A simple Dark Knight change that I think would massively help the job

[Railynx]

I've been playing DRK for years, it's not my main job, but it is my most played with literally thousands of hours of just DRK gameplay.

Players of the job express concerns with the job's lack of sustainability, and as somewhat of a lore nerd, I also find it somewhat odd that DRK has such little sustain compared to the other tanks when the first Eorzea Encyclopaedia cites DRK as draining life from enemies as being a main component of it's job fantasy.

So, here's what I propose as one of two potential solutions that could realistically be implemented within 7.x, as it would be a far smaller scale change than something like the EW Paladin rework.

My solution is as follows:

Grant DRK a new action that has a comparative damage return to Edge of Shadow, but has a moderately powerful healing effect tacked onto it, and the skill can only be used while under the effect of Dark Arts (which is the resource you get when your TBN breaks) and of course, removing the current effect of Dark Arts, where it gives you a free Edge/Flood cast.

It's not like DRK doesn't have a collection of gorgeous skill animations just sitting in the back log. I'm no developer, but I can't imagine this would be the most difficult thing to implement. Add a new action, give it the namesake, icon, and animation/VFX of one of DRK's old, removed actions, and give it either the exact same potency of Edge of Shadow if it's implemented as an ability, or something comparative to how much Edge would give you (~600potency?) if it's a skill/spell. Tack on a decent self-healing potency like 600-700, and make Dark Arts a prerequisite for it to be cast.


ALTERNATIVELY, add "Sole Survivor" back into the game by namesake and animation, but replace it's effect with something like "Restores own HP with a potency of 1000" (or whatever value the devs deem balanced), and make it a third option you can use Dark Arts on.

So after you pop your TBN, you now have the option to choose between Edge for single target DPS, Flood for AoE DPS, or Sole Survivor where you lose the 460/160 potency of damage in a trade-off for a hefty self-heal. I know that I basically just designed DRK-flavoured Clemency, but I think it would be an AMAZING change for the job.

Thoughts?

[BigCheez]

Defensively, DRK is fine. It has TBN and a lot of mit to prevent its health from dropping in the first place and a decent number of sustain tools in abyssal drain, shadow vigil and living dead, to help recover when its health does drop. It doesn't have infinite sustain like WAR but why should it? IMO the game needs more job identity. The game does not need every tank to function like WAR.

Personally, I would rather they gave DRK some potency buffs and returned it to its previous position. When your TBN breaks, I'd like to see the free edge/flood of shadows deal bonus damage, which would reward you for making good use of TBN.

[Railynx]

Defensively, DRK is fine. It has TBN and a lot of mit to prevent its health from dropping in the first place and a decent number of sustain tools in abyssal drain, shadow vigil and living dead, to help recover when its health does drop. It doesn't have infinite sustain like WAR but why should it? IMO the game needs more job identity. The game does not need every tank to function like WAR.

Personally, I would rather they gave DRK some potency buffs and returned it to its previous position. When your TBN breaks, I'd like to see the free edge/flood of shadows deal bonus damage, which would reward you for making good use of TBN.

If popping TBN became a damage gain, DRK would become extremely insufferable to play due to how inconsistent it can be to pop TBN, and how punishing it is when you lose one. I don't think there's anyway to allow DRK to get a damage gain from TBN without hurting the job design.
Additionally, DRK's sustain wouldn't compare to WAR, or even PLD if it were to receive a buff along that line. It would only begin to catch up to the likes of GNB. In all honesty, I'm of the mind that DRK is the only tank who's survivability makes sense - I think the other three have way too much sustain to the point it's comical. However, if every job is at that level, I'd rather not have my favourite job be noticeably less capable for the sake of variety. I think variety only helps when each job has different strengths, rather than a spectrum of each job being progressively worse at the same thing and that being labeled job identity.

I don't think there's any point in discussing the damage output of the tanks at the moment, as we haven't even had the first savage patch yet, and until then, none of the jobs damage outputs are going to make any sense, and the never do in the first couple patches of a new expansion.

[BigCheez]

If popping TBN became a damage gain, DRK would become extremely insufferable to play due to how inconsistent it can be to pop TBN, and how punishing it is when you lose one. I don't think there's anyway to allow DRK to get a damage gain from TBN without hurting the job design.
Additionally, DRK's sustain wouldn't compare to WAR, or even PLD if it were to receive a buff along that line. It would only begin to catch up to the likes of GNB. In all honesty, I'm of the mind that DRK is the only tank who's survivability makes sense - I think the other three have way too much sustain to the point it's comical. However, if every job is at that level, I'd rather not have my favourite job be noticeably less capable for the sake of variety. I think variety only helps when each job has different strengths, rather than a spectrum of each job being progressively worse at the same thing and that being labeled job identity.

