A DRK Rework Suggestion for 7.0 (or beyond)

[Archwizard]

Considering DRK's current position as a tank, I've been thinking a lot about its personal sustainability. It all started with asking "Why isn't DRK the vampiric tank, instead of WAR?" and snowballed from there.
Now that we've had a few hours to digest the Live Letter announcement, I figured I'd drop the rework document I've been working on for about a week now.

CLICK HERE

Change Summary:

• Darkside mechanic is completely reworked: now transforms abilities and their functions for a magical burst period; Blood Gauge reworked into "Abyss Gauge" to fuel these abilities
• MP is now used for life-draining abilities (Abyssal Drain and Bloodspiller)
• Blood Weapon and Dark Mind are now tools to facilitate increased healing at early levels
• Stalwart Soul and Dark Missionary are learned at lower levels on par with similar tanking skills
• Living Dead completely reworked: Gives damage immunity but drains health over time
• Carve & Spit, Delirium, Quietus and Shadowbringer now serve to boost the Abyss Gauge
• The Blackest Night no longer has a cost but has a longer CD; Oblation’s effects folded in
• New on-demand mitigation skill: “Dread Spikes”, which shares a CD with The Blackest Night and recovers some HP and MP when struck
• New raidwide defensive skill: “Martyr”, transfer incoming raid damage to yourself to regain MP

As a bit of a disclaimer, I have no expectations we'd see anything of this magnitude in 6.X, nor that this is the only possible vision for DRK moving forward. If come March 4th we find out what I've written is completely outdated, great. At best I expect this to be a jumping-off point for discussions about both DRK's current state and its potential for the future.

This is also not some sort of flex that "I could do it better." I have the utmost respect for the devs and love for this game, especially having played many MMOs with far less communication from their dev team who had far less respect for their players' time investment.

[Archwizard]

Aaaand just gonna reserve this spot, just in case.

JOB THEMES:

• Similar to the Paladin, the Dark Knight is a self-sacrificing and magic-oriented tank, mixing spellcraft into its swordplay. Unlike PLD, DRK's magics are profane and fueled by the suffering they take on. Where the PLD represents nobility and valor, the DRK represents pragmatism and paying evil unto evil. The PLD is first the shield defending the weak; the DRK is first the blade smiting those who threaten the ones he loves.
• Similar to the Warrior, the Dark Knight uses heavy, impactful strikes. Unlike WAR, DRK does not seek reckless destruction, but rather to force his enemies to suffer. Where the WAR is implacable and endures through battlefield adrenaline and the Inner Beast removing doubt or pain, the DRK endures through spite and Abyssal magic.
• The DRK wields power at a price, whether she pays it or forces her enemies to. She plunges headlong into the Abyss for the strength to protect the downtrodden and cast down the wicked.

GOALS:

• Retool DRK's kit to be thematically appropriate, both to series history ("health as a resource") and its FF14 role/lore
• Rework DRK's primary rotation away from its resemblance to WAR into a playstyle unique to it; maintain the relative simplicity of a tanking playstyle, but expand on its depth
• Amplify both DRK's W2W survivability and personal skill synergy to be on par with other tanks, especially its invulnerability skill
• Reorganize the leveling scheme so that DRK is no longer a "late bloomer" tank

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY:

• Self-healing tank by means of life-draining effects
• Gauge allows ability transformation via Darkside effects
• Tank that rewards taking risks and tactical use of abilities

[Lyth]

This would be a great idea, except for the fact that WAR is already is the tank that you describe.

If you were creating a new game from scratch, would it make sense for a darkness-themed knight to have life siphoning/manipulation abilities (like Warcraft's Death Knight)? Absolutely. Would it make sense for a Berserker to ignore pain and shrug off damage (like the quintessential DnD Berserker)? Absolutely.

One of the foremost challenges with any MMO rework is that any time that you rework a job, players will come to you and complain that this isn't the job that they remember. So any successful rework on some level is going to have to be faithful to previous iterations of the job, even if they're difficult to reconcile with each other. What you've essentially done is taken a problem (players are not happy with DRK's design) and translated it into an even bigger problem (rework two jobs, with the risk of even more players being unsatisfied with the result).

