Dark Knight Megathread

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

For sure job changes have already been made, however, as SMN got a last minute rework in 6.0, I hope SE sees this and considers maybe giving DRK a slight rework in 7.0 or 7.1, as they had removed too much in the 5.0 rework.

Here are some ideas to change existing actions:
- Combine Dark Mind into Oblation. Too many buttons that should do the same thing, lowering the CD per charge to 45 seconds might help.
- Combine Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain together into a new oGCD that heals and does high potency damage to 1st target, with fall off for other targets.

Carve & Spit / Abyssal Drain merge, sure whatever though I prefer if Carve & Spit didn't get deleted as I like the animation of the skill.

As for the Dark Mind + Oblation merge - for the love of god, can we stop suggesting this? Dark Mind's only issue, if anything, is that unlike GNB's camouflage it does zero and null on physical damage; a problem Addle & Feint have been addressed on by simply giving half of the other type's mitigation as well. Doing so would make Dark Mind not completely dedge for physical purposes (dungeon pulls among many things).

And seriously, Oblation is great because it is versatile and gives you choices without having to sacrifice access to DM. Sure it isn't the best Lv82 gain vs other tanks, but it really does not need to be merged so we reach an arbitrary amount of mitigation buttons per tank. Could consider a 400p heal once it expires, similar to that AST mitigation from EW.

New stuff:
- Add another combo after Syphon Strike, that generates Bloodgauge over time, so you can alternate between Souleater and this new button, or a high potency attack like Goring Blade.
- Change Delirium to grants something unique instead of Inner Release copy. Stormblood's version that extended other buffs was cool in my opinion.
- Add a new ability that heals you ( old Sole Survivor was pretty interesting, or old Blood price )
- Job action timers can be 40 seconds too, increased frequency is very nice!
- Living Shadow is kind of boring as it doesn't exactly copy your actions nor does it do anything under your control, maybe a RPR style enshroud effect would be better, but suited to tank?
- 2 job gauges is an alright concept but only on jobs that have something else as their identity ( ex: Ninja's mudras ). Darkside feels incomplete and the Bloodgauge is too similar to Warrior.

PLD is the Confiteur combo tank, GNB is the 30 second Gnashing Fang and Continuation tank, Warrior is the Inner Release tank, DRK is kind of left out...

• The Blood-over-time idea is interesting. Maybe not just BoT but also a HoT opposed to Souleater's direct Blood + Heal?
• Stormblood Delirium was based and I'd happily take the Blood-MP interplay back in a heartbeat.
• Bloodbath (lol). The job naming everything darkness and blood doesn't have access to Bloodbath, which is weird. Personally I'd prefer a PvP style DRK, but the players will never be ready for it in PvE. (for reference - HP spending would be limited but DPS-efficient, so no you wouldn't enslave your healers into dps-fodder for you)
• 40s, 45s, 80s. Good times with these. 40s BW, 80s Delirium, giving you 47.5% haste uptime. And placable Salted Earth on 45s CD. Wish Salted had a bit more than just that (see PvP).
• I saw an idea about making Living Shadow actually copy certain things you do, similar to Bunshin but on steroids. OGCDs included and with maintenance upkeep. Was a really cool idea.
• Bloodgauge could use different spenders than Bloodspiller and Living Shadow. Also frankly, Bloodspiller today and Bloodspiller back then feel nowhere alike. Back then a 540p DA-Bloodspiller was absolutely massive, today with 510p Carve, 460p EoS and 600p Shadowbringers, Bloodspiller feels like a drop in the bucket.

As for Darkside - Darkside spenders/drainers. Could link to the living shadow idea perhaps. We had this concept for Geirskogul in HW Dragoon. It was a nice concept, but the issue was the randomized access to the Blood of the Dragon time generators.

We had our identity - the Haste tank with weaponskill enhancement. The tank who had resource interplay (MP <--> Blood). DRK tourists at the time didn't like it and we had to pay for it. All they had to do to tone down the "spamminess" of Dark Arts was +50% the cost and potency gains from it. I like EoS and Shadowbringer in aesthetic, but I lost too much to be happy about them and they are bland.

