Dark Knight Megathread

[baklava151]

Besides, giving DRK self sustain in dungeons would be ultra simplistic with absolutely no extra buttons to bloat the hotbar needed.
-Flood of Darkness/Shadow: Restore HP with a cure potency of 100-200.
-Quietus: Restore HP with a cure potency of 200-300 per target hit.

Done, ez. Gives DRK much stronger dungeon presence without buffing their already insanely strong raid kit even further. Would even give a bit of dynamicness to DRK's dungeon gameplay by making it a fun balancing act of not overcapping/getting too low on MP while using Floods strategically for sustain between TBN uses.

Could also rework Abyssal Drain and get the same result, no CD but costs 3K MP. I know it'd be competing with Flood but I don't think the potency loss is a huge deal when you're trying to keep yourself alive.

[Shurrikhan]

As for your other point, it's a blunt answer: you can't return reducing an opponent's effectiveness as a purely DRK shtick. Homogenization of tank design means all tanks would have to get an equivalent due to their tank design philosophy of general parity.

That's not how "general parity" works, though.

Any general form of parity doesn't care where your self-sustain comes from, be that through percentile mitigation, percentile self-healing, flat mitigation (pretty much just barriers and ToB in XIV's case), or flat healing.

You need only have enough eHP to survive each tankbuster with no less leniency in CD arrangement than the average competing tank, and sufficient sustain not to cost your raid rDPS via healer GCDs lost to healing you. Since ShB, though, the latter has become largely irrelevant, not so much because tanks were purposely homogenized left, right, and center, as simply because any slack by which for tanks fairly exchange between reasonable outputs was curtailed by the healing changes (to make healer GCD costs a matter solely of operator error in most content, and thereby stripping tanks of their previously variable means to achieve rDPS).

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All else you've said, though, obviously applied 100%. DRK's miti kit should not be dependent on target-requiring counter-attacks.

Could also rework Abyssal Drain and get the same result, no CD but costs 3K MP. I know it'd be competing with Flood but I don't think the potency loss is a huge deal when you're trying to keep yourself alive.

It would leave no use for Flood. Flood hits for 20 potency less (Darkness), and then only 10 potency more (Shadow). No reasonable tank is going to sacrifice 200 potency of healing per target a mere 20th that value in damage.

[baklava151]

It would leave no use for Flood. Flood hits for 20 potency less (Darkness), and then only 10 potency more (Shadow). No reasonable tank is going to sacrifice 200 potency of healing per target a mere 20th that value in damage.

That's mainly an issue of adjusting numbers which I don't think would be a huge deal for them if they went that route.

[Shurrikhan]

That's mainly an issue of adjusting numbers which I don't think would be a huge deal for them if they went that route.

But, again, why not just simply have a milder heal on Flood itself, while Abyssal instead adds a nuke heal per minute in AoE situations? Then you have both more burst/flexibility and your tools wouldn't drown each other out. (At least CnS and AD apply to distinct situations, unlike AD and Flood.)

At the very least, if having AD conflict with Flood, you'd want to put AoE falloff on CnS.

[RyuDragnier]

They could always bring back Sole Survivor as a self-heal option. Make it a 1-minute oGCD with 1000 cure potency on yourself without any strings attached to it.

[Shurrikhan]

They could always bring back Sole Survivor as a self-heal option. Make it a 1-minute oGCD with 1000 cure potency on yourself without any strings attached to it.

So, literally pre-trait Equilibrium?

How would that tie into the themes or motifs surrounding the name, or DRK in general?

[RyuDragnier]

So, literally pre-trait Equilibrium?

How would that tie into the themes or motifs surrounding the name, or DRK in general?

How does WAR having a 1.2K potency cure with an extra regen tie into the themes or motifs around WAR? It doesn't.

[Archwizard]

How does WAR having a 1.2K potency cure with an extra regen tie into the themes or motifs around WAR? It doesn't.

In WAR's case, it makes sense because WAR's powers are mostly suped-up natural abilities that people have -- in this case, it's an adrenaline spike, or a second wind (which makes sense given it's literally a suped-up Second Wind). As long as the ability is strictly personal it fits in with natural, non-magical abilities as much as Holmgang as a Last Stand sort of effect or the Inner Beast as an enrage mechanic.
I mean let's be real here, FF14's metaphysics are already a bit bizarre. Thancred, who can't manipulate aether and therefore should not be able to use magic, can somehow turn his life force into invisibility... and we just accept that. By comparison, Equilibrium at least seems probable.

In DRK's case, it feels off because DRK's power, being drawn from dark magic, should always come at a price. They shouldn't have "free" healing; they should only have the ability to rip life force from someone else. Same sentiment why DRK shouldn't be able to heal other people directly, unless that health comes from somewhere else, like vampirism or a personal transfer.

Looking at the original Sole Survivor through that lens, you have a skill that essentially steals someone's soul or last breath in order to infuse yourself with power. The problem is that while it's thematic to DRK, it's also mechanically useless to have a skill that only heals you when someone dies -- hence the consolation effect, despite that free heal not fitting the theme either and the delayed heal being only marginally more useful.
(And now you have RPR who uses that iconography better.)

[Shurrikhan]

How does WAR having a 1.2K potency cure with an extra regen tie into the themes or motifs around WAR? It doesn't.

I specifically said "pre-trait."

It's a vestigial element of how Equilibrium worked before --balancing the two outputs of the beast within, between Wrath (Defiance) and Abandon (Deliverance). You know, before the job was gutted?

Could it be a whole lot better, to better supply theme despite its interactions having all been pruned? Sure. But it's on a XIV job that has always been about self-healing, and has had that skill since HW, as opposed to it just being carbon-copied from its originating job to another just because -- and purposely in place of more fitting options for the receiver.

[Kalaam]

It'd be better to make it interresting. Maybe ennemies afflicted deal less damage to you or every hit on them gives you a 200 potency shield, and when the effect expire or the enemy dies under the effect you get a heal/MP refill (like 1000potency heal/1500MP) or something. It'd give some nice survivability in dungeons and for bosses it's a neat but (I assume) not OP addition. TBN would apply over the small shields anyway.