Dark Knight fan adjustments and additions.

[DaiTenshu]

First I’d like to start with that I’m a huge fan of the FFXIV Job Balance team, as there is no other MMO that comes close to the balance and performance between each job and role it is in. As well as the fact that despite the lack of impact Endwalker Dark Knight seems to have over tanks, I am overall still excited to play it when Endwalker drops as it is my favorite job to play and I love the way it plays now. I wanted to add some adjustments to the job tooltip kit to make it stand out more from (or be more aligned with) the other tanks, as many people I know believe Dark Knight is a bit on the more bland side of things lately, especially with the supposed new toys the other tanks got. I personally love the way it plays in Shadowbringers, yet I hope the adjustments I propose are fair and worth taking into consideration as at least half of what I’m about to say are mainly QoL changes. I won’t add potency numbers save for cure potencies, as I am by no means an expert on calculations and the cure potencies are there to give somewhat a comparison of Dark Knight’s self sustain versus other tanks. I will first propose what my adjustments are, and then give an explanation of each change at the bottom. I am not removing anything from Dark Knight’s kit as I believe it works fine now and will be fine in Endwalker, save for one skill that upgrades to another. Of Course all of this is done with the assumption of the Current Endwalker Dark Knight tooltip kit. Here are my adjustments and additions.

[DaiTenshu]

Level 35 Blood Weapon: Grants 5 stacks of Blood Weapon. Each stack allows weapon skills.or spells to restore mana and give 10 blood gauge Duration: 15 seconds.

Level 45 Dark Mind: Change 20% magic reduction to 15% damage reduction. Duration: 10s 2 charges. Allows to cast on Self or Party Member

Level 50 Stalwart Soul: (Without the Blood Gauge Increase)

Level 50 Living Dead: Living Dead Duration and Walking Dead Duration increased to 12s

Level 62 Bloodspiller: Additional effect: Restores own HP. Cure potency: 400

Level 64 Quietus: Additional effect: Restores own HP. Cure potency: 300 (multi-approved)

Level 68 Delirium: Grants 3 stacks. Each Stack allows the execution of Bloodspiller and Quietus, Restoring MP AND increasing HP restored when landing either weapon skill.

Level 70 The Blackest Night: Increase Duration from 7s to 8s. If Barrier isn’t completely absorbed, restore a small portion of its mana cost. (600 MP or 1200 MP)

(New) Level 70 Trait - Dark Arts: When The Blackest Night Barrier is fully absorbed, or using certain actions, gain Dark Arts. Casting Flood of Darkness/Shadow or Edge of Darkness/Shadow under Dark Arts costs no mana and restores HP. Cure Potency 200/400.

Level 72 Trait - Master Our Soul: Allows Stalwart Soul to increase the Blood Gauge by 20.

Level 80 Living Shadow: The last Weapon skill your simulacrum casts grants Dark Arts.

(New) Level 80 Trait - Enhanced Dark Arts: Allows for 2 charges of Dark Arts for storing.

(New) Level 82 Trait - Dark Mind Mastery: Upgrades Dark Mind to Oblation allowing additional benefits.

Level 82 Oblation: Damage Reduction 15%. Additional Effect Sole Survivor: HP restored or barriers given to target are increased by 20% duration 10s. Additional Effect Vigilante’s Tenacity: reduce damage taken by 10% Duration: 6s. 2 charges can cast on self or party.

(New) Level 84 Trait - Enhanced Dark Arts II: Casting Flood of Shadow or Edge of Shadow under Dark Arts guarantees a critical hit.

Level 86 Salt and Darkness: Increase Blood Gauge by 30.

Level 90 Shadowbringer: Additional Effect: Grants Dark Arts

(New) Level 90 Trait - One Brings Shadow: Reduces Shadowbringer recast time by 5 seconds when landing Flood of Shadow or Edge of Shadow. Reduces Shadowbringer recast time by 5 seconds when The Blackest Night Barrier is fully absorbed.

As you can tell, my adjustments range from simple QoL changes to some more substantial/controversial takes. Rest assured that I have an explanation for each adjustment I made and of course all of this is fan stuff from a guy who simply wants the job to shine in its own way. If you want to give critique or other changes, let me know. First, Allow me to explain.

