If You Were A Class/Job Designer...

[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.

[Duelle]

DRK's niche is nonexistant. I think a good niche would be selfhealing with damage-shields at key moments. My Souleater redesign would allow for damage smoothing; and their cooldowns being changed to something less potent to compensate for Dark Arts Souleater; while being able to be augmented by Dark Arts to be made different (not just strictly better) would, to me, be a much more interesting design than "Dark PLD". Play into their MP management. Make MP management be a huge part of their mitigation. Something like your Dark Passenger suggestion is great; a huge MP sink to mitigate damage.

Any changes to DRK's mitigation focus would pretty much call for a redesign of the job. Granted, I don't think that's a bad thing, but as I suggested in my write up a couple of pages back, it would also require a redesign of WAR because WAR has the drains and self heals that would be characteristic to DRK.

Assuming it were to get a focus on drains and damage shield, DRK should take drains in a direction beyond "hits mob to recover HP", and regardless of what they do I'd like to see it get something similar to my suggested Dread Spike.

give PLD a defensive resource in 4.0.

PLD is actually very solidly designed, and doesn't really need much of anything as is. Adding more buttons for the sake of adding more buttons to push is not going to help the job nor make it fun.

[JackFross]

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*

I dunno how you fail to see that you just supported all of my points in that first statement.
And, Warrior has leech, but also doesn't spend its health to deal damage.
Storm's Path is also really not used nearly as often or to as great effect as everyone seems to think it is...

Then don't call it one then.

I can get behind the whole "It shouldn't be Dark Knight if it's not gonna be Health management" thing, to some extent. I'm one of the few who sees the Dark Knight as primarily based in its flavor/aesthetic than the whole spending health to deal damage aspect. In that regard, it's spot-on.

I resent the implication that it's "poorly-designed" though. It's anything but that. Its kit has incredible synergy (with a few key holes I outlined earlier in this thread) and it has the most engaging, fluid combat system out of all three tanks. It's incredibly fun to play and incredibly challenging to play well.

I won't deny that the mitigation toolkit of DRK leaves a LOT to be desired - they have nothing truly unique to themselves that's worth a damn save the best magical defensive cooldown in the game (which, imo, isn't really good enough to differentiate them). That's certainly an issue, and a lifesteal modification to the Job would potentially fix that, unless it fell into the trap of 2.0 WAR - which was the lifesteal/self-heal tank. It was so bad that PLD/PLD was favored, since WAR brought literally nothing of worth to the table. Then they added mitigation to Vengeance and Inner Beast - which used to be literally just a counter-attack cooldown and a 300% heal based on damage dealt.

So, while I agree that lifesteal would be neat, they've tried it before and failed fantastically. I'm not surprised they didn't try again.

I agree pretty much entirely with this and your prior post; but let me just defend my pitch of the Darkness ability

Yeah, I got that out of what you said, re: Darkness. It doesn't change my arguments against it. If it costs almost your entire mana bar, it needs to be more MP efficient than 4-5 DA+SE in a row, since that's what you get out of a full mana bar if you drain it normally. Also important to note is that, if you're playing the Job correctly, your Mana will NOT be full after Blood Weapon runs out. So, as I said, the skill would need to either be INSANELY potent, or it would be a complete waste of mana. It has a long charge time, uses all of my remaining mana (while I have a skill on a 30s cooldown that uses mana and another on 60s that needs mana when it's ready), and also spends some health (possibly mitigated by a self-shield) in order to deliver a single attack.

I just don't think that meshes well -at all- with the Dark Knight's current toolkit, especially if you're gonna then inject even more uses for Dark Arts into it.

Everything else you said is directly in line with what I feel regarding Dark Knight's current status.

However, I play both DRK (on my main) and PLD (on my alt) and enjoy both immensely. My only complaint for PLD is the decided lack of AoE damage. There's absolutely nothing else about their kit that I would feel is a pressing concern to change, aside from potentially adding something along the lines of a TP restoration skill. Their mitigation kit is deep and powerful, their offensive skills are simple and not very difficult to properly manage (which is a hallmark of the Job, and not something I would see fit to change drastically) and I think the changes they did in 3.2 did more than enough to fix the vast majority of other issues they had.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[JackFross]

Geeeetting back to the original question

We never stopped discussing the original question - we're still discussing potential changes to Dark Knight. :0

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.

It doesn't, though? Saying that the JOB is poorly designed would imply that it lacks in flair to match its role and job while also having disjointed gameplay alongside poor synergy among skills.
I wouldn't say poorly-designed, but I wouldn't say well-designed. It's somewhere in-between. It could be better, but it could certainly be much, much worse.

I do think that making them a full-fledged Magic tank would have been neat. Give Grit a natural Parry enhancement and the ability to Parry magic attacks while changing a few key cooldowns (DA+DD forces instant parry, for instance) to give a bit more... meat to its role. Delirium is part of it being the magic tank - in fact, it's the main reason for it being the magic tank. What they SHOULD do is take the INT-down debuff AWAY from Dragon Kick. There's no reason for it to be there - nobody applies PLD's STR-down debuff besides PLD...

That alone would greatly delineate DRK as the Magic tank (and parry tank) with PLD being the physical tank (as it already is, quite substantially) and WAR being the MUST HAVE tank because it brings far too much utility - an issue for another thread, since it's too multi-faceted to discuss here.

Your blood shield concept would just amount to a Warrior's Vengeance.

I think more what he meant was - you use Souleater and it heals you for x while shielding you for x as well, where x is how much damage it deals. Having that built into things instead of just straight lifesteal would be interesting. Have it be a stacking barrier up to a certain percentage of the tank's max health (delineated by a stack number from say 1 to 10 for up to 10% of max health).

That could be neat, as well.

Like, I definitely agree that DRK is lacking in originality, but I disagree when someone calls it poorly-designed, because it absolutely is not.

[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.