[ItsUrBoi]

As for the Dark Mind + Oblation merge - for the love of god, can we stop suggesting this? Dark Mind's only issue, if anything, is that unlike GNB's camouflage it does zero and null on physical damage; a problem Addle & Feint have been addressed on by simply giving half of the other type's mitigation as well. Doing so would make Dark Mind not completely dedge for physical purposes (dungeon pulls among many things).

And seriously, Oblation is great because it is versatile and gives you choices without having to sacrifice access to DM. Sure it isn't the best Lv82 gain vs other tanks, but it really does not need to be merged so we reach an arbitrary amount of mitigation buttons per tank. Could consider a 400p heal once it expires, similar to that AST mitigation from EW.

I meant that Dark Mind would stay as it is, and then at lvl 82 it upgrades into Oblation:
- 2 charges, 45 secs cooldown per charge
- 10% mitigation and additional 20% magical mitigation
- lasts 10 seconds

It generally doesn't make sense to have 3 buttons that you usually combine into one: TBN, Oblation and Dark Mind. The only time you'd not use Oblation with Dark Mind is if the attack was magical, and if it is you'd anyway use both along with TBN. The reason its not good to add more onto TBN is because it'd be harder to break, but merging other defensives seems good, why would it be dedge?

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I meant that Dark Mind would stay as it is, and then at lvl 82 it upgrades into Oblation:
- 2 charges, 45 secs cooldown per charge
- 10% mitigation and additional 20% magical mitigation
- lasts 10 seconds

It generally doesn't make sense to have 3 buttons that you usually combine into one: TBN, Oblation and Dark Mind. The only time you'd not use Oblation with Dark Mind is if the attack was magical, and if it is you'd anyway use both along with TBN. The reason its not good to add more onto TBN is because it'd be harder to break, but merging other defensives seems good, why would it be dedge?

For a start, merging DM and Oblation into one comes with the obvious downside of being unable to ration and let the cooldowns tick individually. Even with 2x 45s recharge it still isn't as versatile as self Dark Mind and two separate Oblation charges.

There are and could be times where you want to keep Dark Mind for yourself and toss the two Oblation on DPS/healers (Dragonsong Ultimate), there are times you want to Dark Mind on a specifically magic buster and use the two Oblation for auto attacks or physical buster/raidwides for dps (DSR, P10S, P8S as examples).

There are times you want the 10% physical once or twice in a short bit without having to sacrifice your Dark Mind for it.

Long story short, having Oblation on separate cooldown to Dark Mind is better and more versatile than having a weird amalgamation of the two in an attempt to cut down mitigation keys.

...and I'm not even mentioning balance. Handing out effective 29% magic mitigation to a target is ridiculous and would never fly. It would most likely turn into 10% phys and 20% magical or 10% generic and 10% magical (net 19%). I want that for Dark Mind, not for Oblation-Mind.

My simplest suggestion to make Oblation more interesting is a 400-500p heal upon expiration, similar to the AST cooldown.from Endwalker.

TL;DR: I dislike the reduction in versatility for the sole purpose of cutting down a button.

[ItsUrBoi]

Its not just reducing the versatility.
If you want to help a healer or dps, use TBN, giving them a 10% won't be that big of a deal. I also did Dragonsong ultimate and honestly, in which scenario would you give a dps / healer a 10% mit instead of a 25% shield?
The reason for merging those cooldowns is just to be able to add another ability that focuses on DRK's weaknesses: sustain and HP recovery. Otherwise you are basically already double weaving for like 10 GCDs in your burst, now you got to weave 4 defenses to mitigate?
Using Oblation for auto attacks is kind of pointless, you need a better tool to deal with that. Dark Mind's purpose is to work against either raidwides or magical tank busters. Giving this to someone else is over powered? How about Nascent Flash healing you for 1600 potency with high possibility of crit heals and a ~18% damage reduction and a 400 potency shield? Oh never mind the 29% magic mitigation for 10 seconds is ridiculous.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Its not just reducing the versatility.
If you want to help a healer or dps, use TBN, giving them a 10% won't be that big of a deal. I also did Dragonsong ultimate and honestly, in which scenario would you give a dps / healer a 10% mit instead of a 25% shield?

