Dark Knight Megathread

[Oizen]

Well to be honest, if the meta of these dungeons is just two wall to wall pulls, a boss, repeat 2 times, then I think theres a bigger issue with that system than the Tank Balance.

I'd much rather see them be more like high floors of Deep Dungeons, where mobs have mechanics, can be dodged, and its about picking your fights rather than braindead AOE spam

[Kalaam]

Feeling like dungeons are actual dungeons in the more traditional roleplaying game sense would be nice, maybe not *all* of them, i know they are used as a vehicule for the story, but side dungeons being like that would be cool. Heck make them a separate categorie of dungeons for duty finder and roulette so people who just want quick and W2W dungeons don't have to do them

[Vatom]

I'd say Cloud is actually a good example since he is conceptualized as a Mystic knight/Dark knight. Otherwise the Dark Knight draws big inspiration from Guts, who is deceptively quick with his swords despite their size, especially when he uses the berserker armor, which would be our delirium/dark side equivalent. So DRK being quick with the heavy weapon because of dark magic would work

Huh? None of that made sense other then the last part

[RyuDragnier]

Huh? None of that made sense other then the last part

Let me simplify what they wrote so it makes sense.

Cloud attacks fast despite having a giant sword.

Guts attacks fast despite having a giant sword.

DRK takes inspiration from both Cloud and Guts.

DRK should attack fast despite having a giant sword.

[Vatom]

Let me simplify what they wrote so it makes sense.

Cloud attacks fast despite having a giant sword.

Guts attacks fast despite having a giant sword.

DRK takes inspiration from both Cloud and Guts.

DRK should attack fast despite having a giant sword.

Thank you I was truly lost there now i get it
This makes sense yes Drk should be faster and not break their backs when swinging their blade

[Arkhai]

My biggest problems are with Dark Mind, Living Shadow, Abyssal Drain, Salted Earth, and Oblation.

Dark Mind is niche and situational most of the time. Doesn't bring a lot to the table very often.
Living Shadow is boring. You summon it and then immediately forget about it until later. It's pretty much just a DoT that is meant to look cool but not offer anything else than a lil bit of damage.
Abyssal Drain is only good against a high number of enemies, otherwise, it is insignificant so people just use Carve & Spit instead. In raids, it is completely useless, and in dungeons, carve & spit is only useful on bosses.
Salted Earth was never really that good. I never liked that it was a placeable AoE instead of an applicable effect like Shell Shock.
Oblation is kinda just a meh ability. It doesn't bring much to the table in any situation. It might alleviate a little pressure from a gang of mobs in dungeons or from a raid boss auto attack, but otherwise its mediocre

Possible solutions:

Remove Dark Mind and make Dark Missionary 20-30% magic damage reduction instead. This makes having to use this ability less cumbersome to our already busy burst phase and crowded hotbar.
Making Living Shadow more interactive. I want to feel as good about using this ability as good as I do when I activate Reaper's Enshroud. It feels REALLY good to use Enshroud. Maybe make it copy your ability inputs for a short duration or make it tie in with some other abilities?
Combine Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth so that Salted Earth is now an applicable effect, and Abyssal Drain grants lifesteal from weaponskills and spells. That way we keep our underwhelming DoT while giving ourselves some relevant healing while making our rotation less crowded. Another idea I had was turning Abyssal Drain into an ability like Delirium or Blood Weapon that grants lifesteal for a short time or number of CDs. All that matters is that it offers DRK players adequate healing when it's needed and it removes the need for Abyssal Drain to be tied to Carve & Spit.
I can't really think of anything in place of Oblation but I do feel like something more useful can go in its place
As for TBN, remove the 3000MP cost on it to eliminate the possibility of it being both a waste of a precious resource and a dps loss. My first idea is to give it an effect that either heals or offers strong, lingering mitigation. This would make it on par with what the other tanks received in EW. If my aforementioned ideas for Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth are taken into consideration, keep the MP cost removed but if the shield breaks let it give us a free Edge/Flood of Shadow/Shadowbringer. This lets us gain dps for the shield breaking without wasting resources if it doesn't while keeping it relatively the same. All I truly want for this ability is to feel as confident in it keeping me alive in some way like how Heart of Corundum makes me feel.

So yeah. There's my contribution to how I think DRK could be fixed.

[Kalaam]

Thank you I was truly lost there now i get it
This makes sense yes Drk should be faster and not break their backs when swinging their blade

First, sorry for my awkward phrasing and thanks for clarifying it.

Second, yeah I think a mix of "slow, heavy movements" and "surprisingly quick phase" would work pretty well. That's kind of the feeling we had with the Haste buff before, and some attacks like Carve&Spit or old Delirium gave the feel of swinging the blade with more agility and speed than the standard 1 2 3 combo.

To the suggestion about Living Shadow from above, maybe an approach similar to Demi-Bahamut/Phoenix could work, while it's out the 1 2 3 changes for something different, faster etc.
There could be lots of stuff too to make DRK more distinct, have Salted Earth grant you a defensive buff while inside, generate 5 Blood per tick, per ennemy inside to get some ressource generation (so something like 25 Blood on a single enemy), etc etc...

[Archwizard]

Possible solutions:

Remove Dark Mind and make Dark Missionary 20-30% magic damage reduction instead. This makes having to use this ability less cumbersome to our already busy burst phase and crowded hotbar.

That's far too much for a raidwide cooldown. You'd be taking one of the highest damage reduction percentages in the game and giving it to everyone on the team.

[Arkhai]

Perhaps, but I couldn't really think of anything else to do with it

[ICountFrom0]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I want Esteem's sword. If I can't get the rood inverse, that'll just have to do.