Dark Knight Megathread

[Lyth]

I think that the addition of any GCD would be of benefit, given that DRK has 4 GCDs in single target and 3 in AoE. My recommendation would be to have something combo off of Bloodspiller, because not only would that break-up the base rotation, but it would also turn Delirium into a 6 hit sequence (which could have a speed buff attached). There are other solutions as well, but you have to keep in mind that expansions typically only add three actions at a time, so you don't want to expend too many of them trying to build up a new combo sequence.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I think that the addition of any GCD would be of benefit, given that DRK has 4 GCDs in single target and 3 in AoE. My recommendation would be to have something combo off of Bloodspiller, because not only would that break-up the base rotation, but it would also turn Delirium into a 6 hit sequence (which could have a speed buff attached). There are other solutions as well, but you have to keep in mind that expansions typically only add three actions at a time, so you don't want to expend too many of them trying to build up a new combo sequence.

Well re-working Edge of Darkness into a job gauge spender at the level Dark Knight gets it would be a good start, along with moving Abyssal Drain to level 30 but Flood of Darkness to where Abyssal Drain currently sits... this will make more sense should we take the Red Mage burst combo approach, but instead of 1 burst combo, we have 2, with a main combo path(s) generating both MP and job gauge at reasonable pace that doesn't feel like the players are waiting for the 4th combo action, which is probably the best possible re-work option there is if the devs REALLY DO NOT WANT enmity combos/control to come back at all, and let's be real here, it has to come back at some point...

[RyuDragnier]

I'd prefer if they swapped Flood and Abyssal Drain (while buffing AD's heal). AD becomes the MP spender and Flood gets attached to CnS. Because then you could attach Shadowbringer to a buff given by Delirium and make it so Flood transforms into Shadowbringer when that buff is up. Would help a bit on our sustain and make Shadowbringer feel more like a capstone skill instead of a "fire and forget" skill.

[Oizen]

I'd prefer if they swapped Flood and Abyssal Drain (while buffing AD's heal). AD becomes the MP spender and Flood gets attached to CnS. Because then you could attach Shadowbringer to a buff given by Delirium and make it so Flood transforms into Shadowbringer when that buff is up. Would help a bit on our sustain and make Shadowbringer feel more like a capstone skill instead of a "fire and forget" skill.

Wouldn't this make the comparisons between Delirium and Inner Release even worse though?

I'd love for Abyssal Drain to be more available, especially considering how lack luster it is as a 200 heal potency with 60s cd, but I'm not sure thats how I'd go about it.

[Shurrikhan]

Well re-working Edge of Darkness into a job gauge spender at the level Dark Knight gets it would be a good start, along with moving Abyssal Drain to level 30 but Flood of Darkness to where Abyssal Drain currently sits...

I can't tell what you're going for here.

MP is already, for all intents and purposes, DRK's primary job gauge. It has the most generators and is spent from the earliest level of any gauge. As such...

• Why would it help to switch our MP-spender(-and-Darkside-generator) into a Darkside- or Blood-spender?
• Likewise, how does it help to swap the level at which we get our 3.33-charge, frequently-available AoE oGCD (Flood) with our single-charge 60s-CD AoE oGCD that interacts with no other manipulable resource (Abyssal Drain)?

this will make more sense should we take the Red Mage burst combo approach, but instead of 1 burst combo, we have 2, with a main combo path(s) generating both MP and job gauge at reasonable pace that doesn't feel like the players are waiting for the 4th combo action

If this is related at all to the suggested Edge change, again, I'm not seeing the benefit. Making Edge part of a Blood-spending combo just replaces what are currently two actions (our offensive ST MP spender and, separately, our ST Blood spender) with a single action that just takes 2 button-presses to complete.

which is probably the best possible re-work option there is if the devs REALLY DO NOT WANT enmity combos/control to come back at all, and let's be real here, it has to come back at some point...

Why would Enmity combos "have to come back," though?

[RyuDragnier]

Wouldn't this make the comparisons between Delirium and Inner Release even worse though?

I'd love for Abyssal Drain to be more available, especially considering how lack luster it is as a 200 heal potency with 60s cd, but I'm not sure thats how I'd go about it.

The problem is right now Shadowbringer is a glorified DPS oGCD with nothing to it. It's not tied to anything in the kit, and doesn't feel like a capstone. If we were going all in on what I'd want (which is more complex than just Delirium), it would take 30s off of Darkside duration and require 50 Blood but only usable once every 2 minutes. Bloodspiller and Quietus would remove 15s from Darkside, TBN would be removed from the MP cost (and it would only heal whether or not the shield is broken), and Dark Arts would return as a 3K MP move that boosts your next GCD attack. I'd add actual complexity to DRK to where you have to use your Blood moves for damage, but also have to keep using Edge from time to time to keep Darkside going so you CAN use Blood moves. This makes it so you can't just spam DA, and have to actually manage your MP. You know, the one thing DRK is missing, actual resource management.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I can't tell what you're going for here.

