Dark Knight Megathread

[MikoRemi]

Ah yes, nerf Warrior again so they can start at a low point at the beginning of an expansion until it becomes an issue(hello P8S if we want a more recent refresher), only to get buffed due to it being an issue which apparently also becomes an issue when the shoes on the other foot.

If you're already without hope for Dark Knight as a Dark Knight main, I pity you. I would love to see the tanks get closer so we avoid a situation where if you don't pick the good tank you're memeing in high tier content, but I want each tank to remain unique so we don't get any "discount Warrior" situation. I'm not even a main of the class and I would rather hope for that than have any disparity. You already got a Living Dead buff after so long and it's awesome, I want them to keep going with the positive changes.

Give more GCD's so there isn't just a single combo chain, let Dark Knight lean into its mana management so it can become an offensive and defensive powerhouse, lean into that identity of darkness and blood to leech the life and soul of your enemies for sustain, have it mitigate all damage since every other tank does that, even Paladin's block magic since forever ago and it was said that they would only ever be able to block physical. Those are just some of the things that would potentially be cool to see, but I know actual Dark Knight mains could come up with better without throwing other classes into the fire.

As the saying goes; You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Instead of throwing another job overboard to make your job look better, bring the other jobs closer to it then work on the mechanics from there.

[Zairava]

Ah yes, nerf Warrior again so they can start at a low point at the beginning of an expansion until it becomes an issue(hello P8S if we want a more recent refresher), only to get buffed due to it being an issue which apparently also becomes an issue when the shoes on the other foot.

If you're already without hope for Dark Knight as a Dark Knight main, I pity you. I would love to see the tanks get closer so we avoid a situation where if you don't pick the good tank you're memeing in high tier content, but I want each tank to remain unique so we don't get any "discount Warrior" situation. I'm not even a main of the class and I would rather hope for that than have any disparity. You already got a Living Dead buff after so long and it's awesome, I want them to keep going with the positive changes.

Give more GCD's so there isn't just a single combo chain, let Dark Knight lean into its mana management so it can become an offensive and defensive powerhouse, lean into that identity of darkness and blood to leech the life and soul of your enemies for sustain, have it mitigate all damage since every other tank does that, even Paladin's block magic since forever ago and it was said that they would only ever be able to block physical. Those are just some of the things that would potentially be cool to see, but I know actual Dark Knight mains could come up with better without throwing other classes into the fire.

As the saying goes; You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Instead of throwing another job overboard to make your job look better, bring the other jobs closer to it then work on the mechanics from there.

Man I really, really don't care about how much damage any tank is doing so long as it can clear the content. The issue is Warrior does literally everything better. All Dark Knight had going for it this expansion was the damage they probably accidentally gave the job, it's not my fault they've been torturing the job and its mains since Shadowbringers. We were forced to lean on that being the only thing we could provide that was better than WAR since we play near identically to it with NONE of the party sustain. WAR's party sustain needs to be nerfed, not its dps. The shield on Shake it off is already more than potent especially considering you can increase how much it shields with your own cooldowns if need be.

It would be a different story right now if they didn't bloody delete the entirety of DRK's combat identity so we actually brought something unique to the table, but alas.

Oh, and unless they make it so that sustain actually requires the slightest bit of brain power I'm not going to be a fan of it. I don't want it to be "press this one button congrats you have free benediction in dungeons", which includes just slapping it onto TBN.

[GoatOfWar]

Ah yes, nerf Warrior again so they can start at a low point at the beginning of an expansion until it becomes an issue(hello P8S if we want a more recent refresher), only to get buffed due to it being an issue which apparently also becomes an issue when the shoes on the other foot.

If you're already without hope for Dark Knight as a Dark Knight main, I pity you. I would love to see the tanks get closer so we avoid a situation where if you don't pick the good tank you're memeing in high tier content, but I want each tank to remain unique so we don't get any "discount Warrior" situation. I'm not even a main of the class and I would rather hope for that than have any disparity. You already got a Living Dead buff after so long and it's awesome, I want them to keep going with the positive changes.

Give more GCD's so there isn't just a single combo chain, let Dark Knight lean into its mana management so it can become an offensive and defensive powerhouse, lean into that identity of darkness and blood to leech the life and soul of your enemies for sustain, have it mitigate all damage since every other tank does that, even Paladin's block magic since forever ago and it was said that they would only ever be able to block physical. Those are just some of the things that would potentially be cool to see, but I know actual Dark Knight mains could come up with better without throwing other classes into the fire.

As the saying goes; You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Instead of throwing another job overboard to make your job look better, bring the other jobs closer to it then work on the mechanics from there.

P8s was an overtuned mess that also gave the players a buff during the burst that further exacerbated the dps difference. Terrible example.
I don't care for more damage buttons because any additional challenge is rendered pointless thanks to Warrior just doing the same (if not more) dps with a barebones rotation anyways. And we don't need more sustain because of how irrelevant healers are already becoming. Again, i don't care for Drk buffs. Warrior needs nerfs at this point. It's been soloing current content on normal and people are somehow convincing themselves that this is okay. It is a better maintank than the guy with a shield, a better dps than the selfish tank with the least sustain and utility, better healing and shielding than the holy knight and it has the best invuln. Something has to give. We don't need more powercreep. People are already clearing ultimates without healers using Pala/War setups.

Buff after buff after buff. It needs to stop.
You've received so many buffs, don't worry. Warrior will survive a couple nerfs.

