Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

Incorrect. No other tank got something that useless, only DRK did.

Trait for a 3rd charge of Onslaught being oh so useful?

What PLD get at lv 84

Because the level is the only thing to matter when judging the performance increased by EW traits?

Level 62 Paladin's must be furious. Here you got Bloodspiller for significant ppm increases that level and they only got Intervention, which shares resource cost with Cover anyways.

No. You look at the whole EW set. Exempting altogether new skills (rather than soft upgrades), each job received...

WAR:

1. Updates its on-demand
2. Buff to its one-minute heal (1000cp, a relative overbuff, at least until PLD's got buffed, at which point it just became two jobs winning out and two losing out)
3. Melee Mastery
4. 3rd Onslaught charge

GNB:

1. Updates its on-demand
2. Buff to its 1-minute heal (bonus charge on a skill that already wasn't worth holding; no actual potency increase)
3. Bonus Cartridge (if not for Double Down, this would be of only mild value; together, the two notoriously made GNB's burst phase wonky).
4. Melee Mastery

DRK:

1. 2-minute ST CD buff
2. A further 2-minute ST CD buff
3. Melee Mastery
   
4. Enhanced Unmend

(Buffs to on-demand avoided as not to create anti-synergy. New, separate defensive given instead. It's notably undertuned.)

PLD (the "big" winner):

1. Updates its on-demand (both forms)
2. Gets a one-minute heal (Req heals, originally worth a total of 1600cp, then overbuffed to 2000cp, or 3200 at level 90)
3. Melee Mastery
4. Divine Veil gets a bonus 400cp.
5. Spirit's Within gets AoE falloff

DRK's joke trait didn't come at cost of an added charge or potency to a self-heal any more than WAR's or GNB's near worthless traits did. The devs just maintained their determination, held since Stormblood ended, that DRK deserves only minimal self-healing. (They then, naturally, tuned the tankier GNB to deal more damage than the low-sustain-but-high-damage tank, DRK.)

[Archwizard]

Trait for a 3rd charge of Onslaught being oh so useful?

... arguably?

I mean the way I see it,

Every tank:
- Melee Mastery

Every tank except DRK:
- Updates to its on-demand/primary off-tanking tool

PLD (the "big" winner):
- Massive healing during Requiescat, which can be used to trigger Divine Veil and avoid damage lost to Clemency
- Raidwide heal upon activating its raidwide barrier
- damage buff on Spirits Within and contribution to AoE output

GNB:
- An extra charge on a HoT it can throw on allies, or can use an additional time on itself during W2W, or can hold for use during Superbolide
- Bonus Cartridge capacity and increased effect on Bloodfest, which benefits not only Double Down but contributes direct burst potential from Bloodfest
- bonus damage on normal combo finisher

WAR:
- Nearly doubled potency on its one-minute heal
- An extra charge on an oGCD that can, if nothing else, be used for free damage in its opener... or allow for withholding charges for an additional length of downtime at lower damage loss

DRK:
- Two separate, consecutive traits to increase the potency of the same CD (literally the only reason not to combine them is just to fill an extra trait slot)
- A CD reduction for its gap-closer... triggered by a spell we avoid using unless literally no other option is available to us

Enhanced Unmend is the only EW tanking trait doesn't affect a rotational skill or defensive tool. Even arguing it as an effective potency buff on Unmend is marginal given how we're meant to avoid it, not look for opportunities to employ it.
It's a stretch to say any of the others got something as bad or worse.

(Buffs to on-demand avoided as not to create anti-synergy. New, separate defensive given instead.)

Even that is something they could have worked around -- like having a mitigation effect trigger when Dark Arts is gained, or adding a Drain effect when spending Dark Arts, or using self-healing as a substitution for additional mitigation, or (as you yourself have suggested before) just reducing the potency of the barrier outright while adding mitigation on top of it to reach an effectively equal (or marginally offset) potency.
The addition of a separate defensive measure as a "solution" just ends up further bloating our oGCD pool.

Now granting, part of it is the unique nature of TBN since its barrier effectively already is the "upfront" effect that they were trying to give other tanks with Endwalker, but we keep coming back to how they missed the other side of the equation, since they added so much additional sustain to the others after the "upfront" effects expired.

