Dark Knight Megathread

[LoadedVirus]

I was thinking how bad it feels when you use TBN and it doesn't break (be it a healer shielded you, the mob didn't feel like attacking ect) so why not do this.

Night's Embrace: Heals target for the amount remaining on the barrier.

That would give the Dark Knight some much needed sustain while also allowing to heal others and makes TBN not breaking not feel as horrible.

[Shin96]

I would also like them to utilize Abyssal Drain more. I feel there is more that can be done with that.

[Kalaam]

There is also a third option.
HP becomes a resource for an attack on charges, but MP skills replenish your HP. Essentially the same A to C path, but routed through B -- the extra step giving you some flexibility in your tanking style.

It creates a possibility for self-sustain through MP-based skills which DRK badly needs, offers options for risk-reward by gambling an amount of HP you think is worthwhile, and gives you a loop so you aren't just overhealing with Souleater when you're offtanking, pooling your MP to heal right after a big spender or during bursts.
And, crucially, isn't something any other tank can do or justify, given Dark Knight's extensive history.

And then when you are main-tanking, they can go a step further with the PVP callback and have Dark Arts make your next cast of the HP spender free. If the attack's on a fixed number of charges and gaining/spending Dark Arts isn't a resource shared with any other type of ability, you're not wasting any resources if the boss doesn't break your bubble, just more efficiently staying alive.

Plus, it means that we can bring in classic Darkness skills and take AD back off CD for an MP cost.

Then we just have to figure out what to do with the Blood Gauge.

I think it'd work on a melee DPS but on a tank the risk of getting hit a bit too much when you're spending your HP is too high, and it'd feel bad to not attack to wait until it is safe to do so again. I think.
Darkside could just be a buff that drains MP continuously to give that sense of danger between it going down and our skills eating it away. Blood gauge I guess would be the main build/spend stuff that could restore big chunks of MP ?

I was thinking how bad it feels when you use TBN and it doesn't break (be it a healer shielded you, the mob didn't feel like attacking ect) so why not do this.

Night's Embrace: Heals target for the amount remaining on the barrier.

That would give the Dark Knight some much needed sustain while also allowing to heal others and makes TBN not breaking not feel as horrible.

True, though when you get healed while the shield is up, or use it preemptively the heal is then lost since you're already full health. Maybe making it a regen that lasts almost until the CD is up ?

[Oizen]

I would also like them to utilize Abyssal Drain more. I feel there is more that can be done with that.

Abyssal Drain has always been screaming to me to become a no CD, 3000 MP move that can be used with a Dark Arts stack.

I feel like that alone would give DRK a much better dungeon experience.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it'd work on a melee DPS but on a tank the risk of getting hit a bit too much when you're spending your HP is too high, and it'd feel bad to not attack to wait until it is safe to do so again.

So long as it's on charges, that much would be fine.

More crucial though is that the skill can't be particularly frequent, or you introduce a "give me HoTs just so I can DPS more" loop.

Abyssal Drain has always been screaming to me to become a no CD, 3000 MP move that can be used with a Dark Arts stack.

I feel like that alone would give DRK a much better dungeon experience.

I take it we're effectively removing Flood of Shadows, then? Or are we nerfing Abyssal's offensive potency so the prior might still be worth using?

[shao32]

Dear Dev tean i want to show apreciation about the recent changes of DRK and i hope you keep improving the job experience but i want you still to reconsider extensively the current direction of the job and gameplay experience.

- PVP salted earth feels nice and powerful in both ofense and defense at contrary to the PVE version of the skill, please consider add similar effects and impact on the PVE version of the skill.

- Darkside doesn't feel rewarding at all due the amount of Darkside time we generate every 60s, feels like a waste and a unnecesary mechanic that offers nothing gameplay wise since DRK don't wanna be never at full mp in the first place and the extra time get wasted bcs of that, please reconsider the ganancy of Darkside time and what skills grant it or just remove the mechanic entirely and add a 10% damage up trait instead so his gauge is not wasting space on screen.

- The pace of the job "15s of burst -> 45s of emptiness souleater spam -> 15s burst -> 45s of emptiness souleater spam" is extremly boring and uninteresting, im well aware that some players like current pace overthere in Japan but i wan't you to please be considerate with those who like the busy gameplay originally DRK had and spread the oGCD usage all over the 60s rotation more.