MP is already, for all intents and purposes, DRK's primary job gauge. It has the most generators and is spent from the earliest level of any gauge. As such...

• Why would it help to switch our MP-spender(-and-Darkside-generator) into a Darkside- or Blood-spender?
• Likewise, how does it help to swap the level at which we get our 3.33-charge, frequently-available AoE oGCD (Flood) with our single-charge 60s-CD AoE oGCD that interacts with no other manipulable resource (Abyssal Drain)?

If this is related at all to the suggested Edge change, again, I'm not seeing the benefit. Making Edge part of a Blood-spending combo just replaces what are currently two actions (our offensive ST MP spender and, separately, our ST Blood spender) with a single action that just takes 2 button-presses to complete.


Why would Enmity combos "have to come back," though?

What I'm trying to go for is more variety in the GCD rotation... especially in the early levels so that some players are less tempted to buy progression skip items from the mogstation but let's be real here, they're gonna do it anyway...

But Abyssal Drain would be a GCD that costs 3k MP, instead of 60 sec cooldown, when you first get it, and Flood of Darkness/Shadow would be the combo ender for that, nd yes I would make sure the AoE MP burst spender do just as much as the single target job gauge spender, and I have to say job gauge to clarify what resource should be used...

Job gauge is single target Combo that restores HP and MP, and MP Spender combo is AoE that is just as strong in single target as it is in single target(DPS neutral in single target DPS gain in AoE) that Restore HP and generates job gauge if this explaination is easier and better to understand...

Darkside needs its own re-work though...

As for the enmity combo question; people still don't how to turn on/off tank stance, don't know how Shirk works, and don't know how Provoke works... their are also fights that are designed with tank swaps that also auto-attack 2 players and still use the enmity list to determine where autos go for some reason... I am not joking...

[Post]

Hi. I like DRK. I've played since early ARR, and I felt DRK felt most unique in HW, not that its ShB and EW incarnations are terrible. When I play it lately, it's usually because it feels like the tank most sensibly designed to fit into the almighty 2 minute meta.

I have some random thoughts, sorry if they've been discussed already in this thread.

The Blackest Night
Ever since StB and the removal of Dark Dance/cost increase of Dark Passenger, it's been central to DRK's mitigation. It takes some practice for new players to use well because you've had 40 levels of not having it. Its level requirement should probably be dropped from 70 to like... 35. This would work well considering Flood/Edge of Darkness are also introduced at that level range. I also think that by 82, TBN should at least refund partial MP if it's not consumed entirely when the buff ends based off of how much % of the shield was damaged (like a Blood Price you could cast on anyone) as other tanks have no cost on their short-term mits.

Living Dead can finally keep you alive for more than 10 seconds without a healer. I think the HP generation should continue while you're in Undead Rebirth, though. Compare with WAR and GNB's ultimates, they can choose WHEN to restore their HP freely, and DRK is still at a disadvantage despite having a longer cooldown than WAR in any situation where you'll be taking multiple overkills. Especially for dungeons, your healer can only really benefit from the mitigation if you choose to not deal any aoe damage while under Walking Dead, as just hitting 3+ targets'll easily fill your hp early.

In EW, they finally fixed ground-targeted actions to be incredibly breezy to use. If you were unaware, in 6.0 they added:
-An option to prevent the cursor from moving beyond ground targeting range has been added.
-An option to execute actions by pressing the action button a second time has been added.
Salted Earth is now often a pain in the butt to use, cuz now I have to manually run over somewhere and drop it. Big bodied enemies pushing smaller ones away make this tougher, or the bosses that randomly jump to the center of the room.
I wish they'd revert it, or better yet, cuz I'm sure some of you still dislike em, allow the player to use either a ground targeted or not version, their choice. This could be done via a UI option or just having two separate spells with the same cooldown.

DRK had some pretty cool Weaponskill animation variety up until ShB, but they culled its rotation of 3 of them, 4 if you count Scourge. It'd just be for fluff, but why don't they semi-randomize animations? Swap Syphon Strike's animation for Spinning Slash, or Souleater for Power Slash/(old) Delirium? The only potential negative for this is when a boss jumps away after you execute an action and the difference in time between animations deal damage means one wouldn't deal its damage.

[Shurrikhan]

What I'm trying to go for is more variety in the GCD rotation... especially in the early levels so that some players are less tempted to buy progression skip items from the mogstation but let's be real here, they're gonna do it anyway...

Stripping away oGCDs and reducing overall apm to introduce alternate GCD combos only gives you "more variety" in the GCD rotation for the brief moment before hitting [Button 2] after [Button 1] becomes automatic. And you end up with far less variety in button-presses / movement across the keyboard / joystick overall in turn.

But Abyssal Drain would be a GCD that costs 3k MP, instead of 60 sec cooldown, when you first get it, and Flood of Darkness/Shadow would be the combo ender for that, nd yes I would make sure the AoE MP burst spender do just as much as the single target job gauge spender, and I have to say job gauge to clarify what resource should be used...

