Dark Knight is playable, but BORING

[Gula]

Opinions and such. Don't go hollering like it's fact.

[EpicOverlord85]

I dont miss HW DRK one bit. Oom you just lost 10% of your attack. It was a mess to play back in HW SB it got better but was more of the same minus a DoT.

ShB DRK to me just feels better yeah big deal its a 123 123 123 rotation but lets remember after 1 enmity rotation it went to souleater combo and DA spam. So not much changed except now TBN is better then in SB.

A mess? You think so? Idk I always liked it personally. The MP management, Dark Dance+Reprisal procs, etc.

I honestly don’t agree that 123 over and over again feels good. And we’re still spamming Dark Arts, it’s name has just changed. Additionally I really don’t like how we’re are a carbon copy of Warrior, I miss when we had a tool kit that was unique to us.

[Valenth]

I personally prefer HW's iteration of DRK most so far. The ShB one can work well, but it feels like it's missing something. Maybe give Dark Dance back? Maybe lower the CD of Abyssal Drain again and make Salted Earth a lower CD as well? I don't know... I'm just missing something in the kit. It gets the job done, but it's missing something.

[Seraphor]

Personally find ShB DRK way better than SB. Never played HW.

Edge/Flood and their interaction with TBN is the most interesting mechanic any of the tanks have right now.

[Misutoraru]

Personally find ShB DRK way better than SB. Never played HW.

Edge/Flood and their interaction with TBN is the most interesting mechanic any of the tanks have right now.

I havent level up my DRK far in ShB, but SB is definitely my least enjoy DRK. I drop DRK fro WAR in SB because of those change

HW DRK, i have only play it before 3.1 and took a long break, from my distant memories of HW DRK it was a mix. enmity combo, dps combo, a DOT skill. With some HP absorbing skill. Dark Art in HW was what make DRK rather unique, DA was more than just potency boost. For example DA Dark Passenger give blind effect, quite good for big pull. DA Abyssal Drain absorb HP, DA Dark Dance provide more defensive...etc. It was more about managing the MP, when to use DA and which skill to DA.

while in SB DA just...DPS DPS DPS DPS.

I cant tell if ShB DRK is better than HW, but SB DRK definitely is the worst imo

[shao32]

DRK change a lot this expansion, not only for the certain mechanics that has been removed and added but the flow of the job, we talk of a job that has been historically sustained dps from the begining, his old resources management and flow keep always the job busy all the time with extremely minimum downtimes and now that change too, DRK is bursty now and his resources and peaks of activity are tied to pretty smalls windows of 10s each 1/1:30 mins bcs DRK need to be a TA slave right? compared to the big buff windows use to have with blood weapon/delirium and DRK being mostly selfish like it should.

Many things bother me of this version that make me call it the worst version of DRK by far, the lack of unique mechanics and clone the pace and mechanics of the other tanks makes DRK being DRK only by name for me, I don't doubt his functionality but let's be clear DRK identity is being carried only by TBN, dark mind and living dead which is so sad.

DRK need to come back where belongs, to HW and walk his own path.

[Duskane]

Id really like it to go back to low blow reset mechanic
But just use it for carve and split
Or maybe even both CS and AD
And we just be Mage ballad tank much more faithful to what Drk was compared to now

[Rasikko]

I can't say it's boring. Unleash still makes me all giddy when I use it XD so there's that.

[Ventura_Highway]

I agree, having taken all 4 tanks to 80 it's the least engaging of the four. Some would argue Warrior is about as bad but at least Warrior has a flow to its gameplay.

The whole kit is just really disconnected. There's no burst window for optimal use of OGCDs, One single weaponskill combo, and Delirium is merely a time to do 5 Bloodsplitters while IR interacts with Upheaval, Infuriate and Storm's Eye. Not even having to reapply Darkside during the window is a problem since it's tied to an OGCD.

I never tried any savage/extreme stuff during Stormblood and I can see why Stormblood Dark Arts would be painful to deal with, but I enjoyed that over what we have now. I'd propose making Dark Knight have something like Dark Arts, but cut down on the Dark Arts frequency Dark Arts of times Dark Arts you'd have to press Dark Dark Arts Arts in a Dark Arts combo.

[Freyyy]

The whole kit is just really disconnected. There's no burst window for optimal use of OGCDs

That's the whole point of resource-based jobs vs "steroid"-based jobs. The kit isn't disconnected in any way. You just have more freedom because you're not forced to put everything into an X seconds steroid. A resource-based job will instead maximize its resource-gain and these resources will then convert into direct damage when used. You can choose to delay your 'burst' damage while making sure you don't overcap on resources, and then later you can decide to just burn everything in a short amount of time (like a trick attack/brotherhood/litany window, a DPS check add, etc), resulting in incredibly high burst damage. But you can also decide to use your resources in a more "sustained" manner, providing less burst opportunities but giving you an easier way to prevent overcapping and/or MP starving in case you'd need a TBN. It's not dictated by the ultimate optimal rotation but by your choice to optimize it how you want it depending on your party composition, your preferred way of doing it, and the fight. This "issue" you're having with the job pretty much screams to me that DRK may not be for you. The job has worked that way since its introduction in HW and I think that they're very adamant on keeping it like that (which is a good thing imo).

