Dark Knight Megathread

[Supersnow845]

Oblation I think has a strong niche these days in criterion because you can use oblation on both DPS and TBN on the healer and you have a proxy bonus 10% raidwide mitigation which is huge since criterion’s biggest battle is having enough mitigation between 4 players (also why the shield healers dominate)

Maybe they should go towards something along the lines of receiving a reward for using oblation on another player rather than yourself, with dark mind being exclusive to DRK already TBN didn’t need an amplifier anyway over the other 3 because before their 82 traits the other 3 were so hilariously weak compared to TBN that the traits still only make TBN barely weaker

[ItsUrBoi]

A pretty interesting idea I had was why not expand on the Darkside gauge to make it so that you go in some sort of over drive mode when darkside is very high and you use a certain ability. ( ex: Living Shadow )
Or perhaps the whole bloodgauge mechanic could be similar to RDM so that you have a combo and using it requires bloodgauge for each action.
I just really wish 7.0 is not a disappointment where we get some warrior copy paste and in some cases just weak and useless traits that upgrade Living Shadow potency. If you really need to upgrade Living Shadow potency from level 90 to 100, do so in the trait that already upgrades the standard combo actions and give something more meaningful with the other traits. ( "More meaningful gaming experience" )

Somethings I'd like to see would for sure be:
- Some defensive cooldown consolidations regarding TBN , Oblation and Dark Mind.
- More sustain and HP recovery options, as the job is doing really well in high end content once people know what to do, but in progression or casual content its difficult to survive without a healer.
- Changes to Delirium and the Bloodgauge as to separate them from WAR's Beast gauge and Inner Release.
- Some more identity besides oGCD spam and big sword, perhaps more akin to HW or SB DRK?

[rawker]

If Tenacity was just a great stat, DRK could have been the tank that would have benefited to it, the most.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...]

The way I read this, Oblation will remain as an action with two charges @ 60s Recharge and the function of 10% generic damage reduction applicable to self or a target party member is replaced with essentially Dark Arts "but for defensive actions". Based on this, we now have a somewhat limited access to this modifier, making the cast of this ability the inherent cost (on top of losing out the mitigation it currently has).

Modifying your mitigation definitely adds some spice to the mix and offers a degree of versatility... at the cost of losing a different kind of versatility and a situational cost of the non-modified version of the skill being inherently mutually exclusive to the modified versions.

Why would it need additional "cost" by increasing the recast of that action? That's just awful for no good reason.

As for the individual skills, I have some words as well:

• Dark Mind: We already don't have 10% from Oblation anymore, why only 15% on physical only? This is far inferior to current Oblation + Dark Mind versatility.
• Dark Missionary: 10% physical reduction and an Expedient-like speedboost for 120s is far too situational. If this was generic damage reduction regardless of type, "maybe" but as it is, this is awful and would see very limited use.
• The Blackest Night: If we lose current oblation, make the HP shield 30% and the recast for this combo 30s, it would at MINIMUM need to cover slightly above 50% HP in shield + HP recovery to make up for the 2x standard TBN + 1x current Oblation you could use instead.
  
  Also I keep lol-ing at every attempt of making TBN a skill that can be used without MP. But the heal on shield pop (along with Dark Arts for EoS/FoS) would be cute in general. I like skills similar to AST's Exaltation and SCH's Excogitation.
• Blood Weapon: So basically turn "Infuriate with extra steps" into "Infuriate + Equilibrium with extra steps" except you can't really hold Blood Weapon unlike the mentioned skills so it's either use it or lose it for the HP bonus. For the situational cost alone the heal would need to be massive.

I'mma be real, the idea is neat but sacrificing Oblation for it along with the current stats is a hard no.

[GoatOfWar]

If Tenacity was just a great stat, DRK could have been the tank that would have benefited to it, the most.

Not really, if nothing can kill you in one hit then healing becomes a lot more valuable than stacking any further mitigation.

[Brixy]

All tanks got massive mitigation upgrades to their primary mit buttons at lv.82 except for DRK.
- Warrior got Bloodwhetting and let's be honest, Raw Intuition was already bonkers and didn't need the extra -dt and a shield on top. Pair that with Equilibrium, Thrill of Battle, AND Shake it off and you will never die. Ever.
- Gunbreaker got Heart of Corundum: -30%/-15% for 4/8 seconds and a decent heal on top of it. Pair that with Aurora for some passive healing ticks.
- Paladin got Holy Sheltron: -30%/15% for 4/8 seconds topped off with a regen over time. All sorts of heals added everywhere at 84 that no longer require a dps loss like Clemency would.
- Dark Knight got a button bloat -10 dt. Not a single heal in sight, other than Abyssal Drain. Doesn't quite seem fair does it lol.

