Dark Knight: Still Searching for Your True Identity

[MiniPrinny]

So, a curious topic came up the other day, and one I think needs to be spoken about here, Dark Knight has problems, particularly in their identity and balancing as a tank, problems which, before 3.2 were brushed under the rug because of the extremely hostile environment of the Gordias sector of Alexander.

Dark Knight as a tank, as far as I can tell, was meant to be two things: the first, a tank that specializes in counteracting magical damage, much like Paladins do towards physical damage. The second, a tank that hits powerfully, while not being based around raw health and occasional mitigation, but rather constant smaller mitigation. Essentially, Dark Knight is Paladin's mirror image.

So, why does this anti-magical tank, who is based on constant smaller mitigation and high damage, only really have the first part? And even then, they are bested by Monks who boost their own damage and don't lose DPS by using their INT reduction effect. This leaves Dark Knight with two unique boons to the party, Reprisal, which is unreliable and only usable while the knight is tanking, and Dark Mind, which while novel, is again, situational. So, we are left with a tank that while super iconic to the series, lacks a true identity in this iteration. Question is, how can we fix it?

More Than Just the Dark Arts

Dark Knights in the series are known for two things, the first is consuming their own health to greatly bolster their offensive power, the second is their crippling magical attacks that often leave the enemy weakened and unable to attack, if not dead outright. Now, while the first I think was implemented rather well here, with Dark Knights rapidly consuming their aether to bolster their offensive power, the second, their magical aspect has been left in the dust. We are left with Dark Knight having a pittance of magical abilities, with only two of their abilities reducing the target's stats (Delirium and Dark Passenger). In addition, Dark Knights are also weaker than one of their peers, which for a tank known in the series for making great sacrifice to obliterate their enemies just seems wrong. So, how can we absolve these first issues?

A quick solution to making Dark Knight possess their status as a status ailment-focused high damage tank is simply adding more effects to them. The first of which I believe should be improving Delirium. As it stands, Monks are simply better at applying this debuff than Dark Knights. Dark Knights while tanking outside of Grit, lose damage by using Delirium and even while off-tanking, Delirium is more used for maintaining MP and as filler rather than for its purpose of inflicting weakening debuffs upon the enemy. And easy fix would be to make Delirium benefit either the Dark Knight's own damage, or the damage of other players in the party, much like Dragon Kick does for a Monk.

To fix Delirium however, we must first "break" Dragon Kick. We can not add another effect to Delirium in its current state because then Dragon Kick and Delirium would fight one another for priority. So, to prevent this, we have both Delirium and Dragon Kick apply two debuffs: Intelligence Down (10%) and a second that is unique to their abilities. Dragon Kick, of course, would remain with a second, Blunt Resistance Down (10%) debuff; Delirium however, I propose should have something unique to Dark Knight: Magic Resistance Down (5%). Giving Dark Knight access to reducing the target's magical resistance would do two things for the Job. The first, is increase their damage by a small margin. The second, would be an interaction between Jobs only performed by Bards and Machinists currently, bolstering the damage of casters and healers. I believe the concept of an anti-magic tank, making the target more vulnerable to magic is all too fitting.

There are two other abilities I believe need additional effects added to them, the next of which is Salted Earth. Currently, Salted Earth is a powerful, non-elemental physical ground targeted AoE, which is great. But, there is room for more, Dark Knight and Bard are currently the only two Jobs who have ground targeted, offensive AoEs that do not inflict a status ailment. And while it is already there, Dark Knights could easily also inflict a Slow (5%) debuff to targets in their Salted Earth, giving them more control over the battlefield and another means by which they can defend themselves.

The final ability, is Reprisal. Reprisal is great, it's powerful, it does decent damage, and inflicts a potent debuff. However, it is currently unreliable, it lacks the punch required to make it as powerful as it could be. So, Reprisal, I believe should have either its duration increased to 35s (giving time to get another Parry), or its recast time reduced to 15s and its potency reduced 110 to compensate for the more frequent Reprisals. Finally, Reprisal, now as something that can be kept up more reliably, should no longer stack with Storm's Path, making it a rival to Storm's Path vs a bonus effect that sometimes occurs.

Judge, Jury, and Executioner

Now that we have statuses out of the way, let's look at damage. Dark Knights are in a weird place, they are very powerful, but, to unlock their power, they need access to so many allies. For a knight who has lost their honor by choosing to go outside of the law, in gameplay, they are heavily reliant on their allies. There is a simple change to this with the idea of a Delirium which reduces magic resistance in mind: Make Dark Knights deal magical damage, and only magical damage.

