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.

[MagiusNecros]

Gonna be another one of those wishlists posts but I do agree that for me at least DRK is currently a mish mash of ideas at the moment. They need to make it a full magic tank.

I feel they need an opposite to Spirits Within. Minus Strike. High Pot with less HP. Pretty simple.

More DA effects on shit.

DA Power Slash should basically be on demand Provoke.

Delirium can keep Int Down. DA Effect Magic Vulnerability Up. Or a fucking Silence. Magic Tank and no silence? Really?

Salted Earth under DA should give the AoE something. Maybe Silence effect so a Antimagic Field?

Make DA force Reprisals outside of Grit. Relying on Parry is crap.

Living Dead should be buffing our stats or make MP skills cost either half or 0 MP under Living/Walking Dead status to mirror the buff stats when Doom is cast on yourself.

[Grux]

As a DRK main, I fully support this thread.

This has been brought up many times before.

We lack:
1) Tank and Class identity - PLDs are known for their mitigation, WARs are known for their offensive ability and perfect toolkit, DRKs are known for their magic damage mitigation and.. parry? Even then, how often do raid bosses do magic damage that requires magic mitigation? We're losing even this little of what makes us stand out. I won't go into parry.
2) Raid synergy - there is very little we can offer in utility to the raid, except for reprisal and possibly delirium. If you're OT and there's a MNK in your raid, well {That's too bad}
3) Self synergy - Blood price with DA Passenger or DA Dark Dance is just counter intuitive and awkward.

Whatever the argument saying that "DRK is fine" was back before patch 3.2, when PLDs were doing very low damage and DRKs were preferred as we contribute more damage.
Now that all tank's damage are more streamlined, they should really consider fixing our synergy.

As a start, they could reduce the MP of our Grit stance and consider making it OGCD.
Also, they did mention that Parry will have a huge revamp in 3.4 or 4.0 - that may make us shine again but we're talking about 6mths ahead at the very least.

There's also an idea somewhere to make Living Dead having a reverse effect on damage. Meaning any damage that results in a negative hp gets reversed into positive instead. I have to say that that would be really cool.

[Jhett_Magnum]

I love these ideas. IMHO this should have been DRK from the get go, and I hope SE looks at this thread.

[Starkbeaumont]

imo drk is mostly fine, though certain changes wouldn't hurt. but not just drk, all tanks.

all three should have a way to inflict the slashing+ debuff on the mob, also i would change int down of delirium to magic damage down and halone's str down to physical damage down (and moving the debuff to another move and increase halone's enmity multiplier). str down could be moved to one of the dps, kinda like dragon kick (maybe blm?). all of this to let each tank combination work good

for PLD give shield swipe the same effect as reprisal, maybe with a lower duration OR have it do conal aoe damage

for WAR make storm's eye combo having a higher potency than butcher's block

for DRK PS and SE should switch their potencies, making delirium only needed for those magic hits.
I'd still have DA boost SE to 400, but I'd change DAPS to be a guaranteed crit, non DA Carve and Spit is kinda meh atm, so I'd probably double the mp return
also not happy with living dead, I'd probably have all attacks heal the DRK as long as walking dead is in effect

foresight could be also changed to a low cd, low duration, 10% mitigation skill, making it more useful


and done with dreaming

[Fernosaur]

Tbh when it comes to fluff, I think the only tank that actually has a very tangible identity is Warrior. The simple existence of Berserk and Maim, and the synergy that Wrath and Abanddon bring to the table are amazing and are enough to actually make the Class go with the lore instead of just being a mix and match of ideas, like PLD.

I haven't really looked into DRK much, but from looking at the skill list I can tell that it sorta has the same problem as Paladin in terms of design: there's no identity. PLD can heal others and has Cover, but that's not a pivotal thing. DRK has... dark-like effects I guess. IMO to give Darkness theme more weight DRK should be able to heavily debuff the foes, both as a form of mitigation and raid utility, while PLD should be able to support the party directly by giving attack buffs (why a skill called Royal Authority has no effect on the party is beyond me) or simply more shields for the party.

Sadly, I don't see any of this happening ever, since it would require SE to change way too many things by now, and I don't think they have the resources to do it on top of the production of new content.