Replace Oblation with a job trait for TBN that applies Dread Spikes when it breaks at Lv.82. Dread Spikes applies a buff where each hit you receive grants a stack and heals after 5 seconds depending on how many stacks you built up. Some form of healing for dungeons would be nice and this is a way to give them a unique heal while sticking to their job aesthetic. It would be a nice callback to FFXI's DRK also!

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

All tanks got massive mitigation upgrades to their primary mit buttons at lv.82 except for DRK.
- Warrior got Bloodwhetting and let's be honest, Raw Intuition was already bonkers and didn't need the extra -dt and a shield on top. Pair that with Equilibrium, Thrill of Battle, AND Shake it off and you will never die. Ever.
- Gunbreaker got Heart of Corundum: -30%/-15% for 4/8 seconds and a decent heal on top of it. Pair that with Aurora for some passive healing ticks.
- Paladin got Holy Sheltron: -30%/15% for 4/8 seconds topped off with a regen over time. All sorts of heals added everywhere at 84 that no longer require a dps loss like Clemency would.
- Dark Knight got a button bloat -10 dt. Not a single heal in sight, other than Abyssal Drain. Doesn't quite seem fair does it lol.

Replace Oblation with a job trait for TBN that applies Dread Spikes when it breaks at Lv.82. Dread Spikes applies a buff where each hit you receive grants a stack and heals after 5 seconds depending on how many stacks you built up. Some form of healing for dungeons would be nice and this is a way to give them a unique heal while sticking to their job aesthetic. It would be a nice callback to FFXI's DRK also!

Keep Oblation as is, add heal potency upon expiration. For more active HP recovery, broken TBN grants dark arts, which makes the next Edge of Shadow or Flood of Shadow trigger a heal (can do 100-150 potency per target on Flood of Shadow, otherwise make it and Edge of Shadow 400-500 heal potency).

Really, what is it with the suggestions to un-exist Oblation just because DRK is the only tank that received a new CD instead of upgrading TBN? The way I see it it is their equivalent of Equilibrium and Aurora and simply needs a bit more... stuff, not removal or folding it into a patchwork-affixed TBN.

[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.

[Lyth]

...

Oblation has a fundamental design problem, which in turn is linked to TBN. If you look at most of the level 82 tank action upgrades (Sheltron to HS, RI to BS, and HoS to HoC), they are designed to add another 10-15% DR on top of the baseline 25 second recast action. The issue is that TBN was balanced against these baseline actions trading off a 10 second recast difference against the requirement to break the shield to stay damage neutral. Adding more damage reduction or more %HP shielding as a flat upgrade makes this shield break less likely to happen, which is why they were forced to split it into two parts.

Oblation really isn't designed to be used in isolation. 10% DR is more appropriate for raid mitigation, and even DPS have personal mitigations on 10% DR with much shorter recasts. It's genuinely absurd when you consider that a level 82 tank action is providing similar %DR on a longer recast than a Lv. 6 SAM action or a Lv. 30 RPR action. As far as charges are concerned, HS/Intervention are functionally on a 2 charge system while generating faster charges, so this is a thoroughly underwhelming action on all fronts. It's just a missing supplement to TBN that was fractured off into a separate action to balance against the integrated upgrades on other tanks.

The problem is that while TBN holds back the design here, any change to this setup is going to be a definite downgrade on recast alone. I also think a revision to TBN and further homogenization on recast is probably inevitable, simply because people have been pushing for it. I think a compromise is to offer both options. Keep the short recast and baseline TBN if you want, or give it up temporarily for a bigger defensive and removal of the MP cost. That's what I've proposed here.

A similar situation holds for Dark Mind. Dark Mind is the strongest defensive in its category on recast alone. Any revision to it is going to be a nerf. Consider that ToB is effectively 15% HP flat DR, Bulwark is 20% DR, and Camo is 10% DR + 50% parry (effectively 10% physical DR when averaged over multiple hits), all on 90 second recast. I find it highly unlikely that any other tank job main is going to allow you to swap over Dark Mind on demand to physical mitigation while keeping the 60 second recast. Yet a fundamental issue with Dark Mind is versatility. So you should think about ways in which you could have a degree of physical parity without losing the recast advantage on the base ability.

Dark Missionary has been a longstanding balance problem. The lack of personal healing on DRK has been a longstanding balance problem. Do you want to give up two of your 90-100 actions just to fix balance problems that should have been addressed this expansion? Or would you rather repurpose a fluff 10% DR and upgrade all these issues at once? I think you need to be practical about this. It would have been really easy for me to suggest something obviously imbalanced and guarantee that it gets ignored by the balance team, rather than suggesting a plausible upgrade that addresses multiple issues at once.