Dark Knight Megathread

[ItsUrBoi]

Hello!
I have started doing savage and I noticed that DRK's mitigation isn't nearly as good as the other tanks right now - not only that, but Living Dead is also a pain to deal with because everyone is playing Sage right now, and the number of healer compositions has gone up massively. Basically, unless you have a White Mage, you are powerless to even contribute to you being healed to full.
I'd like to point out that while the mitigation is close to the other tanks, although not great, it still has many problems.
Here are my suggestions:

->Oblation could be a trait which upgrades TBN to offer an additional 15% damage reduction as well, besides its 25% shield, and changes its animation to Oblation's. It looks cooler I think.
->TBN should not cost MP. I am not experienced enough to say if its CD should be changed.
-> If broken TBN would grant 1 free use of Solve Survivor.
->Remove Dark Mind and add Sole Survivor. Dark Mind's damage reduction and Oblation's is moved to TBN's upgrade to compensate as an overall damage reduction for all damage types.
->Sole Survivor could heal you for a high potency. For example: 800 potency heal. off GCD, 20 seconds of DarkSide as cost.
The cost and heal potency should be thought more of before however. The point isn't to allow yourself to get out of Living Dead on your own, but to make it easier for healers to take you out of it, while giving you some sustain after a tank buster properly mitigated or a bit of heal on demand. An implementation based on stacks like Oblation could also work, I thought correlating it to Darkside would allow more experienced players to play around with the duration according to Edge , Blood weapon, and raid buff windows to maximize - which would give the job some fun in my humble opinion.

If you want to mitigate as DRK, you have to press 3 to even 4 abilities ( TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind +/- Shadow Wall ). Being the heavy off GCD tank that is way too much.
All the other tanks mitigate Savage tank busters and mechanics in Ultimate with usually 2 abilities ( GNB: HoC + Nebula, PLD: Holly Sheltron + Sentinel etc ), and perhaps adding in something else as is the case.
Upgrading TBN to include Oblation and Dark Mind's damage reduction's would solve this I think.
The reward for TBN breaking could be that instead of an Edge, you get a free Solve Survivor which you could use to heal the damage you have taken after a tank buster.
Sole Survivor in my example, would solve many problems. 20 seconds of Darkside would be enough to help yourself trough Living Dead massively. while you won't be able to spam it for too long because you will run out of DarkSide. Getting 1 Sole Survivor if TBN breaks would allow you to heal back damage after a very dangerous tank buster.
This would also mean the more Edge/Flood you do, the more damage you do, the more you can heal - but it still wouldn't beat the sustain of Warrior, Paladin's, and GNBs.

[Ryaduera]

->TBN should not cost MP. I am not experienced enough to say if its CD should be changed.

I like these ideas and I'll just comment on this in a constructive way. If you are removing the cost of TBN it should definitely have a longer cooldown because while TBN currently has a <50% uptime, you not only don't get the full 7s ideally but it also is most certainly not used off of cooldown because it uses DRK DPS resource, so it's uptime is significantly smaller than that of HoC, HS, BW, from the other tanks (especially HS since its recast time is so short that using it with full oath gauge does not risk losing it for heavy incoming damage and can have 2 consecutive uses). 15s would be too short for an ability as potent as a 25% barrier with 15% reduction that has no cost otherwise, but I can see it going into the 25s area. Alternatively it could cost Darkside time (Technically indirectly costing MP, bot post-spending which would be better design than pre-DPS based defensives in the current state of the game) and keep a short recast as a result, but that's just conjecture. I like your ideas though, especially to bring back Sole Survivor.

[Shurrikhan]

If you are removing the cost of TBN it should definitely have a longer cooldown because while TBN currently has a <50% uptime

Given that you can pop more than 3 TBNs per minute (hold over 75% [time on cooldown]) even in most floors of Normal Pandemonium, couldn't its Savage uptime issues (consequent more to faint potency loss than insufficient incoming damage) be largely remedied just by letting Dark Arts stack (or give a faint damage bonus to the DA'ed cast enough to keep it worthwhile to do more casts per raid buff cycle than just the one cast more than is necessary to avoid overcapping MP)?

[Ryaduera]

Given that you can pop more than 3 TBNs per minute (hold over 75% uptime) even in most floors of Normal Pandemonium, couldn't its Savage uptime issues (consequent more to faint potency loss than insufficient incoming damage) be largely remedied just by letting Dark Arts stack (or give a faint damage bonus to the DA'ed cast enough to keep it worthwhile to do more casts per raid buff cycle than just the one cast more than is necessary to avoid overcapping MP)?

It is literally impossible to keep more than 50% uptime. The ability lasts 7 seconds at its longest and it's cooldown is 15 seconds. Even if the barrier lasted all 7 seconds that is less than 50% uptime, but ideally it breaks pre-7 seconds. If you got all 7 seconds out of the ability and used it off cooldown every 15 seconds no matter what that is 46.6(repeating 6)% uptime so I have no idea where you're getting this 75% uptime idea from.

[Shurrikhan]

It is literally impossible to keep more than 50% uptime. The ability lasts 7 seconds at its longest and it's cooldown is 15 seconds. Even if the barrier lasted all 7 seconds that is less than 50% uptime. If you got all 7 seconds out of the ability and used it off cooldown every 15 seconds no matter what that is 46.6(repeating 6)% uptime so I have no idea where you're getting this 75% uptime idea from.

Sorry, I mispoke. I should have said "time on cooldown".

Or, to put it another way, you're able to get out at least 75% HP shielding per minute. For a shield, so long as that shield does in fact get fully consumed, uptime is hardly the most relevant metric.

