Dark Knight Megathread

[RyuDragnier]

Tentatively agreed. It's worth noting though that in the past every MP expenditure had a tanking benefit outside of Carve and Spit (which was a mere margining mechanic). DA-Souleater meant more self-healing, too; DA-Power Slash gave a metric ton of threat; DA-Dark Passenger also added a blind for mitigation; DA-AD was the only way to get it to do any healing; and all else were buffs to your next defensive among Dark Mind or Dark Dance. In that sense, the MP generation on Blood Weapon was almost always also a means of sustain; it was just perhaps out of balance, overly favoring only DA-CnS, -SE, and -AD for AoE sustain.

Stop please, my heart can't take being reminded of HW DRK and the identity they stole from us...

[Shurrikhan]

Stop please, my heart can't take being reminded of HW DRK and the identity they stole from us...

Sorry, mate, but it was the obvious example of where/when it made more sense for Blood Weapon to, for sustain-purposes, give MP over HP. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Roquepo]

I have to wonder, though... is that so bad? [...]

It is bad because it makes the class a pain to balance in fights with lot of downtime (like ultimates). It is also bad, and this one is 100% subjective, because it makes your burst less rewarding. With less room to mess up, there comes a lesser sense of accomplishment.

Nor is there any real synergy other than that among any tank job anymore; [...]

I'd say only Warrior really fits the bill, and they get a pass IMO because their downtime has the tiniest bit of engagement to it. Managing the resource is slighly harder than managing mana (in the sense that you get way more usages of Edge of Shadow than you need to keep the buff and you don't lose damage in the process by going for it) and you also need to pay attention to Infuriate and Upheaval CD. It is also the de facto "easy tank", so I don't think it should be included in this kind of talk.

My main point is that needing setup and having constraints is a good thing.

Even when you take No Mercy out of the ecuation, Gunbreaker needs to be more particular in the way it enters and executes its burst actions.

GNB needs to pool 3 cartridges to use Gnashing Fang and Double Down. It is not a "you lost damage" case, you just have to in order to not drift them into oblivion. If you can't, you need to start adjusting things around (regardless of my opinion of DD and cartridge management, I believe this is a good thing). It also needs to commit to Gnashing Fang combo once it starts. Also, same as Warrior, Downtime is also a bit more engaging.

PLD is the way it is due to FoF, that's true, but it makes it so you need to pool up some resources for your burst: 3 atonements and the free spell charge. Downtime is also a bit more engaging than DRK's (which is not much, all things considered). That said, I also think PLD is lacking something right now.

That's not to say I don't agree that it's lackluster and could be improved, but... in what way did you want to see improvement

Damage buffs are fine because Tanks cannot have burst phases as complicated as DPS classes as they also need to be tanking on top of dealing damage. It is a necessary evil in my eyes (not saying that SE can't do an engaging rotation adecuate for tanks without one, just that it is easier for them to stick to the landing with it).

As to what I would do, well, that's not my job, I'm no game designer. My job as a user is to point out things I either dislike or think that don't work.

That said, I could see adding some sort of extra resource management, making Living Shadow work as a pseudo damage buff by mimicking what you do and/or moving Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain to a 30s CD do a lot for the class. Also taking a oGCD or two away (or turning them into GCDs), using mits as DRK or GNB is painful at times.

[Zairava]

And I think the biggest offender for this is Living Shadow. The coolest ability DRK gets being a glorified DoT is unforgivable. It should replicate what you do instead of what it currently does. Better be a flavorful damage buff than a fire and forget DoT.

Can't agree enough here, it basically says what needs to be said.

I have to wonder, though... is that so bad? Alone, you need only not overcap; in buffed parties, you should bank as much as you can without overcapping. But... is that really a problem to, when solo, have more freedom / fewer constraints / less direction than most? Tanks aren't generally something one wants to play solo anyways, and outside of a WHM-or-SGE/SAM-BLM-or-MCHx2 light party, you're going to have some manner of buff that'll oblige those timings in the same way a No Mercy or Fight or Flight would.

Nor is there any real synergy other than that among any tank job anymore; Upheaval and Spirits Within interactions with HP, stances, etc., are all a distant past.

That's not to say I don't agree that it's lackluster and could be improved, but... in what way did you want to see improvement, because it seems only two jobs offer anything more in that regard, and DRK falls only a generic damage buff window away from them?

I think both sides have good arguments, really. I don't personally find it a bad thing to have fewer constraints, but I would honestly prefer to have a higher skill ceiling that isn't just "dump everything into your burst window and just spam 1-2-3 and use bloodspiller to not overcap otherwise."

At the very least, I would like my downtime to be more interesting.

