Dark Knight where is my Identiy

[ForteNightshade]

But at the end of the day, I frankly enjoy ShB DRK the most of all its past iterations because it is the only tank design with such a heavy and fast burst phase that actually utilizies properly built up resources to explode into any and all party buffs that I elect to, the best of all classes even.

Except that it isn't just Delirium being functionally identical. Several aspect of DRK's gameplay mirrors WAR in some way or another. Blood Weapon, for example, is essentially a weaker Infuriate. Through five GCDs, you're given 50 gauge and 3,000 MP except you have to play against a finicky server tick, potentially causing your fifth GCD to miss the effect. Warrior, on the other hand, simply pushes a single button. And because Inner Chaos is guaranteed to DCrit, they achieve similar damage output despite DRK having to work significantly harder.

Going further down the list Dark Missionary is a weaker Shake, both in the latter having a potential buff added and not having to play a guessing game on damage type. Abyssal Drain is laughably inferior to Nascent Flash in every aspect, having nearly four times the CD length in spite of being weaker.

You mention resource management yet... ShB DRK's iteration is the least resource intense the job has ever been. You essentially only pay attention to your MP under two thresholds: Is it above 9,000 or below 3,000? Anything in between doesn't matter outside burst windows. You ideally want to enter every buff window with roughly 9k and then let it build back up for TBN if necessary. As a result, this makes Dark Arts v2 incredibly passive... not unlike a certain other tank whose buff has become so easy to maintain you actively need to go out of your way for it to fall off. Keep in mind, everything I said only matters at an optimized level. For the vast majority of players, Edge of Shadow is little more than a spammable Upheaval. Which brings up an important point. Ever notice how Upheaval is rarely mentioned when identifying Warrior? That's because it's largely a forgettable skill you simply press. Fell Cleave defines the job. Edge of Shadow is similar; it's entirely forgettable. You'll simply press it, however due to the passive nature of Dark Arts, it lacks impact. Unfortunately, Dark Knight has no "Fell Cleave" to fall back on.

And that brings us to the only truly unique and identifying attribute DRK has: The Blackest Night. A cool ability, and undeniably better than any of its counterparts. Except being defined by one mitigation tool in a game centered almost entirely around damage is, well... underwhelming.

The primary complaint of Dark Arts spam was definitely addressed and instead of a weak piddly 140 potency oGCD that makes our character have a seizure every few GCDS with no strategic usage due to constant threat of overcap, we instead now have a, in my opinion, much better form of it in the vein of an actual 500 potency heavy swing that hits harder than every GCD save for Spiller, looks fantastic when woven in with our general strikes and has the flexibility to be used leisurely whenever our tactically within burst windows the best.

I have to disagree. Personally, I find it far more interesting weaving Dark Arts to buff Souleater and Carve & Spit while having to watch my MP knowing that should I let it drop, I'll lose Darkside compared to spamming Edge. The latter may be significantly stronger but it lacks intrigue and engagement. Dark Arts forces me to alternate combos and actively maintain a constantly draining resource. While it lacked in other aspects, primarily the fact you rarely wanted to buff Dark Mind due to it being a damage loss. The foundation gave Dark Knight an identity. Additionally, DRK was the only tank with active proc gameplay, further separating it from WAR and PLD in the Heavensward era. The similarity between tanks is a problem all around, however Dark Knight draws more attention because it had so much more diversity back in HW. In other words, it feels like we lost something with every iteration.

stopped reading right there.

Which is a shame. She made a far more compelling argument than you did.

[Nivarea]