My recommendation is this. Forget about lifesteal and trying to swap places with WAR. Bad things lie in wait at the end of that timeline. Instead, deliberately move DRK in a direction that allows it to differentiate itself from the other tank jobs. Right now, DRK is the job with the least amount of self-healing. That's perfectly fine. Commit to damage prevention then. You remember what I said about shrugging off pain?

'So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood.
As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...'

It's in the lore. That's the design aesthetic that you should be looking at. It may mean that your fantasy preconceptions of Berserkers and Blackguards are reversed, but it shouldn't matter as long as each job gets the opportunity to be unique and desirable in its own way.

[The_User]

I like when someone telling us how we should forget about life drain and try not to swap with WAR but cheering for red aura and copying reaper


While berserker can ignore a pain it doesn't heal them. When the berserking is wearing off the pain and suffering kick in and that isn't the same with Life Drain. You can check berserk manga/anime about the berserker armor episode.

[currentlemon]

Although your design of the DRK is a lot better than the current DRK, I don't think the job needs lifesteal mechanics because WAR is already that type of tank.

[Archwizard]

I don't think the job needs lifesteal mechanics because WAR is already that type of tank.

This would be a great idea, except for the fact that WAR is already is the tank that you describe.

Yes, and I asked "why isn't DRK the vampiric tank instead of WAR". Because I consider the positions they each occupy to be... a bit backwards. Nor am I alone in that regard.

Here's the thing: your argument that I'm suggesting reworking two jobs hinges on the assumption that life-draining is integral to WAR's current playstyle... when it is in fact only a big part of two skills, both on-demands.
One of which was changed only two months ago and is considered wildly overpowered, and previously was just raw mitigation.
Okay yes, they previously had Bloodbath too, but they lost that back in Stormblood... in a time when Dark Knight still had spammable Abyssal Drains. And NF came out a lot stronger than Bloodbath ever was, and was intended to be used for off-tanking.


If we look at the historical precedent set by Dark Knight across the Final Fantasy series, two things of importance jump out, central to its identity:
One, their "Darkness" ability uses health as a resource, usually to deal damage. Not something easy to implement on a tank, I will grant. Pin in that thought.
Two, they often supplement this with Sanguine Sword/Blood Weapon or other Drain-type abilities. Including the spammable Abyssal Drains I mentioned. This is... much more doable for a tank.

Going back to Warrior for a minute, since we're on the topic, my opinion is that the job should be focused on tools that bump its EHP to absorb damage... like it did before it had Nascent Flash. Whether that's heavy mitigation skills like Raw Intuition, skills that bump its max HP like Thrill of Battle, or even damage nullifying effects like Bloodwhetting also provides.
I'm not even averse to WAR keeping Equilibrium. A tank having their own Second Wind is fine; the only expressly non-magical tank could even justify it as adrenaline.
It has more of a case to be a barrier tank than DRK, in my opinion. Literally all you would need to change is turning RI/BW back into raw mitigation, or convert the "leech on hit" element into a stacking barrier effect on hit of equal (or ideally more balanced) potency. Nothing about its playstyle would even need to change!
But high-potency vampirism? Unless the Warrior is actually licking the blood off their axe, there's no non-magical explanation for that, especially if they're somehow healing other people more effectively than Paladin. Yes, it encourages them to keep swinging to maintain their life which seems fitting for a Berserker, until you realize that's on its head; a Berserker should be able to keep swinging because they ignore every arrow and ailment that strikes true in the first place.

Now, the line you quoted about Dark Knights? "But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted..."
That's the difference between Warriors and Dark Knights: WARs revel in combat but ignore pain. DRKs use pain as power.
That is 14's reflection of their Darkness ability: they grow stronger the more they're beaten down. It's a sadomasochistic dance for them. Just look at lost skills of theirs like Blood Price. (Which I used as a guiding principle for redesigning its mitigation.)
Which they used to cast more Dark Arts skills, including Abyssal Drain.