You'd make Abyssal Drain deal as much damage per target as... Edge? Why then would Edge exist? (Or is the "single target job gauge spender" supposed to be... Bloodspiller? You need to specify which gauge. DRK technically has 3, MP, Blood, and Darkside.)

Job gauge is single target Combo that restores HP and MP, and MP Spender combo is AoE that is just as strong in single target as it is in single target (DPS neutral in single target DPS gain in AoE) that Restore HP and generates job gauge if this explanation is easier and better to understand.

That is much better, yes.

Still, though, you've completely removed all offensive oGCDs from the game until level 52 (Salted Earth), with only 3 in total by level 90 (it, Carve and Split, and Shadowbringer). On a job that has traditionally been the most packed with offensive oGCDs. This doesn't seem thematic, let alone cohesive.

Darkside needs its own re-work though...

Aye. I'd recommend you start there, then. Decide first whether you even want a spendable duration gauge a la HW Blood of the Dragon (which is the only way you're going to be able to leverage that gauge as more than just an oGCD-procced Surging Tempest), whether you want to replace that gauge with something completely different, or it's better off scrapped entirely.

Personally, the strongest choice seems to be to start from the assumption that Darkside is gone. In that way you avoid convolution and focus on getting the rest of the kit up to par. In the course of that, if you find something that'd make the rest click, the create it in order to advantage the rest of the kit, but it makes little sense to involve Darkside just because Dark-Tempest / Surging-Dark exists at present. The debris of half-assed systems doesn't require replacement. The space, instead, just needs to look a whole better, and that's often easier without the garbage still scattered about.

As for the enmity combo question; people still don't how to turn on/off tank stance, don't know how Shirk works, and don't know how Provoke works... their are also fights that are designed with tank swaps that also auto-attack 2 players and still use the enmity list to determine where autos go for some reason... I am not joking...

That's not a warrant for the return of enmity combos though. If anything, it would assume that that effort would be pointless and could actually detract those first three brain cells' of output from occasionally hitting their tank stance button.

[DRKoftheAzure]

snip

Alright, Blood Gauge combo; Edge of Darkness(becomes Edge of Shadow level 72/74 along with Flood of Darkness becoming Flood of Shadow with a potency of 520) is the the starter with 300 potency(500 for Edge of Shadow), Bloodspiller is middle combo but you get it at level 58 with 100 less potency and level 62 where Bloodspiller is at now increases the potency to where it is at now, Carve and Spit becomes the combo ender, potency remains unchanged. MP Combo, Abyssal Drain at level 30 potency is 300 and potency becomes 500 at level 72/74, Quietus is obtained at 54/56 along with Flood of Darkness with potencies being 350 and 400 respectively, with Quietus potency becoming 500 at level 64. Goal is to have some overlap with some other jobs in terms of DPS while keeping the core DPS of what we currently have the same, and if you still struggle with that idea, let's just agree to disagree...

Salted Earth just becomes Salt and Darkness at higher levels with a 20 cooldown and no more 90 second cooldown for that ability... since you really care about APM THAT MUCH...

Darkside basically starts out as 3.x Blood Price at level 30 for the job quest ability, then becoming 3.x Blood Weapon at level 35 but keeps the the Blood Price effect, but also has Bloodbath effect baked in just in case, when you gain Edge of Darkness, you get Blackblood Gauge and the ability to generate 10 Blood Gauge every successful button press(see Reaper combos for more clarification), and at level 50 Blood Weapon becomes Darkside 10% via job quest which maxes out at 20% and still has all of the previous effects it had before, level 70 is where Darkside becomes Living Shadow where the potency of all abilities go up by 200, which the Living Shadow Mastery potency caps out at 500, which is A LOT OF DAMAGE, because might as well throw a bone to the FF11 players out there, duration caps at 30 seconds and is basically the button you press to refresh the buff timer in between you combos since, again, you really care about APM THAT MUCH...

Shadowbringers basically remains a oGCD with 30 second charge instead 60 seconds, but also generates 50 Blood Gauge upon execution and potency has no change whatsoever...

And just for good measure; Living Dead now drops your HP to 1 but your cannot go below 1 HP and whenever you deal damage you heal yourself with a cure potency is 1200 and the duration is 20 seconds with no change to the recast timer...

And at least with enmity combos you know which tanks are nice enough to be second on aggro list...

EDIT: because I was so tired when I typed this post last night I forgot some other things, such as bringing back Dark Passenger as a 30 second cooldown with 300 potency AND 50% accuracy down on anything hit by it for 15 seconds.

Delirium restores 6000 MP on a 30 second cooldown.

And bring back Dark Arts button to give 2 stacks of Dark Arts to be used for MP burst combo on a 30 second cooldown, and have The Blackest Night give 1 Dark Arts stack when it falls off and 2 for when it breaks.

You know, for AMP for your parser logs thing.