Dark Knight Megathread

[KatsuraJun]

I phrased that poorly. By removal of Dark Arts I mean the removal of 5.0 Dark Arts in exchange for something vastly superior. I find it so excrutianingly mundane, jesus christ all of this feels like a bad joke to me. It's like some fever dream. I expected they'd fix something at least! Bloodspiller spam is gone but the job still looks boring af.

well that's the thing

DRK has always been about resource management all the way since its release in HW when you get down to it, basically. when you take that away (dark arts), you are left with nothing, which is kinda the situation we are in now. they would have had to come up with an entirely new direction to take the job. and honestly? I'm pretty sure that would have still been controversial, like a less extreme bowmage bard situation.

that's why I didn't want it to fundamentally change so much back in SB going into SHB. it was fine the way it was, imo. like you said, first world clear for UCOB? played DRK simply because it was fun, despite being the weakest tank at the time by a small margin. but people memed DA to death, so it is what it is.

[Beddict]

Bloodspiller spam is gone but the job still looks boring af.

Not that we know of, unless I missed something. The only thing I heard during the Live Letter is that Delirium is going down to a 60s recast. Assuming they keep it similar to Inner Release (and they probably will since the dev team doesn't give a shit about DRK), Delirium will go from being "spam five Bloodspillers" to "spam three Bloodspillers". Except WAR got that new Fellest Cleave bullshit to cap off Inner Release while DRK was given the middle finger because of course it was. Who knows, maybe Delirium was changed to not suck, but I got zero hopes and expectations based off what they presented.

[shao32]

I just gonna say it now, Rework or Delete Delirium before Endwalker, do that at least that SE just only that, it's not that hard.

[Recon1o6]

Dark knight changes: we're making it more like warrior. More spam!

ffs se.

[OdinelStarrei]

Guys, wait wait wait! Hold on! We have to go through the proper procedure before we freak out! Where's the person asking for us to wait for tooltips before making judgements!?

Really though, after I had my kneejerk reaction of disgust, I'd like to actually talk about the new skill. I don't really care about Peppered Earth, so let's talk about the other new skill we saw, that Dark Passenger looking thing.

It's not a Flood upgrade, since Flood was used in the same video, and more importantly, Flood is an oGCD, and this new Line AoE skill ISN'T. Check it out, timestamp is 4:15 in the trailer itself, you can compare it to the BLUE swirly underneath the character model that is used for oGCDs like the EoS right before it versus the YELLOW swirly that happens on GCDs like Hard Slash and Bloodspiller (Not Unleash/Stalwart, seems they are still spells, for some godforsaken reason.)



Something else that I think bears mentioning is that we have absolutely no idea how this skill is proc'd. And I do think it is a proc, why would you lead your job showcase with Peppered Earth, a skill most of us would've liked to see deleted, versus what seems to be a 20 yalm laser beam? Let me put on my tinfoil hat, and stay with me here.

The TBN is cast and it falls off at the proper time for a TBN if you look closely (right as he's grabbing his chest for LS), so, still 7s on the duration for TBN. The new buff on the WHM goes on at 4:08 and drops off very clearly at 4:18 so it looks to be a ten second duration. I find this interesting because of the order of the skills in the trailer.

TBN falls off, and there's an EoS, and THEN there is the new GCD skill. Then we see an Unleash, the buff falls off the WHM, there's a Stalwart Soul, an EoS, and only THEN do you see the new skill again. So we aren't looking at a skill that has a inherent CD like GF or Sonic Break, nor something that looks to be specifically combo-dependent. Why not use the GCD skill during the Salted Earth demonstration, why only when the buffs fall off? Why even put both the buffs on the players like that if they're just doomed to fall off and not actually tell us anything? Unless it is actually telling us something?

Is this tied to this new thing they are trying out for tanks this expansion?



Is there some kind of interaction? Does having a defensive action be used actually lead to the GCD skill becoming usable, ala Chelonian Gate or Blue Fog?

Despite my hatred of Delirium, I truly think the biggest problem with DRK is the lack of GCD diversity and too much Souleater spamming. I think stockpiling MP and DA procs for raidbuffs is the only interesting part of the job currently. So what if we actually started unlocking these GCDs through defensive actions, and could use them in burst windows like how we use Edge and Flood currently? If using this new action is actually a gain in single target, you could see a situation where TBN and this new skill are essentially pressed on CD, just to proc this action as much as possible. I also find it odd how there was Edge of Shadow before the new GCD both times, almost like Edge led to it, similar to a DA-GCD of previous systems, but that could 100% be a coincidence. If it's able to be charged like Ruin IV or something, we could have both GCD and oGCD builder-spender burst periods that would also be competing in GCD space with new 60 second, 3GCD Delirium.

