Dark Knight Megathread

[Zedrin]

Hey ya'll, first time posting on the forums. Figured I'd check out here since I heard this was the best way to try and get devs to notice feedback.

I wanted to pitch a little idea for Living Dead as a rework that I think would preserve the spirit of it while making it less clunky.

My idea: When you activate it, you briefly become immune to all damage for the usual duration. After a certain time period, all the damage you took during that time period, up to a cap (maybe 2-3x your total health?), will be dealt to you as an over-time effect in the form of a debuff. This would spread out the damage, but wouldn't kill you immediately. So, it would still force healers to heal you back up quickly, as before, but there would be a lot more lenience on this. It wouldn't insta-kill you for not getting up to max health, and potentially could work with The Blackest Night too.

[WhyAmIHere]

RE: Living Dead

I dont know why they don't just make LD function like super/holm. Reduce HP to 1, for 10s your HP cannot be reduced lower than 1. No death penalty, and it wouldn't be a mirror copy of either other invuln/immunity skill. Plus it'd still fit in with one aspect of DRK's flavour: paying [HP] (or in this case for 14 as a tank, resource) to use [action].

RE: Sustain

Seems simple enough, as I can think of two options.
A) Add a life steal additional effect to Salted Earth / Salt and Darkness.
B) Reintroduce an AoE version of Sole Survivor. 35s recast, 15s duration, enemies marked restore a portion of damage dealt as HP.

I know, I know, "not another 'what I want from DRK'" idea. I'd just want to keep voicing my dissatisfaction with how the dev team did DRK this expansion. I've already sworn off even leveling it until it's addressed by the dev team, but man seeing my favorite tank being left by the wayside, and the sheer enjoyment I'm having with RPR and making comparisons with RPR and a sentiment of "wow I wish DRK was like this!" is getting grating.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

RE: Living Dead

I dont know why they don't just make LD function like super/holm. Reduce HP to 1, for 10s your HP cannot be reduced lower than 1. No death penalty, and it wouldn't be a mirror copy of either other invuln/immunity skill. Plus it'd still fit in with one aspect of DRK's flavour: paying [HP] (or in this case for 14 as a tank, resource) to use [action].

RE: Sustain

Seems simple enough, as I can think of two options.
A) Add a life steal additional effect to Salted Earth / Salt and Darkness.
B) Reintroduce an AoE version of Sole Survivor. 35s recast, 15s duration, enemies marked restore a portion of damage dealt as HP.

I know, I know, "not another 'what I want from DRK'" idea. I'd just want to keep voicing my dissatisfaction with how the dev team did DRK this expansion. I've already sworn off even leveling it until it's addressed by the dev team, but man seeing my favorite tank being left by the wayside, and the sheer enjoyment I'm having with RPR and making comparisons with RPR and a sentiment of "wow I wish DRK was like this!" is getting grating.

Totally agree, LD is a joke, it's the one skill in the game I have to have a macro for because I HAVE to let the healer know I'm using it or I'm boned.

It's why I quit DNK and just play paladin only when I'm forced to tank for roulete bonuses if healing isn't up.

[Zedrin]

RE: Living Dead

I dont know why they don't just make LD function like super/holm. Reduce HP to 1, for 10s your HP cannot be reduced lower than 1. No death penalty, and it wouldn't be a mirror copy of either other invuln/immunity skill. Plus it'd still fit in with one aspect of DRK's flavour: paying [HP] (or in this case for 14 as a tank, resource) to use [action].

Wouldn't that just be making it a clone of Holm, though? I guess the HP sacrifice would make it very slightly different and maybe justify a slightly shorter cooldown, but it feels like it'd be super similar.

Though tbh as is it kinda already is like a frame-perfect holm if properly coordinated, it just has some added unnecessary stipulations.

I just proposed the changes as a means to make it feel thematically similar to how it is now, while also removing the clunkiness. If you have a DoT on you instead of the 'Doom'-like effect, healers will more readily notice the missing HP. Plus, it's not instant death for not being brought up to full--and becomes something barriers can actually deal with it, unlike with the current LD.

[WhyAmIHere]

Wouldn't that just be making it a clone of Holm, though? I guess the HP sacrifice would make it very slightly different and maybe justify a slightly shorter cooldown, but it feels like it'd be super similar.

Though tbh as is it kinda already is like a frame-perfect holm if properly coordinated, it just has some added unnecessary stipulations.

I just proposed the changes as a means to make it feel thematically similar to how it is now, while also removing the clunkiness. If you have a DoT on you instead of the 'Doom'-like effect, healers will more readily notice the missing HP. Plus, it's not instant death for not being brought up to full--and becomes something barriers can actually deal with it, unlike with the current LD.

Living/Walking Dead and Holmgang already are similar, in that they both prevent your HP from being reduced below 1. It's just that now all but LD last a full 10 seconds, whereas LD is up to 10(-ish) seconds.

I'm still a sucker for a Bravely Default (as it's my most recent memory) style iteration of Dark Knight. Heavy Damage, but with a cost. Which was kinda what DRK used to be, albeit in 14's own unique way. Since as a tank, and in an MMO, having to expend HP as a resource to perform abilities is a flat out bad idea, MP was used in lieu. If I could draft up a DRK job to my own liking, I'd still lean in to that ethos, but take what already exists in the game to do so.

