Should Dark Knight get a Rework?

[Jeeqbit]

I'd just like to see Abyssal Drain restored to what it used to be.
Its not the AOE version of Carve and Spit and SE was stupid for trying to make it that

Carve and Spit always had the problem that it was pointless in most aoe situations. Sure, if you needed the burst of MP it was useful and maybe in Shadowbringers that could contribute to part of a Flood of Shadow, but it wasn't really worth it, especially when trash would die quickly most of the time. It was worth saving for the real enemy, the boss, that you were about to fight.

Meanwhile, Abyssal Drain was pretty useless on a single target. The potency per second wasn't good on a single target and nor was the heal. It made a lot of sense for them to do this, but I admit I found it annoying to get used to and didn't even notice at first until it felt like they were both weaving together too easily.

I've been finding DRK to be an absolute nightmare to play in lv 60-70 content due to how much its lacking all the defensive tools its lost from that area.

I haven't, because they still have the standard tools that all tanks have there, such as Shadow Wall, Rampart, Reprisal, Arm's Length and Low Blow. It's even better now that their invuln is useful. One thing that I find helps is to use raid food, because the vitality doesn't sync properly and the health boost helps, so that might make me bias.

It's not like Paladin has it much better. They just have a Sheltron and random blocks, with no self heals at all unless they use Clemency. Even if DRK has it worse below level 70, PLD actually has it worse at level 70 because their abilities do not compete with The Blackest Night.

[RyuDragnier]

Carve and Spit always had the problem that it was pointless in most aoe situations. Sure, if you needed the burst of MP it was useful and maybe in Shadowbringers that could contribute to part of a Flood of Shadow, but it wasn't really worth it, especially when trash would die quickly most of the time. It was worth saving for the real enemy, the boss, that you were about to fight.

Meanwhile, Abyssal Drain was pretty useless on a single target. The potency per second wasn't good on a single target and nor was the heal. It made a lot of sense for them to do this, but I admit I found it annoying to get used to and didn't even notice at first until it felt like they were both weaving together too easily.

CnS has always been on a cooldown, AD never had one until ShB, it only used the MP as its cooldown. AD really needs to be buffed in the Cure Potency department, 200 per hit is an absolute joke, 400 cure potency per hit would fine.

[Midareyukki]

Carve and Spit always had the problem that it was pointless in most aoe situations. Sure, if you needed the burst of MP it was useful and maybe in Shadowbringers that could contribute to part of a Flood of Shadow, but it wasn't really worth it, especially when trash would die quickly most of the time. It was worth saving for the real enemy, the boss, that you were about to fight.

Meanwhile, Abyssal Drain was pretty useless on a single target. The potency per second wasn't good on a single target and nor was the heal. It made a lot of sense for them to do this, but I admit I found it annoying to get used to and didn't even notice at first until it felt like they were both weaving together too easily.

I haven't, because they still have the standard tools that all tanks have there, such as Shadow Wall, Rampart, Reprisal, Arm's Length and Low Blow. It's even better now that their invuln is useful. One thing that I find helps is to use raid food, because the vitality doesn't sync properly and the health boost helps, so that might make me bias.

It's not like Paladin has it much better. They just have a Sheltron and random blocks, with no self heals at all unless they use Clemency. Even if DRK has it worse below level 70, PLD actually has it worse at level 70 because their abilities do not compete with The Blackest Night.

I don't really get this argument though. By the same logic, so too is Xenoglossy useless on single target past Foul. There simply are skills meant to be used in AoE than they are in single target. That was never a problem.

The real problem is believing C&S and AD are the same skill. They're not. And if the devs think they are, then they need to play DRK more.

Because C&S was a high-damage cooldown. AD was an AoE sustain GCD. If anything, Shadowbringer has a lot more incommon with C&S than AD ever did.

It's fine for skills to not be useful in certain locations. You'd never use Fuga in single target, would you? Yet it's there. And guess what, it does the exact same as Hakaze. What they did was like looking at BRD's kit and assuming the equivalent of Rain of Death in Single Target was somehow Empyreal Arrow.

