How would YOU make DRK work ?

[trailmix9999]

Considering the balance between PLD and WAR, how is SE gonna make DRK work? Well we obviously have no idea, but for the time being, how would you make DRK work without being OP or overshadowing WAR or PLD?

[LucentLagombi]

I'd prefer something heavily dps based, even more so than war is. Primarily speced for off taking and possibly taking mitigation skills out of its mp pool. Honestly it could be anything and I'd still probably wanna play it but having it put out at least war level deeps I think is only right for a class with this kind of flavor to it.

[Windklinge]

i think DRK will be mp based more than war and pld. it will have a huge mp pool instead of pure hp like WAR. these mp will somehow be used as a shield aka hp or mitigation. but since its a new class itll likely be way more polished out than WAR or PLD. and at release i except DRK to be stupidly good compared to the other two. however SE will nerf it about 1 patch later to bring it in line again. new addon classes on mmos tend to always be OP compared to OLD ones since it boosts sales for the publisher in the end tough they will be balanced somehow.

drk will have either better mitigation than war in that case it has to have worse dps otherwise why play war ever again?
OR it will have superior dps to war and pld but have the lowest amount of mitigation of all 3 tank classes. it will either of those. otherwise why play WAR at all?^^

[Darius-Stormcrow]

It'd make sense to me if it wound up utilizing absorption as a main tanking mechanic, maybe you can use drains or something like Dread Spikes to create an HP buffer for yourself sort of like how Drain II functioned in FFXI.

Maybe have some passive abilities or self buffs that increase in effectiveness the lower the Drk gets in HP- that'd take some serious work to make viable though.

Also, I doubt it'll ever be a thing but I really liked the Dark Knight ability "See you in Hell!" From Bravely Default, take a big chunk out of an enemy's HP as a parting shot when you got killed.

[Darkstride]

Stat manipulation and balancing HP/MP draining.

Dread Spikes(MP): buff that absorbs health when hit

Drain (MP): drains health

Absorb [stat]: temporarily lowers enemy stat while buff your own. Should atleast be one for STR, VIT, INT.

Punishing Barbs: self buff that redirects a % of damage back to the attacker.

Sanguine Rite: self buff that temporarily converts a small portion of incoming damage to MP.

Corruption: self inflicted DoT that slowly drains health, and stores the damage in a pool. Hate generation and damage output are increased while it is active. Re-using this ability stops the effect, consuming the pool to deal the stored damage to the target.

Souleater (TP): single target attack. Creates a debuff that causes a small % of HP Drain from all attacks for all party members.

Reaper (TP): single target attack. If the target is under the effect of Souleater debuff, the effect if changed to Reaper which drains a small % of TP from all attacks for all party members.

Consume (TP): single target attack. If the target is under the effect of Reaper, it changes the effect to Consume, which drains a small amount of MP from all party member attacks on the target.

Darkness: consumes a small % of health each cast to create an AoE blast with high hate generation. Each cast causes a stack of Darkness buff on yourself which increases the hate generation and damage output of the next Darkness cast, but also the self-HP drained (sort of like Astral Fire stacks).

Dark Harvest: consumes all stacks of Darkness to unleash an AoE HP Drain. Power increases per stack of Darkness.

^So, you can spam Darkness for damage and hate generation at the cost of your own health. Risk vs reward. Follow it up with Dark Harvest to reset Darkness stacks on yourself and recover HP to survive.

Souleater, Reaper and Consume can be rotated to aid the group and allow them to drain the target. It would add support similar to Bard, but by debuffing the boss rather than buffing the party. It would work similar to Drain Samba from Dancer in FFXI.

[stoxastic]

Ideally, the DRK will need to be able to fit into raid compositions without being oppressively overpowered, but also not be extremely weak to the extent that everyone will continue to run PLD/WAR compositions.

There's already a dynamic where 3 roles fight for 2 slots in a party: Melee dps. Post-DRG buff, each dps can do comparably high numbers, but you still see many progression groups prefer 2 of the 3: MNK and NIN. Despite the very good buffs and QoL changes to DRG, they are typically still 3rd preference due to the fact that they don't really provide much utility. MNK has Dragon Kick, while NIN has Goad and Trick Attack.

