Dark Knight Megathread

[TouchandFeel]

The odd thing is, they haven't (Bloodwhetting [Nascent + shield] still exists, and Expert Roulette damage is never so high that Warrior can't survive for the 17 seconds until the next 8s of self-Benes). It's just painfully straightforward and limited to a single job now.

I honestly wonder if they could implement what they have done with the damage of many AoE abilities, where there is fall-off after the first target, but with the healing aspect to Bloodwhetting. Perhaps that would still keep the general spirit of the ability but give them a venue to rein it in a bit. From there they could adjust the fall-off percentage as they see fit to better balance out the ability.

[Archwizard]

It's dawning on me that the thing that feels most disappointing about the concept of a tank based on the classical FF Dark Knight is that missing "risk-reward" element.

Like, you would think a tank based on a job that regularly expends its own HP for power would be counterproductive, but if you remove the element of the Dark Knight using its HP as a cost, there's still an argument for, say, someone who actively gets stronger the lower their health gets during combat.

A concept that already exists in the game through abilities like Essential Dignity, for instance, just not in the hands of DRK in particular.

It would almost make sense to have LD and a barrier in place of life leech, if an active element of the job was to survive on the borderline of death for as long as possible. But for all the risk offered by the combination of tools at DRK's disposal, there's no reward to indicate such a design was intentional, nor any interconnectivity or loop to facilitate such gameplay. No traits or abilities that are affected in the slightest by how little HP you had when they activated.

Just thinking aloud, I guess.

[Shurrikhan]

I honestly wonder if they could implement what they have done with the damage of many AoE abilities, where there is fall-off after the first target, but with the healing aspect to Bloodwhetting. Perhaps that would still keep the general spirit of the ability but give them a venue to reign it in a bit. From there they could adjust the fall-off percentage as they see fit to better balance out the ability.

That would be preferable (that or... give the other jobs something as OPishly fun, though preferably with a bit more gameplay actually included), but I similarly have to wonder if it's possible for them.

Originally, I just wanted them to revert it back to scaling with damage, rather than solely number of enemies hit (with skill-inherent crits --Primal Rend and Inner Chaos / Chaotic Cyclone-- likewise guaranteeing heal crits), since that has a larger gap between floor and ceiling as would reward better play, but with the shield thrown into the mix, there's already a fair portion (~20% in single-target, decreasing with target count) of non-target-scaled power involved in the skill. At that point the more reasonable change may literally just be to decrease its heal potency from 400 to 300 and up Storm's Path's self-heal.

I do feel that tanks at present are a bit overpowered in terms of their total, simultaneous capacities, but so long as they are ultimately required for Expert, the only real consideration we need make is whether they tend to push healers out of the most efficient (and, largely, convenient) compositions for dungeon running. A purely "we mow down large mob groups, so long as there's DPS enough not to need more time than we have CDs for" is totally fine in that regard. Hell, I'd rather have more elaborate offensive means of survival like Stormblood's BW-DA-Quietus-AD-DA surplant some of the simple measured play of "sequence oGCDs... do AoE combo... til they're all dead." I just don't like that capacity being turned into what, unless someone stops doing what was optimal anyways in AoE, amounts to just hitting Hallowed Ground every 25 seconds, let alone its being limited to a single tank.

A concept that already exists in the game through abilities like Essential Dignity, for instance, just not in the hands of DRK in particular.

I've been asking for a Blood for Blood trait for Dark Knight since its release, at least in the form of increased self-healing based on missing %HP. And now that Dragoon's given up any claim to the name with the rebranded Lance Charge...

Of course, I'd also been wanting Living Dead to have a far shorter CD and just straight up let DRK dip into negative HP, rather than applying Doom or nullifying damage that'd take it below 1, for exactly that reason. Since XIV has always refused to give the actual percentiles for anything but damage buffs, let alone formulae, in its tooltips anyways, we could even make Blood for Blood's rewards quadratic...

-200% HP -> 300% missing HP's worth of reward -> ??? -> Profit?

[Archwizard]

I've been asking for a Blood for Blood trait for Dark Knight since its release, at least in the form of increased self-healing based on missing %HP. And now that Dragoon's given up any claim to the name with the rebranded Lance Charge...