I disagree, the comparison to DRK being a WAR Clone is valid.
I mean, ShB changes to DRK that are clearly inspired by WAR design weren't just limited to Delirium, it's the whole blood generation system that is inspired by WAR. Souleater used to only generate 10 blood, and Blood Weapon being on the minute mark and neatly generating 50 blood if you hit the 5 GCDs make it discount Infuriate on that front compared to what it used to be, a desynched buff from raid windows because of its 40s recast time, and with a less predictible and more spread out ressource generation. The fact is that DRK used to be, both in its HW version AND its StB version, a sustained DPS class. In ShB? you said it yourself: "it is the only tank design with such a heavy and fast burst phase that actually utilizies properly built up resources to explode into any and all party buffs that I elect to, the best of all classes even." I agree, it's full burst wagon train, with its six minute burst being the highest among all tanks, and pheraps, compared relatively to downtimes numbers, the highest in the game. It's a complete philosophy change, burst, wasn't at all a DRK thing until ShB, it historically was a WAR thing. So yeah, DRK, GCD wise, is really similar to WAR, the comparison stand, because it's not just delirium, it's Delirium, the ressource management and the burst philosophy.
Also, DRK wasn't the easiesttank on is GCD decision in HW. The choice between Souleater and OG Delirium was based on your mana economy, which was a moment to moment micromanagement, compared to both WAR and PLD "if the buff/Dot falls out, reapply". i'm not saying it was the hardest thing in the world, but you were constantly thinking on what you would use to balance your damage vs your current mana pool. I can agree however that its GCD rotation was the easiest of the three in StB, but it's because the focus of StB DRK was all in ressource management.

On that front, let's talk about it. The fact is that DRK ressource management was really streamlined in ShB, being easier than ever because of how little MP we generate. In a full uptime situation, we generate roughly 12 000 MP (a bit less), which means we can do 4 Edge/Flood a minute. In StB, the equivalent in Dark Arts would be roughly 12 Dark Arts a mn. And if I remember well, HW DRK was around 8/9 Dark Arts a mn. While yes, StB Mana generation was probably too high (ymmv, it's not my focus here), ShB mana generation being that low means several things effects are a clear departure from its HW and StB incarnations.
If you burn all your MP in the minute burst window, you will have no worry to overcap before the next Blood Weapon is up whithout even touching your mana in downtime.This is linked to the changes from BW, both in how it works and its recast time, and in Syphon Strike amount of MP generation. BW generate less ressources than before, eliminating the danger of overcaping while active. Being on a 60s recast time compared to its previous version also means that while as of now you're encouraged to stock on ressources for burst windows, before you were forced to used mana outside of burst windows because you would overcap if you weren't. That means that you were pressing other buttons than your GCDs outside of the mn mark, meaning less downtimes and, of course, a more spread out DPS, so why it was a more sustained DPS. Same with syphon strike, which generated the double of MP we generate now (quadruple if you were in tank stance). You were also generating less blood, meaning, more Syphon Strikes and in consequence more MP.
So yeah, the mana economy has a direct connexion to how boring DRK is outside of burst windows.

Finally about the speed buff from blood weapon, while yes it meant that double weaving was more difficult... well, it was a posisble problem in StB, where you were usualy forced to double weave Carve and Spit with Dark Arts because three out of your main DPS GCDs were also affected by Dark Arts. The problem was absent from the HW version because you could Dark Arts a GCD before. The speed buff was finally coherent with the idea that you were gaining ressources on physical hits, GCDs, oGCDs and autos, so going faster meant generating more ressources whithin BW generation. And double weave was a "possible" problem, I mean Ninja have to double weave in its burst window and the job has a speed buff, and it works fine on that front. So it's not an objective problem, it's a problem for some people. It was on the opposite hand a hook for many DRK players (myself included), having such a fast paced tank which had among the highest apm in the game.

I'm not discussing if it's bad or no, just... it's how it has changed and it took many pages from WAR design and... well, I prefer tanks to be more distinct and DRK is, in my opinion, too close to WAR in playstyle right now.

[Vyrerus]

—not it becoming a button you press upon job change and then literally don’t think about.

Not really a dig at you, but you did turn it off during any phase transition where you could regen more MP than the casting cost and the boss was not targetable. It didn't often get you much, not nearly as much as turning it off during phase transitions of the same sort in HW, but it was a thing in a few fights.

___________

The real issue with DRK in its life is that it has always been fun and required high effort. Not just from the DRK, but from the healer to maintain to DRK. The big deal is that you put in all that effort and it gets outclassed in every expansion except for the one it was released in, but only if you cared about Limit Break concerns or really needed the -10% INT from original Delirium on the boss (Which is hilariously punished Monk of all things).

DRK has had to be inferior to other tanks every expansion except the one it came out in, with one exception being WAR at 4.0 launch, but only in the sense of ease of use. WAR still had higher DPS for less effort, and any bad things WAR had going for it at the start were quickly reversed.

