Dark Knight Megathread

[MagiusNecros]

They should just give DRKs Bloodbath. It works amazingly well on Reaper especially when shit hits the fan on big pulls in dungeons(even at lvl 90) where the big potencies and percentage heals can save the group if you have a decent healer. Especially during Enshroud phases and the small HoT from Crest.

DRKs sustain problems wouldn't be an issue if Abyssal Drain was reverted to it's Stormblood incarnation and used MP instead of being tied to recast.

It's ridiculous how PLD/WAR/GNB have great sustain options but DRK has very little.

[jetfire117]

They should just give DRKs Bloodbath. It works amazingly well on Reaper especially when shit hits the fan on big pulls in dungeons(even at lvl 90) where the big potencies and percentage heals can save the group if you have a decent healer. Especially during Enshroud phases and the small HoT from Crest.

DRKs sustain problems wouldn't be an issue if Abyssal Drain was reverted to it's Stormblood incarnation and used MP instead of being tied to recast.

It's ridiculous how PLD/WAR/GNB have great sustain options but DRK has very little.

I truly believe someone on their team has it out for DRK. There's no way things can turn so backwards lol.

[Shin96]

I truly believe someone on their team has it out for DRK. There's no way things can turn so backwards lol.

They probably do. 3.0 DRK was by no means "perfect" and 4.0 even less so. But if there is one thing it proved is that complexity can be rewarding.

Whoever designed this job was a genius. They clearly understood what condition means and therefore response.

Before you had Blood Price, which was an incredibly useful CD to regain MP by enemy attacks. You had Sole Survivor, marking an enemy and also regaining MP as a result when they die while afflicted.
It's so obvious to see that conditions are what makes a game sophisticated or interesting by design. You might classify it as useless or unnecessary per se, but it's these little things that felt rewarding to me.
It made you think. It seperated the unexperienced tank from those that took their role seriously.

DRK currently has no justification for existing. Our new defensive CD Oblation, has no properties whatsoever. 10% damage mitigation which is laughable compared to what the other tanks received. Enhanced Unmend and the shared recast timer between Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain. Whoever did this to DRK clearly feels envious that people miss or pay respect to a job design far superior to what they came up with.

[Crater]

So I've been leveling DRK just to have some firsthand experience with how it stacks up to the other tanks in Endwalker. Something that really strikes me about it is: TBN feels very weak and inadequate next to Bloodwhetting/Nascent, Holy Sheltron/Intervention, and Heart of Corundum when you're fighting bosses, but it still feels very strong to me when you use it on dungeon pulls. Obviously nothing really stacks up to Bloodwhetting's insane AoE healing, but I really feel like TBN is the next-best thing, even compared to the huge buffs that PLD and GNB got to their respective skills.

So I started thinking about why there's such a discrepancy there: TBN is actual hot garbage compared to the other tank skills if you're in a raid/trial setting and taking tankbusters, but is still a top-notch mitigation skill on a dungeon pull. And I think it comes down to two things:

1) In a dungeon pull, you can actually fully leverage the shorter cooldown on TBN versus the other skills. Incoming damage is constant and relatively high, so (unless there's a WHM spamming Holy and enemies haven't built up stun immunity) you know that if you hit the button, the shield will pop, and you can essentially use it on cooldown. While an individual use of TBN is substantially weaker than BW/HS/HoC, dungeon pulls tend to last long enough that you get an extra 1-2 uses out of TBN, which swings pretty heavily in TBN's favour (obviously BW is still better).
2) In dungeon pulls, you're under far less pressure to conserve all your MP for raid buff windows: In a Light party, there are obviously fewer raid buffs to go around, and in the case of Trick Attack or Chain Strategem where the buff is in the form of a singletarget debuff on an enemy, they aren't relevant to AoE. So while you're losing DPS if you use multiple TBNs in a single minute in a raid setting, in a dungeon pull you aren't generally concerned with when your damage happens.


