Dark Knight needs serious help

[MikoRemi]

Is the answer to revert Warrior healing to what it was in Shadowbringers? Tank damage right now is about as balanced as it could possibly be so I don't think that is the issue that should be focused on.

That’s what a vocal minority will say sadly even though in DRK’s case, I’d rather it just get buffed up so nobody gets screwed over. It’s more likely to happen too, but because WAR is doing well once again, it’s simpler to just ask for nerfs.

Pretty sad despite the reasoning, but it is what it is around here.

[Rithy255]

That’s what a vocal minority will say sadly even though in DRK’s case, I’d rather it just get buffed up so nobody gets screwed over. It’s more likely to happen too, but because WAR is doing well once again, it’s simpler to just ask for nerfs.

Pretty sad despite the reasoning, but it is what it is around here.

I'm personally not asking for "warrior nerfs" I want warrior to be reworked, I want dark knight to be reworked. I do think the current state of warrior is unhealthy but we've already discussed this so much.

I don't want warrior to be useless, I just think the state of warrior right now it's... simple... boring and pretty meta dps wise, I'd love for warrior to be reworked or even similar to what we have in shadowbringers (which i found much more fun, without the AOE healing aspect tho) On the same note I don't understand why people even like current dark knight to me it just feels like a spam bland 1, 2, 3 job.

[MikoRemi]

Snip

It'd most certainly be a nerf to lose our sustaining skill yes. There's a reason it got turned into what it is, everyone was throwing it around in SHB in general even as the MT, because the healing was really good to use. Now we have the cooldown for ourselves and the support which is a better system. Shadowbringers WAR was ok, the lack of stacks made it remain eh to spam the Fell Cleave's especially for those with higher ping or not building into whatever the best skill speed is. I can't remember 100% of every single thing about WAR from every single patch as memory can only recall so much for me personally, but each expansion has WAR building more upon itself regardless. WAR doesn't really need a rework, the jobs that are more of a problem need that, like BRD but that's for DPS threads.

I'm fine keeping it as the simpler job for people to play, if they want more complexity that's what the other tank jobs are for. PLD for needing to know how to utilize the full support skill set, DRK for the MP management and OGCD ham time, or GNB for combo/burst city. Most I'd want is the physical reflect on Vengeance removed because it's situational and also follows the old ARR trapping of things like Low Blow having potency attached to it at the time along with the stun, so nobody ever used it for the stun even when it was actually a good idea for things like Ifrit at the time(I just want the mit to be a mit). Also just remove the bind effect on HG because really, who uses it for that effect? It's just a silly trap for people who don't realize killing the bound enemy removes the buff, and you can't just use it as an invuln normally for certain situations. Maybe bring back Butcher's Block as a third GCD finisher, although I don't know what they'd do with it. I just miss the animation personally so I'll throw my hands up on that one.

DRK is an unfortunate creature as it hardly gets the buffs it should get but it doesn't help when so many want to focus on tearing down WAR as shown in a lot of threads which yes, we've discussed plenty. It's not a good mentality. It doesn't help that DRK gets stuck with only a single combo path when they used to have two at the time, it wouldn't be that much more difficult to implement really. I can get some people just like it for the aesthetic and lore as well as being OGCD heavy but a little more freeform than the tightness of GNB so it's a little less boring. Me, I'm fine having a slow and steady job that rips and tears fine enough so WAR fits and has fit for awhile. I don't need it to go backwards the same way DRK's wouldn't want old Living Dead back.

I will at least say, you're one of the more healthier minds in regards to discussion, and I do appreciate it really.

[Rithy255]

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I think you're right that warrior should be simple, I don't think it needs to be complex, but that's what shadowbringers warrior already achieved without sacrificing some more interesting aspects like having your ogcd/gap closer tied to gauge and choosing from a healing only defensive and a defensive mitigation on a shared CD, I feel like personally SHB warrior was already in a fun spot for what it did.

