Dark Knight Megathread

[Lyth]

Very true. I don't pay your sub.

You can post pretty much any suggestion in here that you like. That being said, it probably makes more practical sense to come up with ideas that don't simply completely replace DRK with a completely different job, real or homebrew. I think that this is a good rule of thumb for any job design change.

The reason why I've posed this particular challenge in here is for a couple of reasons. First, this is perfect timing to start thinking about what the next expansion will be like for DRK's gameplay. Second, it challenges you to think about how the addition of an action can interact with the existing toolkit in unique ways to in order to create a significant change to playstyle. This is actually one of the things that I think has been pretty smart about BLM's design over the years.

The three action limit that I suggested is based off of what we've actually seen this expansion in Endwalker. We've also seen them trend away from removing actions and towards upgrading them to keep action counts constant. DRK has been a bit behind on the action counts compared to say PLD since Stormblood, so there's probably still some room for a couple of new actions. But who knows, they might all just be animation upgrades.

I will say that I have seen a number of job action ideas bounced around on the forums and ultimately make their way in game shortly after, so either there's a lot of lucky coincidences going around, or perhaps they do look at some of the feedback in here.

At the end of the day, this is still a challenge, which means that it's been entirely optional from the moment I suggested it. I've done this sort of suggestion thread as its own separate thread each expansion since Stormblood (wait, that's not Ingress/Egress in there, is it?), but since there are so many volunteer job designs in here for DRK, we might as well carry on that same momentum in here.

You don't have to follow the constraints that I've suggested, but I think if you try them out yourself, you'll come up with something stronger and even more interesting for it.

[Archwizard]

You don't have to follow the constraints that I've suggested, but I think if you try them out yourself, you'll come up with something stronger and even more interesting for it.

As long as we don't miss the forest for the trees. The emphasis of such thought exercises should be on being constructive -- refining the ideas into a purer form rather than simply restricting them, which is a bead I feel some of your challenges have lost.

[Zairava]

I've given it some thought, at any rate. None of my propositions would actually help without modifying other abilities. I personally don't think we could create a fresher DRK without giving some hefty changes to it.

What else I propose is actually with Blood Weapon and Dark Arts. This is a bit of spitball that I'm thinking of as I go. Instead of keeping them separate, maybe we could merge them into something larger.

This would be the biggest damage period your burst phase essentially, and it'll last roughly 15 seconds.

We'll call it "Dark Rampage", for lack of a better name, open for suggestions. the cooldown is 60s and costs 15s of darkside, and is meant to be used on cooldown. This would also give you some dark aura or animation around you like inner release for flavor.

What this would do:
-These combos will start with the first ability listed, and each ability that i list after will just replace the ability before it. (for simplicity, I'm referring to how the basic combo works in pvp)

- for every Weaponskill or Spell landed while in this state, you gain 600mp

-For every ability landed with these combos, you gain one stack of Dark Arts. There is a gauge which displays how many stacks you have. These Dark Arts stacks empower your biggest damaging move, Eventide. Lets say the default potency of Eventide is 700, the potency with all 5 stacks is 850. Eventide remains the same animation and range at 30y

Respectively (and the order may be adjusted for how powerful they feel compared to others in the listing):
- Spinning Slash -> (old) Delirium -> Power Slash -> Bloodspiller -> Scourge

- Salted Earth(same 15s duration) -> Salt and Darkness -> Tar Pit -> Quietus -> Shadowbringer

The idea is that every ability you use is stronger than the last, so the potency will get higher and higher.

For every edge or flood of shadow you use, it reduces the cooldown on "Dark Rampage" by 5 seconds.

Carve and spit and Abyssal Drain both have 2 charges and remain on the same 60s cooldown.

All of this in mind, yes this means the mana cost gets removed from TBN, and therefore its cooldown is upped to 20 or 25 seconds. It isn't something that was hard to use with the mana cost to begin with, but having the edge/flood of shadow decreasing the cooldown of "Dark Rampage" by 5s every time would make people just flat out not use TBN because the 5s is guaranteed with edge/flood, but if we keep the system of "free edge/flood", it isn't guaranteed, so people will go for the easier, and instant, option.

Again, this is just a spitball, feel free to make critiques and ideas, expand on it, etc. All of this would be way too overpowered as it stands, and requires potency adjustments across the board.

[Lyth]

I wouldn't worry too much about specific costs, potencies, dps, and action adjustments at this point, because that's the sort of thing that comes out in testing.

In short, you have:
1. Dark Rampage as a new 60s burst window
2. Eventide as a finisher

There's long been demand for a 'dark aura' effect dating back to Heavensward. I presume that you'd probably end up upgrading Blood Weapon into the new action. Would there be any interaction with Delirium or Living Shadow? If I use Eventide while Living Shadow is up, for example, is there some way that Frey can contribute to the effect before disappearing?

[Kabooa]

Limited to three actions and two traits, though I'd personally introduce the concept sooner.

82
Scourge
Weaponskill
Effect: Deals 100 potency to the target and all targets within 5y of it.
Additional effect: Marks enemies with Another Victim for 45s. The mark intensifies every 3 seconds, gaining 1 stack.
Another Victim: Resets the mark's intensity to 1, increasing Scourge's potency by 30 per stack at time of execution.

