Dark Knight Megathread

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I can agree that ShB Delirious Inner Release is trash, of course.
Delirium in EW aught to either just be a MP restore again, like in SB, minus the issue of that version was too much MP, or.. I like the idea that Sazuzaki has, to make Delirium remove the MP cost of Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow, rather than bloody Delirious Inner Release and BloodSpiller/Quietus spam.

And I agree with the reduction of CDs. EW Abyssal Drain aught to have a 30sec CD, and a better single-target self-heal potential.

Salted Earth aught to just revert back its old superior power; 45sec CD and potency 75 ticks for 21 seconds, where-as the current is a 90sec CD and potency 60 ticks for 15 seconds...

As for EW Carve and Spit... more than a CD reduction, I would just love if the action was a actual Three-Fold attack [again: false memory, ignore.]... triple MP restoration and a potency of 1350, across three potency 450 hits, is what I would like to see Carve and Spit do.[why that action had taken the Lv60 slot, but now the skill is lousy and a corpse of its former glory...: false memory, ignore.]

And then, of course... Blood Weapon. EW Blood Weapon needs just one thing, a extension to the duration, but I would be more than fine with a CD reduction.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

As for EW Carve and Spit... more than a CD reduction, I would just love if the action was a actual Three-Fold attack again... The triple MP restoration and potency of 1350, across three potency 450 hits, is why that action had taken the Lv60 slot, but now the skill is lousy and a corpse of its glory days...

C&S has never been a 3-hit attack in the history of its existence. it's only ever done a single damage hit, the textbox is extremely misleading; it merely describes the animation, not how the attack actually functioned. go back and watch literally any DRK POV of HW & SB content to see; you only see a single damage tick. It never gave triple Mp ticks or 1350 potency.

In fact, C&S is literally the strongest its ever been in SHB.

In HW & SB, it was either a:
1) 100 potency attack that gave a bit of mana
2) 450 potency hit if enhanced with Dark Arts, but removed the MP effect.

Now in SHB, it straight up does 450 potency, costs 0 MP to get said potency, and gives MP. It's far from a corpse; it literally stands above every iteration that came before it in terms of effective power by taking all the good and leaving behind any downsides. Now whether you agree if the skill is interesting or not after it lost its DA interaction is a different story.

[Bhearil]

Remember that on Heavensward 450 potency atack was huge, now with the powercreep has become "not bad but there are things that hit much harder". Not mentioning that VIT giving as much atack as STR gave tanks their power peak compared to everyone else

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

C&S has never been a 3-hit attack in the history of its existence. it's only ever done a single damage hit, the textbox is extremely misleading; it merely describes the animation, not how the attack actually functioned. go back and watch literally any DRK POV of HW & SB content to see; you only see a single damage tick. It never gave triple Mp ticks or 1350 potency.

In fact, C&S is literally the strongest its ever been in SHB.

In HW & SB, it was either a:
1) 100 potency attack that gave a bit of mana
2) 450 potency hit if enhanced with Dark Arts, but removed the MP effect.

Now in SHB, it straight up does 450 potency, costs 0 MP to get said potency, and gives MP. It's far from a corpse; it literally stands above every iteration that came before it in terms of effective power by taking all the good and leaving behind any downsides. Now whether you agree if the skill is interesting or not after it lost its DA interaction is a different story.

Darn it... It has been 4 and a half years, already...So it will not surprise me if my memory betrays me, since I always had memory issues... ignore what I said and put it on a Wish-list, then. It would be great to see a Three-fold attack that is a actual triple-hit, rather than just to look like one and be a fake.

[bundythenoob]

1. What issue with Dark Knight do you have since 5.0?

2. Is there a viable solution to your problem? If so, write it down.

3. What did you like about previous iterations of Dark Knight?

4. How did DRK capture your interest while playing FFXIV?

I'll drop my 2 cents in here, despite the fact that the devs all but confirmed our 2 cents mean nothing, no matter how many piles of cents are gathered.