One single weaponskill combo

WAR and GNB are the same on that. Just changing your ender once every X combos to maintain a buff isn't really more engaging than spamming one combo over and over again.

GNB has its "second combo" locked behind a 30sec CD, you basically just have to use it on CD just like you'd do with every basic damaging oGCDs in the game. It's not thought-provoking at all and it doesn't act like a second "choice" of combos to use in your rotation, especially since it automatically ligns up with No Mercy. GNB is just a one combo job with a 30sec nuke that lasts 3GCDs and makes you spam Dark Arts the SB-way between each hit. Sonic Break has the same issue. It's a DoT but since it has a CD and auto-aligns with No Mercy, you don't have to think about keeping uptime on it or big brain esports-mathematician optimization which can involve clipping it sometimes for timing purposes (like some DPS jobs can do with their DoTs, or even Paladin in some fights). You just use it on CD. It's dumb. This job is very fun to play and feels busy but that's all an illusion. There's pretty much zero thought process involved. It's by far the easiest tank. (And the cartridge system is the easiest """resource""" to """manage""" in the game right now).

The only tank that isn't based around a single combo is PLD (you don't repeat any of its combos back to back, you always go from one way to deal damage to another one), which is funny since it used to be the one-combo tank in ARR. With that said, I agree on the fact that DRK should get at least another combo with an interesting effect and an actual thought-process behind it (no fixed rotation or dumb CD on it tho please).

and Delirium is merely a time to do 5 Bloodsplitters while IR interacts with Upheaval, Infuriate and Storm's Eye. Not even having to reapply Darkside during the window is a problem since it's tied to an OGCD.

Delirium makes you unable to spend your Blood Gauge outside of using LS. Since the timer sometimes aligns itself with BW which makes every GCD give 10 blood, it has an interesting interaction with your resources. You don't want to delay your BW when it comes up, so you'll use it. But you're at risk of overcapping, so you'll have to pre-emptively use a Bloodspiller before entering Delirium while making sure you don't delay Delirium too much in the process, but you also have to watch LS's CD, since it will sometimes align with Delirium, which prevents you from generating blood for 5 GCDs if it's not aligned with BW (but sometimes all three will align !). Can you see where I'm going ? When LS is coming up, you don't want to enter Del with low blood. When BW is coming up, you don't want to enter Del with high blood. When all three are coming up at around the same time, you want to enter Del with just enough blood to be able to use LS without having it overcap during the Bloodspiller spam because of BW.

Delirium actually has a different interaction with your blood gauge depending on both BW and LS being available or not. It definitely requires a lot more thought process and preemptive-thinking than IR which just requires you to brainlessly use Upheaval on CD because it automatically comes back up every single time you go IR, and restrain you from using Infuriate during its 10sec (which is now very easy to achieve since Infuriate has a charge system). Every single IR phase is the same as the last one and has the exact same interaction with your resources everytime (0). BW (60sec), Del (90sec), LS (120sec) can align in five different ways during a 10min fight which all require different blood level to properly be executed without either overcapping or severely delaying LS. And I'm not even talking about fights with downtimes that force you to delay the usage of some of these CDs even more, making LS or BW come back up at a different timing within your Del window, or sometimes just before, and sometimes right after.

And all of that while keeping track of your MP regen rate which is also regularly altered by BW, Del and C&S, and also keeping in mind the MP you need for TBN at certain fight-dependent timings and using the DA proc in the best way possible after that (keep it for a burst phase ? Spend it because MP is going to be too high so you'll need to be able to spend them to prevent overcapping ?)

But you can only see this "depth" in fights that actually last long enough to create these scenarios for you.

I actually think that DRK is a very good example of a job that's very accessible to new/casual players by having a very easy to understand and achieve base-level of mastery for dungeons and trials, while still maintaining an actually pretty high skill-ceiling for people who like having to think about ways to optimize both their damage output and mitigation in relevant content (savage+).

I'd propose making Dark Knight have something like Dark Arts, but cut down on the Dark Arts frequency Dark Arts of times Dark Arts you'd have to press Dark Dark Arts Arts in a Dark Arts combo.

So, Edge of Shadow ?


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All in all I see a lot of different complaints about DRK being "too ez" or "not fun anymore" but almost every suggested changes I've seen so far would vastly simplify the job and make it way easier and basically just plain worse while killing what remains of its identity.
I'm not saying that current DRK is perfect. It definitely could use more work and could be way more complex and fun. But it's currently very good.

While HW was the most fun iteration of the job at the cost of being the most ghetto one, ShB has a very good and well-designed foundation for the devs to build on and make it the greatest its ever been. We're not there yet but I can definitely see it in the future (not now tho, some DPS jobs and the state of healing are top priority IMO).
It's way better than brainless just-spam-DA-faster-than-your-MP-regen SB DRK.