Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

Which expanding on this, is a bit of an odd space particularly when you include Gunbreaker.

Like, if I had to sum up each of the jobs based on precedents across the FF series:
Paladin: A shield-bearing knight who combines the ability to Cover and use White Magic to protect and support allies, while smiting foes with holy blades.
While 14's PLD isn't 100% this description (given that Cover is sort of a niche skill and it rarely uses Clemency), as far as practicality is concerned it's close enough -- strong mitigation and access to healing magic.

Given that "Warrior" is sort of broad in the FF series but is supposed to be closest to a Berserker, the interpretation of it as a tank would probably be described as...
Warrior: A non-magical berserker who works himself into a battle frenzy, implacably fighting through all injuries or obstacles like a raging bull.
Dark Knight: A fallen knight who uses unholy magics to debilitate and drain from foes while growing more powerful through her own suffering.
IMO, 14's versions are a far departure from these visuals, since in execution both of these jobs ended up being swapped, especially as of Shadowbringers stripping down Dark Arts and introducing Nascent Flash.
You have WAR who is magically self-healing, and DRK who is being pressed as the raw mitigation tank. For all that has been pushed forward about DRK being the magical tank, it really just ends up feeling like an armor job that just happens to include Dark Mind.

Once again, I could not tell you what the central theme of GNB's mitigation style is supposed to be. The FF8 gunblade theme only informs its rapid attacks.
But okay, let's say I based it off of what we'd seen from Thancred, then...
Gunbreaker: A fleet-footed bodyguard who evades and outmaneuvers foes, tactically employing the recoil of his own attacks to retreat or engage.
Which of course is... basically nothing like what we have, since the only "evasion" part of the kit is like, Camouflage. And I guess their magical cartridges can just do whatever you want.

I feel like it comes down to what functions should be deliberate/separable among each, and what that's supposed to afford.
For PLD, support feels like it should be a key, core, deliberate feature. Intended affordance: On-demand (esp., emergency) support. Thus, Clemency (especially at its 20% more powerful and Req-affected potency) made a lot of sense. Cover, especially with neither a gauge cost nor built-in additional mitigation, made a lot of sense.

For WAR, there's little that feels like it ought to be separable, while the intended affordance appeared to be the ability to be less affected by functioning outside of normal party support (having a bit more burst damage potential in itself to shut down key targets, its sustain being less context-dependent as to be less dependent upon timely help, etc.). Thus, self-healing being tied to and around damage-dealing made sense.

For DRK, offense and defense were to be a bit more separate of choices than WAR, but from a shared resource, such that it offered, as its affordance, timely control of that balance. One was to be rewarded for correctly shifting inputs towards their variably useful tools to greatest possible output. They were a bastard with a bag of tricks, with a higher than average performance gap from those tricks' utilization.

And I've no idea what GNB was ever supposed to have meshed or afforded, as it's never felt like anything more than a fairly rigid DPS with some tank CDs slapped atop it.

Gunbreaker: A fleet-footed bodyguard who evades and outmaneuvers foes, tactically employing the recoil of his own attacks to retreat or engage.

I'd jump for the soonest opportunity to play GNB if that were what it actually was.

[Archwizard]

For PLD, support feels like it should be a key, core, deliberate feature. Intended affordance: On-demand (esp., emergency) support. Thus, Clemency (especially at its 20% more powerful and Req-affected potency) made a lot of sense. Cover, especially with neither a gauge cost nor built-in additional mitigation, made a lot of sense.

And while I agree with that, in practice, you end up avoiding supportive skills almost entirely.
Of the four tanks, three of them can heal other people (DRK can't and that's fine IMO), but until Endwalker, PLD was the only one who had to lose momentum and stop damage-dealing to do that; even now, optimally, you avoid Clemency entirely and leave it to healers. Also, Requiescat was specifically reworked in Endwalker to only give Clemency the instant cast time -- no more healing buff.
Likewise, Cover is such a risky maneuver (unless you're using HG) that you're encouraged to just use Intervention instead. Even its most iconic support skill, Passage, has some DPS cost to use outside of downtime.