The reason for merging those cooldowns is just to be able to add another ability that focuses on DRK's weaknesses: sustain and HP recovery. Otherwise you are basically already double weaving for like 10 GCDs in your burst, now you got to weave 4 defenses to mitigate?

Using Oblation for auto attacks is kind of pointless, you need a better tool to deal with that. Dark Mind's purpose is to work against either raidwides or magical tank busters. Giving this to someone else is over powered? How about Nascent Flash healing you for 1600 potency with high possibility of crit heals and a ~18% damage reduction and a 400 potency shield? Oh never mind the 29% magic mitigation for 10 seconds is ridiculous.

1.) Intermission phase where you have the option to freely hand out two Oblations and a TBN to three DPS while your co-tank does the fourth one. You could argue overkill or issues elsewhere, but I had too many cases where that 10% extra actually made the difference of them living.

In other fights, P8Sp2 dominion for casters and healers, especially if you had a Red Mage.

2.) Gave you a solid example of how to introduce more sustain with the Oblation suggestion, gave you another based on your souleater alternative for HP + blood regen, could even toss you a 200p heal on Stalwart Soul and heal potencies on Blood skills.

So there are plenty of solutions for introducing more sustsin without upping oGCD count. If your issue is how busy the weave window is, take it up with the 2min burst window design flaw and the ability diarrhea introduced by making oGCDs with no interaction like Shadowbringer.

3.) P7 Trinity paired with TBN whenever available goes a LONG way for auto attacks. Frankly yes, outside of ultimates or AA spam phases like Thordan Unreal is limited.

Giving 29% magic mit to a non-tank is overpowered when going by the design that decided that MNK's riddle of earth had to be a single charge 120s CD, yes.

Also your comparison with Nascent Flash is flawed because even though it is powerful, it locks you out of using Bloodwhetting when mitigation matters. Also the 19% mit is for 4s, another 10% for subsequent 4s. At most the healing bonus is busted, but should we really take a busted design like WAR sustain in EW as a role model to what other tanks should get?

[ItsUrBoi]

Giving 29% magic mit to a non-tank is overpowered when going by the design that decided that MNK's riddle of earth had to be a single charge 120s CD, yes.
Also your comparison with Nascent Flash is flawed because even though it is powerful, it locks you out of using Bloodwhetting when mitigation matters. Also the 19% mit is for 4s, another 10% for subsequent 4s. At most the healing bonus is busted, but should we really take a busted design like WAR sustain in EW as a role model to what other tanks should get?

Yeah I guess you are right.
The design should be something similar to giving each tank a 3rd mitigation based on their identity ( WAR - Thrill of Battle ; PLD - Bulwark ; GNB - Camouflage )
For DRK a redesign of sorts would be pretty nice for Dark Mind, Oblation and TBN. Some ideas:
1. Disconnecting TBN from MP can make it so The Blackest Night upgrades into Oblation at lvl 82, and its just the current shield with the Oblation effect, with 2 charges, and 30 second recast per charge, instead of 60. Dark Arts could be granting the next Edge or Flood of Shadow a heal equal to damage dealt, or just flat potency heal. Or reduces the cooldown of a reworked Dark Mind.
The point is to have 1 button that does it all for your mitigation while also being able to keep the versatility, and uniqueness. If TBN was upgradable to Oblation, it could've gotten more than the 10%, and that would allow Dark Mind to get a rework.
2. Dark Mind could get a rework to be like:
- Compiles damage taken, after 10 seconds, heals for 80% of compiled damage, and 20% over time.
- Each time you suffer damage you generate 1 blood.

[Zairava]

Back by unpopular demand: Me. Good to see the discourse is still alive.

