Dark Knight Megathread

[baklava151]

Is this the same as saying TBN is at fault for our kit as it is? No, you can't blame the piece of gum for holding back the dam. As has been pointed out many times, TBN itself was concurrent with several MP-based skills in Stormblood, though its practicality at the time is another matter entirely since it was a rather different skill back then and the devs clearly moved on from that design for one reason or another.
However, do I think preserving the current design of TBN provides an obstacle for designs to expand the kit further? Yes. Especially when points of contention include DRK's lack of sustainability or utility -- things taken away with the shift in MP skills in ShB -- or the blandness of its damage toolkit which hangs heavily on its pool of oGCDs. Any new MP skill has to be weighed against the DPS value of both TBN and the Darkside skills and, as we've already discussed, any shift in Dark Arts' interaction has to consider the potential to abuse TBN for damage gain beyond the scope of its intent as a defensive tool, which I believe was one of its failings in Stormblood when it provided Blood Gauge.

In short, as of right now, TBN is designed to only account for Edge and Flood. Forever. That's... pretty limiting.

I don't think it's TBN that's necessarily the limiting factor in this case, if we're talking about adding more MP spenders to spice up the kit then it's more how to make sure Edge and the new MP spender don't have a clear winner in every situation. Two ways I can think of is a) new spender does more damage but doesn't add Darkside and b) new spender has a CD. I think it'd be possible to add both of those with a 3K MP cost and they'd fit in perfectly fine with TBN. I can't think of a reason for them not to cost 3K MP but if they do need to then limit Dark Arts to only working on Edge/Flood.

[Archwizard]

I don't think it's TBN that's necessarily the limiting factor in this case

Again, I don't think TBN's exclusively at fault. I just think its current design, particularly around Dark Arts, is an obstacle. It would be more accurate to say it's an issue of the Darkside abilities as a whole, but TBN is presently balanced around them as its counterattacks, which reinforces the issue.

if we're talking about adding more MP spenders to spice up the kit then it's more how to make sure Edge and the new MP spender don't have a clear winner in every situation. Two ways I can think of is a) new spender does more damage but doesn't add Darkside and b) new spender has a CD. I think it'd be possible to add both of those with a 3K MP cost and they'd fit in perfectly fine with TBN. I can't think of a reason for them not to cost 3K MP but if they do need to then limit Dark Arts to only working on Edge/Flood.

That's a marginal difference though, and only adds buttons for the sake of buttons; at best you find yourself alternating which of the two you use in the rotation every thirty-ish seconds, and the choice isn't particularly meaningful since you're still focused on which does optimized damage, particularly based on what's compatible with Dark Arts.

If you compare it to the days of original!Dark Arts granting increased healing or enmity or causing attacks to inflict Blind, as well as the potential growth into other sources of mitigation and utility -- tools that actually expand our gameplay and ability to react situationally -- our immediate use of MP for almost exclusively damage purposes and to limit TBN remains pretty narrow, even in that scenario.

Right now, you can't really diversify our use of MP without adding buttons that are all basically equal (or only situationally superior) in damage value; any less and you won't use them, no matter what other utility they may provide. Even having them be buttons that consume variable amounts of MP has to be weighed against you spending 3k to activate TBN to get Dark Arts; if it costs more then bursting TBN's barrier becomes a damage imperative, and if it costs less then spending Dark Arts on them becomes an inherent damage loss.

[baklava151]

That's a marginal difference though, and only adds buttons for the sake of buttons; at best you find yourself alternating which of the two you use in the rotation every thirty-ish seconds, and the choice isn't particularly meaningful since you're still focused on which does optimized damage, particularly based on what's compatible with Dark Arts.

If you compare it to the days of original!Dark Arts granting increased healing or enmity or causing attacks to inflict Blind, as well as the potential growth into other sources of mitigation and utility -- tools that actually expand our gameplay and ability to react situationally -- our immediate use of MP for almost exclusively damage purposes and to limit TBN remains pretty narrow, even in that scenario.

Right now, you can't really diversify our use of MP without adding buttons that are all basically equal (or only situationally superior) in damage value; any less and you won't use them, no matter what other utility they may provide. Even having them be buttons that consume variable amounts of MP has to be weighed against you spending 3k to activate TBN to get Dark Arts; if it costs more then bursting TBN's barrier becomes a damage imperative, and if it costs less then spending Dark Arts on them becomes an inherent damage loss.

We're on the same page then, I agree the ideas weren't super interesting but that's where we're at now where you can't do much more. ItsUrBoi had another idea a few pages back that I thought could work, where MP/Darkside would be used for damage exclusively and Blood would be for utility such as self-healing or anything else you might want to add. TBN would still be a sticking point in this scenario depending on if you like it as is or not but you get the opportunity for more utility still. Or you could flip it around and have MP be the utility resource while Blood is the damage resource, along with whatever necessary reworks that needs (Edge would have to go, its Darkside increasing effect moved elsewhere and you lose the counterattack aspect from TBN). Point being that you fully separate out the utility and damage and no longer have to worry about those two things competing, and it gives DRK some diversity in its gauges rather than having Damage Meter 1 and Damage Meter 2 that never interact.

[Kalaam]

If the proc given by TBN breaking gave benefits other than damage (such as the next Edge/Flood applying a debuff) it'd make it rewarding without throwing the damage balance out of wack.

[Colt47]

I mean to make DRK, you start with a base 1 2 3 combo. Then you add one or two OGCDs to weave. Then you add three tank CDs that match up with the other tanks.

