Abuse me: The Dark Knight Revamped

[Kabooa]

The purpose of this thread is to throw yet another Dark Knight Revamp/Rework/Revision/Reimagination and for the lot of you to tell me how dumb I am and how dumb this is.

Let's go!

I. A Few Assumptions
This write up assumes a few changes to a couple universal mechanics.

1. TP is removed. As it currently serves no purpose, rather than making it matter, we assume TP is no longer a factor, and any Job that interacted on it is adjusted accordingly.

2. The 'Parry' mechanic remains a weaker passive mitigation but generally enables more offensive actions.

3. Combo Weaponskills and other appropriate Actions are further subjected to ability consolidation to free up more slots. Better slot economy.

Edit: Addendum - 4. A Tank should feel best when they're taking hits.

II. identity
This extremely subjective view on what a Dark knight should be and the role it fills in the power fantasy of this game will be as follows.

The Dark Knight is the sole deliverer of justice when the system has failed the people. As of such, much of their ability flavor is very selfish, and while they bring some protective capability for the party, this is primarily through interacting with the enemy in a vicious and retaliatory manner.

As an example, where a Paladin creates a shield to protect the party, the Dark Knight delivers a crippling blow to hinder the enemy from hurting them in the first place.

III. Unique Mechanics

The Blood Gauge remains but will be integrated from a much earlier point, built primarily by taking damage through Blood Price or dealing damage through Blood Weapon. Blood Gauge is primarily spent on Reactive abilities.

'Dark Arts' as a button no longer exists, and now is simply the subset of abilities powered by the Dark Knights magic, such as Unleash, Dark Mind, Unmend, etc.

Blood Price and Blood Weapon are no longer stance locked, but are exclusive of each other. You cannot have both active at the same time.

IV. Action and Trait List [1-70]
All damage related numbers are placeholders and are frankly there for you to tell me how dumb it is or how unbalanced something is in relation to something else. This is primarily a rewrite of style and base mechanics.

Hard Slash [Level 1]
Weaponskill
Effect: A basic weapon swing, setting up the momentum for additional strikes. Increases the damage of the next Weaponskill by 20%. 150 Potency.

Lunge [Level 4]
Weaponskill
Effect: Requires a parry. Take advantage of an opening in the opponents guard to deal a heavy strike against them. 200 Potency. Does not break combo actions. Lunge morphs into Helmbreaker should enough Blood be present.

Dark Arts: Unleash [Level 6]
Ability
Recast: 8
Cost: MP
Effect: Emit a wave of dark energy, striking all enemies within 5yalms for unaspected magic damage. Heals for the damage dealt. 75 Potency. Morphs into Revenge should enough Blood be present.

Siphon Strike [Level 8]
Weaponskill
Effect: Strike an enemy, draining their life force and converting it to MP. 150 potency.

Blade Mastery [Level 10]
Trait
Effect: Unlocks the next step in Hard Slash's combo line, Whirling Sweep

Whirling Sweep
Weaponskill
Effect: A winding strike against the enemy and adjacent targets within 5yalms. 180 Potency.

Dark Arts: Unmend [Level 12]
Ability
Range: 15 yalm
Recast: 3
Cost: MP
Effect: Send a bolt of energy at the target, dealing magic damage and inciting them with a large amount of enmity. 150 Potency

Blood Weapon [Level 15]
Ability
Duration: 15
Recast: 45
Effect: Envelop your blade in Dark Magic. Increases attack speed by 20%. Each enemy hit by your attacks generates blood.

Helmbreaker [Level 15]
Weaponskill
Cost: Blood
Effect: Requires a parry. Deals a deadly strike to the enemy. 300 Potency.

Magic Mastery [Level 20]
Trait
Effect: Unlock the next step in Siphon Strike's combo line, Power Slash.

Powerslash
Weaponskill
Effect: Siphon the enemy's strength for your own. Restores MP and increases the effectiveness of the next Dart Arts used by 30%. 220 potency.

