Dark Knight Megathread

[Rosenstrauch]

Just as an aside, is anyone else going to be removing Abyssal Drain from their hotbars when servers go live too?

I've been thinking of making a new hotbar solely for most aoe skills/spells/abilities, since there's rarely any reason to use them outside of trash pulls in dungeons. Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Abyssal Drain, and Flood of Shadow will all be going on it. That should, if nothing else, free up a little space for me.

I should do the same for Dragoon. The addition of a third aoe weaponskill and the removal of the second st combo's starter completely wrecked my ability to play it in Shadowbringers, so shuffling my keybinds around after making space might help make it palatable again.

[ThorneDynasty]

Just as an aside, is anyone else going to be removing Abyssal Drain from their hotbars when servers go live too?

It's still an incredibly good dungeon self-heal (unless they changed how the healing works, wouldn't put it past them now). The problem is that you can't make DRK slightly better in dungeons in exchange of being a worse raid main tank and call that balance.

[Mesarthim]

I really liked DRK back in heavensward when I started in 3.2.

But I can't help but always feel bad about when I play DRK. It's basically the tank I'm second best at but the neglect of this job is just silly. Guess I'll be a WAR main as far as tanks go, at least I can heal myself.

[Agner]

Hey lads, I recommend watching the first 20 seconds of XIV's new video if you want to know what it feels like to have played this job since it came out.

[KageTokage]

At this point I feel like they should just remove the MP cost on Blackest Night as well the associated Dark Arts effect because while it is still undeniably a strong ability, you are never going to be able to use it on cooldown without sacrificing DPS due to not always being able to take enough damage for it to fall off.

[ArthurATDayne]

At this point I feel like they should just remove the MP cost on Blackest Night as well the associated Dark Arts effect because while it is still undeniably a strong ability, you are never going to be able to use it on cooldown without sacrificing DPS due to not always being able to take enough damage for it to fall off.

That would be nice If DRK Devs removed the MP cost and associated Dark Arts effect on The Blackest Night, I'd probably lay off on the HP Sustain complaints.

If DRK can use TBN every 15s CD without resource worries then it'll be like having a semi permanent 25% Max HP bar 28s per 60s when used liberally on self off CD. I don't think I'll care about needing more HP Sustain besides 1-2-3 Soul Eater and Abyssal Drain at that point. Mana would be dedicated to just oGCD Edge/Flood and some new class mechanics can be implemented that works with Mana too without having to fight between TBN Mitigation and DPS needs.

I don't think it'll be overpowered because it's still on 15s CD and there's no Large On-Demand HP Sustain in DRK's kit. DRK seems like it's meant to Prevent Damage from happening anyway, might as well go all in on TBN, Woo Woo!

[Mekhana]

I'm tired of keeping us in the dark until the last moment when it comes to job design and balancing and then completely and thoroughly soul-crushingly disappoint us.

Tired, Tired, Tired.

I already quit in SB once before I'm not coming back this time if everything isn't fixed on 6.1

[KageTokage]

It feels especially dated when the short cooldowns the other tanks have never required them to burn a DPS resource and all got significant buffs to bring them much closer to TBN in effectiveness.

[Shurrikhan]

It feels especially dated when the short cooldowns the other tanks have never required them to burn a DPS resource and all got significant buffs to bring them much closer to TBN in effectiveness.

I feel like the practical (lack of) parity is all that should matter there. Frankly, I wish more tanks were able to trade (potential) throughput between the offensive and defensive. If anything, the issue with TBN is that it doesn't do that, at least when it works as intended.

I'd almost prefer TBN just generate "a X-potency barrier on self or target party member. 8s duration. Refunds a portion of its cost equal to barrier consumed." Voila - It doesn't scale as strongly with gear, but it's no longer so overpowered on tanks (and also has greater value on non-tanks).

[ArthurATDayne]

It feels especially dated when the short cooldowns the other tanks have never required them to burn a DPS resource and all got significant buffs to bring them much closer to TBN in effectiveness.

I agree, with Heart of Corundum, Holy Sheltron and Bloodwhetting straight up built to not only mitigate but replenish significant portion of HP Bar every 25s (in PLD's case they can now start with 100 Oath Gauge in Duties etc and cast again immediately after 1st Holy Sheltron expires), it seems fine to me to have some level 82+ Trait Upgrade for TBN removing Mana Cost.

GNB's Heart of Corundum is really nice, I like that it's a Guaranteed 900 Cure Potency on Self every 25s along with all the other cool mitigation effects. That's pretty awesome level of HP Sustain at Level 82 and up and they still got Aurora Heal over Time to further shore up HP Sustain Tanking needs. It really wouldn't hurt to have TBN be free to use every 15s to at least come close/compete with the HP Sustain of GNB/PLD/WAR via DRK's TBN Damage Prevention Identity.