Dark Knight Megathread

[Marxam]

I've always thought that decent "fix" to living dead is to keep how it is now BUT, if you don't heal for 100% of your HP you go back to 1 regardless of how much HP you were healed prior. It won't kill you outright but puts you in danger of dying. I think it would be pretty cool synergy if Living Shadow could eat the penalty for you and simply put it back on cd. Maybe make it proc a huge burst if Living Shadow dies from Living Dead's effect. It would be a cool lore tech option for when LD's duration expires and won't kill you in the process if you aren't healed.

[Ryaduera]

Ah, but you can shuffle damage around a lot. In fact, you can just...reduce potencies on the oGCDs but make them used more often. CnS down to 30 seconds and half potency, EoS/FoS down to 1k and one third potency/1.5k MP and half potency. No button bloat, no difficulty managing them, really. If you rework Delirium into something that works on its' own, maybe even increasing potency for your next 3 non-GCDs instead of just letting you use Bloodspiller x3, that reinforces the playstyle even more. And no tank uses the GCD haste aspect of the game, despite a lot of DPS getting +10-15% WS haste. DRK used to do that, but now it doesn't - why not bring that back?

Always having something to do isn't "needlessly difficult to manage". Especially if that "something" is just weaving oGCDs every few seconds.

If you are doing the same thing, but more often, then it doesn't change anything about DRK other than bloating up the plastyle that people aren't enjoying. DRK is already very noisy with oGCD's because of Edge of Darkness. The word "noisy" here doesn't mean busy, as it is certainly not busy. Noisy refers to doing something just because it's available. If the only reason you're using an ability is "because it's up" that's just noise in the grand scheme of things. Even GNB oGCD's line up withNo Mercy for the burst windows. DRK literally just uses Edge of Darkness, Salted Earth, Carve and Spit, Abyssal Drain, Plunge, and soon Shadowbringer for no reason other than it's literally just available. There's no ryme or reason to use the abilities, there's no damage buff to line up with the cooldown timers. GNB is a rythm. Each oGCD cooldown is either even with No Mercy, or half, which means you want the oGCD's to line up with No Mercy, and then the few oGCD's that are up before the next No Mercy are just filler that don't get buffed. Noise doesn't come from having a lot to do, noise comes from doing just because it's there and you can literally turn your brain off and do the same thing. Noise is the lack of rythm.

Why should DRK have lost the playstyle that attracted the players to it initially and GNB be the replacement? I liked 3.0 and 4.0 DRK, I like GNB aesthetics much less, but somehow it's me who has to change my main job? I find that a very strange decision. I have already mained DRK for the entirety of 5.0 solely due to aesthetics, but in 6.0, I'm not gonna do that again.

There are two beginner-friendly tanks in the game already, which start at level 1 and ease players into tanking over time. They have distinct playstyles and aesthetics too, so it's not like there's no actual choice for newcomers.

I am not asking for DRK to have the whole 3.0 playstyle. But I also don't want it to be the 5.0 playstyle of "very busy opener/burst phase, absolutely nothing to do in-between". I like the idea of having to be consistent all the time instead of spikes and lows. Old DRK kit did that, and I would like to have that back. I won't even mind if that puts the maximum possible DPS for DRK lower than all the other tanks (though that, SE manage to avoid easily).

Old DRK kit was very fun, but objectively once it was "solved" it was very bad. You did the same thing all encounter, but it felt more fun because it was busy. This wasn't "noise" because there was a rhyme and reason to do it. I had Dark Arts bound onto my E key back then and it felt good to use because I would be feeling the rythm of my skills on my number keys with my E key. What they've done is took the rhyme and reason away and gave us filler. That's why I've proposed making Darkside a resource that actually has to be managed. You no longer open emptying your mana into Darkside because that results in overcap, but you do want to funnel that mana into damage until you're out, then build into Delirium which builds mana up, which funnels into damage, which goes into blood weapon, which is the only downtime you get (assuming no change to BW then 10s of downtime in minutes worth of consistent DPS), because that funnels into more use of your new spell which brings Delirium back up which funnels into MP which funn-- you get the idea. Because of this playstyle you would be constantly alternating uses of your Edge of Darkness but not in the spammy way of "It's up so I guess I press that button now". You'd have to calculate it, just like you had to calculate the old Dark Arts to keep your Darkside ticking away at your MP for damage.

And nobody is saying you have to switch. That's actually why we're having this discussion, people like DRK and want it fun again. Using myself as an example isn't me saying "Well I did it so so should you." It was just me explaining why I didn't even bother with DRK at all once I got to 60. It's not fun. It's boring. My proposed solution may not be THE solution, but I have to say bloating the class with more of the exact thing that makes it a problem is probably not the way to go.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you put the rythm back in DRK it feels like it used to.