[Ragology]

imo drk is mostly fine, though certain changes wouldn't hurt. but not just drk, all tanks.



foresight could be also changed to a low cd, low duration, 10% mitigation skill, making it more useful


and done with dreaming

People are often saying that AST bole card is royal road fodder since 10% doesn't add up to much. Also I read on another forum that foresight might not be as weak as it once was:

My Paladin currently has 2524 Defense with Protect and 3029 with Foresight on top. According to calculations done in early 3.0, hitting this cooldown is ~15.5% physical damage mitigation. I would say that's actually significant. It's certainly weaker than Rampart, but it's a lot closer than you're implying.

Comparison of different physical tank buster mitigations:
ShO+Sen+Shel = .8*.6*.77 = ~36.9% damage taken
ShO+Ramp+Shel = .8*.8*.77 = ~49.3% damage taken
ShO+Fore+Shel = .8*.845*.77 = ~52.1% damage taken
ShO+Shel = .8*.77 = ~61.6% damage taken

So yeah, it's clearly not better than Rampart, but it's absolutely not worthless. Implying it's "not a real CD" is silly. Would you say Dark Mind is "not a real CD" without Dark Arts? It's essentially the Magical equivalent to Foresight at current gear levels.

[Lyth]

Re: Delirium
Delirium/DK is probably one of the most balanced debuffs at the moment. Neither DRK nor MNK actively work to maintain it. It happens naturally over the course of the rotation. The blunt damage really only benefits MNKs. Your raid composition is flexible. Have a DRK? Great. If not, grab a MNK.

Adding a magic resist down raises some issues. Should the effect get overwritten by Foes/Bishop hypercharge? If not, would groups with a caster preferentially start using compositions with a DRK? Would this push groups to go double caster?

Delirium is actually in a really good place. For an example on how not to design an essential raid buff, look at SE/DE. Two classes can provide it. It's built into the rotation of one. It's a dps loss for the other to maintain in most cases. Effectively, only one class can provide it. This leads to inflexible raid compositions.

Re: Salted Earth
Salted Earth is 525 potency per mob every 40 seconds, and is ogcd. Shadowflare, which gives slow, has a cast time and is lower potency per tick. It's a bit hard to justify buffing our most powerful ogcd. Were you thinking of a movement speed debuff?

Re: Reprisal
Reprisal has a lower uptime because it's ogcd and costs us nothing to use. SP is on combo, can only be used every second combo, and is a dps loss. You'll probably end up mitigating more raid-wide damage on average with reprisal than your WAR will with SP, simply because they generally won't put SP up unless they absolutely have to. Which is fine: SP is targeted raid-wide mitigation, while reprisal lowers raid-wide damage on average.

I suppose the only real issue with reprisal is that it doesn't help you much on a boss with magic-based autos. But you can't have everything.

One thing that I would love to see across all tank classes in future expansions is the chance for your OT to do a timed counterattack during a tankbuster to reduce the damage of the next attack and deal a good amount of damage in return. It'll give your OT more to do and make it feel more like you're working as a team to mitigate damage together. Revenge based attacks are excellent.

Re: AoE Damage
Enhanced Unmend is definitely an odd trait. If I was going to attach a bonus proc to anything, it probably wouldn't be unmend. But the trait system as a whole is archaic, and this one seems to be just... there.

We have, hands down, the most versatile AoE tanking kit. Don't draw too much attention to it, or someone will pick up on it and nerf it.

Re: Mitigation
Shadow Wall may be a bit underwhelming, but this reflects the fact that we have DM covering the same niche in fights with magical tankbusters. It would be nice to see it do something unique though, given how flashy the animation is in relation to the skill itself.

DA DD is an interesting one. Tanks tend to be suspicious of dodge. It didn't work in coil. Oddly, though, DA DD seems to even work on raid boss autos in the expansion. It's more of a curiosity than anything else, however.

Having a guaranteed parry move would be nice, but isn't really necessary. The standard ARR PLD rotation suffices in most physical fights, as most fights with 30s interval tankbusters give you a rest period after at least 4 of them. Also, you'd have to give the PLDs a DM equivalent to make them feel happy about it.

