Dark Knight Megathread

[Kaixern]

I wouldn't go that far at least dark knight's barrier costs mp.

Give it some time.
I hope to be proven wrong but i feel that in the long run, with how much people i saw complain about TBN cost, we might even get homogenized on that point

[GoatOfWar]

I wouldn't go that far at least dark knight's barrier costs mp.

War only got a bunch of new OGCD's. It lost nothing.
Drk just lost a bunch of cooldowns and the *only* new thing it got is 1 new GCD you'll press once every 2 minutes.
Dark knight will legit be easier and lower APM than Warrior somehow.

Drk lost 2 APM from the gapcloser nerf.
It lost 1 APM from the Blood weapon merge.
And it will lose 1 APM from the lower mana economy with the BW nerf.

By contrast, War gained 2 OGCD's on a 60s cooldown.

[Oizen]

Give it some time.
I hope to be proven wrong but i feel that in the long run, with how much people i saw complain about TBN cost, we might even get homogenized on that point

The annoying bald man is still asking for it to be homogenized to a 25s Thrill of Battle with +10% mit, with oblation being deleted as well

[Rithy255]

Why are they so adamant on linking Dark Knight's identity to that crappy shadow clone??

No clue, Reaper got the way better deal here, I kind of wish it was DRK instead that got a "dark transformation" then again looking at scholars new skill its likely for the best... I can imagine it would be like some spooky pirate costume with how far scholars transformation missed it's identity

I don't get who actually likes the "shadow clone" It's just a annoying visual DOT, You already have one of those in salted earth.

[Agner]

Everyone who was telling me that reworking DRK was a good idea so they had a foundation to build on in future expansions

There are certainly changes to DRK being made for DT that I like, but yeah. I surely do not see more joy to be found in regards to our MP or Gauge being interesting this expansion, let alone kit interplay—unless you count Disesteem, which is like a... step up the very, very long staircase for kit interplay, I guess?

Zero complaints about new Delirium animations, I can say that much. Looks great, sounds chunky. Though in the same vein we are still stuck with the visually monotonous and perpetual usage of Souleater.

At the end of the day, it's just crazy how we were told about good foundation and still all we have at level 100 is seemingly more foundation to construct to create a more enjoyable experience. Maybe I'll actually be surprised by 8.0, but I'm a bit out of faith. It feels like there's a full experience to be found somewhere, it's just being delivered in the slowest way possible. It's like every step forward with this job gives the design team leg cramps which leads to a water break and then... wait, what were we working on again?

Obvious caveat about needing to play it to really feel it, but based on my before and after experiences with ShB and then EW, yeahhh. Might be another case of level and forget or going back out of pure laziness/it's just the tank I end up feeling most comfortable playing. I dearly miss finding a job's design fun in spite of or in conjunction with whatever fight or instance I'm doing, and I think it's a shame it'll probably continue being that way given this particular "foundation" was given to us 5 years ago.

[fulminating]

I have tried to be fair, and avoid going too heavily into optimisation or anything.

Bloodspiller changing to Torcleaver combo under delirium: I will need to play it to have a full opinion. I suspect that the variety in animation will make it feel less samey. This is a tentative positive.

Blood weapon: The loss of 2 stacks is a bit of a negative. Stapling BW and Delirium together reduces flexibility for both the devs and players. Currently you regenerate 600mp per attack for 5 hits under BW. In the media tour, it seems that you regenerate 600mp for each hit of the torcleaver combo, being 1200mp short of current. We will also be 20 blood short of current due to the reduced blood weapon effect, but then up 25 per minute due to the reduction in cost for Living Shadow. As a secondary point, it also seems we will be losing another of dark knight's better animations at level cap. *Looking at some footage, it seems that the Torcleaver combo is generating 600mp and 200mp for each hit, which is only a deficit of 600mp, but I can't see that in the weaponskill tooltip.

Disesteem: This comboing from Living Shadow looks like it should further break up and add some variety to raid windows. While it doesn't look like it will quite add some interaction with LS entity itself, the long duration of Scorn and it hinging on LS has the potential to be interesting.

Plunge: I am quite negative on this one. Exchanging one of the better feeling buttons for a highly situational movement tool does not strike me as particularly good. Losing something so strongly ingrained to FFXIV's Dark Knight aesthetic, present since its inception is a bit concerning. It does not really matter that it is commonly used under burst for damage, this is both part of dark knight's high apm playstyle and provides a use for an otherwise highly niche keybind. Since uptime is so central to doing good damage, moving one plunge out of raid buffs to improve uptime more than compensates for the theoretical damage loss there. Unfortunately the loss of plunge also will make odd minute deliriums feel emptier, which is already a not uncommon complaint about DRK downtime.

