Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

What DRK lack :

• No synergy between job action, almost everything is disjointed.

Okay, but what exactly do you mean by "synergy" here and what implementation of that "synergy" would be a net improvement?

If you mean one ability buffing another, the vast majority of the time that "synergy" is just a euphemism for either...

• "bundling" or "codependence" if there is only a singular buffer, such that A only sees use through buffing B or B can only be buffed by A, or
• "ramp-up" if the buffers apply broadly, such as having to open combat with a damage buff.

Those involve trade-offs, even though their negatives may be reducible. In the first case, for instance, you may have a flexible spender if the singular buffer or its shared resource costs can nonetheless affect multiple skills in different ways (as per Dark Arts), but that then means your base skills are weaker. That leaves you with a further issue to hammer out -- responsiveness.

(Luckily, that's easily done by flipping the DA-like effect from a buff to a dynamic follow-up skill, especially if it's done without a player-animation and therefore "animation-lock" [the period after each player action for which not further player actions can be executed, equal to 0.5s + roundtrip ping].)

That said, there are other ways of looking at synergies beyond what is obvious simply from tooltips. Much like in a card game where you need to manage certain functions, fill certain needs at/by certain times, etc., skills can be complementary or supplementary to each other without needing to specifically include among their "Additional Effects" some reference to another skill or apply broad buffs to all.

Heck, whether a broad buff even applies a synergy or not is contextual; if a Haste buff doesn't actually provide enough value to make a rotational difference (or especially, one with disproportionate impact), it's harder to call that a real "synergy".

While that contextual synergy is, of course, not going to feature as obviously in a game where "burst" is largely no different from "sustain" except in how much they depend on multiplicative returns via stacked raid buffs (ultimately, from composition), but it's worth considering.

Touch of Death and Fracture weren't useful to Monk just because they were DoTs, nor was Yaten-Enpi useful to Samurai just because it was a ranged attack. The first pair were useful because they were non-positional and in part because their tuning wasn't that high, allowing them to be held at little cost in order to sync rotations or even guarantee a full-powered hit against a boss that would turn wildly during that GCD. Yaten-Enpi, in turn, could compensate for a single GCD of overclock where one would otherwise only be able to move a minimum of two GCDs.

A DRK set up in such a way as to appreciate the difference between, or appreciate both among, synergies that are on-paper (one skill's "Additional Effect" referencing another) and in-practice (context allowing a skill to have varied uses that draw a disproportionately improved effect from other parts of the kit even despite zero mention of those synergies in tooltips) would be, I'd imagine, a far more involved job than simply one with an extra mechanic added atop everything and embedded into each tooltip.

That's not an either-or, mind you. I'm a fan of bringing back a revised Dark Arts, not replacing that direction with this, and the one would likely help the other. But I feel we should be looking at more ambitious ends than just on-paper synergies.

[Oizen]

->Living Shadow change to be No Mercy but cooler visual effects please?

I'd rather have Living shadow as it is now then turning it into a boring 3rd buff skill, on top of Blood Weapon and Delirium, that solely says "do more damage"

[Shurrikhan]

I'd rather have Living shadow as it is now then turning it into a boring 3rd buff skill, on top of Blood Weapon and Delirium, that solely says "do more damage"

Why, though? A DoT, unless specifically given some connecting additional effect that influences the use of another ability or requiring sync into a +%damage CD, doesn't have any interaction. A damage multiplier, on the other hand, inherently advantages syncing (to) it in order to increase the (bonus) potency dealt over that duration. It's... inherently more than any single source of potency.

With Living Shadow a simple oGCD attack, DoT or otherwise, it's one among several. Were Living Shadow a damage window, it'd be DRK's first -- hardly redundant. Neither is unique nor ideal, but the latter is still generally better than the first, I would think, especially if flexible in its timing to better allow for sync and if the typical time to cool would desync from others so that you have a with- and without alternating rhythm.

(No, Blood Weapon and Delirium are not "damage buffs", at least by any typical definition -- i.e., unless you'd also call Bloodspiller or Shadowbringer a damage buff. They're free-casts / resource CDs.)

[The_User]

After all what they did to us. You're still believe that "we should be looking at more ambitious ends"??


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"Luckily, that's easily done by flipping the DA-like effect from a buff to a dynamic follow-up skill"


You mean DA+some gcd=DA turn to an ogcd attack? if so I believe it has already been suggested and responded with radio silence.

[Lyth]

...

Worth noting that all of the other short recast upgrades also have a healing effect attached (Catharsis of Corundum/Knight's Benediction/Bloodwhetting's lifesteal). Oblation is just a flat 10% DR cooldown without any healing attached, and you can't even apply it to every TBN if you wanted to.

Not that this is at all hard to work around. Just follow Catharsis of Corundum's design.

The Blackest Night: Creates a barrier around self or target party member totally 25% of target's maximum HP. Duration 7 seconds. Grants Dark Arts when barrier is completely absorbed.
Additional Effect: Grants Oblation to target.
Oblation Effect: Heals X% of damage absorbed by The Blackest Night. When The Blackest Night expires (i.e. due to either damage or the buff duration), grants target a barrier totaling Y% of target's maximum HP.

Now you have parity and you can keep the playstyle.

