Dark Knight Megathread

[Runeslayer]

I think that if you're going to take issue with a job's core gameplay loop, then you are obliged to be specific in your feedback. Turning Dark Mind into Rampart isn't going to put 'spice' into DRK. Reducing the acquisition level of Dark Missionary isn't going to give it a defining identity. The reason why complaints like yours are an actual problem is that if the dev team actually decides that the job needs to be reworked but have no useful player feedback on how to do so, we could end up in an even worse state than Stormblood. It's like playing roulette with the job. If you don't know what you want for dinner, stick with the set menu.

Alright, since you're clearly not getting it I'll *try* and spell it out clearly one last time. You continuously think my suggestions are in in regards to reworking DRK, but this is untrue. These are changes I think dark knight should receive before I speak AT ALL about what I'd like to see reworked. Why? Because when that discussion does come up, it's free of the remaining jank DRK currently has, we can set it aside as non factors. What I suggested are supposed to be non-contentious nitpicks of the job that pretty much everyone can get behind; dark mind being the only thing that people will be split on, but I feel there is an alternative with letting it be powerful, unique, and more consistent than it's current iteration after some discussion and brainstorming-- again, I am saving rework discussion for when I actually have ideas, for now I would LIKE to at least have the game inform me what is and isn't magic damage so I'm not throwing caution to the wind on whether or not Dark mind will be effective or useless.

All I KNOW right now is I am not satisfied with the way DRK is now, the core rotation doesn't feel great, I don't feel rewarded for playing 'correctly', and I'm not very motivated to optimize my rotation or get better by the classes own merit. Judging by the likes and lack of rebuttal from that post of mine, it seems it's quite a cold take.

[Lyth]

...

You said it yourself. You're unable to articulate what exactly it is that you dislike about the job's gameplay loop. And that's perfectly fine. But if most of the feedback we're providing is 'I don't like this job', then you can't really complain when the devs start ripping out core job features to try to make people happy. Maybe they decide that you don't enjoy the oGCDs, and they just remove Edge and Flood, and turn Darkside into a Storm's Eye combo. And then you come back in complaining about how the job 'feels bad' to play and is constantly being simplified. I don't want to see that happen here.

[RyuDragnier]

You said it yourself. You're unable to articulate what exactly it is that you dislike about the job's gameplay loop. And that's perfectly fine. But if most of the feedback we're providing is 'I don't like this job', then you can't really complain when the devs start ripping out core job features to try to make people happy. Maybe they decide that you don't enjoy the oGCDs, and they just remove Edge and Flood, and turn Darkside into a Storm's Eye combo. And then you come back in complaining about how the job 'feels bad' to play and is constantly being simplified. I don't want to see that happen here.

The problem with the job is that it's too simple...you're spamming a single combo, using Blood moves when ready, and spamming Edge/Flood when you don't need TBN. That's it. There's no complexity, no synergy with the system at all, there's nothing that makes the big hits feel weighty (compared to WAR's Fell Cleaves) or makes it feel like you're actually having to micromanage a bit (PLD, GNB, and even WAR have more complexity). Adding a second GCD combo alone would at least add a little complexity. Making us have to worry about our Darkside timer is another thing that would add some complexity and make it feel like you're actually having to manage multiple things. The vast majority of the oGCDs wouldn't even need to get touched much. The problem with DRK is easy to understand...what's hard is coming up with a solution because there's so many paths you can take the job down to make it better.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem with the job is that it's too simple...you're spamming a single combo, using Blood moves when ready, and spamming Edge/Flood when you don't need TBN. That's it. There's no complexity, no synergy with the system at all, there's nothing that makes the big hits feel weighty (compared to WAR's Fell Cleaves) or makes it feel like you're actually having to micromanage a bit (PLD, GNB, and even WAR have more complexity). Adding a second GCD combo alone would at least add a little complexity. Making us have to worry about our Darkside timer is another thing that would add some complexity and make it feel like you're actually having to manage multiple things. The vast majority of the oGCDs wouldn't even need to get touched much. The problem with DRK is easy to understand...what's hard is coming up with a solution because there's so many paths you can take the job down to make it better.

Indeed.

"Here's a solid enough base, I guess? But we have no ****ing idea what to do with it."

