Are Dark Knights really that bad right now?

[DaulBan]

DRK is behind WAR and PLD on damage and utility, we got it. But DRK's damage is not way less than WAR. The difference between those two is around 5% (250 DPS or so), please stop that hyperbole. If DRK needs buff, it's a slight damage up and some QoL, boost that DRK damage by 20% and it'll outclass both WAR and PLD by a good margin (actually way more than WAR/PLD vs DRK right now).

I'm not saying all tanks are perfectly balanced (and that's an utopia), but they are well balanced right now. DRK's still the most durable tank when going full DPS. Both WAR and PLD have to sacrifice damage for their oh-so-great mitigation or healing. Cast Clemency and f.ck up your rotation, turn Defiance on for some Inner Beast and say goodbye to Fell Cleave.

All we can do is suggesting things and hoping for devs to look at it. Giving exact values is kinda pointless since we don't have the big picture. Also, if a job is harder to play properly, should it be more powerful than an easy one ? That question is a tricky game design problem imo. If the harder job is "meta" then everyone will play it regardless of difficulty (means a greater gap between good and average players, which is something SE wants to stay away from), else it will just be under used, which is pretty much DRK's case now.

Oh boy.

First of all 5% is a lot, 250 DPS over the course of a seven minute fight is over 100k damage which is more than enough to avoid a near enrage. More important than that is how the damage is distributed: Burst-ier is better than consistent since party raid buffs exist and there's always the benefit of being able to burn when absolutely necessary to kill something. That 5% is definitely worth something, and there's certainly a discussion to be had about how DRK delivers that DPS. Nobody in their right mind is asking for a 20% buff, they're usually asking for a 3-4% change to bring it more in line with WAR (if that's their personal opinion).

Also, we do more or less have the big picture. There are lots of people playing the three tanks and they have *very* well informed opinions on how they play or how they perform. The general consensus seems to be that it plays kinda awkward with lots of DA and not so great party utility. Is there a bigger picture than that? Is it a sense of identity or whatever like how SAM and BLM utility (or lack there of) is justified? Because if so that is a really terrible picture and I recommend we hire a new artists to work on the edgiest canvas this game has to offer. We *know* what the issues are, people argue about the implementation. There's no bigger picture we're missing: we're playing it.

And to the final point, MCH was meta and is still more or less meta despite the fact most the people I see play it hate the job for its quirks and oddities that just make it a nightmare to manage. People will do annoying stuff for meta, they'll play jobs they don't like or jobs that are easy or hard just cause. Meta cares about results, not about whether or not you feel like you're doing a piano cover of a dragonforce song. Meta and difficulty are just completely different beasts.

[ArianeEwah]

DRK is behind WAR and PLD on damage and utility, we got it. But DRK's damage is not way less than WAR. The difference between those two is around 5% (250 DPS or so), please stop that hyperbole. [...]

That's the reason why I used "()" there [but DRK suffers from having (way) less DPS].

DRK (and sometimes PLD) DPS is indeed way lower when at lower skill level.
Let's take a look at 50% parses in O6s for example.
DRK is a little bit over PLD, but about 400! DPS below WAR. At 25% DRK falls behind PLD and over 500! DPS behind WAR.
But at 75% (higher skill level) the DPS difference shrinks to ~350 DPS, at 95/99% about ~200 DPS.
(I wouldn't compare those DPS differences expressed as a percentage 'cause that would mean ~20% difference at 25% and ~5% at 95/99%.)
Whether it's way lower or just lower depends on skill level.

Still, I think DRK DPS should be between PLD and WAR DPS, not on par with PLD (or "sightly" less) - or, should SE not change anything in regard of utility or self-heal/mitigation for DRK, even above or on par with WAR.

[Megguido]

Oh boy.

First of all 5% is a lot, 250 DPS over the course of a seven minute fight is over 100k damage which is more than enough to avoid a near enrage. More important than that is how the damage is distributed: Burst-ier is better than consistent since party raid buffs exist and there's always the benefit of being able to burn when absolutely necessary to kill something. That 5% is definitely worth something, and there's certainly a discussion to be had about how DRK delivers that DPS. Nobody in their right mind is asking for a 20% buff, they're usually asking for a 3-4% change to bring it more in line with WAR (if that's their personal opinion).