Why people may not like warriors current design is more that the perceive "power level" has been overblown a bit in general, but it does still stand that it's currently one of the better tanks with barely any "downsides" and while buffing everything to its level may solve the issue i think this in a way will result in the game feeling more bland in terms of "job design" if we kept buffing jobs to cospeciate for each others weaknesses, In reality I feel that we need "upsides" to jobs in the same category to avoid each feeling bland. My main issue like i've said previously is the AOE healing and the party healing aspects, but the latter is more of a disagreement on warriors design choices (personally I'd love warrior to have a raid wide that "intimidates" the enemy reducing the enemies damage by 15% instead of shake), But I do think the high sustain playstyle can be fun, I just preferred how it felt in shb. The only "unhealthy" aspect is mainly the AOE healing part which I don't think just giving healers more dps is the actual solution. (SHB had issues imo but was more fun for the most part, I still disagree with the aoe healing aspect)

I get that you really enjoy warrior in it's current form and it might be frustrating when people want to take that away from you, but I think the frustration comes in that 1. Healers feel like they've had their main job from them took especially in dungeon content (which is popular even if it's not high end duties), 2. Other tanks feel like warrior does way too much compared to them but they dont really like the idea of being buffed to warrior levels.

It's hard because theirs likely a good amount of people who love current warrior (it's the most popular tank for a reason), but theirs likely a big amount of healers/tanks that direct their own frustrations to the job, I think partly some of that is valid but it also comes across like warrior is some amazing over performing job when in reality it just has a lot of strong value, it's not even that far off from other tanks in current content (even dungeons pulls are super easy for every tank at this point)

my personal "solution" might not be your ideal, but again I really dont want them to just nerf warrior and make other tanks better, I honestly like how warrior looks as a job but just get bored with how it plays, I'd honestly hope for warrior to keep their identity of the sustain tank and even if they do nerf that in some capacity they could buff other aspects of warrior to make that nerfing hurt less... But I don't even want them to "nerf" warrior I want a small rework personally but that's something we may just have to agree to disagree on.

[Marxam]

Is the answer to revert Warrior healing to what it was in Shadowbringers? Tank damage right now is about as balanced as it could possibly be so I don't think that is the issue that should be focused on.

NF in ShB was actually stronger than it is now. It synergized with Vengeance counter attacks, auto-attacks, and ogcds, in addition to gcds. It was also based of dmg and not cure potency so getting those direct hit crits really increased your healing. The only downside is that it was feast or famine when it came to healing with NF. If you had only gcds or heaven forbid was out of range doing a mechanic and you were spamming tomahawk it was a wasted cd but on the flip side you can heal back to nearly full hp while still being MT if you were in IR window with your gcds.

Their way of "balancing" WAR's healing was to only have single target bosses because in those scenarios its roughly on par with the other defensive cds from other tanks. Regardless, as a whole, I think tank cds are too strong, bosses hit like wet noodles, and healers are carried hard by fight design. If they want to fix DRK they need to first figure out what DRK actually is both conceptually and thematically. Basing a tank's main job design as "dealing the most damage" is the most shallow and lazy thought process because it only takes one patch or hotfix of potency buffs for other tanks to make that irrelevant.

[Lyth]

DRK's concept and theme are relatively straightforward. That's not the problem. The problem is that there's a historic precedent of making DRK actions punishing rather than rewarding. Dark Mind and Dark Missionary can't be used outside of specific damage types. You have to give up lifesteal to use a single target Carve and Spit. Living Dead is the only player action in the game that can kill you. TBN costs damage if it doesn't break.

RPR has the exact same aesthetic, except pitched at the melee dps group. Could you imagine if Arcane Circle cost damage to use? It's a barrier shield. Time it correctly, and it becomes a raidwide regen. That's a reward, not a punishment. That's not to mention some incredibly unique moves - the best movement action in the game bar none, and a fast paced 1.5s GCD burst that allows for some really interesting situational optimization with Double vs. Triple Enshroud, because the gauge actually lets you stock up beyond what you normally require at two minutes.

There are a lot of changes that could benefit DRK.

• Make Dark Mind and Dark Missionary into barrier effects that work against all damage types. Let them apply movement speed boosts (after all, darkness governs activity and movement).
• Merge Oblation and TBN, remove the cost, and leave it on two charges. If it breaks, it heals the target.
• Merge Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain into a singular Abyssal Strike that drains HP, MP, and works in both single target and AoE. Perhaps have it scale inversely with MP.
• Add blood to every step of your base combo rather than pooling it all into Souleater, and increase the size of the gauge such that you can stockpile more resources in preparation for burst.
• Move the lifesteal off of Souleater to the blood actions, so the healing effect becomes more of a deliberate decision, while giving you the option to heal up with it in AoE as well.
• Add a combo step after Bloodspiller, and make both steps have a faster GCD. This incidentally turns Delirium into a 6 GCD burst with a speedboost.
• Make Living Shadow interact with your toolkit, perhaps matching your Edge/Shadow weaves for extra damage.
• Give Salted Earth a defensive value, either reducing incoming damage or absorbing HP. Update the gapcloser - fixed distance movement abilities are in vogue for a reason. A forward/backward dash is incredibly versatile when not tied to damage, and makes for fun tricks in places like Criterion where you have to work for your uptime.
• Bring back counterattacks - what made Reprisal so loved wasn't even the debuff, it was the aesthetic of having an exploding stab counter. Counters are one of the really unique features that tank gameplay can bring to the table that melee dps cannot.

