Dark Knight Megathread

[DRKoftheAzure]

Not quite. It's just an shuffling of what levels skills are acquired at.

Let's start with ARR. Let's say it gives 20 additions (new actions or gameplay-affecting or otherwise significant traits) over its 50 levels. You'd put the first 15 of those at 1-29 (every 2 levels), and the remaining 5 over 30-50 (every 5 levels). You get the gameplay earlier.

HW then adds at least 5 additions, granted every 2 levels.

That's fine while it's new, but once it's old, you just add it to the lv30+ pile and distribute it more evenly. So rather than getting 5 skills over 30-50 (per 5 levels) and 5 skills over 51-60 (per 2 levels), you'd get a new skill every 3 levels, with 2 of the HW skills being made available earlier (as early as level 45).

Once Shadowbringers comes out, the additions from Stormblood are likewise more evenly distributed. Instead of an addition per 3 levels 30-60 and per 2 levels 61-70, you average an addition per 2.67 levels, with some slight adjustments to fit a new consistent rhythm (32, 35, 37, 40, 42, 45, 47, 50, 52, 55, 57, 60, 62, 65, 67, 70).

Etc., etc. That'd be what you call a roll-in model that would keep each expansion relatively fleshed out but wouldn't overly delay kit depth in the longer term.

And of course, what I want in general doesn't need to be anything so elaborate as that, so long as the kit is pretty solid by level 50, rather than needing to hit 60 or 70 to feel fleshed out.

Okay, but if you had to have a band-aid fix for level sync until this system got properly implemented, would you make it so that level sync let you keep all of the abilities and traits you have unlocked before syncing down? For example a Dark Knight that is level 82, would it keep all abilities they have learned at that if they were synced down to, let's say, Sastasha?

Again, though, the opener only needs about 2 more weave spaces. Those 2 weave spaces are all that stand between "enough room to do my mitigation/taunts/job without damage loss" and "not enough room to do my mitigation/taunts/job without damage loss." 3 if we really wanted to be comfortable.

Now, if you turn our opener into 1.5s GCDs, though, we go from having 16 weave spaces between the nine 2.5s GCDs skills we can fit within those 20s to just 14 weave spaces between those fourteen 1.5s GCDs skills that one can fit within those 20 seconds. You actually make it worse.

This is because each GCD of 2.4s or greater room for 4 actions (including the weaponskill) at very low ping, while a 1.5s GCD has room only for 2 actions, despite taking up a 60% GCD. (Yes, players at very low ping or using a plugin to undo the netcode's self-sabotage can weave 3 oGCDs per GCD, but even they will clip trying to weave a second oGCD into a 1.5s GCD.) The 1.5s GCD, atop making Skill Speed worthless, leaves more than you cannot use (.3s, up from .1s).

For the pre-pull opener, at least for my idea of the rework I gave, outside of maintenance buffs like Grit and my Darkside rework idea, it would start with Unmend, Dark Arts, Sole Survivor, the 1.5 GCD combo, with at least 1 Plunges in between each GCD, Blood gauge combo powered up by Blood Arts, with the second Sole Survivor before just as the first one falls off in between this combo, MP Spender combo, with both Abyssal Drains if they are oGCDs, Blood gauge combo since you should have in theory have about over 50 blood gauge at this point, with Souleater combo with the occasional blood combo and Dark Arts combo as filler, which should be enough time to pop defensive cooldowns as needed like Dark Missionary/Reprisal for raidwides, or TBN + whatever else for tankbusters, though for TBN if it happens during blood arts burst and it breaks and break, you go back to Dark Arts burst, though I am aware that overcapping might be an issue here especially at the 15 second mark for one of the pity systems for Dark Arts generation, since I don't know when a tank buster USUALLY goes off in boss fights, though for dungeons this MIGHT NOT be a problem, since it is casual content. I'm still trying to figure out how to iron out the kinks in the pity system for Dark Arts, hence why I also suggested Abyssal Drain also be a Dark Arts spender that grants blood arts if Dark Arts overcapping was going to be an issues since Blood Arts over capping might also be an issue as well. which is where Quietus comes in. Just a rough idea of what the opener would look like, so obviously some optimization would be needed.

Those models both covered almost solely the "filler" weaponskills, yes.

That was my main concern so I'm glad that is indeed the case.

[Shurrikhan]

Okay, but if you had to have a band-aid fix for level sync until this system got properly implemented, would you make it so that level sync let you keep all of the abilities and traits you have unlocked before syncing down? For example a Dark Knight that is level 82, would it keep all abilities they have learned at that if they were synced down to, let's say, Sastasha?

Probably not, honestly. The Limited Leveling Roulette option already removed any chance of getting saddled with a low-level dungeon without that being a function of you doing what the roulette was intended to do (help support queues).

While I wouldn't personally mind the option to work harder for the same throughput (me doing perfect Optimal Drift rotations and demanding perfectly paced pulls from my tank while the actual level 18 just goes 123 12(4)3 123 123 for roughly equal output), it just doesn't seem particularly necessary to muddle new players' experiences in that way, nor would you be able to meet the limits of new sustain (be they healing or mitigation) actions and traits particularly well through scaling alone; you'd also want those outright new attacks, which might not be something you could attach dynamically rather than as a different preset version of the instance.

No, I suspect that tech would be used more for the ability to basically make "Unreal" content on demand, and perhaps have an actual Dungeon Roulette (all the player-favorite dungeons, with some degree of rotation, scaled up to your party's average ilvl for commensurately greater rewards) and Expert Dungeon Roulette (the same, but tuned and filled out more challengingly).

