Dark Knight Megathread

[shao32]

And that's a valid concern to have. However, I remind you that fun is subjective, and devs (as creators) innately have a biased understanding of what others find enjoyable to play in their game.

And even when they agree that gameplay X is fun, they may not believe that it is a healthy position for the job or a direction they want to undertake for the future. For instance, they will probably get around to nerfing WAR because by the same merits, being OP is "fun" but unsustainable.

Yes, they removed several actions from DRK, but A) they wanted to take the job into a new direction with the introduction of/focus on TBN and B) given the sheer number of actions they removed according to the compilation video, clearly they realized they had bloated it with way too many buttons and sought both to streamline and future-proof it. I will grant that it's plausible they trimmed too much off in favor of TBN, but at this point several of the actions removed are incompatible with the current system anyway.

And frankly, as a Stormblood-baby, I cannot tell you if there were flaws of the HW DRK that might have pressed such decisions, or whether its praise is tinted in shades of rose. All I can say is I've heard mixed reviews about the old Dark Arts system, despite how often people seem to beg for its return when talking about what the job "lost".

From my experience with this game and the dev team i have to arge about the "direction" of the job. For example, there was a time the dev team consider that Bard and the new ranged job Machinist should become casters, Bard was one of the most "popular" jobs of the expansion in HW if we judge his usage across the game but that didn't stop getting a wave after wave of complains about his gameplay and they change they mind and make the Ranged role the one we know today based on that, even Bard get changed when they lose they party support gameplay from SB and they finally bring it back as players request, something that doesn't seems to work for DRK and his mechanics for some reason despite of all this years complaining about it.
They has made several reworks/simplifications of mechanics and several adjustments on many skills across the years on many many jobs, but DRK seems to be a special case, why? bcs at contrary that jobs like DRG who get his blood of dragon mechanic simplified and adapted better so the player could manage better the new skills and mechanics on top of it or just have less annoyances like when wheeling thrust and fang and claw proc use to be totally rng when you get one DRK just only saw his mechanics complety removed or destroyed to have "mechanics" that have zero playability like current Darkside or living shadow.

From the original DRK back on HW only the parry mechanics aka the procs of low blow and reprisal and the tank stance was an inconvenient to the current direction of the game, things like Scourge, combo finisher Delirium, Dark arts, SB Delirium, original Abyssal drain, Reprisal and a large ect never has represented a problem for the current state of the game but we still see them removed or painfully degraded to an almost useless state for no reason.

There is no direction of the job, i can't say what cross they minds but i can judge they work and DRK screams no only a total lack of direction but total negligence and care from them, compared to other jobs DRK is totally forgothen for them and considering the huge amount of time the job has only seen degradation of his mechanics and his very esence without nothing to replace it to justify such actions just easily make any person belive that they don't have any real consideration for the job and the players who play it.
I will point i won't say such a thing so lightly in normal circustances but DRK has seen years and years of Devs behavior against the job.

So with all respect of course i will disagree on any statement to point that the Devs care about the job, i leveled many jobs and i follow they evolution across the expansions and at contrary that jobs that have been changed in a way on an other with a direction on mind DRK changes it's really clear that hasn't been made bcs they have a purpose on them more than "they complain about it? remove it then and don't bother to add anything interesting either to replace it, in fact just copy paste inner release", there is nothing that justified living dead stay what it is, neither Abyssal drain, the copy paste of Inner release or the 2 lazy traits of living shadow and unmend trait too.
In a game where every job get traits the same way i would accept it partially and call it a day but in a game where only DRK suffer such things and how they keep ignoring our request and do nothing about it just feed my opinion about they don't care at all about the job nor even work for make us happy with it, just dealt with it and keep working on the jobs they like it more, it's clear they have devotion for the game and want they customers enjoy it as much as we want but that devotion cleary doesn't apply on DRK at all and im still waiting for them to prove me wrong.

sorry for the biblic post ^^

[Anhra]

I wouldn't say that DRK having Spells is a bad thing, it is just that they lack any impact and dont do anything meaningful aside from doing damage, just like many more Skills/Abilities in this Game.

But i am pretty much done giving the same feedback over and over again. If the only way to improve Jobs is by not playing them, then so shall it be.

[Atreides]

I mean most complains come from DRK in casual content. We all know they do suffer there compared to the other tanks and this needs to be adressed. I think that is where most people agree.
Some take it so far to say that DRK is in a bad spot in general, which is not entirely true. DRK does really well in raids TBN is as strong as ever because the shield is huge. Living dead is suffering and inferior to the other tank invulns, always has been and needs a change, like if you die let Fray take your spot, standing on the spot you would've died and take the hits for you, class fantasy saved.

