Dark Knight Megathread

[ArthurATDayne]

Dec 3 & 7th coming up super soon. I'm not optimistic that significant changes if any will be made by then but who knows...

Wish List:

1. Blood Weapon 60s CD: 5 Stacks 30s Duration This isn't up for debate.

2. Delirium 60s CD: 3 Stacks 30s Duration Increase Mana Restore to compensate for only 3 instead of 5 Bloodspillers/Quietus Edited: Already Met

3. Enhanced Unmend + Plunge is Trash Fluff, Give Dark Knights More Reliable ON-Demand HP Restore option besides Abyssal Drain in current state. Abyssal Drain is useless on 1 Target and 1-2-3 SoulEater Combo isn't enough, especially for later 71-80+ Content

4. Oblation is lackluster & should be available way sooner than level 82, like somewhere between 30-69 at the least. Personal or Targeted 1 Party Member 10% Damage Reduction is pretty wimpy, why not just combine it with Dark Mind and give a 15% Damage Reduction for both Physical & Magical, That way we got something useful for all situations starting at 45. If it's stays at 10% Damage Reduction, that's OK but please have it accessible 30-69, sooner the better.

5. Salted Earth... Sigh, 90s CD What the Fuck. It's a crappy version of Circle of Scorn, so it's more like Circle of Shit. If we're going to eventually use this more often instead of ignoring it on hotbar because that Salt & Darkness AOE Blowup effect is too nice to ignore at 90, why not lower the CD to 60s or under so it won't be so forgettable?

6: The Blackest Night: 8s Duration Buff At Least. Don't Nerf CD or any nerfs, it could cause severe imbalance, unhappiness and cause another Calamity.

7: Living Shadow needs to Move Its Ass and Attack Immediately, Stop Posing and Screwing Around. Maybe Synergy with our Attacks to give us some illusion of control over how fast the lazy prick attacks.

[Shurrikhan]

Living Shadow needs to Move Its Ass and Attack Immediately, Stop Posing and Screwing Around.

I get the aesthetic value of the shadow moving earlier, but so long as you're only going to be popping it on longer-lived enemies anyways (and are therefore unlikely to have its total duration go to waste over it not beginning that duration instantly), would this actually make a difference. (Heck, if it did result in a consistent potency increase... it'd just be siphoned from elsewhere unless DRK were undertuned.)

Granted, I'm all for giving Living Shadow the Dancing Rune Weapon treatment (double effects, and +50% damage from each GCD skill over the duration) a la a Bunshin skill actually done right, but... simply skipping the Unmend cast at the start in favor of instantly plunging in (when each is, effectively, on the same 3-second DoT tick / "Shadow-GCD") just makes no difference to actual throughput.

Enhanced Unmend + Plunge is Trash Fluff, Give Dark Knights More Reliable ON-Demand HP Restore option besides Abyssal Drain in current state.

*Looks at Ninja's resets of its longer-CD movement skill on ranged attacks (Raiton, Katon) that aren't a damage-loss even in melee range.*
*Looks back at DRK, for which the oGCD value of Plunge still wouldn't make up for the effective damage loss of using Unmend when the melee combo is available.*
*Double-take.*

Really, though; just reduce Plunge's potency if need be slightly and have Enhance Unmend unlock a free use of Plunge within the next 5 seconds. Voila. It'd actually be kind of fun instead of merely a jeer.

Blood Weapon 60s CD: 5 Stacks 30s Duration This isn't up for debate.

Debatable. No, really, when the exact same functional value can be had by just adding a second or two's duration, why are we so fixated on turning anything and everything into an ammo system?

Delirium 60s CD: 3 Stacks 30s Duration Increase Mana Restore to compensate for only 3 instead of 5 Bloodspillers/Quietus.

Or just give MP restoration equal to average mana-gen-per-gcd of our combo on ALL blood spending GCDs, rather than only those under Delirium. We don't really need even more to bank for/around raid CDs.

