Diagnosing Dark Knight

[Newtronic]

Dawntrail 7.01/7.05 DRK write-up

Introduction



Dark knight (DRK) is a job which requires management of 5 total resources, 3 unique to the dark knight class. The job must manage first and foremost your own health, alongside the health of your party members as you have a number of very strong party mitigation spells. Your mana (MP) which is capped at 10,000MP with every spell which utilizes it costs 3000MP.



The darkside gauge is the first, and most simple resource. DRK receives the first ability to grant these at level 30, Flood of darkness. Secondly, at level 40, DRK receives Edge of darkness, which is the single-target variation of Flood of darkness, and is the job’s primary source of oGCD damage. Both of these spells grant Darkside to the DRK who cast them, which is a 30s buff (maxing at 60s) granting 10% bonus damage for its duration. Both cost 3000MP to cast and hold a 1s recast time.



At level 74, both Flood and Edge of darkness receive upgrades. For Flood of Shadow, this is simply a 60% potency increase, and for Edge of Shadow, this is a 53% potency increase. Darkside is also required to cast Shadowbringer, a level 90 oGCD spell.



The Blood Gauge is DRK’s second unique gauge, unlocking at level 64, alongside the two spells which can spend it. Bloodspiller is a single-target weaponskill which delivers an attack with 580 potency and requires 50 blood to execute. Quietus is also unlocked at this level as it is the AoE variant, delivering an attack with 240 potency to all nearby enemies and requires 50 blood to execute. The Blood Gauge remains unchanged since 4.00 and has two main ways to be accumulated. Blood Weapon is an ability unlocked at level 35, granting 3 stacks of Blood Weapon (Buff) with each stack increasing your Blood Gauge by 10 and restoring 600MP with each successful weaponskill or spell. Blood can also accumulate by completing your standard 1-2-3 Souleater combo (or AoE variant) which both grant 20 blood.



Dark Arts is the most binary resource, however it requires the explanation of another core DRK ability to fully understand. The Blackest Night (TBN) is a mana-consuming defensive ability unlocking at level 70 and costs 3000MP to grant a barrier to your allied target or yourself if your target is an enemy. The barrier totals 25% of your target’s max HP and grants Dark Arts upon being broken. TBN has a cooldown of 15s despite costing 3000MP and being oGCD. Dark Arts is a single charge resource which allows your next offensive MP-consuming spell to be cast at the cost of your Dark Arts stack rather than the MP it would usually cost.

[Newtronic]

Endwalker 6.0 Changes
With changes like these, what could possibly go wrong?

Endwalker introduced a number of adjustments, upgrades, and quality of life changes to continually build on the rework of the Dark Knight job introduced in Shadowbringers.

Beginning with weapon skills, every move in the Souleater combo received potency nerfs both in and out of combo. Bloodspiller also had its potency reduced from 600 to 500. Quietus and Unleash both lost potency also, ranging from -10 potency on Quietus to -30 potency on Unleash.

Salted Earth, an AoE DoT ability was changed to automatically place at the DRK’s location rather than being a mouse targetter, and a recast was added to the same hotbar action to detonate the AoE for an additional 500 potency and 50% less for enemies after the first.

Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit were changed to share a recast timer, both featuring 60s. In addition to this, Abyssal Drain lost 50 potency however restores 600MP on the first enemy. Carve and Spit however, had a potency increase from 450 to 510.

Most notably and definitely the highlight of these changes were the reduction in damage to the Edge/Flood of shadow attacks from 500 to 460, and 300 to 260 respectively. However, to offset this significant potency loss, the recast timer was halved from 2 seconds to 1 second.

Living Shadow was updated to include the new level 90 ability, Shadowbringer. Oblation was given to DRK as a new mitigation which can be applied to self, or party members and reduced damage taken by 10% for a duration of 10 seconds. It has two maximum charges.

These changes, in the majority, were incredibly well received and despite the significant nerfs made the job feel much more enjoyable and less clunky. It also helped to commit to DRK’s newly established identity of a resource management tank, with a new mitigation to help offset the lackluster level 76 Dark Missionary party wide mitigation ability which only serves to negate 10% magical damage. DRK saw a lot of success in the savage and ultimate tier and consistently maintained the #2 rDPS spot ,amongst tanks, only trailing behind Gunbreaker, which felt more than fair given the immense strength of TBN’s low cooldown and providing Dark Arts if used well.