[ItsUrBoi]

Maybe it would be too strong, but also let's not forget TBN should have some damage reduction along with the shield to be decent against multi hit attacks. Not as good as the others, but decent at least.
Paladin gets 20% + 15% + 1000 heal over time ( yes, I know its not 35% added)
GNB: 15% + 15% + 900
Warrior: 400 shield + 10% + 10% + 1600 Heal
DRK according to my post: 25% shield + 15% damage reduction + ( optional : 800 heal, you could use it or save it for maybe when you took auto attack damage, or Living Dead etc).
The damage reduction could be 10% instead of 15%. But this is a number game already, instead the idea of using less buttons to mitigate into TBN and having an ability to heal urself with at the cost of Darkside, or for free if TBN is broken, is the idea I wish to share. So that you will heal a bit whenever you want, help with Living Dead, and have a fun mechanic with your main resource.

[Undeadfire]

DRK according to my post: 25% shield + 15% damage reduction + ( optional : 800 heal, you could use it or save it for maybe when you took auto attack damage, or Living Dead etc).
The damage reduction could be 10% instead of 15%. But this is a number game already, instead the idea of using less buttons to mitigate into TBN and having an ability to heal urself with at the cost of Darkside, or for free if TBN is broken, is the idea I wish to share. So that you will heal a bit whenever you want, help with Living Dead, and have a fun mechanic with your main resource.

You're only focusing on Dungeon performances, HoC/BW/Sheltron are far less effective vs TBN in Savage/Ultimate raids, TBN+Oblation alone are strong enough to soak a buster without a need of Rampart/Shadow Wall/Dark Mind. Damage reduction is more effective than Barriers when you're fighting multi targets, mitigation value. Single power hit, TBN dominates BW/HoC/Sheltron by miles, major sum of damage is removed. Taking TBN further on damage reductions would only lead more problems than solving casual content. You could extend cooldown, but then Drk would suck in dungeons more, and remain balanced in raids, and boosting TBN would only make Drk insanely overpowered in Raids for it's damage mitigations.

This needs to be adjusted an alternative plan than trying to competition Pld/Gnb/War ability.

[Ryaduera]

You're only focusing on Dungeon performances, HoC/BW/Sheltron are far less effective vs TBN in Savage/Ultimate raids, TBN+Oblation alone are strong enough to soak a buster without a need of Rampart/Shadow Wall/Dark Mind. Damage reduction is more effective than Barriers when you're fighting multi targets, mitigation value. Single power hit, TBN dominates BW/HoC/Sheltron by miles, major sum of damage is removed. Taking TBN further on damage reductions would only lead more problems than solving casual content. You could extend cooldown, but then Drk would suck in dungeons more, and remain balanced in raids, and boosting TBN would only make Drk insanely overpowered in Raids for it's damage mitigations.

This needs to be adjusted an alternative plan than trying to competition Pld/Gnb/War ability.

TBN is only stronger if the damage outright kills the tank, which it almost never will after mitigations are applied, even in ultimates, where other tanks often just invuln anyway.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5778466

For the purpose of discussing how well a tank can handle a tank buster, there are 3 stages.

Stage 1: Preparing for incoming damage

Stage 2: Actually taking the damage

Stage 3: Aftermath of the damage

The only stage that matters for calculating the tankiness of the job is stage 3, which leaves every single other tank in higher standing. I've said it before, in this regard, TBN is actually the weakest when not paired with another cooldown. It simply must be paired with another cooldown to compete.

[Undeadfire]

TBN is only stronger if the damage outright kills the tank, which it almost never will after mitigations are applied, even in ultimates, where other tanks often just invuln anyway.

The only stage that matters for calculating the tankiness of the job is stage 3, which leaves every single other tank in higher standing. I've said it before, in this regard, TBN is actually the weakest when not paired with another cooldown. It simply must be paired with another cooldown to compete.

Oblation is another cooldown, I didn't say TBN alone.

TBN+ (Damage miti extra) and Oblation is incredibly strong if this is the suggested fix. And it's not about surviving the damage, it's mitigating much as possible through out the whole fight and using other tank cooldowns for the initial auto attacks. Invulns are better used on cheesing mechanics than busters, the value difference is enormous, both Tank and Healer. Many years in Savage raids, Invulns cheesing mechanics has always earned far better value.

In Ultimates you only use Invulns for busters to free up cooldowns, there's nothing to cheese with them. Except for TEA, 1 tank soak double busters from Pepsiman, and the 2nd tank does the same, keeping them near permanently stacked.

Another point, TBN can cheese one current raid tier mechanic, P4S Part 2, Act 2, Blm can solo the Fire Stack with TBN + Manaward, or AOE mitis + Manaward. Possibly more can be discovered. I've always been extremely against TBN buffs just to feel stronger for dungeons, it's one ability that can push lengths shouldn't be possible max ilvl gear, not even HoC/Intervention/Nascent can do.

[Shurrikhan]

I've always been extremely against TBN buffs just to feel stronger for dungeons, it's one ability that can push lengths shouldn't be possible max ilvl gear, not even HoC/Intervention/Nascent can do.

While there's nothing inherent to AoE damage that'd make TBN worse (such is merely a matter of DTPS) and I wouldn't want to see TBN remain as large a portion of our (presently undertuned) kit as it is now and so would prefer to buff other areas and means of sustain... the external mitigation cheese available to TBN has no serious relevance to dungeons.

I see no reason why DRK would have to be shortchanged of a personal tack-on effect or the like just because its external mitigation can, very rarely, have outsized benefits due to debuff nullification or the like. I love the latter element of TBN and wouldn't want to sacrifice it, but... neither would anything that'd make DRK's kit stronger in dungeons require that we sacrifice it, so...