Fixing Dark Knight, Properly

[Souleater13]

This thread is a perfect example of what goes wrong. A person posts their ideas on the topic of dark knight's tool kit which i also agree needs adjustments but then turns into a pointless debate on 100 potency this, 1200 mp that.
I feel the skills need function adjustments first and foremost, the numbers should be worked out secondarily.


Part 1:
it would be interesting to try the OPs idea here, however i must comment on aoe skills.
Personally i dont like having unleash and abyssal both spam able at high levels.
i would like to see DRK get a trait the level abyssal is earned that turns unleash into an oGCD that once used is morphed into a one time use of Scourge that absorbs hp with dmg dealt.

Part 2:
agree on sole survival needs to be more useful.
regarding the connection between Delirium, blood weapon and price.
i would like to see Delirium become a weapon skill again that is oGCD and adds lower amounts of mp and slightly extend time to blood weapon and price so that it may be used way more often(almost spam able) so you are "fighting" to keep the buffs going longer.

Part 3:
agree with all mentioned here

Part 4:
I really like the shadow wall idea here.
I like dark mind getting the option treatment the way shadow wall did but perhaps something different with the Dark Arts version only because its almost too similar to the other tanks. What if it made the magic damage taken be shared evenly with nearby party members. or for the party buff take, makes magic dmg received by nearby party members become a dot instead burst for the duration.

The Blackest Night:
Could use adjustment not sure what is mentioned is it though.

with the changes mentioned it appears DRKs would be over filled with mp and while reading this thread earlier it is mentioned that we could be safe adding another skill.
Soul Enslavement: a oGCD ability. drains mp while active, the way Darkside used to but at a faster rate. while this is active souleater can be used with full effect without combos. or something on that idea that is balanced

[Chrono_Rising]

@Crater I like your ideas, especially about stance based combos. I am even hopeful for something of an effect tree which could go along with this and following a dark enfeeblement lore, for example:

Power Slash
Spinning Slash combo bonus: Increased emnity
Siphon Strike combo bonus: Scourage dot damage applied

Soul Eater
Spinning Slash combo bonus: physical damage down 10% (to balance dark mind being magic based)
Siphon strike combo bonus: HP Restore

Basically depending on our path through the skill tree we could change the effects of our abilities by comboing in a different way. By focusing on enfeeblement and drains we can stay true to dark knight lore without having button bloat and still increasing our rotation complexity.

I also like your section on offensive buffs, but I tend to agree with others that if we offer a party dps utility that we will be unbalance with respect to the other two. I would prefer a stronger personal buff from delirium, like double damage/resource regeneration or double dark arts potencies. Sole survivor is still tricky but I think it could play a role in being even a personal refresh based on our damage.

Lastly, if you want to take away our (and I use this in the loosest possible way) safety net of living dead, I would rather see it be at least a huge defensive buff, much bigger than 50%, more like 80% to 90% damage reduction for 20 seconds. Personally, I would like to see living dead become Dark Pact: reduces HP to 1 all damage taken by dark knight becomes HP restored duration of 15 seconds.

[SplittingSkies]

Sole survivor is still tricky but I think it could play a role in being even a personal refresh based on our damage.

I believe someone on another thread had a neat idea for what Sole Survivor could be: Works the same as a MCH's Wildfire, where it compiles the damage taken on the target for the duration its up and returns a % of the damage back to us as HP. Could also work for MP, but personally i'm more drawn to the HP return idea and using Crater's ideas on top of that, we would have skills/abilities that would provide us with ample MP return anyway.

Also, I wouldn't mind having a TA effect on it instead and it doesn't even have to be 10% could be 5% or work like a BRDs Foe requiem and give 3%. But I understand the element of tank balance is important and will only treat it as a fantasy, a guy can dream right?

[Chrono_Rising]

I believe someone on another thread had a neat idea for what Sole Survivor could be: Works the same as a MCH's Wildfire, where it compiles the damage taken on the target for the duration its up and returns a % of the damage back to us as HP. Could also work for MP, but personally i'm more drawn to the HP return idea and using Crater's ideas on top of that, we would have skills/abilities that would provide us with ample MP return anyway.

Also, I wouldn't mind having a TA effect on it instead and it doesn't even have to be 10% could be 5% or work like a BRDs Foe requiem and give 3%. But I understand the element of tank balance is important and will only treat it as a fantasy, a guy can dream right?

I agree, I would love a 15 second trick attack. I want more mp for more dark arts, I am dark arts happy when I dark knight things lol. When I die, I'll wish for one more dark arts.

[Joe777]

I'm seeing a lot of "I want DRK to be better than PLD and WAR" in op's post. Many of the suggestions are outrageous and will create extreme imbalance between the Tank Jobs.

There is 1 thing I think we can all agree on though: DRK could benefit from more utility and some additional effects on Sole Survivor. Making Sole Survivor increase damage the target takes by 10% is a good solution to both adding more utility and making Sole Survivor more useful in boss fights without adds, even if it means it would offer the same utility Ninja has with Trick Attack and thus make Ninja less unique in that field, but such a change would definitely set it apart from PLD and WAR.

[Derio]

I just want DRK to be on par with PLD and WAR

[shao32]

Trick attack effect on sole survivor Will make DRK mandatory no matter What, dps raid buffs on tanks are more balancing breaking that anithing else, WARs 3.x are the prove of that.

[SyzzleSpark]

I'm seeing a lot of "I want DRK to be better than PLD and WAR" in op's post. Many of the suggestions are outrageous and will create extreme imbalance between the Tank Jobs.

