Dark Knight Megathread

[Oizen]

You could fix a lot of TBN's issues just by making it pop if you take any damage, and not requiring the shield to break completely.

There is so much content in this game where TBN is nonfunctional to a bis tank, and its hilarious to me that a DRK in normal content feels more sturdy with a 1 or 2 vuln stacks than it does without it due to TBN becoming usable.

[Supersnow845]

You could fix a lot of TBN's issues just by making it pop if you take any damage, and not requiring the shield to break completely.

There is so much content in this game where TBN is nonfunctional to a bis tank, and its hilarious to me that a DRK in normal content feels more sturdy with a 1 or 2 vuln stacks than it does without it due to TBN becoming usable.

That’s not a problem of TBN that’s a problem of how hilariously little damage this game does

If the game can’t crack a 25% HP shield in 7 seconds the tanks are both too tanky inheritantly and the game isn’t doing enough damage

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

That’s not a problem of TBN that’s a problem of how hilariously little damage this game does

If the game can’t crack a 25% HP shield in 7 seconds the tanks are both too tanky inheritantly and the game isn’t doing enough damage

It's sad how the main content that can pop TBN with regularity is basically Ultimate, later floor savages and essentially criterion.

Half of a remedy could be moving the duration to 10s analog to PvP TBN, however there will still be plenty of situations whete bosses simply stop attacking for extended periods of time and keep tank damage far too regulated to busters and auto attack phases.

We could really use more mechs like Delta Attack from O4S p2 or the spread + tank stack from Emerald Weapon EX.

[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

[Zairava]

I used to be for the whole merging of Dark Mind with oblation or whatever, or putting phys and lowering the magic resistance, but I don't really see that as something that needs fixing. DRK is already plenty tanky without having every defensive in the kit be for every type of damage. Let it keep its niche.

As for TBN, I also used to be for just guaranteeing that you get the proc after the duration ends, but after thinking about it more, I don't want that either. In my eyes, the fact that there's a risk of it not popping is what makes it satisfying at all, and would lose a lot of it if you were to take that risk away, something none of the other tanks have. I find it worth keeping and would prefer just increasing TBN's duration to 8 or 10 seconds.

That said, I am for merging:

• Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain (or separating them and giving Abyssal Drain an mp cost again)
• Edge/flood
• Bloodspiller/Quietus

as for everything else

• Even in its current iteration of Blood Weapon, I would like Delirium to extend that again, add perhaps 3 charges and some seconds to the timer or so? (also add the haste back, please)
• Maybe Blood Price could return and we can place it on other people? I doubt they would give it to us word for word as back then because it would mean we lose damage when not MT (the horror is unimaginable). Basically this would mean putting it on someone else would give MP and Blood Gauge in return. As per the bullet above, I wouldn't mind Delirium effecting that as well.
• Not the biggest fan of shadowbringer in general, it could be removed outright and I would be no worse for wear. Attach an MP cost or something, Darkside being a requirement is laughable when we can maintain Darkside while in a coma.
• The ideas for Living Shadow are on a list a mile long, but I've been on record saying that I'd like some Bunshin-Enshroud hybrid where we let our Darkside take over over what we have now. Maybe upon activating it we have a special combo we can use (whether it replaces our 1-2-3 combo or otherwise) and it can have some big finisher or something. My stance hasn't changed there.
• As stated numerous times, we could tack on sustain to DA procs or Oblation, either works. What if we could store a healing ability charge when TBN breaks outside of DA procs, and use it when needed?

The mostly pointless traits explain themselves. We could really do without those for yet another expansion, or replace the ones we got in Endwalker with more interesting ones as well.

[Oizen]

That’s not a problem of TBN that’s a problem of how hilariously little damage this game does

If the game can’t crack a 25% HP shield in 7 seconds the tanks are both too tanky inheritantly and the game isn’t doing enough damage

I really can't see them ever making the game harder though, and I feel like you know that as well.

[Supersnow845]

I really can't see them ever making the game harder though, and I feel like you know that as well.

Unfortunately it’s a consideration they will have to tackle eventually because even ignoring the tanks usurping the healer role the tanks are becoming internally unbalanced because they are way too overpowered relative to the other 2 roles

They are already functionally immortal, they take less damage than a caster when they have 7 vuln stacks, survive raidwides that oneshot the casters on 20% HP, and since TB’s are just kitchen sink or die the only way to split them in modern day is either on “how much can I can cuck the healer compared to you” or just constantly upping their damage, notice that tanks are unequivocally stronger than healers this expansion despite them having rough parity prior to this

People complain to the moon and back tanks are boring and homogenised but then never actually suggest anything that will actually differentiate them, instead just constantly asking for more more more to usurp each other, it’s strange the forums of the DPS never suggest this sort of thing, for example MCH is still pretty meh in damage but adding a second raidwide mitigation was a massive boom to them and they are happy with that, same as healer, tanks seem alone in always demanding that all 4 jobs just sit in an endless buff race that leaves the other 2 roles in the dust. Just look at every suggestion for DRK regarding their self sustain, it basically amounts to “give them dark bloodwhetting”

Either the game needs to be made harder or the tanks need to be nerfed, there is literally no other solution to this problem, because if TBN cracked by default that suddenly makes DRK much sturdier in all content because pressing TBN on CD becomes optimal, then suddenly PLD or GNB will complain about block not affecting x or parry not affecting y and then they get buffed and then WAR complains again and the circle goes round and round, eventually you have to accept nerfs to retain parity or otherwise make the game harder so you can’t cuck the other 2 roles and solo everything

[Oizen]

I think its more of the tank mitigations are balanced entirely around the highest end content out there. So they come off as overtuned in anything below that.
It kinda puts tank in this weird spot where its only as engaging/challenging as the content you're in is.

Theres also the issue that this game's combat system is so incredibly narrow in scope that there really isn't that much variety you can do in order to make a job good at something, like for lowering incoming damage you have shielding, regen and actual mit. We've already cornered ourselves by deciding that a job like WAR needs all 3 styles at once. There's really no where else to go with it, and I don't think its wrong for people to want Dark Knight to have its own equivalent for self sustain when formerly Shield Mitigation used to be Dark Knight exclusive until that was basically stolen off of it with Endwalker.


And I really can't see the Dev's ever nerfing one of their favorite jobs, because overall I'd describe FFXIV's balancing philosophy as "devs picked a favorite and that's gonna be the best option at everything", which expands to DPS and Healers as well.

[Absurdity]

It kinda puts tank in this weird spot where its only as engaging/challenging as the content you're in is.

Even then it's not particularly engaging in the content it's primarily designed for.
When was the last time you really needed to plan your mitigations just to survive? And I don't mean optimizing Vengeance to get some melee reflect damage out of it, I mean "Oh, for this buster happening at X minutes I have absolutely nothing ready.".
There isn't much thought involved in "solving" buster mitigation.

And since tank busters are pretty much the only remaining tank mechanic there is very little to do besides being a gimped DPS job.

[Oizen]

Even then it's not particularly engaging in the content it's primarily designed for.
When was the last time you really needed to plan your mitigations just to survive? And I don't mean optimizing Vengeance to get some melee reflect damage out of it, I mean "Oh, for this buster happening at X minutes I have absolutely nothing ready.".
There isn't much thought involved in "solving" buster mitigation.

And since tank busters are pretty much the only remaining tank mechanic there is very little to do besides being a gimped DPS job.

I only really find that sort of gameplay in optimizing TBN usage.

Every other tank is now Rampart + lv 82 button to survive anything, then follow it up with your other generic mit and your lv 82 button.