Dark Knight Megathread

[ItsUrBoi]

Is TBN's CD-halving-mechanic (relative to a standard 25s) even worth calling Dark Arts in a more historically- or possibility-minded thread? "Dark Arts" by any meaningful label is the next-action-augmenting ability, not just a means of adding some further optimization to TBN's timing.

Feels like we should just call this something separate for clarity?


Then you'd have increased each TBN's value by a further 506 cure potency and 76 offensive potency, forcing it to be used as near as possible to per-CD for purposes other than actual mitigation.


Because you otherwise just end up taking sustain/damage you could have had in a more interesting/effective manner pigeon-holed behind popping TBN on CD. You're already getting more mitigation (not more sustain [non-wasted healing + damage nullified], but yes, more mitigation) against most rates of damage per minute than other on-demands. It doesn't need to be made less bankable/nuanced just to have other, let alone damage-increasing, effects sprout out of it.

I don't exactly see what you mean, and from what I understood I don't exactly agree. The damage you take in almost every fight I can think of is a combination of very high burst ( Ex: any tankbuster ) or sustained damage ( Ex: Auto attacks ), but regardless of the category you can always predict when that damage is going to happen. The job has no healing in its kit specifically because of TBN being a short CD shield, but using it too often results in a dps loss due to a lack of MP in the upcoming burst window. How would you use TBN for purposes other than actual mitigation? Every scenario you are literally mitigating something yourself or helping someone else do it - and if you end up in a scenario where you got a tank buster coming but you used it before to absorb damage from let's say an auto attack, your still in a decent spot because you'd be at lower HP had you not used it.

I recently switched to WAR and GNB for savage and ultimate content and its so much better than DRK in the term of how you approach damage you take:
-> DRK's Dark Mind is either god like as a cooldown or completely useless in any given fight, no middle ground really.
-> The lack of healing ( healing is a type of mitigation ) is incredibly bad in scenarios where you take successive hits. A Warrior can use equilibrium to heal himself in a 3 part tank buster after the first or 2nd hit, a DRK cannot.
-> TBN's shield is only really good for 1 big attack as a damage reduction cooldown would be better against successive hits.
-> Solo content is miserable on the job due to this lack of healing. Group content is heavily reliant on competent healers, and that's good - however every other tank can make up for a healer's slight mistake by using a 60sec CD.
-> The point that DRK is good against one big magical attack is true, but so are other jobs that can increase their maximum HP buffer ( Ex: WAR )

I have been playing this job for a long time and my biggest problems with it functionally are that:
-> Bloodspiller does not heal you at all. You can do around x3 to x5 of them and get no healing.
-> I cannot heal myself at all. On a tank that's really bad, especially when every other tank can do it, people get used to that and forget DRK is sort of handicapped. Should it have healing to the degree of WAR? No. It should be somewhere lower than GNB, or around that in my opinion.
-> Dark Mind is the cooldown of extremes, in certain fights its really good, in others you do not use it. How about something like 10% damage reduction with an additional effect of another 10% only magical damage reduction?
-> Oblation is very underwhelming. What if instead it gave you 5 stacks of Oblation, each stack healing you for 200 potency when hit? Or each stack is a small shield similar to SGE's Haima?
-> Abyssal Drain could be used more often in dungeons, for example every 20 seconds?
-> You barely use Dark Arts. Ideally you should use it once every 2 minutes to store 1 extra EoS for it to be used within raid buffs.

From a feeling standpoint:
-> Delirium is very similar to Inner Release
-> Blood gauge to the Beast Gauge
-> Living Shadow is boring.