Re: Minus Strike
This is a nice idea which would synergize well with living dead. But how would you use it on a regular basis? Do you hold it for a tank buster, or do you use it on cooldown? Do you get your healer to periodically dip your hp to maximize your dps?

Re: More DA Moves
One of the nice things about DA's lengthy duration is that you have considerable freedom to weave it in where you want without accidentally getting it to activate on the wrong skill. The more moves that you have which can be enhanced by DA, the more likely it is that you'll have to activate DA specifically before the skill in question.

[MagiusNecros]

If they made Minus Strike a thing you could assign a ridiculous potency to it based on HP percentage or even restrict to the point you can only use it under the effect of Living or Walking Dead or both.

Or just make a quick copy paste of Spirits Within. And alter potency based on HP remaining.

Too bad it's such an edgy idea I doubt it would be implemented in a MMO.

As for Living Dead it should probably treat you as under the effects of Blood Weapon and Blood Price for the duration regardless of Grit. Lifesteal would also be a welcome thing or give it something to ease the stress of a healer needing to heal over 20k HP within 10 seconds.

[Duelle]

Delirium/DK is probably one of the most balanced debuffs at the moment. Neither DRK nor MNK actively work to maintain it. It happens naturally over the course of the rotation. The blunt damage really only benefits MNKs. Your raid composition is flexible. Have a DRK? Great. If not, grab a MNK.

Adding a magic resist down raises some issues. Should the effect get overwritten by Foes/Bishop hypercharge? If not, would groups with a caster preferentially start using compositions with a DRK? Would this push groups to go double caster?

Delirium is actually in a really good place. For an example on how not to design an essential raid buff, look at SE/DE. Two classes can provide it. It's built into the rotation of one. It's a dps loss for the other to maintain in most cases. Effectively, only one class can provide it. This leads to inflexible raid compositions.

Not sure I agree with this. The main issue with Delirium is that it's a waste of space because DK supercedes it in utility(MNK benefits from the blunt resist down on top of the magic mitigation via INT down). If you want to create equal footing between the two, it'd probably be better to move the Blunt Resist Down effect to Demolish and keep the INT Down on DK and go from there.

Reprisal has a lower uptime because it's ogcd and costs us nothing to use. SP is on combo, can only be used every second combo, and is a dps loss. You'll probably end up mitigating more raid-wide damage on average with reprisal than your WAR will with SP, simply because they generally won't put SP up unless they absolutely have to. Which is fine: SP is targeted raid-wide mitigation, while reprisal lowers raid-wide damage on average.

I suppose the only real issue with reprisal is that it doesn't help you much on a boss with magic-based autos. But you can't have everything.

I could sort of agree with this, except one of the bigger flaws with Reprisal is your lack of direct control over it. Which means praying for a parry to proc, since you don't have any skills that guarantee a proc the way PLD has Sheltron. Of course, direct control would probably call for removing the damage component entirely and changing the ability to be sort of like Virus.

Shadow Wall may be a bit underwhelming, but this reflects the fact that we have DM covering the same niche in fights with magical tankbusters. It would be nice to see it do something unique though, given how flashy the animation is in relation to the skill itself.

I'll just go ahead and pimp two skills I suggested in another thread:

38 Umbral Shield - You recover some HP every time you take damage. Duration: 15s. Cure Potency: 300. Cooldown: 90s.
42 Dread Spike - Convert damage taken from the next attack into HP. The healed amount cannot be greater than 20% of your max HP. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 30s.

The former applies a heal every time you take damage. The latter entirely negates the next attack to turn it into a heal, but caps at 20% of your max HP. Either or would work as a unique style of mitigation for DRK, I think.

Having a guaranteed parry move would be nice, but isn't really necessary. The standard ARR PLD rotation suffices in most physical fights, as most fights with 30s interval tankbusters give you a rest period after at least 4 of them. Also, you'd have to give the PLDs a DM equivalent to make them feel happy about it.

PLD doesn't really need a Dark Mind-style cooldown, though. Our cooldowns work on all types of damage (barring Bulwark, but we all agree Bulwark needs a rework bad), so it's not really needed. Speaking as a PLD, I wouldn't mind seeing DRK get a guaranteed parry skill akin to Sheltron.