It has the tools, yes. They're implemented in such a manner they get pushed into the background, however, especially when someone like WAR or GNB can toss their equivalents around freely.

For WAR, there's little that feels like it ought to be separable, while the intended affordance appeared to be the ability to be less affected by functioning outside of normal party support (having a bit more burst damage potential in itself to shut down key targets, its sustain being less context-dependent as to be less dependent upon timely help, etc.). Thus, self-healing being tied to and around damage-dealing made sense.

And I get conceptually, 'sating your bloodlust' encourages creating an active mitigation playstyle, such as self-healing through damage actions.
But, ignoring that that doesn't make drain attacks the sole domain of WAR like some people in this thread would believe, you have two parts of that which make its existing implementation somewhat uncomfortable:

1) The fact that the Warrior can heal other people the same way. There's no way about it: that's magic.
The one tank who's supposed to be banned from magic is performing healing on other people, no bandages or potions or gadgets being tossed like GNB's excuse, just aether manipulation. As I said before, I understand the point of Shadowbringers was offering off-tanking tools to all tanks... but one can't reasonably say party healing makes little sense for DRK (who at least can do magic, just the wrong kind) while allowing it for WAR.
2) There are other ways to have an active mitigation playstyle beyond direct-healing actions, including having it build raw DR/armor or even stackable barriers -- things that increase maximum EHP in conjunction with external sources of healing.

Not to say that WAR shouldn't have any healing -- a second wind via Equilibrium or an EHP boost from Thrill make sense, even has Storm's Path for exactly the "heal by attacking" element -- but the existing method is a bit far beyond the job descriptor.

[DRK was] a bastard with a bag of tricks, with a higher than average performance gap from those tricks' utilization.

And now it doesn't even have a bag of tricks, owing to only having three ways to spend MP -- with two of them being the same and the last just facilitating the others.

And you wouldn't want "tricks" anyway, since now you're just encouraged to have the barrier get eaten before it runs out; things like Blind and Slow become counterintuitive.

And I've no idea what GNB was ever supposed to have meshed or afforded, as it's never felt like anything more than a fairly rigid DPS with some tank CDs slapped atop it.

GNB really feels like the repository job -- "Let's take every idea that we felt didn't work for the direction of any other tank and slap them together." It has barriers, on-demand DR, parry boost, HoTs, Excog... none of which are iconic to it, none of which flow into each other except for its invuln or give a clear idea of its niche... it just does everything, but poorly compared to a specialist.
How it somehow works in spite of that is either a miracle or grand illusion.

If DRK wasn't so embroiled in the concept of counterattacking as part of its own identity, I would think it would be a fine place for GNB considering its only defining feature is, y'know, its weapon and continuous slashing style. FF8 even opens with a Quickdraw with swords, while Thancred is constantly counterattacking in the ShB trailer.

[Shurrikhan]

And while I agree with that, in practice, you end up avoiding supportive skills almost entirely.

Which I'm not happy with, but wasn't so badly the case when, say, Cure II was... 650(?) potency (relative potency 845 due to traits) while Clemency on others was 1200 (effectively 1800 due to 50% healing to self), or up to 2700 total healing during Req (though I think Cure II-likes were already 700p by then).

I feel like we often forget that PLD's supportive kit started off much stronger. Clemency was originally packed a shitton of healing, while covered damage originally followed the Paladin's mitigation, even allowing one to HG covered damage (most notably for a cheese strat in Ultima Ex, iirc).

Of the four tanks, three of them can heal other people (DRK can't and that's fine IMO)

Ehh, they're all 4 offering flat and percentile sustain. We wouldn't normally call a barrier innately inferior to a heal, would we?

1) The fact that the Warrior can heal other people the same way. There's no way about it: that's magic.

Oh, absolutely. I despise the external healing component of Nascent for that reason. I could maybe see a fading temp HP Warcry ability -- through some manner of strike/war-leader motif -- but... Nascent makes no goddamn sense.

2) There are other ways to have an active mitigation playstyle beyond direct-healing actions, including having it build raw DR/armor or even stackable barriers -- things that increase maximum EHP in conjunction with external sources of healing.

