Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

It is extremely incohesive to attach a heal to TBN though. The idea with TBN is that you can use it at full hp so if you have a heal placed on the beginning of TBN you just overheal and achieve very little use . Wouldn't it be better to put healing on a different skill all together? Like putting one on Oblation instead of TBN? I love the idea of healing based on damage taken since WAR heals when doing damage, PLD heals over time, and GNB heals a large chunk with their on demand cooldowns, so healing when taking damage is that bit of flavor DRK could use to keep its identity separate from the rest. I'm just not so sure TBN is where it should be since it could very easily result in overheal and very frequently not even taking full advantage of the healing effect. Usually you want healing after shielding is consumed.

[Lyth]

There's nothing requiring you to use TBN at full health. The shield is based off of total HP, not current HP.

The problem with Oblation is that it doesn't really have a clear niche. Most raidwide mitigation abilities are in the 10% DR range. Reprisal, for example, is 10% partywide DR on a 60s recast, and that's a lvl 22 ability. Most melee DPS jobs have personal shields that are stronger than 10% DR, on shorter recasts (MNK, SAM, and RPR in particular). Based on the animation and the level at which you acquire it, it looks like they designed it originally as an upgrade to TBN, but then decided against it in the last minute in case there was complaints about the upgraded shield not breaking. That's also probably why they opted for %DR instead of another barrier effect.

I don't think that TBN's barrier effect needs an upgrade. The break even point for TBN is around of 90% max HP in comparison to HS and HoC, which is very respectable (There's about a 13% eHP difference). If you wanted to upgrade it, then sustain is the only thing that I would add.

People have been talking about Dread Spikes from FFXI for years. This is one way that you could do it, and it would reward you for knowing when damage is going out.

[AziraSyuren]

Its niche is having the worst cool-animation-to-actual-impact ratio in the game, maybe ever.

[Ryaduera]

There's nothing requiring you to use TBN at full health. The shield is based off of total HP, not current HP.

Well no, but you do use it at full HP a lot. I never meant to imply it was based on total HP or anything, just pointing out that the way the ability actually works doesn't leave much desire for a heal at the start of its duration and there are several endgame situations where you wouldn't realistically get the heal at all.

The problem with Oblation is that it doesn't really have a clear niche. Most raidwide mitigation abilities are in the 10% DR range. Reprisal, for example, is 10% partywide DR on a 60s recast, and that's a lvl 22 ability. Most melee DPS jobs have personal shields that are stronger than 10% DR, on shorter recasts (MNK, SAM, and RPR in particular). Based on the animation and the level at which you acquire it, it looks like they designed it originally as an upgrade to TBN, but then decided against it in the last minute in case there was complaints about the upgraded shield not breaking. That's also probably why they opted for %DR instead of another barrier effect.

Probably, but I'd also say it's profoundly lazy to build it like this instead of just fixing how fundementally problematic it is for TBN to function with DRK DPS in the way it does. It's probably also that they didn't want upgraded TBN to have a 15s recast time, so to keep it in the recast time of the other tanks they wanted to split the abilities up to keep in line with the 30s recast of the other abilities, with Holy Sheltron being the exception but since it's tied to gauge it's uptime is comparable to the others. Looking at it like this, I'm pretty sure Oblation only exists because of the fundemantal design flaw of TBN in the current state of the game.

I don't think that TBN's barrier effect needs an upgrade. The break even point for TBN is around of 90% max HP in comparison to HS and HoC, which is very respectable (There's about a 13% eHP difference). If you wanted to upgrade it, then sustain is the only thing that I would add.

Uhm, no... After healing is applied this is definitely not true.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5778466
Keep in mind Holy Shelltron comes with 100 more potency after the 12s than HoC and is 15%+20% (block) damage reduction which is more than 15%+15% so in fights where regen can take effect, yeah TBN is way weaker than 90% of your max HP to be considered better. TBN is good, but it's not that good. Without doing the math I would make an educated guess that it takes 66% of your max HP for HoC and HS to be better and even less for Bloodwhetting, because BW is absolutely insane. And it is vital that comparisons be made with healing taken into consideration because it's all about the effectiveness of a single cooldown, of which the above math has the DRK using two.

EDIT: If you want DRK to have a heal the healing has to happen after damage is taken, not before, but shields want to be used before damage is taken, not after, so putting a heal on TBN would require the healing to happen after the shielding or it's just going to be wasted many times. That being said, even putting a heal on TBN after the shielding would be suboptimal since the damage ideally didn't happen, but if it were after TBN then at least there'd be situations where the healing would actually make an impact as opposed to at the beginning of its duration. Since Holy Sheltron is a HoT a the first tick will probably be overheal, but the regen will heal after damage is taken. Same goes for Blood Whetting. HoC is the outlier in that it's nearly impossible for you to overheal with it unless you just didn't take enough damage, in which case it naturally heals/expires in time for another one anyway.