[Malthir]

I mean most complains come from DRK in casual content. We all know they do suffer there compared to the other tanks and this needs to be adressed. I think that is where most people agree.
Some take it so far to say that DRK is in a bad spot in general, which is not entirely true. DRK does really well in raids TBN is as strong as ever because the shield is huge. Living dead is suffering and inferior to the other tank invulns, always has been and needs a change.

While that could possibly be true, the vast majority of the players are doing the casual content. It's dangerous territory to ignore the vast amount of the community for the sake of the minority that are pushing for World first etc

[Anhra]

Exactly this!

No dev wastes time, money and resources making a job they hate and just want to demolish, much less make it a posterboy for an expansion and add a new job to the same role in that time.

At worst, they think their experiments with the job have been successful; feel free to dispel those notions as they come with actionable feedback. Even if they wouldn't revert an expansion's worth of changes, you can still offer suggestions on how to build on or adjust what they have.

But they wouldn't try to make it worse. That would actually be a waste of their time.

It is funny that you mention this, because in ShB, DRK got, despite being the Posterboy, completely outshined by GNB which was not only a new Tank to the Rooster, but also advertised in a very flashy way by Tankred in the Trailer.

And to add Salt (and Darkness) to injury, Reaper also feels like at least half of its Toolkit was suppoest to be in the dreamed DRK rework everyone was hoping for, only for Squeenix to change their mind by thinking "these new Skills are so good, we might as well make it a new Job!", and lo and behold, Reaper was born, from a DRK corpse who failed his Living Dead.

[Kalaam]

Honestly, speedrunners opinions shouldn't be listened to too much. A job can be broken, they'll say it's fine if it's DPS is the highest.

[Oizen]

Honestly, speedrunners opinions shouldn't be listened to too much. A job can be broken, they'll say it's fine if it's DPS is the highest.

It be fine if that was the direction they wanted to go for DRK, design it to be the high risk damage tank. And I'd be fine with it if that was the clear direction they wanted to design towards.
But the problem I'm seeing is DRK being highest damage isn't intended, hell I doubt it was even something they considered. Its a fluke and feels like a byproduct of the class having what...10 different oGCD skills that aren't even related to its central mechanics? I feel like we just accidentially hit a critical mass of "how many ogcds can a job have before its damage is the best", and not some brilliant design effort.

It really feels like an accident and not some decision or guiding direction for the job. Otherwise...why does the high damage tank have an invul linked to healing when we have the self heal tank who just has one that doesn't let its health drop to 0 on a lower cooldown to boot? (and no i am not saying give living dead to WAR I wouldn't wish that on anyone). And why does it have two buffs specifically for blocking magic damage? Whats that got to do with big number or job functionality?

[AziraSyuren]

Honestly, speedrunners opinions shouldn't be listened to too much. A job can be broken, they'll say it's fine if it's DPS is the highest.

Speedrunners complain plenty about how jobs play. What are you on about? Shit job design affects them more than anyone because they're the ones pushing jobs as far as they can go.

[Danelo]

I mean most complains come from DRK in casual content. We all know they do suffer there compared to the other tanks and this needs to be adressed. I think that is where most people agree.
Some take it so far to say that DRK is in a bad spot in general, which is not entirely true. DRK does really well in raids TBN is as strong as ever because the shield is huge. Living dead is suffering and inferior to the other tank invulns, always has been and needs a change, like if you die let Fray take your spot, standing on the spot you would've died and take the hits for you, class fantasy saved.

Totally agree if we are just talking about viability. The biggest problem is wall to wall in dungeons, right? Unlink c&s from AD. Make AD a gcd with a mana cost and done. That doesn’t make them a sustain tank bcs it does nothing for single target. And as so many have said dungeons aren’t real content - there opinions, not mine.

Hell, you might even be able to cleanse walking dead like this.

[RatCopter]

Nothing I said inferred the devs are acting out of malice, or that I was expecting a full rework when they've just gone through hell trying to get these severs going, or any other kind of "crying".
All I said was I hope they don't keep kicking the can down the road, because the only thing they have said up to this point in reference to DRK is "no, we're not changing things" and "we didn't see any problems or complaints with this skill"

If we've been told anything different, I haven't heard it. I'm sick of waiting.