Dark Knight Megathread

[RyuDragnier]

All we can hope for at this point is DRK gets more thought put into it with whatever it gets in 7.0.

One of my biggest gripes with Endwalker DRK is how everything in Endwalker it got can be summarized with "We did not feel like trying, so just have 2 of em"

-2 Shadowbringers
-2 Oblations
-2 Salted Earths
-2 Living Shadow Traits

Can't wait to get our 2nd charge of Carve and Spit as a lv 92 trait

Oblation still makes me angry. They give it to us at the level when all the tanks get an upgrade to their primary mitigation tool, instead of...I don't know...adding it in ARR so we have an extra cooldown to help make up for the fact we don't get TBN until 70? And then upgrading it so it does something else on top of the mitigation so it'd feel better overall to use? Nope, gotta give it to us at a point where IT ISN'T AS USEFUL and feels bad to have, and doesn't do anything more than just be a flippin 10% mitigation.

2 charges is bleh when the others actually do other tangible things to help. Camouflage gives 50% parry rate in addition to 10% mitigation (while it's a bit meh that it never gets upgraded, it at least can help with more mitigation). Raw Intuition has a bloodbath caked into it AND gets upgraded into Bloodwhetting for more mitigation AND AN HP SHIELD in addition to the bloodbath. Shelltron gets flippin upgraded into an HP regen along with more mitigation. Compared to those 10% mitigation tools, Oblation only gets 2 charges and nothing more. At LEAST add something tangible to it, like idk, when you unlock the 2nd charge it also heals you for half the damage you take while it's going (I know that sounds broken, just throwing out ideas and nothing more).

[Zairava]

My optimism about job design is gone but if we get something a little more to do between the 1min/2mins and more sustain I'd be happy.

Same. My optimism in regards to job design has fallen deep underground by this point. All we can really do is hope they actually give DRK some real heart put into it. I really didn't like what they did to it in 5.0 but I accepted it as its clean slate to grow upon. EW feels like just a slap in the face considering sage got eukrasia the literal expansion after they butchered Dark Arts, instead of, ya know, putting it on the literal job that had it to begin with and making it work there.

[ataren3]

Same. My optimism in regards to job design has fallen deep underground by this point.

That's kind of where I'm at with job design right now. Between classes becoming more homogenized, existing classes seemingly getting forgotten or their core identity changed, and refusing to address the issues existing classes have, I've kind of given up on getting some actually unique classes.

Just as a few examples:
- Summoner got reworked for EndWalker. This was a really good change on paper. Yeah it sucks that DoTs were removed but the rework actually looked and felt more akin to a summoner. Then you played it and realized "... Oh. It's really, really boring".
- White Mage started off as "nature's healer". You had a few different elemental and nature things to do, then out of nowhere for Shadowbringers and beyond that identity sort of fell to the wayside. Sure you got these lilies and you have this bell, but your attacks don't make sense anymore. Where'd stone and aero go? Who knows it's all Glare and Dia from here on.
- Ninja got its identity removed (that being trick attack, a debuff on the enemy for the party's benefit every 60 seconds). Trick attack is still there but it's worse off in my opinion. Now rather than having a debuff that you're slightly annoyed with when the boss becomes untargetable, you're now more angry because that debuff affects YOUR damage specifically every 60 seconds.
- Dark Knight.... I swear they just forget Dark Knight as a tank. Dark Knight was a really neat new tank in HW and has just been gimped and torn apart in future expansions in favor of giving other classes the abilities Dark Knight used to have.

Don't even get me started on re-introducing old abilities to existing classes. Lest anyone forget Dark Knight's "Shadowbringer" ability literally existed back in HW before it was removed. It was known as "Dark Passenger". The only real difference between our new ability and the old is we have two charges and we can't blind anymore. It really feels like a majority of the time Dark Knight is just an after thought for tank changes. Almost like:
"Alright we gotta add some stuff to Gunbreaker."
"Wait don't forget about WAR and PLD. They need some tweaks as well."
"What about Dark Knight?"
"That's a DPS class isn't it?"

[Shurrikhan]

@Mekhana
While there are some greater ambitions for the job's features I'd have... if we had the content in which to make use of them... honestly, same.

