Dark Knight Megathread

[ItsUrBoi]

I suppose more broadly then, if you were the expansion designer for DRK, and you are allowed to introduce in three new (or upgraded) actions of your choosing, on the condition that you don't alter anything else, how would you freshen up DRK's gameplay? I only suggested GCDs because I've seen recurring complaints that relate to combos and Delirium, but you're welcome to take it in a different direction as well.

You don't actually have to touch anything at all, but there are a lot of creative minds here, so let's see what people come up with.

Here are my ideas in a simple way, that makes the general gameplay smoother in my humble opinion.
->Removed Dark Mind
->Changed the functionality of Living Shadow and Abyssal Drain.
->Added Scourge

Enhanced Oblation - Trait
-> Increases Oblation's damage reduction to 15%, duration to 12 seconds and grants a heal over time of 200 potency. ( 200 * 4 = 800 potency heal total )

Reason: Oblation is an augment to TBN, meaning you generally use it at the same time as you use TBN to get more value. If you used it and TBN doesn't break, than using just Oblation is better. TBN acts as DRK's strong, personal mitigation, however before Oblation got introduced, you had Dark Mind which acted like an Oblation but only to magic. So at this point to mitigate something which is ( best case scenario ) magic damage you got to use TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind, which barely puts you on the same level as a PLD using Sentinel + Holly Sheltron, despite pushing 3 buttons. On the OGCD heavy job...

Abyssal Drain - Ability
->Deals damage with a potency of 150 to target and all enemies nearby it.
->Gradually restores HP depending on the number of enemies hit, across 15 seconds. Each enemy hit grants a heal over time potency of 200.

Reason: Using Abyssal Drain every 60 seconds is too rare, so either making it available more often, or changing its effect to a regen.

Scourge - Ability
->Delivers an attack with a potency of 150.
Additional Effect: Damage over time
Potency: 60
Duration: 18s
Combo action: Syphon Strike

Reason: Now you have to do something while not having Delirium up.

Living Shadow - Ability, Lasts 24 seconds
Merge with Fray to become one with your inner darkness.
-> Increases the potencies of all attacks by 250 potency.
-> At level 88, the potency is increased to 300 via Enhanced Living Shadow.
-> Darkside passive is increased from 10% -> 20% more damage, while under the effect of Living Shadow - given by the trait Enhanced Living Shadow II.

Reason: With this change players should feel more in control and feel like they are the ones actually doing the damage.

[ThorneDynasty]

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."

That's not the same thing as explaining exactly how, say, the script should be rewritten. You can simply say "the character's motivation for doing X was not established" and it's a perfectly good criticism, the critic doesn't then need to write the character's backstory. "Darkside is a completely pointless system that the player doesn't engage with" is valid without coming up with a whole new system. If the dev's hands need to be held to that degree on how to "interpret" criticism, this game is dying.

[Shurrikhan]

If the dev's hands need to be held to that degree on how to "interpret" criticism, this game is dying.

It would be pretty reasonable to argue that job design is indeed dying and largely for that exact reason. Most large changes end up including as many steps back as forward precisely because context, understanding of kit nuance, and critical reading skills go suspiciously missing somewhere down the communication tunnel.

Doing something to counter that issue isn't our obligation, but it is something we can do. That doesn't mean coming up with any and every concrete detail (and generally, laying out thresholds in optimal behavior is more useful than a smattering of potencies... from which we'd simply attempt to judge optimal behavior anyways), but including context and giving at least some vivid illustration of the ideas is certainly helpful -- especially to refining our preferences here.

[Lyth]

...

I agree on your main point, that the consumer helps define the design problem, but not its solution.

That being said, feedback isn't always negative. Sometimes the design problem comes down to how to implement something that players really want to see in game that doesn't yet exist.

Part of this game's strength as an MMO comes from series nostalgia. That's why it's one of the criteria that features in the game's marketing surveys. I remember seeing a Magitek Reaper run past me in Western Thanalan back in 2013, and instantly recognized it from my childhood memories of FFVI's art. A few expansions ago, one of the things that MCH players discussed was the idea around using Edgar's tools as part of the job's toolkit. That's one of the things that's since made its way into the game, and it's a really charming addition. I'd actually love to see more references brought in from other games in the series. What would it be like to use Cloud's Omnislash, Tifa's Dolphin Kick, Squall's Lionheart, Noctis' Warp Strike, Gafgarion's Shadowblade/Duskblade, or Celes' Runic? Could you do something interesting with the likes of Reflect or Float?

There are gameplay related points worth discussing as well. This expansion, one of the design goals was to make tank cooldowns that rewarded you for correctly timing their use. Most of the new Lv. 82 upgrades have a 4s window where you mitigate extra damage. It's a neat idea, but pressing a mitigation button at the last second doesn't really add anything to skill expression. If anything, for longer recast cooldowns you generally want to catch the tankbuster on the last few seconds, to trigger the recast cooldown early. You might pop Rampart 18 s before a tankbuster lands so that you have it up again 18 s earlier. What if we took this a step further and suggest that if a tank correctly times a short recast mitigation move on a 'red arrow' tankbuster, it temporarily unlocks a special counter attack along the same lines as BLU's Cold Fog/Chelonian Gate?

