My Ideas for changes to Dark Knight

[HifUmiKuroGane]

Despite the majority, I have overall been enjoying Dark Knight in DT. My experiences in Dungeons, Trials and Raids as Dark Knight have been overall positive. This is anecdotal and I know it is not the experience of many players.

While Dark Knight shone DPS wise in Abyssos, that is currently not the case and Dark Knight's issues go far beyond its damage, which should be addressed either way. While I do not know how the overall job should be reworked, I do have ideas that I believe could relieve some of the issues Dark Knight has in terms of survivability and clunkiness of certain actions. I didn't play during HW or SB so I can't speak on which if any actions should return.

Changes to Mitigation

1. Dark Missionary unlocked pre level 70
2. The Blackest Night updated: Function similarly to: Arcane Crest: Upon breakage, The Blackest Night grants a low potency cure that lasts 10-15s, Tempera Coat: Upon breakage, The Blackest Night recast timer is halved. If The Blackest Night shield breaks, player is granted 5-10% mitigation for remaining time
3. Shadowed Vigil updated: Allow players to activate HP restoration at any time or any HP value, Shadowed Vigil gradually restores HP during the duration of effect
4. Dark Mind Updated: Reduce Magic Damage mitigated by 5% add 5 or 10% Physical Damage Mitigation

Changes to Combat Skills

1. Unbind Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit recast timer: Reduce Abyssal Drain recast timer to 30s
2. Salted Earth/Salt and Darkness updated: While standing in Salted Earth, the player gains 5% damage reduction, Abilities and Weaponskills used while standing in Salted Earth heal player, Salt and Darkness activation grants HP equivalent of enemy damage done to player
3. Delirium updated, Delirium remains 3 stacks, Blood Weapon stacks returned to 5 stacks
4. Living Shadow/Esteem Updated, Reduce spawn time of Esteem, Esteem uses updated Delirium actions, Damage done by Esteem’s Abyssal Drain is granted to player
5. Make Unleash and Stalwart Soul affected by Skill Speed

Now to my history in this game for those that care

Began playing in 5.1
My first level cap tank was GNB, but eventually leveled and played all tanks
Began tanking out of desperation when Diamond Weapon/EX was released
Started tanking seriously on WAR and DRK (found it very hard to tank in EX Trials on GNB and PLD)

Cleared all HW-ShB EXs on WAR or DRK
Cleared all EW EXs on various jobs, more recently cleared Zeromus EX on content on PLD
Cleared DT EX1 on DRK

Cleared most of Abyssos Savage (P5S-P8S P1) on WAR or DRK

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Howdy! Also long-time DRK main here (4.3 onward), I see a lot of cool suggestions here so allow me to give some bullet round feedback.

Dark Missionary - ...ah. I mean I can see the parity with GNB for Lv70 ultimates, but honestly in my experience it would not be the end of the world if you don't have it. Still, a common request so I understand.

TBN - I like your inspiration from Arcane Crest and Tempera Coat, especially the latter. Even if MP economy management had to go, it would be cool with CD reduction on break. The additional mitigation is a bit superfluous though, but the rest is cool.

Shadowed Vigil - not really a fan of manual trigger on Excogitation effects. Would also lead to GNB and SCH players asking for the same treatment. Unless manual trigger gets a healing penalty, I don't think it should exist.

Dark Mind - Im going to be honest, I have to ask you to explain that a bit better. I get the rough idea what you want here but this is a bit confusing.

Abyssal Drain & Carve - great suggestion, but if AD still has +600MP it would solve the missing Bloodweapon stacks by itself. Still, love it!

Salted Earth/Salt II - ah, I feel like PvP Salted Earth may have inspired. For the CD of 90s and area restriction, a cool & worthy change. The 5% mitigation might me kinda low to notice but I suppose the lifesteal aura would make up for it. Amounts would need to be tuned carefully since you allow ability damage to lifesteal too. Oh and add Spell damage to account for AOE combo and Unmend.

The Salt & Darkness heal might be a bit overkill since you lifesteal with it too.

Delirium/Blood Weapon - see Abyssal Drain about MP. I'd be fine with either honestly, both would be a +1200mp/min gain over Endwalker though. Would likely result in reduced potency on Edge & Flood of Shadow.

Living Shadow - if functionality stays the same, then yes to all of it.