1. many glaring issues exist that have all been stated ad nauseum here, but I believe the strongest issue is the lack of interplay between the resources in the kit, which is what leads to the complaint about butchered job identity. after all, can you really call DRK the """resource management tank with active decision making""" when it can no longer do either of those things beyond giving some TBN?

as for my biggest PERSONAL gripe, it has to be with the abysmal leveling kit. I might be in the minority here, but I do a TON of synced content with friends, and never did I once complain in the past because the job was FUN and FUNCTIONAL from lv 15 to lv 70. Nowadays, the disjointed leveling kit makes DRK feel like it has no gameplay identity or impactful contribution below lv 80.
lv 50 DRK absolutely uncontested snore tier due to missing basically everything that makes DRK a DRK. lv 60 DRK is only barely above snore tier due to salted and abyssal drain (both which need a return to glory), and lv 70 DRK missing Dark Missionary as well as Stalwart Soul being relegated to lv 72 is UNACCEPTABLE, for both players who run Ultimates, as well as players who just like to do dailies with the homies.

2. there are many viable solutions given the current build, all of which I've been decrying about for the last 2 years.
for one, if BW was put on a 30s cooldown and make it unlock at the same time as Flood, we would be able to generate much more resource, as well as being able to learn to spend resource AT THE SAME TIME.
if stalwart, TBN, and missionary were moved to earlier lvls (maybe something like SS lv40, TBN lv45, DM lv68 respectively) the kit would have much more engaging for the newer players. lastly, if potencies need to be """reworked""" so that """tanks don't do so much damage""" why did they bother with that number crunch, as opposed to giving us MORE ACCESS TO OUR TOOLS MORE OFTEN?

3. what I loved about previous DRK was the ever satisfying gameplay loop of spending resource to empower abilities via Dark Arts.
I will forever love the animation, sound design, and the empowering feeling I got from knowing that if i DA'd that Dark Mind then my healer wouldnt have to worry about healing me, especially when I could empower souleater to do more damage (which increased the healing potency) or I could choose to spend mana on Abyssal Drain so that my healer could focus on whatever rotation they used to have (RIP).
I loved how the old kit had so much interplay between spending mana to gain blood, spending blood to gain DPS, spending mana to gain DPS, and spending blood to gain mana. the entire loop was so satisfying that I was able to grind 2 different characters to max cap DRK without being bored.

4. DRK caught my interest because I played back in ARR during 2.1, and as a PLD player I liked tanking but did not really enjoy the simplicity of PLD nor the aesthetic of WAR (but I did LOVE how WAR had that THICCCCC HP pool back then, which was a cool way of mitigating damage that was different from PLD's base def modifier) so when DRK came out and I picked it up, i sucked ass with it but kept going because it was ENGAGING to a tee, and the gameplay loop of resource building and resource spending while maintaining aggro, keeping cooldowns cycling, dodging aoes, all while making sure teammates didnt kill themselves by giving them a powerful shield, made DRK my go to job for any content. hell its the whole reason this alt exists!

[Ignimortis]

3. what I loved about previous DRK was the ever satisfying gameplay loop of spending resource to empower abilities via Dark Arts.
I will forever love the animation, sound design, and the empowering feeling I got from knowing that if i DA'd that Dark Mind then my healer wouldnt have to worry about healing me, especially when I could empower souleater to do more damage (which increased the healing potency) or I could choose to spend mana on Abyssal Drain so that my healer could focus on whatever rotation they used to have (RIP).
I loved how the old kit had so much interplay between spending mana to gain blood, spending blood to gain DPS, spending mana to gain DPS, and spending blood to gain mana. the entire loop was so satisfying that I was able to grind 2 different characters to max cap DRK without being bored.

This. I loved the fast pace and juggling Blood into MP into Blood again. I can still remember even dungeons being fun simply because of it — I'd pull the whole hallway between 1st and 2nd boss in Scalla and just survive by rotating BP+DA+AD into TBN+Quietus, mashing cooldowns, running out of AoEs constantly, all that stuff. Blood Weapon+Delirium for single target, almost 20 seconds of getting a 2.2 GCD, Dark Arts every second ability to spend all that MP I'm getting, the APM was awesome.