WAR has its own set of issues as well, but the biggest problem is that the job is entirely propped up by its powercreep rather than actually being interesting to play. The core job design is showing its age and it has incredibly stale gameplay. Many of the actions are 13 years old. The entire job needs a refresh so that players actually want to play it for the gameplay, rather than its recurring FotM status and ease of use. The biggest problem with the self-healing is that there's no actual strategy or thought in its use.

Also, they really need to bring the invulns closer in line with each other. There really shouldn't be a 3 minute recast difference between tank invulns. Holmgang should be on 5 minutes at absolute minimum, and you could make a case for moving Hallowed to 6 minutes if you had a way to compensate Superbolide appropriately.

[GoatOfWar]

DRK's concept and theme are relatively straightforward. That's not the problem. The problem is that there's a historic precedent of making DRK actions punishing rather than rewarding. Dark Mind and Dark Missionary can't be used outside of specific damage types. You have to give up lifesteal to use a single target Carve and Spit. Living Dead is the only player action in the game that can kill you. TBN costs damage if it doesn't break.

Well, the Warrior police force gets mad if any tank does something better than War and they will cry and bitch about it until Warrior is the undisputed king of everything. You can't have interesting and rewarding mechanics as long as Warrior and it's barebones thoughtless kit exists, because every time you make something rewarding, that means you leave them out. So any sort of interesting mechanic ends up being unrewarding jank and ultimately removed until all the tanks are equally as lame to play. Warrior is grossly over represented online and any sort of concerns raised by tank mains online is drowned by ridicule, gaslighting or downvotes. They genuinely don't see a problem with Warrior being a direct upgrade over Dark knight in every conceivable way. And people who don't play tank engaging in any sort of debate come in there in bad faith, parroting things a certain bald streamer has said.

I genuinely wish Warrior didn't exist, because none of the other tank mains have a similar obnoxious online presence and chokehold on job design.

[Absurdity]

I genuinely wish Warrior didn't exist, because none of the other tank mains have a similar obnoxious online presence and chokehold on job design.

Pretty ironic coming from someone who has complained about Warrior over and over and over again since 6.4

[MikoRemi]

Pretty ironic coming from someone who has complained about Warrior over and over and over again since 6.4

But haven't you heard? Warrior's are the cause for all the problems of tanking! If people say it enough, it surely will be true! /kek

Even though most WAR mains either keep to themselves or want other tanks to get better if were being honest here. I'd certainly want to see a more positive direction rather than tearing down good jobs.

[Rithy255]

But haven't you heard? Warrior's are the cause for all the problems of tanking! If people say it enough, it surely will be true! /kek

Even though most WAR mains either keep to themselves or want other tanks to get better if were being honest here. I'd certainly want to see a more positive direction rather than tearing down good jobs.

I'm thinking tanks are likely a bit too good right now more then anything, warrior seems to be easy to point to because of it's absurd healing (which i think is perfectly fine for trial content and self). I do get where people are coming from with its aoe healing and shake regen (maybe I'd be more happy if they gave the magic knight tank more team healing then self healing lol). I don't think warrior is the issue in reality but in general the tanks are just way too defensive as of current which ironically makes them feel more like boring dps because they barely have to worry about defensive management.

I think we're at a point where we need to address tank design in general though has reached to a level where they're all way too defensive and need to be toned down... Dark Knight honestly is really good still just feels clunky and miserable to play for me.

I personally dislike the idea of buffing everything over and over that's how we got to this power creep state with tanks, I don't think nerfing tanks would be a bad idea if it was done together as a rebalance, or failing to do so they can increase the damage of duties? but I doubt they'd do that in any meaningful way.