[Newtronic]

Dawntrail 7.0 Changes
July 2, Things go VERY WRONG.

First and foremost, Plunge, DRK’s gap closer offering two stacks with a 30s cooldown, is removed. This was because the optimal way to use the ability was to include it within your burst phase as the ability had a potency of 150. Replaced with Shadowstride, this new gapcloser offers no damage potency and has since been updated to increase enmity when cast on a target. Overall, this is a great change which serves to allow gap closers to be used as intended, rather than rammed into an incredibly busy burst window. This potency loss amounts to 5,400 over the course of an 18 minute fight. However, more importantly than this, this means two less oGCDs to include every 60s. This is also an observation based purely on feeling but Shadowstride feels as if it has much more start up and ending lag comparatively to it’s predecessor.

Delirium and Blood Weapon have been combined, however both now have 3 stacks. This is lower than Blood Weapon previously which was previously independent, which had 5 stacks. This results in two less weaponskills granting 600MP, meaning 600MP less restored per 60s period. It is important to note this is offset by a change which grants 200MP back on specific weaponskills once the level 96 Enhanced Delirium trait is unlocked.

Delirium enhances at level 96 which serves to replace the three stacks of Bloodspiller granted for free, and swaps them for three new spells which work as a combo, despite not being labeled as one. For 15s after the activation of Delirium, DRK’s Bloodspiller is replaced by Scarlet Delirium, which delivers an attack with a potency of 600, and restores 200MP. This skill then changes again, to become Comeuppance, which delivers an attack with a potency of 700 and restores 200MP. Finally, Comeuppance changes once again into Torcleaver, delivering an attack of 800 potency with a MP restore of 200MP. These skills offset the loss of one stack of Blood Weapon (Buff) on their own, and do adequately compensate for the loss of potency on Plunge.

Living Shadow continued the trend from Endwalker by receiving another amazing QoL upgrade in the form of having its Blood Gauge cost removed. The ability maintains its cooldown of 120s with no requirement otherwise. Additionally, it gained a recast ability Disesteem which delivers an attack of 800 potency while Living Shadow is active. This is a great step in the right direction as it allows Living Shadow to comfortably fit within the party buff window and you can even use it pre-pull if required. Additionally, Living Shadow is granted access to Disesteem.

There are some other changes and tweaks to the job, however they are not as noteworthy or generally do not impact the overall feeling of playing the job in moment to moment gameplay. Most notably, Shadow Wall is upgraded to Shadow Vigil at level 92, granting DRK a healing ability outside of Abyssal Drain/Souleater.

[Newtronic]

The Problem with DRK now

Previously, Dark Knight featured a much higher APM/CPM in the 6.x era, usually averaging around 40-41 CPM if played optimally, for a point of reference, GNB held a CPM of around 43-44 in this time, and provided the most rDPS at this time. As of the 7.01 patch, DRK’s CPM fell to 36-37 CPM. This is a decrease of 4 casts per minute, which can be almost entirely committed to the loss of Plunge, and the combination of Blood Weapon into Delirium.

On their own, these are both good changes. I do believe the intention behind them is correct, and I am hopeful that this is a sign of positive changes coming for the job moving forward. The problem arises from the missing 4th cast per minute which we haven’t been able to directly correlate to an ability change, I think that this is due to the removal of two blood weapon stacks, and only one has been replaced or compensated for externally in the form of the new Delirium combo.

This leads to a 600MP loss comparatively to 6.x patch era, which I believe is leading to one less Edge cast. DRK now plays as a much more simplified, and streamlined version of the class that we once had. The opener is incredibly forgiving and flexible, allowing for all but one oGCD to be rotated freely. Once the opener is complete, DRK’s rotation is incredibly simple and boring at times. The downtime between burst windows simply boils down to using the Souleater combo, ensuring you don’t overcap on MP, or Blood.

Quite simply, there’s not enough to do in the downtime of DRK anymore, and nothing was given back to weave into your regular combo. I’ve created some potential solutions/buffs/adjustments to try and help offset this just to give an idea of what things could help maintain the class identity, but make the downtime more engaging and less of a job that essentially plays itself once you understand the job and how to set up burst optimally.