[Oizen]

I mean its really not helping WAR's case that their skills all read like modern yugioh cards.
Take a drink every time you read "Additional Effect"

And no one is saying to nerf WAR's damage, the thing that made it not brought to p8s (which was nerfed anyway). Keep the damage, I don't care.

The shit that needs to be toned back is Shake it Off Overtime (revert this buff), Nascent and Bloodwhetting. I'd just remove overtime as it was never needed to begin with, make BW/NF only heal per gcd instead of target, and then remove the double dip from NF. If they want to replace it with a (small) direct heal on Nascent instead of constant lifesteal that be fine.

[Kalaam]

For a while I thought each tank kind of had its gimmick as to how they tanked:
PLD would be raw damage reduction with % and some direct healing through committed ability use (clemency)
DRK with single target shield/tempHP and less versatile but more powerful magic damage mitigation. (and for a time stuff like blind to deal with packs of trash, where shields aren't as useful)
GND seemed to a little bit of everything (getting a bit of heal and shield in its base combo) supporting a fairly sturdy regen.
And WAR with just big lifesteal to soak up the damage back.

But now WAR has like... everything. Big shields, big direct heal, big regen, big damage reduction. All the ways you can reduce damage WAR can do it as well or better than the other tanks.
I always figured WAR would be a tank that works by having a very big HP pool and ways to "shrug it off" either by having regen or effects that increase healing received tremendously or increase their total HP even more.

[Rithy255]

The Sustain topic is Interesting...

I think it's gotten out of hand with Warrior in particular, obviously one of the "key identity" of warrior was the high sustain (and high hp which is kinda lost), But when warrior has, on par mitigation, the best invul, simple rotation and insane sustain the problem becomes Warrior is just best at everything and isn't hard to pick up.

I personally Don't want buffed sustain like warrior, I think PLD's magic healing is already too much, Holy Shelton is fine, I would prefer a smaller amount of healing somewhere else. (Such as a way to make clemency OGCD once per minute or something, instead of all that burst self healing from magic attacks). Gunbreakers Sustain is in a great spot, Dark Knight I Ideally feel like it needs a overhaul in it's DPS rotation and some of it's defensive value such as Dark Mind (magic only defensive is kinda just... why? It's really good in raids but bad in dungeons? honestly just make it 20% it wouldn't change in high end duties), I wouldn't mind a slow drain sustain on DRK, but in general it doesn't need loads of free sustain.

if players want to avoid "homogenization" Then we do need tanks to fulfil slightly different purposes while also being viable, It's not a easy ask all the time, But If one tank isn't performing like the rest and needs damage buffs why is it also getting utility buffs? when that wasn't the issue in the first place. I personally want variations and differences in the game, but at the same time if people carry on to complain that "x isn't doing enough dps" (when it's perfectly viable, this was the case outside 6.2), then expect the jobs to have less Varity.

Personally warrior needs utility tuned down going into next expansion, all tanks could do with some tweaks here and there, I just hope dark knight gets a new rotation and is less OGCD heavy and more GCD complex. (also make it look more magic)

[Kalaam]

Straight up give +50 or +100% HP on warrior but low damage reduction stuff. It just takes the hits as is (outside of a few 120/90s cd) and then recovers.

[Shurrikhan]

Straight up give +50 or +100% HP on warrior but low damage reduction stuff. It just takes the hits as is (outside of a few 120/90s cd) and then recovers.

Okay, so let's think that through...

Even a whopping 50% mitigation only offers +100% eHP. Your +100% HP for WARs... would have WAR's walking around with the same eHP as every other tank having stacked their 2-minute and 90s CDs together... permanently.

And since you've nerfed the WAR's mitigation in "compensation"... there really is very little point in their actually using those CDs. They can meet virtually all tanking requirements by just... existing.

Now, +20% to +25% HP, atop a means of sustain that may require some loss of aDPS in order to maximize said sustain (such as per old Nascent Flash) so that WARs could decide for themselves whether to have best- or near-best in role damage or best-in-role sustain, but not both through a kit that allows for and builds off of those compromises? That would still be in the ballpark of sanity.

Not +50%, though. And certainly not +100%.

[Rithy255]

Straight up give +50 or +100% HP on warrior but low damage reduction stuff. It just takes the hits as is (outside of a few 120/90s cd) and then recovers.

Personally I'd give warrior 20-25% Extra Hp / GNB 10% More hp, such as PVP where hp differences is something. (anything above 25% is too much)

Warrior would have lower damage reduction stuff, but enough to survive encounters ideally, I guess I'd like warrior to get more of a interesting rotation if it's already just passively better then most tanks with a massive base Hp buff, So maybe give to more gauge spenders and stuff lol.

Other tanks should be able to more then make up for that with strong defensive skills.

[Kalaam]

Okay, so let's think that through...

Even a whopping 50% mitigation only offers +100% eHP. Your +100% HP for WARs... would have WAR's walking around with the same eHP as every other tank having stacked their 2-minute and 90s CDs together... permanently.

And since you've nerfed the WAR's mitigation in "compensation"... there really is very little point in their actually using those CDs. They can meet virtually all tanking requirements by just... existing.

Now, +20% to +25% HP, atop a means of sustain that may require some loss of aDPS in order to maximize said sustain (such as per old Nascent Flash) so that WARs could decide for themselves whether to have best- or near-best in role damage or best-in-role sustain, but not both through a kit that allows for and builds off of those compromises? That would still be in the ballpark of sanity.

Not +50%, though. And certainly not +100%.

Of course the numbers are give are unthought examples, just to give an idea.
Thanks for doing the calculation and showing it would have actual value, now just needs to figure the right number.