Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

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

I like this a lot and have recommended similar before for the purpose of creating a further soft timing to Living Shadow. E.g., one might technically use it (or, a more responsive version of it) every 40 seconds for a brief-duration mini-burst that's less optimal, or may wait until they have charged up roughly a full 24+ seconds' worth of duration, which would tend to around every 2 minutes. The less optimal pacing, though, should still at least see purpose in dungeons and fights with forced downtime, seeming to offer the skill a bit more flexibility.

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.

I'd almost rather see the blink strike on really short cooldown like TBN's, but yeah, this sounds cool. Probably just flavor, but very fitting flavor.

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.

Can definitely do both, too. This effect would certainly fit "Wraithform," "Shadowskin," or what have you.

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.

Sounds fun. I don't know if I'd call a generic Overdrive skill really an "interaction with" Living Shadow, and would prefer not to stop there, but it'd offer some punch and make Frey ticks less likely to go to waste before downtime.

[Archwizard]

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.

I'm on the fence about this. On the one hand, it sounds really neat as a skill, and the increased movement speed would be a massive boon over the existing Dark Mind as another effect to expand its versatility in non-magical encounters.

On the other...
- While the "Wraith" element makes sense when you pair it with Living Dead to give the DRK a bit of an undeath theme, I continue to worry about comparisons to the WoW Death Knight, especially as they too have a Wraith Walk skill that dramatically increases movement speed, prevents some movement CC, and (with the right talent) even increases damage resistance.
- I also worry how the "pulls you to target" effect will impact the Dark Knight in an everyday sense, partly since it's a combination movement and DR skill with wildly different use-cases, partly because... does it really need a third gap-closer oGCD.

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.

I like where this is going... but I'm not sure about having to sync our Delirium timer with Living Shadow. I also feel like the combination attack is a type of functionality that we could have with Living Shadow now, especially with having a trait to allow it to cast Shadowbringer (though the Pile Bunker/Crowned Collider function need not be replicated for a dual-charge oGCD).

[Lyth]

Movement abilities are always the biggest draw for me on any job, because I personally find the uptime tricks of a fight to be the most fascinating part. I pitched an Ingress/Egress idea for DRK mid Shadowbringers as my ideal movement action but it ended up on RPR instead. I'm especially happy to see melee dps starting to move away from traditional damage oGCDs that happen to be gap closers on the side and towards pure movement abilities. There's still a lot of variations that can still be done with fixed direction dashes, be it in the form of a stackable Roll/Leap/Megaman Slide. The other avenue that hasn't seen much exploration are raw speed boosts (Chi Tornado where are you). I'd very much like to see a few of these concepts make their way into tanking as well.

The idea behind the Wraithform ability that I suggested is that you'd activate it in place of a traditional gap extender to allow you to move out of an AoE much later than you would normally, similar to Expedient except under your personal control. The follow-up is a buff that acts on your next Weaponskill (i.e. GCD). The idea here is that your next GCD automatically pulls you back to land your next hit, regardless of what it is. An alternative way of doing this is to have the speed boost leave behind an afterimage in the place where you activate it, and you return to that position when you activate the ability a second time. You could call it whatever you like really, be it Wraithform, Shadowform, or Shadowstep, but the 'shadow' theme does give it an opportunity to give players that 'Dark Aura' that they've wanted since Heavensward.

Either way, I think that movement abilities represent another avenue skill expression that exists outside of the standard rotational stuff, and you can never get enough of these types of abilities in games. And just having the freedom to move in new, expansive ways makes games infinitely more fun to play. See: jetpacks and grappling hooks in games with a meaningful z-axis.

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As far as finishers are concerned, I've always been a fan of multi-hit attacks that fill your screen with numbers (99 hit). Suzaku's Phantom Flurry remains one of my favorite actions in this game. I'd love to see something similar to Advent Children's Omnislash v.5, where each sword summoned gets swung by a high-speed afterimage, or FFXV's Armiger Arsenal, where the Lucii all charge in to attack (there's an ARR ending scene that fits this theme as well). DRK is a fairly good choice for this intrinsically, not only because of Living Shadow but because of its connection to those friends and allies that we've lost along the way. I would love to see a finisher in which we have a small army of spectral summons that all attack at once, based on the accumulated power leading into your burst.

I think that the reason why Living Shadow has historically been 'a glorified DoT' is to keep things relatively simple. The instant that you get into something like 'Frey performs Edge or Bloodspiller every time you do' you're bound to see complaints about resource management being too difficult, as much as some of us would enjoy it. I think the easiest solution is just to allow players to power up the ability over its two minute cooldown, and give them the power to burn it early for phase transitions. The point about syncing Delirium and Living Shadow is fair. I personally would have thought that it would have been a reasonable next step, given that the two line up naturally, but there are probably many people out there who would see it as overly cumbersome.