Aye, and that'd be fine.

The only consistency among initial versions of Warrior was that it (perhaps problematically) scaled less with content and more with its own gear, similarly to healers and damage-dealers and opposite Paladin. Inner Beast quickly turned into mitigation, and it'd have been equally fine for it to give an amount of Defense based on damage dealt instead of a flat percent of mitigation (at least, if not for the wonkiness that is Defense tiering in this game, which Inner Beast would then have to be put through a formula to accommodate).

I do think some amount of less timing-specific output suits Warrior, as to afford it a bit more independence than the average tank, but to lack it entirely would just be to waste the main thing that makes tanks feel like tanks, timely preemption.

Not to say that WAR shouldn't have any healing -- a second wind via Equilibrium or an EHP boost from Thrill make sense, even has Storm's Path for exactly the "heal by attacking" element -- but the existing method is a bit far beyond the job descriptor.

Agreed.

I honestly do think WAR should have the most sustain over time (at least, in any fight in which damage isn't dealt almost purely under TBs timed to typical CD arsenals), in exchange for being less able to absorb portions of damage in an intensive and timely manner (again, a trade of timeliness for independence), but there's no reason for it to have as much healing as it has at present.

Even in terms of overall sustain (healing+mitigation) or total rDPS and healing attention thus thus spared, it's a bit much.

[Archwizard]

Ehh, they're all 4 offering flat and percentile sustain. We wouldn't normally call a barrier innately inferior to a heal, would we?

Functionally, you are correct -- and I never said it was inferior.

It is situationally distinct, however... like if you're pressed for effects like Dooms that will kill you if you're below 100% HP (coughLivingDeadcough), or heavy DoTs that will last significantly longer than 7 seconds, it's no great help compared to what the other tanks can offer.
On the flipside, if your target has low health and a Healing Down debuff, the other tanks can suck it. Distinct, not worse.

I'm just saying, if DRK tossed out Abyssal Drain or whathaveyou and healed other people? That would be weird for the job. There's a line between what's acceptable for DRK and for PLD.

[Shurrikhan]

And you wouldn't want "tricks" anyway, since now you're just encouraged to have the barrier get eaten before it runs out; things like Blind and Slow become counterintuitive.

Depends on how they're handled.

An early suggestion for a revision of Shadowskin so it wouldn't just be a Rampart clone was to have it dodge all incoming physical attacks (after having revised Reprisal and Low Blow reset procs to function off of dodges, too, and for XIV's wonky attack-RNG categories as not to cause Crits to be immune to RNG mitigation and to allow a dodge to follow, and thus stack with, a parry), at resource cost to (i.e., up to a cap determined by) a mock-shield that'd drain from damage thus nullified.

That would largely function identically to TBN except in that it'd have variable sustain provided (the breaking attack, too, would be fully mitigated), yet would have no anti-synergy with other procs.

That said, there's also the HW way of going about mitigation, whereby different skills were individually more powerful (or faster-recharging) than competitors but had purposeful anti-synergy. (This pull uses Drain, TBN, and <random basic CD w/o antisynergy>; as soon as TBN fades, we add <skills A and B with anti-synergy, each lasting about 10 seconds.)

I never said it was inferior.

Sorry, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth; I meant only that by focusing only on ally-targetable healing you counted all means of granting sustain to others except DRK's, on the mere basis that it wasn't of the same type as the others (flat mitigation, instead of healing and/or a percentile shield), which seemed... not a usefully full picture for discussing parity.

I'm just saying, if DRK tossed out Abyssal Drain or whathaveyou and healed other people? That would be weird for the job. There's a line between what's acceptable for DRK and for PLD.

Agreed, agreed.

But, food for thought: Would it be unfitting if they inflicted a curse on a given enemy that caused nearby allies to heal for a bit whenever they strike said enemy (or for a portion of damage). To me, for XIV's DRK, that'd still be a bit wild, but certainly more fitting than trading out excess healing to a bonded player, which is in turn more fitting than Abyssal Drain being able to heal people by itself.