In my opinion, what's going to make or break DRK in progression raiding is not necessarily the raw stats in tankiness and dps, but what kind of party utility they can bring to the group. The reason almost all groups run WAR/PLD instead of WAR/WAR or PLD/PLD is that each class brings something that the other does not (Storm debuffs for WAR; Halone STR debuff, ability to silence and stun lock for PLD). We'll have to see what utility DRK brings to the table to warrant subbing out either WAR or PLD, and I don't think its going to be something like "It's tankier" or "Deals more dps."

[SirTaint]

I am extremely interested in DRK, it was my main in FFXI for 10+ years and I was always on the forefront of tanking on DRK in FFXI. (I was in a big HNM LS that could support it) It was by far the best HNM tank in FFXI for years but very few players ever even tried it, or didn't have the support to make it work.

The stole a lot of DRKs ideas when they made WAR so it will be interesting to see what direction that take this.

My thought is in the tank stance DRK will build stacks through taking damage and then unleashing the stacks for hate/DPS.

Simple moves like Bio,Drain,Absorb would be cool and effective if they give us multiple choices.
TP Absorb, STR Absorb, INT Absorb etc.

Dread Spikes is a no brainer. Maybe even make it more of a crowd control move then one for single tanking.

[trailmix9999]

I am extremely interested in DRK, it was my main in FFXI for 10+ years and I was always on the forefront of tanking on DRK in FFXI. (I was in a big HNM LS that could support it) It was by far the best HNM tank in FFXI for years but very few players ever even tried it, or didn't have the support to make it work.

The stole a lot of DRKs ideas when they made WAR so it will be interesting to see what direction that take this.

My thought is in the tank stance DRK will build stacks through taking damage and then unleashing the stacks for hate/DPS.

Simple moves like Bio,Drain,Absorb would be cool and effective if they give us multiple choices.
TP Absorb, STR Absorb, INT Absorb etc.

Dread Spikes is a no brainer. Maybe even make it more of a crowd control move then one for single tanking.

Thats one thing i was concerned about, SE has already used some of DRKs abilties and motifs on WAR.

[Lawson_Grey]

Terror Blade combo - This would be the Drks main 1, 2, 3. The 3rd hit would do the typical increase enmity, however the FIRST hit would simply add a stack of Terror to the target. Terror would have both a stack cap and a duration. Terror does nothing, until. . .

Darkness - OFF-GCD skill that consumes stacks of Terror on nearby targets to grant the Dark Knight a shield/damage reduction/etc.

I think this would be a cool way to let the Drk mitigate the big hits that we've come to expect in tanking raids in this game (Death Sentence/Raven's Beak/etc), while keeping it different from just a boring Cooldown to pop. The stacking with a duration and a stack limit means gives the move this pro and con that I find interesting.

1. You'd have to pay attention to your stack number and time left so you can't just set it and forget it.

2. However because it does cap out, after you reach the cap as long as you hit it with a combo every other rotation or so, you can use the downtime to cast other moves/taunt adds/use a different combo/etc without feeling penalized for not using your basic 1, 2, 3 over and over.

[Lawson_Grey]

(continued)
Nightfall - Copy target's current number of Terror stacks to all targets within 10 yalms.

I think Nightfall would be interesting if Darkness had either an enmity plus component (based on # of stacks?) or if Darkness straight up taunted targets with Terror stacks. This way you could build up Terror stacks on a boss, then once adds come Nightfall the Terror stacks to all the adds and then Darkness everything for an aoe taunt + mitigation which would reduce the spike of damage you'd be tanking by suddenly gaining a bunch of mob aggro.

Fading Light - A self-buff on a decently long CD that grants max Terror stacks on a target immediately. This would be the Drk's "Oh Snap" move. Did your Terror stacks fall off (or they're only at 1 or 2) and Boss is about to use a huge move that you need max stacks to defend against? Did the OT just drop and now all the adds are about to go wild? Falling light to get max stacks of Terror on boss, Nightfall to spread Terror to everything nearby, then Darkness to immediately regain control of the situation.