Dark Knight Megathread

[Sacrilegion]

It's honestly at a point where it needs to be reworked from the ground up or deleted as a job.

[Garlan]

It's honestly at a point where it needs to be reworked from the ground up or deleted as a job.

I don't mean to offend, but I hope that everyone who is desiring a full-blown rework understands that DRK has already received a redesign, so any subsequent revamps will likely result in the job losing even more iconic 3.0 abilities without adding any suitable equivalents. The reason 5.0 didn't preserve Dark Arts and the playstyle associated with it was because casual players hated how prevalent Dark Arts became, how it was nearly weaved into every oGCD window. They bemoaned how the frequent oGCD spam hindered their ability to slot in oGCD tank abilities, and the developers ultimately addressed their issues by removing Dark Arts completely and replacing it with the more costly Edge/Flood abilities. Dark Arts wasn't reworked - it was abandoned, and I have little doubt flavorful skills like Salted Earth (and the new Salt and Darkness) will simply be removed to appease casual fans and have their potencies shifted to other oGCDs, further diluting DRK's original identity.

My point is this - why would Square redesign DRK after stating they are happy using 5.0 as a base for DRK going forward? Why would they purposely include reverions to a design they felt the average player disliked, and one that was certainly less balanced than the 5.0 iteration? Don't get me wrong, I loved 3.0 and 4.0 DRK, but I understand that we will never see a return to those playstyles; that it is increasingly more important to provide feedback on what is feasible to change instead of beating a proverbial dead horse by ceaselessly demanding a reversion to an era the developers are clearly not keen to return to. Blood Weapon's window is too tight, Living Dead is still objectively the worst tank invuln, and DRK's non-shielding sustain is nearly non-existent - these are all desired changes that would dramatically improve DRK across all forms of content while being practical to achieve within 6.0's lifespan.

3.0 DRK is not coming back. The sooner the community accepts this fact, the sooner everyone can move on and begin to find enjoyment in the job again. As job balancing becomes more and more important to the developers with each expansion, I completely understand role homogenizing is becoming a huge concern, but I believe we can find solutions to DRK that respects the direction Square wants to steer the job into while establishing an identity for it other than "the job that people main for years, yet continuously bitch about".

Please, if simply for the developers sake, let 3.0 go.

[Undeadfire]

Have to agree with him, 3.0 Dark Knight was a broken OP Tank and rather it didn't return back. It made War useless than existing to enhance DPS back in the day, Pld made useless, can make Gnb useless depending on DPS levels. 3.0 Drk was a major spamming O-GCD job though out it's whole rotation, and permanent damage downs making any boss a complete wimp, too broken for the game.

Edge/Flood are essentially Dark Arts without the ability enhance and used on pure damage instead, now before you say it isn't, you're spamming the O-GCD as you always did for Dark Arts, isn't that the same thing?

[WhyAmIHere]

-snip-

The developers are the ones who took away everything that DRK was and gave nearly nothing back in return. Do not defend their actions, or try to rewrite reality. They were the ones to have made Dark Arts as spammy as it was because there was no play testing nor balancing for just how damning the SB changes were to DRK's mana economy.

It's entirely within their ability to do anything to appease 3.x and beyond DRK players. They instead chose to put those resources into other jobs.

[Kalaam]

They aren't afraid, literally re-used Flood of Shadow for Shadowbringer and called it a new move.

While they do look very similar, no it isn't just a copy of Flood. It does look too similar to it however, that I aggree. (though the character animation is pretty cool and I wish we could see it more clearly)

[Sazuzaki]

(though the character animation is pretty cool and I wish we could see it more clearly)

Makes me wish Shadowbringer was a GCD

[Sacrilegion]

It really should of been a Dark Arts ability for flood and edge of shadow

[Oizen]

Replace Soul Eater with Power Slash pls

[Garlan]

The only feasible, possible skills to return from 3.0 in my honest opinion is Scourge and Sole Survivor. If the former did, it would likely function similar to GNB's Bowshock and become an AoE dot, or straight up replace Salted Earth and absorb S&D's potency. The latter could just be added as a nifty bonus alongside the current kit (using the revised 4.0 iteration).

I've already covered why Dark Arts will probably never return (along with any hopes of AD becoming a spammable self-heal), but other skills fare little better. Hate combos have become redundant, so no Power Slash, weaponskills afflicting resistance down/up are never coming back, so no Delirium, Dark Passenger is essentially Flood of Shadow (and without DA there is no blind attached anymore, but Square seems to want blind removed anyways), and RNG-based procs like Low Blow and Reprisal don't mesh at all with the current design philosophy and balancing. I could maybe see an RNG proc being attached to DRK somewhere, but attaching an RNG resource to a resource-based job hasn't been received well in present times (as evidenced by Shield Swipe being taken from PLD's kit).

[Ryaduera]

The sad thing is because DRK can bring so much damage in a basically braindead manner (Have button? Press button, do damage, get clears.) I think they'll just look at the amount of DRK clears in savage and just say it's fine. DRK is in pretty high demand for tanks because it brings such good DPS to the table despite, as an actual tank, being inferior. And to be clear, by actual tank, I mean defensive cooldowns that are impactful and the ability to move bosses around. DRK isn't as bad as GNB for movement, but the fact that it also lacks the defensives GNB has just highlights the problem even more and Edge/Flood taking the place of Dark Arts just made that problem worse. Still pressing oGCD spam, but now with a range limit in movement phases.

Why not knock Dark Mind reduction down to 15% and give it a haima-like stacking shield? This keeps the silly gimmick of being a magical damage cooldown but makes it useful in sustained damage without stacking too high with TBN that tankbuster damage still matters.