If we start to think about what changes could be made to translate these advantages into a raid setting, I think 1) is mostly off the table: It's not really reasonable (or desirable) to start giving raid bosses tankbusters every 15 seconds, on the dot, just to give DRK an advantage. However, TBN's current situation is really not all that bad if you ignore your DPS and try to maximize its usage. TBN is in the ballpark of a 1500 potency shield, and so if you were able to find situations where you could break, say, 9 or 10 of them over a 3-minute interval, that is functionally equivalent to DRK having an average of 4500-5000 potency of self-healing per minute. That's powerful, even if it isn't exactly precision-targeted and some of it winds up wasted. The issue, though, is that frequent usage of TBN in a raid setting isn't DPS-neutral, but in fact adds up to a pretty considerable DPS loss over time.

Which brings us to 2). If it's possible to change DRK such that using TBN at every reasonable opportunity, instead of only once per 60 seconds (or as close to 'once per 60 seconds' as possible), is no longer a DPS loss, then we've solved DRK's primary issue with mitigation. While I still strongly support a complete and total rework of DRK's gameplay, I can think of two ways to address this without completely upending the current playstyle:

1. Add an 8-10 second cooldown to Edge/Flood, and increase potency to compensate for lack of raid buffs: This would effectively limit DRK to two uses of Edge per buff window (most buffs being 15s in duration), meaning that any other MP they generate can be used elsewhere with no DPS loss. However, this would be a nerf to damage since it would force you to move 2-3 Edges out of raid buffs, so the base potency on Edge would have to be adjusted up by 35-40 or so, to 490 or an even 500 (And Flood would need an extra 10-15 as well just to keep up with Edge at 3 targets). This does carry the additional playstyle benefits of A) reducing the oGCD spam during DRK's burst windows, and B) adding extra oGCDs to the time between burst windows, to make the class less boring to play.
2. Allow DRK to store up to four charges of Dark Arts. This would let DRK use TBN more or less freely in between burst windows without having to move any uses of Edge outside of those burst windows. It would double down on DRK's current burst-centric playstyle, so this wouldn't be my first choice, but it would at least solve the inherent contradictions with DRK's current design. This would basically codify the "2/6" rotation as DRK's default mode of play, making it relatively easy to achieve without any weird MP-tick shenanigans.

I remain hopeful that DRK's low use rate will result in a proper rework for 7.0 that moves it closer to the playstyle that people actually found fun back in Heavensward, but in the meantime, its lack of efficacy on the defensive side of things is mostly down to how restricted you are in making effective use of TBN. Either of these changes would clear that up pretty simply, and both would improve DRK's usability issues in one way or another.

[Dingodrole]

And then, the WHM starts to Holy.

I don't see how TBN is actually weaker in raid and stronger in dungeon.
It's not rocket science that the weak point of TBN is actually multi-hit situation.

You have a pack of mob that deals heavy damage, great your TBN will pop in less than 2s, yeah it broke, then for the next 13s what do you have ? Nothing.
Meanwhile, the other tanks shines MORE for multi-hit situation because they don't have a shield, they have pure mitigation, that last no matter how long they are exposed to damage.

TBN is an amazing tool for Single Big hit, because of the massive shield it is, and the fact that applying mitigation on top it, makes the TBN even stronger. But for Multi-hit scenarios, TBN is really weak

[Crater]

...

It's a misconception that TBN is inherently weaker in multi-hit situations. What happens is the shield breaks, people start seeing full damage, and they immediately conclude that the mitigation is weaker. In reality, the mitigation is just frontloaded; TBN mitigates 100% of the first few hits, and then that averages out to a similar level of total mitigation to most other mitigation skills.

If it helps, do some quick napkin math versus the mitigation component of Holy Sheltron: Holy Sheltron takes ~22.4 seconds of auto-attacks to generate gauge, then provides 4 seconds of 32% mitigation (20% block and the additional 15% from Knight's Resolve) and 4 seconds of 20% mitigation (just the 20% block). For simplicity's sake, assume incoming damage is continuous and evenly distributed over time.

4 seconds of 32% mitigation, over a 22.4s total duration = ~5.7% overall mitigation
4 seconds of 20% mitigation, over a 22.4s total duration = ~3.6% overall mitigation
Added together, ~9.3% total mitigation.

