Dark Knight Megathread

[Drayman1985]

I'll start with the good they added.

-I think Disesteem is alright. Not the best addition but certainly not the worst
-I think the additional effects to Shadow wall is good, but the two minute cooldown makes it unreliable.
-I love the Delirium combo, but it's a stand in for all that was lost this expansion.

Now for the problems
-Combining blood weapon and delirium was a terrible move for the job. Blood weapon was used often as resource management. When it had 5 stacks you could effectively gain another TBN or Edge/Flood of Shadow to use AT ANY TIME with extra (total mp regeneration was 4200 if using basic combo). Delirium was a dps button that allowed for 5 blood spillers with full gauge (was up to 7 in ShB) now it's only 3 with the new combo adding a grand total of 600 potency at level 96 (20 potency more than the single bloodspiller we lost) and now we don't have the mana regeneration on top of that.

-Plunge. Where do I begin? I didn't think something so simple would have such an impact on my rotation or how the job felt to play. I lost 300 potency in the burst, and then I lost the ability to weave 150 potency throughout the fight. The animation just feels bad. I can't explain it, but after playing it as my main for ShB and Endwalker, it just doesn't feel right without it.

-There is still no change to dark mind/dark missionary. There is no real indicator as to what is or isn't magic damage so they sit as a dead buttons if they are used at all.

Now for the changes
-Turn Dark mind and dark missionary into full mitigations or make it so that dark mind gives us a window for mana regeneration similar to what blood weapon did before.

-Separate blood weapon from delirium and put both to five stack with Delirium activating the new combo ( I'll take delirium going to 3 stacks like it is now. I just want the mana regeneration back).

-Make abyssal drain cure for more potency with a lower cooldown.

-The Blackest Knight, once hailed as the best tank mitigation has really fallen off. Add some life gain to it, please, or mana regeneration and 20% mitigation on top of the shield and remove oblation. Keep the same cooldown time as it is tied to a resource that is used for dps as well as defense. All the other tanks have this with their signature cooldown. Why not us?

[Vallerie]

-The Blackest Knight, once hailed as the best tank mitigation has really fallen off. Add some life gain to it, please, or mana regeneration and 20% mitigation on top of the shield and remove oblation. Keep the same cooldown time as it is tied to a resource that is used for dps as well as defense. All the other tanks have this with their signature cooldown. Why not us?

Problem is that adding more to TBN itself without you having control over whether or not you add it in the moment has high potential to be counterproductive, especially in anything below savage.
Add mit? Well now TBN is harder to break and get a refund on, meaning you can only use it on bigger hits, effectively taking more damage from smaller ones.
Add healing at the end or on use? If the hit is small enough, or you've thrown on enough mit, there is a high chance the healing will be wasted.
Keeping the refund to equal to cost is also good, because it keeps it as mitigation focused, if you make refund greater, it pushes you to burn TBN just to get extra potency.

And I'm pretty sure devs are aware of this, which is why Oblation exists. It's a genuinely good solution to TBN, because you can choose whether or not to use it alongside TBN, bypassing the issue #1. Now, they could've/should've added more to Oblation, but it's a good button. Oblation good.
The other 'solutions' take the risk aspect away, either by giving you refund on the first hit instead of break, or simply turn it into free mit like the other tank mits, and idk about you, but I don't want that.

[Shurrikhan]

I think calling that an interaction is debatable, it's just "pressing this button allows you to press this other button", basically the entire design doc of Warrior.
Interaction would be if Esteem actually copied your abilities, making it's output dependent on proper execution of your own burst window.

Agreed, but...

The funny thing is, that's then literally just a +% damage window, which tends to have redundant impact if running a comp that already supplies you with 2-minute damage windows through raidbuffs.

Does look a hell of a lot cooler, though, and gives DRK a damage window even in solo play and groups without raidbuffs (for better or worse, as that raises skill ceiling while reducing unpunished flexibility).

Similarly, could effectively replace an oGCD per GCD's time with a GCD that the shadow self then performa instead for a sort of extreme haste window. Technically less rigid in itself, but offering more palpable variance. Etc., etc.

I'd just like to see the action pair amount to more than a DoT and an unlocked attack.

[WhyAmIHere]

So
DRK and GNB's "new" gap closer... rip to one of the best animations on DRK.
But does anyone else think it looks kinda slow compared to Atherial Manip / Icarus / whatever the MNK skill's called?

[Absurdity]

But does anyone else think it looks kinda slow compared to Atherial Manip / Icarus / whatever the MNK skill's called?

