Dark Knight Megathread

[AziraSyuren]

I never said it was useless, just that its balance is very weird.

I’m also decently sure that most of the things I listed actually can kill you multiple times over in the span of 15 seconds. I know J-Wave (with enough damage up stacks, like 6 or so) and Terminal Relativity (the mechanic, not the raidwide) could, so Dark Missionary and Heart of Light were oftentimes a lot better.

But then you get things like Warder’s Wrath where Shake and Veil are suddenly the only things with any use? It’s not bad or weak by any means. It’s just weird. Like Lyth said, it’s HW-esque balance where it either vastly overperforms or underperforms, and often at critical moments. I’d actually lean towards Shake being too strong, but where it’s lacking, it needs to be as strong as it is to compare.

Just like most of WAR’s kit come to think of it.

Meanwhile, DW and HoL vary between “good enough” and “better than the alternatives in raw power,” which just about sums up DRK and GNB in general.

[Lyth]

Even with J wave, I think the break even point is going to be around 5 hits after you factor out other active effects. SiO just frontloads the mitigation into a single hit rather than spreading it out.

People make this same perceptual error when evaluating TBN as well.

[Undeadfire]

A better point was Terminal Relativity in E12S for 1st/2nd week group clears, Shake/Veil will easily get deathroned by that mechanic, consistent 21-25k x2 AOE attacks every 3 seconds, and a Shockwave Pulsar every 14 seconds which did increased damage every round. Dunno how much damage it outputs on EW stats.

[ItsUrBoi]

The number of hits is irrelevant; all that matters is how much damage the party takes.

Yes and no. I don't know what you actually mean but what your saying is not wrong but neither correct.
The number of hits is relevant because if there's more than 1 hit ( which happens only one, cuz its 1 hit, right? ) then % mitigation like Heart of light or Dark Missionary will mitigate successive hits too.
It also matters the amount of damage the party takes but when that damage is dealt across how much time / number of hits is also relevant.
HoL and DM are great for successive hits, while Shake it off and Divine Veil are good for single hits.

[Terhix]

The number of hits is relevant because if there's more than 1 hit ( which happens only one, cuz its 1 hit, right? ) then % mitigation like Heart of light or Dark Missionary will mitigate successive hits too.

That's completely irrelevant. If you take 5 hits that each does 10% of total HP of average DPS / Healer before mitigation, then with Shake it off party takes 35% of their total HP (0%, 5%, 10%, 10%, 10%) while with DM the party takes 45% of their total HP (9% * 5), which means Shake it off would have mitigated 3 times the damage despite doing nothing at all after the second hit, and the math would have been identical were it a single hit for 50% HP.

Edit: actually let me correct this, it's mostly irrelevant, I can see you could argue for mitigation over 15 seconds making healing easier even if the total damage is higher but less spiky towards the end.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Edit: actually let me correct this, it's mostly irrelevant, I can see you could argue for mitigation over 15 seconds making healing easier even if the total damage is higher but less spiky towards the end.

Agreed. When theres going to be prolonged dmg over a period of time, i always try to urge ppl to use shields AFTER taking some dmg, so it gives healers time to "catch up" rather than than playing catch up later, and maybe struggling.

[RyuDragnier]

Even with J wave, I think the break even point is going to be around 5 hits after you factor out other active effects. SiO just frontloads the mitigation into a single hit rather than spreading it out.

People make this same perceptual error when evaluating TBN as well.

Unfortunately frontloading the mitigation makes the move either incredibly strong (single hits) or completely weak (multi hits). Solutions to this can include extra mitigation when the effect ends or during its normal duration timer, or some prolonged healing effect during the duration timer.

[Lyth]

Let's say that your total HP is 'x'. You have a flat shield that mitigates 0.15x. You also have a 10% damage reduction move lasting 15s.

Case 1:
First, say that you have a single attack that hits for 1.5x.

%DR mitigation = (1.5x)(0.1) = 0.15x

At this point, %DR mitigation = flat mitigation. This is the break even point.

Case 2:
Next, say that there's an attack that hits on average for 0.3x n times.

%DR mitigation: n(0.1)(0.3) = 0.03n

The break even point is when 0.03n = 0.15x, so n = 5. But I could have just figured this out more easily by (n = 1.5x/0.3x).

