Dark Knight Megathread

[Lyth]

Pushback occurs whenever players think that the job differs significantly from the way that it 'ought' to work. Jobs that play differently from their previous series incarnations will get pushback. How many times since Heavensward have we seen requests to change DRK to use HP as a resource, or use a scythe, or to be changed into a DPS job? Likewise, jobs that play significantly differently from their previous reworks will get pushback as well. Which is a catch-22 situation, as the entire point of a rework is to change how the job plays. Yet you will invariably have divisions within the playerbase each demanding that the job play closer to various designs (FFXI DRK, 3.x DRK, 4.x DRK, and 5.x DRK). Ideally you just try your best to capture the spirit of various iterations while accepting that nobody will be entirely satisfied.

The broader issue with SCH is that SCH has been a very powerful job for the majority of this game's history. Much like WAR, there were a lot of advantages that it was grandfathered into in 2.x that set it up to dominate for expansions to come. Naturally, the dev team have systematically been curtailing these jobs' power to bring them in line with the rest, but it has taken them the better part of several expansions to do so, with their respective playerbases fighting tooth and nail to cling to those advantages. The majority of job nerfs, as you may have noticed, deliberately happen silently between expansions when players haven't been able to test how the math will work out. Everything outside of that is 'upward balance' to keep everyone happy. I personally think it's much too polite of an approach, and sometimes you just have to be aggressive with balance changes to ensure that there's a level playing field for all jobs. I'm glad that we're starting to see more of that now.

Enhanced Unmend has always been an odd trait. Historically, it used to remove the MP cost on your next Unleash, and it was equally strange back then. But I think mobility actions on tanks have needed a second look for a long time now.

[RyuDragnier]

Pushback occurs whenever players think that the job differs significantly from the way that it 'ought' to work. Jobs that play differently from their previous series incarnations will get pushback. How many times since Heavensward have we seen requests to change DRK to use HP as a resource, or use a scythe, or to be changed into a DPS job? Likewise, jobs that play significantly differently from their previous reworks will get pushback as well. Which is a catch-22 situation, as the entire point of a rework is to change how the job plays. Yet you will invariably have divisions within the playerbase each demanding that the job play closer to various designs (FFXI DRK, 3.x DRK, 4.x DRK, and 5.x DRK). Ideally you just try your best to capture the spirit of various iterations while accepting that nobody will be entirely satisfied.

Pushback also happens when design decisions make no sense whatsoever and end up causing a job to fall massively behind others. Look back at Stormblood SCH, Adlo and Succor had their MP costs increased back then to where SCH throwing out shields was a huge hit to their MP. The MP heal from Aetherflow was also cut in half to 10%, and was LESS than the cost of a single Adlo, causing SCH to have serious MP issues. There was massive pushback until they finally lowered the MP costs on Adlo and Succor in patch 4.1.

[Lyth]

SCH was mandatory throughout Heavensward. SCH had very deliberate nerfs during the transition period going in to Stormblood so that players would actually get to see WHM/AST comps being used in content. The SCH playerbase pushed back hard because they wanted their stuff back. SCH was then made mandatory for the rest of Stormblood. The end solution, which we've seen this expansion, was to simply turn SCH into its own healing subrole and create job alternatives to it, splitting that playerbase. Heavensward and Stormblood were some of the worst periods in the game for job balance because of how grossly overpowered the toolkits of some of these jobs were. It was incredibly difficult for the rest of us to push for the status quo to actually change to something more equitable for all, simply because when a job becomes that dominant, it also becomes incredibly popular and builds a strong following that resists any change.

There's no defense to excuse how those jobs were tuned compared to their counterparts.

[RyuDragnier]

Part of the problem with that lies in how they set up AST. From how things went in HW, it was clearly obvious to ANYBODY who healed or paid attention that the problem with AST was the Sects, they were nigh impossible to balance. Make Nocturnal too strong, and nobody will take SCH. Make Diurnal too strong, and nobody will take WHM. We saw that happen multiple times in HW AND SB, and I'm still surprised it took them until EW to actually deal with that damned problem, when they could have dealt with it back in SB.

[Mortex]

SCH was mandatory throughout Heavensward. SCH had very deliberate nerfs during the transition period going in to Stormblood so that players would actually get to see WHM/AST comps being used in content. The SCH playerbase pushed back hard because they wanted their stuff back. SCH was then made mandatory for the rest of Stormblood. The end solution, which we've seen this expansion, was to simply turn SCH into its own healing subrole and create job alternatives to it, splitting that playerbase. Heavensward and Stormblood were some of the worst periods in the game for job balance because of how grossly overpowered the toolkits of some of these jobs were. It was incredibly difficult for the rest of us to push for the status quo to actually change to something more equitable for all, simply because when a job becomes that dominant, it also becomes incredibly popular and builds a strong following that resists any change.

There's no defense to excuse how those jobs were tuned compared to their counterparts.

I think the biggest problem was that they couldn’t balance noc astro even if their life’s would depend on it. It was so bad in comparison to sch that you really didn’t had much choice in the shield department. The only choice was either astro or whm depending on what job was less bad.

[Lyth]

That was the excuse used for WAR as well, back in Heavensward. That problem wasn't WAR being too powerful, oh no, the problem was that PLD and DRK were too weak.