In SHB I find myself liking neither of them, the only thing holding me over on them being my memory of their glorious pasts. PLD is truly fun for the first time, to me, though that mainly stems from its OP nature. GNB is fun, because they designed current tanking around it, and let it have the most fun combo on almost any job.

They take one GCD combo away from DRK per expansion, so in Endwalker we should be down to zero combos. :^) Gonna be sooooo fun

[HyoMinPark]

Not really a dig at you, but you did turn it off during any phase transition where you could regen more MP than the casting cost and the boss was not targetable. It didn't often get you much, not nearly as much as turning it off during phase transitions of the same sort in HW, but it was a thing in a few fights.

No dig taken, so no worries. I was more so referring to the fact that SB DRK didn’t punish with regards to Darkside the same was HW DRK did. When your mana hit 0 in HW, you lost Darkside and all the buffs it gave. But SB DRK didn’t lose it when they reached 0. It was just...still there. So it removed a bit of complexity and something you had to always keep in mind when considering DA usage from the job.

[FallenWings]

Except that it isn't just Delirium being functionally identical. Several aspect of DRK's gameplay mirrors WAR in some way or another. Blood Weapon, for example, is essentially a weaker Infuriate. Through five GCDs, you're given 50 gauge and 3,000 MP except you have to play against a finicky server tick, potentially causing your fifth GCD to miss the effect. Warrior, on the other hand, simply pushes a single button. And because Inner Chaos is guaranteed to DCrit, they achieve similar damage output despite DRK having to work significantly harder.

So by that logic, Bloodfest from GNB is a weaker Infuriate because it's 90 seconds and only opens up 2 more Burst Strikes(GNB Fell Cleave) and thus is a candidate for being called a WAR Clone. Samurai's Ikkishoten, Ninja's Mug, Machinist's Barrel Stabellizer are also clones of Infuriate because they generate resources instantly and thus are WAR clones?

Nevermind that we complain about Delirium being too mechanically similiar so when a comparative skill is mechanically different, it is also a bad thing? Bloodweapon again, still serves its primary function of being a resource gain buff and not only acquires blood for BS/QS/LS it also generates 3k mana for TBN/Edge/Flood. The number of resources gained being similiar is but a balance decision at the end of the day.

Going further down the list Dark Missionary is a weaker Shake, both in the latter having a potential buff added and not having to play a guessing game on damage type. Abyssal Drain is laughably inferior to Nascent Flash in every aspect, having nearly four times the CD length in spite of being weaker.

Heart of Light must be a weaker shake. Nevermind that these buffs excel in different areas like how shell ones like SiO and DV(oh no! A copy of WARs SiO!) are better for single instances of damage below your max hp and DM/HoL are greater for catching 2 instances of damage within its duration and instances of raid wide damage that far exceed max hp. But I guess all tanks who need raid wide mit are now WAR clones. Abyssal Drain is not even a direct comparison to Nascent Flash lol. It would be Equilibrium versus AD, the latter of which being weaker at ST but better at AoE. TBN is compared to Nascent and the former achieves a higher "heal" thanks to its duration and lack of required Inner Chaos being used with it.

You mention resource management yet... ShB DRK's iteration is the least resource intense the job has ever been. You essentially only pay attention to your MP under two thresholds: Is it above 9,000 or below 3,000? Anything in between doesn't matter outside burst windows. You ideally want to enter every buff window with roughly 9k and then let it build back up for TBN if necessary. As a result, this makes Dark Arts v2 incredibly passive... not unlike a certain other tank whose buff has become so easy to maintain you actively need to go out of your way for it to fall off. Keep in mind, everything I said only matters at an optimized level. For the vast majority of players, Edge of Shadow is little more than a spammable Upheaval. Which brings up an important point. Ever notice how Upheaval is rarely mentioned when identifying Warrior? That's because it's largely a forgettable skill you simply press. Fell Cleave defines the job. Edge of Shadow is similar; it's entirely forgettable. You'll simply press it, however due to the passive nature of Dark Arts, it lacks impact. Unfortunately, Dark Knight has no "Fell Cleave" to fall back on.

