Dark Knight Megathread

[Derio]

My biggest gripe with DRK is the leveling process. They really need to introduce a weaker version of TBN for the early levels and have a trait that upgrades it at lvl 70.
Dark Mind is not a cooldown in most dungeon content and it really sucks to have a mitigation tool that is only used in the very high end content.

Sure there are other issues with DRK but the issues above affects most of the new player experience with DRK which was ok at launch and during SB, but seems to have been forgotten about after the reworks.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

My biggest gripe with DRK is the leveling process. They really need to introduce a weaker version of TBN for the early levels and have a trait that upgrades it at lvl 70.
Dark Mind is not a cooldown in most dungeon content and it really sucks to have a mitigation tool that is only used in the very high end content.

Sure there are other issues with DRK but the issues above affects most of the new player experience with DRK which was ok at launch and during SB, but seems to have been forgotten about after the reworks.

Highlighted the actual issue here.

Take a note from Addle, add an additional reduces physical damage taken by 10% to it. Beyond this, a slight rework to Abyssal Drain making it a 30s CD on two charges and essentially all damage stats halved (healing kept same). That should help to make DRK not too painful early levels but not overbearingly powerful.

The first change will be globally beneficial without having to butcher or rework TBN + Oblation and keeping their flexibility intact, especially in content where significant magical damage does not occur (Endwalker had many situations for this in raids and dungeons in general). The second one is simply to make Abyssal Drain usage more attractive without making the healing power broken (see Bloodwhetting on WAR) as it would still be only 400p heals per target over 1min.

Both of these would make the levelling experience more attractive without dreading dungeons below Lv70.

[Oizen]

Abyssal really should be a 30s oGCD, uncouple it from Carve and Spit, do whatever you want with the damage potency, we could handle it with the loss of plunge.

[Kaixern]

we could handle it with the loss of plunge.

Yeah, i don't think i will ever be able to handle this kind of loss.
starts to weep while thinking about Guts and Artorias

[The_User]

Why not merge dark dance with dark mind and increase parry rate instead of mimic the dps role action?

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Why not merge dark dance with dark mind and increase parry rate instead of mimic the dps role action?

Two reasons:

[1] Dark Dance, even with the trait, only provided +30% parry rate, which with current 15% parry power would only net us an average 4.5% of physical mitigation over the course of only 10 seconds rather than the old 20 seconds. Not only that, slapping Dark Dance onto Dark Mind is antithetical to current equivalents like Camouflage from Gunbreaker, where the parry rate is coupled with a base mitigation that it can synergize with, not a magic mitigation that is completely at odds with.

[2] It is not reliable mitigation for physical tankbusters to increase parry rate to anything less than 100% (see Bulwark readdition), making it undesirable for this purpose as well, where a cheap alternative like using Addle's mitigation distribution would actually be reliable to use.

The absolute last suggestion I could give would be reintroducing Dark Dance, which shares a cooldown with Dark Mind and does something like 10-15% physical mitigation and the parry rate increase as well.

[The_User]

Nobody says the Parry Rate couldn't be increased to 100%

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Nobody says the Parry Rate couldn't be increased to 100%

You are right, but at that point you could also just make it 10-15% physical mitigation instead. Making it 100% Parry Rate generally performs exactly as that, but actually can be pierced with critical hits, which matters in Lv70 and below content. Similar to Block, it will also not mitigate damage-over-time effects that are applied with certain busters like Proto-Carbuncle's savage version of Toxic Crunch or Themis' darkness Upheld Overruling.

Last but not least, it would essentially remove passive parry since it is now an active effect, but with all of the downsides of block/parry where the other combination could allow for lucky extra parries on top.

[The_User]

I don't think everyone want to count on this 60s recast mitigation alone to handle every tank busters pre lv.70


Also Parry is part of DRK's identity just like how Block is part of PLD's identity. It is a symbolic to show who we are. It doesn't need to be perfect.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I don't think everyone want to count on this 60s recast mitigation alone to handle every tank busters pre lv.70


Also Parry is part of DRK's identity just like how Block is part of PLD's identity. It is a symbolic to show who we are. It doesn't need to be perfect.

Parry "used to be" part of DRK's identity because it actually had interaction with it in 3.0 to 3.58. This stopped a LONG time ago with Stormblood, if anything Gunbreaker is more the Parry Tank right now. Parry itself was a generic stat all four three tanks could spec into and was replaced with Tenacity. Block is still part of PLD's identity because blocking is inherently a shield mechanic, which Paladin retained to this day.

As for the first part, why not? Minus upgrades, PLD + WAR have their entire self-mitigation by Lv52/56, GNB has it by Lv68. What would be in your opinion the problem to give Dark Mind reliable physical mitigation (that isn't Parry) but at a lesser rate than their magic mitigation value?