Also, we do more or less have the big picture. There are lots of people playing the three tanks and they have *very* well informed opinions on how they play or how they perform. The general consensus seems to be that it plays kinda awkward with lots of DA and not so great party utility. Is there a bigger picture than that? Is it a sense of identity or whatever like how SAM and BLM utility (or lack there of) is justified? Because if so that is a really terrible picture and I recommend we hire a new artists to work on the edgiest canvas this game has to offer. We *know* what the issues are, people argue about the implementation. There's no bigger picture we're missing: we're playing it.

And to the final point, MCH was meta and is still more or less meta despite the fact most the people I see play it hate the job for its quirks and oddities that just make it a nightmare to manage. People will do annoying stuff for meta, they'll play jobs they don't like or jobs that are easy or hard just cause. Meta cares about results, not about whether or not you feel like you're doing a piano cover of a dragonforce song. Meta and difficulty are just completely different beasts.

If you wipe because of 250 rDPS, there might be an issue with mechanics somewhere (in savage at least, can't speak for ultimate). You can say the same for every job that isn't meta. "Oh look, if we had the SMN instead of a RDM, we wouldn't wipe at 1%", when like 99% of the fights are doable with every standard comp.

I know DRK's issues are identified, what I meant with "the big picture" is not about DRK alone, but the whole balance. If you give DRK a buff, what would be the impact at lower level / lower skill ? On different content ? The aim is to have all jobs balanced for harder content, but that doesn't mean they can be broken in other content. Which, imo, explains why devs are so careful with buffs now.

Meta and difficulty are two different beasts, we agree on that. But many people argue that a harder job should perform better, or "DRK is harder to play than WAR and deals less damage wtf SE".

That's the reason why I used "()" there [but DRK suffers from having (way) less DPS].

DRK (and sometimes PLD) DPS is indeed way lower when at lower skill level.
Let's take a look at 50% parses in O6s for example.
DRK is a little bit over PLD, but about 400! DPS below WAR. At 25% DRK falls behind PLD and over 500! DPS behind WAR.
But at 75% (higher skill level) the DPS difference shrinks to ~350 DPS, at 95/99% about ~200 DPS.
(I wouldn't compare those DPS differences expressed as a percentage 'cause that would mean ~20% difference at 25% and ~5% at 95/99%.)
Whether it's way lower or just lower depends on skill level.

Yeah, as you said, the skill required to play DRK properly is higher than for WAR. I was looking at 95th percentile and above when I said it was a 250 DPS difference... You're right on that point, the difference is much larger at lower skill levels.

[shao32]

I know DRK's issues are identified, what I meant with "the big picture" is not about DRK alone, but the whole balance. If you give DRK a buff, what would be the impact at lower level / lower skill ? On different content ? The aim is to have all jobs balanced for harder content, but that doesn't mean they can be broken in other content. Which, imo, explains why devs are so careful with buffs now.

thats a bit inaccurate since how they rework WAR multiple times, or AST buffs to dont clip anymore cards with heals, or SMN buffs, DRG buffs and MNK buffs betwen others, WAR buffs make him the strongest tank by far in other content with superior agro generation and universal utility where PLD cant take advantage apart of they high dps and strong mass pulling exterminiun, no i dont thing thats why SE arent touching DRK, im pretty sure if Lyth dint make this thread http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Community-Team whe will probably stay with shadow wall on 180s, feedback and adress the obvious inbalance betwen tanks never was the isue.

[WhyAmIHere]

I know DRK's issues are identified, what I meant with "the big picture" is not about DRK alone, but the whole balance. If you give DRK a buff, what would be the impact at lower level / lower skill ? On different content ? The aim is to have all jobs balanced for harder content, but that doesn't mean they can be broken in other content. Which, imo, explains why devs are so careful with buffs now.

Inner Release changes. Fullstop.
SE tried to reign in WAR. The WAR playerbase flipped tables over having to actually pay attention to gauges and costs and the stance swapping cost was removed. Those IMO were more than enough to change about the WAR kit. But then SE kept hearing people complain about how IR had no functional usages outside of specific niche scenarios and SE changed how the skill functions. It completely up-ended WAR's playstyle at cap and nearly secured WAR a spot in any end-game setting. (Huh, funny how "in niche cases" can be said about WAR and that skill's changed, but yet Bloodspiller is only a gain in some cases as well. Apples to oranges maybe, but I'd say it's closer to an apples to bananas argument more.)

