If You Were A Class/Job Designer...

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Dark Knight is nothing like it should be; its really just a copy of Paladin with some AOEs and a half baked mechanic thrown into it. Should be about Life Manipulation; shouldn't even have a mana bar honestly. Just a bigger life pool and abilities that take life to use; and lifetaps.

Honestly though with Paladin changes they do 8 times more healing then Dark Knight can; and in Sword Oath they have near the same DPS. (Dark Knight does way more aoe dps though.)

I loved the "Dark" class in RIFT who was all about health manipulation.

[JackFross]

Dark Knight is nothing like it should be

butcher the iconic Dark Knight class.

I'm honestly tired of this same argument being slapped at Dark Knight again and again. It doesn't use its health, therefore it's not a Dark Knight GOSH HOW WORTHLESS.

It boils down to one very important dichotomy:
Can they heal back all of the damage that they inflict on themselves?
Yes! - Why is this a mechanic then? What's the point?
No! - Instantly the weakest Job in whatever role it's placed in, since they'd be squishier on principle.
**But more health!!!!!
****Then why bother wasting my health on skills when I can just utilize that bonus health as additional mitigation and trivialize many mechanics?

Basically, it's near impossible to balance a Job (ESPECIALLY a tank) in this game around spending and restoring its own health. You will - no matter what - end up making it too strong or not strong enough. It should be able to heal back the damage it deals so that the healers don't need to spend additional resources to keep the DRK up compared to other tanks (Let's not discuss LD here, this is about core mechanics), however, if it CAN heal back that damage it's doing to itself, wouldn't you theoretically be able to just ignore all of the health-costing spells and use your self-heals to regenerate from incoming attacks? If spending health is sufficiently powerful to make it worthwhile, wouldn't it then become optimal to just burn your health out and have a healer keep Regen flowing on you? Wouldn't that therefore either outmode another tank (because it can deal WAY more damage) or make DRK completely worthless (because healers need to spend GCDs on keeping it up)?


Sure, I'm a LITTLE peeved we didn't get Darkness that drains health for more damage, but at the same time, I'm really glad? It would have shifted the dynamic of battles to have the Dark Knight get babied and focused, or it would have solidified PLD/WAR as absolutely 100% optimal, or made it so that the benefits of DRK's self-heals would drastically outweigh any additional dps brought by a WAR, making DRK/DRK ideal.

So, no. This idea is terrible and shouldn't be touted as being what the Job should have been. Seriously, please stop.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I'm honestly tired of this same argument being slapped at Dark Knight again and again. It doesn't use its health, therefore it's not a Dark Knight GOSH HOW WORTHLESS.

It boils down to one very important dichotomy:
Can they heal back all of the damage that they inflict on themselves?
Yes! - Why is this a mechanic then? What's the point?
No! - Instantly the weakest Job in whatever role it's placed in, since they'd be squishier on principle.
**But more health!!!!!
****Then why bother wasting my health on skills when I can just utilize that bonus health as additional mitigation and trivialize many mechanics?

Basically, it's near impossible to balance a Job (ESPECIALLY a tank) in this game around spending and restoring its own health. You will - no matter what - end up making it too strong or not strong enough. It should be able to heal back the damage it deals so that the healers don't need to spend additional resources to keep the DRK up compared to other tanks (Let's not discuss LD here, this is about core mechanics), however, if it CAN heal back that damage it's doing to itself, wouldn't you theoretically be able to just ignore all of the health-costing spells and use your self-heals to regenerate from incoming attacks? If spending health is sufficiently powerful to make it worthwhile, wouldn't it then become optimal to just burn your health out and have a healer keep Regen flowing on you? Wouldn't that therefore either outmode another tank (because it can deal WAY more damage) or make DRK completely worthless (because healers need to spend GCDs on keeping it up)?


Sure, I'm a LITTLE peeved we didn't get Darkness that drains health for more damage, but at the same time, I'm really glad? It would have shifted the dynamic of battles to have the Dark Knight get babied and focused, or it would have solidified PLD/WAR as absolutely 100% optimal, or made it so that the benefits of DRK's self-heals would drastically outweigh any additional dps brought by a WAR, making DRK/DRK ideal.

So, no. This idea is terrible and shouldn't be touted as being what the Job should have been. Seriously, please stop.

Because it is a mechanic. You can heal for more; probably way more then your taking away depending on how you play. Warrior will never be replaced right now because hes decreasing the damage of the entire raid by 10%; which far outweighs even Dark Knight's healing if it was increased by 500%.

Right now Warriors out heal Dark Knight's and Out Damage them. So... yeah. *shrugs*

You should play Shadowknight or Necromancer in Everquest to see how a lifetap health tank works. Heck; one of them even has Lifeburn.