The effects don't match. AD was the go-to for sustainability in mob packs. TBN was a shield, but AD let you heal back up a bit. Now every tank has a form of sustainability on top of defences and shields, yet DRK's one and only skill for it is on a 1 minute cooldown. A 1 minute cooldown conflated with a skill that doesn't give any sustainability, only shares the MP recovery aspect.

And, again, had they played any iteration of DRK, they'd know that Abyssal Drain was something you'd do fairly often in AoE pulls. Carve and Spit was something you pressed on cooldown. Not the same thing by a long shot.

[Shurrikhan]

And, again, had they played any iteration of DRK, they'd know that Abyssal Drain was something you'd do fairly often in AoE pulls. Carve and Spit was something you pressed on cooldown. Not the same thing by a long shot.

True, but what else was something "you'd do fairly often in AoE pulls" (and would have no redeeming quality opposite Abyssal Drain after the removal of enmity-high skills)? Unleash. That, not C&S, was the primary reason for it shifting gears.

Similarly, they intended to make a matched VFX AoE mirror to their new DA-direct attack (Edge of Darkness/Shadow) against which a no-CD oGCD Abyssal Drain would be redundant (and leave no real redeeming feature for Flood).

Retaining its pre-squish potency (i.e., buffing it slightly) and making the self-heal automatic and free (instead of at MP cost), then, seems pretty logical.

That move wasn't a matter of forgetting what Abyssal Drain was previously supposed to do. It was simply that they prioritized their new way of packaging Dark Arts over it and thus pushed it towards a more powerful CD position instead. AD, a GCD AoE with optional MP spending for self-healing was no longer possible to differentiate from Unleash, a GCD AoE with enmity mods (no longer a thing), nor was there room for AD as a weaker no-CD MP spender, since that'd be redundant with Flood.

Thereafter, they listened to the earlier complaints of a 150-potency attack not feeling like it was worth its weave-space in the opener and put it on a shared CD with CnS as an attempt at QoL.

No one was "believing that [StB or HW] C&S and AD are the same skill." But, due to additions elsewhere and the change t oDA, they were since both made into simply AoE and ST variants on "damage+" {MP or HP} skills on CDs.

If that healing weren't best rotated in early in an AoE pull (i.e., where it'd have been used for damage anyways) and DRK had additional use for MP outside of the phases you'd want to dump MP in anyways, then they would have been significantly distinct. But that's not the case.

(Even then, however, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be placed on a shared cooldown; sharing that recast time allows each of the two to be individually stronger (and therefore the DRK to have a higher ceiling each on AoE and ST, using the appropriate option instead of having to muddle in hybrid purposes). CD-sharing isn't inherently bad, especially given that DRK has more than enough means to regain the missing 1 APM however they'd wish if that were an apparent issue.)
___________

I don't really get this argument though. By the same logic, so too is Xenoglossy useless on single target past Foul. There simply are skills meant to be used in AoE than they are in single target. That was never a problem.

That one just comes down to subjective preference. Those who are fine with spending buttons just on checking whether the enemy/enemies is/are singular or plural and hitting the correct A|B option accordingly will like those purely ST|AoE action pairs. Those who don't, won't.

Most BLMs I've spoken to were not fans of Xenoglossy once Foul likewise became instant cast, since it relegated Xeno to solely a mechanic of "Is the enemy count greater than 1?" See also the many SAM threads on why Senei as a separate action was bloat and Guren should have just retained its former damage and fall-off (current Senei damage on first target, current Guren damage on all thereafter).

Prior to its giving MP, (ShB / CD-based) Abyssal Drain at least had more distinction from CnS than did those actions above. But, I could also understand if some wouldn't mind seeing either CnS or AD consolidated into the other with falloff, or to axe either among Drain or Flood entirely to consolidate those two's features -- in rejection of either old iconic VFX (AD) or the devs' preferred VFX pair (Edge+Flood).

You'd never use Fuga in single target, would you? Yet it's there.

But there's also a difference between having one ST|AoE mirror, especially where there are at least some distinct advantages to the latter (see Sonic Thrust for uptime on Neo Exdeath, Fuga-Oka/Mangetsu on adds that'd die from DoTs anyways while running back to the boss's reentry position for the higher rate of Sen and Kenki generation -- or, to push Sen sync ahead by 1 GCD -- etc.) and applying it to nearly every offensive action. Take Shadowbringer Bard, for instance. Did we really need an AoE and ST variant each of our GCD spam, or DoT capitalizing attack, our River of Blood charges, etc.?