AOE combo - long overdue change, yes please.

[BigCheez]

Changes to Mitigation

1. Dark Missionary unlocked pre level 70

Yeah, they probably could do this. I think the reason they haven't is because other tanks don't have their externals yet i.e. nascent. DRK gets TBN, so it doesn't get missionary.

2. The Blackest Night updated: Function similarly to: Arcane Crest: Upon breakage, The Blackest Night grants a low potency cure that lasts 10-15s, Tempera Coat: Upon breakage, The Blackest Night recast timer is halved. If The Blackest Night shield breaks, player is granted 5-10% mitigation for remaining time


TBN is honestly fine as it is. It's very strong in trash pulls or against single big hits but loses value against multiple big hits. I think skills having strengths and weaknesses makes the game more interesting. I don't think every button needs to work in every scenario.

3. Shadowed Vigil updated: Allow players to activate HP restoration at any time or any HP value, Shadowed Vigil gradually restores HP during the duration of effect

SV is already the strongest 40% buff. This isn't needed.

4. Dark Mind Updated: Reduce Magic Damage mitigated by 5% add 5 or 10% Physical Damage Mitigation

Press oblation if you want 10% physical mit. Press dark mind if you want magic mit.

Changes to Combat Skills

1. Unbind Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit recast timer: Reduce Abyssal Drain recast timer to 30s

I'd rather they just merged them into a "deals x potency to first enemy and 50% to all others" skill.

2. Salted Earth/Salt and Darkness updated: While standing in Salted Earth, the player gains 5% damage reduction, Abilities and Weaponskills used while standing in Salted Earth heal player, Salt and Darkness activation grants HP equivalent of enemy damage done to player

This sounds kind of busted and unnecessary.

3. Delirium updated, Delirium remains 3 stacks, Blood Weapon stacks returned to 5 stacks

I think blood weapon should be removed and delirium should be reworked. I feel like this skill is probably going to be quite confusing for new players now because it does a lot.

4. Living Shadow/Esteem Updated, Reduce spawn time of Esteem, Esteem uses updated Delirium actions, Damage done by Esteem’s Abyssal Drain is granted to player

Why? The skill was already reworked so you can press it early for better raid buff alignment. They just need to give the shadow plunge back because it loses damage with the new gap closer.

5. Make Unleash and Stalwart Soul affected by Skill Speed

Why? PLD's spells aren't affected by SkS either.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

@BigCheez: I'm getting a feeling you don't really like change to happen.

Dark Mind - a common issue for DRK is that there is a lot of physical damage that matters in the game. This ranges from dungeons to a surge of physical tankbusters in savage and ultimate. Oblation is helping to fill the gap post-Lv82, but is not the supposed solution for Dark Mind doing 0% when the incoming damage is physical, an issue the other tanks with Bulwark / Thrill of Battle / Camouflage NOT have when it comes to either damage type. They all have a niche that makes them perform better, but none of them ever hit 0% value when a damage type is not fitting. Also Oblation comes around when all other tanks get a beefy upgrade to their short mitigation.

TL;DR: Dark Mind should absolutely have at least half the value of magical as physical mitigation, because no other tank has this issue.

Salted Earth - oh when DRK gets a 90s CD that gives them a bit of lifesteal when in it its busted and unnecessary, but when Paladin & Warrior come out with gigatons of unconditional mitigation AND sustain out of their cheeks it's OK? What matters is actual numbers balance, the concept is not inherently a problem.

Unleash, Stalwart Soul (, Unmend) - jobs having weaponskills and spells in the same toolkit, without merging both speed stats (OR a trait to give them the opposite speed type equal to their regular speed type), has been a stupid concept for a long time. Jobs affected by this concept currently are Paladin, Dark Knight, Reaper and Red Mage, with potential of more to come in the future.

There is absolutely no reason to make speed even worse than it already is through current job design putting all the potencies behind cooldowns unaffected by speed. Just because Paladin is having the same does not mean every job is supposed to suffer equally, this should literally not be a thing for ANY job.