[Newtronic]

Potential Solutions

Adding more skills which can be augmented by Dark Arts would be my first and most engaging recommendation which allowed DRKs to make a meaningful decision on which ability to augment, allowing them to either cast additional defensive spells, or augment their offensive capability. I’ve also considered the impact of granting a popped TBN +10 Blood, however I think if there were no other external conditions, I believe this would be too strong. TBN is used inside the opener specifically against bosses that would trigger this, and in current content the number of bosses that reliably auto attack or pop TBN at all is too low, so I think a way to incentivise using this more is required elsewhere. TBN could offer some medium healing to the target if applied to a party member, but grant the DRK +10 blood so that both receive a benefit for using it correctly.

Based on my experience with the class, I think a secondary single target combo could help to be more engaging, especially if this applied some sort of shield, restores more MP but no HP, or vice versa. I think adding a DoT to manage would be an easy fix, however as DRK has never featured this, I think it could be themed to make sense within the identity of the class. The only other tank to feature a DoT which needs to be managed throughout the entire fight is PLD, as WAR doesn’t feature one- but a self buff and GNB has Sonic Break. I believe this would be best suited to a DoT which applies a slightly shorter duration than most, possibly 20-30s.

I’ve also thought of some ideas which could be used to allow the DRK to use more and different spells at the cost of Blood, rather than simply being for Bloodspiller as it currently is. If Bloodspiller offered some kind of oGCD after cast, somewhat in line with the newly introduced Viper Death Rattle, this could also help to satisfy the “lack” of things to do during downtime. It could be interesting to see a ranged spell which cost less blood, potentially 10, but allowing the DRK to drain Blood in the event of anticipating overcap with a ranged option, similar to that of RDM’s moulinet. I would also not be opposed to a single larger spell akin to GNB’s Double Down, which held a long cooldown but also required upwards of 50 blood.

In line with some other simplifications, I believe Flood and Edge of Shadow are not required to be separate spells, but would rather function as a single spell which is capable of freeing up a spell slot for future expansions of ability reworks. The animation could remain with Edge’s current, however it would shoot forward the same slash as Flood currently does, and would strike the first target for the current 460 potency, and all others for 65% less, bringing the damage inline with Flood’s current potency of 160. Range and radius would remain unaffected, however I think this would be a very nice QoL change and is an incredibly simple way to free up a spell slot for future changes.

[Brolucas]

Fam drk did have a dot befor. It was called scourge and was removed in shadowbringers. Dark arts also used to be used on certain defensives namely dark mind. I cant remember how much it buffed it however. How long have you been playing this class?

[Bibine_Bine]

Fam drk did have a dot befor. It was called scourge and was removed in shadowbringers. Dark arts also used to be used on certain defensives namely dark mind. I cant remember how much it buffed it however. How long have you been playing this class?

Dark Mind was actually changed to its Dark Arts version after its removal, but then was later nerfed down from 30% to 20%. Dark Dance was its physical counterpart but was removed in SB with the removal of evasion as a stat, but then they didn't bother to replace it with something. Which is stupid, and it's why DRK has always felt like it's missing a mitigation.

[KazukoHimura]

Aw, dangit, I'm slightly disappointed. I thought this was gonna be a lore delve where we analyzed the minds of NPCs and made diagnosis based on that! But hey, I tank on occasion so some of these proposed changes sound really good.

[royox]

The problem with DRK is that is not Heavensward DRK anymore. Shit was SO FUN to play but they had to give all DRK skills to the other tanks and kill the Dark Arts gameplay. Since then it's been like the devs don't really know what to do with DRK as it doesn't even feel like a Final Fantasy Dark Knight anymore (the guy who wastes hp/resource for increased damage).

[Bibine_Bine]

DRK does not need more stuff tied to the risk/punishment mechanic of TBN. Just remove the fucking MP tax already. It was always frustrating to deal with, and it renders TBN's lower 15s cooldown pointless because you hardly ever use it outside of tankbusters due to there not being enough damage to break it from simple boss auto attacks.

All of the tanks got upgraded mitigations in EW. DRK didn't. TBN is much weaker than its counterparts, and it has nothing going for it other than a shorter cooldown which doesn't get utilized outside of trash pulls, which DRK is also worse at compared to the other tank jobs.