Dark Knight Megathread

[Eorzean_username]

Good points of critique, thanks for the thoughtful response. Let me break it down how I see it:

So, ignoring that Spell/Rune Blade/Fencer or Mage Knight has been a separate job within the FF series for decades, even existing in entries alongside Dark Knight (such as 11), and it could probably be introduced to 14 as a separate job...

Okay, but... it's not here now... and I'm not sure how much bandwidth they could squeeze out of it at this point, given everything FFXIV already has:

Dark Knight has locked down Greatswords, Red Mage has locked down Rapiers...

And then the game's designers also seem to view gluing things together as 'checking off' FFXIV's version of it. Like Astrologian rolling in Time Mage (and sort of Corsair, I guess?).

I don't personally mind seeing Rune Fencer / Mystic Knight / whatever pop up in FFXIV, I'm just sceptical that the designers would see it as having space.

And that you've basically just described a Warcraft Death Knight...

Well... not any more than saying you've described a WOW Death Knight by suggesting a Job with:

• Tank role
• Plate armor
• A greatsword instead of a shield
• Edgy dark angsty theming
• A heavy mixture of spells and spell effects rather than just melee
• An emphasis on applying personal absorb effects as part of its mitigation routine
• Swirly black, purple, and red spell effects everywhere
• A circular, swirling red, ticking ground-targeted effect
• A cooldown that summons an undead/shadowy pet

ie, FFXIV Dark Knight kind of began its life as an FFXIV-ified Death Knight, like how Summoner began as FFXIV's attempt to copy WOW Warlock.

But anyway, that's all a bit of a digression just because it was interesting to think about.


I think I expressed my concept wrong, because in WOW the Death Knights conceptually carve actual archetypical fantasy "Runes of Power" directly into the blades and it's a whole artistic motif and stuff.

I wasn't meaning to literally suggest that, I was trying to refer to what FFXIV Dark Knight has always had: various weird symbols and sigils and runes that pop up along its blade during various spell and attack animations. It's written out in some script(s) that's definitely not Eorzean, and as far as I know, it has never been deciphered or elaborated on.

I was saying you could take that (which has always been ambiguous and poorly-explained, beyond the assumed "It looks cool"), and expand it into representing some sort of 'arcane language' that the Dark Knight is weaving or invoking when it goes into gushing-red-shadows edgelord mode.

That doesn't particularly seem like something fitting DRK's own job history, aesthetic or playstyle?

Maybe not after all the amputation Jobs have gotten over time, but originally, both Dark Knight quests and actions had heavy overtones of ritualism and occultism. You were implied to be dabbling in some really weird stuff by crossing the line from WOL into Dark WOL.

You know: Using MP as a melee, Dark Arts (back when it was actually a weird levitation animation with blue flames popping up around you), Dark Passenger, Blood Price, strange multicolored weapon effects that stood out as distinctly otherworldly and bizarre compared to other Jobs in HW, etc.

And again, all the weird glowing symbols and scripts popping up during various animations.

Like it's a neat idea, but it would require creating a very complicated resource system around just such a set of abilities,

Well, it doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, Ninja, Samurai, Dancer, and Monk all have fairly simple and straightforward "code entry" systems when you distill it down.

In a way, these types of systems are just a method of having extra GCD actions without having to make space for tracking extra cooldowns or binding extra keys.

NIN and DNC's systems don't give much room for weaving oGCDs between their "entries" which would create even more complicated windows around DRK's own

That's true, actually! And in fact, now that you bring it up, it's not even 'not much room', it's 'literally none'.

But those are based on fast-paced entry, which you don't necessarily need to use (as in Monk and Samurai).

And, even in Ninja and Dancer's cases, the 'code finisher' still adds extra GCD weave space: you can squeeze a weave after Ninjutsu and Dance Finishes.

But perhaps more relevantly, even the Ninja/Dancer systems necessarily divert overall design potency away from OGCDs and into GCDs in order to make them worth executing, which is a design space that Dark Knight is under pressure to explore given that it's reaching OGCD overload.

while MNK and SAM's only work because they already have a plethora of GCDs based around such a system.

I don't follow this one, though.

Samurai basically just glued Sen onto the combo moves it was inevitably going to have as a Melee DPS anyway, and Monk... actually also just glued Beast Chakra onto its preexisting Forms.

Beyond that, Samurai has one standard GCD that its 'codes' feed into (Iaijutsu), and one CD-GCD (Tsubame-gaeshi). Monk has one standard GCD (Masterful Blitz).

They're actually both pretty simple, if not rudimentary, systems on their own, but mixed into everything else going on in those Jobs, it still makes for reasonably strong gameplay.

[Archwizard]

It could, but I think that ought beg a question much like, "Do we really need a Time Mage when we have Astrologian?"

And in most circumstances I would agree, but there is a line here where it would be plausible both if the devs were willing and if there was any way to make the two jobs distinct in a significant manner, like through having them be separate roles.
Time Mage and Geomancer bear some thematic and aesthetic overlap with Astrologian and White Mage, but if you introduce them as Casters with some supportive elements instead of full Healers (Time Mage focused on periodic effects or Geomancer focused on environmental effects and summons) and avoid touchstones of the existing jobs (AST's cards or WHM's lilies), you can have completely separated jobs.
A similar mindset was taken with introducing RPR - the job takes many thematic cues from 11's DRK (down to sharing several of the same ability names like Arcane Circle/Crest or weapons like the Death Scythe) but the fact that the two have completely separate roles and playstyles (in addition to background lore) means any overlap is superficial.