Almost anything could feasibly work, but the hurdle seems huge because those ideas would also have to come up with an anchoring identity / cohesive thread, as the base supplies none.

[Archwizard]

The problem with the job is that it's too simple...

That's part of it from an attack perspective, anyway.

Simultaneously, you have the element that its mitigation style is more difficult than other jobs.
Dark Mind/Missionary have specific use cases, Living Dead still retains the highest demands of any invuln skill, Oblation is an extra oGCD we have to weave on top of TBN for partial value compared to what other tanks get out of their 25s CDs in one click now, and our only healing cooldown is a damage loss to us in single-target (on top of only being a fraction as potent as contemporaries available to other tanks).
This is to say nothing of the intricacies of TBN itself having potential for damage loss, comparing other tanks' on-demands, or how late it (much like GNB) gets many survival tools within the leveling process.

So you have the seeming paradox of the job having the least complicated attack rotation, and perhaps the one with the hardest time surviving at almost every level of content (aside from perhaps synched ShB content), which is arguably more important for a tank. Not incapable of performing the duties of a tank, just... harder on them.
It culminates in taking on a lot of risk, all for the reward of... doing slightly more damage than other tanks during your opener at 90 with an absolutely boring attack combo.

Granted, the damage makes it very attractive from a raiding perspective, but take that singular element away and you have the least attractive tank available.

[RyuDragnier]

So you have the seeming paradox of the job having the least complicated attack rotation, and perhaps the one with the hardest time surviving at almost every level of content (aside from perhaps synched ShB content), which is arguably more important for a tank. Not incapable of performing the duties of a tank, just... harder on them.
It culminates in taking on a lot of risk, all for the reward of... doing slightly more damage than other tanks during your opener at 90 with an absolutely boring attack combo.

Granted, the damage makes it very attractive from a raiding perspective, but take that singular element away and you have the least attractive tank available.

The funniest part is that the sustain portion can easily be fixed with few changes that don't really change the kit a whole lot. An HoT on Oblation, Dark Mind mitigating 10% of physical damage as well (so it's usable in all situations), maybe cure potency on use of Bloodspiller/Quietus...there's so little the devs have to actually do to fix DRK's ability to survive and bring it on par with other tanks.

[CasterSvarog]

The funniest part is that the sustain portion can easily be fixed with few changes that don't really change the kit a whole lot. An HoT on Oblation, Dark Mind mitigating 10% of physical damage as well (so it's usable in all situations), maybe cure potency on use of Bloodspiller/Quietus...there's so little the devs have to actually do to fix DRK's ability to survive and bring it on par with other tanks.

Or heck, they could bring back older actions like Shadowskin and Sole survivor for the ARR/HW levels. Those levels could certainly use something to help with tanking until you get TBN at level 70.

[Lyth]

The problem with the job is that it's too simple...you're spamming a single combo, using Blood moves when ready, and spamming Edge/Flood when you don't need TBN. That's it. There's no complexity, no synergy with the system at all, there's nothing that makes the big hits feel weighty (compared to WAR's Fell Cleaves) or makes it feel like you're actually having to micromanage a bit (PLD, GNB, and even WAR have more complexity). Adding a second GCD combo alone would at least add a little complexity. Making us have to worry about our Darkside timer is another thing that would add some complexity and make it feel like you're actually having to manage multiple things. The vast majority of the oGCDs wouldn't even need to get touched much. The problem with DRK is easy to understand...what's hard is coming up with a solution because there's so many paths you can take the job down to make it better.

I think that the discussion around DRK's GCDs is reasonable. As I said earlier, we have 4 single target and 3 AoE GCDs. Pretty much all of the action happens through oGCDs. I think that it's reasonable to want a second combo, but if you're introducing it at Lv. 100 it should be something more impactful and more interesting than the standard maintenance combo that most jobs copy paste over at Lv.50.

Complexity and synergy are buzzwords that people throw out there frequently but don't carry any meaning. When you talk about the 'weight' behind hits, that's by and large a hitstop effect - WAR's fell cleave looks more impactful than Bloodspiller, which is why it feels more satisfying to use. Decimate doesn't, which is why Quietus is on a more level playing field. Pretty much all of RPR's animations use varying degrees of hitstop, which is one of the reasons why the job is still overwhelmingly popular despite not being FoTM. I think they realize this and we'll start seeing a lot more moves designed with hitstop in mind.