[ItsUrBoi]

In all honesty I think Square Enix has added a decent amount of skills as a base for perfecting the job.

->Add a trait that if you enter Salted Earth's area you get a regeneration effect. The effect remains even after leaving the area. Using Salt and Darkness instantly heals you.

-> move Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain to the GCd with short cooldowns of 30 seconds.

-> Add a trait that when completing a Souleater combo of a Stalwart Soul combo the cooldown of Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain is reduced by 3 seconds and 2 seconds respectively.

-> Delirium changed to grant a combo that costs Bloodgauge per attack. A long combo of 5 actions would set it aside from GNB or PLD. You have space for this in your GCD burst window as right now its x3 Bloodspiller and Hard Slash, Syphoon Strike and Souleater.

-> Living Shadow would be much better as a damage buff as it would at least interact with your kit even if its similar to other tanks. The visual indicator of on your UI would fit too.

-> Move Dark Missionary to some level below 70 so you can use it in UCOB and UWU please.

-> Merge and change some defensive cooldowns. For example:
1. Before level 70, you have 2 charges of Dark Mind, giving 10% damage reduction for 10 seconds with 60 sec cooldown / charge.
2. At 70 you gain TBN.
3. At 82, Dark Mind upgrades to Oblation which gives an additional 20% magic damage reduction.

-> Add a new defensive / utility action that can be something like:
1. Stores damage taken, when reactivated or upon effect expiration you heal for a portion of damage taken.
2. Mark target, if you kill it quickly you gain MP and HP, otherwise only HP.
3. Instantly heal yourself for 550 potency, consuming 15 seconds of Darkside.

Did I miss something?

[fulminating]

Dropping dark mind to 39ish so you can use it on the sprites in stone vigil.

[Zairava]

I'd rather have Living shadow as it is now then turning it into a boring 3rd buff skill, on top of Blood Weapon and Delirium, that solely says "do more damage"

..Why? So you would rather have a boring over-glorified DoT that has 0 interaction with the rest of the kit instead of something that actually creates kit cohesion?

My response is basically Shurrikhan's. Blood Weapon and Delirium are not damage buffs. As they have stated before me, they are resource generators, Delirium merely negates the one resource required to use Bloodspiller 3 times, which isn't a "damage buff" in the definition we generally use the term for.

snipped to reduce text

That's more or less the gist I feel. I will discuss something with Salt and Darkness, though.

I think we could get away with merging one more time. Likely Bloodspiller and Quietus?

This is a bit of a long shot, but...what if we added a functionality to Salt and Darkness? My proposition is that it has its own damage potency upon activation, but have it ALSO deal the damage that would have been dealt with the remainder of Salted Earth's timer. In other words, ending Salted Earth early to get a maximum situational benefit.

The only thing that's missing is returning Shadowskin as a low level TBN. A 10% or 15% shield perhaps?

[ItsUrBoi]

The only thing that's missing is returning Shadowskin as a low level TBN. A 10% or 15% shield perhaps?

You can use Dark Mind at lower levels tbh. 10% mitigation should be enough, low level tank busters don't hit that hard I think.
Here's another idea I came up with that to be completely honest is pretty balanced. If you take away TBN as DRK's "healing" alternative you are left with very little in terms of mitigation: Dark Mind and Oblation. Therefore Dark Knight could use a healing skill, of which were given a lot of options but here's another one:

"Dark Passenger" toggleable action, obtained at level 58.
-> Marks an ally with "Dark Passenger"
Dark Passenger effect: Healing effects of certain abilities are given to marked ally. Marking yourself will give you the effects instead.

"Enhanced Darkside" trait, obtained at level 40
-> Adds a heal over time effect to Edge/Flood of Darkness

Similar effects could be changed to trigger without another trait, such as when a target takes damage ( marked target ) as it might be similar to SGE's Kardia.

[Oizen]

..Why? So you would rather have a boring over-glorified DoT that has 0 interaction with the rest of the kit instead of something that actually creates kit cohesion?

Because a plus damage buff a plus damage bufskill is inherently the least interesting, most boring thing you can give a job.
I agree Living Shadow isn't much, but it has more flavor and niche uses than making DRK hit three self buffs every 2 minutes. Didn't mean to imply that BW or Delrium were damage buffs, just hitting 3 self buffs every burst window seems monotonous. And no pointing out that its a DoT doesn't make me hate it, I don't even hate Salted Earth. DoTs are fine to me, and have some useful application in underappreciated content in this game.
Meanwhile the "kit cohesion" you're talking about is literally, press button to do more damage for 20 seconds, bet you it would even have a 2 minute cooldown and line up perfectly with buff windows. Which in my honest opinion has been the bane of job design for all of Endwalker, but thats another discussion.

It also wouldn't make much sense from a balance perspective. The reason WAR and DRK don't have +20% damage skills like PLD and GNB is because they have +10% damage buffs with 100% uptime.

I also am just generally not a fan of people who are in favor of more homogenization, especially for tanks. People cry about DRK having so many removed skills, yet when it comes to talking about its balance they want to remove more skills and give it skills that already exist on other tanks? Thats what got us here in the first place.

Expand whats already there rather than cutting more away to make the job even more inline with the others.