Halt the Advance[Level 25]
Weaponskill
Duration: 9
Effect: Slam the weapon down, acting both as a bludgeoning club and a shield. Increases parry rate. 150 Potency.

Revenge [Level 28]
Ability
Recast: 60
Cost: Blood
Effect: Each time you take damage, you perform Dark Arts: Unleash at no cost. This cannot occur more than once per 3 seconds, and will occur five times.

Grit [Level 30]
Action
Effect: Stand before your enemy, the sole challenger, the only one deserving of their ire, so that those behind you are naught to them until you fall. Increases Enmity generation. Take 20% less damage and deal 20% less damage. Each time you Parry an attack, the damage of your next Weaponskill increases by 25%.

Blade Mastery [Level 30]
Trait
Effect: Grant the final weaponskill in Hard Slash's combo line, Unending Step.

Unending Step
Weaponskill
Effect: Strike all enemies within 5y for 220 potency. Unending step may combo into itself at +10% damage, -10% speed, stacking. Any weaponskill used instead of Unending step ends this combo and stacking buff, but gains the bonus to damage for the strike.

Blood Price [Level 35]
Ability
Duration: 15
Recast: 45
Effect: Envelop yourself in Dark Magic. Generates Blood proportional to damage taken. For each 50 Blood generated, the cost of Dark Arts is reduced to 0.

Bulwark Mastery [Level 38]
Trait
Effect: Unlocks the second step in Halt the Advance's combo line, Fell the Unworthy.

Fell The Unworthy
Weaponskill
Duration: 9
Effect: Raise the blade high and slam it down, so that the only sensation the guilty know is that of uncaring darkness. Nullifies enemy critical chance. Greatly increased Enmity. 250 Potency.

Dark Arts: Dark Mind [Level 40]
Ability
Cost: MP
Duration: 10s
Recast: 60s
Effect: You absorb Magic Damage up to 30% of your maximum health. You gain HP/MP proportional to the damage prevented.

Magic Mastery [Level 45]
Trait
Effect: Unlocks the final step in Siphon Strike's combo line, Dark Passenger.

Dark Passenger
Weaponskill
Effect: Deals damage in a 5x15 yalm line. 280 potency. Counts as both Slashing and Magic damage. Restores MP for each enemy hit.

Shadow Wall [Level 46]
Ability
Duration: 15
Recast: 180
Effect: A strong barrier of dark magic, punishing those daring enough to try to break it. Take 30% reduced damage. Any attack against you qualifies as a Parried attack for the purpose of action requirements.

Pale Horizon [Level 48]
Weaponskill
Effect: Requires a parry. Strike all enemies within 5y, inflicting them with a 30% Slow. 100 potency. Morphs into Quietus should sufficient Blood be present.

Living Dead [Level 50]
Ability
Duration: 10
Recast: 300
Effect: Unchanged

Bulwark Mastery [Level 50]
Trait
Effect: Unlocks the final step in Halt the Advance's combo line, Cow the Guilty

Cow the Guilty
Weaponskill
Effect: Strike paralyzing fear into the heart of the enemy. Greatly increased Enmity. Reduces enemy damage by 20% on their next attack. 280 potency.

Unleash Mastery [Level 52]
Trait
Effect: Unleash leaves a delayed effect, detonating for 75 potency around you a second time after 3 seconds.

Plunge [Level 54]
Ability
Recast: 30
Effect: Unchanged. The cooldown on Plunge refreshes if the Dark Knight takes damage when no enemies are within 20yalms.

Unmend Mastery [Level 56]
Trait
Effect: Unmend now strikes all enemies within 5y of the initial target, or deals 50% more damage if only one target is struck.

Sole Survivor [Level 58]
Ability
Duration: 30
Recast: 120
Effect: Reduce damage taken by 5%. Reduce damage taken further by 5% for each nearby enemy, up to 35%. Enemies dying nearby restore MP and HP.

