Dark Knight Megathread

[Zairava]

Okay, y'know what. No. I'm tired of "guess we'll wait until X.0"

It's been now over 5 bloody years, expansion 3 of it.

We deserve better.

No "realistically we can't expect a rework until X.0, so let's settle for this until then."

Figure this out. I'm tired of waiting for 2 and a half years to MAYBE see improvements to Dark Knight when the trend for the last 3 expansions is one step forward 8 steps back and then get screwed during the patches outside of Quality of Life improvements that should have been there from the start.

Be transparent about what direction you're deciding to take the job. And make sure it actually is a coherent and thought out design. Not a makeshift Easy Bake Oven made from what you found in the scrap yard.

[WhyAmIHere]

Okay, y'know what. No. I'm tired of "guess we'll wait until X.0"

It's been now over 5 bloody years, expansion 3 of it.

We deserve better.

No "realistically we can't expect a rework until X.0, so let's settle for this until then."

Figure this out. I'm tired of waiting for 2 and a half years to MAYBE see improvements to Dark Knight when the trend for the last 3 expansions is one step forward 8 steps back and then get screwed during the patches outside of Quality of Life improvements that should have been there from the start.

Be transparent about what direction you're deciding to take the job. And make sure it actually is a coherent and thought out design. Not a makeshift Easy Bake Oven made from what you found in the scrap yard.

man
I remember in SB when it took til what, 5.3, for Quietus to get addressed.
Playing DRK is a testament of suffering. So much of it's kit gets neutered expansion after expansion, and "bUt It DoEs ThE mOsT dAmAgE sO iTs FiNe" is such a god awful dismissal of any complaints.
If someone enjoys DRK, good on ya.

Stop accepting mediocrity, demand better.
Yet another expansion of leveling it to cap solely for my retainer, then shelving it for GNB/WAR.

[Kazamaiya]

man
I remember in SB when it took til what, 5.3, for Quietus to get addressed.
Playing DRK is a testament of suffering.

I think you must mean 4.3
DRK was shafted so hard in Shadowbringers (and Endwalker too) to where it got one patch with adjustments (5.1 and a bug fix in 5.55 in Shadowbringers and 6.1 with Endwalker) and literally nothing for the rest of the expansion.
DRK is a testament of suffering and getting shafted and ignored at this point.

This job deserves better.

[WhyAmIHere]

I think you must mean 4.3
DRK was shafted so hard in Shadowbringers (and Endwalker too) to where it got one patch with adjustments (5.1 and a bug fix in 5.55 in Shadowbringers and 6.1 with Endwalker) and literally nothing for the rest of the expansion.
DRK is a testament of suffering and getting shafted and ignored at this point.

This job deserves better.

yeah. I forgor, my B


ALSO a hindsight realization i hate.
GNB got excog on HoC, right? We all know the "heal X after Y time / Z condition" is just shorthand to excog, right?
Thats another thing DRK lost, only to get back later on.
Remember Sole Survivor? It's back, in the 40% mit.

Swear to god the devs must've ran out of ideas for DRK back in ShB. at least IMO the new Delirium Bloodspiller is a proper animation jfc it's how an overhead jumpy spinny flippy slam-jam should have looked, so there's that as a positive for DRK.
it only took them how many years? and BS is still in the game. with it's IMO bad animation.

[Oizen]

Well thats kinda the isuse isn't it? I'd say this is probably the most vocal I've seen people be about the job.
They dont listen to feedback, they don't even playtest the jobs to any real level.

To me the video that captures all my problems with DRK is this one:

I found this video to be the most level-headed analysis and feedback on current state of DRK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF8UUKKmXNI

not the shitty xenosys "stop homogenizing tanks but give DRK HoC" vex one
.

[Vanitax]

I made a list of some changes they could do for DRK:
Not too aggressive changes:
1) Make TBN work like Tengentsu (SAM shield + regen): It procs when hit and also you could add a regen when you're hit while keeping the shield till it breaks or expires. Another option would be keeping TBN as it is but make the shield a 15% of total HP or extend the duration from 7s to 10s/12s or a time that gives a reasonable window for it to break. My favorite gimmick of the job is using this shield to gain more damage during my burst window: it feels rewarding when you take the time to optimize it, using it on healers or yourself (if MT or getting busted) but I have had issues of it breaking during Savage (M1S duo stacks for example)
2) Dark Mind shines when enemies have magical auto-attacks or busters but sucks when they don't. Make both Dark Mind and Dark Missionary mitigate a 10% of physical damage. Also put Dark Missionary at lvl 68, we need it for UWU and UCoB.
3) Bring back weaving to the job. A lot of people who mains the job loves weaving a ton of abilities during our burst. You made our odd minutes extremely boring. You can bring MP generation back (+2 more Blood Weapon stacks), separate Abyssal Drain cooldown from Carve and Spit or make both have 2 stacks and both have a heal effect.
4) Bring Blood gauge management back: We want to weave and manage our gauge, it made the job fun, if new people find it hard then they have 3 other tanks to try we don't want jobs difficulty and fun be reduced just because you want everyone pick it fast and not invest time in learning.

Aggressive change: These are different options we could have for DRK to have more identity and also bring back HW abilities that people seemed to love

1) Add a second combo or a new GCD to DRK. Hard Slash -> Syphon Strike -> Power Slash: buff Souleater (a la Ninja)
2) Add a DoT GCD we apply to our enemy: Scourge.