[Shurrikhan]

DRK:
- Two separate, consecutive traits to increase the potency of the same CD (literally the only reason not to combine them is just to fill an extra trait slot)

Two things, though:

First, the number of traits aren't nearly equal anyways, even if we consolidate them per the fact that some powers are split over multiple skills and thus multiple traits (self and external for PLD and WAR's on demands), etc. Something so significant as a complete lack of added sustain, then, is unlikely to be

Second, if there were somehow a trait count cap, this would be the more apt culprit. Much like Bard wouldn't need an Army's Paeon upgrade trait if Army's Paeon itself had just been designed to scale reasonably, Living Shadow wouldn't need additional traits if it just scaled with the rest of the kit (e.g., if the Living Shadow performed one of each attack you have before leaving). (The difference being only that XIV tooltips simultaneously treat us as incapable of intuition and yet leave out the occasional relevant detail, such that they'd sooner write a multi-paragraph tooltip like that of Living Dead or Army's Paeon than possibly reference a previously set variable.)

Even that is something they could have worked around -- like having a mitigation effect trigger when Dark Arts is gained

Right, but my point was that it's not as if it went uncompensated for. No one else gained a completely new defensive ability. That increase in power given by that new ability happened to be weaker than the increase in power given by others' traits, but that's nothing inherent to the form of that power increase.

The on-demand upgrade seemed a no-go, so they gave something else in its place. If there were no such issue, you'd see one more trait and one fewer abilities.



More simply put, though, one needn't point at something they got in order to protest what they haven't gotten, as per the earlier Enhanced Unmend one-liners, when the two are far from mutually exclusive. There's no set number of traits that can be acquired at a given level. There's no set number of traits or abilities across the whole level span. There's not even a set total value across traits or abilities separately. There's only, ideally, parity of kits as a whole.

[The_User]

And we wonder why DRK situation can't get better. Every other tank got an upgraded to make them stronger than DRK and someone will always say it ain't like that.


TBN is now the weakest short cd hand down. No body could use it more than 1 time per minute without losing dps. Having 10s recast longer than TBN doesn't force other tank to eat raw tank buster. DRK 15s recast is overrated.



Dark Mind only find it's meaning in a raid and despite that we can't always count on it either because it didn't work against every tank buster. We're so lucky to have physical attack as our achilles's heel.


Oblation small mitigation compared to a 60s recast didn't make much different and it almost always diminish to below 10% because how the layers of mitigation work. It even make weaving problem worse.



LD is now practically a glorify Holmgang with a longer recast. I guess it make sense to be grateful after the doctor finally agreed to remove a surgery tool that he leave in your stomach that make you life a living hell for 7 years. Surely praiseworthy! what a great cause for celebration!



Every expansion there are always someone who gonna tell you "It ain't that bad" What a life.

[Mesarthim]

Speaking of TBN and the raid roulette I just got, it reminded me of one thing.

TBN can be overwritten by another DRK. Even if the intentions were good you would be down 3000 MP and get nothing back. If you use yours first and the OT DRK uses their TBN on you then yours is gone, theirs gets broken, and you lost 3000 MP for nothing.

[shao32]

I just see DRK Traits problem is like most of them are pretty much basic potency ups that don't impact on his gameplay, in other words they don't feel like they add anything interesting compared what other jobs traits does, of the 7 unique traits the job have only 3 offers something gameplay wise and the rest are just potency ups + unmed meme trait that actually could push 1 plunge outside of burst bcs of it or just ignore it and keep everything under raid buffs wich make the trait a joke again.

DRK is bassically the Fluff knight and his traits are just another sign of DRK total lack of cohesion and felt like they didn't wanted to work on the job at all and put those generic non-changing gameplay skills/traits to add something bcs they have to.

[Archwizard]

First, the number of traits aren't nearly equal anyways, even if we consolidate them per the fact that some powers are split over multiple skills and thus multiple traits (self and external for PLD and WAR's on demands), etc.

If we're looking specifically at number of traits, no, they aren't equal, because some jobs get new actions instead, and some require traits just to facilitate new abilities.