The change on the rate of gain for MP is subjective at the end. There are those who prefer stockpiling and using them in a controlled manner. And there are those who prefer to babysit a bar that won't stop overfilling with only a 140 ogcd pot button to keep it down. That's at the end of the day an opinion on which is more fun, not superior or inferior. I personally see Edge/Flood as oGCD Fell Cleaves/Decimates but better because they don't have the draw back of costing a GCD. To me they have huge impact as button presses because of the aforementioned potencies and MP costs. They very much define DRK rotation and optimization. If people can see Holy Spirit and Holy Circle as ranged magical Fell Cleave/Decimate then the same regard should be given to Edge/Flood.

And that brings us to the only truly unique and identifying attribute DRK has: The Blackest Night. A cool ability, and undeniably better than any of its counterparts. Except being defined by one mitigation tool in a game centered almost entirely around damage is, well... underwhelming.

Forgive a tank class for having a supremly iconic barrier ability *alongside* its also unique mana resource kit that interplays with eachother I guess.

I suppose it's not as good as a party wide mitigation buff that is only used for cutscenes or tapped on because of the drawback of forcing your character to hold still.

I suppose it's not as good as a 90 second cooldown that limits tank gearing options, caps your damage ceiling and only offers 5 free button presses as an identity.

----

Blood, Quietus and Spiller came in SB. No one batted an eye then and the current changes is not exclusive to DRK but tanks as a whole for a more symmetrical balanced state. PLD gains the same static amount of resources for every Requis. GNB pretends to have management. On the whole DRK retains key skills and their respective functions. Several actions just changed in numbers for the sake of balance.

Like I've said before, if people find pressing 1-2-3 more often and 10% faster its up to them lol. Having high apm means nothing when the majority of it is spamming a low potency button over and over(See Machinist).

Ninja doesn't double weave and no class with 2.1 or lower GCD speed has forced double weaves. SE deliberately designed away from that as well with current GCD Mudra ninja because of how restrictive it is and how unfun it was to play with how often it clipped. It's also a big complaint to the Dark Arts spam from before. In HW it worked because Dark Arts wasn't eaten by literally every GCD other than Hard Slash with Scourge also as a buffer. Again, I personally prefer quad double weave burst over 1-2-3 at 110% speed but I wouldn't be against a kit that involves both at different intervals.

WAR only focuses on it's GCDs and the way it plays around Nascent Flash, Infuriate reduction and charges reflects that. DRK is primarily focused around it's oGCDs with its GCDS supplementing that. GNB can also be reduced to just 1-2-3 only outside of every minute burst. It's regarded as the easy to optimize tank class along WAR and with reason because it's not anymore special than the other tanks. It shares an Infuriate, Fell Cleave/Decimate equivalent but no one has given it the same CLONE conclusion.

[Nivarea]

see post above

I'm not sure you've understood what I've was trying to say, but that might be because I was a bit unfocused on my argument, so my fault here.

While yes, it's true that DRK already shared similar skills with WAR, the problem now is that too much of the kit is far too similar. That's just part of the problem tho, and I pointed it a bit, the cement of why DRK and WAR feels so similar is the philosophy behind, being all about the burst. Of course DRK and WAR have differences, but if the differences boil to "WAR has forced direct-crit burst and skills" on one hand and "DRK has oGCDs" on the other (simplification ofc, but still true), that's not enough in my opinion because the philosophy is the same : put everything in the burst window and wait boringly in downtimes between those two windows. It boils down to that, the combination of both philosophy behind the job and too much of identical or similar skills. If it was just one or the other, that wouldn't be a problem. That's was the case in Stormblood, there were some skills that were similar that you pointed (less so than in ShB), but a philosophy completely different, so there was no problem on that point.

That's also why GNB and PLD, despite sharing some similatiries (like Bloodfest compared to Infuriate/BloodWeapon or Requiescat being the OG spam 5 time your highest potency skill) with DRK and WAR, are not considered clones : the philosophy behind is different. PLD and GNB, for one, have a more rigidly structured rotation to follow, but both of those rotation function in different ways, one with a 3 part 1mn rotation with a physical damage phase, a magical phase and a physical downtime phase, and the other switching between machinguning skills every 30sec, followed by rebuilding ressources. Also, the other key difference is that one is more burst oriented (GNB) while the other is more sustained damage wise. Of course, GNB has more sustained damage than DRK and WAR, and of course that doesn't mean that PLD don't have a burst, but it's far less pronounced. The philosophy behind those jobs are sufficiently distinct, despite the homogenization tanks went through during ShB.

