Dark Knight Megathread

[Kalaam]

Would have to make Fray appear in some form though, or else the level 80 DRK quest wouldn't make much sense.

[Nosaji_]

What are people's expectations for 6.2?

I know they just changed Blood Weapon and LD, but them saying they're going into 6.2 looking to reduce button bloat makes me think they're going to adjust DRK further.

I haven't played a lot of jobs but the difference between playing Warrior and DRK in dungeons is night and day, the amount of fucking weaving you have to do on DRK feels awful.
I'm aware that dungeons aren't very hard, but even for casual players- having to pop all that mitigation on top of the amount of weaving you have to do must be shit for them.

Oblation which is only really worth using if you in turn weave THAT with another defensive feels like a joke.

IMO they should just kill off Salted Earth, even with the changes I think it just feels stupid to use, it does nothing of note and I'd rather they just got rid of it instead of tack more stuff onto it.
They could make it heal like in PvP but I still think that'd just be kinda stupid, if you have to move then you just lose that healing- I'd rather they put lifesteal or some sort of regen onto an actual attack instead of a puddle you have to stand in.
Alternatively, if they really want to keep it they could maybe combine it with Abyssal Drain like Xeno one suggested. Make AD drop the puddle under whatever it hits, but even then it would probably still just be inconsequential.

Shadowbringer being how it is feels so boring and having two charges just contributes to the OGCD clusterfuck, I feel like a cool ability like that would be better off as a GCD.
I'm fully in support of differentiating DRK from Warrior, but it feels like it should be a delirium finisher like Primal Rend, wouldn't be ideal but it'd be a band-aid to reduce bloat for now.
IMO they should rework it but I'm not expecting to see that for 6.2.

The OP lists a lot of problems that still remain and I agree 100%, but I wouldn't expect any of those to be resolved in 6.2.


They'll fix it in 7.0 /cope

[Recon1o6]

What are people's expectations for 6.2?

They are mainly going to be looking at DRG. Woe betide anything other than a dps get positive adjustments past a X.1 patch unless a job is literally unplayable (eg sch getting energy drain returned because it doesn't function without it, monk after it was abandoned completely they had to go back to ARR monk until EW)
The track record and mix of apathy and hatred the devs have on healers means Ast's changes are either going to be meaningless or worse in all likelihood. Maybe a sensible button merge but don't get your hopes up as undraw is still around after 7 years.

If they could do anything for drk, its bring back more combo finishers to make it closer to 3.0 or 4.0's drk rather than discount warrior, split CnS and AD again, make TBN or Oblation have a cure or lifesteal buff etc
There's loads they could do with drk to make it better. It requires them to put effort in like they do with blm.

[Nosaji_]

If they could do anything for drk, its bring back more combo finishers to make it closer to 3.0 or 4.0's drk rather than discount warrior

Fucking please.

I started playing Warrior recently and now DRK just feels like playing Warrior but without the good bits, It's so sad because I'll still say that I love DRK and that it's my favorite job, despite the state it's in.

I didn't play DRK back in the day but I've spent time looking at it's old kit and it looks like it was infinitely more engaging;
BW giving haste, Delirium giving you MP as well as extending BW and Blood Price, Scourge, Darkside (not the complete joke that we have now), I could go on.
(Also why did they decide to keep the Souleater animation instead of Power Slash??)

I agree that there's a lot they could do, but yeah, I don't think we'll see any of it until 7.0 sadly

[baklava151]

I didn't play DRK back in the day but I've spent time looking at it's old kit and it looks like it was infinitely more engaging;
BW giving haste, Delirium giving you MP as well as extending BW and Blood Price, Scourge, Darkside (not the complete joke that we have now), I could go on.
(Also why did they decide to keep the Souleater animation instead of Power Slash??)