Increase our controllable sustain (including, likely, by attaching a heal to CnS). Slightly reduce Blood costs (e.g., to 40 per skill). Raise the apm across lulls via more MP gen over time and MP costs on Shadowbringer and CnS/AD. Give us a second charge of Carve and Spit / Abyssal Drain and reduce their CDs to 40s. Voila.

(Maybe give us an alternate combo to make use of beyond just returning Power Slash as a Storm's Eye analog or Scourge as a(n old) Goring Blade analog.)

[ItsUrBoi]

I'd suggest including that into your mock-up and then reexamining it briefly, as that will be a necessary component to making the Blood spenders not feel painfully sluggish.

I will try again to adress the issues mentioned before in more detail:

->Delirium: Grants 3 stacks of Delirium. 1 min CD.
Delirium effect: Increases MP by 1000 and blood by 15 when landing weaponskills. 15 secs duration.
[ Blood weapon was moved here to generate resources you will need ]

->Quietus and Blood Weapon removed.

->Bloodspiller: An attack with a potency of 400. Combos into Bloodcarver. Blood cost: 70 blood
->Bloodcarver: An attack with a potency of 450. Combos into Bloodgorer.
->Bloodgorer: An attack with a potency of 500.
All 3 of these attacks have 60% AoE falloff.
[ This is what you are aiming for, as many usages of this combo as possible. ]

-> Enhanced Living Shadow: Merge with Fray increasing the potency of all actions and abilities by 300 potency and 100 respectively. 20 sec duration. 120 sec CD. No cost.
[ Every 2 minutes all your attack are much stronger and you gain a cool visual effect similar to RPR's Enshroud, but instead you do more damage. You have more control and instant access to the damage. ]

-> Dark resolution : Converts 30 seconds of Darkside into 15 blood. 1 second CD.
[ Darkside is binary, you either have it, or not. The idea would be to generate Darkside using MP via Edge / Flood of Shadow, and then consume this to obtain Blood which you use on the Bloodspiller combo. In the case you are capping on Darkside, you'd want to use this ability to maximize your blood gauge, but without losing Darkside! It also works very well with storing 1 free Edge via TBN. ]

-> Darkside's damage bonus increased to 15%.
[ Some people might feel interested in dropping Darkside to do more Bloodspiller combos ]

-> Souleater grants 10 blood.

-> C&S and Abyssal drain moved to be a GCD with a 60 sec CD. They still share a CD.
-> Abyssal Drain leaves behind a patch of Salted Earth, staying in it heals you over time. Combo action Salt and Darkness, which heals you for 50 potency per enemy hit.
[ This will reduce the amount oGCDs you have. You use C&S in single target, and Abyssal Drain in AoE. Abyssal Drain's "combo" should be a damage gain against 2 or more targets. ]

Gameplay:
Use MP on Edge/Flood of Shadow to gain Darkside. Consume Darkside via Dark Resolution to gain blood.
Never run out of Darkside, but use it to gain more blood.
Do bloodspiller combo.
Living Shadow and Delirium help you generate resources and do more damage.
Damage rotation:
Edge of Shadow or TBN -> Delirium -> Souleater combo -> Living Shadow - Dark Resolution -> Bloodspiller combo with Dark Resolution - Edge double weaved in between each GCD -> C&S
When you finish your Souleater combo you will have 70 bood. 10 from Souleater, 45 from Delirium, 15 from Dark Resolution. This is for the opener.

[ItsUrBoi]

I feel like the way they will expand the job into the next expansion is to give it a combo off of blood spiller and add one more GCD to the job because they took away Quietus from Living Shadow and after using x3 Bloodspillers you still have another Souleater combo under raidbuffs, and that don't feel right, or it feels like they left space there for 3 more actions, whether they be as a combo or another gcd.

I'd still want Delirium to be somewhat unique and for Dark Mind to be merged into Oblation as its a big too many buttons to press.

[Guts-BSM]

gib selfheals to drk

[Derio]

I am expecting a full restructure of abilities on all jobs to make the leveling experience easier.

[Lyth]

I'm not sure if that will come up next expansion, though. There's been some talk in interviews with Yoshi-p about what he wants to do with the levelling system after Lv. 100. It sounds like they're undecided at the moment but that they probably will do something different. The levelling issue itself arises from the fact that job reworks and removed actions result in very uneven action acquisition as you level up. But if the entire levelling process stands to be reworked in 8.0, they'll probably wait until that point to do major restructuring.