[DaiTenshu]

Blood Weapon: we’ve seen a stack system added for Delirium/Inner Release/Manafication. So I fail to see why this wasn’t done for Blood Weapon. With Unmend not breaking combos, the current Blood Weapon is not a big issue for a single target. But this adjustment is more for AoEs such as Unleash and Stalwart Soul, as for some reason they have a different recast timer than weapon skills and so it's harder to get 5 uses of current Blood Weapon. Giving Blood Weapon a stack system should alleviate the AoE issue and help those with unstable ping.

Dark Mind: Outside of raidwide damage, I believe specific single damage mitigation is a thing of the past and severely limits a job. Yes, while Camouflage exists and parry rate only affects physical damage, the 10% damage reduction still has uses for magical damage. Dark Mind being locked to only magic damage severely limits its uses and unlike Camouflage, it has little to no use in dungeon pulls. Changing Dark Mind to 15% general damage reduction and having 2 charges helps Dark Knight’s lacking defense pre 70 and helps leveling the job.
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Stalwart Soul: Speaking of leveling: Since Paladins get Circle of Scorn at level 50, I believe Dark Knight should get Stalwart Soul at level 50. Although Dark Knight has a spammable AoE before other tanks, not gaining it’s AoE finisher until level 72 makes the level progression for Dark Knight a little unsatisfying and unfun. Getting Stalwart Soul earlier (Without the Blood Gauge Increase) would make leveling more bearable.

Living Dead: A somewhat controversial change. Living Dead is one of two invulnerabilities that come with a risk, the other being Superbolide. The difference however is that while Superbolide only just reduces Gunbreaker’s HP to 1, the Risk for Dark Knight is literal death. So when Superbolide and Holmgang got buffed in duration, it just made Living Dead even worse to use. The Simplest change I can see without changing the whole theme of Living Dead is increasing the duration to 12 seconds. If it's the Invulnerability with a huge risk, then it should be in a way stronger than the others.

Bloodspiller and Quietus: A more literal fan change/adjustment but it's not without logic.While Dark Knights in previous games have signature attacks that drained their HP, they also had signature attacks that helped them gain HP. Bloodspiller and Quietus would feel more rewarding spending the blood gauge on them if it helped Dark Knight’s self sustain and not just for damage.

Delirium: Not a necessity and more of a luxury, and with the assumption that Holding Inner Release helps Warrior’s damage increase immeasurably, then I say it would be fair to have healing potencies on Bloodspiller and Quietus increased as Dark Knights have no abilities that are solely for sustain. (The Blackest Night does not count).

[DaiTenshu]

The Blackest Night: many people overhype this ability. From a thematic standpoint and its power, I too love and adore it, but it is not perfect. It is the only Defensive Cooldown that uses a damage resource (Mana) and if used incorrectly hampers Dark Knight’s damage considerably. (Sheltron does not count as gauge is made specifically for it or Intervention). While I wouldn’t say I’m an amazing player, I count myself at least better than average, and have almost always timed The Blackest Night well. However there would be cases that I would have wished my Blackest Night would last AT LEAST 1 second longer to fully be absorbed. So I don’t think increasing its duration to 8 seconds is a huge upgrade but a necessary one nonetheless. However since there will be times where Blackest Night inevitably fails to be fully absorbed having a small portion of mana (least 600 mp) would alleviate the punishment.

(New) Level 70 Trait - Dark Arts: Now this is where some of the more controversial changes are taking place as this might make or break what I’m proposing as well change Dark Knight balance considerably. From what you read of my adjustments, I’m putting a lot more emphasis on Dark Arts, as back in Heavensward and Stormblood, Dark Arts was integral to the job’s gameplay; While in Shadowbringers, it's only brought up when The Blackest Night is involved. My take here is that Dark Knight is supposedly the oGCD Tank Specialist with a myriad of oGCD abilities to use despite only having 1 weaponskill combo. This case is further supported with the new abilities we get in Endwalker and no additional GCD’s added. With that being the case, I believe it is perfect to put more emphasis on Dark Arts to help support the fantasy of the Dark Knight whose heavy swings with their Sword are supported by the swift and harsh darkness within them. Using The Blackest Night is at worst a dps loss, and at best a slight dps gain (only if you have a party) and in the middle, a dps neutral. The advantage of using TBN and using Dark Arts after is that you mitigate a good portion of damage while not sacrificing your own. While in parties, your healers may not need to use as many resources to heal you than with other tanks and can focus more on dps. However having Dark Arts be just a free cast of Flood or Edge isn’t exactly the most rewarding gameplay, Especially since this expansion is giving more rewards for timing mitigation better for other tanks at least. With all other tanks getting some sort of additional mitigation, the Gap between The Blackest Night and other cooldowns is getting smaller and smaller. Allowing Dark Arts to Restore HP would give a nice addition to the Dark Arts Mechanic that isn’t just damage and helps with Sustain. Plus making Dark Arts a trait allows for more cool and wacky stuff to be added later on.