Dark Arts: Carve and Spit [Level 60]
Ability
Recast: 60
Cost: MP
Effect: Charge your blade with dark energy, dealing three attacks at 150 potency each to the enemy. This counts as Magical and Slashing damage.

Delirium [Level 62]
Ability
Duration: 15
Recast: 120
Effect: Gain the benefit of Blood Weapon and Blood Price.

Quietus [Level 64]
Weaponskill
Cost: Blood
Effect: Requires a parry. Strike all enemies within 5y, inflicting them with a 30% Slow for 10 seconds and a 20% Vulnerability for 6 seconds. Quietus counts as the second step in any Combo line. 160 Potency.

I Am Your Enemy [Level 66]
Trait
Effect: Plunge, Lunge, Pale Horizon, Helmbreaker and Quietus apply Cow the Guilty's damage penalty.

Bloodspiller [Level 68]
Weaponskill
Effect: Bloodspiller may follow any thirdstep weaponskill in a combo line. 360 Potency. Taking total damage equal to 100% of your health allows you to use Bloodspiller once within 6 seconds at any time without interrupting your combo.

The Blackest Night [Level 70]
Ability
Duration: 10
Recast: 30
Effect: Grant yourself a shield equivalent to 25% of your maximum health.

V. So how does it change?

1. Blood Gauge and MP have their generation slowed, though their expenditure can still be quite rapid. The reactionary weaponskills take the place of Dark Arts spam for the purpose of interactive gameplay, even if it isn't as fast.

2. Though Warrior and Paladin are not also changed in this area, the Dark Knight in this iteration wants to get hit, and the three main combo lines allow the Dark Knight to focus on expending Dark Arts, setting up powerful Weaponskill strings, or literally debuffing an enemy into the dirt.

3. The Blackest Night is turned into a Defensive only abilty with a longer cooldown. This is to discourage willy-nilly use, but still having a fair amount of use on demand, though Halt the Advance's combo line gives the Dark Knight an opportunity to Turtle should they feel they are in danger.

4. Darkside doesn't exist anymore because it's largely just a permanent damage boost. Numbers can be tweaked to bridge the gap.

TL/DR: This is my dumb knight. There are many others like it but this one is mine.

[Nedkel]

Are you into some weird stuff. :f

[Shurrikhan]

Running Thoughts:

I. A Few Assumptions

Thank you for including these.

'Dark Arts' as a button no longer exists, and now is simply the subset of abilities powered by the Dark Knights magic, such as Unleash, Dark Mind, Unmend, etc.

*Feelings of reluctance*

Lunge [Level 4]
Weaponskill
Effect: Requires a parry. Take advantage of an opening in the opponents guard to deal a heavy strike against them. 200 Potency. Does not break combo actions. Lunge morphs into Helmbreaker should enough Blood be present.

Reprisal animation? If an actual lunge, that doesn't seem to make much sense for a greatsword. (Then again, they turned the "helicopter strike" into a Zorro signature for RDM, so it wouldn't be out of keeping with XIV sense.)

Halt the Advance[Level 25]
Weaponskill
Effect: Slam the weapon down, acting both as a bludgeoning club and a shield. Increases parry rate. 150 Potency.

This doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Why would a single strike, meant to act in a simultaneously defensive manner in itself, increase parry rate for a duration? Wouldn't it make more sense to simply sap equal damage from the target's next strike against you, etc.?

Delirium [Level 62]
Ability
Duration: 15
Recast: 120
Effect: Gain the benefit of Blood Weapon and Blood Price.

Why have them be separate in the first place if doing this to them later? Feels... off.

Quietus [Level 64]
Weaponskill
Cost: Blood
Effect: Requires a parry. Strike all enemies within 5y, inflicting them with a 30% Slow for 10 seconds and a 20% Vulnerability for 6 seconds. Quietus counts as the second step in any Combo line. 160 Potency.

