DRK feels super squish in comparison to the other tanks

[Carighan]

Make dark knight crash 2 energy bats into the enemy. Each hit heals the party. I want a move where we cut ourselves and we use the blood to shield the whole team with magic flying out of our wound.

Energy bats? That cause an AoE heal? Yeah I can already see the deep DRK lore all over that. xD That was from when Dark Knights were historically Healer Draculas, right?

[Brandr]

Energy bats? That cause an AoE heal? Yeah I can already see the deep DRK lore all over that. xD That was from when Dark Knights were historically Healer Draculas, right?

Healer bats might be a poor translation.

I guess the idea is a HP Draining skill, like the third attack of the main combo and Gafgarion's signature skill from Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Carighan]

I want me flapping open a cloak and a swarm of bats flying out, suicide-impacting into AoE explosions that rip energy out of targets hit that them homes into my team-mates like auto-collected XP bits now. Now I'm already sold on healing bats. Yoshi P, please.

Replace the animation of the gapcloser with us turning into a swarm of bats, flying over, and reforming there, too.

Darkula Knight it is.

[Reginald_Cain]

I don't think dark knight really needs much sustain outside of a slight buff to soul eater heals

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I don't think dark knight really needs much sustain outside of a slight buff to soul eater heals

Eh. I think something they could do is create a parity to Souleater in AOE.

Basically, give Stalwart Soul 200 Cure potency for hitting one or more enemies (like Holy Circle from PLD). This would be 600 heal potency over the course of six GCD actions in both single target and AOE.

And from there of course, sustain can be potentially cranked up or down as needed.

[Reginald_Cain]

I want me flapping open a cloak and a swarm of bats flying out, suicide-impacting into AoE explosions that rip energy out of targets hit that them homes into my team-mates like auto-collected XP bits now. Now I'm already sold on healing bats. Yoshi P, please.

Replace the animation of the gapcloser with us turning into a swarm of bats, flying over, and reforming there, too.

Darkula Knight it is.

I'd prefer plunge back but unironically that would be an awesome animation.

The bats motif was a dumb idea i came up with because i think a lot of opinions being tossed around are dumb. Dark knight has barely changed since shadowbringers and before endwalker gave all the other tanks huge buffs to their short cd mitigation skills, tbn honestly made me feel invincible in dungeon content compared to playing Gunbreaker especially. Dark knight isn't that squishy it just requires more engagement with mitigation buttons instead of getting massive heals every 30 seconds. They made living dead really good finally it just takes some communication with your healer. Honestly the only reason I want a soul eater buff is too make Dark knight better at solo unsyncd content.

[Akivar]

Here is my fix for DRK.

---- Add a healing component to edge and flood of shadow.

This ups DRK self sustain slightly. Especially in aoe situations where TBN will break and now leads into a heal from flood of shadow. Now in situation you know you won't be able to break TBN, you still gain some self sustain by just using edge/flood. Also it gives the whole lifetap theme of drain, trading mp for health.
It isn't a huge change, but a huge change isn't needed.

[Terhix]

Here is my fix for DRK.

---- Add a healing component to edge and flood of shadow.

This ups DRK self sustain slightly. Especially in aoe situations where TBN will break and now leads into a heal from flood of shadow. Now in situation you know you won't be able to break TBN, you still gain some self sustain by just using edge/flood. Also it gives the whole lifetap theme of drain, trading mp for health.
It isn't a huge change, but a huge change isn't needed.

I'm not a huge fan of putting either mitigation or sustain on DPS abilities. Using Edge to heal yourself outside of burst has the same issues as using TBN when you should be banking MP for 2 minutes: it's a DPS loss. If we have to go that direction making TBN cost no MP and instead it granting a heal on the next Edge/Flood after breaking would have been preferable. The main issue with that approach is that it turns MP management from very simple to completely braindead, Blood gauge has been already completely neutered and you can basically remove it from the UI without losing all that much.

DRK either needs to have its defensives be dps neutral like all the other tanks, or it needs to have its incentives flipped where maximizing TBN value rewards you with optimal dps instead of punishing you.

[Akivar]

If you aren't using your tbn on cooldown in dungeons, you are making your healers life in dungeons miserable as is. No one is lining up burst windows in dungeons or raids. And DRK don't really need anything in extremes and savages. DRK are pretty much fine in high end content. It is aoe content where TBN is actually a pretty trash ability. Also anytime you proc TBN, is automatically never a dps lose, because the dps is being done anyway. And if you use TBN and it doesn't proc, its a waste, at least with this you still get SOMETHING from skipping the TBN and just doing the dps and getting SOME sustain.
I consider this as more just adding more healing to the 123, but more interesting. Its not really something your suppose to think about other than VERY specific situations. All it is suppose to do is give a bit of free healing within the current DRK rotation as is. Like when they added healing to the paladin minute combo, just pure cherry on top. No Paladin is like "well I'm going to not do my 1 minute burst because I might need that healing in 30 seconds". Its just free health on top of just doing whatever you already were.

[Brandr]

If you aren't using your tbn on cooldown in dungeons, you are making your healers life in dungeons miserable as is. No one is lining up burst windows in dungeons or raids. And DRK don't really need anything in extremes and savages. DRK are pretty much fine in high end content. It is aoe content where TBN is actually a pretty trash ability. Also anytime you proc TBN, is automatically never a dps lose, because the dps is being done anyway. And if you use TBN and it doesn't proc, its a waste, at least with this you still get SOMETHING from skipping the TBN and just doing the dps and getting SOME sustain.
I consider this as more just adding more healing to the 123, but more interesting. Its not really something your suppose to think about other than VERY specific situations. All it is suppose to do is give a bit of free healing within the current DRK rotation as is. Like when they added healing to the paladin minute combo, just pure cherry on top. No Paladin is like "well I'm going to not do my 1 minute burst because I might need that healing in 30 seconds". Its just free health on top of just doing whatever you already were.

I like this idea