After that, what it comes down to is how to engineer the burst phase. The way they did their burst phase was with Delirium and Blood Weapon, but we can definitely do better than that. For one, we don't need extra skills to make something like Delirium function: The main combo can be buffed during delirium and save the extra controls just fine. The blood weapon package was also basically three skills stuck together as it is meant to speed up the use of flood.

Honestly, blood weapon should have been doing what it's namesake is and making attacks heal the DRK, not boost MP regeneration. It's literally drinking the life out of someone.

Ugh, like thinking about this Dark Arts should be the skill that transforms the main combo into a more lethal combo and blood weapon should be the skill that helps the DRK survive, since some self healing with TBN would probably make them far better at surviving dungeons. The entire Delirium combo is just totally out of left field and has been since Shadowbringers.

All the OGCDs are basically there as filler / flavor for the job and do extra damage. That's it.

[Kalaam]

That envelloping mist is likely the Darkside stance, it was originally very mist like in the trailers

[Archwizard]

That envelloping mist is likely the Darkside stance, it was originally very mist like in the trailers

All the more reason for the "power" aspect I was highlighting.

[Kalaam]

All the more reason for the "power" aspect I was highlighting.

Though it could also have been Living Dead since they describe him falling dead shortly after, I imagine it was a mix of both

[Colt47]

Traditionally DRK turns pain into power. That's why in some iterations of the job they sacrifice HP to do damage to an opponent. In other iterations, they drain life and MP from opponents with sword skills or apply status debuffs with certain attacks. It's why DRK was a very odd choice for a tank job since the majority of what they are about is being a DPS more than being a tank.

Also, because of this theme DRK is the only tank coming out of Shadowbringers that did not get additional healing in their kit to balance out the lower defense of tanks in general this expansion. They effectively "work" at end game because self healing doesn't have as much meaning when attacks are more binary in nature. In fact, Shields are better at end game since it lets someone to go past 100% hp and survive things they have no business surviving, like some tank busters.

Truth is Tank design in general is kind of broken right now compared to other MMOs. Tanks in other MMOs have higher defense and your hope is that the healer keeps you alive instead of letting your hp drop to 5%, they start healing, and then you just fall over. In this MMO right now, you just run through a dungeon like a crazy person and flip the healer the bird if you're a warrior, because you'll just pop defiance and self heal your way out of everything while rotating in holmgang if the group gets cheeky, because all the tanks except DRK are self healers. Then you get to end game and stuff hits so hard that you suddenly have to use mits that you didn't know existed. Like p3s has stuff that one shots 100% HP tanks if they don't blow at least one mit and a healer or DPS used something as well.

Like if that is the direction the FFXIV team wants to go than DRK needs a complete rework to even hope to get there. And if they do that they likely are going to make someone angry on the forums given how many people have complained about samurai simply losing Kaiten. At least the DPS jobs have only one purpose to deal with: Tanks have to both take blows well and do damage.

******

So on the constructive part of this whole thing...

1) I believe that TBN does need to have some kind of self heal component instead of being a potential refresh on darkside if your shield breaks. If they do that then it pretty much goes into full cooldown status and no longer uses MP, which is used mostly to determine how many times someone can use Edge of Shadow / Flood of Darkness.

2) Probably controversial but they need to get rid of Blood spiller / Quietus. For one they were a plague on the leveling experience through the entirety of shadowbringers because before level 68 you didn't even have delirium, and you couldn't gain blood gauge off aoe combo, only the souleater combo. They also are just potency increased GCDs with no benefits otherwise. The job has a huge number of OGCDs at 90 and it just does not need an alternative rotation path to be interesting. You're going to be spending all the time managing...

1. Salted Earth WITH salted darkness
2. Shadowbringer
3. Carve and Split
4. Edge of Shadow
5. Plunge (because gap closers need potencies...)
6. Blood Weapon (which speeds up Edge of Shadow)

3) There should be some kind of healing on Carve and Split so it at least matches up with Abyssal drain. However, the problem is capping on healing and the fact that the game is designed around having things either be damage or survival with tanks. An attack that heals is still a damage ability primarily, so maybe giving them a skill that lets them self heal from attacking would be better than giving carve and split a healing potency.

[Archwizard]

2) Probably controversial but they need to get rid of Blood spiller / Quietus. For one they were a plague on the leveling experience through the entirety of shadowbringers because before level 68 you didn't even have delirium, and you couldn't gain blood gauge off aoe combo, only the souleater combo. They also are just potency increased GCDs with no benefits otherwise. The job has a huge number of OGCDs at 90 and it just does not need an alternative rotation path to be interesting. You're going to be spending all the time managing...

1. Salted Earth WITH salted darkness
2. Shadowbringer
3. Carve and Split
4. Edge of Shadow
5. Plunge (because gap closers need potencies...)
6. Blood Weapon (which speeds up Edge of Shadow)

This is where we're going to disagree, because even with so many oGCDs to manage, your rotation is going to primarily be the same 3 button combo over and over and over and over, interspersed with cooldowns.

And, to be clear here, DRK is not unique in having a large number of damage oGCDs to manage either, even among the tanks.
GNB has Bow Shock, No Mercy, Blasting Zone, Continuation (which is used SIGNIFICANTLY more often than Edge), Rough Divide, and Bloodfest. It also has (depending how you count the Cartridge Combo) 7-9 GCDs in the core rotation between them, so there's very little monotony to the job.

The primary difference between them of course is that DRK also has Delirium and Living Shadow (and Abyssal Drain for AoE), but half as many GCDs.

So what you advocate here is that the job get pared down even more... while substituting that loss with nothing?

I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not attached to Bloodspiller and Quietus either -- especially where they exist in our kit as WAR-lite elements -- but I'd much rather see them expanded upon or replaced with something that builds on the kit, than simply removed.