[Ignimortis]

Old DRK kit was very fun, but objectively once it was "solved" it was very bad. You did the same thing all encounter, but it felt more fun because it was busy. This wasn't "noise" because there was a rhyme and reason to do it.

So how it was very bad if it was fun? Doing the same thing the whole encounter isn't bad, as long as that thing is fun to do in itself. I don't see why you should switch things up on every class — again, SAM does the same thing always and DRG does the same thing except sometimes their dragonblast is red instead of blue (but the button presses stay the same).

If the only reason you're using an ability is "because it's up" that's just noise in the grand scheme of things.

Doesn't mean it can't be fun. Doesn't mean every class should be a build-up towards some grand finale (or at least that grand finale doesn't need to come in 60-second increments). SAM still has a decent rhythm, despite most of its' gameplay being 1-2-3, 1-4-5, 1-6, Kaiten, Iai, repeat with oGCDs slotting in whenever you need to dump Kenki or have a 2-minute massive hit available or you've stacked 3 Shoha bars (which are themselves are tied into the Iai use). The only reason you might hold them is for alignment with raid buffs, but you have no personal CD-limited buff that says "you shouldn't use this right now, wait 10 seconds for your burst CD to be up", and that's good. There should be a tank that does that, IMO.

And to be honest, old DRK did feel a lot more "just press whatever's available (as long as you're mindful of your MP)". I did pretty well back in SB simply by rationing MP usage, and still had much higher APM than I do in ShB. I just had more buttons to press, and that's what I miss a lot.

[Ryaduera]

So how it was very bad if it was fun? Doing the same thing the whole encounter isn't bad, as long as that thing is fun to do in itself. I don't see why you should switch things up on every class — again, SAM does the same thing always and DRG does the same thing except sometimes their dragonblast is red instead of blue (but the button presses stay the same).



Doesn't mean it can't be fun. Doesn't mean every class should be a build-up towards some grand finale (or at least that grand finale doesn't need to come in 60-second increments). SAM still has a decent rhythm, despite most of its' gameplay being 1-2-3, 1-4-5, 1-6, Kaiten, Iai, repeat with oGCDs slotting in whenever you need to dump Kenki or have a 2-minute massive hit available or you've stacked 3 Shoha bars (which are themselves are tied into the Iai use). The only reason you might hold them is for alignment with raid buffs, but you have no personal CD-limited buff that says "you shouldn't use this right now, wait 10 seconds for your burst CD to be up", and that's good. There should be a tank that does that, IMO.

And to be honest, old DRK did feel a lot more "just press whatever's available (as long as you're mindful of your MP)". I did pretty well back in SB simply by rationing MP usage, and still had much higher APM than I do in ShB. I just had more buttons to press, and that's what I miss a lot.

Bad doesn't mean not fun. Bad can mean unhealthy for the game, and it really was unhealthy.

I don't know how else to tell you there is no grand fanale in this set up. Everything is consistent but changing, as in a rotation. I don't see why you can't see that. I'm ok with my idea not being liked, but like... at least understand what it even is. Yes, SAM has rythm... That's why it's fun and good and we aren't talking about it???

[Dingodrole]

I've always thought that decent "fix" to living dead is to keep how it is now BUT, if you don't heal for 100% of your HP you go back to 1 regardless of how much HP you were healed prior. It won't kill you outright but puts you in danger of dying. I think it would be pretty cool synergy if Living Shadow could eat the penalty for you and simply put it back on cd. Maybe make it proc a huge burst if Living Shadow dies from Living Dead's effect. It would be a cool lore tech option for when LD's duration expires and won't kill you in the process if you aren't healed.

Then healers wouldn't heal you for the duration of Walking Dead, because the ressource sink would still be unworthy. And if your idea is to basically put the HP back at 1 ( with some sort of couple seconds of extra invuln to not instant die from an auto-attack ), then it becomes even more " stressfull ", since healers will still have to throw you panic heal at the last second.

[currentlemon]

I want to play a part in this conversation. DRK was my main in ShB and seeing the Job in Endwalker makes me want to quit it for PLD. However, I still want DRK to succeed and it deserves much better than it does heading into Endwalker.

SE, I know you are reading this. Please consider my post as feedback.

I made a post on the Tank thread a while back about the return of Dark Arts and how SE can implement it. I know a lot of people complained about the Dark Arts spam in 4.0, but it is possible to reimplement the skill without spamming it like in StB. Simply add a charge to it like Plunge.

I revised my suggestion a bit from my original post, but here is a summary of my thread.

• Dark Arts is earned at level 42.

• To prevent spam, the skill will have a 15 sec cooldown like TBN (won't be shared).

• As you level DRK, Dark Arts will receive 3 charges at max level. 4 if possible.

• It would share the same MP cost as Flood/Edge of Shadow.

• Because the real Dark Arts is back, the trait for a free Flood/Edge of Shadow will be removed from TBN.

