Dark Knight Megathread

[AziraSyuren]

It’s impossible to make a job worse if it’s already at 0.

It is possible, however, for sweeping gameplay improvements to be maligned because they supposedly “made the job less skillful,” so let’s hope that doesn’t happen with DRK again, at least.

[shao32]

DRK Gameplay experience is one of the worst things of the Game right now but they can definetly make It worst if they wanted or keep It in this current state forever wich would be just better if they delete the job already.

[Shurrikhan]

would be just better if they delete the job already.

Could we at least stop with this? Just this. Stop, please.

[Beddict]

Am I the only one concerned they will somehow make Dark knight even shitter given the track record of their "reworks" being worse or more boring than before?

I'm going into this expecting them to completely miss the mark while trying to half-ass things. For example:

• Living Dead: Remove the death penalty bullshit and the early cleanse, no other changes. Ends up still being a worse Holmgang since it will have a minute extra cooldown with the "benefit" being that you can precast it.
• Blood Weapon: Duration increased to 11s. I straight up expect them to completely miss the mark here since 11s will provide a big enough buffer to catch five Weaponskills. It would even allow for five Spells, but the timing will be so tight we're back to the whole "a tiny bit of ping screwed me out of my fifth GCD on Blood Weapon." I'll honestly be amazed if they think to give it stacks since they clearly forgot going into EW and ignored the idea for multiple patches so far.

Anything beyond that strikes me as hopium. That's how little I think of the Job Design team and the amount of fucks they give for DRK. Yoshi-P can sit there and say "we're listening to feedback" and "we play our own game" but I'm not gonna trust a dev team that came up with Enhanced fucking Unmend.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm going into this expecting them to completely miss the mark while trying to half-ass things. For example:

• Living Dead: Remove the death penalty bullshit and the early cleanse, no other changes. Ends up still being a worse Holmgang since it will have a minute extra cooldown with the "benefit" being that you can precast it.
• Blood Weapon: Duration increased to 11s. I straight up expect them to completely miss the mark here since 11s will provide a big enough buffer to catch five Weaponskills. It would even allow for five Spells, but the timing will be so tight we're back to the whole "a tiny bit of ping screwed me out of my fifth GCD on Blood Weapon." I'll honestly be amazed if they think to give it stacks since they clearly forgot going into EW and ignored the idea for multiple patches so far.

Anything beyond that strikes me as hopium. That's how little I think of the Job Design team and the amount of fucks they give for DRK. Yoshi-P can sit there and say "we're listening to feedback" and "we play our own game" but I'm not gonna trust a dev team that came up with Enhanced fucking Unmend.

I'd... actually be fine with both of those, though I'd like then to at least see some small further advantage on LD that makes the precast actually worth something. I wouldn't be okay with that being the end of the changes, since our sustain would still be a noticeable issue (and Oblation still laughable), but I wouldn't mind just getting an effective 10.5s duration, enough for 5 hits, on Blood Weapon over continuing a trend towards any and all durations being given massive leniency.

[Beddict]

A 10.5s duration means that DRK cannot get a five Spell Blood Weapon at all. Queue into Levelling Roulette and get The Aery? Enjoy your 2.4k MP Blood Weapon, sorry your resource generator doesn't account for Spells. They're gonna need that leniency as long as their kit is split between Weaponskills and Spells. And I realize this is just for their AoE which is a big ol' "who gives a shit" since it's only relevant to dungeons and has zero impact on the endgame, but dungeons and levelling and what not are still an important part of the game and the Job should function at all levels. Like I said, at the end of the day you're still left with half the problem still there which will require more complaining that SE will continue to ignore but hey, at least it works properly for part of the kit now, right?

[Shurrikhan]

A 10.5s duration means that DRK cannot get a five Spell Blood Weapon at all. Queue into Levelling Roulette and get The Aery? Enjoy your 2.4k MP Blood Weapon, sorry your resource generator doesn't account for Spells. They're gonna need that leniency as long as their kit is split between Weaponskills and Spells. And I realize this is just for their AoE which is a big ol' "who gives a shit" since it's only relevant to dungeons and has zero impact on the endgame, but dungeons and levelling and what not are still an important part of the game and the Job should function at all levels. Like I said, at the end of the day you're still left with half the problem still there which will require more complaining that SE will continue to ignore but hey, at least it works properly for part of the kit now, right?

A 10.5s effective duration is a 11 duration on any skill which, like Blood Weapon, begins its duration immediately and checks for its existence after a given hit, instead of snapshotting in onto said hit. I'm not adjusting your duration; I'm just pointing out what it really is.

That said, 4.2 GCDs (10.5s duration under an obviously SpS-less GCD) is sufficient to get in 5 Spells under the duration. More importantly, though, it makes less sense to overbuff a ST/weaponskill capacity just to deal with the technical oddities of a AoE/Spell capacity. You instead just address the oddity. Give DRK (and PLD) a trait to duplicate SkS to SpS or just merge the two stats outright.

[ItsUrBoi]

I'd like to point out a few issues that no one or I have rarely seen people point out. The DRK rotation forces you to double weave for optimal damage. I don't have a problem with double weaving since I find it fun and skillful ( ping issues aside ). However:
-> In order to mitigate you have to press 3 buttons ( TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind / Shadow Wall ), I would certainly wish for 2 buttons. TBN should have Oblation within itself. The reasoning here is that if you have your burst coming up and you have to mitigate, you have to sacrifice damage to do so ( raid buffs ). GNB solves this problem well because it never forces you to double weave for 6 GCDs straight while bursting.
-> Dark Mind shouldn't be only magic damage reduction please. It can be a lot of things. 10% of each damage reduction and a heal over time, or a heal which converts some DarkSide into HP.
-> Blood weapon shouldn't be tied to duration. It should be stacks because stacks allow you more flexible usage ( ex: Opener, pop it a few seconds before combat starts )
-> TBN shouldn't be tied to damage and MP. Dark Arts could give a free use of something else ( like Dark Mind , a heal ). There's many moments when when you have to burst in your rotation and you have ~4500 mp wishing to use an Edge/Flood within raid buffs, but there's a tank buster coming.

[shao32]

Could we at least stop with this? Just this. Stop, please.

They have ignored the job for so long and acted like there was no negative feedback about his horrible design decision for 4 years, if they are not whiling to listen and act in consecuence just to keep doing what they want against our feedback it would be better to delete the job, it will save them the headache of working on a job they cleary don't have any desire to properly work and for us to stop waiting for them to actually work properly on it.

Yeah is not the kind of argument anyone wanna heard but frustration is frustration.

[Luin]

That said, to preserve it overall, it'd be easier for them to have Delirium replace Blood Weapon, go up to 4 stacks and increase to 900 MP/hit, kill bloat at the same time. But, I shouldn't speculate further lest we get hopes up.

That change would make it impossible to use Living Shadow on-time for buffs.