And something like this in AoE would be huge if the potency was high enough. Quietus frankly sucks, but if you made this a solid 400 or so potency with no fall-off (equal to Souleater), that would be incredibly compelling if we finally got fights with more than a single enemy inside, and that's not even talking about the uptime potential for a GCD skill that looks to be almost Nastrond in range, would make something like Conflag Strike or a big disengage a bit more tolerable.

Food for thought, I think. I'd like to talk about this with someone, maybe it's just trying to make the best of a pretty mediocre situation, but with nothing else better to do, I think it's worth thinking about at least.

We can never go home.

[ArianeEwah]

It's not a Flood upgrade, since Flood was used in the same video, and more importantly, Flood is an oGCD, and this new Line AoE skill ISN'T.

This is a pretty interessting insight, because it seems this new GCD Flood is only triggered/procced after Edge twice in this trailer (maybe Flood, too, but the trailer stopped after a Flood, so we don't really now). I guess it works similar to Nascent Chaos for WAR, overwriting a certain GCD button, but not Bloodspiller or Delirium, they still used Quietus after Flood!

This however seems pretty strange, what if you use Edge twice during DelIRium? Is there a system such as stacks to hold your new "Dark Arts" procs? Or do you have hold Edge/Flood until after Delirium?

On a side note: I'll refrain myself from calling it Passanger because that action had a way different animation in both character animation as well as visual effects. Passenger had orbs of darkness appearing and exploding in a line, the character was swinging their sword above their head and onto the ground. This new action however has a very similar animation to Flood, almost identical for the particle effects. The movement is different, it looks like some kind of thrust towards your target, almost scratching the ground in the progress. Waaay too different imo.

The expansion they kind of fix placed AoEs, they take it away, but KEEP the actual skill, that's a cruel joke.

I was thinking the very same thing. DRK design just keeps on hurtin'...

[KatsuraJun]

I think GCD diversity is a red herring when it comes to DRK's issues tbh.

123 124 123 is not inherently more interesting than 123 123 123. It's why I didn't particularly mourn the loss of HW Delirium. Just my take though.

[shao32]

My feeling about the Living shadow skill aka the one that's looks like a double Flood would be a skill with a recast similar to Nastrod for DRG, you activate living shadow and have like 2-3 efective uses of that skill under his duration and thats it, if is a GCD or an oGCD is hard to say bcs they tend to space skill usage on this trailers to show the animation more than anything else.

Now if my theory is correct and it's how i think it is then it's going to be extremly underwelming to wait 2 min just to have that small amount of variety since as far as we know living shadow will still stay at the 120s mark.

[OdinelStarrei]

My feeling about the Living shadow skill aka the one that's looks like a double Flood would be a skill with a recast similar to Nastrod for DRG, you activate living shadow and have like 2-3 efective uses of that skill under his duration and thats it, if is a GCD or an oGCD is hard to say bcs they tend to space skill usage on this trailers to show the animation more than anything else.

Now if my theory is correct and it's how i think it is then it's going to be extremly underwelming to wait 2 min just to have that small amount of variety since as far as we know living shadow will still stay at the 120s mark.

Oh god, man, don't say that. That would be so uninteresting, literally nothing would change from such a plain kit. PLEASE LET IT BE SOMETHING THAT INTERACTS WITH OUR KIT FOR ONCE. That literally wouldn't advance the job at all, I wouldn't be able to control anything! The only thing left we'd have is this stupid Salted Earth upgrade. Can't even manually place the thing anymore if I wanted to. The expansion they kind of fix placed AoEs, they take it away, but KEEP the actual skill, that's a cruel joke.

Just like Living Shadow enmity increases. Good lord.

[shao32]

Oh god, man, don't say that. That would be so uninteresting, literally nothing would change from such a plain kit. PLEASE LET IT BE SOMETHING THAT INTERACTS WITH OUR KIT FOR ONCE. That literally wouldn't advance the job at all, I wouldn't be able to control anything! The only thing left we'd have is this stupid Salted Earth upgrade. Can't even manually place the thing anymore if I wanted to. The expansion they kind of fix placed AoEs, they take it away, but KEEP the actual skill, that's a cruel joke.

Just like Living Shadow enmity increases. Good lord.

I know but considering they didn't address any of the DRK complains exept the salted earth placement one im literally 100% sure it's going to be like that, Salted earth at 90s recast and 1 maybe 2 usages of that new skill and then living shadow with that new attack every 120s. For what i see theorically is when bloodweapon and delirium are up you use all your oGCD skill and your MP with the 3 bloodspillers and thats it, you will enjoy a wonderful 50s souleater spam window with the fantastic addition of that salted pepper thing at the 90s mark.

for what i see Darkside gauge is still gonna be as useless as usual.