[Tunda]

Job issue is one.. attacks are not satisfying

just watch this video and you will know what we are missing
youtube link

[BigCheez]

-cutting this out because my post is soo long-

Is physical damage really an issue for DRK though? It gets a 20% magic mit instead of getting a skill to buff block rate or parry rate like PLD and GNB. It isn't struggling for physical mit, it has directly equivalent skills to the other tanks otherwise. When used appropriately dark mind is incredibly strong. It just isn't very useful in dungeons but the game isn't balanced around dungeons. There are a large number of bosses with tankbusters that deal magic damage.

Sure, DRK has less sustain than WAR and PLD, but once potencies are fixed - it will bring significantly more damage. If the job was struggling, it wouldn't be such a common pick for world prog.

Is a job not benefiting from SkS/SpS really "suffering"? Those jobs just prioritise other stats. All tanks play better at 2.5 GCD anyway. Fights don't have much (if any) forced down time any more, so you aren't getting extra GCDs via SkS, which was the main reason that you would have wanted it previously. It's also worth noting that a lot of the more modern fights with knockup mechanics and whatnot (like Dt ex2) tend to align better with a 2.5 GCD.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Is physical damage really an issue for DRK though? It gets a 20% magic mit instead of getting a skill to buff block rate or parry rate like PLD and GNB. It isn't struggling for physical mit, it has directly equivalent skills to the other tanks otherwise. When used appropriately dark mind is incredibly strong. It just isn't very useful in dungeons but the game isn't balanced around dungeons. There are a large number of bosses with tankbusters that deal magic damage.

Sure, DRK has less sustain than WAR and PLD, but once potencies are fixed - it will bring significantly more damage. If the job was struggling, it wouldn't be such a common pick for world prog.

Is a job not benefiting from SkS/SpS really "suffering"? Those jobs just prioritise other stats. All tanks play better at 2.5 GCD anyway. Fights don't have much (if any) forced down time any more, so you aren't getting extra GCDs via SkS, which was the main reason that you would have wanted it previously. It's also worth noting that a lot of the more modern fights with knockup mechanics and whatnot (like Dt ex2) tend to align better with a 2.5 GCD.

Not only is physical damage recurring in fact an issue for DRK for a large variety of Savage & Ultimate fights (P10S Harrowing Hell, P11S all busters, P12S Crush Helm, UcoB Death Sentence, Bahamut's Claw & Ravensclaw, Flatten, UWU Mountain Buster, TEA Double Rocket Punch, DSR Heavenly Heel & Ascalon's Might just to name recent and relevant examples), it's an issue no other tank has had to deal with or have to use "another cooldown" to make up for that shortcoming. TBN & Oblation are the equivalent to [Holy Sheltron / Bloodwhetting / Heart of Corundum]. These are fine, if some might argue weaker than either of these, but I digress.

Here is how Dark Mind fares to the equivalent of the other extra CD (type):

• Bulwark - 90s CD, 10s Duration - guaranteed blocking (20% mitigation under normal conditions). - Weakness: Critical hits (don't exist Lv80+), DOTs unaffected (but not the hit that causes it)
• Thrill of Battle - 90s CD, 10s Duration - basically TBN but instead as max HP increase with heal boost. - Weakness: It's not %-mitigation, but scales with escalating returns when paired with one
• Camouflage - 90s CD, 10s Duration - 10% Rampart vs Magic & Breath type damage, ~22% effective mitigation vs physical auto attacks. - Weakness: less % mitigation for single hits, but a good Rampart replacement
• Dark Mind - 60s CD, 10s Duration - 20% vs Magic damage, 0% vs anything else. Short CD though. - Weakness: The cooldown's existence 100% relies on magic damage, let alone relevant magic damage, existing in encounters[/B]

Aside from this glaring difference between Dark Mind vs the world, many Dark Knights have stated, that mitigation in dungeons pre-TBN and pre-Oblation is sparse, along with the 60s CD on Abyssal Drain. The simplest solution to add SOMETHING for all content would be a change to allow for at least partial physical mitigation. Just because the game is not balanced around dungeons does not mean we should not implement features that could benefit DRKs in dungeons.

Just because Dark Knight has been a favoured pick by teams for world prog does not mean Dark Knight needs to "just wait for potencies, then it is fine" and just accept a gaping hole the devs have to design around. Dark Knight supposed to being "the damage tank" is a poor excuse, in fact I don't even care if it is 3rd or 4th place.

As for the skillspeed/spellspeed topic: Read my thread. This is not a matter of "how much or if they are suffering", it simply should not exist.