Combo swap functionality is interesting, but:
- 30% Slow is huge, especially in a world without any player sources of Slow beyond 5%.
- 20% Vuln. Need I say more?
- AoE dependence. Why attach such interesting effects to something that can only be used in AoE? Give it some breakpoint of situational equilibrium with other reactionary skills, including ST ones like Lunge, by giving it a diminishing potency value over target count so that it's overpowered in neither situation against its alternatives in each.

Bloodspiller [Level 68]
Weaponskill
Effect: Bloodspiller may follow any thirdstep weaponskill in a combo line. 360 Potency. Taking total damage equal to 100% of your health allows you to use Bloodspiller once at any time without interrupting your combo.

Strange, and probably nearly impossible for most players to track the bonus of, but interesting.

Cow the Guilty
Weaponskill
Effect: Strike paralyzing fear into the heart of the enemy. Greatly increased Enmity. Reduces enemy damage by 20% on their next attack. 280 potency.

There will be memes.

Overall:
- It feels overly MT dependent and more a Swordsman than a Dark Knight outside of AoE.

Bloodspiller: You'd get a highlight of some sort. The Blood Gauge will have room for it.

I had meant predicatively. Sure, you'll know when it's available -- it won't be greyed out despite not yet having finished a combo -- but how can one see progress towards it and would they have any meaningful way to plan around that? Unless it doesn't break combos even when using it in between them and uses are available for a brief window rather than only for the next cast (or meeting regular conditions causes it not to consume the opportunity), I imagine you'd have to plan around it as not to soon be shouting in frustration at missed opportunities.

Excluding them normally sets the mindset of what you're aiming for with each. One, greater focus on offensive weaponskills. The other, greater focus on Dark Arts and reactionary weaponskills. Two somewhat opposing themes, suddenly clashed together into one. A slight Franken-steining of the two standard definitions of the word.

"mental disturbance characterized by confused thinking and disrupted attention" + "frenzied excitement"

I mean, if you put it that way it sounds fitting. It just doesn't sound like the DRK we've known nor a version much hinted therefrom. Still probably quite fun, though.

[Kabooa]

There will be memes.

Overall:
- It feels overly MT dependent and more a Swordsman than a Dark Knight outside of AoE.

I should have added "A tank should feel best when getting hit" to the list of assumptions.

Halt the Advance: Tis a defensive minded combo line, meant to enable the other parry triggered weaponskills.

A 20% reduction is far more valuable once AoE is factored in, and in the grand scheme of things, shouldn't be something you can potentially spam, which is why it's limited on the Combo Finisher, the reactive skills, and Plunge for on-demand use. Some prep should be required if one would want to perform a string of that reduction.

Quietus: The Slow that was present on other skills (Feint for Dragoon, Lethargy for Black Mage) was a powerful tool but honestly never utilized. With Blood gain being a bit more stabled and spread out, Quietus having a powerful Slow attached to it makes it a very impactful ability for AoE packs which don't tend to be immune to everything.

The 20% Vuln is more for the Dark Knight than it is for anyone else, and admittedly should be reflected in that manner. (Quietus into a Third Step skill into a Bloodskiller)

Bloodspiller: You'd get a highlight of some sort. The Blood Gauge will have room for it.

Deliriuim: From a flavor perspective, Blood Weapon is the act of attack and Blood Price the act of Retaliation. Blood Price, in its new form, is in my opinion a greater steroid than before in both single and AoE situations. Blood Weapon is mostly unchanged.

Excluding them normally sets the mindset of what you're aiming for with each. One, greater focus on offensive weaponskills. The other, greater focus on Dark Arts and reactionary weaponskills. Two somewhat opposing themes, suddenly clashed together into one. A slight Franken-steining of the two standard definitions of the word.