I don't think there's any point in discussing the damage output of the tanks at the moment, as we haven't even had the first savage patch yet, and until then, none of the jobs damage outputs are going to make any sense, and the never do in the first couple patches of a new expansion.

TBN is only inconsistent if you're trying to get it to pop on autos.

Why do you feel that GNB has more sustain than DRK? DRK has more mit, a stronger invuln and they have a comparable amount of self-healing. I would say their defences are different but comparable.

Allowing for DRK to have higher damage output but less sustain than jobs like WAR and PLD is definitely job identity.

[GoatOfWar]

Warrior - Removed from the game.

There, now the developers can add some identity to the job that will last longer than half an expansion and the game becomes better for everyone.
Also, no more ugly axes on your screen in any of the main cities.

[Railynx]

TBN is only inconsistent if you're trying to get it to pop on autos.

Why do you feel that GNB has more sustain than DRK? DRK has more mit, a stronger invuln and they have a comparable amount of self-healing. I would say their defences are different but comparable.

Allowing for DRK to have higher damage output but less sustain than jobs like WAR and PLD is definitely job identity.

Yeah, and if TBN becomes a damage gain, given XIV at it's high-end is all about damage optimisation, Dark Knights would be forced to plot out how to pop TBN on autos as soon as it comes off cooldown. It would also become a nightmare for job balance, as DRK would suddenly have the potential to do massively varied damage based on encounter.

As for GNB vs DRK sustain, GNB does actually have considerably more to work with.
With regard to self-healing in a raid setting, DRK has Soul Eater and Shadowed Vigil. Living Dead doesn't much count for anything, because LD is used in the same place any Invuln would be used.
GNB on the other hand has access to Brutal Shell which beats Soul Eater by 100 potency, Aurora which has the exact same healing potency as Shadowed Vigil but with half the cooldown and 2 charges.
Then there's Heart of Corundum versus The Blackest Night. TBN, if you break the shield, is comparative to a heal of ~1300 potency. However, you can only do this if you know it will break, so you won't end up using it off cooldown all the time. HoC shares the same cooldown as TBN, and a heal of 900 potency, however HoC's heal can crit, which actually causes it to restore more than a DRK would get out of breaking their TBN. And on top of that, there's of course the 30% mitigation, and the fact that HoC can be used more frequently without causing the GNB to suffer for it.
And then GNB also has Great Nebula on top of that, for a temporary 20% HP boost.
There's also Camouflage and Dark Mind/Oblation, and with the exception of bosses that do primarily magic damage, Camouflage is slightly better.
So as far as sustain goes, GNB's self sustain does just beat DRK's significantly. And on top of that, being "the blue dps" is GNB's identity. Even after the balance patch goes out, SE won't just make DRK massively stronger than GNB in damage output in order to offset the reliance DRK has on healers, because being a high-damage tank is what GNB was designed to be.
All that said, SE has been trying to push the damage output of the tanks to be relatively consistent throughout the role, with the minor offset of GNB sticking to the front of the pack, so DRK having less sustain won't ever really have a pay-off.

[DaveFishnomer]

DRK has almost no sustain and I think that is fine, the thing is that it has nothing else on other tanks, it has mid damage (just slightly above paladin), pretty good mits, it can help protect party members but not as good as paladin, overall it's just bad at most things, it has no highlight, it should be the DMG tank IMO, low sustain, low party utility high dmg.

[Keagian]

Honestly all DRK really needs is to have all its offensive CD's cut in half and have Salted Earth give you a Regan or increased healing when your standing in it.

[Railynx]

Honestly all DRK really needs is to have all its offensive CD's cut in half and have Salted Earth give you a Regan or increased healing when your standing in it.

Honestly, I really don't know why Salted Earth has no healing component. I feel like that ability has been on every DRK's hit-list for ages. I've never talked to another DRK player who actually liked Salted Earth, nor expected it to still be a part of DRK's kit. I'm still surprised, to this day, that Salted Earth wasn't removed like 4 years ago or more, and I would absolutely love it to be removed in exchange for something else. That said, if it actually had a defensive benefit to it, that would at least make it feel like it has some purpose to exist.

[Oizen]

Defensively, DRK is fine. It has TBN and a lot of mit to prevent its health from dropping in the first place and a decent number of sustain tools in abyssal drain, shadow vigil and living dead, to help recover when its health does drop. It doesn't have infinite sustain like WAR but why should it? IMO the game needs more job identity. The game does not need every tank to function like WAR.

Personally, I would rather they gave DRK some potency buffs and returned it to its previous position. When your TBN breaks, I'd like to see the free edge/flood of shadows deal bonus damage, which would reward you for making good use of TBN.

I think the closest thing we can have to TBN being a damage gain is just making Dark Arts fueled Edge/Flood be guaranteed Crit/DH.