[Midareyukki]

snip

I agree. But here's the thing, and I think it's a lot simpler than that o:

They condensed C&S with Abyssal Drain bc as you said, we didn't do other skills all that often. No, not even Dark Passenger, quit lying, we only ever used that once a blue moon >w>;;

But as I said, they're not the same. They are only similar in one aspect, they give MP. They weren't even both OGCDs, bc Abyssal Drain wasn't.

The answer was simple. Just make an equivalent. They made it for every other job (Shoha II, Ikishoten, Foul...). Why not for DRK? Especially now that we have Shadowbringer. Like, they could have just taken advantage of old discarded animations and reworked them into new stuff.
But no, they decided to do this, which ended up gimping DRK's sustainability.

The rest about Foul and Xenoglossy, that's a problem with BLM itself and should be addressed, sure... but for what's worth, for this conversation, it's important to note that they did make skills for stuff similar to our single-target combo but for AoE. So it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

What we got tho isn't it.

[Shurrikhan]

No, not even Dark Passenger, quit lying, we only ever used that once a blue moon >w>;;

Figurative language and semantics and such but... Dark Passenger was only a 30s CD, and was your most efficient use of MP after DA-C&S. Compared against the likes of Shadowbringer or C&S, you used it pretty often.

But as I said, they're not the same. They are only similar in one aspect, they give MP. They weren't even both OGCDs, bc Abyssal Drain wasn't.

It didn't give MP until after it stopped being a GCD (and not for a long while even then).

Again, Abyssal Drain could not remain a GCD without killing Unleash.
Abyssal Drain could not remain at at-will AoE spender without killing Flood, which the ShB DRK dev(s) was/were apparently very attached to.

The only choice remaining was for AD to be on CD, whether as a GCD or an oGCD. Since it includes healing, they went with the more responsive option, an oGCD.

That's it. There was no confusion about what purpose it was primarily supposed to serve. Abyssal Drain itself did not heal. Dark Arts did. Most times you hit that skill was not for healing, but simply because AD dealt a third more damage than Unleash.

The closest parity in its situational niche would have been to...

• Axe Flood and replace it directly with Abyssal Drain,
• Axe Stalwart Soul, buff Unleash slightly in compensation (perhaps giving it half a Syphon of MP generation), and replace Soul with Abyssal Drain as an MP spender (not great, since it's still indirectly redundant with Flood, and would alternate target-centered AoEs with self-centered AoEs), or
• Axe Quietus and replace it with Abyssal Drain.

But each of those would require DRK losing something more, whereas turning AD into a burst heal on a CD did not.

The answer was simple. Just make an equivalent. They made it for every other job (Shoha II, Ikishoten, Foul...). Why not for DRK? Especially now that we have Shadowbringer. Like, they could have just taken advantage of old discarded animations and reworked them into new stuff.
But no, they decided to do this, which ended up gimping DRK's sustainability.

The rest about Foul and Xenoglossy, that's a problem with BLM itself and should be addressed, sure... but for what's worth, for this conversation, it's important to note that they did make skills for stuff similar to our single-target combo but for AoE. So it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.

I'm not actually sure what you intend to mean by "an equivalent". If combos are in the picture, we have an ST self-heal combo in Souleater. Else, if we wanted to equivalently allow MP spending to provide eHP as before, then the most direction would be to thus empower Edge and Flood while probably just axing AD outright.

Sure, we have old animations, but we still need them to have non-redundant purposes. Remember, that shift also gave us 3 new attack animations (Edge, Flood, Living Shadow) that also need their places, too.

Could the StB -> ShL shift have been handled far better? Absolutely. But I honestly think that if they just gave us a second charge on CnS/AD to offer it further flexibility in its self-healing and maybe buffed AD's just a bit, current Abyssal Drain would be totally fine.

Ideally, I'd keep AD on a shared CD but give CnS and AD each additional means of effect(iveness) that allow both to situationally be used in their opposite categories (AD in ST, CnS in AoE), with 2 charges on a 40s recharge (still syncs with 60 and 120s; 2 uses within full bursts, 1 totally flexible use between). But I imagine that'd be among the least impactful of what all changes I'd want.