The crux of the issue actually went back to ARR, and the fact that the game only launched with two tanks and two healers. When there's more jobs present, you're obliged to spread out different unique mechanics across several jobs, like pet based healing, shields, aetherflow's instant cast effects, and so on. But they just put out the standard 'vanilla healer' you see in every game, and the second job was 'everything else'. The same is true for tanks as well. So when they tried to add in a third, there was no design space to expand out additional jobs in. DPS never really suffered from this problem as a role because there were so many more jobs at launch, setting aside the fact that BRD was mandatory for its resource buffs and a subrole had to be created around it to make it work in the long run.

The biggest problem is resistance to change from the playerbase. The game would be very different had all the currently existing jobs been present for the same amount of time. But adding new jobs upsets the entire balance, especially when you have fewer jobs to start with, and you sometimes have to make radical changes to keep everything balanced. But the dev team seemed to be overly worried about hurting anyone's feelings, which lead to them backtracking on much needed balance changes and letting some jobs remain unchecked for way too long.

[Marxam]

It ironic given how WAR and DRK swapped places. DRK is currently king, not because it is overly powerful but because everything is catered to it. Nearly all raidwides is magic and some fights are only magic, heavy mitigation meta means shields > HoTs, 2 min meta favors heavy ogcd jobs that can dump all their cds within a small burst window, and all your cds line up perfectly with that regardless of order.

WAR was good in HW for the exact same reasons of fitting in perfectly with the meta of high dps in addition to being totally stacked. Though I still say it was a touch too strong when you consider that no job in the history of this game had a cd that increased your ATK power by 50% (later to nerfed down to 20% before getting reworked entirely). We're not talking physical, magical, crit, direct hit or potency. Literally 1.5 of your current ATK power stat.

I also feel like we may be hitting a breaking point in where we might need to stop introducing jobs and just focus on refining the ones we have. A more horizontal progression with job design. Personally I would like to see them start with weapon design. Give PLD a spear for one of the raid weapons. If the playerbase really is as casual as I think it is then glamour options is an easy way of softening the blow. Sure PLD might be unfun for some ppl but hey you get a spear. Likewise with WAR and hammers.

[Oizen]

I feel like WAR's fall from grace has been entirely 6.2 onward. It was definately the golden standard for PF tanking for all of Asphodelos, to the point where even early on WAR could cycle between Holmgang and Kitchen Sinking to effectively solo tank p1 and p2. I cant help but think someone at SE saw that and got mad enough to specifically design the tank busters to be swaps with bleeds to specifically counter WAR cheese. I honestly think they went too far with how much bleed hurts WAR's self regen gimmick, its not unbeatable but it does make the job feel pretty bad. On the exact opposite side, Abyssos has shown just how powerful DRK having 3 unique 60s Mitigations on top of TBN really is.

Alternating Dark Mind, Oblation with Rampart and Shadow Wall gives DRK a defensive edge that I think only post rework PLD can really match now.

Who knows maybe they'll get mad at DRK for Abyssos and every raidwide and tank buster in the final tier will be physical.

[baklava151]

I feel like WAR's fall from grace has been entirely 6.2 onward. It was definately the golden standard for PF tanking for all of Asphodelos, to the point where even early on WAR could cycle between Holmgang and Kitchen Sinking to effectively solo tank p1 and p2. I cant help but think someone at SE saw that and got mad enough to specifically design the tank busters to be swaps with bleeds to specifically counter WAR cheese. I honestly think they went too far with how much bleed hurts WAR's self regen gimmick, its not unbeatable but it does make the job feel pretty bad. On the exact opposite side, Abyssos has shown just how powerful DRK having 3 unique 60s Mitigations on top of TBN really is.

Alternating Dark Mind, Oblation with Rampart and Shadow Wall gives DRK a defensive edge that I think only post rework PLD can really match now.

Who knows maybe they'll get mad at DRK for Abyssos and every raidwide and tank buster in the final tier will be physical.

While also giving PLD Light Mind, which reduces physical damage taken by 20%.

[Marxam]

I feel like WAR's fall from grace has been entirely 6.2 onward. It was definately the golden standard for PF tanking for all of Asphodelos, to the point where even early on WAR could cycle between Holmgang and Kitchen Sinking to effectively solo tank p1 and p2. I cant help but think someone at SE saw that and got mad enough to specifically design the tank busters to be swaps with bleeds to specifically counter WAR cheese. I honestly think they went too far with how much bleed hurts WAR's self regen gimmick, its not unbeatable but it does make the job feel pretty bad. On the exact opposite side, Abyssos has shown just how powerful DRK having 3 unique 60s Mitigations on top of TBN really is.

Alternating Dark Mind, Oblation with Rampart and Shadow Wall gives DRK a defensive edge that I think only post rework PLD can really match now.

Who knows maybe they'll get mad at DRK for Abyssos and every raidwide and tank buster in the final tier will be physical.

WAR's been doing that since SB, when holmgang was a 3 min cd, only getting nerfed to 4 mins last expansion. The increase to duration is okay but when you realize that tank busters by their design is only one hit (most of the time) duration is only additive but not a benefit when compared to being on a shorter cd. Even then, if you make tankbusters appear every 2 mins WAR is still going to rotate between holm and cds swaps. It's one of the reasons why I think tankbusters should be more frequent than it currently is now. In addition to being varied, i.e. single hit, multi stack, multi hit, etc.

If they wanted WAR to match TBN in terms of defensives they only need to reduce ToB to 60 secs so it is up every time a tank busters is there similar to TBN.