Blackblood would have more interaction with MP, and MP would have interactions with Blackblood. There'd be skills that allow a conversion of one to the other, and mass expenditures of one (or both cuz I'd still love to see a capstone skill in Minus Strike) for a massive payoff. TBN would have to be included because of how baked in to the job quests/class lore it is. So, let's lean in to that aspect some more. Introduce a weaker shield earlier on, and have it evolve into TBN at 70; or have TBN evolve somewhere in the 72-90 range. Bring back Scourge. IDK.

It just feels like, seems like, or comes off as, that SE is flat out afraid of DRK design. HW was a fun mess IMO, and rewarded skillful play. SB tried to shake things up and make it easier to play, but they went overboard and made it too annoying to play to the community at large. (DA spam memes.) ShB was in response to that, and DRK was just even further gutted (which, btw, every expansion except for EW seems to have just gutted more and more from DRK's kit) to the point where it became a knockoff Great Value Discounted version of WAR. EW they didn't even really make any attempts to address any of the feedback from the community, because as I'll wager by and large folks were okay with what ShB did. It was more accessible to play, less punishing to new players, and straightforward enough that there wasn't too much complexity to make it intimidating to people. And frankly, I'm kind of okay with that mentality. Change isn't inherently good or bad, I just disagree with the direction ShB took with the class, but I suck it up and moved on to a more enjoyable to me tank, GNB. I like complexity, I enjoy a frenetic pace of play, I prefer resource management instead of timer loops.

But whether it's due to negligence or disinterest, or ignorance or vaingloriousness, that's not up to me to declare. All I know is that DRK was okay enough in ShB, and it was okay because the silent majority were okay with it. Now in EW, and due to all the changes they've made to it leading up to EW, and in response to those changes and lack thereof, now DRK is lagging behind the other tanks in all but one area, the metric that ""mAtTeRs MoSt,"" it does a lotta damage. But hey! If that's all someone cares about? More power to them, I'm not gonna tell someone how to enjoy themselves, or that they're enjoying something wrong / enjoying the wrong thing. That's callous as all hell. But I also won't be satisfied with stagnancy due to developer apprehension or disinterest, or a lack of understanding in what the community, specifically tanks, are asking for. There's obviously a clear break in the communication due to the language barriers inherent in this game, but there's also a disconnect from the developers and the players by and large. (E.G. Ninja having one rotation set out by the developers, and the community making a better one; Xeno's interview with YoshiP and him bringing up Living Dead straight to Yoshida's face; presently MNK and the community finding a way to fit Blitz into a 2 minute burst window consistently, despite the developers stating that they didn't want that to happen.)

I didn't mean for this reply to go on like this, but it is what it is.

[Flay_wind]

LD is trash. So, doing 1st EX. My co-tank is dead somehow. There's a tankbuster. I take the hit, pop LD, co-tank is rezzed and Provokes. Everything should be fine. But i am at 95% instead of 100% and just die.
Tbh, there are so many things that could be done about Living Dead and yet nothing got changed. Like add bonus healing received while under Walking Dead status, reduce needed healing to 50-70%, extend the duration of Walking Dead grace healing period to 15 seconds, but leave "can't be recuded below 1 hp" the same 10 seconds, or here's a novel idea: make it so it does not kill you in the first place.

[SakuraHadoken]

LD is trash. So, doing 1st EX. My co-tank is dead somehow. There's a tankbuster. I take the hit, pop LD, co-tank is rezzed and Provokes. Everything should be fine. But i am at 95% instead of 100% and just die.
Tbh, there are so many things that could be done about Living Dead and yet nothing got changed. Like add bonus healing received while under Walking Dead status, reduce needed healing to 50-70%, extend the duration of Walking Dead grace healing period to 15 seconds, but leave "can't be recuded below 1 hp" the same 10 seconds, or here's a novel idea: make it so it does not kill you in the first place.

I agree with that it would make so much more since to have something like this on the skill if they don't want to change the whole skill itself. I want to at least be able to have more control over the situation so I don't die by the walking dead debuff if enough healing isn't done within the timeframe. Or something as simple as having something in our kit that makes Souleater's healing potency higher since from what we have seen so far they're scared to give Drk more ways to heal itself. I hope I'm wrong but anyways it would just be such amazing quality of life if they really don't want to touch Living dead.

[Kalaam]

Making it a mix of superbolide and holmgang is pretty terrible though.
Superbolide's makes you invulnerable at the cost of dropping to 1hp
Holmgang doesn't make you invulnerable but you cannot go below 1hp.
Mixing both is like taking the negative side of the two lol

Since DRK seems meant to be "the shield tank" maybe doing an invuln' related to Shields could be interresting. Like converting all healing received to shields equal to 130% (random number) of the initial heal upon proccing Walking Dead. At the end of the effect you can receive actual healing again and the shield stays for like...10 more seconds ? Or it is converted into a heal (like 60% of remaining shield converted to health) ?

[Bhearil]

The ironic thing is that DRK damage is BARELY superior to GNB to the point that you could switch to GNB deal almost the same damage and having a better, more solid kit (sadly not that hard considering the mess DRK is right now)

[Sazuzaki]

I still don't get why they just didn't make Abyssal Drain back into an MP spender GCD if they wanted to reduce button bloat... Like, WAR has basically a better Abyssal Drain with a 400 cure potency on a 25 second CD, meanwhile DRK has a 200 cure potency on a 60 second CD??? Just makes no sense. You're gonna be spamming FoS for a DPS gain anyway, so Abyssal Drain being changed to a 3k mana cost GCD would just do the job wonders, since it's only used in emergency situations.