For TBN to equal Holy Sheltron's average mitigation over time, it only needs to last 9.3% of 15 seconds each time you use it, which is only ~1.395 seconds - in your hypothetical where TBN only lasts 2 seconds, it is still offering nearly 150% the total mitigation of Holy Sheltron!

Now, Holy Sheltron also has a healing component to consider - but at the same time, TBN rarely breaks in 2 seconds even on large dungeon pulls. Anecdotally, I'd say the average TBN stays alive for 3~4 seconds when paired properly with other mitigation sources (on average; obviously sometimes it pops almost immediately, and sometimes it lingers around for 6s or very nearly doesn't break at all).


Its disadvantages are in fact only really apparent when used against heavy, single-hit tankbusters. In those situations, you're stacking up TBN's shield against the full effect of Holy Sheltron's 32% mitigation plus its 1000p HoT, which is a situation where TBN will always come out the loser, and you can't just hit TBN on cooldown because there almost certainly isn't going to be another tankbuster in exactly 15 seconds. When you're free to make use of TBN's shorter cooldown, the skill is competitive with the other tanks' equivalents. When you're comparing it on a per-use basis against attacks that come 25s or more apart and the lower cooldown doesn't help you, it loses every time.

[RLTygurr]

After some deep consideration I've amended the changes I suggested to see what people think of an abridged version.
1) TBN and Shadowbringer consume 30s of Darkside time rather than MP (or just a straight up cooldown).
2) Add an effect to Oblation where each of the DRK's weaponskills have a heal (potency is up for debate, probably like 100 or 200).
3) Bring back Dark Art's ability to enhance certain skills, and increase max dark arts stacks to 3. These enhanced skills can be used, OR a free edge/flood of shadow. This adds a bit of situational diversity.
4) Blood Weapon gives a dark arts stack upon execution and adds a 100-200 potency heal to each DRK weaponskill.

Making Dark Arts a pivotal part of maximizing DPS means smart use of TBN (which currently is a DPS loss if your timing is bad during a raid and the shield doesn't break) is critical to the class. In addition, having Blood Weapon and Oblation grant some weaponskill-based healing allows the DRK to sustain itself better (considering Abyssal Drain is the only real sustain tool it has, and that's useless outside of dungeons). Lastly, making TBN and Shadowbringer consume Darkside time (a mechanic that may as well not exist at the moment) means that you have to have to choose whether burst DPS or a shield is worth half of your maximum buff time.

Honestly I think these are realistic changes, but I have no idea if SE would ever consider making a tank class that has DPS-like mechanics that play off one another. Tbh all tanks need just a bit more complexity.

[ArthurATDayne]

To make TBN easier to maximize without making it overpowered or even messing with Mana Costs could simply involve a mere increase in duration like from 7s Duration to 8/9/10s. Now it's up longer, giving more opportunities for both Mob Packs, AOE Mechanics and Bosses to bust apart.

At the same time it'll FEEL like a huge satisfying buff, much more so than Oblation at 82, but it's still the same 25% Max HP Bubble and against anything immediate that's powerful enough to bust it apart in 1 or 2 hits player won't notice much difference except that it was up and took those hits. For longer drawn out situations where threatening damage incoming is spaced out over longer periods of time instead of immediate, TBN won't feel so wasted since it'll be up longer 8/9/10s instead of 7s.

I would rather Not tie TBN to damage skills even further than it already is by tying it with Dark Side timer being up, I rather have the ability to raise shields anytime I want, Now, Later, Whenever without having the pre-condition of using an Edge/Flood attack which requires a Target to be hit.

[Annihilism]

Would changing Abyssal Drain to a WS and making it combo of Stalwart Soul help in dungeons? Going from WAR/PLD to DRK in dungeons is such an unnerving change of pace. Some extra healing would really help.

[jetfire117]

Would changing Abyssal Drain to a WS and making it combo of Stalwart Soul help in dungeons? Going from WAR/PLD to DRK in dungeons is such an unnerving change of pace. Some extra healing would really help.

Absolutely. And it also wouldn't make it literally useless. I love it because it's one of the few remaining iconic DRK skills, but it was fire and forget skill in shadowbringers with a bad heal. Now it's even worse because it shares a cast with Carve n Spit. The heal it gives during a big pull is even sadder.