Dark Knight Megathread

[Eorzean_username]

In my head, the idea that 'dark knight ramps up their attack speed over time, like they fight harder and faster the longer they fight' seems a really neat concept if executed properly.

Perhaps they could lean into that as a rotation that caps out with some kind of finisher? Building levels of speed before needing to finish it off and reset or 'rest', then ramping up again.

This is idea sounds fun, and would actually do something different as a system vs. FFXIV's recent tendency to recycle the same basic concepts again and again with the older Jobs.

However, I can foresee complaints forming already:

a) If your DPS gain comes from lowered GCD time, then just like stacking Skill Speed now, the DPS gains have a "sawblade" pattern where you either gain an extra GCD in a phase, or you don't. This could lead to a sense of ineffectiveness, since it's "easier" to squeeze in binary gains like eg, "Carve and Spit", where it either hits or it doesn't, than "gambling" on whether you actually get something extra out of it. Even for Machinist Hypercharge, what you're really gaining is mostly the extra Gauss/Ricochet spam and Wildfire compilation.

b) Due to the need to dump both MP-based and traditional-cooldown OGCDs, Dark Knight is already a hectic and punishing mess for any connections that can't comfortably double-weave. Overlapping its current burst phase with Machinist/Reaper-style "rapid fire" GCDs would further narrow the band of players that can execute the burst comfortably without "external tools™".

c) Potentially very feast/famine in terms of buff coordination. If you misalign from external buffs, then your own faster speed potentially becomes a lot less valuable, similar to how Skill Speed gains now can either be high or much more middling depending on where your extra GCDs land (the longstanding "Get X and then stop" Skill Speed approach, where "stop" is when you can squeeze an extra GCD inside a buff window). Of course, this issue affects all rotations and attacks to some degree (doing something inside +N% damage is better than doing it outside that bonus), but it might feel more pronounced if your "only" bonus is doing things faster, rather than harder, bigger, or flashier.

I personally think that the idea of a "frenzying" Job sounds fun and would actually give Dark Knight some kind of combat identity, but I also notice that "do things faster" rotations tend to get peeled away or marginalized in games like FFXIV... for example, Greased Lightning being converted to a Trait, or "Slice and Dice" being deleted in WOW.

...Or, well, Blood Weapon's previous increased attack speed actually being removed in Shadowbringers.

And to be clear, all of these issues can either be argued against, or adjusted for. I'm just trying to bring up stuff that pops to my mind as potential problems.

For example, it would probably work fine if you imagine an FFXIV where:

• Encounters don't try to cleanly fit around 60s cycles
• 2-minute party buff stacking has been deleted
• Dark Knight's weaving burden during burst has been scaled back considerably

In such a case, an "ebb and flow" cycle ramping between high and low speed would probably have room to feel both natural and effective.