So instead of trying something new and interesting we just pretty much have a Paladin who is a tiny bit different.

[MagiusNecros]

I'm honestly tired of this same argument being slapped at Dark Knight again and again. It doesn't use its health, therefore it's not a Dark Knight GOSH HOW WORTHLESS.

Then don't call it one then. Don't plop a popular class in the franchise and butcher what it has always been just to get people to try Tanking. It's misleading and fucking pathetic. So pathetic I won't be surprised when expansion time comes the job gets a bit of a touch up. It's poorly designed as is. People who have stuck with the class are merely "dealing with it". They may even "like" the clunky playstyle. Don't even give me any "but XIV is special" bullshit.

DRK should have been a sustain tank...which means tons of damn Lifesteal everywhere. But no. Here it is the one tank that relies on it's healer the most. This is classic DnD Thayan Knight syndrome right here. The healer in this instance is the damn Red Wizard.

And you know the very first Job Quest had an interesting mechanic with Darkness stacks and then it disappeared forever after that. Damn shame too. Since it would have made the damn job dynamic and it's own thing instead of well it's a mish mash of PLD/WAR minus a bunch of Utility.

[InfiniDragon]

People who have stuck with the class are merely "dealing with it". They may even "like" the clunky playstyle.

For one, I don't "like" the playstyle of current DRK, I just like it. So please don't assume everyone shares your views about the job by tacking on air quotes for sarcasm.

For two, if they ever added a lifesteal mechanic to DRK, I personally feel like the best way to go about it would be blood shields based somewhat on damage dealt by the DRK (accompanied by smaller self heals). Full on HP drain on a tank is a horrible idea to me, and not one I'd personally like to see changed, iconic to the job in classic FF or no.

[MagiusNecros]

For one, I don't "like" the playstyle of current DRK, I just like it.

Which means you like the clunky playstyle. Which is completely fine and I'm happy you can appreciate something. Those air quotes aren't even sarcasm. The first might suggest they play it because it is the Dark Knight class and the second implies that the person playing it genuinely likes the way it plays. Like you for example.

DRK kinda already has Lifesteal. With Bloodbath every 90 seconds for 15 seconds. Which is incredibly limited. Your blood shield concept would just amount to a Warrior's Vengeance. Maybe for simply magic damage as opposed to physical. Which honestly is cookie cutter boring and really doesn't give the DRK identity and instead is merely copying an ability the WAR has with a minor alteration.

[MagiusNecros]

I will simply laugh if Samurai sacrifices HP for damage whenever it gets released. That's all I gotta say.

[MagiusNecros]

The thing is Jack if DRK has a solid kit with key holes punched in it and also leaves a lot to be desired then that in itself attributes it to poor design.

What they need to do if they want to push it as the bonafide magic tank it needs abilities that absorb Magic Damage, block magic damage, give additional ways to use Dark Arts such as forcing reprisal when offtank(relying on a parry proc means MT or go home and Parry is ass anyway), forcing blood weapon in grit to give HP instead of MP, give them an on demand provoke through DA Power Slash and hell swap out Int Down on Delirium for Magic Vulnerability up. And something needs to be done with Living Dead. Period.

You cannot design an ultimate defensive skill completely around the raid environment and assume the DRK and it's healer have a vocal channel open all the time. You sacrifice all for nothing with the skill and get no buff out of it(which why our stats aren't getting buffed by at least 20% during LD/WD is beyond me) except for what so you can die slightly later? Meanwhile the PLD/WAR over there can definitely make a comeback with Clemency and a plethora of Self heals? I mean if Convalescence buffed Souleater I would complain much much less.

Will it fix mah beef with no HP cost skills for the deeps? No. But it would make the class have a form of identity and great utility. Which would be the magic tank of the game. And right now in the long run it will struggle and only be taken if 80% of a fight is magic damage for just manageable mitigation. Otherwise it's take a PLD if Physical or play it safe and go WAR.

[Jpec07]

Geeeetting back to the original question, my first step would be to fix Parry. I'd make it so Parry scaled like Crit, where points in Parry affect both rate and % (for tanks only), and make it scale better in general (20 points to 1% sounds pretty good). I'd then add a trait where Parry affects Crit at a 2:1 ratio, so 2 parry = 1 Crit, and make it so tank stances negate this effect. And lastly, for Paladins, I'd give a trait where an incoming attack can be both parried and blocked at the same time (or give a trait where, in Shield Oath, their block rate and % are enhanced by Parry).

More to come on the rest.

[MagiusNecros]

I really just want DRK to be better. Or rather I just want all 3 tank classes to be as dynamic as the Warrior is...which probably won't happen anytime soon.