[Archwizard]

But, food for thought: Would it be unfitting if they inflicted a curse on a given enemy that caused nearby allies to heal for a bit whenever they strike said enemy (or for a portion of damage). To me, for XIV's DRK, that'd still be a bit wild, but certainly more fitting than trading out excess healing to a bonded player, which is in turn more fitting than Abyssal Drain being able to heal people by itself.

The funny thing is, you've just described a skill that's already available in PvP... to PLD.

That said, the idea of the DRK facilitating other people's vampiric self-healing through his own magic would probably be about the only way to justify giving DRK an allied healing effect -- indirect and still occult, by a method that a PLD should probably disapprove of.
If that ever became a necessity of the job.

But yes, that would be a very interesting alternative to something like, oh I dunno, Dark Missionary? Trouble of course being that it can't be used during downtime or when a boss disappears... and would probably be wildly OP in Alliance Raids.
After all, if it wasn't going to affect everyone who hits the target, just your own group, then why not go the whole 9 yards and just make it a Vampirism group buff? At least then it fits the vague undead theme of DRK (looking at you, LD). And if you combine that with DMis, you solve the downtime issue.

Actually, could be kind of a fun thing to separate DMis and HoL:
Vampirism buff on DMis.
HoL consumes Aurora to put a HoT on allies.
Like SiO and DV, you get slightly different executions and potencies but still have tuning knobs to balance them against each other. Like SiO, DMis is slightly more potent but only if you have the perfect setup for it. (And you leave open room for a more potent tool for use during downtime.)
And at the same time, you address the lingering issue of the 10% Magic raidwides being weaker than the barriers...?

[Shurrikhan]

The funny thing is, you've just described a skill that's already available in PvP... to PLD.

Oof. The PvP netcode annoyed me so much back in the day, and the Stormblood simplifications since, that I haven't gone back to try the Endwalker changes to PvP.

But yes, that would be a very interesting alternative to something like, oh I dunno, Dark Missionary? Trouble of course being that it can't be used during downtime or when a boss disappears... and would probably be wildly OP in Alliance Raids.
After all, if it wasn't going to affect everyone who hits the target, just your own group, then why not go the whole 9 yards and just make it a Vampirism group buff? At least then it fits the vague undead theme of DRK (looking at you, LD). And if you combine that with DMis, you solve the downtime issue.

True. While there's still a slight thematic difference between a target-specific curse and a vampiric raid-buff, it probably isn't worth the trouble in terms of target requirements, etc.

[Archwizard]

While there's still a slight thematic difference between a target-specific curse and a vampiric raid-buff, it probably isn't worth the trouble in terms of target requirements, etc.

I mean, the idea of receiving healing funneled from someone else's life force is already a method that Holier Than Thou WoLs would probably disapprove of (ignoring that Bloodbath is already a thing for melee).
Doing so by means of putting that effect on everyone around you regardless of consent, to turn them into a brood of abyssal vampires, could probably be considered a curse... just a temporary and beneficial one.

[Shurrikhan]

I mean, the idea of receiving healing funneled from someone else's life force is already a method that Holier Than Thou WoLs would probably disapprove of (ignoring that Bloodbath is already a thing for melee).
Doing so by means of putting that effect on everyone around you, to turn them into a brood of abyssal vampires, could probably be considered a curse... just a temporary and beneficial one.

Right, but take for instance Sole Survivor if it could be placed on an ally. Not nearly so thematically wild as, say, "Legion of Undeath" (however it may be named) whereby everyone gets lifesteal.

Not all lifesteal (as a mechanic / healing from attacks) is thematically just blood-sucking and jiangshi life-leeching, but when it comes with the typical DRK vfx of dark red mists... well, it certainly comes down to the precise implementation.

(And then, ofc, you have the whole idea of whether you want that function-thematic or affordance-thematic elements of fixation on a particular target vs. a last-stand-esque raidwide, or of there being a more potent heal-per-hit, but up to a cap, so that you can place it on a non-primary target and let people hit it as needed for healing, etc., etc.)



Either/any way is fine, imo; just noting that the there is a bit of thematic variance likely in/from that difference in functionality.

[The_User]

Arcane Crest *cough* *cough*