[ArthurATDayne]

Debatable. No, really, when the exact same functional value can be had by just adding a second or two's duration, why are we so fixated on turning anything and everything into an ammo system?

It's not because "ammo" is cool or going ammo stack system for the hell of it, it's because it just works well in nearly every situation to address issues like Lag, Fat Fingering Keyboard, Using Spell Speed Skills instead of Skill Speed Skills, Moving out of Melee Range, A Real Life Itch You Gotta Scratch, etc that would prevent the player from getting the best utility out of their Blood Weapon skill.

Merely adding 1 or 2 seconds could work but it's still a tight enough window that Lag, Fat Fingering Keyboard, Spell Speed Skill vs Skill Speed Skill will screw you over and it's such a goddamn annoying rush to mash those buttons in about 10s or under.

30s Duration is really pleasant, gives the player breathing room, and 5 Stacks ensures the player only ever gets utilize 5 stacks worth of mana/blood restore and can't be exploited further. If someone wants to rush and blow all 5 Stacks in a hurry that's fine, take a bit longer to use your 5 stacks dodging stuff/out of melee range etc no problem.

[Shurrikhan]

It's not because "ammo" is cool or going ammo stack system for the hell of it, it's because it just works well in nearly every situation to address issues like Lag, Fat Fingering Keyboard, Using Spell Speed Skills instead of Skill Speed Skills, Moving out of Melee Range, A Real Life Itch You Gotta Scratch, etc that would prevent the player from getting the best utility out of their Blood Weapon skill.

Yes. And? Why should DRK, of all jobs, be immune to lost CD value from forced downtime? Why should DRK, of all jobs, be free to scratch their bum with both hands mid-combat? There's no "getting the best utility out of Blood Weapon" by way of player agency at that point. It'd be uniquely player-irrelevant.

Consider also, if Blood Weapon is deserving of a 30s duration on a damned 5-strike CD, why don't we do use ammo instead for Raging Strikes, Dreadwyrm Stance, Ley Lines, Blood for Blood, Fight or Flight, Requiescat, Riddle of Fire, etc., etc.?

Just give it an extra second's duration to compensate for the delay caused by it checking for Blood Weapon's presence after each hit (therefore some 0.6s later) and it's done. It'd then work as intended.

Merely adding 1 or 2 seconds could work but it's still a tight enough window that Lag, Fat Fingering Keyboard, Spell Speed Skill vs Skill Speed Skill will screw you over and it's such a goddamn annoying rush to mash those buttons in about 10s or under.

...This is true of every durationed CD in the game. That's their point: to optimize the time in which they are active. That "rush" is the point. Don't fat-finger. Don't attempt to multi-weave more than you can without clipping if it'd cost you a GCD under the effect. Don't play badly, especially when your core CDs are rolling.

And I think we can all agree already that either the Skill/Spell Speed split needs to be removed or all hybrid jobs need a trait that duplicates the effect of Skill Speed onto their spells.

[ArthurATDayne]

Yes. And? Why should DRK, of all jobs, be immune to lost CD value from forced downtime? Why should DRK, of all jobs, be free to scratch their bum with both hands mid-combat? There's no "getting the best utility out of Blood Weapon" by way of player agency at that point. It'd be uniquely player-irrelevant.

Consider also, if Blood Weapon is deserving of a 30s duration on a damned 5-strike CD, why don't we do use ammo instead for Raging Strikes, Dreadwyrm Stance, Ley Lines, Blood for Blood, Fight or Flight, Requiescat, Riddle of Fire, etc., etc.?

Just give it an extra second's duration to compensate for the delay caused by it checking for Blood Weapon's presence after each hit (therefore some 0.6s later) and it's done. It'd then work as intended.



...This is true of every durationed CD in the game. That's their point: to optimize the time in which they are active. That "rush" is the point. Don't fat-finger. Don't attempt to multi-weave more than you can without clipping if it'd cost you a GCD under the effect. Don't play badly, especially when your core CDs are rolling.