Tentatively agreed. It's worth noting though that in the past every MP expenditure had a tanking benefit outside of Carve and Spit (which was a mere margining mechanic). DA-Souleater meant more self-healing, too; DA-Power Slash gave a metric ton of threat; DA-Dark Passenger also added a blind for mitigation; DA-AD was the only way to get it to do any healing; and all else were buffs to your next defensive among Dark Mind or Dark Dance. In that sense, the MP generation on Blood Weapon was almost always also a means of sustain; it was just perhaps out of balance, overly favoring only DA-CnS, -SE, and -AD for AoE sustain.

If, for instance, it returned to that (with Edge/Flood/Shadowbringer healing or adding to current shielding, etc.), would BW's granting MP alone still seem to lack sustain flavor (rather than just seeming a more bankable/timeable means of self-sustain)?

I think the mp spenditure in itself is ridiculously streamlined compared to what it once was, and would do with some revisioning in order for BW to have any merit of feeling more than just being enough for one more tbn or edge/flood. The problem is, the best way to do this would be to tie some defensives with mp in some way, shape, or form...which is the exact path they strayed from to begin with. The only reason why DA exists as is is because it's currently a damage neutral. This doesn't mean they couldn't expand upon it, but the methods for doing so while continuing that damage neutral path is incredibly limited. Unless they went full throttle and made Dark Arts purely offensive again (albeit not as spam heavy as Stormblood), I'm not sure we'll ever see meaningful mp management. With or without sustain or status effects being added to the abilities it modifies.

[Shurrikhan]

I think both sides have good arguments, really. I don't personally find it a bad thing to have fewer constraints, but I would honestly prefer to have a higher skill ceiling that isn't just "dump everything into your burst window and just spam 1-2-3 and use bloodspiller to not overcap otherwise."

At the very least, I would like my downtime to be more interesting.

Mostly agreed, but, I have to wonder... are there really even "sides" there, per se?

Is it a matter of "Native Damage Buff Window Good"? If there's a side for that, the only camp opposite it I'd represent for instance, is just that a native damage buff window isn't necessarily good.

That is to say, I don't particularly find all that interesting any damage buff window that doesn't rely of at least potentially active sync even in 100% uptime (or, via a striking dummy). If you could just pick the right GCD and thereafter hit your damage buff on CD (or, on CD +/- using at end of the GCD-gap), I'm not convinced it does anything. Add in a skill that you specifically want to start and stop on, like Goring Blade, and it gets a bit more potentially interesting, but even then, not necessarily. It's contextual, though contextual to one's toolkit.

Greater freedom, on the other hand, offers a higher ceiling for contextual nuance based on the encounter... not that we ever see that exploited in XIV outside of the very rare add phase. More bankable = more (frequently) available deviation between "best" cases and "normal" cases.

Neither seems inherently superior, though I'll admit that when I lack enough encounter-contextual nuance to exploit, I tend to look enviously at kits with a bit more internal nuance; though even the latter requires a fair deal of supportive context, else you more often end up with just finnicky-ness, not nuance.

I think the mp spenditure in itself is ridiculously streamlined compared to what it once was, and would do with some revisioning in order for BW to have any merit of feeling more than just being enough for one more tbn or edge/flood.

I could go either way at this point. Either MP could remains just a DarkShinten gauge where you make sure not to overspend for fear of delaying a necessary Senei/TBN, or maybe it could go back to cutting every defensive in two such that you have soft and full uses available to each while making sure not to overspend for fear of losing out on the efficiency of DA-CnS. Neither's perfect; neither is altogether bad. I faintly prefer the latter, but only if it's decently balanced, because I'm tired of pretense of depth essentially just widening performance gaps through otherwise short-lived gaps over unintuitive understandings (e.g., that most of X options are actually awful).

The only reason why DA exists as is is because it's currently a damage neutral.

I don't even consider it as existing, so much as just being an unnecessary, fancy throwback name for TBN's "Don't just throw this out on CD / even at the dumbest of times" minor constraint, haha.

Unless they went full throttle and made Dark Arts purely offensive again (albeit not as spam heavy as Stormblood), I'm not sure we'll ever see meaningful mp management.

I don't think that would give us "meaningful MP management" even then. In the end, meaningful MP management will essentially be just a matter of rewarding factor-dense understanding of a given fight in a particular situation (with the latter becoming decreasingly relevant as one's party increasingly optimizes / gits gud).

It's a matter of being rewarded for putting the best bets forward / putting your mana where your returns will be highest. That requires those bets being complex ones, which in turn requires there being a lot going on contextually.

[Zairava]

Mostly agreed, but, I have to wonder... are there really even "sides" there, per se?

Is it a matter of "Native Damage Buff Window Good"? If there's a side for that, the only camp opposite it I'd represent for instance, is just that a native damage buff window isn't necessarily good.