Which is a long-winded way of saying "As long as RUN isn't a tank, it could still be introduced to 14." Whether that's likely is an entirely separate matter.

But, I would also posit that there are enough untapped abilities and jobs across the FF series that it wouldn't be implausible to craft something new from it. In addition to ye olde Spellblade and Runic, you have the En-spells of yore, Ravager melee skills from 13 (plus a half-dozen other renames like Flametongue and Frostbrand), Warp techniques from 15, and all of the standard "non-classed" protagonist skills from characters like Tidus or from sibling properties like Chrono Trigger and Kingdom Hearts. All of them could be easily wrapped into a Magic Knight job which Dark Knight (and RPR, NIN or SAM for that matter) can't really tap into and RDM has left wide open. Had RPR not taken the slot for sharing DRG armor, it would have been a shoe-in.
Which... oops, is a discussion for an entirely separate thread.

• Tank role
• Plate armor
• A greatsword instead of a shield
• Edgy dark angsty theming
• A heavy mixture of spells and spell effects rather than just melee
• An emphasis on applying personal absorb effects as part of its mitigation routine
• Swirly black, purple, and red spell effects everywhere
• A circular, swirling red, ticking ground-targeted effect
• A cooldown that summons an undead/shadowy pet

ie, FFXIV Dark Knight kind of began its life as an FFXIV-ified Death Knight, like how Summoner began as FFXIV's attempt to copy WOW Warlock.

Most of these are part-and-parcel with the Medieval Fantasy genre though: Black Knight who forgoes a shield (because that's a symbol of defending others, more a Knight in Shining Armor trope) for a giant honkin' metal stick.
The overlap begins around the introduction of black magic, but even then there's a line of distinction in how the two process their magic: Death Knights use an extremely refined system of necromancy channeled through the runes engraved in their weapons (similar to Rune Fencers, but essentially being suped-up necromancers in plate armor), Dark Knights use dark-elemental magic as a manifestation of their raw determination (essentially being black knights who also happen to have magic, an inversion of the paladin).

Give Dark Knights a refined magic system on top of all that and the line becomes extremely blurry, especially in terms of their lore -- they cease to be knights whose dark abilities are fundamentally born of tapping into their rage against an unjust system, and instead become devout practitioners of specific style of heretical witchcraft who also happen to supplement that with armor and a giant sword.
The alchemical nature of the combination system you propose would mean you are actually forced to put thought and calculation into your method of spellcasting -- which runes produce which results.
And as Shurri was alluding to, you'd kinda have to retcon it into existence as a fundamental of the identity, since such a magic system would be as significant to job identity as NIN's Mudras, AST's Cards or SMN's Egis/Trances. It would completely change the relationship you have with Fray, because he ceases to be a repressed part of you who tells you how to tap into the Abyss inside, and rather just a manifestation of some external, corruptive powers that are driving you cUh-RaAaY-zEe.

The fact that Dark Knights create glyphs when spellcasting is... sort of just an FF trope that's present in most "non-natural" magic in the game? RPRs, SMNs, SCHs, and NINs have similar glyphs in many of their abilities, while RDMs, BLMs, ASTs, SGEs and even PLDs and DRGs use geometric patterns and circles in much the same way.
"Instant Runes" trope of magic-users. Even WHM is starting to dip into that in Endwalker between Holy III and Liturgy (though theirs is mostly just filigree).

Samurai basically just glued Sen onto the combo moves it was inevitably going to have as a Melee DPS anyway, and Monk... actually also just glued Beast Chakra onto its preexisting Forms.

Beyond that, Samurai has one standard GCD that its 'codes' feed into (Iaijutsu), and one CD-GCD (Tsubame-gaeshi). Monk has one standard GCD (Masterful Blitz).

Right. SAM has a full combo for each one of its "codes" and two AoE combos for two more (though a PvP ability demonstrates resources in-game for a third but it's unnecessary to the job's functions), while MNK offers three different input options for each "code" that each offer varying effects for an additional layer of freeform mixing and matching. Each has 6 GCDs for combo actions, 3 more for AoE, and separated "execute code" buttons that change in up to four different forms based on the inputs.
Simple on the surface, but with interplay in mind.

By contrast, DRK has one combo of three buttons, an AoE combo of two, and then its spenders. The conceit of this very discussion is that the job doesn't have any branching combos for variation in downtime, so what you're suggesting would have to create a system where either:

1. You include actions like Unmend but the inputs are completely agnostic to the skills they're attached to, where you essentially transmute them like in Standard Step (something that MNK avoids because each of the skills has separate additional effects so your choice of inputs remains relevant), or
2. The inputs themselves are essentially irrelevant because your "organic" method of generating them (a la SAM's combos) has a fixed input due to your standard rotation having no branches. There is only ever one order for inputs.