[Midareyukki]

Figurative language and semantics and such but... Dark Passenger was only a 30s CD, and was your most efficient use of MP after DA-C&S. Compared against the likes of Shadowbringer or C&S, you used it pretty often. It didn't give MP until after it stopped being a GCD (and not for a long while even then).

on Dark Passenger, it's a joke, dw. Basically rarely do people talk about DP
As for AD giving MP, yes. That's the point. It gives MP now, and that's the only thing it has in common with C&S in terms of effects. Because C&S is there for burst windows of damage that line up every minute, be they major or not. Abyssal Drain is a large AoE skill that provides sustainability.

Again, Abyssal Drain could not remain a GCD without killing Unleash.
Abyssal Drain could not remain at at-will AoE spender without killing Flood, which the ShB DRK dev(s) was/were apparently very attached to.
The only choice remaining was for AD to be on CD, whether as a GCD or an oGCD. Since it includes healing, they went with the more responsive option, an oGCD.
That's it. There was no confusion about what purpose it was primarily supposed to serve. Abyssal Drain itself did not heal. Dark Arts did. Most times you hit that skill was not for healing, but simply because AD dealt a third more damage than Unleash.

Uh... then I played DRK wrong because I basically only ever used it for healing. I know it took a Dark Arts use for it to work, which was expensive, but it felt well-worth it. But we had tools to easily get MP back, I never, ever, had MP issues on DRK doing that. Both on SB and HSW. And right now, it looks like a super expensive version of Bloodwhetting.

I get that they didn't want to kill other skills. But right now, when compared to other tanks, Abyssal Drain is the answer we have for sustainability. Because TBN sure isn't it; it's mitigation and it's a very strong shield, I won't lie. BUT it's not sustainability. Abyssal Drain can be on a cooldown, sure, and it should be. You're not meant to spam it, and not even WARs spam Bloodwhetting. They have a cooldown between each cast of it, and it "only" lasts 3 GCDs. But that's what Abyssal Drain should do. It shouldn't be something you do at will, yeah. I agree. But it being on a 60s cooldown just because it's tied to C&S is too much for what it does on an AoE pull. Especially when compared to other tanks.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. "Ok well, we can't have that, TBN and Oblation at the same time". And naturally we can't. I'm speaking in a vaccum, bc I'm not a dev and whatever input I have is going to be "whatever". Obviously adjustments must be made, and I'm not the best indicated for those. But DRKs should have some sustainability on AoE, and it being on a 1m long cooldown isn't exactly the best :x Because even with TBN and Oblation, DRK is still considered the squishiest tank. That's what all the other comments from other people so far have been saying.

I'm not actually sure what you intend to mean by "an equivalent". If combos are in the picture, we have an ST self-heal combo in Souleater. Else, if we wanted to equivalently allow MP spending to provide eHP as before, then the most direction would be to thus empower Edge and Flood while probably just axing AD outright.

Whether we do or not is kind of irrelevant... WAR doesn't have one on its AoE kit, but it does have Bloodwhetting which does it for them. Abyssal Drain used to be the equivalent: it was our AoE sustain. Carve and Spit was in no way attached to it whatsoever, and there's no good justification for it. Because, ok fine, they are now. But they weren't before, and doing that led to AD losing its purpose.

The equivalence was because I keep mentioning how we have skills that do similar things on single-target and on AoE. Well, as you said, Souleater is our sustaining combo on ST. Abyssal Drain was MP-unfriendly, but it still allowed you to spam it if you were on top of your cooldown game. But Carve and Spit? What does that have to do with AD? Why did they join the two?

And well, the use of the word "equivalent" is less for you, and more for Jeeqbit, which is where all this started. Because there's no need for AD to have a use in single-target content, just as much as Xenoglossy no longer has a use in single-target rotations, how Shoha II doesn't have a use in single-target rotations... Like. They don't have to. And that's fine. You wouldn't use Decimate in single-target. Some stuff is for ST fights, others are for AoE. The real issue comes with the practical use for each skill. C&S makes sense to be on a minute-long cooldown. AD makes sense to have a cooldown longer than Bloodwhetting bc of TBN and Oblation, but 1m long isn't it.

