Dark Knight rework

[kashi11]

Dark Knight experienced a lot of changes in 4.0. Many skills were lost to the new role actions, and the entire way the job functions was reworked. The skills of 4.0 lack synergy with the rest of DRKs toolkit, and optimizing the class is currently unrewarding, as the skill floor and skill ceiling feel inches from each other. Dark Knight has many options, but those options all equate to roughly the same result. Making the class feel stale. Personal mitigation also took a large hit, and DRK is noticeably squishier than the other tanks.

Looking at 4.0 skills, Square Enix seems like they have a plan for the way DRK should play, and I think the changes I'm about to suggest fall in line with that vision.


Grit cooldown changed to 10s

Dark Mind:
Reduces damage taken by 10%.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Duration:15s
Additional effect: 30% chance that upon taking damage the next Dark Arts will have no MP cost. Duration: 10s
Dark Arts Effect: Increases damage reduction to 20%.
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

Blood Price:

Restores partial MP when damage is taken.
Duration:15s
Additonal Effect: Increases Blood Gauge by 1 immediately and another 4 over time while in battle.
Additional Effect: Halves the Blood Gauge cost of Quietus and Bloodspiller.
Duration: 15s
Can only be used while under the effect of Grit.

Bloodspiller:

Delivers an attack with a potency of 400.
Additional effect: Execute next combo without meeting combo prerequisites.
Dark Arts*Potency:540
Grit*Potency:475
Dark Arts+Grit*Potency:650
Blood Gauge Cost: 50
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

Dark Passenger:

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to all enemies in a straight line before you.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Additional Effect: Stun 5s
Dark Arts*potency: 240
Dark Arts Effect: Damage over time. Potency is reduced by 5% for the second enemy, 10% for the third, 15% for the fourth, and 25% for all remaining enemies.
Potency: 40
Duration: 15s
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

The Blackest Night:

Creates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 20% of your maximum HP, or around a party member that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP.
Duration:*15s
Dark Arts Effect:
Extends effect to nearby targets.
Increases Blood Gauge by 50 when full 20% (10%) is absorbed.

[Tint]

i like your ideas^^
a few things seem a bit too powerfull, like free dark arts under dark mind, or aoe TBN, but i like it in general.

[Maku]

I'm ok with all of this. Currently, DRKs are the hardest to heal tank. Yuns just seem to take more damage than WARs or PLD and I would love to see you boosted a bit because you are probably the coolest looking one.

[Sarcatica]

I'm ok with all of this. Currently, DRKs are the hardest to heal tank. Yuns just seem to take more damage than WARs or PLD and I would love to see you boosted a bit because you are probably the coolest looking one.

On what basis are you talking about that DRK is the hardest tank to heal? Maybe most DRKs you have met just didn't play the job well enough.

[Maku]

On what basis are you talking about that DRK is the hardest tank to heal? Maybe most DRKs you have met just didn't play the job well enough.

I absolutely agree this is probably part of the case. But in general they take more damage and give me more "oh crap" moments then the other two tanks.

[347SPECTRE]

I like the suggestion for DA + DP, would actually make it somewhat worth half our MP

[Aletin]

Dark Mind:
Reduces damage taken by 10%.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Duration:15s
Additional effect: 30% chance that upon taking damage the next Dark Arts will have no MP cost. Duration: 10s
Dark Arts Effect: Increases damage reduction to 20%.
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

I really love this change. The extra mitigation needed without extra buttons and a FREE Dark Arts is extremely valuable and will raise DPS significantly. It's perfect.
Probably just my unpopular opinion, but if DRK got ONLY this change, it would be on par with both PLD and WAR in mitigation and DPS.

[SyzzleSpark]

Dark Passenger:

Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to all enemies in a straight line before you.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Additional Effect: Stun 5s
Dark Arts*potency: 240
Dark Arts Effect: Damage over time. Potency is reduced by 5% for the second enemy, 10% for the third, 15% for the fourth, and 25% for all remaining enemies.
Potency: 40
Duration: 15s
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

The Blackest Night:

Creates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 20% of your maximum HP, or around a party member that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP.
Duration:*15s
Dark Arts Effect:
Extends effect to nearby targets.
Increases Blood Gauge by 50 when full 20% (10%) is absorbed.

I like the first 3 changes a lot, here's two I would tweak however.

Dark Passenger should simply be reverted. With Delirium+BP on big pulls you want to Blind things less than ever and instead spend that mana on DA Abyssal if you need to play defensively. Simple=better here I think.

