Thread: Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXXVII! (Exploring Patch 4.0)

Development: Narrative

The story for Stormblood was fantastic to include that of the Omega Raid. The Omega Raid seems to give me the feeling of some of the fun and freedom the devs were able to have near the end of 1.0 and the narrative of the main scenario quests went in an incredibly strong and captivating direction, I felt.

Could you tell us a little about your current direction involving the narrative of both the Main Scenario and the Omega Raid?

With the changes in Stormblood, DRK offers less DPS than PLD as well as less utility. It is not clear why PLD was designed to be the highest DPS, highest mitigation, and highest utility tank.

You made numerous changes to PLD throughout the 3.x series, and by patch 3.5, it was not very far behind at all, and yet it received a huge amount of over-tuned buffs, and lost nothing.

Are there plans to adjust Dark Knight's DPS and mitigation in such a way as to not make it strictly inferior to Paladin?

Before the release of Stormblood you told players that the reason we weren't getting new Tank Jobs this expansion is because you wanted to focus on balancing the ones we already have. But in focusing too much on trying to make Paladin a lot more viable you've buffed it way too much. So it's unfortunately reached a point where Dark Knight and Warrior are considered completely inferior Tanks compared to Paladin now. Which has caused many players to even start using double Paladins for raid groups because it's just that overpowered at the moment. The reason Paladian has become so overpowered is because it has the best raid utility and damage mitigation while also doing damage equal to Dark Knights and Warriors.

Do you have any plans of doing something about the serious issue of Dark Knight and Warrior no longer having any place as Main Tanks in Extreme Primals or Raiding right now due to how Paladin is able to provide superior raid utility and damage mitigation compared to the other two Tanks?

What is the intended identity of each tank job in Stormblood?

Previously, Paladins were the physical tank, Warriors the offtank, and Dark Knights the magical tank. As it is now, Paladins possess superior mitigation (both physical and magical), party utility, self-healing, and damage compared to their two-handed counterparts. So much so that statics appear to favor using two paladins over the other two. If the vision is that Paladins are truly viewed as the "main tank", what do you see as the role of Warriors and Dark Knights?

Many Dark Knights feel that the Dark Passenger skill isn't worth using in Stormblood due to it's high MP cost. Since the MP cost on Dark Passenger was raised so incredibly high that it now costs just as much as Dark Arts to use. So as a result using Dark Passenger and Dark Arts together will use up half of a Dark Knight's entire MP bar. Which is of course simply not a viable option when they need their MP for so many other much more important skills.

Would you possibly consider decreasing the incredibly high MP cost of Dark Passenger so players can once again make better use of it?

In the adjustments made for Dark Knight in 4.0, many abilities were removed altogether that were a huge part of its damage. Losing Scourge, Reprisal, and Low Blow was a huge loss in potency. Dark Dance and Reprisal were also removed which was a huge hit to its mitigation. Paladin got to keep its DoT, its raid mitigation, utility, and now deals higher damage.

All of this potency was funneled into Dark Arts, but now, we have hardly any GCDs across which we can carry a Dark Arts, which mandates double-weaving and punishes players with less than perfect internet connections. Additionally, all of our lost mitigation was funneled into one ability, the Blackest Night, which feels very risky and stressful to use, and is designed for big damage, whereas what we need is something to level out fluff damage.

Why was Dark Knight nerfed so hard at level 60, such that our entire pre-60 kit feels incredibly weak and outdated while being incredibly lop-sided and over-centralized towards a handful of abilities from 62-70?