For DRK a redesign of sorts would be pretty nice for Dark Mind, Oblation and TBN. Some ideas:
1. Disconnecting TBN from MP can make it so The Blackest Night upgrades into Oblation at lvl 82, and its just the current shield with the Oblation effect, with 2 charges, and 30 second recast per charge, instead of 60. Dark Arts could be granting the next Edge or Flood of Shadow a heal equal to damage dealt, or just flat potency heal. Or reduces the cooldown of a reworked Dark Mind.
The point is to have 1 button that does it all for your mitigation while also being able to keep the versatility, and uniqueness. If TBN was upgradable to Oblation, it could've gotten more than the 10%, and that would allow Dark Mind to get a rework.
2. Dark Mind could get a rework to be like:
- Compiles damage taken, after 10 seconds, heals for 80% of compiled damage, and 20% over time.
- Each time you suffer damage you generate 1 blood.

1) Personally, I'm unsure if I'd like oblation's mit effect tacked onto TBN, especially since it gets harder to break the more we're geared. If we're going to use oblation as an upgrade I would prefer to have our next Dark Arts expenditure to grant some healing, which you listed. Or something like arcane crest where when TBN breaks it grants us a HoT.

2) I'm of the mind of wanting to keep Dark Mind as is, but I would take using this model for Blood Price. Also, the healing return for the concept is a bit high imo maybe 50%(straight up)/50% HoT split?

2a) Read the prior page, I absolutely would take Stormblood Delirium and the playstyle we had in a heartbeat.

[ItsUrBoi]

Handing out effective 29% magic mitigation to a target is ridiculous and would never fly. It would most likely turn into 10% phys and 20% magical or 10% generic and 10% magical (net 19%). I want that for Dark Mind, not for Oblation-Mind.

You told me of examples of DSR but PLD can do exactly just that. Use Rampart and with 100 gauge use Holly Sheltron for himself and Intervention for an ally. Intervention is literally a 10% + 10% ( Rampart's trait ) + 10% for 4 seconds + a heal over time. So a 20% magic mitigation with an additional 10% all round mitigation would never fly?

Adding a heal over time won't make Oblation interesting it will just be copy paste of the other tank's heal over time effects.
At the same time DRK has already a lot of buttons and if you wish for more, they got to reduce them. So either merge stuff together or simply get the HW / SB treatment - "Removed".
I suggested 2 options:
1. Merge Dark Mind with Oblation and leave TBN as it is
2. Merge TBN with Oblation and rework Dark Mind. If going down this route, Dark Arts has to be changed as well as TBN will be harder to break completely.

The job needs more recovery tools ( HP recovery ), similar to what it had in Stormblood I guess, since back then you had TBN and apparently there wasn't this refusal for DRK to have HP recovery tools ( ex: Abyssal Drain spam, Sole Survivor ).

DRK can be great going into Dawntrail if only it'd get more attention unlike it received in Endwalker to be a bit more rounded in its kit than just oGCD spam during the 2 mins. I bet it would have been the least played tank if its 2 min burst wouldn't align so well with raid buffs and the burst meta.
- More frequent attacks and more resource interaction between Darkside and Bloodgauge
- Changes to Bloodgauge, Delirium and Darkside to not be a copy paste Beastgauge, Inner Release and Surging Tempest. Yes its nice to be able to play all jobs, but what about the people that really like DRK? They want to play DRK, not WAR.
- More cohesive mitigation ( HP recovery too ) and job identity instead of oGCD spam during 2 mins, and even the oGCD spam is fine really, if it was more interactive and meaningful.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Alright, if you wanna go into technicalities, I'll happily oblige because apparently something isn't clear here.

You told me of examples of DSR but PLD can do exactly just that. Use Rampart and with 100 gauge use Holly Sheltron for himself and Intervention for an ally. Intervention is literally a 10% + 10% ( Rampart's trait ) + 10% for 4 seconds + a heal over time. So a 20% magic mitigation with an additional 10% all round mitigation would never fly?

Alright, let's actually compare the mitigations a bit:

• Intervention - 10% from Knight's Resolve, 10% from Intervention, 20% if either Rampart or Sentinel are active (we assume it is). Takes about 22s to charge one use (2.2s AA recast x 10)
  1 * 0.8 (Intervention) * 0.9 (Knight's Resolve) = 0.72 x of damage remaining, meaning 28% mitigation.
  