On paper it looks cool as hell, even though I've heard plenty of people said it was janky in some areas. Makes me wish there were private servers so I could see for myself.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...k-Knight-Guide

[Marxam]

On paper it looks cool as hell, even though I've heard plenty of people said it was janky in some areas. Makes me wish there were private servers so I could see for myself.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...k-Knight-Guide

It was janky for sure but that was also due to a combination of battle design and job design clashing. DRK could DA+dark passenger for a blind on enemies but blind enemies means they hit you less and you want to get hit more since parries procs your low blows. Its things like that where on paper its good but in execution its a bit of a wash. I think that was my biggest complaint for losing the actions. Its not that they were redundant but rather they had some of the coolest animations. DA is what I think of when I think of DRK similar to how I think of IR for WAR, HG for PLD. It's thematically relevant.

Imo 4.0 DRK was the closest to "fixing" DA and all they needed to do was remove siphon strike from being altered by DA, or, apply the stack system to DA where you get x amount of stacks and appropriate actions just use it up automatically.DA could have worked as a stack system if it was on a 1 min cd and put to two charges. For example:

Dark Arts:
-60 sec recast
-Grants 3 stacks of Dark Arts, 15 sec duration
-2 charges

Actions affected by Dark Arts:
-Syphon Strike = increased mp regen
-Souleater = increased damage, action changed to power slash
-Stalwart Soul = increased damage, reduce recast of abyssal drain (and C&S) by 5 secs
-Unmend = increased enmity, reduce recast plunge by 5 secs

Abilities affected by Dark Arts:
-Dark Mind = increased from 20% to 30% mag reduction
-Abyssal Drain = cure potency increased to 400
-Carve and Spit = Restore additional MP
-Dark Missionary = Increased from 10% to 15% mag reduction

In most scenarios you would use up 2/3 stacks just doing your single target rotation once. Which leaves one stack to use for an ogcd. You could alternatively just use it on gcds. That would be 3 single target or 6 aoe combos. The increased mp regen means that the penalties of failing TBN, i.e. wasting 3k mp, is mitigated slightly. It's also a throwback to 4.0 where you would double weave SS and C&S with DA but now that its a stack system its much easier to use. It also mirrors WAR and keeps with the design of the jobs going forward. Both have a 60 sec cd that their toolkit revolves around, yet both are very different. This would also make designing DRK going forward since there is a precedent set.

[RyuDragnier]

What are people's expectations for 6.2?

I legit expect nothing, but if they were going to do anything for DRK I'd like for them to make Salt and Darkness a trait that causes damage on the initial Salted Earth cast instead of something you have to press, and trade out Enhanced Unmend for an ACTUAL skill/trait instead of a joke.

[Nosaji_]

I'd like for them to make Salt and Darkness a trait that causes damage on the initial Salted Earth cast instead of something you have to press

That'd be an improvement, I can see them doing that if they're trying to reduce bloat.

Enhanced unmend is stupid, I was reclearing E12 for mounts after the EW release and I used unmend while she jumped away during a Cataclysm and I thought I was lagging or something because I saw my Plunge CD jump.
I genuinely forgot the trait existed, and tbh I'd forgotten again until now

[Shurrikhan]

I legit expect nothing, but if they were going to do anything for DRK I'd like for them to make Salt and Darkness a trait that causes damage on the initial Salted Earth cast instead of something you have to press, and trade out Enhanced Unmend for an ACTUAL skill/trait instead of a joke.

Placing more potency on the initial cast would just make the skill more finnicky... merely to avoid some 0.67 apm.

If we're going to go the route of reducing raw APM, which I don't think there's any reason to anyways, I'd far rather have Shadowbringer deal an extra Edge's worth of potency, with its falloff slightly increases as to net only an extra Flood's worth in AoE, and cost 3k MP. That reduces our 2-minute burst oGCDs to weaves far more significantly, makes our capstone ability more punchy, and does not cost us functionality.

[Beddict]

What are people's expectations for 6.2?

Literally nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs consider it "fixed" now that Blood Weapon is on stacks and Living Dead has a minuscule chance of killing the DRK. It still needs work, but I honestly doubt they give a fuck. As Recon mentioned, the devs are already looking to ruin DRG and AST come 6.2 so DRK will probably be ignored until 7.0 where they get a trait called Enhanced Unmend+ that reduces the cooldown of Plunge by 10s.