Dark Knight Megathread

[Kalaam]

It would likely be too close to Paladin at this point it would very much be a reskin.
Having some of it could be fun, if ShB shaped a giant spectral blade overlaying with the DRK's sword while they trust forward it could look pretty cool. But outside of that it seems a lot of DRK's inspirations for animations lie with Cloud/Zack.

[FoxCh40s]

It would likely be too close to Paladin at this point it would very much be a reskin.
Having some of it could be fun, if ShB shaped a giant spectral blade overlaying with the DRK's sword while they trust forward it could look pretty cool. But outside of that it seems a lot of DRK's inspirations for animations lie with Cloud/Zack.

Which I find highly unusual, because Cloud and Zack are 100% not Dark Knights despite their color pallette. They are closer to Warrior more than anything else.

[Shurrikhan]

Which I find highly unusual, because Cloud and Zack are 100% not Dark Knights despite their color pallette. They are closer to Warrior more than anything else.

Big sword. No matter their skillset, source of powers, central themes, or the like, they therefore must be DRKs. /s

[Kalaam]

If I recall, during development of FF7 Cloud's class was referred to as something like Mystic Knight and/or Dark Knight/Berserker.
I think it was in the FF7 Ultimania guide.

[Lyth]

Cloud is also referenced in the DRK /vpose, /bstance, and male /cpose.

There's more to it than oversized swords, though. Many games go the Monster Hunter/Dark Souls route with their greatswords, with a big wind-up and massive hit. That's a fine approach, except that's exactly how WAR was designed from the ground up, and it actually has hitstop to add proper weight to its animations. One of the biggest reasons why Delirium feels so unsatisfying to use is because it just doesn't carry that raw, brutal force that the IR window does.

Cloud takes a completely different approach altogether, by making the greatsword look weightless. Instead of building up to one massive hit, he overwhelms opponents with flurries of attacks. And if you look at the original design of DRK with Blood Weapon's speed boost, it had a very similar feel.

There's another reason why this is nice as well. Cloud circumvents the '9999' limit with multi-hit attacks. And that's a really cool aesthetic. Suzaku's Phantom Flurry remains one of my favorite boss abilities. Imagine if Carve and Spit's threefold attack actually registered as a threefold attack. Or if Delirium registered multiple hits for every attack under its effect. Omnislash is simply that same design choice, taken to its ultimate form.

The dev team clearly understands the importance of nostalgia in FFXIV's design. I mean, it always comes up in player surveys as well. Why did MCH change to be less like Mustadio and progressively more like FFVI's Edgar? Why did MNK get reworked simply to take on board Sabin's Blitzes? (Psst... Dolphin Kick next expansion.) Why is GNB so faithful to Squall and Seifer's movesets? Would I be surprised if Lionheart showed up at level 100 as a continuation finisher? Not even in the slightest.

The main reason that they're likely holding out with Omnislash is for the same reason that they pulled a cop-out with Save the Queen, in that they didn't want to commit to giving away such an iconic reference to just one job. Which is bizarre, because they happily gave away Excalibur, Ragnarok, and Apocalypse without a second thought back in ARR. But I'm sure that if they ever do an FF7 crossover event, there will be a PLD, WAR, DRK, GNB, SAM, and BLM Buster Sword, just so that nobody feels left out. Beyond dumb.

From a mechanics perspective, a burst window with a 1.5s GCD isn't really a ping challenge in itself. You'll always be at a disadvantage with higher ping. I think that the reason why players run into issues with MCH's Hypercharge is because of the frequency of the Gauss Round/Ricochet resets. Reaper manages just fine with Shroud because there is a single predictable weave every second attack.

[MerlinCross]

Cloud is also referenced in the DRK /vpose, /bstance, and male /cpose.

There's more to it than oversized swords, though. Many games go the Monster Hunter/Dark Souls route with their greatswords, with a big wind-up and massive hit. That's a fine approach, except that's exactly how WAR was designed from the ground up, and it actually has hitstop to add proper weight to its animations. One of the biggest reasons why Delirium feels so unsatisfying to use is because it just doesn't carry that raw, brutal force that the IR window does.

While here; This is probably why I hate Storm's Path. It just feels so weak and limp. I'd rather keep Butcher's Block but no we have to do the double storm attacks to keep "Theme"

The dev team clearly understands the importance of nostalgia in FFXIV's design. I mean, it always comes up in player surveys as well. Why did MCH change to be less like Mustadio and progressively more like FFVI's Edgar? Why did MNK get reworked simply to take on board Sabin's Blitzes? (Psst... Dolphin Kick next expansion.) Why is GNB so faithful to Squall and Seifer's movesets? Would I be surprised if Lionheart showed up at level 100 as a continuation finisher? Not even in the slightest.

I think you can go too far though with this Franchise Key Jingling. I have no problem with slight nods and references in poses or even some animations but if I wanted to play Edgar and Sabin, I'd just play FF6. If SAM gets Cyan's forever charge mechanic, or Dragoon only gets jumps next expansion(Because it's a dragoon, that's ALL Dragoon should do right is jump), I'm dropping those two. I JUST said that no one is asking for Dolphin Blow/Kick for Monk but hey, Point at thing I know and clap I guess. Let's just give it Earth Slash while we're at it.

I used to play MCH because it was MCH, not because it was Edgar. And if they go full on Cloud DRK..., well I'm glad people would want to play Cloud but I want to play as a Job, not a Character.

[RyuDragnier]

I used to play MCH because it was MCH, not because it was Edgar. And if they go full on Cloud DRK..., well I'm glad people would want to play Cloud but I want to play as a Job, not a Character.

So you play a job for how it looks, not how it feels?

[Shurrikhan]

So you play a job for how it looks, not how it feels?

How does "I play the job for itself, not just because there was a popular past franchise character related to it" = "I care only about appearance"?

[BlackLion3173]

I don't know if this was already tossed out, but I think it would be interesting if they changed TBN to be 25 seconds and not cost mana, as well as giving us a way to lower the cooldown, like casting Bloodspiller/Quietus or something. I don't know if this is feasible, but I feel that if they want TBN to be the centerpiece for a DRK identity, they could start with that. Warrior's Infuriate CD is lowered the more you toss out Fel Cleaves and Primal Rend, so why not have DRK go in the opposite direction? I also would like to see Dark Arts augment our other abilities, like giving Quietus a bleed effect(swinging a huge sword around should cause some serious damage) or giving Bloodspiller a potent healing effect.

[AziraSyuren]

I actually think you might be on to something there. TBN could be a unique cooldown with its duration lowered by casting edge or flood of shadow, effectively reversing how it functions now. Or maybe it could be a cooldown that grows stronger the more you use those buttons. The natural offense of the job feeding into its defense instead of the other way around could end up with something really fun to play around with.

It’d be a bubble you put on someone, larger the more you’ve fed into it, and when it pops, it gives the party a seriously strong heal.

I dunno though. Just throwing ideas out of my half-asleep ambien addled brain.