I don't really have strong feelings about self-healing on DRK at the moment, simply because damage negation is a pretty fun effect as it is. I wouldn't be surprised if Oblation ends up being bundled together as an upgraded TBN, but it will probably come at the cost of recast. They'll have to rethink what to do with the current Dark Arts system if they do. The action that bothers me the most is Dark Missionary. Raidwide mitigation on tanks has been fairly unbalanced since Stormblood. Missonary and Heart of Light just feel like they were running out of ideas after giving all the best raidwide defensive designs to PLD and WAR. If we're going with conditional defensives, why not an effect inspired by Runic to let you either redirect or absorb magical raidwides? Or alternatively, just give DRK a second way to temporarily debuff the boss outside of Reprisal. That way it feels a bit less like an inferior hand-me-down.

[Zairava]

I don't really have strong feelings about self-healing on DRK at the moment, simply because damage negation is a pretty fun effect as it is. I wouldn't be surprised if Oblation ends up being bundled together as an upgraded TBN, but it will probably come at the cost of recast. They'll have to rethink what to do with the current Dark Arts system if they do. The action that bothers me the most is Dark Missionary. Raidwide mitigation on tanks has been fairly unbalanced since Stormblood. Missonary and Heart of Light just feel like they were running out of ideas after giving all the best raidwide defensive designs to PLD and WAR. If we're going with conditional defensives, why not an effect inspired by Runic to let you either redirect or absorb magical raidwides? Or alternatively, just give DRK a second way to temporarily debuff the boss outside of Reprisal. That way it feels a bit less like an inferior hand-me-down.

The negation is fun as is, the problem is more we just need a bit of sustain to be in line with the others. Nothing drastic, just...a bit. That's why I bring up sole survivor every time when this topic comes up. As nice as it would be, I don't think they would put it on an offensive ability purely because it wouldn't be on-demand, you would still being using Carve and Spit for damage anyway so some healing could potentially get wasted. They brought bulwark back, so there's some hope...right?


I see Dark Arts going one of two routes if they decide work on it again. either purely offensive or both offensive and defensive. purely defensive is very unlike due to you needing to use and OGCD to get the maximum effect out of your mits, and putting this even a few abilities that is relevant now in raiding...well..we would be literally treading into a dual DRK meta if the dps was to stay the same in 7.0

General DRK modifications to keep in mind moving forward within this post:

• Shadowbringer is on a mana cost with a single charge
• Delirium is on a mana cost and gives a flat 50 gauge
• TBN still keeps its mana cost, and provides a free edge/flood when broken. (the effect name is something different. Dark Retaliation for example.)
• Dark Arts has no mana cost and is togglable just like gundam DA is (it's Eukrasia I'm referring to)
• lvl 100 gives your Living Shadow a trait that makes your darkside merge with you and increases the potency of abilities by 10% for 15s
• Sole Survivor returns?

purely offensive route is just as it was in Stormblood but toned down significantly

Upon Dark Arts Activation:

• Scourge Replaces Souleater or hard slash as a combo action. (This, of course, means Scourge is returned as a DoT or weakness debuff that allows the DRK themselves to deal more damage to the target(s). otherwise, souleater's or hard slash's existence are pointless)
• increases the potency of bloodspiller by 50
• increases the potency of Quietus by 20 or 30
• increases the potency of stalwart soul by 20 or 30 (in the event scourge is not aoe)

Both offensive and defensive:

• Scourge replaces souleater or hard slash as a combo action. (Again, this does, of course, mean that scourge returns as a DoT or weakness debuff to the target.) The weakness debuff in this case, however would be that Scourge, on the same potency as Souleater/Hard Slash, makes the target deal 5-10% less damage in both physical and magical damage. This would mean that DRK has a form of sustained mitigation. Solo or otherwise
• Increases the potency of bloodspiller by 50
• Makes Salted Earth provide a 10% mit while standing in it
• Gives TBN a bonus 10% mit on top of the shield. (same button presses...kinda? more interesting and satisfying feel, I'd think)

Before we could tell what was physical or magical I'd be inclined to agree with Dark Missionary, but I don't mind it being there now as a form of party mit.