A couple of other ideas that I've thought about is how to get Runic into this game, or the possibility of seeing the short-recast mitigation moves gain a special counter-attack specifically on red arrow tankbusters, similar to Chelonian Gate/Cold Fog. I've also considered the possibility of linking the Dark Arts gauge to a combo system (with Edge giving one stack, and Shadowbringer giving two), but that would involve giving up more of our action budget than building off of Bloodspiller.

[SargeTheSeagull]

I’m a drk casual but I had this idea the other day. How would it feel if delirium gave a bunch of free uses of Shadowbringer/edge/flood instead of bloodspiller? I think this would at least make drk feel less like discount warrior and a little more unique.

[Archwizard]

The follow-up is a buff that acts on your next Weaponskill (i.e. GCD). The idea here is that your next GCD automatically pulls you back to land your next hit, regardless of what it is.

No, I get that. I'm saying that even though the execution of it requires and is simultaneous with a GCD, the application of the buff itself is oGCD.

Don't get me wrong, I love the kinetic element of movement skills enough that I still default to using Displacement on my RDM, so I completely agree with you on that front -- but when I imagine jobs whose fantasy might include constantly bouncing around the battlefield, DRK is not necessarily on that list.
WAR is due to the rampages, and it has 3 charges of Onslaught and Primal Rend to pull that off. RDM and DNC are for the sake of styling on enemies, RPR and NIN are as assassins with tactical retreats, DRG is for... its entire job history and identity. Even GNB would be up for it if you justified having them pull off RWBY-style recoil bouncing (though at the risk of repeating myself, what couldn't GNB justify with its lack of definition, besides shooting actual bullets).
DRK though, like PLD, strikes me as more of a "stand your ground" type job; if it had an extra gap-closer, I should think it would be for the sake of pursuing fleeing prey (which as a practical concern is relatively uncommon for tanks to run into).

Granting of course, I wouldn't have thought of SAM as "bouncing around" either and they have a backstep, so, shrug.

An alternative way of doing this is to have the speed boost leave behind an afterimage in the place where you activate it, and you return to that position when you activate the ability a second time.

Considering that you just described Hell's Ingress/Egress/Regress, I doubt DRK's going to get that purely on the grounds of trying to keep RPR and DRK aesthetically distinct, which is already hard enough given they have similar origins in the job fantasy.

but the 'shadow' theme does give it an opportunity to give players that 'Dark Aura' that they've wanted since Heavensward.

... and on that note... I do have a somewhat unconventional source for inspiration here.

As you probably already know, Kingdom Hearts is a sister series to Final Fantasy that borrows many of FF's classical elements. One of the characters in it, Riku, takes nominal inspiration from the classical Dark Knight -- his initial weapon is named Soul Eater, several of his unique skills throughout entries include Dark Firaga (used by characters like Cecil and Zack, Frey incidentally uses Dark Fire III during your Lv50 job battle which I also interpret as a nod to this), "Sacrifice" (which is classical Souleater), "Limit Storm" (which increases damage output at low health similar to some Dark Knight skills, particularly in the Bravely series), Dark Barrier and... well, a number of other Darkness skills that don't have a pure FF analogue.

One of Riku's most infamous techniques however, is actually known as Dark Aura. Simply put, the attack causes him to rush through the target, teleport about 150-degrees around the target, and repeat multiple times in quick succession to rapidly strike his target from several angles, before ending in a helmsplitter over his opponent that creates a shockwave upon landing.
Were he represented by a DPS job in this game, I would qualify that as a Limit Break -- but if we're talking about the impact of multi-hit attacks and gap-closers, channeled attacks like Phantom Flurry/Flamethrower, potential for a level 100 skill, or even things that could be interesting to synch up with Living Shadow... well, food for thought.

I think that the reason why Living Shadow has historically been 'a glorified DoT' is to keep things relatively simple. The instant that you get into something like 'Frey performs Edge or Bloodspiller every time you do' you're bound to see complaints about resource management being too difficult, as much as some of us would enjoy it. I think the easiest solution is just to allow players to power up the ability over its two minute cooldown, and give them the power to burn it early for phase transitions.

Which I could agree with, but even then it becomes something of a Fire-and-Forget technique.

What Living Shadow is missing is an element of direct interaction. The idea of having him perform a coordinated attack is a step in the right direction, but I think there are further ways we could make Frey's presence in the room more of a case of coordinating techniques.

For instance, what if every attack you performed during his lifetime bumped up his damage output for the remainder? Right now he performs around ~8 hits of 300p damage, so you could potentially reduce the initial hits by a percentage and offset that by making the final hits stronger by the same amount with a stacking buff, to average out to the same damage over time.
Then, we have something we can play around with in terms of design -- for instance, is it just GCDs that bump him, or does that include things like Shadowbringer and Edge/Flood, so that pooling resources and coordinating CDs can push him slightly further? What about multi-hitting attacks? Would we want a burst combo that has a lower GCD for use during this time? If he gains some kind of finisher like Automaton Queen, would the accumulated damage reflect in that final swing?
Lots of little things that could push us away from WAR as the "heavy hitter" job, inspired by but not directly centered around coordinating with a technique we already have.