[ApolloGenX]

Buff drk to war level sustain ...vampiric heals would be on theme.. Fix skills, they are a bit of a mess...then get rid of healers.

[RinaB]

I just don't understand why they put it on the 40.....why not make ablation 15% and throw it on that? I understand it's probably due to TBN but what happens when your shield bursts instantly (certain dungeon trash packs)? There's been so many scenarios where I could have 2 manned the boss with gnb and simply couldn't because I'm DRK which raises the question if tanks should or shouldn't have sustain. I love 100 drk and it's a lot more fun (personally) then GNB...however another gripe I have is the delays on a lot of pretty important abilities. Why does living shadow take so long to come out, why is there a huge delay on salted earth, why is there is huge delay on disesteem, why is there a big delay on the animation of bloodspiller. I understand it's snapshot damage but come on....imo the worst part about DRK isn't that it sucks, it's that it literally needs tweaks and not a whole rework and it's just not gonna happen. I'm screaming about the job being sus, I'm just confused at small dev decisions and if anyone at square ran a few dungeons and raids it wouldn't take long to see AT LEAST some quality of life changes that need to happen. Am I crazy?

[WhyAmIHere]

I just don't understand why they put it on the 40.....why not make ablation 15% and throw it on that? I understand it's probably due to TBN but what happens when your shield bursts instantly (certain dungeon trash packs)? There's been so many scenarios where I could have 2 manned the boss with gnb and simply couldn't because I'm DRK which raises the question if tanks should or shouldn't have sustain. I love 100 drk and it's a lot more fun (personally) then GNB...however another gripe I have is the delays on a lot of pretty important abilities. Why does living shadow take so long to come out, why is there a huge delay on salted earth, why is there is huge delay on disesteem, why is there a big delay on the animation of bloodspiller. I understand it's snapshot damage but come on....imo the worst part about DRK isn't that it sucks, it's that it literally needs tweaks and not a whole rework and it's just not gonna happen. I'm screaming about the job being sus, I'm just confused at small dev decisions and if anyone at square ran a few dungeons and raids it wouldn't take long to see AT LEAST some quality of life changes that need to happen. Am I crazy?

I feel like tanks should have some self sustain. That's, to me, part of what makes a tank a tank. They shouldn't have the capabilities to replace or supplant a healer, but that's where the real issue lies; WAR's self sustain is nuts compared to the other tanks.

But yeah DRK needs a rework. After all the expansions it's done nothing but lose abilities and shit, they've gutted it to the point of "bring it for the damage or for the aesthetic but that's it."

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[1] I just don't understand why they put it on the 40.....why not make ablation 15% and throw it on that? I understand it's probably due to [2] TBN but what happens when your shield bursts instantly (certain dungeon trash packs)?

1.) The reason they put it on the 40% Shadowed Vigil / Shadow Wall II was because this time around it was about upgrading the 30% CDs. Oblation was our addition in place of general short mitigation upgrades, last expansion at Lv82. I'm all for making Oblation better though.

However I wouldn't go with 15% mit, at least not directly. I'd like to remind you that 10% is surprisingly strong for a shareable cooldown. Our Reprisal is also 10% and that makes or breaks (or at least massively soften up) incoming damage and is actually used for busters as well in a variety of fights. For Oblation, I can see a few possible additions to make it more interesting:

• A regen effect - but the least likely one since that overlaps with Aurora from GNB.
• An Exaltation effect - a burst of heal that occurs when the cooldown expires. Can either just be a flat potency (say 400-600) or use damage compiling (25% of damage taken) to calculate the heal
• A "defensive Dark Arts" - using it on self or teammates will grant yourself an effect, that modifies or enhances another defensive you are using. Like TBN on break creating a HoT, Dark Mind creating an HP shield, something like that.

2.) Your shield instantly bursting isn't a bad thing, it just shows how hard whatever you throw at it was hitting you for in general. Some basic math...

TBN is a 25% HP shield. Assuming full HP, this is literally just +25% eHP (effective HP), assuming no further healing or mitigation thrown in.
Rampart for example is 20% mitigation, i.e. you take 80% of the damage. Say you have 100k HP.

80% inc damage = 100,000 HP
100% inc dmg = x
x = 100 * 100,000 HP / 80 = 125,000 HP // which is +25% effective HP.

Over the course of 20s with Rampart, your HP pool effectively was 125%. Assuming you only used TBN a single time in that same time frame, your HP pool was also 125%. TBN is as strong as a 20% mitigation in a vacuum. Now, TBN isn't a %-type mitigation but an HP shield though, so it does not suffer from diminishing returns but instead gets exponential returns when paired with tools like Rampart, Dark Mind, etc.

If you know Rampart is 125% eHP and so is TBN, you multiply them to get their combined eHP. [1.25 * 1.25 = 1.5625 // 156.25%. An additional +6.25% eHP]
Let's try it with Shadowed Vigil, ignoring the heal. Shadowed vigil with above formula is +66.66% eHP. [1.6666 * 1.25 = 2.0832 // 208.32%. An additional +16.66% eHP].

So TBN simply performs better the more and stronger layers of mitigation you have and to a degree makes up for diminishing returns of the other CDs. TBN is not weak. If it was then Rampart is weak.

But to sum up my opinion, I agree DRK could use some adjustment regarding sustain. Living Dead puts you at the mercy of your healer letting you "die", Abyssal Drain has over double the CD of Bloodwhetting and half the healing potency (why) and is tied to CaS.