I guess what I mean is, I like buff windows, but not when all the damage is packed into that one single burst window, because some of that damage could be more spread to make the job leagues more interesting to play continuously. Which I suppose is a common sentiment with the whole 2-minute meta debacle.

Though it's more how it's actually designed, is why I can still go back and play Reaper and enjoy it. The downtime is infinitely more enjoyable for me than most jobs in the game. The abilities are all satisfying to press, even the main combo, and there's more than just the 1-2-3 to use thanks to Soul Slice and Soul Scythe.

I could go either way at this point. Either MP could remains just a DarkShinten gauge where you make sure not to overspend for fear of delaying a necessary Senei/TBN, or maybe it could go back to cutting every defensive in two such that you have soft and full uses available to each while making sure not to overspend for fear of losing out on the efficiency of DA-CnS. Neither's perfect; neither is altogether bad. I faintly prefer the latter, but only if it's decently balanced, because I'm tired of pretense of depth essentially just widening performance gaps through otherwise short-lived gaps over unintuitive understandings (e.g., that most of X options are actually awful).

I don't think that would give us "meaningful MP management" even then. In the end, meaningful MP management will essentially be just a matter of rewarding factor-dense understanding of a given fight in a particular situation (with the latter becoming decreasingly relevant as one's party increasingly optimizes / gits gud).

It's a matter of being rewarded for putting the best bets forward / putting your mana where your returns will be highest. That requires those bets being complex ones, which in turn requires there being a lot going on contextually.

That's the issue, though. unless they bring back Dark Arts as an actual ability that amplifies both offensives and defensives, MP will remain one side or the other, and the only way I see them doing this is if Dark Arts is toggleable like Eukrasia without a mana cost, since that would mean putting mp somewhere else that isn't damage. Which begs the question...how would that actually be able to be accomplished if DA were to be on a mana cost? They would obviously look for a way to refund such mp usage, but would that, then, remove any meaning behind it in the first place?

Something that comes to mind...is that Bloodspiller and Quietus could be used to regenerate such mp, and blood weapon could be smacked down to a 40s cooldown like it used to be. Using Dark Arts could give us..idk, 10-20 gauge per use?


On an entirely different thought, could our Blood Gauge and mp usage fuel our Darkside?

What I mean is, and this is basically ripped from reaper, we get a second meter, and it's our Darkside. When this meter fills, we get to use Living Shadow. This would obviously mean that it merges with us, empowers us, that whole bit we've discussed many times over. How often this would happen is up for debate (though I expect it would be either a 60s, 90s, or 120s thing). This would mean that the Blood Gauge has more importance than just being a beast gauge in disguise. Though, this does make it more of a Soul/Shroud gauge copy... I would sooner bring back DA as it was the core of DRK, but it's unclear what they would do with it that isn't just over-glorifying the tbn proc.

[Lyth]

You could make a case for revising DRK's resource system, based on the fact that MP regenerates during periods of forced downtime while most gauges do not.

Dark Arts was fine as a concept but its principle problem was around the frequency of use. For it to have any meaning over the current system, you need to be able to use it to situationally choose between two equivalently useful effects (i.e. physical and magical defense). I'm always wary about stances in this game, given how much it has historically struggled with registering stance changes.

[RyuDragnier]

What I think they can do to bring back DA and rework DRK:

Remove TBN's MP cost. Shattering TBN gives you a regen, an unshattered TBN heals you for whatever HP was left in the shield.
Bring back DA and give it the 3K MP cost. It buffs the next GCD by a percentage (10% maybe?).
Exchange Flood and Abyssal Drain so AD has the MP cost and Flood is linked to Carve and Spit.
AD gets a bigger cure potency, but gives no darkside.
Make Bloodspiller and Quietus cost Darkside duration to use (15s worth).
Delirium allows the use of Bloodspiller and Quietus without Darkside cost. It also gives a buff allowing use of Shadowbringer for the next 30s.
Living Shadow copies the next 3-5 GCDs the DRK uses at some % potency (so it's a gain, but not overwhelmingly so).

What this does is make Darkside duration another resource we're juggling. TBN is no longer attached to our damage but is still worth breaking. Our MP pool becomes used in one of 3 offensive ways, Edge for Darkside, DA for the buffed attacks, and AD for AoE damage with a heal. This change makes MP an actual resource we have to think about using instead of spamming Edge/DA on cooldown. This also links Shadowbringer to our kit instead of it being unlinked to anything, and improves the feel of Living Shadow.

[Oizen]

You could make a case for revising DRK's resource system, based on the fact that MP regenerates during periods of forced downtime while most gauges do not.

You know I hear this one a lot, and I have to say anyone who thinks DRK's dominance is coming from the fact that it regenerates mp during downtime doesn't really understand the game. For reference, this downtime mechanic has to be 45 seconds long for it to be a single use of Edge or TBN.
It has way more to do with the entire 2m Burst Meta, and how this game over-rewards Crit/DirectHit.