Level 72 Trait - Master Our Soul: Very simple one. Allows Stalwart Soul to increase Blood Gauge like how it does now since we would get this spell earlier.

[DaiTenshu]

Level 80 Living Shadow: Not exactly a necessary one but I’d like to explain my reasoning. From a thematic standpoint and the Damage it brings, Living Shadow is an amazing ability and it's part of the top 5 most beloved skills in FFXIV for me. From a gameplay standpoint, it is a very flashy DoT and it doesn’t feel as satisfying to use as other skills (Even though it gets better later on). Living Shadow is also slightly weird in that it doesn’t exactly enhance any other mechanics of the Dark Knight. You use this over Bloodspiller and Quietus but after that, you just let it do its own thing. It is similar to MCH’s automaton Rook/Queen but has even less control. Giving Living Shadow the ability to grant Dark Arts allows a sort of connection between Dark Knight mechanics and will have the shadow leave a more satisfying impression once it's done helping you maim a target.

(New) Level 80 Trait - Enhanced Dark Arts: Since Living Shadow can grant Dark Arts as well as more actions later on do too, it would be appropriate for Dark Knight to be able to hold 2 in case of overlap. Also this might make the job icon look more stylish, with 1 Dark Arts highlighting the sword icon in the job icon, while a 2nd Dark Arts may highlight a bigger sword outlining the first Dark Arts.

(New) Level 82 Trait - Dark Mind Mastery/Oblation: You know it, I know it, Everybody knows it. When People saw what other Tanks got at level 82, and then saw Oblation, our first thoughts were “wow that's underwhelming”. While I do think the 2nd effect Vigilante's Tenacity might be unnecessary, Oblation should at least have a 2nd effect to make it sound strong. Oblation’s animation though does look amazing and Dark Mind upgrading into it just sounds natural to me. The effect of increasing HP restored or barriers given to targets could help Dark Knight more in the supportive category. In my mind I believe that the Dark Knight is a bit of a selfish Tank using many of its mitigation for personal use, but not leaving someone to die is also how I perceive my image of them. The HP restored or barriers given will help healers immeasurable and might give a hidden complexity to DRK as TBN would be affected too if they were to cast it right after Oblation. Would be pretty cool to see a stronger version of TBN for more mitigation on a target.

(New) Level 84 Trait - Enhanced Dark Arts II: Not a necessary one, but I figured that if we are to make Dark Arts a more prominent part of Dark Knight’s kit, then it would stand to reason that it too would become stronger to help out. One of the most satisfying experiences for me as Dark Knight is mitigating a tankbuster with TBN and then follow it up with a critical Edge of Shadow. I think it would help Dark Knight’s damage slightly and the critical hit would also affect the HP restored and help Dark Knight’s self sustain slightly more.

[DaiTenshu]

Level 86 Salt and Darkness: With its current potency, giving this ability to generate Blood Gauge might sound a little too strong, but since oGCDs and Blood Gauge are a big part of Dark Knight’s kit, it strikes me as odd that not a single oGCD helps increase the Blood Gauge directly (Blood Weapon does not count). I believe an increase of 30 would be perfect as that combined with Soul Eater or Stalwart Soul can lead to an extra BloodSpiller or Quietus. If you were to ask me if I preferred the current potency or an increase to blood gauge, I would choose the latter as that would tie in the Dark Knight’s identity more.