It sure feels like there wasn't much consideration towards, as you put it, the impact at a lower skill/level setting. The whole balance of tanks sure wasn't changed that much, seeing as how it has always been WAR / (PLD/DRK) this entire expansion, but can you even say that making X a more set in stone choice didn't have repercussions?

EDIT::

I think removing the grit requirements on a heal would be OP. Currently, DRK has no issue healing for 5k per DASE combo while in grit. Imagine tacking on an extra 20% in healing. That would push healing to practically 10% of our HP every combo. For context, WAR's Storm's Path combos heals for about 2k for each path combo, and that's not spammed repeatedly. This proposed DRK heal would be nearly half of what a Clemency can do, and PLD has to use an entire GCD and resources that set back its DPS for it.

DRK just isn't bad. It's not the highest DPS, and doesn't offer two AoE shields, but it doesn't need to either when it's come as far as it has, and especially during a time when tank DPS has never been so close together as before. I'm sorry you don't like objective evidence when it comes to evaluating a class.

>while in grit
Outside of dungeon content, DRK wants to spend as little time in grit as possible. Just enough to secure a hate lead, then drop out of it for more DPS. Which you yourself mentioned in this same post with regards to BW and Q being insane amounts of MP generation. You're contradicting yourself here.

And, "for context," WAR doesn't spam their Path combo for the heal, but for the 20 gauge it generates -v- the 10 from their other combos. Other being the key word in that ALL of WAR's combos generate gauge. PLD just gains gauge passively through blocks/AA, stance depending, and they have little interaction with their gauge accordingly. And hey, let's not also forget the BROADER impact of having tanks being able to heal themselves more, shall we? It places a slightly less burden on the healers, allowing them to do more DPS to push through clearing content. PLD has Divine Veil, which it can trigger on it's own with Clemency. WAR has an invuln that doesn't outright kill them, and should the need arise can give themselves enough HP via Path/Thrill (and even IB/Equilibrium if you want to risk swapping stances (which thanks to unchained ISNT a DPS loss to do outside of losing Fell Cleaves, but it sure beats dealing with weakness IMO)) to stay alive long enough for a healer to burst heal you. Oh, and their tank stance also has a built-in Convalescence effect to further aid healing requirements due to how Defiance works. DRK has a grit-locked heal, and Sole Survivor, which sits at a 120s recast, and requires a further 15s of waiting to either kill the target or the effect to expire before you're healed for 20% of your max HP (which is a recent change to how the skill even works), and Dark Arts used on Abyssal Drain, which requires 2400 MP on the DA and heals for... "a portion of the damage dealt."

"This proposed DRK heal would be nearly half of what a Clemency can do, and PLD has to use an entire GCD and resources that set back its DPS for it"
Okay then, lets use your own method of arguments, since you're going to ignore stances with regards to DRK's healing.
WAR has a 1200 potency oGCD heal that's available to them every 60s. Sure it's not on the global, but there alone it already does half of what a PLD can do. So if you're going to argue "but then DRK would do half as well as PLD if their heal wasn't stance locked," and not also address the obvious amounts of similarity between WAR/PLD, and how WAR's self sustain is half as good as PLD, then I feel you should stop trying to argue for a hypocrisy.

So much for your "objective evidence," since you're being very selective about what evidence you use, seemingly only going towards any information that furthers your own stance and ignoring anything counter to it.

[Hierro]

That's the reason why I used "()" there [but DRK suffers from having (way) less DPS].

DRK (and sometimes PLD) DPS is indeed way lower when at lower skill level.
Let's take a look at 50% parses in O6s for example.
DRK is a little bit over PLD, but about 400! DPS below WAR. At 25% DRK falls behind PLD and over 500! DPS behind WAR.
But at 75% (higher skill level) the DPS difference shrinks to ~350 DPS, at 95/99% about ~200 DPS.
(I wouldn't compare those DPS differences expressed as a percentage 'cause that would mean ~20% difference at 25% and ~5% at 95/99%.)
Whether it's way lower or just lower depends on skill level.

Still, I think DRK DPS should be between PLD and WAR DPS, not on par with PLD (or "sightly" less) - or, should SE not change anything in regard of utility or self-heal/mitigation for DRK, even above or on par with WAR.

I like how you pick and choose your stats. If we were to take a look at O8S, a fight with plenty of up time and at 50th percentile, the difference between WAR and DRK is ~240 DPS. In a fight with an rDPS requirement of like 32k, that's even less than a 1% difference in what the party needs. That difference shrinks the higher up you go.