DRK's resource recovery in downtime refers far more to it having 5+ OGCDs all coming off cool down within those downtime mechanics, and these fights being built around the 2m window, which effectively skip DRK's weakest moments. (The 40 seconds of 123 spam after a burst window).

I don't disagree that something needs to change about this, but removing DRK's use of MP is probably the dumbest thing you could do with the job seeing as compared to its other two resources, MP is the only one that has a semblance of a thought behind it.

[Shurrikhan]

I guess what I mean is, I like buff windows, but not when all the damage is packed into that one single burst window, because some of that damage could be more spread to make the job leagues more interesting to play continuously. Which I suppose is a common sentiment with the whole 2-minute meta debacle.

Fair enough. And certainly agreed on the ultra-condensed damage/apm (or, rather the consequent relative scarcity of gameplay between those bursts) not being a good thing.

My point, though, was more that I don't really see much difference between having a damage window or not... if it doesn't constitute any sort of shifting means of optimization or management.

Both freedom and constraints have their potential advantages (even if freedom is currently rarely rewarded in this game due to the staleness of fight design regarding adds and/or brief but consequential DPS checks), with constraints also having plenty of ways to go as wrong as having, well, nothing, so I'm kind of indifferent to having a FoF/NM-equivalent on DRK to force banking even in situations without raid buffs or vulnerability windows / short DPS checks.

Though it's more how it's actually designed, is why I can still go back and play Reaper and enjoy it. The downtime is infinitely more enjoyable for me than most jobs in the game.

Makes sense. Until Endwalker, Samurai was that for me. And Monk still mostly is. (If going back as far as Stormblood, then you can add MCH, or as far back as HW, then also DRK, DRG, NIN, BRD, etc., if that's any indication of my perception on certain trends.)

That's the issue, though. unless they bring back Dark Arts as an actual ability that amplifies both offensives and defensives, MP will remain one side or the other

Is that such a bad thing? Like, I obviously get the appeal of gauging situations to gamble on what the best investment will be for ultimately consequent rDPS, and in having a larger range of options therein (from pure defensive to pure offensive), but as it stands, would it be so bad for MP to just be a means of making DRK's apm/dps that much more flexible (offensive), or having exceedingly granular control over its sustain (defensive)?

That's the issue, though. unless they bring back Dark Arts as an actual ability that amplifies both offensives and defensives, MP will remain one side or the other, and the only way I see them doing this is if Dark Arts is toggleable like Eukrasia without a mana cost, since that would mean putting mp somewhere else that isn't damage. Which begs the question...how would that actually be able to be accomplished if DA were to be on a mana cost? They would obviously look for a way to refund such mp usage, but would that, then, remove any meaning behind it in the first place?

Something that comes to mind...is that Bloodspiller and Quietus could be used to regenerate such mp, and blood weapon could be smacked down to a 40s cooldown like it used to be. Using Dark Arts could give us..idk, 10-20 gauge per use?

I... can't really say I see the point in worrying so much about the sources of MP before you've figured out what purpose in playflow DA is even supposed to serve?

If you reintroduce Dark Arts as an MP spender capable of offensive value, too, it makes little to no sense to leave Edge and Flood, just due to the sheer button-inefficiency of it.

If you then want more animations, moreover, that can still be accomplished just by replacing the single buffing action with any of various follow-up actions determined by one's most recent action, each with their own animation (SE->DA looks like Scourge and adds a DoT; CnS->DA launches forward a second self in a whirling flurry of shadowy blades; Syphon->DA steals buffs from nearby enemies; TNB->DA explodes the shield for damage based its damage absorbed; etc., etc.).

You don't even have to let overrides be especially a problem, as you can have cooldowns use their DA form by just hitting that same button again while it's on cooldown (and take a less directly/flatly augmentative approach as not to seem punishing for having lost the half-second in the skill's safety period to prevent double-hits), while just the weaponskills/spells would use the discrete DA button.

On an entirely different thought, could our Blood Gauge and mp usage fuel our Darkside?

What I mean is, and this is basically ripped from reaper, we get a second meter, and it's our Darkside. When this meter fills, we get to use Living Shadow.

I wouldn't be opposed, but I also don't see what difference it'd make apart from our not having it available on pull and making it punish downtime more?

If anything, I'd like to see such a gauge be used on our otherwise CDs for which any flexibility would otherwise just add to the gap between apm peaks and lulls, such as Shadowbringer and maybe one other skill that could interestingly compete with it, but even that doesn't seem worthwhile to me.


:: Edit: If I fail to respond, it's simply because I let my sub expire; been a bit too busy for MMOs in general of late, and am probably more likely to renew WoW for M+ and the occasional Battleground than to renew FFXIV atm. /shrug