Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

To be fair, this SAM is Rorouni Kenshin, not a man in lamellar armor. It's gonna be fast and flitty.

Fair. I think I'm mostly just having trouble wrapping my brain around a job that has separate resource costs on skills to create distance in addition to closing it and attempting to justify that under the flag of "well they're just fast".

But, this isn't a SAM thread! So I'll hold my thoughts on that.

Basically WoW's Killing Spree?

Ehhh...



... I don't think I'd say that exactly.

There are multiple ways you could make this work IMO -- there's the channeled skill approach (a la Phantom Flurry/Flamethrower) where it would essentially be as you say, the DRK stands in place and after-images dash at the target to deal continuous AoE damage around the DRK, but I think a more interesting approach could be a limited-time combo skill where you can mash the ability multiple times in succession in a short window, each press causing a dash, so that YOU have agency over the actual dash element.
Of course how that interacts with the job's ongoing issue of "too many oGCDs, not enough GCDs" is a whole can of worms, but if it's a cooldown effect, it could at least offer a "shake up" from the same rotation over and over like we've hoped for.

Possible pipe dream, not pushing for this, I'm just saying there are options on the table.

[Shurrikhan]

I think I'm mostly just having trouble wrapping my brain around a job that has separate resource costs on skills to create distance in addition to closing it and attempting to justify that under the flag of "well they're just fast".

I'm pretty sure that's exactly how you make (and simultaneously justify) a "They just be fast" / 「あいつら、早いぜ」 meme job, and that such was precisely the intent.

There are multiple ways you could make this work IMO -- there's the channeled skill approach (a la Phantom Flurry/Flamethrower) where it would essentially be as you say, the DRK stands in place and after-images dash at the target to deal continuous AoE damage around the DRK, but I think a more interesting approach could be a limited-time combo skill where you can mash the ability multiple times in succession in a short window, each press causing a dash, so that YOU have agency over the actual dash element.
Of course how that interacts with the job's ongoing issue of "too many oGCDs, not enough GCDs" is a whole can of worms, but if it's a cooldown effect, it could at least offer a "shake up" from the same rotation over and over like we've hoped for.

Thanks for the visual examples.

And, as for this, there's always the Mudra/Ninjutsu middle ground. You could put it on the GCD, at very rapid-fire recast times.

I'd still prefer that it just start a duration during which mitigation skills have only VFX, no player animation and therefore no animation lock, and still be separately oGCD (double-weaved, typically), but... at least if XIV refused to fix how animation locks work in this game... Heck, you could also allow it to consume MP (or, [only] if over 80% MP or so) for further potency and have this Blade Dance thingamajig replace both Flood and Edge during that time for gap-close TO vs. gap-close THROUGH (or, to rear), which would likewise offer a bit more control (and therefore safety around AoEs).

[Archwizard]

And, as for this, there's always the Mudra/Ninjutsu middle ground. You could put it on the GCD, at very rapid-fire recast times.

Which I figured would be part of the ideal solution (either way it's coded as an Ability), my concern was more that with the significant skew we have towards oGCD output compared to other tanks, creating a window where we're locked out of using any other oGCDs at all for multiple seconds at a time could be... somewhat problematic to the design.

Which also creates a bit of an awkward position, because if the lockout periods are infrequent, we don't invalidate the existing oGCDs... but then lose the element of "shaking up the monotony of our rotation". It's a fine balance.