And on the flip-side, how much are you bleeding and soaking your armor when your main form of defense is barrier magic that eats tankbusters? Food for thought.

So to summarize,

My recommendation is this. Forget about lifesteal and trying to swap places with WAR. Bad things lie in wait at the end of that timeline.

I acknowledge your counsel, but I retain my agency not to follow it. This is the rework that follows that path to its conclusion.

Thank you for your earlier compliment. I hope you take the chance to comment on the changes to the playstyle I wrote beyond the sustain.

[The_User]

You don't need to use health as a resource since the theme is more like sacrifice hp for damage. Old Defiance&Deliverance already provided that in the past.
When you use Defiance it increase your max hp but you have to trade it for the effect that increase dps of Deliverance. You don't required to paid you hp for every attacks and it still fit the sacrifice hp for damage theme.

[Archwizard]

You don't need to use health as a resource since the theme is more like sacrifice hp for damage.
You don't required to paid you hp for every attacks and it still fit the sacrifice hp for damage theme.

Sure, and on a similar note, the rework here doesn't have you sacrificing HP directly either -- it just fuels off of the damage you were already going to take anyway, turning it into MP that you can use for bonus attacks that will heal you.

[Lyth]

...

Like I said earlier, if you were designing the tank jobs from scratch, everything that you're suggesting would be very reasonable. The problem is that the playerbase has expectations of the jobs based off of their prior experiences with them.

The primary reason why WAR is currently the lifesteal tank is, unfortunately, because it got there first. There was a period in time during early Stormblood where it could have gone either way, and I've asked many of these same questions myself several years back. But now you have players who have been maining WAR for something approaching 10 years now, and there's a community expectation that's built up over time that it's 'supposed' to be good at lifesteal. If you want to know what you're up against, just take a look at the 'Tank healing is too high' thread to see what happens when you try to take away those toys. And from a developer standpoint, why would you want to risk it? You have players that are really happy with the design of the job. If you start tampering with it to make another job look more attractive, then you just end up with two groups of angry players instead of just one.

I'm likewise not a fan of trying to try to share lifesteal with other tanks. It's dumb enough that PLD now uses vampiric holy magic. Why would you throw yourself into the midst of that competition? I'd personally just like to see DRK develop a unique gameplay style and identity that isn't available on another tank, rather than ending up as a budget WAR just because it's in vogue. And that's the comparison that will invariably be made at the end of the day.

It doesn't matter either way. I can only point out the practicalities of the issue. Enjoy your homebrew.

[Archwizard]

I'm likewise not a fan of trying to try to share lifesteal with other tanks. It's dumb enough that PLD now uses vampiric holy magic. Why would you throw yourself into the midst of that competition? I'd personally just like to see DRK develop a unique gameplay style and identity that isn't available on another tank, rather than ending up as a budget WAR just because it's in vogue. And that's the comparison that will invariably be made at the end of the day.

So one, this paragraph here gives me the vibe that you wrote off the entire doc without reading it when you saw "life steal" on the OP, because you think WAR should have a monopoly on it – which I would normally write off as an outlandish bad faith interpretation of your statement, if you hadn't gone so far as to heckle PLD for healing with its holy spells. The job that has had self-healing since FF1, but only as a ribbon here because of its DPS cost.
Or claimed that this would make DRK "budget WAR" when... look at it currently. This isn't in a vacuum of "the only thing I added was more lifesteal."
And to be honest, the idea that you would throw out any type of lifesteal, regardless of its methodology, only permitting Bloodwhetting purely because "WAR got there first" is exceptionally close-minded.

Especially when you pull out the one-two of

The primary reason why WAR is currently the lifesteal tank is, unfortunately, because it got there first. There was a period in time during early Stormblood where it could have gone either way, and I've asked many of these same questions myself several years back.

... wherein you demonstrate the malleability of these roles and how they aren't set in stone, regardless of "expectations." It's a very "eat your cake and have it too" argument.
And as I already explained, DRK has an even longer precedent than WAR does, predating 14, one where people claiming WAR should life-leech would have less of a leg to stand on if a swap was imminent. Meanwhile DRK's current role as a barrier tank comes out of nowhere.