>while in grit

Main reason I bring up grit is because that's what the healing people are asking for. I am NOT advocating that people sit in tank stance, and I'm NOT contradicting myself. Don't put words in my mouth.

Equilibrium is balanced because it has to be on 60 second cooldown and locked behind tank stance, as opposed to this idea that every single combo every 7 seconds should heal us for a large portion. Unchained's 90 second cooldown ensures we can't just shift into it every time we want a heal every minute. WAR's self sustain comes at the cost of DPS. DRK's mitigation, and this proposed heal, would NOT. That's not balanced.

I have no idea why you went off on some unrelated tanget about gauges and crap, and thinking when "should the need arise WAR gets enough HP from path." What a load of crock. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know WAR's tank stance has no passive damage reduction. Their conva effect is only there because it has to make up for the relativley harder task of topping it off, and by the way, this boosted healing has no effect on oGCD heals.

[WhyAmIHere]

Main reason I bring up grit is because that's what the healing people are asking for. I am NOT advocating that people sit in tank stance, and I'm NOT contradicting myself. Don't put words in my mouth.
Except you did, are, have, and will continue to.

Equilibrium is balanced because it has to be on 60 second cooldown and locked behind tank stance, as opposed to this idea that every single combo every 7 seconds should heal us for a large portion. Unchained's 90 second cooldown ensures we can't just shift into it every time we want a heal every minute. WAR's self sustain comes at the cost of DPS. DRK's mitigation, and this proposed heal, would NOT. That's not balanced.
Funnily enough, it's been brought up to reduce the healing potency of Souleater when not in grit, akin to how syphon strike returns 1200MP outside of grit, and you shot that down as well. And the whole "every single combo every 7 seconds" bit glosses over Path, which again, is what WAR will be using when not having to maintain Eye, because it generates the most gauge, which leads to more fell cleaves/inner beats / gauge spending skills. You bring up unchained's recast, and sure, that paired with the 10s stance swapping means if you absolutely needed it, you're going to be losing DPS to be able to heal yourself for a good chunk of your HP. That's the whole point, if you absolutely needed it. That level of survivability is bested only by PLD. DRK is lacking in this area of emergency survivability, is the whole point. SS changes were a step towards alleviating this issue, but more can be done.


I have no idea why you went off on some unrelated tanget about gauges and crap, and thinking when "should the need arise WAR gets enough HP from path." What a load of crock. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know WAR's tank stance has no passive damage reduction. Their conva effect is only there because it has to make up for the relativley harder task of topping it off, and by the way, this boosted healing has no effect on oGCD heals.
Because it was pertinent to discussing class design. Duh? Also, I paired path AND thrill, don't misquote me. They are the most free forms of healing WAR has as neither is stance-dependent, hence why the other skills I listed were in parenthesis. I do in fact know WAR's tank stance has no passive damage reduction. It's WHY I said it has a Conv. effect baked into it, because of how it is designed. I'm not ignorant to how WAR plays, but will freely admit I'm not the greatest at it. But don't think you can insult my intelligence when your own is lacking when you could just as easily see through multiple avenues I have WAR at level 70, and play it in end-game content.

responses in bold.

[shao32]

I like how you pick and choose your stats. If we were to take a look at O8S, a fight with plenty of up time and at 50th percentile, the difference between WAR and DRK is ~240 DPS. In a fight with an rDPS requirement of like 32k, that's even less than a 1% difference in what the party needs. That difference shrinks the higher up you go.

Thats a poor choice godka dont represent the whole performance of the raid comunity bcs only dedicated raiders clear It, of course the 50th looks better there.

[Kabooa]

Thats a poor choice godka dont represent the whole performance of the raid comunity bcs only dedicated raiders clear It, of course the 50th looks better there.

You use the good players to compare classes because then the difference isn't a wide margin of player capability, but purely class mechanics.

[shao32]

You use the good players to compare classes because then the difference isn't a wide margin of player capability, but purely class mechanics.

the conversation was about how DRK gap performance compared to WAR its way bigger at lower skilled players and by end the skill need it to perform the job properly is higher, not about the diference betwen high skilled players, you can't use O8S to prove otherwhise bcs those players dint clear it, at high percentile is well know DRK is 200 or more under WAR.