Such as? I'm genuinely curious, as most of what the OP suggested is extremely modest and conservative, and if you read carefully about 50% of it is QoL stuff that in no way actually buffs the job's numbers or performance.

Extreme imbalance is where we're at already. Its worse than HW. HW PLD at least had a niche, a specialty, and was actually noticeably better than DRK in half a dozen midas/creator raids. The job needs some serious buffing and you will probably see a lot of "better than PLD/WAR" because that's what the job needs - its behind in every aspect of what a tank is supposed to bring to the party, it has no niche, no area of expertise or place it excels, so unless we expect SE to precisely fine-tune to-the-nanometer adjustments such that all the tanks perform within a decimal point of one another in every area, DRK needs to be buffed significantly in a specific niche. Better at everything? No. Significantly better at 1-2 things? Yeah.

Trick attack effect on sole survivor Will make DRK mandatory no matter What, dps raid buffs on tanks are more balancing breaking that anithing else, WARs 3.x are the prove of that.

While I'd far prefer buffs to our personal DPS, a 10s TA on a 120s recast is laughably weak. People see raid-wide buff and instantly think its amazing/balance-breaking. 10% for 10s every 2 minutes is something like a .8% raid DPS boost. Not even a whole 1%. If you compiled all that and gave it to DRK it would basically be the same as giving them a poor-man's Berserk or FoF (20% damage for 20s every 60s would be roughly equivalent, so basically an inferior FoF/Zerk). This amounts to about a 7% boost in personal DPS, which is about how far behind DRK is, on average, if you comb the flogs.

3.x WAR Storm's Eye was not even close to the same thing. It was a 100% uptime buff that only WAR could efficiently provide that other jobs depended on lest their DPS suffer immensely (not by .x of a %, more like a whole 8, 9-10%, give or take depending on the job, things like NIN mudras being unaspected, DoTs, etc.). If you didn't have it, there was literally zero way to make up that difference.

[DRKoftheAzure]

How about my personal list of DRK changes?

• Hard Slash: Add Dark Arts potency of 300 and/or generates 1 blood
• Spinning Slash: Add Dark Arts combo potency of 350 and/or generates 3 blood
• Blood Weapon: Remove Grit restriction, add the effects of "increase damage dealt by 10%" and reduce recast to 30 seconds. Grit effect would be "Ignores Grit damage dealt penalty"
• Bring back Scourge but have it combo off of Hard Slash, same base/combo/Dark Arts potency as Syphon Strike, is still a Damage over Time effect but also reduces target's magic damage dealt by 10% and increases target's magic damage recieved by 10% and DoT tick generates 1 blood
• Power Slash: Add Dark Arts combo potency of 650 and/or add the effect "increase targets damage received by 10%." baseline with Dark Arts effect "Increase damage dealt by 10%" And generates 10 blood
• Syphon Strike: Generates 3 blood.
• Blood Price: Remove Grit restriction, add the effect additions of Blood Weapon but with the effect of "increase HP recovery via healing magic by 10%" instead of "Increased damage dealt." Reduce recast to 30 seconds.
• Souleater: Make "convert physical damage into HP" baseline, have Dark Arts be "Increase damage dealt by 10%" and add Grit effect of "Reduce targets damage dealt by 10%"
• Dark Passenger: Change Dark Arts effect from inflict blind to "reduces target's Accuracy by 20%"
• Dark Mind: Add "decrease physical vulnerability."
• Dark Arts: Remove "Dark Arts fades upon use" restriction on all effects that are affected by Dark Arts, remove timer on Dark Arts and add the effect "Darkside fades when MP reaches 0" or make effect like NIN's Huton
• NEW Weaponskill at level 49: Debilitate, combos off of Scourge with same base/combo/Dark Arts potency as Damage over time potency 50 for 30 seconds and reduces target's physical damage dealt by 10% and increases target's physical damage received by 10% and uses the Heavensward Delirium animation because it looks cool. Also have it generate 10 blood and 5 blood per DoT tick
• Abyssal Drain: increase potency to 150 and make "Convert Damage dealt into HP" baseline with Dark Arts potency of 350.
• Sole Survivor: add "increase targets damage received by 10%." Any enemies that would be nearby in 10 yalms radius would be marked with Another Victim that lasts 30 seconds and Increases the damage they recieve for 30 seconds. Or change effect to "convert physical damage dealt into HP"
• Delirium: change name to "Blood Force" and change effect to "Restores HP and MP by 10%" with Dark Arts effect 20%.
• Quietus: change cost from Blood gauge to TP.
• The Blackest Night: Additional shield break effect "increase HP recovery via healing magic and damage dealt by 5% and decrease damage taken by 5%." Dark Arts effect of making it party/raid wide shield that lasts 10 seconds. Or just make The Blackest Night be like WAR's Inner release on top of having 20% HP Shield but can only applied to self.

These changes can be done in gradually so that way the devs don't have to work on JUST DRK.

[Joe777]

Such as? I'm genuinely curious

Drastic decrease in MP usage for one, done in large by Dark Arts effects being added to base effects which is basically saying we no longer spend MP to gain them. Also the Sole Survivor concept basically refunds the MP cost if you use Dark Arts as well as grant an added effect. I'm all for buffing Sole Survivor to make it more useful during a battle but that's over the top.

I mean I'm all for a buff to DRK so it is more on par with PLD and WAR but some of the idea collections I am seeing posted in this thread will make DRK considerably OP and as a result will never happen. Some ideas aren't too over the top but still...