But when it comes to upgrades overall for an expansion -- both traits and active effects -- there are patterns based on each given role: In this case, every tank and DPS job gets an upgrade every 2 levels (as is standard for an expansion, until some get trimmed or reorganized in the next or later), with tanks receiving an additional Melee Mastery trait at 84 to boost the potencies of their core rotation.
A consistency implemented during the expansion so each job experiences growth at the same points in the leveling process, MSQ and dungeon experience. The mindset behind why we get abilities through leveling at all, rather than at level 1 or at the start of the expansion.

Through that lens, the concept of a job getting consecutive upgrades to the same skill, a difference felt when synching for exactly one dungeon, really is just there to fill a gap in the leveling scheme.

[Marxam]

all the 3rd onslaught did was give WAR effectively an ogcd FC. Three onslaught = 450, one FC = 460. While the utility of having 3 could be useful tech option, there has yet to be an encounter where that could come into niche play and it will never come into play given how raid design is about the 1-2 min bursts alignment. Ultimately, that potency could have been put somewhere else and WAR would still function the same at the end.

With regards to TBN, I feel like they are too scared to push it further given how strong shields are in the endgame. It's why you don't see healer shield stacking. Honestly the enhanced unmend trait should have just been a trait to give TBN a 2nd charge or, remove the MP cost. I feel like the MP cost is the only thing holding back TBN. You have to pay to get a refund. That design hasn't existed since HW and SB, so why DRK has retained it is still baffling me but I guess that doesn't matter because its dmg go brrr.

[Shurrikhan]

A third charge of Onslaught is not an extra, let alone oGCD, of Fell Cleave damage. It's at most around 17 ppm, even with the most ideal setup of raid buffs.

An added charge does not increase the frequency of the ability. It solely allows a greater number of uses per raid cycle to be blown in that raid buff window. If a skill does 150 potency on a 30s CD, and one has only Chain and Litany, you're looking at less than 6 added potency per minute despite that making it now take, in this case, 90 seconds before one has access again to a mobility skill, up from 60.

[ItsUrBoi]

I'd really like for Dark Knight to have something interesting in its 1 minute and 2 minute burst. Since the job design has been more streamlined towards 1 or 2 minute burst windows, perhaps making those more interesting and fun then just spamming the same ability on repeat would be a good idea. The fact that you only do Hard Slash -> Syphon strike -> Souleater outside of your burst is also fairly disappointing. While I do not feel like current traits are bad, I really see not much point in arguing over them, instead here's what I'd really love for the job going forward.

->Bringing back Scourge as an AoE GCD DoT without any combo requirements that lasts for around 18 seconds would make you want to actively refresh it, even when not bursting.

->Living Shadow, while somewhat cool initially, kind of lost its flavor due to it not doing that much, you press it once every 2 minutes and forget about it. There are no interactions, absolutely nothing. Making it more complicated is not exactly what I am pointing towards but perhaps other "simple" mechanics for a tank job would be more engaging.
For example when using Living Shadow, you could gain the aura that you had back in HW [ see current effect of Grit, but it only lasts a couple of seconds ] and all of your GCD/oGCDs would deal more damage. That way you actively look out for it and it acts kind of like a No Mercy / Fight of Flight. Gives the player more agency and you kind of have to actually use other parts of your kit for it to work - instead of just pressing it and forgetting. The idea I feel like would be for it to act similar to Reaper's Enshroud, but instead of an avatar, you merge with Fray.

->Delirium should just be a special combo that you can use every 60 seconds. 5 actions all GCDs into one button. Plenty of older abilities that can be used ( ex: Old delirium, spinning slash ), or design newer ones where you slash at the enemy like a madman.

->The current bloodgauge should really not be a copy paste of Warrior's. Instead it could augment defensive actions, so that if you use used TBN with >25 blood, it heals you for 10% of your max HP. Or if you used Oblation, with >25 blood, it grants a heal over time. You generate blood when attacking with some abilities and from blood weapon. You should have a spender that just consumes it in case you reach the maximum value, which would heal you or a friend for some potency. Also another cool ability would be one which grants you blood whenever you get hit. Would help in conjunction with the new bloodgauge in sustaining yourself against more enemies.

Also one thing I forgot to mention which I see a lot of people pointing out is that the Darkside aura we have right now is barely noticeable. Would it really hurt if this job would get some more attention and love in the animation/effects area? Warrior's aura is very cool, and PLD got 3 new cool GCDs with a lot of care towards having at least an engaging rotation and more importantly fallowing and building on its class fantasy and design.