Dark Knight Megathread

[baklava151]

Wonder if Oblation is something they'll address in 6.2. Other than that I can't really imagine what else needs changing with DRK that they would fix in a patch, it functions perfectly fine in content. Maybe some potency buffs ?

[RyuDragnier]

Cure potency buffs would be nice. Change Souleater's 300 cure potency to 400, and change Abyssal Drain's Cure Potency to 400 as well. It's not like you can use Souleater while bursting, or Abyssal Drain more than once a minute anyway. May as well make those cure potencies good. Also, for the name of all that is holy, exchange Enhanced Unmend WITH AN ACTUAL TRAIT AND NOT A JOKE ONE!

[Raidriar]

I'm not a game developer but I honestly don't understand why we can't have a 200-300 (or whatever is balanced) potency cure tied to Bloodspiller/Quietus and then bake Oblation into Dark Mind/Dark Missionary. Outside of a full rework of some kind, this feels like it solves all our tool kit problems and is probably small beans.

[Oizen]

Wonder if Oblation is something they'll address in 6.2. Other than that I can't really imagine what else needs changing with DRK that they would fix in a patch, it functions perfectly fine in content. Maybe some potency buffs ?

The low hanging fruit to address for the rest of the expansion for DRK is Abyssal Drain and Oblation imo.
Abyssal they could go a lot of ways on, I dont like that they attached it to carve and spit as if its Upheaval/Orogeny, if it were me this would have been turned into a 30s oGCD for DRK that isn't plunge, which would go a long way in helping DRK in dungeon content, especially in its weakest levels (60-69). This would also give DRK a button to press in their 40 seconds of downtime post burst which I would appreciate.

But even simple cure potency buffs would be nice. The skill either needs to be far more available or just do way more. Either option is fine.

Oblation is significantly less obvious what to do with, I did a big post about why a page or two back so no reason to repeat myself. Its just a redundant skill on a class that honestly already has a lot of raw mitigation.

[Runeslayer]

I typically just treat oblation as a pair skill with TBN, something I will always have at least one of for anything I need TBN for; By itself its rather underwhelming.
Other than that I just use the second charge for...auto attacks I suppose. I'm not doing much else with it outside of specific encounters.

[Vatom]

I'm not a game developer but I honestly don't understand why we can't have a 200-300 (or whatever is balanced) potency cure tied to Bloodspiller/Quietus and then bake Oblation into Dark Mind/Dark Missionary. Outside of a full rework of some kind, this feels like it solves all our tool kit problems and is probably small beans.

You don't need to be a game dev to know nothing is stopping them from doing it
The amount that they change to this class they could wipe the whole class and make a new one at this point
the closest thing I could think of would me time and money the former being a real issue since you have to make a window for the change
the latter I don't think it going to cost much to manipulate stats but this also depends on how the crystal engine work
I haven't touched it so thats as far as I can go with the thought

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

snip

1) baking oblation into another skill is quite frankly a straight up nerf to DRK. the skill's insane flexibility & 60s CD is part of the reason DRK just snoozes so hard during double dragons of DSR and laugh at cauterize w/o invuln while the other tanks have to ration their CDs out. Removing user control is always a bad move imo. Oblation's problem is that outside of niche situations like double dragons where there's tons of high damage tankbusters and not enough CDs to go around in a short period of time, the skill is pretty lackluster, which can be fixed by giving it a side effect to make it more pronounced in all situations, like heals.

2) Imo, it's likely several things:
-As far as we know, there's like, one guy that handles all the tanks on the job team. Dude's probably overworked and just plays it safe on design.
-The dev might have a perceived notion that DRK is meant to be the 'preventative damage' tank through barriers, rather than healing after the fact. Which is a fine philosophy for raiding content, but falls short when barriers rapidly fall behind % mitigaors and heals in mass pulls of dungeons which is where more complaints show up due to how strong DRK's raid kit is. Which would also make sense in the vision that the devs have on how you're 'supposed' to tackle dungeon content, one pack at a time, where TBN's issues aren't really prevalent since it can easily block 2 sets of autos from 2-3 mobs and self heals are less useful due to the much less incoming damage. Thus in his eyes, giving DRK self sustain would be massively OP when TBN already is strong in the dev's ideal dungeon scenario. Without knowing the dev's thoughts however, thats just mere speculation.

3) Honestly, calling for a rework is a very bad idea. Every 'rework' they've done in the past few expansions has almost always ended up worse than the original. WAR went from a great gauge management job to unga bunga in 4.2. SMN got intensely streamlined and gets memes for being a 2-4 button job due to how many skills just use the same button. MNK's rework is extremely hit or miss, but in my own personal experience, seems to be a greater miss than a hit. Don't even get me started on the NIN job design at the beginning of EW. Even the hinted at DRG rework sounds like more simplification rather than a meaningful one.

For all we know, the dev might think the reason people are calling for a rework is due to complaints there's too many buttons, and just make it more like WAR by reducing the total button counts and making things hit harder / crit+dh to compensate, remove MP costs and make things static charges to remove any remaining critical thinking, and call it a day.

[RyuDragnier]

That's why the calls for buffing Abyssal Drain keep coming up. You don't use Abyssal Drain in single target bosses (anymore), so it having a good cure potency on it would not upset the balance at all. As for Oblation, a Bloodbath-ish effect on it would make it one hell of a good move for DRKs. Anybody hit with Oblation would be able to heal themselves for the next 3 attacks they hit an enemy with a weaponskill/spell, at 400 cure potency. Amazing for helping others get their health up, and with a 1m cooldown on charge, it's not something you're going to be able to spam, encouraging actual thought on using it.

[Archwizard]

That's why the calls for buffing Abyssal Drain keep coming up. You don't use Abyssal Drain in single target bosses (anymore), so it having a good cure potency on it would not upset the balance at all. As for Oblation, a Bloodbath-ish effect on it would make it one hell of a good move for DRKs. Anybody hit with Oblation would be able to heal themselves for the next 3 attacks they hit an enemy with a weaponskill/spell, at 400 cure potency. Amazing for helping others get their health up, and with a 1m cooldown on charge, it's not something you're going to be able to spam, encouraging actual thought on using it.

... so Nascent Flash.

10% Mitigation and a fixed potency Cure on attacks. That's literally NF on introduction, before 82 improves it. It just doesn't heal the both of you, in exchange for a fixed stack system that a Black Mage can use.

[baklava151]

That's why the calls for buffing Abyssal Drain keep coming up. You don't use Abyssal Drain in single target bosses (anymore), so it having a good cure potency on it would not upset the balance at all. As for Oblation, a Bloodbath-ish effect on it would make it one hell of a good move for DRKs. Anybody hit with Oblation would be able to heal themselves for the next 3 attacks they hit an enemy with a weaponskill/spell, at 400 cure potency. Amazing for helping others get their health up, and with a 1m cooldown on charge, it's not something you're going to be able to spam, encouraging actual thought on using it.

And then we can finally remove healers as intended