  Furthermore, it is only 28% mitigation in the first 4 seconds AND Rampart/Sentinel active, 19% if it is not active, 20% if active and after Knight's resolve expires, 10% if not active and Knight's resolve expires. To add to it, you can only use 1x Intervention within 10 seconds, very much unlike Oblation and your suggested Dark Mind / Oblation merge.
• Dark Mind-Oblation-merge - 20% magic mitigation, 10% generic mitigation (net 29% vs Magic) for 10 seconds and no mitigation decay and no requirement of having your own Rampart or Shadow Wall online for full power, on a 45s recharge, can toss out two at the same time to non-tank targets on top of still being able to toss out TBN to a 3rd. And have TBN pretty much up a few seconds later for personal use or another ally.

I am sorry Guts, but those two are leagues apart. One can do it high but with lots of "but" and "if", the other's only requirement is having it on a 45s recharge timer, as per your suggestion, and can do it to more than one player at a time. The only situational cost here is the inflexibility of being able to split the magic mitigation and generic mitigation for personal usage (i.e. what we have now).

Adding a heal over time won't make Oblation interesting it will just be copy paste of the other tank's heal over time effects.

Not once did I say heal over time, as it would very obviously lean onto Aurora's effect if I said that. I said (multiple times) a direct heal upon expiration of Oblation, based on this skill from Astrologian:

At the same time DRK has already a lot of buttons and if you wish for more, they got to reduce them. So either merge stuff together or simply get the HW / SB treatment - "Removed".
I suggested 2 options:
1. Merge Dark Mind with Oblation and leave TBN as it is
2. Merge TBN with Oblation and rework Dark Mind. If going down this route, Dark Arts has to be changed as well as TBN will be harder to break completely.

The job needs more recovery tools ( HP recovery ), similar to what it had in Stormblood I guess, since back then you had TBN and apparently there wasn't this refusal for DRK to have HP recovery tools ( ex: Abyssal Drain spam, Sole Survivor ).

Alright, let's talk button bloat then. Let's start with the obvious examples that aren't mentioned yet.

• Edge of Shadow + Flood of Shadow - merge the skill. Why do we have two identical buttons for different amounts of enemies here?
• Bloodspiller + Quietus - minus the difference in MP generation under Delirium (which is awful in itself right now), same as above.
• Carve & Spit + Abyssal Drain (current) - they literally share a cooldown, why not make Carve a forward cleave with a 600 potency heal for the first target and 200 heal potency (and 60% fall-off damage) for every further? Why have two different ones?
• Shadowbringer - functionally the most uninteresting option of a damage skill ever given to us, with no meaningful interaction possible. Could literally just be an EoS/FoS upgrade and I wouldn't be wiser and would free up opener / burst bloat.
• Lack of PvP-style combo consolidation as a toggle / option - would free up three more buttons if desired.

Yet here you are, trying to justify why Oblation has to go instead of be built upon, in a sorry attempt to appease to Square Enix's funky button consolidation.

I agree that DRK could use some manner of HP recovery beyond providing just HP shielding with TBN (which is counted as healing for statistics, btw), however I believe there are healthier options than axing an interesting, if underdeveloped skill that has a niche in flexibility so far no other tank can fill. And as someone who religiously played DRK in Stormblood, let me tell you, DA-Abyssal Drain lifesteal purely being gated by resources made healers infinitely more obsolete than Bloodwhetting ever did. Sole Survivor was nice and honestly underdeveloped (could have done more with it) but DRK's AOE lifesteal was beyond stupid and puts current day WAR to shame.

As for TBN's meme with having to be broken, said for a while now that the duration should have been 8s like the other tools if not 10s like the PvP version for a while now. The latter would create some interesting gameplay options with mitigation timing by chaining TBNs cooldown.