The dev team can absolutely figure out the specifics. That's why I wouldn't waste my time going into potencies and recasts. But if there's something that you want to see gameplay-wise in game that hasn't been done yet, putting it out there simply plants the seeds of the idea. The dev team can decide for themselves whether it's worth bearing fruit.

[NemuNemu14]

I'm not sure if its me that's a terrible tank (I don't really play them at all), but I've been wall to wall pulling as DRK and I just feel like I'm taking more damage that I should? I've been using a cooldown such as rampart + the blackest night but I still feel I take too much damage. I don't know what or if I'm doing something wrong

[RyuDragnier]

I'm not sure if its me that's a terrible tank (I don't really play them at all), but I've been wall to wall pulling as DRK and I just feel like I'm taking more damage that I should? I've been using a cooldown such as rampart + the blackest night but I still feel I take too much damage. I don't know what or if I'm doing something wrong

If you're in level 82+ content...you're not doing anything wrong, DRK just has no sustain. WAR can pop Bloodwhetting and get a ton of HP back quickly along with the insane heal from Equilibrium, PLD can just do their Holy Circle spam and get HP back per cast along with the regen from Holy Sheltron, GNB can use Aurora and HoC to heal themselves. DRK has no equivalent to any of that, and it's VERY noticeable in dungeon pulls.

[Mesarthim]

At best you can kinda use living dead as a healing cooldown once every 5 minutes. About as close to a bloodwhetting I'm going to get I guess. I did a stupid and solo'd Eden Ramuh for WT on DRK over the course of 20 minutes.

When life gives you breadcrumbs, I flop on the ground.

[NemuNemu14]

If you're in level 82+ content...you're not doing anything wrong, DRK just has no sustain. WAR can pop Bloodwhetting and get a ton of HP back quickly along with the insane heal from Equilibrium, PLD can just do their Holy Circle spam and get HP back per cast along with the regen from Holy Sheltron, GNB can use Aurora and HoC to heal themselves. DRK has no equivalent to any of that, and it's VERY noticeable in dungeon pulls.

Yeah, I'm really have trouble, and I attempted to wall to wall pull in the lvl 87 dungeon and we wiped like 2 times.. But I feel like if I don't wall to wall I'll have the party members screaming at me. My gear is updated too, this is awful

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah, I'm really have trouble, and I attempted to wall to wall pull in the lvl 87 dungeon and we wiped like 2 times.. But I feel like if I don't wall to wall I'll have the party members screaming at me. My gear is updated too, this is awful

It's less self-sustaining, meaning that you might even need 2-3 GCD heals, but you still shouldn't be dying short of getting a bad healer.

I died all of twice in dungeon-leveling from 80 to 90 on this character and my tank alt, both times because my healer (a Sage, then a SCH) decided to pump all their bankable healing resources into me after I'd already popped Living Dead (macroed with text and sound effects, btw), narrowly preventing it from going off. For context, leveling GNB on my alt likewise purely through Endwalker dungeons had just as many deaths, none of which were the kit's fault. I simply actually needed the occasional GCD heal on DRK, up from none on PLD or WAR.

DRK does of course deserve more self-healing, but its lack isn't so great that you'd die from it unless you or your healer are making notable mistakes. It's just a matter of 1-3 GCD heals worth of potency over the course of a minute-long fight relative to other kits.

:: Note that a Cure II, for instance, is worth 1040 tank potency in healing (1.3*800), due to healer traits; a single CritAdlo, 2691 tank healing potency (1.3*(300*1.5(1+1.8+1.8)). An Aurora is barely a GCD heal. The whole pre-90 Req phase, barely 2. Those are not insurmountable advantages. With updated gear and properly rotated mitigation, you should do fine.

[Lyth]

If you're uncomfortable with doing a complete wall-to-wall pull while levelling, that's fine. Most people don't have a problem with you deliberately breaking up certain bigger pulls, so long as there's a continuous flow between them. The only real problem is indecisiveness, like having long pauses before a pull, or deciding after you've stopped that you want to pull a bigger set.

Just make a mental note of where you wiped previously and why (i.e. Was it attrition and you didn't have any cooldowns left over? Or did you get spiked down with cooldowns still available?) Wiping is fine as long as someone in the group is actually learning something from it. You'll be doing a lot of that across all levels of content. If you tank for long enough, you'll have stoneskin.

---

If I had to come up with a list of things that I want to see next expansion on DRK, they would be, in no particular order:

1) An additional movement tool
2) An additional combo
3) A burst finisher
4) Expanded functionality for either Dark Mind or Missionary
5) Some sort of Dark Aura effect
6) Interactions with Living Shadow

How might this work?

Lv. 92 Torcleaver (Weaponskill): Combo action off of Bloodspiller. Restores HP/MP. Each use increases the duration of the next Living Shadow timer.

Lv. 96 Wraithform: Upgrades Dark Mind. Increases movement speed and prevents knockback effects. Next weaponskill used has increased range (20y) and pulls you to target.

or

Lv. 96 Blood Armor: Upgrades Dark Mind. % Damage reduction progressively increases with every attack performed or received while active. Ending the buff restores HP based on accumulated resistance.

Lv. 100 Eventide (Weaponskill): Becomes available only when Delirium ends. If used when Living Shadow is active, ends the ability with a combination attack. Damage dealt by Frey depends on remaining Living Shadow timer.