I agree tho that yes, I would like to see more differences even for those two. I'm not a huge fan of the homogenization that all tanks (and well, to an extent all jobs) got this expansion, I was fine with tanks having more cut clean specialities, given they had weaknesses to compensate (which was a problem in both HW and StB, with one Tank being the best at basicaly almost everything with WAR then PLD).

Finaly mea culpa for NIN, that was a mistake on my part here from what I remembered, you're right, no double weave.

[shao32]

DRK is considered a WAR clone due how his GCD core gameplay it's just the same as WAR one but more simple, spaming the same combo and a ocasional blodspiller until inner delirium spam is literaly the same as WAR spaming his storm path until eye when they need it every 30s, an ocasional fell cleave/inner chaos and then inner release, this mark basically 95% of DRK gameplay now due the absurd amount of downtime and then they have his use all oGCD window wich is just a niche boring use and forgeth that is not representative at all.

So lets see what we have, a job that have 5/6 of his gameplay reduced to watch how you spam souleater combo, an ocasional bloodspiller and delirium wich is basically WAR gameplay without storm eye, and the 1/6 remaining is just throw all your MP and oGCD on raid buffs without even have to think about it, neither prepare for it at all wich make totally forgettable this part of the job, it's pretty clear why ppl see it as a WAR clone (me included), Delirium is just 1 part of the problem that turned DRK in to the gameplay mess is right now but not the only one, the MP economy changes just cemented it as much as the horrible Delirium changes and contribute of the Clone problem too by taking away that representative part of the job and make the player focus on the boring downtime GCD WAR clone gameplay we have now.

[Shurrikhan]

"War Clone"

This is something that is thoughtlessly parroted ad nauseum.

Perhaps because it is about the most disturbingly accurate summary of a situation that can be had through two words alone. It's rare for something to be both so pithy and pertinent. I get that you disagree with the latter part here as it can conflate concretely uninteresting designs (such as "press buff, press button 5 times") with homogeneity, when the latter is the smaller part of what has made DRK increasingly less interesting — else Warrior could simply be removed and DRK would suddenly be miraculously fine and identity-laden again — but it at least draws a clear complaint against lowest denominator designs like both Dark Knight (and, even sooner, Warrior) was stuck with, especially if it's already been done and therefore has no cohesive, contextual, or synergetic reason to be there. And if it's not pithy enough to be parroted ad nauseum, it's not going to get fit through the pinprick-sized listening hole between us and the devs.

____________________

On a more specific note, let's consider:

[1] I can sympathesize with people who miss certain aspects of the old designs such as; Dark Arts having more varied usage, the mechanic of an oGCD buffing GCD, or the pure alchemy of SB DRK AoE gameplay with Blood and MP interplay. DRK has undergone the most changes of all classes and is the only victim to having skills constantly be butchered into role action skills with no substitutes. It even suffers the most from having lost so many animations.

[2] The primary complaint of Dark Arts spam was definitely addressed and instead of a weak piddly 140 potency oGCD that makes our character have a seizure every few GCDS with no strategic usage due to constant threat of overcap, we instead now have a, in my opinion, much better form of it in the vein of an actual 500 potency heavy swing that hits harder than every GCD save for Spiller, looks fantastic when woven in with our general strikes and has the flexibility to be used leisurely whenever our tactically within burst windows the best.

But at the end of the day, I frankly enjoy ShB DRK the most of all its past iterations because it is the only tank design with such a heavy and fast burst phase that actually utilizies properly built up resources to explode into any and all party buffs that I elect to, the best of all classes even.

My problem with ShB is that it cost us the prior when it didn't have to. I love the flexibility and sleekness of the ShB DRK, but if that's all I was going for in a DRK, then Stormblood Samurai would have already done all that better. But as much as I enjoyed my SAM, that isn't the kind of thing from which I'd ever imagine DRK as my preferred tank. Rather, I wanted the choice-making that its original design implied as a thematic center but could rarely quite make good on, done better. I wanted the Mana-Blood "alchemy" that StB DRK could only fully capitalize on in mass pulls, brought a bit more to the fore. And, of course, a faster, more responsive design in doing that is an objectively good thing, but it does not require the loss of those prior promises or centers of identity. Those could have been improved upon, both in terms of cohesion/reward/integration and smoothness of play, without simply copying over them, effectively, with Shinten, Kyuten, and Inner Release for a comparatively low ceiling to the job's depth.