[Shurrikhan]

Abyssal drain is something you hold until you need healing.

You should still typically be trying to use it as soon as you can in dungeons, as it recharges that much faster. Better to delay Shadow Wall slightly and let yourself get nuked down to what AD won't overheal than to hold AD for until you're on your last legs.

As for AD giving MP, yes. That's the point. It gives MP now, and that's the only thing it has in common with C&S in terms of effects.

And that they are damage CDs. Which is also the only thing in common between every other AoE-ST shared CD/Resource pairing.

Because C&S is there for burst windows of damage that line up every minute, be they major or not. Abyssal Drain is a large AoE skill that provides sustainability.

AD is still a damage CD. Yes, anything with AoE in this game gets downgraded to content doable while wasted beyond belief, but... you should be popping AD under raid buffs, as with any other damage CD. If that means shuffling longer mitigations CDs back/around slightly as not to overheal, so be it, but --like Dark Passenger and Shadowbringer and resource spending in general (including AD spam in the past)-- it should be done under buffs where possible. I know it doesn't feel like that much since it's been so squished to make room for Shadowbringer and the frequency of Flood, but it is likewise a damage CD.

Uh... then I played DRK wrong because I basically only ever used it for healing.

The portion of Unleash to AD, and when to switch from one to the other, was pretty entwined with Grit and thereby Blood Price (which could only be used in Grit during Stormblood). You tended to blow enough Unleash while Grit was still active to cover for using only AD thereafter, aiming to drop Grit with resources still high going into Blood Weapon so that DA-Quietus could refund its own Blood cost. With high enough mob counts you could use that to refund the MP costs of DA-AD (about a third of your MP per cast), but spending more than you needed to on healing would ultimately cause you to exit a non-Delirium BW phase with too little MP to spend the whole remainder of the pull without using single-target skills.

DRK could push WAR's ridiculous Stormblood levels of AoE output at very high target counts off the back of BW-Quietus and AD (part of which included exiting BW phase with still nearly full MP). Using AD over Unleash was absolutely a factor in that, though.

Abyssal Drain is the answer we have for sustainability.

Anything that provides sustain is an answer to a lack of sustain. It does not require removing AD from a free cast on CD and making it again a spammable spender (to the detriment of maximum combined sustain + throughput and/or redundancy with Flood).

You could as easily have Blood or MP spenders grant a portion of damage dealt as healing. Voila; sustain. You could just buff Abyssal Drain and make it more flexible. Voila; sustain. You could make Dark Mind not crap, having it produce further sustain. Again, anything works.

Whether we do or not is kind of irrelevant... WAR doesn't have one on its AoE kit, but it does have Bloodwhetting which does it for them. Abyssal Drain used to be the equivalent: it was our AoE sustain.

Abyssal Drain was originally more equivalent to Clemency and mirrored Grit DA-SE (SE only healed during Grit originally). It was a potency loss (opposite the potency gain of DA-SE) in exchange for target-scaled sustain. Only now is it at all equivalent to Bloodwhetting as free self-healing on a CD.

Carve and Spit was in no way attached to it whatsoever, and there's no good justification for it.

I don't know why you keep focusing on the CnS-AD resource pairing. They're together only because AD's 150p attack felt, to many, more "clunk" than "complexity/freedom" in raids and CnS didn't feel terribly useful in AoEs, so the ShB opener was made slightly less crowded (in preparation for Shadowbringer as an ability) and DRK was made able to go 100% AoE with its spenders in AoE situations. They were never able to be that diverse in practice.

Now, DRK has its "equivalent" to Bloodwhetting's AoE effect (note that its ST effect, too, is similarly comparatively dog****) in/via Abyssal Drain, albeit at a timing more equivalent to any other primary sustain CD (Equil, Aurora, Req-based heals) or core damage CD (Req, FoF, NM, IR); it's just tuned needlessly weak by comparison. That's not an issue of AD being placed on a cooldown or lacking a duration of effect (bursting from critical to full in one oGCD is fine), but simply its tuning (frequency x non-excessive power).

But it being on a 60s cooldown just because it's tied to C&S is too much for what it does on an AoE pull.