[Oizen]

I honestly dont know what you'd do to Oblation to make it feel good to use, I don't even really think DRK needed another mitigation only move at all really

Maybe have it also give a Dark Arts like TBN except without a condition and move Abyssal Drain over to being a no CD move that can be cast with 3000 MP or a Dark Arts? Thats the most I've been able to come up with DRKs current design.
You'd probably have to adjust the heal potency on AD to make that even worth it, maybe they could do that thing they've started doing where it has a higher potency on the first target and a lesser potency on every other target.

[Lyth]

TBN isn't 'problematic' in terms of the MP requirement. I know that there are players who want it to be completely foolproof to use, but I would much rather those players learn the damage patterns of the fight. It's not difficult to work around. It'll probably just end up becoming a flat 25% shield on a 25s recast with no MP cost attached, knowing how people are going on about this. Good for them I suppose.

It's actually quite difficult to come up with a way to improve on TBN. I don't think that Oblation as an 'extra' mitigation move was ever necessary, but since they've gone through the effort to make an animation for it, sustain is the only direction I could see this getting better in a meaningful way. You could apply the healing as a HoT after the fact, but that's pretty similar in style to HS.

I do feel like Dark Arts in its present implementation is a wasted UI gauge and I'd like them to do something more with the mechanic. But that's a different issue.

[Ryaduera]

I honestly dont know what you'd do to Oblation to make it feel good to use, I don't even really think DRK needed another mitigation only move at all really

Maybe have it also give a Dark Arts like TBN except without a condition and move Abyssal Drain over to being a no CD move that can be cast with 3000 MP or a Dark Arts? Thats the most I've been able to come up with DRKs current design.
You'd probably have to adjust the heal potency on AD to make that even worth it, maybe they could do that thing they've started doing where it has a higher potency on the first target and a lesser potency on every other target.

TBN isn't 'problematic' in terms of the MP requirement. I know that there are players who want it to be completely foolproof to use, but I would much rather those players learn the damage patterns of the fight. It's not difficult to work around. It'll probably just end up becoming a flat 25% shield on a 25s recast with no MP cost attached, knowing how people are going on about this. Good for them I suppose.

It's actually quite difficult to come up with a way to improve on TBN. I don't think that Oblation as an 'extra' mitigation move was ever necessary, but since they've gone through the effort to make an animation for it, sustain is the only direction I could see this getting better in a meaningful way. You could apply the healing as a HoT after the fact, but that's pretty similar in style to HS.

I do feel like Dark Arts in its present implementation is a wasted UI gauge and I'd like them to do something more with the mechanic. But that's a different issue.

To improve Oblation with a heal and keeping it unique would be pretty simple. A "get hit get heal" mechanic like the opposite of Warrior Vengeance. Upon taking damage heal for a potency of x. Makes DRK pretty good in groups again.

TBN having an MP cost is not problematic, no. TBN not breaking punishing you with a DPS loss is. Again, knowing patterns of fights TBN can just not break anyway. I was doing Zodiark and on the first Exoterikos (Spelling?) if he does triangle + Square I will use TBN and Dark Mind to avoid taking damage and not get a vuln stack but keep uptime. I did this with Dark Mind because even though I know I will not need Shadow Wall again in the cooldown duration, if I do this the auto attack that happens after that damage is applied, TBN does not break... I know this because I learned the fights patterns and used my cooldowns to their fullest to keep uptime and maximize DPS... and instead took a DPS loss the first time i tried it. And there are multiple points with the tripple Exoterikos where you can use the same trick to avoid moving. That feels so incredibly bad. Imagine someone saying you're too good at your job, so you get paid less money.

[Undeadfire]

TTBN having an MP cost is not problematic, no. TBN not breaking punishing you with a DPS loss is. Again, knowing patterns of fights TBN can just not break anyway. I was doing Zodiark and on the first Exoterikos (Spelling?) if he does triangle + Square I will use TBN and Dark Mind to avoid taking damage and not get a vuln stack but keep uptime. I did this with Dark Mind because even though I know I will not need Shadow Wall again in the cooldown duration, if I do this the auto attack that happens after that damage is applied, TBN does not break... I know this because I learned the fights patterns and used my cooldowns to their fullest to keep uptime and maximize DPS... and instead took a DPS loss the first time i tried it. And there are multiple points with the tripple Exoterikos where you can use the same trick to avoid moving. That feels so incredibly bad. Imagine someone saying you're too good at your job, so you get paid less money.

You can take Vuln stacks anyway, Healers wouldn't really care considering how easy the fight is. It only becomes problematic if the DPS is mediocre, otherwise who cares it will barely go above 2 stacks.

[Ryaduera]

You can take Vuln stacks anyway, Healers wouldn't really care considering how easy the fight is. It only becomes problematic if the DPS is mediocre, otherwise who cares it will barely go above 2 stacks.

You just said "It's ok the game punishes you for trying to use your skills as intended (nullifying damage) because you don't need to properly execute mechanics in the first place" and that is not an excuse, it's just negligence. I still get punished for using my abilities.

[Undeadfire]

I mean, people been doing it for years taking Vuln stacks for more DPS, there's nothing remotely wrong with it as long it's not overboard.