Salted Earth: I am still not entirely happy that I can no longer manually place it, particularly after the ground targeted aoe qol improvments this past expansion, but it is nice to see it stick around.

Shadowed Vigil: I think the secondary effect, similar to excogitation is a good attempt at adding some sustain to DRK. I do not think this will bring it remotely close to the other tanks as it's a 2 minute cooldown, but its impact should be perceptible in every other trash pull during dungeon content.

Abyssal Drain: This action remaining a shared ability with Carve and Spit confuses me somewhat. Everyone remembers or at least knows that it used to be a spell, and key part of DRK's sustain and aoe rotation. The fact that it is also a drain type spell, historically associated with DRK in prior games, and left to such a niche role doesn't quite sit right. I think that reexamining this could be a particularly strong option to improve DRK sustain in dungeons, be it through conversion to a high (5k-6k)mp cost spell or a reduced cooldown or something more creative.

Enhanced Unmend: As much of a meme as it has been treated, I am glad to see it remain. It's more for flavour than practical use, but does help display DRK's identity. It is somewhat unfortunate that Shadowstride is a less valuable refund than plunge, and that shadowstride is clearly magical rather than being the aggressive sword strike we had before, but I suppose it cannot be helped.

The Blackest Night: I'm happy to see it remain a 15s cooldown with mp cost. I know it could be homogenised to not cost mp, but I am of the belief that it would strongly negatively impact how DRK plays both at high and low competency.

Overall impression: Somewhat apprehensive. I'll give it a go when DT releases, but can't see myself playing it as much.

edit: Astronis has corrected me on the crossed out bit

[Astronis]

*Looking at some footage, it seems that the Torcleaver combo is generating 600mp and 200mp for each hit, which is only a deficit of 600mp, but I can't see that in the weaponskill tooltip.

Delirium currently gives 200MP per Bloodspiller and 500MP per Quietus, while Blood Weapon 600 MP per weaponskill or spell.

It's all behaving exactly the same way as Delirium + Blood Weapon together does now, just with two less stacks of Blood Weapon. We're definitely losing 1200MP from Blood Weapon.

[Oizen]

Its the same job with longer filler and one less free edge to use before a burst window, but the edges you'll use in a burst window is the exact same.
If they hadn't messed the MP generation up and allowed the new gap closer to work on allies I'd probably like these changes but I'm currently very whatever on them.

[Shurrikhan]

Its the same job with longer filler and one less free edge to use before a burst window, but the edges you'll use in a burst window is the exact same.
If they hadn't messed the MP generation up and allowed the new gap closer to work on allies I'd probably like these changes but I'm currently very whatever on them.

Wouldn't mind seeing...

• an on-ally-only gapcloser with a single attack (and lingering second)'s redirection for PLD (simple CD, with CD ignorable via gauge cost),
• a damaging and on-enemy-only gapcloser for WAR (gauge-spending, shorter recharge) and GNB (simple charges),
  and
• an on-enemy-or-ally teleport (shadow-shift, likely single charge with Unmend allowing another use with stacked recharge times and all magic damage/shadowy skills granting it CDR) for DRK.

But... I would be worried about giving every tank the best of all worlds movement skills, and of all, PLD seems to me to most deserve the "to ally" functionality (as per "Intervene", though one could also argue that should be to-enemy with inbuilt flat damage suppression onto next attack, divided if AoE). Even GNB would likely deserve it more than DRK, given GNB's bodyguard theme. Hmm.

[Oizen]

Wouldn't mind seeing...

• an on-ally-only gapcloser with a single attack (and lingering second)'s redirection for PLD (simple CD, with CD ignorable via gauge cost),
• a damaging and on-enemy-only gapcloser for WAR (gauge-spending, shorter recharge) and GNB (simple charges),
  and
• an on-enemy-or-ally teleport (shadow-shift, likely single charge with Unmend allowing another use with stacked recharge times and all magic damage/shadowy skills granting it CDR) for DRK.

But... I would be worried about giving every tank the best of all worlds movement skills, and of all, PLD seems to me to most deserve the "to ally" functionality (as per "Intervene", though one could also argue that should be to-enemy with inbuilt flat damage suppression onto next attack, divided if AoE). Even GNB would likely deserve it more than DRK, given GNB's bodyguard theme. Hmm.

If you go off story lore, dark knight protects far more people than paladin ever does.

I just think it be neat if these new gap closers had added usages as currently the design of fights basically never gives you a reason to press them in the first place, so giving added utility to these by allowing ally targeting would be cool