Pretty much every iteration of DRK has by and large been about unloading a swathe of oGCDs under burst. Part of the reason why Salted Earth is sitting at an odd 90s is just because they don't want to overload you with oGCDs. It's actually easy to make it even more oGCD intensive, all you need to do is increase the rate of MP generation and reduce the potency of Edge/Flood accordingly. But I don't think that would make the gameplay more fun. There are also limitations on how much you can add to the resource management part of the job without simply adding more resource bars. You can only have one on-demand action per resource (for single target and AoE). You can sort of work around this by doing something with the 'Dark Arts' gauge as I suggested with making a second resource-gated combo, but all that does is move DRK into being a three resource system job. Exchanging resources (MP for Blood) is a nice idea, but all this actually does is surreptitiously increase the rate of resource generation, which just translates into more Edge/Bloodspiller spam.

In short, none of this is really new ground as far as discussions go, but most of the changes that you could make would change the job less than you might think. I think a second combo could be really fun, given our paucity of oGCDs. If you did that in 7.x, you'd probably have to spend most if not all of our three new expansion actions to do so (two for single target, one more for AoE unless you pushed that back to 8.x). If you were going to do that, it had better something more interesting than Eye or Goring. It'll of course have hitstop. I think the best way to do it is to actually use Dark Arts as a third resource.

[Archwizard]

Complexity and synergy are buzzwords that people throw out there frequently but don't carry any meaning.

Honestly, this just feels like a really cynical commentary about the community (which I think you should dial back because it's peeking out), because those two words... literally do have meaning, provided someone can back them up.

If I said right now, "just have Dark Mind boost your healing gained by some percent and it'll be fine," your response would be that DRK doesn't have enough self-healing to justify that change in direction. That's a discussion about whether things have value within or even directly interfere with other elements of a kit. If I said synergy was "just a buzzword" in just a response I'd be laughed out of the thread.

Likewise, if I said right now, "I have to weave 3 different cooldowns for DRK to get the same protection and sustained survival that a PLD can get just tapping Holy Sheltron," there's a discussion of reward versus gameplay depth and skill ceiling that should be had.

As for "weight", if a skill has a hitstop effect and a flashy animation but still only doles out 150-200p damage (coughAssassinatecough), there's a problem with the actual potency of the effect not justifying its visual performance.
More commonly though, I see this being used when discussing abilities that are culminations of long periods of sustained attack, particularly back when SMN had a two minute rotation just to get to Bahamut back in Stormblood.

[Runeslayer]

You said it yourself. You're unable to articulate what exactly it is that you dislike about the job's gameplay loop. And that's perfectly fine. But if most of the feedback we're providing is 'I don't like this job', then you can't really complain when the devs start ripping out core job features to try to make people happy. Maybe they decide that you don't enjoy the oGCDs, and they just remove Edge and Flood, and turn Darkside into a Storm's Eye combo. And then you come back in complaining about how the job 'feels bad' to play and is constantly being simplified. I don't want to see that happen here.

Unable? No, I simply am not giving feedback in regards to the core rotation of DRK because that is NOT what I am focused on. What I AM focused on are the nitpicks which should have obvious solutions (bring the level range of dark missionary down with heart of light so it's usable in older expac content, change AoEs to weaponskills so skill speed can include them), which have not all been completely ironed out. I am of the mind that those should come first before I sit down and say 'ok, DRK is in such a spot where I can consider in depth exactly what my pain points are with it's overall kit and what I can try to do to fix them to be both engaging and viable', which would take a good amount of brainstorming to get to an agreeable state for most; in the meantime, you have plenty of very interesting suggestions from others in this very thread.

There are very likely not going to be major changes to the job until 6.2 at least, but realistically we likely won't see a rework until 7.0. So why not push for these minor pain points in between where they are far more likely to happen?

You keep thinking my complaints on the core kit are all I'm willing to say of the job from here and expecting the devs to do something with it as if it was meant to be constructive: I am not, I am simply stating my feelings in general. When I DO want to offer suggestions, I will state as such.

But I've indulged you long enough on this matter, you remain convinced I am doing one thing when I am actually doing something else.