Dark Knight Megathread

[Dingodrole]

Oblation should not be a 10%, in it's current state, it's too weak to even matters. Same as when TBN during SB, when used on an other target : you always used it on someone close to die, but 90% of the time, it wouldn't make a difference.

Either buff oblation, to a 15%, to actually make it half decent to use ( because in the current state, i just tend to forget this thing exists : already too busy spamming my oGCD ), OR completly change what it does.

I could see oblation as being the second face of Dark Arts back then : adding effect on already existing tool.

Oblation / LD = halfen the recquired healing
Oblation / TBN = Guarentees the shield to break no matter what and give you a regen
Oblation / Dark mind = etc etc etc bla bla smth smth

You get the idea. Maybe some of the old school DRK players would be pleased with something like that, while feeling less insulted by how oblation feels weak. Don't get me wrong, the tool is fun to use, but too weak to matter.

I feel like they designed that tool as being an " oh shit " panic button you press, like for example as soon as you see a TB cast. Problem is, it's the complete opposite that happens : why would i use Oblation, a 10 mitig, with TBN, while i can use a 20% or 30% ? Literally makes no sense nor logic.
The tool is great when you already know in advance what's going to be thrown at you, NOT when it is unexpected

[Crossu]

Hi just posting my three suggestions in order of urgency:

• -Remove the Unmend Trait, no one asked for it.
• -Change Blood Weapon if the effect was the same as Delirium it would be so much nicer to use than having to greed for those 5 gcds.
• -if DRK really needed a new trait just add Lifesteal to Blood Gauge moves or if you are crazy enough stacks to Abyssal Drain/Carve and Spit (for extra sustain in trash pulls).

[Derio]

Remove the Unmend Trait.

Add Blackest Blood trait: All Blood Gauge actions heal for X% of damage done.

However mentioned above is most likely not to happen as it takes too much effort to balance in one patch so they will probably just add a small burst heal to oblation and be like here we gave you something.

[Marxam]

GNB isn't bad at sustain. DRK very much is. They've got strong mitigation tools, but they very much do need to be babysat by healers pretty much constantly during wall to wall pulling and boss fights with hard-hitting mechanics. The trade off is high damage.

At any rate, it's unlikely anything will change significantly before the end of Endwalker. SE has clung so steadfastly to their current iteration of DRK that one might be forgiven if they were as impressed by it as they are confused or dismayed. I would love to know why they're so adamant about it, though.

at the very least I would hope the increase TBN from 7 secs to 8 seconds so it matches the other tanks.

[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.

[WhyAmIHere]

GNB isn't bad at sustain. DRK very much is. They've got strong mitigation tools, but they very much do need to be babysat by healers pretty much constantly during wall to wall pulling and boss fights with hard-hitting mechanics. The trade off is high damage.

At any rate, it's unlikely anything will change significantly before the end of Endwalker. SE has clung so steadfastly to their current iteration of DRK that one might be forgiven if they were as impressed by it as they are confused or dismayed. I would love to know why they're so adamant about it, though.

hey uh... bud?

[Dracosavarian]

hey uh... bud?

I’d prefer to see a longer range of data vs the current two weeks since early access, when everyone is still adapting to changes and dealing with their kit changes.

A down the road sample of data, excluding say, the 1st month of Endwalker release, is likely to be more accurate, I feel.

[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.