I get that with TBN you are trying to buff our utility a bit, but I agree this is a bit overpowered, especially on a 15 second cooldown. I think for the ability itself, extending the duration just to 6s would be sufficient to ensure that it breaks barring a significant miss-timing (popping it before a phase change, for instance).

I've poked around FFlogs a bit, and I'm finding that on average, DRKs tend to use TBN 2-3 times a minute, so it being on a 15 second cooldown arguably isn't necessary. What I would rather see, is a recast increase on TBN to 20-30s, and instead see a reduction in Shadow Wall's recast/increase in its duration, or another mechanic I've thought of that I think would be really neat, to have DA cut its recast time by a few seconds per cast.

For utility... I'm honestly not too sure. I've always been a fan of ideas that allow DRK to provide a benefit to caster comps, but I wouldn't know how to implement such a change in a way that wouldn't be unbalancing or make DRK required.

[Slybel]

For the most part I completely agree with you, and I have absolutely no problem with the cooldown on Grit, because in all honesty I rarely Leave Grit + Darkside.

The Problem here resides with how you changed DP and TBN.

For DP: A 15s blind is far more useful than a 5s stun with how the game is right now. If they just make it so that blind is included into the base effect, I would actually use it. Blind is fantastic damage mitigation with how accuracy is right now.

For TBN: In all honesty, all I would do to change is increase the duration to 6s ~ 8s and increase the cool down to 20s ~ 30s which would balance it out more by making it unavailable for every tank buster. Have it spread to nearby allies would just out right brake what little balance the skill has.

[VenKitsune]

For DP: A 15s blind is far more useful than a 5s stun with how the game is right now. If they just make it so that blind is included into the base effect, I would actually use it. Blind is fantastic damage mitigation with how accuracy is right now.

For TBN: In all honesty, all I would do to change is increase the duration to 6s ~ 8s and increase the cool down to 20s ~ 30s which would balance it out more by making it unavailable for every tank buster. Have it spread to nearby allies would just out right brake what little balance the skill has.

Actually the DADP blind was tested to be around a 5%~ or so accuracy reduction if i remember correctly, so basically useless. its also worth noting that both Blind and Stun have horrible synergy with the job due to it reducing the ammount of times you'll be hit = less mana from Blood Price.
Also how would increasing its cooldown to make in unavailable for every tank buster be balancing it? DRK is already the tank that has the least mitigation out of the 3 tanks and relies heavily on TBN to even be on par with the other two.

Anyway im going to throw my 2 cents in to how i would change DRK, keeping in mind that im super sleepy right now and i haven't put much thought in to this.

Dark Passenger:

Cost Changed to 1200 MP (half of DA)
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 130 to all enemies in a straight line before you.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Dark Arts*potency: 250
Dark Arts Effect: 100% Chance that next TBN will cost no MP.
Dark Arts Effect: Blinding Darkness Debuff: Unable to use Dark Arts on Dark Passenger for 60 seconds
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

The reasoning behind the DA effect is so that if you spend a bit more MP than a TBN by itself then you'll get the damage aswell, and the inability to utilise this more than once per minute will increase the skill ceiling of the job while also not making the DA effect OP.

Blood Price:

Recast changed to 30 seconds.
Restores partial MP when damage is taken.
Duration:15s
Additional Effect: Increases Blood Gauge by 1 immediately and another 4 over time while in battle.
Additional Effect: Reduces damage taken by 10%.
Duration: 10s
Can only be used while under the effect of Grit.

Right now DRK has the lowest overall mitigation for non-tank busters. This is a problem and this change i think should help with that. The recast being changed is to allow higher uptime.

Blood Weapon:

Recast Changed to 30 seconds
Reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 10% and converts physical damage dealt into MP, while reducing weaponskill TP cost by 20%. Also increases Blood Gauge by 3 each time a physical attack lands.
Duration: 15s
Additional effect: Auto attack potency is doubled for the duration of this ability.
Cannot be used while under the effect of Grit.

DRK needs slightly more damage imo.

Sole Survivor:

Changed recast to 90 seconds.
Marks target with the status Another Victim. If that target should be KO'd in battle, 20% of your maximum HP and MP will be restored.
Additional Effect: Increases chances of direct hit to be inflicted upon target by 5%
Duration: 12s

A lil more utility, similar to SCHs Chain Stratagem. making this ability actually useful on bosses and increasing the skill ceiling as you may need it for the MP/HP restore on an add but you might want to use it on the boss to help push a phase.

Shadow Wall:

Reduces damage taken by 30%.
Duration: 20s

Increased duration. Because lets me honest here right now its literally a weaker sentinel in EVERY way.