84
Sins Aplenty
Trait
Effect: Certain skills increase Another Victim's intensity.

Affected skills: Edge of Shadow, Flood of Shadow, Shadowbringer, Unmend, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Abyssal Drain (The answer to your question is yes.)

86
Blackened Blade
Weaponskill
Cost: 50 Blood
Effect: Deals 200 Potency to the target and 50% damage to all targets within 5y of it.
Another Victim: Gains 20 potency per intensity, healing for the damage dealt, consuming the mark.

88
Bloodsoaked
Trait
Effect: Blacked Blade grants Sole Survivor, at intensity equal to the the highest instance of Another Victim consumed.

Bloodspiller and Quietus gains the following:
Sole Survivor: Consume the status, creating a shield equal to Intensity x 50 potency for 8s. When the shield breaks or expires, deal damage around you equal to 1/2 the initial potency.

90
Eventide
Spell
Effect: Deal damage in a line extending 10y behind you and 10y in front of you, dealing 300 Potency. Living Shadow performs the skill in tandem from its location. Only usable while Living Shadow is active.
Another Victim: Consumes the mark, dealing an additional 30 potency per intensity, mirrored by the Shadow.
===
IMO, while a little janky, this adds more minute windows for Dark Knights to work around while making Living Shadow more than a Fire and Frayget skill.

You have a basic skill application and detonator in Scourge, you have more situational use in Blackblade + Qiuetus/Bloodspiller, and you have the Big Sword window while Living Shadow is out, with the goal of maximizing intensity for a tag team sky splitter.

[Eorzean_username]

I don't know if I really agree with this approach of presuming that DRK needs another GCD-based attack simply because it has fewer of them than other tanks

That's not really the motivation, there's been a lot of explanations for why the focus is on GCDs:

• Assuming you're not deleting actions, what OGCD space does Dark Knight still have to expand with? Shadowbringer already felt superfluous and tacked-on, and the MP bar gives Dark Knight a lot of constraints on room to breathe in burst windows.

• GCD space has shown a lot of promise in adding fresh mechanics to other Jobs in successful ways in recent expansions. Due to the structure that GCDs have vs. the free-form vomit that OGCDs tend to be approached with, it seems to give SE more 'meat' to work with in a design.

• I've seen numerous complaints from all over Dark Knight discussion spaces that repeating the Souleater combo ad-nauseum is trying some players's patience, so another motivation is to try to break up that monotony, which additional OGCDs won't help with.

[Zairava]

I wouldn't worry too much about specific costs, potencies, dps, and action adjustments at this point, because that's the sort of thing that comes out in testing.

In short, you have:
1. Dark Rampage as a new 60s burst window
2. Eventide as a finisher

There's long been demand for a 'dark aura' effect dating back to Heavensward. I presume that you'd probably end up upgrading Blood Weapon into the new action. Would there be any interaction with Delirium or Living Shadow? If I use Eventide while Living Shadow is up, for example, is there some way that Frey can contribute to the effect before disappearing?

The delirium ability itself gets reverted back into it's old animation, and it's just potency instead of having a debuff tacked onto it. I did make it a part of the combo in the burst after all.

As for Living Shadow, I didn't actually think that far in. I've always kind wanted for Fray to duplicate every action that we do when we perform them, like Bunshin. The execution of this, though, I am unsure how and would love to hear ideas on it.
i.e
-He would appear out of our character model itself as an actual shadow OR we still summon him but it's more instant. like he appears as if he separates from our character model and merges back with us when his timer is up..

With my proposal in mind, I think we would just be able to do away with the Blood gauge and instead make it the Dark Arts "gauge" (although it's more of a counter at any rate) and just make Fray a 2 minute cooldown

[Zairava]

snip

I have to comment twice here since I can't edit on mobile (I'm not near my chromebook)

My idea for said gauge would be that it would be connected to the Darkside gauge upon unlocking the DA gauge. Given the blood gauge gets removed in the first place

[ThorneDynasty]

Yeah, that is my number 1 pet peeve on these forums, shooting down criticism if you don't write a cringey rework suggestion document no one will actually read. It's not the movie critics job to go reshoot and edit a scene that they don't like, the point of criticism is to figure out what doesn't work. The movie director will then do whatever they will with that.

You can't ask forum feedback to design a game either, it's the game developers job.

[Archwizard]

It's not the movie critics job to go reshoot and edit a scene that they don't like, the point of criticism is to figure out what doesn't work. The movie director will then do whatever they will with that.

Sure, but it is the movie critic's job to clearly illustrate why they don't like a scene or what specifically they don't like about it. For instance, "this is a weird divet in a character's arc and not at all where the story was leading," or "the scene is hard to follow along because X and Y are happening all at once, W has no impact on the rest of the plot and Z is a plot hole," or "So-and-so didn't emote and had weird line readings, and it dragged down the whole scene." They may even suggest what they expected from a characterization, or what plot elements to trim or emphasize earlier, or say "Show us more of X in the sequel."

Constructive feedback should be actionable, not just critical. Otherwise, as Lyth has made the point before, the devs can't know what you object to and just hear "rip everything out root and stem."