Dark Knight Megathread

[Marxam]

Im honestly surprised that TBN is still 7 seconds. You would think the bare minimum change once servers are live is to make it 8 seconds so it lines up with the other tanks, job exclusive cds but I guess that was too much to ask prior to 6.05.

[Mekhana]

I'm not holding my breath. We're only getting tweaked in PVP if Stormblood was any sign.

[Mekhana]

Some personal bullet points:

As a DRK main since mid HW, here's my personal and incomplete take on the problems with the job.

We need our branching combo from HW back. With a finisher that gives HP and another that gives MP. To compensate, you could make each finisher grant more HP or MP than they do now. That makes us choose and adds depth and if you make it powerful, it will feel and play GOOD. What DRK hasn't had forever.

Terrible kit prior to 70, arguably 80. TBN should be unlocked at 50. Stalwart Soul around the same time. Salted Earth should have a lower cooldown and be available every pull OGCD.

The Blood Gauge is tacked on. Just remove it or make BloodSpiller and Quietus more rewarding for it to be there.

Living Dead needs a retouch. If you really, really want it to kill us then make it more powerful or make it recharge faster.

Many of our job actions are considered spells. Since you won't place Spell Speed in our weapons natively, then make them skills. The GCD is awful and plays badly.

Blood weapon needs charges or lasts longer. Better yet, make it do something else also.

All the Endwalker actions feel and play underwhelming save for Shadowbringer. Some things straight up feel like they got added as a joke.

You took away our identity into Stormblood. You added a little with TBN but never built on it. We remain weird WARs with a magic shield. Either bring us back to HW or keep adding to that new post-TBN identity each expansion don't think just TBN is enough.

[Jandor]

Rough expansion for Dark Knights, the new jobs giving it a kicking while it's down.

Sage got old dark arts, augmenting abilities, and new dark arts, a charge on shield break.

Reaper made off with the remaining style factor, completely blowing Dark Knight out of the water in terms of raw edge.

[Valknut]

Rough expansion for Dark Knights, the new jobs giving it a kicking while it's down.

Sage got old dark arts, augmenting abilities, and new dark arts, a charge on shield break.

Reaper made off with the remaining style factor, completely blowing Dark Knight out of the water in terms of raw edge.

I just about killed over when I seen Reaper had a last survivor effect. Why did DRK need to lose that button again?

[Lyth]

Reaper is really really fun and is everything that DRK could have and should have been, down to the Shroud 'Darkside' aura.

Tanking in this game is a lie. The red arrow makes you feel important every once and a while, but bosses either position themselves or take up the entire arena such that you can't position them if you tried. Melee dps is the same thing, just a lot more fun and probably slightly less forgiving. You'll never look back, outside of maybe farming tokens.

[Kalaam]

Reaper has a lot of things DRK wish it had. Enshroud reminds me of the frantic weaponskill spam under blood weapon, tbh that's what delirium should be.
Even the 70 to 80 story has DRK vibes...

[Mekhana]

It has been since SB they take from DRK but don't give anything to compensate.

By now, we've gotten our legs and arms taken from us and given to someone else and we've gotten a thumb and toe in return. If only we had arms or legs left to ourselves anymore to begin with...

[RinaB]

Perhaps all the people dumping drk will force change. I for one dumped it for Sam a few months ago and never looked back.

[Liam_Harper]

Perhaps all the people dumping drk will force change. I for one dumped it for Sam a few months ago and never looked back.

Sadly I think this is actually the only way DRK will get fixed.

I do get the feeling they look at player metrics when deciding whether a class needs reworks or buffs. Most reworks have only come for classes with a low participation rate. Classes that are popular, perhaps due to ease or simplicity are unlikely to ever receive attention even if their toolkit is objectively inferior to other classes. Healers are a great example of this, with WHM (being both the weakest but also most popular healer) being nerfed and receiving almost no new toys, while AST (ridiculously strong but less popular due to higher apm) got buffed even further.

DRK has always been reasonably popular among casual players due to aesthetic, thus the devs glance at the metrics, see it has a high population and assume it's fine and doesn't need attention. They hardly seem to even look at the toolkit and gameplay.