[DRKoftheAzure]

Probably not, honestly. The Limited Leveling Roulette option already removed any chance of getting saddled with a low-level dungeon without that being a function of you doing what the roulette was intended to do (help support queues).

Limited leveling roulette is glitched, and doesn't work as intended. Just putting that out there.

While I wouldn't personally mind the option to work harder for the same throughput (me doing perfect Optimal Drift rotations and demanding perfectly paced pulls from my tank while the actual level 18 just goes 123 12(4)3 123 123 for roughly equal output), it just doesn't seem particularly necessary to muddle new players' experiences in that way, nor would you be able to meet the limits of new sustain (be they healing or mitigation) actions and traits particularly well through scaling alone; you'd also want those outright new attacks, which might not be something you could attach dynamically rather than as a different preset version of the instance.

To be fair, new players would probably be excited to see how fully fleshed out a toolkit for a specific job they would have been getting and would want to get that job and it's toolkit as soon as possible. Though this could have the unintended consequence of promoting level skips...

No, I suspect that tech would be used more for the ability to basically make "Unreal" content on demand, and perhaps have an actual Dungeon Roulette (all the player-favorite dungeons, with some degree of rotation, scaled up to your party's average ilvl for commensurately greater rewards) and Expert Dungeon Roulette (the same, but tuned and filled out more challengingly).

If only Unreal content was permanent.

[ItsUrBoi]

Hi!
In 7.0 please do major changes to this job, it was left unloved after Stormblood and its rework in Shadowbringers while okay, didn't build into too much in Endwalker. While I hope this was deliberate as to not put the job in a spot where it can't be better, here are some ideas:

- Delirium to grant a combo with DRK specific thematic attacks. Spamming the same attack over and over again is Warrior's identity.
- Consolidation of defenses such as merging Dark Mind and Oblation together
- Using Carve and Spit / Abyssal Drain more often, frequency is low
- Living Shadow is a 2 minute button that doesn't do very much, maybe change it to copy abilities that you do or have it execute a cool finisher with you, after it did it rotation of attacks? Or just change it to be a damage buff similar to RPR's Enshroud.
- Defensive tools that can heal yourself for single player content or raid situations where you need instant recovery of HP.
- Maybe a phase where you gain skill / spell speed? No other tank has that.

[GoatOfWar]

Hi!
In 7.0 please do major changes to this job, it was left unloved after Stormblood and its rework in Shadowbringers while okay, didn't build into too much in Endwalker. While I hope this was deliberate as to not put the job in a spot where it can't be better, here are some ideas:

- Delirium to grant a combo with DRK specific thematic attacks. Spamming the same attack over and over again is Warrior's identity.
- Consolidation of defenses such as merging Dark Mind and Oblation together
- Using Carve and Spit / Abyssal Drain more often, frequency is low
- Living Shadow is a 2 minute button that doesn't do very much, maybe change it to copy abilities that you do or have it execute a cool finisher with you, after it did it rotation of attacks? Or just change it to be a damage buff similar to RPR's Enshroud.
- Defensive tools that can heal yourself for single player content or raid situations where you need instant recovery of HP.
- Maybe a phase where you gain skill / spell speed? No other tank has that.

No amount of reworks can fix the issue that Dark knight has; A streamer who mains Warrior and can not cope with the idea of another tank doing something slightly better.
This is just a cycle every expansion. Dark knight does unique thing>streamer gets mad his tank can not do unique thing> all tanks can do it now.. ''Oh Dark knight has no identity and needs a rework'' Repeat.

[Oizen]

Leaked 7.0 Dark Knight:
lv 92: Enhanced Oblation
Oblation now has a 3rd charge

lv 94: Enhanced Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain
Both now have a 2nd charge

lv 96: Unnamed DRK damage only ogcd # 7 with a 60s cd

lv 98: Enhanced Living Shadow III
Increases Potency of Living Shadow skills

lv100: Dark Rend
GCD that can only be cast under Delirium once per Delirium activation
lv100: Enhanced Living Shadow IV
Living Shadow can execute Dark Rend

Job changes of existing skills:
Salted Earth now has a 60s cd
Dark Mind now has a 90s cd
Shadowbringer now has Guaranteed Crit/DH

please look forward to it

[GoatOfWar]

Leaked 7.0 Dark Knight:
lv 92: Enhanced Oblation
Oblation now has a 3rd charge

lv 94: Enhanced Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain
Both now have a 2nd charge

lv 96: Unnamed DRK damage only ogcd # 7 with a 60s cd

lv 98: Enhanced Living Shadow III
Increases Potency of Living Shadow skills

lv100: Dark Rend
GCD that can only be cast under Delirium once per Delirium activation
lv100: Enhanced Living Shadow IV
Living Shadow can execute Dark Rend

Job changes of existing skills:
Salted Earth now has a 60s cd
Dark Mind now has a 90s cd
Shadowbringer now has Guaranteed Crit/DH

please look forward to it

Xenosys Vex Will have a field day explaining why Warrior needs 3 stacks of thrill because of Dark knight having 3 stacks of oblation.

[Flay_wind]

Leaked 7.0 Dark Knight:
please look forward to it

You forgot Enhanced Living Shadow V.
Recast of Living Shadow is reduced to 110 seconds.

[Mecia]

I sure love getting LS trait upgrades that amount to basically nothing being added to the job. Its 100% going to happen once again, probably stealing a spot from something more meaningful.

[Kalaam]

Enhanced Plunge II: 5% chance to reduce Carve&Spit/Abyssal Drain CD by 5 seconds