Thread: A DRK Rework Suggestion for 7.0 (or beyond)

You know sometime all this Dark Knight is barrier tank is kinda like making a fanfic and force the people who didn't view stormblood as the birth of Dark Knight to accept it


Dark Knight have more than drain spell. Dark Sword attack with life drain sets it apart from the Holy Knight in FF tactic. In FF11 it have something that was like a prototype of blood bath and in HW the life drain contributed a lot to Dark Knight survivability and their was no barrier in Dark Knight's arsenal back then.


I wonder is it still a debate if you can go so far as to change Dark Knight mitigation to have more barrier to support your claim that Dark Knight is a barrier tank?

Make no mistake TBN is a relic of stomblood. The special part is that it allow you to convert resource not the barrier aspect. It wasn't supposed to be the trademark of Dark Knight




I think maybe the middle ground for both Life Drain and Barrier is having blood price that can target ally and TBN revert back to stormblood version then make Bloodspiller grant a heal or life drain

Expansion: Higher/Lower theme
HW: Evasive/Vampiric tank
StB: Vampiric/Barrier tank
ShB: Barrier/Vampiric tank

If we look at the current expansion as flawed, that leaves us with no more precedent for DRK being a barrier tank than a vampiric one...
________

Separately...

Overall, I prefer WAR as the more integrally HP-generating and -utilizing tank, but it's not as if "lifesteal" alone makes up the core of an identity, nor that any action with both damage potency and cure potency need be identically considered as "lifesteal" any more than Thrill of Battle and TBN ought be considered identically "barriers". There are multiple procedures available to healing from offensive actions that could vary its apparent theme, even prior to situating and using those capacities differently.

What's suggested here doesn't rely on lifesteal as a theme; it's just a capacity bump, varying from WAR in that the capacity is a good deal more choiceful, rather than simply part of the moment-to-moment rotation, a single bursty heal, or part of the "hit me harder" on demand miti CD. The far larger component, gameplay-wise, is the Abyss Gauge and Darkside.

Shouldn't we be talking more about that, rather than treating parity in sustain capacity as an entire, overwhelming theme? Yes, this all may have started from the idea of giving DRK sustain, finding use therein for the MP gauge as more than just potency-per-minute (which is certainly a handier, more controlled form than available to the other tanks), but let's not ignore the revised Blood (now Abyss) gauge in terms of playflow and aesthetic.

I have yet to find a better middle ground sorry. It could be tough if you have already decided that you won't budge from "Dark Knight's short mitigation must not have a cost". If not, I wonder what if there are alternate choice of TBN as a second short mitigation that's free? [but tbn isn't free]



however my week end is about to over so I can't spend much time with this right now.


*edit*

I take a peek at your tbn vs shadow spike and wonder have you compared the potency gain between the 2?
have you calculated the potency of single target combo vs aoe combo?

what the opener is like?

is there a problem with how gauge and mp build up?

is there a button bloat problem?

can you always expect to take the benefit of raid buff?

are you always have to waste Bloodspiller life drain in raid buff?

Originally Posted by Aluja89

DRK needs to be a magic shield tank, TBN is what it's known for so it should expand on that, like a personal Haima.

It was, and it dominated the role during Alexander Savage, and it was horrible to balance.

Barriers are a lot more powerful when it's stacked with mitigations, barriers strengths saves a lot of healing, and enables more DPS outputs, SE won't ever do this. Double Barrier Healers have always dominated the raiding scene because of the sheer amount of mitigations. Currently in EW it's Ast with Sge/Sch since Ast has the most broken healing ability Macrocosmos.

Originally Posted by The_User

I take a peek at your tbn vs shadow spike and wonder have you compared the potency gain between the 2?
have you calculated the potency of single target combo vs aoe combo?

what the opener is like?

is there a problem with how gauge and mp build up?

is there a button bloat problem?

can you always expect to take the benefit of raid buff?

are you always have to waste Bloodspiller life drain in raid buff?

To answer point by point:

• None of the numbers are set in stone so I haven't done calculations on potency gains. Obviously the intent is for Spikes to be your go-to in W2W and TBN is your option for off-tanking, but I wanted to make an intentional choice for which one you use when main-tanking to encourage risk-reward. Spikes has higher potential between the uncapped MP gain and instant reprisal damage, but TBN will be more reliable for dealing with slower, heavier hits like tankbusters.
• Your opener would be popping Delirium and going right into your Darkside combo. (Though there's room for you to delay for a few GCDs to line up with raid buffs.)
• I shouldn't think there's any "problem" with the buildup...? I tuned up MP gain quite a bit, especially during the burst combo, but tuned down the gauge so you wouldn't spend significantly more time in Darkside than out of it.
• There shouldn't be any bloat problem; all of the Darkside combo changes existing abilities, I added 3 new buttons (Spikes, Martyr and Darkside) but removed Oblation and the separate Edge/Flood/Shadowbringer buttons. Should be a net -1.
• Aside from Delirium (which has 10 sec shaved off to reduce drift potential), all of DRK's gauge-building oGCDs are on a 60 sec compatible timer. You should have enough tools to burst in alignment with the raid window.
• "Wasting life drain" is a bit of a non-issue in my book, considering you could make the same argument about wasted healing from Souleater, Brutal Shell, Storm's Path or any of PLD's spells, assuming you're off-tanking. You would avoid overcapping your MP per usual and would probably burst your entire bar during your Darkside phase, but MP gains have been tuned upward to allow for keeping some in the tank for use as-needed.

EDIT: Re-added Delirium after all.

Originally Posted by Aluja89

I personally still wouldn't make it a lifesteal tank. Simply because that was never in DRK's identity in FF. It did usually have a drain spell in its dark magic spell list but that's about it.

That's more because Dark Knight was never meant to be a tank in past FF games, not because of the presence or importance of lifesteal.
It wouldn't do to have a tank who sacrificed most of their HP dealing damage, after all.
Historically though, absorbing the life force of opponents was the only self-sufficient way Dark Knight had to recharge Darkside. XIV is the only case in the series to have Blood Weapon not even act as a healing effect, though this is probably as an artifact of once having an MP-consuming Drain spell.

Meanwhile if we are going on series precedent as you have, there's a sheer lack of barrier effects for Dark Knight due to that usually falling under White Magic, which is Paladin's domain. "TBN is what it's known for", and even its anti-magic bent, is unique to XIV.