These two situations are mathematically identical. You could take a single big hit for 150% of your HP, or 5 smaller hits for 30% of your HP, and you end up with equivalent results for mitigation cooldowns. If you have multiple hits, you just add the total damage over the active time of the cooldown. If anything, I much prefer the flat shield because it gives you more control. You're usually running several concurrent %DR effects during big raidwides anyways to keep the damage under control, and %DR loses value when stacked. If you told me that DRK had the option to trade Missionary for a 0.15x partywide flat shield without the healing buff, I'd still take it in a heartbeat. Easy upgrade. And that's setting aside the fact that you can easily boost Shake up to 0.19x on demand with minimal cost to yourself.

[Shurrikhan]

Unfortunately frontloading the mitigation makes the move either incredibly strong (single hits) or completely weak (multi hits). Solutions to this can include extra mitigation when the effect ends or during its normal duration timer, or some prolonged healing effect during the duration timer.

But, again, it's not a single/multi-hit distinction. It never has been.

It's simply a matter of "A is better until X, and B is better after X." Anything other than pure homogeneity will have those same thresholds.

[Ryaduera]

The problem with shield based mitigation is not a matter of how many hits have been taken, it is that there is always a threshold where it is no longer better than percent based reduction. It doesn't matter if it's one hit, two hits, or 857864654877 hits, the math plays out that the numbers only matter for total damage taken in the time frame. As Shurrikhan said,

It's simply a matter of "A is better until X, and B is better after X."

X in this context is the damage threshold that makes shielding inferior. It is very important to note, however, that in a perfect composition, you have both shielding and damage reduction, so in the context of SiO there's usually another tank with you, and it's probably going to be DRK or GNB, so Heart of Light and Dark Missionary add to the strength of the shield. I bring this up because the relationship between shielding and damage reduction is a positive feedback loop. As damage reduction is applied on top of a shield, the threshold for damage taken for just mitigation to have been better goes up since shielding does not suffer from diminishing returns.

I've been MIA from the conversation but still playing actively, and was doing a lot more DRK for... Science. The problem with DRK isn't even its defensives, it's the reliance on healers. If, in dungeon pulls, you space out every TBN as well as you can (if a pull takes long enough using it every 15s can be hard if you didn't start with full MP, so its uptime can leave a lot to be desired) you technically reduce damage by more than the other tanks. The problem comes from the fact that, especially in AoE situations, once damage goes through, it stays there. You get 1 Abyssal Drain, that's it. Ive been doing Oblation+TBN, letting myself get sub-50%, AD, then TBN+more cooldowns, but after than second TBN, I just... start taking damage and can't do anything about the damage I took. Compared to the other tanks, PLD can regenerate off spells and HS, GNB has HoC and Aurora (Aurora is under-rated in pulls since you are almost guaranteed full value of every tick) and Warrior... well let's not talk about warrior healing. DRK just has to take damage and then sit there, dying slowly. It doesn't take more damage than the other tanks, it actually takes slightly less if TBN is used properly, but it takes 30 seconds after any pull for you to, start dying where the other tanks have ways of recovering. Defensively, this could be fixed as easily as reducing MP generation and potency of C&S and AD by half and reducing the cooldown to 30s, keeping all DPS the same while giving DRK a heal in pulls every 30s.

Bosses, however, would still pose the same problem since AD is not used on bosses. While playing DRK leveling it up again (New character on new data center for friends) I had several moments where parties did not end well and I was thinking "If I were any other tank, PLD, WAR, GNB, I could have carried that" and this was not a rare thought, this was a frequent utterance. The above proposed fix to AD only helps in dungeons, however I also think that it's perfectly fine to keep DRK the way it is (defensively, still needs a more engaging offensive kit) in raids and trials with the exception of LD purely because of the niche it fills. DRK is the perfect Off Tank. Shield an ally, Oblation 2 others, Dark Missionary (I still have problems with it being identical to Heart of Light, one of them should be changed for the same of keeping jobs unique but there is no denying the value of the skill) all while dumping damage and definitely capable of salvaging a bad run and taking the Main Tank role for swaps and recoveries from accidents. However, being the perfect Off Tank does not justify how terrible it feels to be the only tank that puts a demand on healers in dungeons. If the other 3 tanks are going to be mostly-self sufficient in 4 man content, DRK should be brought to the same standard. Warrior can fully heal itself 3-4 times over every 25s in a pull, let DRK fully heal itself once every 30s in a pull. It will still not heal as much as warrior, but will also be able to heal itself up from damage ever other TBN, and I think that will be good enough.

And TBN should give a stack of Dark Arts on break and on expiration. So many times I thought "Yeah this will break TBN" and it just didn't and I was like oops there goes 450 potency. I should not be punished for tanking too well.