• For a broken TBN, DRK will instead gain a 15% mitigation bonus and earn some blood gauge.

I'll have more later in another post, so please bear with me.

[RatCopter]

Thinking on it, it'd probably be better if I did level DRK to 90, if nothing else but to confirm my gut feeling on what the problems with the job are going to be. Hell, I've already started writing up a pre-emptive "why is DRK underwhelming" word doc just to organise my thoughts, for all that's worth.

One thing I figured out was that my problem with Shadowbringer is that 1) I want to earn the use of it, and 2) not see it just get eaten up and lost in the mess of animations that is our burst window.

[currentlemon]

Okay, so here is a more elaborate post on the return of DRK's Dark Arts. In my opinion, Dark Arts should be the shining beacon of DRK's skills, not Delirium. I know you are reading this SE, so here is my suggestion.

• Dark Arts will be earned at Level 42.
• The skill will have a 15 second cooldown with 3 or 4 charges at max level to prevent spam.
• The skill should enhance only a handful of skills, but not too many like StB.

These enhanced skills are based off of Sage's own ability (Cardia I believe), though Sage technically took it from DRK in the first place.

Upon the activation of Dark Arts, the following skills will change:

• Soul Eater becomes the dot skill Scourge
• Dark Mind receives a 20% mitigation bonus for Physical Attacks
• Carve and Split does 3 hits now. Each hit does the same number of potency.
• Shadow Wall mitigation bonus is now 40% with a duration of 20 seconds
• (New) Power Slash, which is a returning combo finisher, becomes the old 3.0 Delirium skill, just renamed.

With Dark Arts coming back, TBN no longer has it has a trait when the shield is broken.

• DRK will instead receive a trait called Dark Rune
• Dark Rune increases DRK's mitigation by 15% and earn a small bit blood gauge.

There. My suggestion for the return of the real Dark Arts. I haven't really thought of how the traits are spread out yet. Maybe for another post.

[Tribezer0]

Putting my suggestion here from another thread cause I realize this was the correct one…

My biggest issue with most of what I read in this thread is that all these tweaks seem to be bandaids on a toolkit that already doesn’t work with itself and lacks the Dark Knight identity play style.

I think the biggest changes they need are skills that work with each other, rather than just feeling like random skills tossed onto one job.

With that said I’ll make one suggestion to help make Living Dead less dependent on other players.

TBN2: Upgrade to normal TBN that either gives the user a small heal or a HOT when the shield breaks. This will put the skill on par with the new tank abilities and will also allow it to be paired with Living Dead to help take the strain off healers.

The rest of the toolkit will still need a rework to create synergy between skills but at least this would be a start.

[Robuel]

Hello, long time Drk dabbler here. While there are other versions of the job I have enjoyed, I wanted to make a post about the simplest and most realistic updates to the job I could see for EW based after the media tour information.

The new abilities in a vacuum, I think are parallel too and just as exciting as the other tanks new abilities. I believe alot of the pain points for drk players, stems from older parts of their toolbox, that seem unpolished in comparison to the other tanks newly rounded out kits.

Two Changes for Drk in addition to EW updates:

-Have Dark arts stack to two-

Currently the strengths of The Blackest Night, are its short cooldown+effectiveness and its ability to "stock-pile mana" for burst windows. But, these two work against each other. For Drks looking to do high end damage, this means TBN effectively has a 1 minute cooldown. Having two stacks would allow more freedom in TBN usage, more comparable to other tanks updated 25 second cooldowns. It also doubles as a QOL increase, that would be enjoyed in more casual use.

-Update living dead to not kill the Drk-

Boiling down Living dead into its core concepts, its a large Flavorful Cooldown that can be used to cheat death, and requires non-negligible coordination with a healer to have the resources from both the drk and healer go un-wasted. Infact it has a bit of a double negative, not only can bad coordination end the buff early, but failure leads to death, wasting the CD itself and any additional abilities used by the healer. I'm here to argue that it only needs one of these downsides to keep acceptable balance and flavor. In fact i think the removal of the buff from healing is enough and the death aspect can be dropped completely. Possibly doubling down on the healing removing the triggered portion of the buff. For example making any single target healing remove the status. This would keep the core of the ability, cheating death and healer coordination, but with a lesser penalty, of the ability just being less effective. As far as flavor, the perceived lore seems to be, we go double dead and need to be healed up too escape death, the new perceived lore would be we enter some kind of walking dead status that prevents us from completely dying, and 10 seconds or any healing type magic knocks us out of said state.

Anyway, i know these changes wont address some people concerns, but i think they would go far as small changes to keep drk in line with the other tanks defensive abilities. Basically promoting usage of our "super cooldown" and short cooldown. While currently they are disincentivized at worst, limiting at best.

Also if you like these changes, plz talk about them or respond, thanks