Dark Knight Megathread

[Oizen]

I'm always lost when people are complaining about how many removed mechanics Dark Knight has been through, and then turn around and beg for them to remove more mechanics from Dark Knight.

[Colt47]

I'm always lost when people are complaining about how many removed mechanics Dark Knight has been through, and then turn around and beg for them to remove more mechanics from Dark Knight.

People just want dark knight to feel like an actual dark knight. Whatever that ends up being I don't know but the entire way this job got built was messy even during heavensward. People keep having this weird fascination with that time and all I remember is just how punishing dark arts actually was. Yes, people could be really good on dark knight and feel rewarded back then, but the floor was like two levels down through the basement.

A dark knight should have spells that drain the life and MP out of the opponent as the means of their self sustain. This is literally what they do in every iteration and instead we have a shields tank that has one disconnected skill that drains HP, one disconnected skill that drains MP, a warrior style combo delirium thing, and a blood weapon that apparently just boosts your MP regen instead of actually doing what someone would think a skill called Blood Weapon would actually do. You know, drain HP from your opponent?

Warrior for goodness sakes would have made more sense being the shield tank because they are supposed to be able to shrug off hits and be this tough fighting archetype. Yet for some reason the presentation on that job was to just stick HP healing on every single thing they do and call it a day.

Edit:

Forgot about the third thing DRK did in prior iterations. FFX-2 dress sphere version would sacrifice HP to do damage to opponents. That was something that was carried over to other versions but obviously wouldn't work well in the style of game that FFXIV is. Although they could do something where you could sacrifice the shield to do damage, so sort of simulate the same thing. They'd have to come up with a way to differentiate the shield pool of DRK from other shields because that would be funny unleashing an entire crit shield from a scholar on someone.

[Shurrikhan]

People keep having this weird fascination with that time and all I remember is just how punishing dark arts actually was.

I'm a bit confused by this. How was it particularly punishing? The mild resource management / ability to overspend?

and a blood weapon that apparently just boosts your MP regen instead of actually doing what someone would think a skill called Blood Weapon would actually do. You know, drain HP from your opponent?

Which meant you could use Blood Weapon to heal (or offer further mitigation) when you actually needed it, instead of the rigid CD providing healing only in that particular moment. It's a deviation from the obvious thematic tie-in, yes, but it was also a fair bit more useful/flexible as a result.

Warrior for goodness sakes would have made more sense being the shield tank because they are supposed to be able to shrug off hits and be this tough fighting archetype.

Where does the "shrug off hits" in the sense of taking little to no damage in the first place appear in XIV's lore surrounding Warrior?

[Colt47]

I'm a bit confused by this. How was it particularly punishing? The mild resource management / ability to overspend?


Which meant you could use Blood Weapon to heal (or offer further mitigation) when you actually needed it, instead of the rigid CD providing healing only in that particular moment. It's a deviation from the obvious thematic tie-in, yes, but it was also a fair bit more useful/flexible as a result.


Where does the "shrug off hits" in the sense of taking little to no damage in the first place appear in XIV's lore surrounding Warrior?

It's a combination of the lore with how the mechanics represent the lore. Dark Knight is anti-magic mechanically which is demonstrated in their ability to be better equipped against magic attacks and that provides a least a glimpse into how their "Darkness" works. The warriors mechanics are supposed to represent how the inner beast makes the warrior more like a honey badger. As in, you're more likely to hurt the warriors feelings than to physically hurt the warrior.

[Shurrikhan]

warrior more like a honey badger. As in, you're more likely to hurt the warriors feelings than to physically hurt the warrior.

Always seemed to present the opposite to me -- that they can be badly wounded but will go on nonetheless and, if left unchecked, will rise back up.

Bloodied, not beaten. Heck, all the more frenzied/raging because of having been bloodied.

[Archwizard]

Always seemed to present the opposite to me -- that they can be badly wounded but will go on nonetheless and, if left unchecked, will rise back up.

Bloodied, not beaten. Heck, all the more frenzied/raging because of having been bloodied.

I know this line gets referenced a lot in this thread, but I always took that away as the meaning of the original DRK description ─

So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...

Which some people have taken to mean "Oh, he showed no pain and it wasn't actually blood because he wasn't actually hurt, he just used a barrier."
But going by ability names like Grit and Blackblood, and the description of the raw determination required to harness the Abyss, I assumed that was a case of Fray actively fighting through the pain ("like a man possessed"), and converting all of the damage he took into a source of power (enveloping him like mist, something dark and twisted).