Of course, I'd also been wanting Living Dead to have a far shorter CD and just straight up let DRK dip into negative HP, rather than applying Doom or nullifying damage that'd take it below 1, for exactly that reason. Since XIV has always refused to give the actual percentiles for anything but damage buffs, let alone formulae, in its tooltips anyways, we could even make Blood for Blood's rewards quadratic...

-200% HP -> 300% missing HP's worth of reward -> ??? -> Profit?

There's probably an even simpler solution by means of just giving DRK an effect that snapshots the percentage of HP they had when it was activated and gave a linear "%-increased healing from all effects" bonus equal to the missing percentage. Having LD dip into negative HP would be overkill after that point, since you'd already get double to all sources of healing.

Including but not limited to The Blackest Night itself.

I suppose that would theoretically make them harder to heal as their max HP goes up (since you would get less %-return from missing any flat amount of HP), but presently Living Dead already assures that with no benefit, and theoretically their base mitigation would go up anyway and the need for healing would already go down to flatten that out.

[Shurrikhan]

There's probably an even simpler solution by means of just giving DRK an effect that snapshots the percentage of HP they had when it was activated and gave a linear "%-increased healing" bonus equal to the missing percentage. Having LD dip into negative HP would be overkill after that point, since you'd already get double to all sources of healing.

The idea there was that Living Dead in that context would neither inflict Doom nor prevent HP loss (by nullifying damage that'd take it below 1 HP), so it'd just be built wholly around letting DRK (or, Blood for Blood) do its thing. The negative HP would likewise contribute to the "missing %HP" (technically, %HP away from 100% HP).

I hadn't planned to include The Blackest Night or external healing received under that, just DRK's damage->healing or on-damage cure potency.

[TouchandFeel]

That would be preferable (that or... give the other jobs something as OPishly fun, though preferably with a bit more gameplay actually included), but I similarly have to wonder if it's possible for them.

I agree with that sentiment and I think that both approaches should be attempted, bringing the upper outlier in a bit and finding a way to bring the rest of the tanks up a bit in that regard so that they can generally meet somewhere in the middle.
The difficult part of course it to implement them in ways on each tank so that they feel and play differently instead of just giving everyone a copy of the exact same capabilities and game-play loops.

[Tetsujin]

It's dawning on me that the thing that feels most disappointing about the concept of a tank based on the classical FF Dark Knight is that missing "risk-reward" element.

This used to be a thing with MP management. DRK had an ability that let them regenerate MP faster the more they got hit, so players would dance around danger by using that and spamming abyssal drain, which had a high MP cost but wasn't on a cooldown. Good times.

[Kalaam]

But it led to issues related to healers which does make sense. I guess TBN kind of is a modern take on that, you take a risk and the damage is taken in your TempHP (so your healer won't have a heart attack) and get a refund...but it's just a refund so...

[Takamorisan]

No mercy and similar abilities should never get the stack treatments
because you would lose out on extra damage with ogcd like bow shock,blasting Zone and Continuation
which is something WAR lost was crit dh onslaught and upheval during IR

it should only be for abilities to make it ping friendly or more comfortable in the rotation
Inner release,Delirium,Blood weapon,heat blast

I see, apologies for my ignorance then. So guess I will just retain to Blood weapon haha

[HyperiusUltima]

But it led to issues related to healers which does make sense. I guess TBN kind of is a modern take on that, you take a risk and the damage is taken in your TempHP (so your healer won't have a heart attack) and get a refund...but it's just a refund so...

As others have said, make it free, but I'm starting to think Dark Arts also needs some work in regards to procs. It really doesn't feel like a smart design even if we've been using TBN to soak damage up and try to get an extra Flood, so maybe it should take on a different form.

I think that Dark Arts should be something that is granted from MP Usage, such as using three Edges/Floods. After say, 6000 MP is consumed using Edge/Flood, you're granted Dark Arts. This new Dark Arts would change the ender of both Single Target and AoE combos into stronger versions of themselves; with the AoE having a HP Recovery on Hit(around 50% of DRK's current Max HP on say, 6 targets). The Single Target would provide a self-shield equal to the damage dealt, helping deal with the lack of mitigation options in early content. Dark Arts ends on execution of either one of those skills and refunds 1000 MP on expiration.

P.S. I don't know what to name them - but it'd help deal with DRK's ABYSMAL HP sustain compared to the rest and make gameplay flow feel a little better I'd feel.