And I think we can all agree already that either the Skill/Spell Speed split needs to be removed or all hybrid jobs need a trait that duplicates the effect of Skill Speed onto their spells.

I never said Dark Knight players should be scratching their asses while playing, but hey when you need to scratch, you scratch. I'm thinking of them too, along with the folks who fat finger keyboard and who got crappy ISPs and high pings. Blood Weapon 30s Duration 5 Stacks, I'm not taking No for an answer.

Besides on my PLD, Requiescat is going 30s Duration 5 Stacks for the Magic DPS combo (and 400 Cure Potency per Holy Spirit/Circle outside of Stacks or while using Stacks), I don't see why Blood Weapon can't get a similar Quality of Life update too.

You should probably ask other Job Advocates why they are OK or Not OK with their situations, I'm mainly speaking for the Dark Knight Job. But on my PLD and GNB, Fight or Flight & No Mercy 60s CD 20s Duration windows aren't an issue because I'm not reliant on them for restoring Mana/Cartridges/Resources, just hit the Damage Buff and DPS away with Any Weapon Skill/Gnashing Fang Continuation Combo/oGCD.

For the Dark Knight, players are reliant on Blood Weapon to restore Mana/Blood with Mana also being the necessary resource to use The Blackest Night defensive CD. 5 Weapon Skill and/or Spell under Blood Weapon replenishes enough Mana/Blood to afford additional 1 Mana Skill and 1 Blood Skill. Blood Weapon looks like it'll still increase Blood Gauge by 10 so even 4 weapon/spell skills used is enough at least for Bloodspiller/Quietus so it doesn't bother me on the blood side of things.

[Wayback]

2. Delirium 60s CD: 3 Stacks 30s Duration Increase Mana Restore to compensate for only 3 instead of 5 Bloodspillers/Quietus

Just a note, we're not losing any Mana restoration with the new Delirium. The 200 MP per hit is there to compensate for the loss in MP we'd recieve from our usual 1-2-3 combo, which averages out at 200 MP per GCD.

[ArthurATDayne]

Just a note, we're not losing any Mana restoration with the new Delirium. The 200 MP per hit is there to compensate for the loss in MP we'd recieve from our usual 1-2-3 combo, which averages out at 200 MP per GCD.

Great 1 item checked off from my list.

[MagiusNecros]

Just a note, we're not losing any Mana restoration with the new Delirium. The 200 MP per hit is there to compensate for the loss in MP we'd recieve from our usual 1-2-3 combo, which averages out at 200 MP per GCD.

Objectively wrong. Delirium being only 3 GCDs will make you lose 400 to 1000 MP since currently you can fit in 5 GCDS currently which would net you 1000 to 2500 MP. Now it will be 600 to 1500. May as well be a 20% loss.

There will likely be no MP scaling as it is now fixed at 10k forever.

The only burst MP restore you will have is pairing Delirium (5ShB/3EW GCDs) and Blood Weapon (4 GCDs) together.

Bloodspiller SHB = 3400 MP

Bloodspiller EW = 3000 MP

Quietus SHB = 4900 MP

Quietus EW = 3900 MP

For single target it wouldn't really matter but with Quietus it's huge overall loss when it comes to MP restore.

In a perfect world BW would fit 5 GCDS but even then the total in SHB would be 4000/5500 and the total in EW would be 3600/4500.

It's a big loss when it comes to Quietus. And a slight loss with Bloodspiller.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Objectively wrong. Delirium being only 3 GCDs will make you lose 400 to 1000 MP since currently you can fit in 5 GCDS currently which would net you 1000 to 2500 MP. Now it will be 600 to 1500. May as well be a 20% loss.

...You do realize that removing those 2 extra BS's in Delirium means you return to your main combo 2 GCDs early right?