Making Dark Knights focus on purely magical damage would not be incredibly far-fetched. Currently, their animations and lore all imply that their attacks are not completely straightforward physical slashes, but rather something more. In addition, Dark Knights as a magical damage dealer, would reduce the growing bloat of Jobs which use the slashing damage type. Many players are already speculating that we are getting either Samurai or Blue Mage soon, both are known for using bladed weapons that prefer slashing motions vs piercing and impaling motions. So, by removing one from the current Job pool would offer some more room.

Now, as for their abilities. Dark Knights right now have two potential strengths: Their multi-target damage output, and their sustained damage. For their multi-target damage, I believe they only need two changes to their kit, the first is Dark Passenger. Almost no one enjoys Dark Passenger's current Dark Arts effect, it is cute in dungeons, but even there, it is beginning to grow weaker, and by the end of this expansion, once again, Blind will be nearly worthless. So, instead of applying a Blind, I suggest we strengthen Dark Knight's multi-target damage by changing Dark Passenger's added effect to an debuff which increases their damage output. Dark Passenger would apply "Creeping Shadows," Creeping Shadows would, when the target receives magical damage from the Dark Knight again, explode in a 5y radius around the target, dealing 10 potency in unaspected magic damage. This would give Dark Knights yet another means of dishing out higher levels of damage, but also would reward risky play; to get the most out of Dark Passenger, the Dark Knight would have to pull more targets, tank more targets, place more stress on the Dark Knight and the healer(s).

The second ability change for a Dark Knight's damage-based kit, would be a proper chaining of their spells. Currently, at lv40, Dark Knights gain "Enhanced Unmend" which, 30% of the time, makes their next Unmend cause the following Unleash to be free of cost. I suggest we adapt this instead of reducing MP costs, that Enhanced Unmend should be renamed to "Enhanced Magicks." This new trait would cause Unmend to increase the damage of the next Unleash by 10% damage. Additionally, the trait would also cause Unleash to increase the damage of the next Abyssal Drain by 15%. This new trait would solidify Dark Knight as the most powerful tank for handling large packs of enemies quickly and efficiently, and help solidify the Job's image as the vigilante who can fight groups on their own to mete out justice.

Above the Petty Criminal

As a Dark Knight delivers justice to those who have wronged, they are forced to disable or outright ignore those in their way. Because of this, it is strange that Dark Knights are the weakest of the three tanks defensively. Now, why I by far do not want Dark Knights to be overpowered, they deserve to also not be dragging their feet behind Paladin, and their defensive abilities need few changes to accomplish this.

The most basic and simple change, and the ability that can be summed up quickly, is Shadow Wall needs to be a direct analogue to Sentinel. A Dark Knight's self-healing and steady parrying through Dark Dance isn't enough to justify Shadow Wall's weakness.

Speaking of Dark Dance, much like Dark Passenger, its Dark Arts effect is worthless. Dark Dance's Dark Arts effect in fact increases the difficulty of Dark Knight, because while tanking large groups, most Dark Knights who have not realized this, Dark Dance combined with Dark Arts and Blood Price can not be used at tandem without reducing the effectiveness of Blood Price significantly. Additionally, Dark Dance's Dark Arts effect does not exist beyond dungeons and like Dark Passenger grows weaker as expansions move forward.

To remedy this, we must look to Dark Knight's polar opposite, Paladin. I propose, that like Paladin, Dark Knights should be able to force a parry as Paladins do with a block via Sheltron. To accomplish this however, Dark Knights, focused on magic, must sacrifice potential offensive power to defend themselves adequately; in other words, the removal Dark Dance's evasion effect for a guaranteed parry buff in addition to Dark Dance's steady parry effect.

One last change, and the last I wish to cover since, as of recent, we have heard it is a possibility, is simply adjusting parry as a stat. It is considered to be a trap, and in many cases, it is worse than over compensating with accuracy. This is a terrible situation for a stat which is supposed to be the heart of a Job's identity.

Impatience

For those of us who do not have the patience to get through this, allow me to summarize:

• Dark Knight does not have a clear identity as a tank.
• Dark Knight is weaker than its peers in areas it should be equal or stronger in.
• Dark Knights should have more status ailments to better separate them from Paladin and Warrior.
• Dark Knight should not be reliant on Warriors, Ninjas, and Bards to reach their maximum potential as a damage dealer.
• Dark Knights should additionally have stronger area of effect potential, giving them a clear edge over Warrior, that is multi-target vs single-target damage.
• Dark Knight should not be weaker than Paladin defensively.
• Dark Knight should have a way of forcing a parry to occur.
• Parry sucks.