Dark Knight Megathread

[WhyAmIHere]

Maybe we should post those old pictures over and over as a reminder. Either here or on social medias

No. That message delivery method would only come off as antagonistic, and as we've seen from that interview, the dev team isn't interested in being antagonized.

[Kalaam]

Maybe. Wouldn't be worse than insults though, plus this is just reminding them of their own promises.

[Lyth]

Any time I've seen a gaming company be anything less than grateful for receiving feedback and humble about their achievements, it usually starts trending downhill fairly soon after. A lot of it comes down to pride, the belief that you know what's best of players, and a sense that the competition is inferior. I hope that they can stay grounded and remember their roots. They don't have to keep apologizing for 1.0, but if it helps them remember, perhaps it's not a bad ritual.

[Satarn]

They don't have to keep apologizing for 1.0, but if it helps them remember, perhaps it's not a bad ritual.

The problem with "remembering 1.0" is that I don't think that's what anyone actually remembers. Look at any article covering FFXIV, look at many forum posts referring to the past - it's never "oh man, 1.0 was crap, they better not repeat that mentality again". It's always "oh man, the way Yoshi P and the team saved FFXIV with ARR was so epic! what an amazing guy! he cares so much! the dev team is so much better than in other mmos!". People don't remember 1.0 as a cautionary tale, they just remember ARR as SE's greatest epic - and that is what they keep reminding the devs about.

I'm honestly pretty sick of it. ARR was 9 years ago and sure, it was a great rebirth, but that doesn't excuse mistakes done afterwards and certainly does not mean the devs are infallible or any less prone to regular corporate apathy than their competitors. They should be judged for what they do now - good and bad - not for something they did nearly a decade ago.

[Kalaam]

I think so too, that's why I sometime say it feels like they are resting on their laurels. growing complacement, in a way.
They did achieve a lot, but in getting too comfortable with success, they should remember what happened to their biggest competitor...

[Kalaam]

Yeah that's the laurel thing alright

[Shin96]

Success is a rocky road. World of Warcraft used to be the best MMO of all time, it all went downhill from there.

This corporate arrogance always leads to a disconnect between the player and creator. They need to understand that without their customers this game would've never found the success and appeal it did. When people ask for changes to their favourite jobs and they find no response, they'll look elsewhere. If you don't want to surprise us or make us happy then don't expect for people to stay. It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it.

I respect the developers for delievering alot of amazing moments and enjoyable content but that doesn't mean a thorn in my sight goes unseen when they deliberately ignore feedback for petty reasons. I mean alot of Viera players were rude and you caved, right?

[Deathshiro]

In light of the new information from the recent 14 livestream, I'd like to renew my 2 cents after going through a decent bit of the new savage fights. The 3 changes I believe are necessary to at least put DRK on the right path to enjoyability(potencies adjustable):

1. Put Blood Weapon on a stack system similar to Ninja's Bushin, or Dark Knights own Delirium (5 stacks, usable over 15 seconds). The ability in its current state is too restrictive to those with higher ping that about 100, and without very high skill speed melds. Doing this allows for at least 1 edge of shadow's worth of mana generation every time the ability is used, instead of the current (assuming ping over 100/without skill speed melds) 2400 mana.

2. Living Dead needs the Penalty removed period. It should be as such: "While under the effect of "Walking Dead", most attacks will not lower your HP below 1." Duration still 10s to keep in line with other tanks. Not only will this put it on the same level as the other tanks, but it will keep the Guts berserker armor effect that the original design was going for. It has a higher cooldown time than Holmgang already, so that can be kept the same to keep it in line balance wise.

3. Remove the Mana cost on The Blackest Night, increase the cooldown time to 25s, remove the old break effect(Dark Arts) and add a new effect. In my opinion the new effect should be a Heal over Time effect that is as such:

Grants Darkened Embrace when barrier is completely absorbed.
Darkened Embrace Effect: Gradually restores HP
Cure Potency: 200
Duration: 12s

This would put it in line with the other tanks, allowing for skilled usage of the skill to gain an additional benefit, while not having to lose anything crucial like Damage for a misuse. In its current state, its beginner unfriendly and not in line with the other tanks "short duration" mitigation skills. With this, it would be brought in line with Endwalker design, and give Dark Knight players the sustain they've been asking for with skilled play & still fit the Dark Knight identity.

To add: This can be an added trait at 84, as Dark Knights "Enhanced Unmend" Is not very helpful in any situation and hurts their damage rotations more than it helps, as such it should be removed in favor of this new proposed trait. This would also justifying bringing The Blackest Nights duration up to 8s, to keep in line with every other tanks 25s defensive cooldown at that level.

That is all, thank you for reading.

[Crater]

Blood Weapon aside, that's a massive, uncalled-for nerf to TBN, doesn't solve the fundamental problem of Living Dead being a categorically worse version of Holmgang, and contributes to the massive homogenization among tank classes that already keeps the role from being as fun as it could be, should be, and has been in the past.

[Deathshiro]

Blood Weapon aside, that's a massive, uncalled-for nerf to TBN, doesn't solve the fundamental problem of Living Dead being a categorically worse version of Holmgang

We'll agree to disagree with TBN, I don't know how getting rid of the mana cost on an ability you ideally only use once a minute (to avoid dps loss outside of raid buffs) and upping the cd to be in line with the other tanks CD's is a "Nerf" but thats besides the point.

Every tank invuln is a worse version of holmgang at this point. 4 minute cd, invuln for 10s, and can heal themselves so the fact that you continue to take damage during its duration is a nonfactor. GNB literally drops themselves to 1hp, Paladin has nearly double the cooldown time for "I dont take damage for 10s". Dark knights is practically in a different universe of bad right now.

and contributes to the massive homogenization among tank classes that already keeps the role from being as fun as it could be, should be, and has been in the past.

Much like Yoshida himself stated, we aren't going back to Heavensward times, we need to move on. Tank defensive homogenization allows for deeper fight design with those abilities in mind. Of which I personally enjoy more than difficult jobs with extremely high skill caps, yet raid fights with the depth of a puddle(See Creator savage at the end of Heavensward).

At the end of the day what I propose is a band-aid to promote general usability improvements, I personally don't see Dark Knight getting a complete rework this expansion if even in the next.