"mental disturbance characterized by confused thinking and disrupted attention" + "frenzied excitement"

[Pastahnak]

You're dumb, this is dumb (I only read the first sentence)

[whiteblade89]

You went full Bender on this. Made your own DRK revamp thread with Blackjack AND Hookers. Bravo.

[Rathael]

I stopped at "TP is removed"

[Kabooa]

You're dumb, this is dumb (I only read the first sentence)

Hnnnnnnnngggh....

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

A couple initial thoughts:

-Your version of DRK has zero enmity combos until 38. your DRK would be extremely hard pressed to hold aggro on single target against the dps that start getting their 3rd tier combos around the 25 level range. You also don't have increased enmity on Unleash, so your DRK's aoe aggro gen will be horrendously bad until 56 (and hilariously bad at level 50 dungeons as a result) when unmend strikes all targets nearby.

-Tying debuffs to enmity combo is just creating Heavensward WAR memes all over again (where WARs would ignore path in favour of BB'ing due to higher dps gain). And just like WAR memes, giving any tank a % damage down on enemy attacks that's based on their GCD is just asking to create "storm's path 2: electric boogaloo" in how mandatory it'd be in progression (to put it in perspective, your cow the guilty would neuter every raid buster in Ultimate). Also, nullified Crit chance from enemies is insanely overpowered. That weaponskill would instantly obsolete Awareness. and that 20% vuln on quietus is just way too much, as raid dps buffs on a tank is just asking for unbalanced problems.

If you're insistent on giving the enmity combo debuffs, they need to affect the DRK <ONLY>, to prevent the DRK from using them as an OT.

-Honestly speaking, your DRK looks like it'd be fun to play only half the time. Putting so much emphasis on being the MT and wanting to get hit creates a job that feels bad when you get 2x DRK or there's forced tank swaps for long periods of time and thus you're potentially forced to not be tanking the boss and lose a lot of fun out of your kit.

[Kabooa]

A couple initial thoughts.

These are valid points. Allow me to rebut.

Regarding Threat: Unmend serves as priority threat, allowing you to establish your primary target. This iteration of Dark Knight also has superior AoE, and while Unleash has no additional threat modifiers, it is off the GCD and the healing applies additional threat. While the transition into mid 20s to mid 30s can be rough, the Dark Knight continues to receive additional tools that, while lacking pure threat, should be suitable. Revenge, high potency retaliations, and relatively higher AoE potencies. Grit at level 30 should alleviate any further issue.

Regarding Threat combo debuffs; As opposed to now, where threat combos are nearly entirely ignored. This is partially my fault. I should have clarified that the Defensive combo line isn't permanent debuffs / buffs. They are meant as a turtling approach, where each buff lasts about as long as the combo line, and a little bit extra. These are not 'once per 30 second' upkeeps. These are "i need these now" combo lines. Awareness is still superior in AoE packs, and unlike Cow the Guilty, the crit nullification isn't available on demand. Without proper foresight, you are breaking a combo to put it on. I find this an acceptable trade off.

Regarding Quietus: Outside Blood Price windows, Blood Gain in this iteration is going to be far more tempered, as it is primarily gained through Blood Price and Blood Weapon. The 20% vuln seems absurd, but this would be in a world where vulnerabilities are primarily brought by tanks, not DPS. It creates a potentially absurd burst window, but a 100% 5% vulnerability will outpace it no matter what over a given encounter.

That said, !@#%'s out for AoE bombs, baby.
Regarding Fun: It is my personal opinion that tanks should be their most fun when they are in front of the big bad. As it stands currently, a Tank in a boss encounter has almost no difference between being in front, or being at the side. Dark Knight in particular suffers, in my opinion, because you only really care about 4-5 buttons when the boss isn't looking at you, and frankly that doesn't really change when they -are- looking at you. It is my opinion that activity and engagement are not the same.

That said, from an OT position, there certainly can be improvements. Perhaps that'll be the blackest Night's place. A personal shield, or a trigger for your reactions in the OT position.