Level 90 Shadowbringer: The Name, The Animation, the damage, and cool factor are all 10/10. Yet the ability still feels like it's missing something. If we compare what other tanks get at level 90, each other tank gets something that leaves a satisfying impression. Paladin’s Blade combo after Confiteor leaves a stunning finale to it’s rotation and what made an otherwise normal downtime very dynamic. Warrior’s Primal Rend is an amazingly strong finisher to Inner Release and also acts as a gap closer besides. And Gunbreaker receives a much needed powerful AoE Cartridge attack that would help Dungeon Pulls and boosts the job’s damage significantly. What exactly then is Shadowbringer’s purpose? Just more damage? With its current kit and new additions, Dark Knight isn’t exactly hurting for more AoE attacks, (though Shadowbringers does help a lot). The Conclusion I came to is that Shadowbringer was created to give Dark Knight even more oGCDs to onslaught the enemy and I am perfectly happy with that; it gives shape to Dark Knight’s Identity as the oGCD specialist. Yet I feel that an additional effect would make this ability even more Incredible. That’s right, the ability to grant Dark Arts is what would be awesome and tie it all together. 2 additional Dark Arts would absolutely have Dark Knights destroying enemies with a myriad of attacks and free up the mana costs that can be used for TBN instead. Or use every single drop of mana and Dark Arts to just barrage the enemy with Edges and Floods sounds absolutely fun.

[Tribezer0]

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 skilled 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.

[RinaB]

They will not change tanks from the dumbed down garbage the role is. The solution to drk is to go play something else.

[Monimonmonmon]

Here are my proposed changes to DRK:

Walking Dead now grants invulnerability status.
Walking Dead debuff is removed upon reaching full HP.
- With Living Dead now being an invuln, reaching full HP from 1 HP is essentially the same as being healed for 100% of your HP. The nice thing with this change is, from the moment Walking Dead triggers, healers have the full 10 seconds to heal you as opposed to waiting for let's say a multi-hit tankbuster to end and then rushing to heal you with 4 seconds remaining. It's basically similar to Superbolide with the condition of needing to be healed to full, but better than Holmgang in the sense that you can be healed immediately upon triggering of Walking Dead. This justifies the cooldown being longer than Holmgang but shorter than Superbolide.

Oblation now lasts 15 seconds.
- A little buff to Oblation wouldn't hurt as this allows Oblation to be used as the "uptime" mitigation while reserving TBN for the harder hits.

Bloodspiller/Quietus extends your Darkside duration by 30 seconds.
Darkside max duration is 300 seconds.
Upon reaching max duration, Darkside duration is reset to 30 seconds and a Dark Arts proc is granted.
You can now store up to 2 Dark Arts Proc.
- These changes make Dark Knight's job gauge more meaningful. You would use MP and Blood to extend your Darkside timer which in turn rewards you with a Dark Art Proc. 300 seconds as the max duration can be adjusted to sound more reasonable.

Abyssal Drain now gives 20 Blood Gauge.
Salted Earth grants you a buff that freezes the duration of Darkside.
- These changes make all DRK's oGCDs related to one of their resources, with Carve and Spit replenishing MP.

Shadowbringer does not require Darkside but consumes 1 Dark Arts instead.
- This requirement sounds more reasonable as Darkside is never dropped. Having Darkside as the ultimate resource to use DRK's strongest oGCD makes sense. With it still being tied to a cooldown, you can use any extra Dark Arts proc generated from TBN on Edge of Shadows. But the primary idea is to be able to generate 2 Dark Arts proc from reaching Darkside max duration and spend them on Shadowbringer every 2 minutes.

[Aword3213]

I'll just let my imagination run wild here

Dark Mind - 90s cooldown
Reduce Magic Vulnerability by 20%. Increase parry rate to 100%
Duration:20s

Enhanced Unmend
Instantly restores 1 charge of Plunge when executing Unmend

Living Dead
When effect change from Living Dead to Walking Dead, reset the recast timer of Abyssal Drain



Abysaal Drain
Additional effect: Increase HP recovery via healing actions by 20%
Duration: 10s
when under the effect of Walking Dead, cure potency is 10 times stronger.



Carve and Split
when under the effect of Blood Weapon, extends the duration of Blood Weapon by 5 seconds

Shadowbringer
Additonal effect: restore 3000 MP
when under the effect of Dark Art, instead of restoring MP, afflicts all target with Scourge. Consumes Dark Art
Scourge effect: unaspected damage over time
potency: 120
duration: 18s