It was put on that CD before being attached to C&S. C&S, also, was originally on a shorter cooldown (40 or 45 seconds).

Because there's no need for AD to have a use in single-target content

No need, sure, but it'd still be a better use for its button-space if it did. I'd say the same for Decimate and Orogeny (to be useful in ST), Fell Cleave and Upheaval (to be --differently-- useful in AoE), etc., etc. Else there's no capacity they could cover that wouldn't already be met plentifully through damage fall-off, and those buttons could be used on something more interesting than "Can you count to 3?"

C&S makes sense to be on a minute-long cooldown.

No more or less than Spirit's Within, Upheaval, Danger Zone, Shadowbringer, etc. It's pretty darn arbitrary.
And again, despite it originally being the strongest attack in DRK's arsenal (at least up until 3 targets, at which point DA-DP overtook it), it started with a considerably shorter CD than it has now.

AD makes sense to have a cooldown longer than Bloodwhetting bc of TBN and Oblation, but 1m long isn't it.

*Can't help but notice Equilibrium, Aurora, and Paladin's 3200 potency of self-healing per minute.*

Again, I'd rather see its CD shortened (and, more importantly, made more flexible via a 2nd charge), but... there's nothing inherently wrong with a damage CD, a self-healing CD, or a two-in-one combo like AD (though decent only in AoE) being on a 1-minute CD. There's no reason for Equilibrium to make sense there and Abyssal to inherently not.

DRK merely needs additional sustain (sum of capacity for damage reverted without excess [effective healing] and damage nullified [mitigation]). Given that its mitigation is basically fine and applying sustain increases across the board would therefore might be excessive to its mitigation, that should mostly come from self-healing. But, we can apply that anywhere.

I like the idea of first siphoning a bit of power from DRK's dullest areas into CnS and AD because a 2-charge 40s CD would then provide at least one entirely flexible use per raid cycle (none if using a 60s CD or a single charge), and I feel that DRK currently has a lack of interesting/punctuating events outside of the 2-minute bursts.

For that self-healing, though, anything works. I'd buff AD a bit, especially against its primary target, just because I feel like it currently has a bit too little numeric impact for what its visuals entail. Beyond that, though? MP spenders and Blood spenders are both more flexible and iconic ways to get at that self-healing that would happen also to (A) not require Abyssal Drain be tuned down in becoming spammable / "at-will" and (B) encourage DRK towards a bit more action/complexity that'd fall outside of the 2-minute bursts. Compensate that healing for some inevitable waste due to burst window optimization, and you're good.

[Oizen]

Carve and Spit always had the problem that it was pointless in most aoe situations. Sure, if you needed the burst of MP it was useful and maybe in Shadowbringers that could contribute to part of a Flood of Shadow, but it wasn't really worth it, especially when trash would die quickly most of the time. It was worth saving for the real enemy, the boss, that you were about to fight.

Meanwhile, Abyssal Drain was pretty useless on a single target. The potency per second wasn't good on a single target and nor was the heal. It made a lot of sense for them to do this, but I admit I found it annoying to get used to and didn't even notice at first until it felt like they were both weaving together too easily.

I haven't, because they still have the standard tools that all tanks have there, such as Shadow Wall, Rampart, Reprisal, Arm's Length and Low Blow. It's even better now that their invuln is useful. One thing that I find helps is to use raid food, because the vitality doesn't sync properly and the health boost helps, so that might make me bias.

It's not like Paladin has it much better. They just have a Sheltron and random blocks, with no self heals at all unless they use Clemency. Even if DRK has it worse below level 70, PLD actually has it worse at level 70 because their abilities do not compete with The Blackest Night.

C&S is a use on cooldown ogcd
Abyssal drain is something you hold until you need healing.

The reason why I have to bring it up is because any time I talk about buffing Abyssal I have to address the fact they pointlessly attached their cooldowns together. Carve is fine as a 60s CD ogcd.
Abyssal honestly could see its heal potency doubled and its cooldown reduced to 30s and it would still be nothing compared to Bloodwhetting.

I get that people get upset if you talk about seperating them because it would make DRK burst even higher, I just don't really care about that. I want DRK to have a decent self heal tool in dungeons again, instead of not even being a job until lv 70.