... Or you could just have it be a glorified version of No Mercy/Fight or Flight, though I have to imagine the %-value would be disappointing if they actually let him copy all of your techniques by potency.

The point about syncing Delirium and Living Shadow is fair. I personally would have thought that it would have been a reasonable next step, given that the two line up naturally, but there are probably many people out there who would see it as overly cumbersome.

Right now having it on Delirium feels a bit like trying to copy "Primal Rend Ready". And I'm not saying "We can't touch anything WAR has already done," just that if it's not practically necessary, we shouldn't strive for similarity.

I do still think it's possible to have a finisher like technique on Living Shadow though -- just that, similar to Confiteor or Pile Bunker, it would be more natural to have that be a skill with access bound to Living Shadow's CD rather than Delirium or another ability.
Even something as simple as saving a button by having Living Shadow transform while active into the "End Early" button.

[LioJen]

Just make DRK's potency increase inversely with their HP.

[Shurrikhan]

No, I get that. I'm saying that even though the execution of it requires and is simultaneous with a GCD, the application of the buff itself is oGCD.

Don't get me wrong, I love the kinetic element of movement skills enough that I still default to using Displacement on my RDM, so I completely agree with you on that front -- but when I imagine jobs whose fantasy might include constantly bouncing around the battlefield, DRK is not necessarily on that list.

Agreed. While I DRK does draw a bit from the Soldier motif, among the tanks or jobs here, the Shadowbringers trailer makes that pretty clearly GNB's shoe-in over DRK's.

But, a 60s CD is hardly crushing others' toes here. Hell, you could even have the tele go off only on the next strike that is already out of melee range and use the tele as a sort of super-brief super-mitigation (1s of +50% dodge chance). That'd be plenty fitting, if more constrained.

Granting of course, I wouldn't have thought of SAM as "bouncing around" either and they have a backstep, so, shrug.

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

Considering that you just described Hell's Ingress/Egress/Regress, I doubt DRK's going to get that purely on the grounds of trying to keep RPR and DRK aesthetically distinct, which is already hard enough given they have similar origins in the job fantasy.

Good point, but this is more a matter of Between the Lines. After all, there's no direct movement attached to putting down the anchoring position. That implementation is just one of many possibilities, but I do think we can have a fun "big-brain" pre-positioning mechanic on DRK without, again, stepping overly on others' toes. And, personally, I really want more things on DRK that'd feel "big-brain".

I do still think it's possible to have a finisher like technique on Living Shadow though -- just that, similar to Confiteor or Pile Bunker, it would be more natural to have that be a skill with access bound to Living Shadow's CD rather than Delirium or another ability.

Agreed. In practice, tying it to Delirium only decreases the skill's flexibility in timing, which seem contrary to what an Overdrive skill would otherwise provide. Having the ability to milk nearer to its full tick value, wanting sometimes to clip it short but within raid buffs, and having one more thing to do before it expires should at least make it feel a little less like a glorified DoT.

Tangential:

One of Riku's most infamous techniques however, is actually known as Dark Aura. Simply put, the attack causes him to rush through the target, teleport about 150-degrees around the target, and repeat multiple times in quick succession to rapidly strike his target from several angles, before ending in a helmsplitter over his opponent that creates a shockwave upon landing.

Basically WoW's Killing Spree? (Sorry, I've not played KH1-2 since age... 8 or so.)

If so, sounds good, but I'd really love to see that as actual movement, and not just channeling the strikes from after-images while the DRK stands in place. ...And such would really encourage the dynamic to-target movement skills some have asked for since ARR (whereby one could influence, via WASD, whether they arrive at the target's nearest edge, farthest edge, or any angle on/towards the far edge), if only not to be screwed over by AoEs (making it a whole lot harder to use that skill on CD then and there, but possible) and to give maybe some further reason for, say, leaving a Shadowskin dummy to hold your position with the mobs/boss you're tanking, or the like.

...Just a note, though: That really sounds like what Dream Within a Dream was supposed to be when the title and motif was pitched pre-HW release, back before Shadewalker turned out just to be Misdirection instead of anything to do with inserting your shade into something or someone else, etc.. No idea what to do with that, given how much of NIN has been increasingly turned into just "I hit lots of things in my burst with no further setup necessary, between 40-45s lulls of basically nothing," but just food for thought.

[Shurrikhan]

I've also considered the possibility of linking the Dark Arts gauge to a combo system (with Edge giving one stack, and Shadowbringer giving two), but that would involve giving up more of our action budget than building off of Bloodspiller.

To check...

So, we build up to, say, 6... Motes of Shadow or whatever, and we consume one per DA combo's opener (a la Gnashing Fang, without the rigid CD)? Per combo step?

[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).