- Abyssal drain and carve and spit sharing CD feels wrong and not rewarding considering Abyssal drain is not a gain under less that 4 targets, Abyssal drain use to be an important and rewarding spell back in HW and SB and i want you to repurpose the skill to make it feel rewarding to use even if is only on AOE situations like originally was.

- DRk Unmend and living shadow Traits feel very unrewarding and add nothing gameplay wise, i would request Unmend trait be removed all together and Living shadow traits combined in to 1 and get new traits that improve the job experience and cohesion of the skills.

- Delirium is still the same Inner release skill + the new 60s recast being the same with Bloodweapon make no sense having both skills being separated in the first place, i want you to Delete Delirium and Boost Blood weapon effects so DRK stop having exactly the same skill execution WAR have in order to improve DRK unique gameplay feel.

- Dark mind feel pretty arbitrary due his magic only making feel like the job had 1 CD less if magic damage is not pressent like Dungeons pulls, i want you to add an extra effect to make it more all around and stop feeling like a useless buttom most of the time.

- Obliation feels extremly weak for being an stand alone buff, i want you to strengh his effect or make the skill become a direct upgrade of another one like shadow wall or Dark mind.

I'll would apreciate if you have more consideration about DRK players that loved the original desing of the job and keep improving the gameplay experience in that direction, im aware there is some ppl pleased with the current simplicity and streamline desing but feels extremly unrewarding for a person like me who always mained the original desing philosophy and has been taken away without any consideration, i would love to feel apreciated again by the Dev team and have my wishes and the ones who share my thougs for the job being considerated, i want to enjoy the game like i used to be again, thanks.

[Oizen]

So long as it's on charges, that much would be fine.

More crucial though is that the skill can't be particularly frequent, or you introduce a "give me HoTs just so I can DPS more" loop.


I take it we're effectively removing Flood of Shadows, then? Or are we nerfing Abyssal's offensive potency so the prior might still be worth using?

Flood is already stronger than Abyssal?

Not by much but the idea should be Damage or Healing honestly.

[baklava151]

At 90 Flood does better damage so it wouldn't be an issue, maybe a slight nerf on AD to emphasize that you're picking healing over damage. With the recent 6.1 nerf to Flood of Shadow though, there's an awkward time before you get the Darkside Mastery trait at 74 where AD does more damage than Flood. They'd need to do some numbers adjusting for that but I think it's manageable.

[Shurrikhan]

Flood is already stronger than Abyssal?

Not by much but the idea should be Damage or Healing honestly.

You're going to trade 200 potency of healing per target for... 10 more potency in damage?

Else, that's... not worth keeping on one's bars.

[Archwizard]

So long as it's on charges, that much would be fine.

More crucial though is that the skill can't be particularly frequent, or you introduce a "give me HoTs just so I can DPS more" loop.

I should think that as long as the charges put a fixed upper limit on the number of uses you have (not unlike our MP is for Flood/Edge), whether or not you beg for HoTs becomes a waste of raid DPS and source of overhealing provided that Drain (or any single-target variant) can largely repay that cost, but I can only speak from a theoretical standpoint.

"Particularly frequent" is a bit of a tricky statement though. Too long between uses and you could acquire multiple DAs before a single charge is spent, so we probably want to keep its CD and TBN's close together (or just scrap the idea of having DA subvert HP costs at all, returning to exactly what we have now).
Around a 30 sec CD and 2-3 charges ought to work I think? Assuming TBN is normalized due to not using MP anymore, the spender CD would be slightly longer than an on-demand but the additional charges will allow you to line up DAs for most of the encounter...

Alternately they could do something wild and make it so the cost paid to use DRK's HP-spending skills can only be repaid by DRK somehow, like putting a debuff on his max HP based on how much HP he paid, which he has to cleanse with his personal healing skills.

I take it we're effectively removing Flood of Shadows, then?

I would be for it. As I said before, they could recycle effects that exist as needed -- for instance, having Flood of Shadow/Darkness become the HP-consuming action and retain its Dark Arts interaction, or a lower-level holdover for (if we take the PvP inspiration to its most literal extent) Shadowbringer.

But as far as making Abyssal Drain take Flood's current position as the AoE MP spender, I'm for it, and it's a functionally irrelevant distinction in raid content anyway.
What happens to Edge, if anything at all, is the slightly more important question for that. And again, none of the loop I've proposed has any consideration for the place of Blackblood skills.