Right now I'm stuck with a 2.37 GCD (the highest I can go before it becomes actually uncomfortable is 2.4), can't actually die in a dungeon unless the healer falls asleep, and it's less of my responsibility to survive, and more of theirs to keep me alive while I'm basically DPS with more HP. Enmity is non-existent, mitigation in non-Savage content feels barely necessary outside of tankbusters, etc.

[Beddict]

Also gonna drop my full opinion even though I agree with Bundy and that the devs are set in their ways.

1. What issue with Dark Knight do you have since 5.0?

• Delirium being a copy/paste of Inner Release sucks and I don't find it interesting to spam one button for five GCDs.
• Blood Weapon is jank because it lasts for less than the stated 10s, making it difficult to get the full 5 GCDs in, a stark difference compared to Delirium which lasts for ~11s.
• The Job feels slower compared to previous iterations because of the lack of Haste on Blood Weapon now. Going fast is fun, that's why MNKs are a bunch of crack addicts hopped up on Grease Lightning. Going fast good, going slow bad.
• Living Dead is still terrible and kills the DRK when it fades. It requires significantly more Healer resources compared to the other Tanks, such that even if it's used to invuln during a Tank swap, the DRK still needs to get fully healed while the rest just don't care once they've moved into the OT position.

2. Is there a viable solution to your problem? If so, write it down.

Blood Weapon is the easiest to fix, give DRK a 10% Haste and adjust the duration so that a DRK can get an appropriate amount of GCDs in, possibly the same 3k MP and 50 Blood, whatever, the goal is to go fast. Additionally, merge Skill Speed and Spell Speed so DRK can get the appropriate amount of GCDs in during AoE situations as well. Feels real bad that our Spells don't get that sweet 3k MP and 50 Blood.

For Living Dead, remove the whole "heal to full or the DRK dies" garbage. It's a blackhole for Healer resources, just let it time out after 10s and the DRK becomes vulnerable again, I'd say it's longer cooldown keeps it balanced against Holmgang.

For Delirium, much harder to say. Pressing Delirium to spam Bloodspiller is boring as hell, but other, smarter players have highlighted the issue with SB Delirium and the sheer amount of excess resources it generated. I think it'd be neat to see something similar to Banner of Honored Sacrifice from Bozja, but the HP drain would be guaranteed to piss off Healers so that's a bad idea, even if it's thematically appropriate to past iterations of DRK in the franchise.

Maybe give Delirium the following:

• Grant 10% Haste and Damage Up
• Hard Slash, Syphon Strike, and Souleater generate +10 Blood
• Bloodspiller and Quietus generate +1,000 MP
• Delirium drains MP while active
• Lasts for a maximum of 15s, ends early if MP bottoms out

This would make Delirium similar to the old Darkside, draining MP but providing bonus damage that players want to dump their oGCDs into. Players can maintain Delirium through their combos by doing their 123 to generate more Blood and spending that Blood to regain MP. If used during Blood Weapon, players will obviously be getting even more Blood and MP, making it far more likely they stay in Delirium for the maximum duration, and the two Haste buffs will stack to grant the DRK 15% Haste. Proper resource management would be necessary, to make sure players have a good amount of MP and Blood banked before Delirium so it doesn't end early. It might not play nice with DRK as the main Tank though, because using TBN would mean a huge chunk of your MP gone, but a workable solution to that would be the Dark Arts effect allowing the usage of an Empowered Bloodspiller/Quietus that restores double or triple MP under Delirium. Either way, it checks the boxes of going fast, encouraging resource management, interplay between Blood and MP, and providing a burst phase to the DRK through the bonus damage.

Despite all that, SE would absolutely toss the above in the garbage bin, likely deeming it too complex for players, especially when players at a low skill level are sitting there with a 4s Delirium saying the skill sucks so it's likely on the very low end of what SE would consider viable, if at all. Anyways, I just know that spamming a single button is uninteresting and does not make for engaging gameplay to me.