As for the last bit:

DRK can be great going into Dawntrail if only it'd get more attention unlike it received in Endwalker to be a bit more rounded in its kit than just oGCD spam during the 2 mins. I bet it would have been the least played tank if its 2 min burst wouldn't align so well with raid buffs and the burst meta.
- More frequent attacks and more resource interaction between Darkside and Bloodgauge
- Changes to Bloodgauge, Delirium and Darkside to not be a copy paste Beastgauge, Inner Release and Surging Tempest. Yes its nice to be able to play all jobs, but what about the people that really like DRK? They want to play DRK, not WAR.
- More cohesive mitigation ( HP recovery too ) and job identity instead of oGCD spam during 2 mins, and even the oGCD spam is fine really, if it was more interactive and meaningful.

Pretty much agree on 100% of this on that bit.

As for ideas to handle cohesive mitigation and job identity - I'd like to point at one thing from WAR, that is a gnarly thorn to me (literally) and that other tanks do not capitalize on, namely Vengeance being more than just a 30% mitigation tool but having additional interaction.

Given the lengthy cooldown, it could be interesting to give Shadow Wall an effect that could maybe consolidate damage taken in the 15 seconds that it is up and upon expiration (see a theme I'm doing here?) heal you for a portion of that damage taken. Further mitigation would reduce how much you'd heal by virtue of taking less damage, but HP shields would keep it unchanged (TBN) because it's technically a type of HP.

Dark Mind I'd simply give the Addle treatment so DRK's can use it at a lesser power in physical-only fights. Oblation I mentioned a bunch of times already. TBN maybe making next EoS/FoS have heal potency attached if broken (Dark Arts effect), leaning into the vengeance hit trope. Hell, make Salted Earth have a mitigative effect similar to PvP for the DRK only.

[ItsUrBoi]

Alright, if you wanna go into technicalities, I'll happily oblige because apparently something isn't clear here.

I am not against merging Edge and Flood of Shadow, Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain, Bloodspiller and Quietus, those are great ideas - however they need to be replaced by something else that adds to the job.
We also need to give up on the boring useless traits that do nothing but "Increase Living Shadow potency to x", if its needed to add an action to be executable by Living Shadow make the increase of potency and the additional action within 1 trait and add something else that is more useful.
Delete Enhanced Unmend and replace it with just another stack of Plunge or something else, that actually makes the job better.

With Shadowbringer's rework of DRK the job just feels both incomplete and rushed warrior copy paste, unlike MNK / GNB / RPR / SGE / PLD reworks or new kits. The way you get 2 gauges is fine but only as long as there's another essential job mechanic, NIN and MNK also have 2 gauges ( a spender gauge and a speed / dmg gauge ) but they have mudras and perfect balance and forms to add more.

I thought a lot about this and here's an idea, that is really simple and would greatly help the job:
- Remove Flood of Shadow. Edge of Shadow has a new animation where it does damage around you, with fall off after the first enemy hit.
- Dark Arts now grants a free Edge of Shadow or Abyssal Drain upon complete absorption of the shield or when the shield expires. Abyssal Drain costs 3000 MP and has no cooldown. ( fixed: Dungeon or AoE sustain, TBN breaking issue )
- Dark Mind now grants 10% damage reduction with an additional 15% magical for 10 seconds. ( fixed: magic specific, useless against anything else )
- TBN upgrades into Oblation at lvl 82. Can keep 2 charges ( fixed: defensive button consolidation )

More ambitious changes:
- Quietus removed
- Bloodspiller changed to cost 25 blood, with a better animation as it should have fall off after first target ( fixed: Not so similar to Fell Cleave anymore )
- Delirium is now a GCD that is only executable after Bloodspiller. Delirium has fall off after first target as well, no cost. ( fixed: Not an Inner Release copy anymore )
- Change the bloodgauge generating abilities to generate less blood
- Replace Enhanced Unmend with a trait that makes the next Edge of Shadow or Abyssal Drain heal over time as well or an small burst heal when HP < 50% on Oblation
- Add a new utility ability similar to old Blood Price or Sole Survivor
- Living Shadow copies your GCD attacks, after executing 3 combos of Bloodspiller -> Delirium , you and Fray can do a powerful finisher together