Dark Knight Megathread

[Colt47]

I mean I'm running the job right now and sorting my feelings on it again just to double check my own thoughts.

I actually got a bunch of questions that only the devs could probably answer involving tanks in general.

1) In the design of the dungeons, is the intent that all tanks are supposed to be able to handle a single pack of enemies with a typical composition, or is the intent that the tanks should be able to handle all enemies within a walled section with a typical party comp?
2) When the tanks are built, what skills are dedicated for mid-high end content vs normal content? In the current design it feels like a lot of the skills are not necessary until we hit end-game even though we have them unlocked and the opposite seems to happen with lower level content.

Outside of that, DRK has a flow to it once it gets going, but I definitely feel like salt and darkness is unnecessary bloat even though it is on the same button, and blood weapon could easily be merged into Delirium as a single skill. The reason they didn't merge them appears to be due to the stretch between 68-79 since at that level we don't have living shadow yet and lack the extra skills we get such as oblation. Actually, when I look at it Oblation feels like it was supposed to be a buff to TBN, but they decided to split it into a separate skill since it doesn't synergize with how TBN wants to work. DRK is the one tank that doesn't want to have all their eggs in one basket because the intent is to have TBN break to give a bonus hit. It's like you are begging your healers to be worse at their jobs of shielding you and mitting because that is what TBN wants. :P

[GoatOfWar]

I mean I'm running the job right now and sorting my feelings on it again just to double check my own thoughts.

I actually got a bunch of questions that only the devs could probably answer involving tanks in general.

1) In the design of the dungeons, is the intent that all tanks are supposed to be able to handle a single pack of enemies with a typical composition, or is the intent that the tanks should be able to handle all enemies within a walled section with a typical party comp?
2) When the tanks are built, what skills are dedicated for mid-high end content vs normal content? In the current design it feels like a lot of the skills are not necessary until we hit end-game even though we have them unlocked and the opposite seems to happen with lower level content.

Outside of that, DRK has a flow to it once it gets going, but I definitely feel like salt and darkness is unnecessary bloat even though it is on the same button, and blood weapon could easily be merged into Delirium as a single skill. The reason they didn't merge them appears to be due to the stretch between 68-79 since at that level we don't have living shadow yet and lack the extra skills we get such as oblation. Actually, when I look at it Oblation feels like it was supposed to be a buff to TBN, but they decided to split it into a separate skill since it doesn't synergize with how TBN wants to work. DRK is the one tank that doesn't want to have all their eggs in one basket because the intent is to have TBN break to give a bonus hit. It's like you are begging your healers to be worse at their jobs of shielding you and mitting because that is what TBN wants. :P

You don't get a bonus hit, you get a refund of the mana spent on TBN that would have been spent on damage if it was any other tank.

[Colt47]

You don't get a bonus hit, you get a refund of the mana spent on TBN that would have been spent on damage if it was any other tank.

Thanks for adding the clarity to it. You're correct on it being a refund and the reason I was saying "bonus hit" is because with some jobs they give you that highlight around abilities when a proc occurs, which is telling the player to use the skill. In reality they are using it with DRK and TBN to help make sure the player cashes in on the refund, and the timing of the refund varies with how aggressive the monsters are in dealing damage to the player.

None of the other tanks have that kind of situation occur. They mostly are concerned with using procs when they need to in order to reduce incoming damage. With TBN a player can get punished for things outside of their own hands, like a mob getting stunned or deciding to use an AOE that is dodgeable. Since they changed this to "mitigation matters", it isn't advisable to stay in advertised AOEs even as a tank most of the time, though in Shadowbringers you could do that to help assure the proc triggered.