[FallenWings]

I'm not sure you've understood what I've was trying to say, but that might be because I was a bit unfocused on my argument, so my fault here.

You are fine with not reducing PLD and GNB to effectively 60 second sustained DPS classes when they are that but will happily reduce WAR/DRK down to just "burst" without explaining upon their individual intricacies.

Unlike GNB which has no decision making, DRK has all the flexibilities in it's rotation to play burst or constant. It's just a matter of perception or if you care enough about fitting everything in burst windows.

You can press Edge every 15 seconds and plunge every 30 instead to spread out their damage. You can choose to press Bloodspiller whenever you hit 50 instead of stockpiling for 60 seconds to better break up the GCD monotony if you so desire. The performance difference is small enough to not matter the majority of the time and only the parsers and speedrunners ultimately care about stockpiling. DRK has that going for it, being able to be played differently without such a substantial loss in performance. Something the other 3 tanks are unable to do.

You can even play the ultimate defensive tank by spamming TBN on near CD and having even more oGCD presses that way and immediately using your Dark Arts charge as retaliation. (Something that I've done in several fights like TEA and E4S to great success and enjoyment).

DRK is optimally a 60 second burst cycle class with different burst situations depending on composition. (3/4/5 edge for different burst comps like MNK). DRK is also a relaxing press your buttons anywhere class.

GNB is given so much concession despite being a shallow job. Continuation has no flexibility and GNB cannot choose where to place any of it's rotation. Everything automatically aligns and its 1-2-3 monotony is just borken up by Gnash which is just another 1-2-3 ultimately. But I guess being forced to press 4a-5a-6a every 30 seconds and having new flashy animation is enough to distract people from the class' flaws and similiarities.

DRK is considered a WAR clone due how his GCD core gameplay ...

Again, Delirium is really the weakest CD in DRKs kit. It is not comparable to Inner Release when DRK optimizes differently with its more important skills ala Edge/TBN. I can't change how you perceive DRK outside of Delirium and that's ultimately a personal opinion thing based on each person.

Fancy words

I'm not against bringing aspects of the SB AoE back, especially the mana/blood interplay. I'm generally not as disappointed with their loss due to their obvious imbalance but yet we have WAR being imbalanced in dungeons with Nascent lol. The issue is that WAR atleast has a 30 second hard cooldown but the DRK would be nearly immortal all the time with the old system.

I'm ultimately happy about the direction of DRK right now outside of Delirium because of the previously mentioned controlled and burst options that DRK enjoys. To me, burst and more specifically, elective burst is the most interesting design because it encourage play with mechanics and buffs outside your own. Adapting on the fly by throwing edges in windows of opportunity is better than a self contained sustained dps with weak button presses spread throughout. ShB DRK feels like a clean slate and I'm hopeful for how it will advance in the near coming expansion. I wouldn't be bothered too much either if DRK stepped a little closer to its old roots and would support that as well because I enjoy DRK in most of it's iterations save for SB single target.

[shao32]

Again, Delirium is really the weakest CD in DRKs kit. It is not comparable to Inner Release when DRK optimizes differently with its more important skills ala Edge/TBN. I can't change how you perceive DRK outside of Delirium and that's ultimately a personal opinion thing based on each person...

It's not a question of how important each skills is for each job, is a question of they operate the same way literally most of the time at result and thats wrong, i personally don't care if on Delirium you archive 200k of potency and on inner you archive 400k or ssomething like that, i care that im pressing the same buttoms WAR have to in the same way most of the time and a mindless amount of generic oGCD concentrated on a micro small window won't never change that for me, even less if i have to be unoptimal with raid buffs to have fun with them? thats just worse for me.

Granted you love burst jobs and is a respectable opinion and i will never say you shoul change, but we don't have 4 tanks to being all of them burst jobs, the point of having multiple jobs is having diferent gameplays to enjoy the role we love aka tanking, you like that kind of gameplay? nice you have WAR to fully please you in that regards, thats not mean we should lose DRK gameplay so you can have another WAR like job to play at the cost of leaving nothing to the ones who enjoyed the constant management and busy gameplay of DRK independent of how much inferior and unenjoyable you find it, i feel the same on burst WAR kind desings but i don't want WAR being changed to fulfill my preferences.