Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

How does WAR having a 1.2K potency cure with an extra regen tie into the themes or motifs around WAR? It doesn't.

In WAR's case, it makes sense because WAR's powers are mostly suped-up natural abilities that people have -- in this case, it's an adrenaline spike, or a second wind (which makes sense given it's literally a suped-up Second Wind). As long as the ability is strictly personal it fits in with natural, non-magical abilities as much as Holmgang as a Last Stand sort of effect or the Inner Beast as an enrage mechanic.
I mean let's be real here, FF14's metaphysics are already a bit bizarre. Thancred, who can't manipulate aether and therefore should not be able to use magic, can somehow turn his life force into invisibility... and we just accept that. By comparison, Equilibrium at least seems probable.

In DRK's case, it feels off because DRK's power, being drawn from dark magic, should always come at a price. They shouldn't have "free" healing; they should only have the ability to rip life force from someone else. Same sentiment why DRK shouldn't be able to heal other people directly, unless that health comes from somewhere else, like vampirism or a personal transfer.

Looking at the original Sole Survivor through that lens, you have a skill that essentially steals someone's soul or last breath in order to infuse yourself with power. The problem is that while it's thematic to DRK, it's also mechanically useless to have a skill that only heals you when someone dies -- hence the consolation effect, despite that free heal not fitting the theme either and the delayed heal being only marginally more useful.
(And now you have RPR who uses that iconography better.)

[Shurrikhan]

How does WAR having a 1.2K potency cure with an extra regen tie into the themes or motifs around WAR? It doesn't.

I specifically said "pre-trait."

It's a vestigial element of how Equilibrium worked before --balancing the two outputs of the beast within, between Wrath (Defiance) and Abandon (Deliverance). You know, before the job was gutted?

Could it be a whole lot better, to better supply theme despite its interactions having all been pruned? Sure. But it's on a XIV job that has always been about self-healing, and has had that skill since HW, as opposed to it just being carbon-copied from its originating job to another just because -- and purposely in place of more fitting options for the receiver.

[ItsUrBoi]

Many posts talk about Sole Survivor being useless in today's game, and that's true, but I did post a long while back a possible solution.

Sole Survivor, 90s CD, 15 second duration.
->Marks yourself with the Sole Survivor effect.
->Sole Survivor effect: Compiles all of received and dealt damage. When the effect expires, you heal and gain blood according to the compiled amount. Pressing the ability again ends the effect early.

[Briarthorn]

Many posts talk about Sole Survivor being useless in today's game, and that's true, but I did post a long while back a possible solution.

Sole Survivor, 90s CD, 15 second duration.
->Marks yourself with the Sole Survivor effect.
->Sole Survivor effect: Compiles all of received and dealt damage. When the effect expires, you heal and gain blood according to the compiled amount. Pressing the ability again ends the effect early.

While i like these kinds of abilities, suggesting a fix that works 100% differently is suggesting another ability. Sole survivor was about gaining off the death of a marked target.

I only bring this up in the same sense that it would be saying delirium the weaponskill is not delirium the inner release equivalent, and people were talking about the mark.

Perhaps a nitpick, but just to keep conversations straight.

[Archwizard]

Many posts talk about Sole Survivor being useless in today's game, and that's true, but I did post a long while back a possible solution.

Sole Survivor, 90s CD, 15 second duration.
->Marks yourself with the Sole Survivor effect.
->Sole Survivor effect: Compiles all of received and dealt damage. When the effect expires, you heal and gain blood according to the compiled amount. Pressing the ability again ends the effect early.

So a personal Macrocosmos, okay.

I mean on the one hand... provided that it actually accounts for damage taken while barriers are active then it's a distinct "maybe", though our current heavy emphasis on mitigation does interfere with that slightly. It would fit nicely with my old suggestion for Living Dead to instantly max out your health and give invuln but drain a percentage of health over time. (I know LD's passed discussion now but I have a hunch the current iteration is a holdover for next expansion.)

On the other, as Briar said it's definitely not Sole Survivor in the slightest, and I'd be on the fence about it fitting DRK's themes since it's arguably still "free" healing (though you could argue it's your own health paid as the price for... your own health).
I'd also worry about it generating Blood since that means your damage output depends on you triggering its maximum effect every time it comes off CD.

[Marxam]

As much as I'd like to make it interesting, I sadly do not trust the devs to do it without absolutely making the move useless. They have a poor track record with DRK for the most part and can't be trusted. I still think the Living Dead fix was a fluke.

