough to need more than Oblation + TBN. Heck, TBN may have been enough raw...

Maybe not all heals are smart heals, but having some as an option for oGCD would defenitely fill that purpose.

It's just the AoEs on which it'd really matter to me. Granted if we did something crazy like giving WHM a chain-heal from would-be overhealing (*cough* they treat healing as water-aspected anyways *cough*) as to increase its heal efficiency and cut down on button bloat, I could see it being attached to a bit more so long as it was still a pretty unique feature, but I just want to stop seeing personal defensives go to waste the moment not everyone in the whole party has roughly equal sustain available to them (at which point you just whip out an AoE oGCD anyways).

...That and I'd actually like to increase healer offensive ppgcd and reduce their free healing over time such that there's actually some significant value to be afforded from healing requirements being lessened through others' sustain.

I also have no opinion on that Shake it Off comment as I was least active throughout Stormblood. My static kicked me out for having a full time job that required me to go in to work when called in (They knew in advance this was a possibility) and left me sour so I was very casual and so I'm not really familiar with old SiO as I also was playing RDM at the time.

Ahh, damn, that sucks. I went from basically the same in StB (though I kicked myself rather than letting anyone else do it) to starting into grad school + part-time work later into ShB. Still in that now. I used to at least PuG a bit on my tank alt, but I've lost a bit of that willpower over time.