3. What did you like about previous iterations of Dark Knight?

In the past, I liked the aforementioned Haste on Blood Weapon, I felt it made the Job more interesting, standing out as the "fast" Tank compared to PLD and WAR. Resource management was also more interesting, making use of both MP and Blood to great effect in AoE situations. Spend MP on TBN, it breaks and generates 50 Blood that's used on a Dark Arts Quietus to restore a hell of a lot of MP, the MP is used on Dark Arts Abyssal Drain to restore HP, Salted Earth generates even more Blood for another Quietus into another TBN, so on so forth. The interplay between MP and Blood worked, and that's now gone since TBN just refunds MP through a "free" Edge of Shadow and does nothing for your Blood. Resource management wasn't perfect though because of the shitloads of MP DRK had which led to the whole Dark Arts spam, but I feel like MP cost adjustments could've brought that in line rather than nuking the whole gameplay system from orbit. Rather than tossing the problem in the bin, ask why it is a problem and then work out a solution from there. Feels like SE just gave up and didn't want to problem solve.

4. How did DRK capture your interest while playing FFXIV?

Again, the aforementioned speed and resource management. The animations and the Job Story also drew me in, God knows you'll find people preaching about the Story everywhere you look. TBN was also incredibly enticing with the big shield it provided, but nowadays it almost feels like a crutch because of how good it is compared to Sheltron and Heart of Stone.

Anyways, that's my two cents on DRK. I loved it for the speed, the resource management, and how Blood and MP worked together. I'll have to see the full list of tooltips for DRK once the Media Tour drops, but I ain't holding my breath when it comes to Delirium since they reduced it to 60s, likely to keep it in line with Inner Release. My pessimism isn't good, but damn is it difficult to stay optimistic.

[Sazuzaki]

For Delirium, much harder to say. Pressing Delirium to spam Bloodspiller is boring as hell, but other, smarter players have highlighted the issue with SB Delirium and the sheer amount of excess resources it generated. I think it'd be neat to see something similar to Banner of Honored Sacrifice from Bozja, but the HP drain would be guaranteed to piss off Healers so that's a bad idea, even if it's thematically appropriate to past iterations of DRK in the franchise.

Damn I would love old Darkside to come back in the form of Delirium. The constant MP management would be so much fun.

[Shurrikhan]

Damn I would love old Darkside to come back in the form of Delirium. The constant MP management would be so much fun.

While I enjoyed (the general idea behind) those MP management aspects, wouldn't this roughly amount to the old Riddle of Fire controversy? You'd essentially be reducing apm, through MP-spender casts, in favor of a flat damage buff into which all your oGCDs bankable to every n seconds (Darkside's cooldown) must be fit. The only "fun" part, so far as I can guess would be to not bottom out early on MP despite trying to maximize damage buff multiplicity alongside raid buffs.

On paper, that's... cool(?), I guess. But in practice? MP no longer equates to our capacity to deal any AoE whatsoever (or significant self-healing or full-value mitigation, etc.) and we no longer have the Darkside toggle to actually play around that mechanic over downtime. As a burst CD alone, would it even really remain "MP management"?

[Sazuzaki]

While I enjoyed (the general idea behind) those MP management aspects, wouldn't this roughly amount to the old Riddle of Fire controversy? You'd essentially be reducing apm, through MP-spender casts, in favor of a flat damage buff into which all your oGCDs bankable to every n seconds (Darkside's cooldown) must be fit. The only "fun" part, so far as I can guess would be to not bottom out early on MP despite trying to maximize damage buff multiplicity alongside raid buffs.

On paper, that's... cool(?), I guess. But in practice? MP no longer equates to our capacity to deal any AoE whatsoever (or significant self-healing or full-value mitigation, etc.) and we no longer have the Darkside toggle to actually play around that mechanic over downtime. As a burst CD alone, would it even really remain "MP management"?

Oh yeah, I was just imagining it in game and how much I would personally enjoy it. Of course, it would require some sort of revamp of the entire kit (which again, I would love but the job doesn't need another rework atm) so I don't think we'll ever really see it again. One can dream though.