Not necessarily a fluke because a fluke implies you were attempting to achieve the desired result but fail continuously only to "luck" out one time. It's just pure incompetence that something like that stayed in the game after 4.0. At least in 4.0 you could use AD spam to heal yourself up to a respectable amount where your healers might only need to toss a single ogcd to remove the effect. Dungeon pulls are really the only time invuls get used outside of savage.

DRK is just designed with 3.0 in mind in a game thats no longer in 3.0 and is just a casualty of poor design. Salted earth was a good example. Players complained that placing the ground aoe was tricky since the cursor had no range. 6.0 fixed the cursor to limit is max range and SE was reduced to a point blank aoe. The issue was with the ground target having no cap, but they fixed that so why does SE only place the aoe at your feet now?

[ItsUrBoi]

So a personal Macrocosmos, okay.

I mean on the one hand... provided that it actually accounts for damage taken while barriers are active then it's a distinct "maybe", though our current heavy emphasis on mitigation does interfere with that slightly. It would fit nicely with my old suggestion for Living Dead to instantly max out your health and give invuln but drain a percentage of health over time. (I know LD's passed discussion now but I have a hunch the current iteration is a holdover for next expansion.)

On the other, as Briar said it's definitely not Sole Survivor in the slightest, and I'd be on the fence about it fitting DRK's themes since it's arguably still "free" healing (though you could argue it's your own health paid as the price for... your own health).
I'd also worry about it generating Blood since that means your damage output depends on you triggering its maximum effect every time it comes off CD.

Then allow me to provide a more comprehensive ability, the last post I had was mostly written quickly - I gave it more thought this time however.

Sole Survivor 60 sec cooldown, 10 second duration
->Grants you the Sole Survivor effect.
->Sole Survivor effect: compiles all damage mitigated and shielded. At the end of the duration heals you for 75% of the compiled amount instantly + 25% of the compiled amount over 12 seconds. Ending the effect early is possible upon pressing again.

And one more thing I kind of felt like is needed, to give these 2 abilities some uniqueness/flavor/identity.
->Dark Missionary: reduces magic damage taken by 10%, and grants the Missionary buff to all party members.
->Missionary effect: dealing damage with any action heals you for 75 potency, lasting for 15 seconds.

->Heart of Light: reduces magic damage taken by 10%, and grants the Light buff to all party members.
->Light effect: grants a regeneration effect for 15 seconds, with a potency of 60.


Oh and please give Dark Missionary at 70. Its a pain to play it in UWU/UCOB... If you are all in for homogenization, at least go all the way with it since the job feels powerless in that content to help the party. Identity can be placed in small differences like the one above.

[Kalaam]

Tbh I'd love for Dark missionary to have some side effect attached related to healing in some way, that's what a missionary is in a way, a healer. Giving a lifesteal or increasing healing received by party members for the duration would be neat.
As for Heart of Light it could spread the Brutal Shell over all party members to stay consistent with Heart of Stone/Corundum.

[Archwizard]

Then allow me to provide a more comprehensive ability, the last post I had was mostly written quickly - I gave it more thought this time however.

Sole Survivor 60 sec cooldown, 10 second duration
->Grants you the Sole Survivor effect.
->Sole Survivor effect: compiles all damage mitigated and shielded. At the end of the duration heals you for 75% of the compiled amount instantly + 25% of the compiled amount over 12 seconds. Ending the effect early is possible upon pressing again.

While it's more specific, I would once again note that it's still a sense of "free" healing, and in practice is Equilibrium on steroids.

And one more thing I kind of felt like is needed, to give these 2 abilities some uniqueness/flavor/identity.
->Dark Missionary: reduces magic damage taken by 10%, and grants the Missionary buff to all party members.
->Missionary effect: dealing damage with any action heals you for 75 potency, lasting for 15 seconds.

->Heart of Light: reduces magic damage taken by 10%, and grants the Light buff to all party members.
->Light effect: grants a regeneration effect for 15 seconds, with a potency of 60.

I've suggested similar before, so I'm all for it. I would say swap the Missionary effect to a low percentage of damage output though a la Bloodbath, since "75 potency per damaging action" can be wildly different between any two jobs of varying attack speeds, such as BLM versus NIN.

[RyuDragnier]

While it's more specific, I would once again note that it's still a sense of "free" healing, and in practice is Equilibrium on steroids.

Now you know that's hyperbole, nothing will ever be stronger than Equilibrium seeing as it's in total a 2,200 cure potency heal (no other heal in the game matches it in cure potency).