Dark Knight under review: Feedback to the Developers and Community Team

[kirby200]

I want Dark passanger back in my rotation, end of. Coolest ability which made me play the class in the first place. Compensate the mana cost on single target or switch up the effect or better both...

[Aisenheim]

Living Dead skill is not good. It is the "IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK THE CRYSTAL" Sort of scenario. It completely draws the healer's attention, it requires to set up a macro for the sake of letting the healer know "Hey I am going to die unless you pick up the healing", and it is not something you can use strategically like the Paladin HG. You only use it when things are looking grim, and by that point chances are ... you are going to die 3/5 times if the healer is not able to catch up. It is just not a useful proactive skills, it is just reactive for when shit hit the fan compared to the other tanks that can use their level 50 Skills in a more versatile manner for a wide variety of scenarios, and if you are tanking properly and the healer is doing its job, the level 50 skill will sit there like a pretty decoration rarely being used. Whoever is saying Living Dead is fine... he or she is not playing a Dark Knight I am pretty sure
Dark Mind ... never used it AT ALL.

By itself tanks are unpopular. I need to wait 30 minutes to be able to queue for dungeons compared to the 3 seconds wait when I switch to DK, talks about the class popularity in general. My point is as far as theme goes, yes I get the "Dark Theme" of the Dark Knight, but might as well make a boring class more interesting by releasing many of the the impediment or mitigating them and with this I include WAR as well. Just take away the "Death" part of Living Dead and the "Not Moving" of WAR. By the above reasons, living dead is useless by itself if you have a competent healer. The dying factor doesn't make it any better.

[Otorinth]

I am pretty sure Dark Mind ... never used it AT ALL.

DM/DA+DM is crazy good in 3/4 fights in this raid tier. Pairing it with TBN and nothing else can turn a lot of what even God Kefka does into pokes.

[whiskeybravo]

DM/DA+DM is crazy good in 3/4 fights in this raid tier. Pairing it with TBN and nothing else can turn a lot of what even God Kefka does into pokes.

Sounds like they are probably just running dungeons, which there's nothing wrong with, but it would explain why they'd never need to use DM. Still, it brings up a valid point in that DM is mostly useless outside of raids, which does make DRK feel significantly worse mitigation-wise even for more casual tankers. Raw Intuition isn't that great this raid tier but still sees usefulness in boosting Shake, while at the same time being a hell of a CD for casual dungeon running (w/ awareness ofc). DM should be more like that, doesn't have to be OP but at least make it useful for more content outside of raids.

Sort of the same with LD, being able to plan around it's usage in a scripted fight is.. Manageable. But again for casual dungeons it's significantly worse than Holmgang, which is risky in it's own way but at least won't auto-kill you if you aren't healed up enough in time. LD really is a terribly designed "invulnerability"

[Dhaid]

Dark Mind ... never used it AT ALL.

DM/DA+DM is crazy good in 3/4 fights in this raid tier. Pairing it with TBN and nothing else can turn a lot of what even God Kefka does into pokes.

I gotta agree that Dark Mind shines best when fighting bosses, but considering that it's useless against the random trash in dungeons I can see where they're coming from. I wouldn't want to change Dark Mind though, when you use it properly it feels amazing.

[Megguido]

Living Dead skill is not good. It is the "IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK THE CRYSTAL" Sort of scenario. It completely draws the healer's attention, it requires to set up a macro for the sake of letting the healer know "Hey I am going to die unless you pick up the healing", and it is not something you can use strategically like the Paladin HG. You only use it when things are looking grim, and by that point chances are ... you are going to die 3/5 times if the healer is not able to catch up. It is just not a useful proactive skills, it is just reactive for when shit hit the fan compared to the other tanks that can use their level 50 Skills in a more versatile manner for a wide variety of scenarios, and if you are tanking properly and the healer is doing its job, the level 50 skill will sit there like a pretty decoration rarely being used. Whoever is saying Living Dead is fine... he or she is not playing a Dark Knight I am pretty sure.

What makes me sad is that people who don't even understand the job want it to change. Sure, Living Dead and Dark Mind are near useless if all the content you run is dungeons and FATEs. But they are great tools in harder content (in that case, Dark Mind is what makes DRK so sturdy alongside TBN).

First, Living Dead is far from a "IN CASE OF FIRE" button. It's a tool that you can plan to use, in the same way you plan to use Hallowed Ground at a precise moment. More than PLD's invuln, you want to plan your Living Dead, so your healer knows when he has to heal you back to full HP. Of course, if you use that in the middle of nowhere, the healer won't be ready to heal you. The HP requirement on Walking Dead doesn't need to disappear, but it would be easier if it were smaller (like, 50% of max HP needs to be healed). If you use Living Dead only when shit hits the fan, then you are using it wrong.

[Deceptus]

What makes me sad is that people who don't even understand the job want it to change. Sure, Living Dead and Dark Mind are near useless if all the content you run is dungeons and FATEs. But they are great tools in harder content (in that case, Dark Mind is what makes DRK so sturdy alongside TBN).

That just shows a poorly designed class when some abilities are useless in certain situations. Sole Survivor: Decent in dungeons, worthless in boss fights.

[WhyAmIHere]

That just shows a poorly designed class when some abilities are useless in certain situations. Sole Survivor: Decent in dungeons, worthless in boss fights.

Not always.

That's really the biggest gripe with DRK that people just keep overthinking and warping: compared to WAR/PLD, there's just too many "if X is true then Y, otherwise Z" situations.
SS is good if the boss has adds. WD is good if your healer knows how to handle it. TBN is great if it breaks, else it's just good. DM is good if there's a lot of magic damage going out, else it's meh, and so on for other skills.

WAR/PLD have a few, sure. TW is good if the boss has a knockback, else it's just meh. SiO is great if you burn a few of the secondary/tertiary CD's with it, else it's still good. The problem's just the overall "completeness" in the classes and how the skills work with the rest of the class skills, when paired in a given situation, and even in isolation.

[Sylvain]

That just shows a poorly designed class when some abilities are useless in certain situations. Sole Survivor: Decent in dungeons, worthless in boss fights.

We clearly don't have the same definition of the word "decent" XD
This skill is trash end of the story.

If AT LEAST it were on a short CD and at low level to help DRK level up.
Not even

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Excellent write up, I don't think there's anything you've suggested that I'd disagree with and feel that any number of those changes; preferably all of them, would put Dark Knight on equal footing once more and restore a bit of it's lost identity.

That said though I think we need to remind them that they shouldn't wait for these kinds of changes until the next expansion. When they botch something up, they need to understand that we expect a fix before the next upgrade, on that same note: opting to only releasing job changes only on content patches is also an issue that needs to be addressed.

Jobs are the bread and butter of this game, if one feels bad and is suffering from poor design choices it needs to be made a top priority and adjusted as soon as they possibly can. Simply leaving job changes to each #.X patch is ridiculous and is a trend that needs to stop. If they've completed the changes they feel are best and finalized what they want to do, we should get a hot-fix. There should be no waiting for that kind of thing when the jobs are the direct way we interact with the game on a day to day basis, they should be a huge priority and the changes they make should not be held back until the next content update.