They actually are slower, certainly slower than Monk's Thunderclap. Dark Knight's gap closer isn't too bad but Gunbreaker's is especially lethargic from what I've seen.

[GoatOfWar]

They actually are slower, certainly slower than Monk's Thunderclap. Dark Knight's gap closer isn't too bad but Gunbreaker's is especially lethargic from what I've seen.

Don't they literally use the exact same animation?
Esteem uses it too and it *massively* delays his attacks.
Either way, you won't be using it more than once per encounter on average anyways.
Unironically button bloat.

[WhyAmIHere]

Iuno.
I get the devs reasoning for wanting to cull rough divide and plunge, but... I think it's a stupid decision. Like, I get wanting to reduce the number of double weaves on tanks, but removing the damaging gap closers from the two most oGCD heavy tanks, and just giving them a pure-utility one whilst the other two tanks get theirs unadjusted feels... wrong.
Enhanced Unmend is even more of a "lmao really" trait.
Have they just... not listened to any of the DRK feedback throughout the years? Shame.

[GoatOfWar]

Iuno.
I get the devs reasoning for wanting to cull rough divide and plunge, but... I think it's a stupid decision. Like, I get wanting to reduce the number of double weaves on tanks, but removing the damaging gap closers from the two most oGCD heavy tanks, and just giving them a pure-utility one whilst the other two tanks get theirs unadjusted feels... wrong.
Enhanced Unmend is even more of a "lmao really" trait.
Have they just... not listened to any of the DRK feedback throughout the years? Shame.

Yeah they have. They listened to the feedback of people who don't play Dark knight.
That's why they remove ogcd's and gave us heals.

[Eorzean_username]

I guess I'll just throw-in my exhausted feedback for 7.0 Dark Knight, here.

DRK was my favorite Tank by-far in Heavensward, and even though I disliked the Stormblood changes to the original HW design, DRK was still my favorite Tank in Stormblood-era, and "The Blackest Night" was an absolutely-great idea, and a great addition to the DRK Job's overall "play-feel".

...Then, Shadowbringers basically ruined Dark Knight for me — the removal of Dark Arts, and replacing it with yet another generic "Shinten-clone" attack-spam OGCD, completely-killed the feel of what made DRK feel unique and interesting to me, rotationally.

And turning Darkside into a completely-mindless clone of WAR's "Storm's Eye" only made the 5.0 changes even worse-feeling to me.

Add-in the change of Delirium to a boring "Inner Release" clone, and so much of what I liked about DRK was removed in a single Patch.

On top of that, the capstone skill being a glorified DOT with annoying animations was... "disappointing".

In Endwalker, rather than improving any of these issues, the designers apparently thought that it would be funny to add "Enhanced Unmend", "Salt and Darkness" as a... lame joke about the "Salt and Light" Hunt-mark? ...and, mechanically, a pointless follow-up to Salted Earth... and a cheezy "title drop" action called "Shadowbringer" as the L90 capstone, which was functionally just an extra 2 Edge of Shadows crammed into 2m burst windows, and which I would have considered satire if I had been informed of it before seeing the actual EW Media Tour tooltips.

...so I just gave-up and didn't even bother using DRK in EW, it's just not fun for me to play any more, and hasn't been for a long time, even though it's the Tank that I "want" to play, in terms of concept and aesthetics (not because of the cringe-y edge-lord stuff, but because I just think Darkness / Shadow powers are cool in RPGs, and enjoy the "Shadow Knight" theme and aesthetic).

And then... in 7.0 ?

...Even more of the same, with once-again none of the fundamental issues being addressed.

On top of deleting Plunge, yet another of the animations / ideas that initially made Dark Knight feel so memorable and cool to me when I first played it in Heavensward.

And just piling-on more of the "Vomiting incoherent red-and-black smears all over the place" visual "theme" that has increasingly-predominated since Stormblood, replacing the original HW presentation as more of a "Heavy physical Greatsword-swinging fighter / dirty-fighting and dishonourable anti-Paladin, who empowered her swings with bursts of Darkness". (compare Bloodspiller vs. HW Power Slash, Edge of Shadow vs. HW Reprisal/Low Blow, etc.)

Except now with cheezy 1990s Hot Topic Black-plastic Angel Wings, too... and as the L100 capstone, no less.

So yeah, non-sarcastically happy for anyone still enjoying it, because I want to like Dark Knight, so I'm glad someone can have fun with this, still.

But yeah, personally, I'm just... tired, and done.

Maybe I'll like the changes in 2027.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I have to get a new Dark Knight wishlist ready because my previous one became obsolete and I don't know to put a line through the words that I typed...