SHB Delirium: BS x 5 = 1000MP, at 200MP per hit.
EW delirium: BS * 3 = 600MP, and then you fill in the remaining 2 GCDs with Hard Slash + Syphon, Syphon + SE, or SE + HS. Which in two of those combinations, gives you 600MP, or 1200MP total across the same 5 GCDs.

Delirium's 200mp per hit is purely to refund you the opportunity cost of using BS vs the mp loss of not using your main combo for the duration of Delirium, since the average mp per GCD is identical; you can't compare SHB's 5 GCDs & EW's 3 GCDs in a vacuum, you have to factor in what EW Delirium can fill the extra 2 GCDs with. The only *actual* fringe situation where EW delirium's MP gain would be worse is if you had the SE + HS combo, and the loss of the 400 MP from the 2x BS in SHB Delirium made you lose an edge during raid buffs. But if we're also highlighting fringe cases, if you have either of the Syphon setups, there is a fringe scenario where you'd gain an extra 200MP over SHB delirium in the same 5GCDs, which could theoretically land another edge during burst windows if you were just 200 MP short in the SHB scenario.

Quietus also isn't as big a loss as you think, since you can fit an unleash + stalwart in lieu of the 2 missing Quietus's:

SHB: Quietus * 5 = 2500 MP
EW: Quietus * 3 = 1500 MP + (0 + 500 (Unleash/Stalwart respectively)) = 2000 MP.

There's also the fact that there's unseen benefits to EW delirium in that you theoretically gain 20 Blood from SE & Stalwart more often since you return to your main combos earlier, which adds up to extra Blood generation over time compared to SHB.

[MagiusNecros]

...You do realize that removing those 2 extra BS's in Delirium means you return to your main combo 2 GCDs early right?

Yes and because of it you'll be forced to pair D + BW together for max MP return and must always use Unleash or Hard Slash before popping DBW for a total of 3600/4500 MP return across 4 GCDs.

Which I think the Quietus and SS combo is more beneficial as you get 4500 MP along with 50 Blood. If BW allowed for 5 GCDS you could always guarantee 50 Blood each DBW window. Therefore by being at 50 blood you can then guarantee you reach 100 and still retain 5 BS/Q.

Currently you are going to see 3600 MP and 60 Blood for ST and 4500 MP and 50 Blood for AoE. I would prefer BW having 5 GCDs rather then just 4 so you can acquire 60 blood on both ST or AoE. At the end of the day it is still overall a loss on MP restoration.

Although I feel the limitation on Quietus MP restore should be removed and it should proc for every single target hit. That alone would make MP return phenomenal and allow for a fast paced Quietus + Flood spam playstyle.

BS/Q don't break combos so there is a tiny amount of preplanning you'll have to do which is great because that is engaging to me.

I think going forward BSx3 > SoSi(2400 + 1200) and Qx3 > StSo(3300 + 1200) is the future for burst MP restores every 60 seconds. 50 blood every 60s window would be the dream. Which requires a BW change or stacking SkS to the point 5 gcds is consistent.

This is difficult however because you then have the problem of weaponskills and spells using two different stats. That's a problem given AoE is spells and ST is weaponskills. Feels bad man.

But I really have always loved the Dark Knight across the franchise so I'm rather conflicted if dropping the class is the answer at 75 or if I should cap it at 90 for AF gear and story and then shelf it for either GNB or just stick with Reaper as the core job I'll play.

Core issues on DRK right now is just going to be Living Dead, Blood Weapon, and an array of systems that actively work against each other. Don't need to work for Cid Garlond to figure that out.

Blood Price needs to come back, a skill similar to Sole Survivor needs to come back and Abyssal Drain needs to be changed to what it was. Along with the other 58.25 issues DRK overall has with it's kit to the point I feel being a hot mess is part of the class fantasy.

Edit: You can actually get 60 blood (40 + 20) on ST after 5 GCDs (on regular SE). 60 blood across 4 GCDs(30 + 30) for AoE. So as far as blood goes it evens out. I just bad at math.