Dark Knight Filler is Boring

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I know there's been a lot of discussion about issues Dark Knight has, but there's one I haven't seen talked about as much that I wanted to bring up, and that's that Dark Knight's opener is incredibly busy and active (and quite fun, IMO), but once those ~20 seconds are over and they're back to spending ~40 seconds doing filler, Dark Knight's rotation is extremely simple and repetitive. To compare it to what other tanks get to do in between their 1-minute windows:

Paladin:

• Their filler combo is 7 steps long. Steps 1 and 2 can be done before finishing steps 4-7, and one step is ranged, giving them lots of room to shuffle things around if they want for uptime or buff alignment.
• Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within/Expacion are both 30s cooldowns, so they get to hit them each once again while waiting.

Warrior:

• They have two 3-step filler combos to bounce between, one to maintain a damage buff and one to build gauge and self-heal.
• Every two filler combos (or every ~1.88 on average, I think?), they get enough gauge to use Fell Cleave, and using that further decreases the cooldown of Infuriate to give more Fell Cleave (and its upgraded variants).
• Upheaval is a 30s cooldown, so they get to hit it once again while waiting.

Gunbreaker:

• They have a single 3-step filler combo that gives them a cartridge every time, which they need to balance between making sure they have enough for Gnashing Fang and Double Down, while spending extra ones on Burst Strike.
• Gnashing Fang is on a 30s cooldown, so they get to do the combo again while waiting.
• Danger Zone/Blasting Zone is a 30s cooldown, so they get to hit it once again while waiting.

Dark Knight:

• They have a single 3-step filler combo.
• Every 3 filler combos (or every 2.5 on average), they get enough gauge to use Bloodspiller.
• I guess you could count Salted Earth as something since it's 90s? So it's going to naturally drift in and out of every other filler window.

So in comparison to the other tank jobs, Dark Knight has:

• The simplest filler combo (single 3-piece, tied with Gunbreaker)
• The least resource gain from their filler combo (letting them "earn" less uses of other buttons between DPS), meaning they're stuck doing the same loop more than other jobs.
• No 30s damage cooldowns to hit during each filler

In regards to least resource gain, you could argue that your combo gives you MP, which does directly give you more uses of Edge of Shadow, but you gain so little that if you just use it during your 1m/2m windows (like you'd probably want to anyways to align with party buffs), you don't gain enough MP to ever have to worry about overcapping.

cont. next post

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cont.

While I don't think they need to just copy what the other tanks have (if anything I think it would be cool for Dark Knight to get something unique), I think the easiest way to make Dark Knight's rotation more fun would be some similar things such as:

• Make Carve and Spit's cooldown 30s instead of 60s (this would indirectly buff Abyssal Drain's cooldown too but honestly they could probably use it for Dungeons)
• Make their 1-2-3 combo give them more resources, be it more MP or more blood gauge.
• Give them a second possible ender to their 1-2-3 combo, giving them some kind of buff that they want to maintain (i.e. maybe bring back power slash and move Darkside to this button)

Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas on ways to make this more interesting!

[Oizen]

I'd love for carve to be on a 30s CD, especially if it had two charges.
I don't think giving them a darkside gcd like Storm's eye/path would be received very well seeing as people think the job is too WAR like as it is.

Job needs a lot more MP to play with as well. 123 spam wouldnt be as bad if there was more oGCD management going on outside of the 2m window

[Dragoness572]

After playing GNB and VPR it has been a hard time playing DRK since. After the burst phase of my rotation DRK is so brain dead. It feels like playing a DPS class in ARR content, there is just nothing there. Adding an additional 1-2-3 to use every so often like Gnashing Fang or even just going back and forth like VPR's combos would breath so much life into the job. Dark Knight went from the spell casting tank that fights like a spell blade, and then Shadowbringers came along and turned the job into the Orb Knight. It needs its old identity back.

Funny, I come from ESO, a game where the class I mained had an identity crisis (Dragonknight) and now I'm playing FFXIV and I'm playing a class experiencing an identity crisis.

[Tunda]

the whole DRK design isn't appealing..

less healing, less sustain, less dmg

If I can wear Big sword as paladin I will play paladin with no questions

[Leap]

I'd love for carve to be on a 30s CD, especially if it had two charges.
I don't think giving them a darkside gcd like Storm's eye/path would be received very well seeing as people think the job is too WAR like as it is.

Job needs a lot more MP to play with as well. 123 spam wouldnt be as bad if there was more oGCD management going on outside of the 2m window

Agreed overall but unfortunately if they gave us two charges, it would just have the same problem as Edge of Shadow where you *can* use it wherever, but you usually want to save it for your 2m or 1m window so you can better align with damage buffs from your party members. So in practice that would just make the opener even busier without giving us anything extra to do in between.

[Oizen]

Agreed overall but unfortunately if they gave us two charges, it would just have the same problem as Edge of Shadow where you *can* use it wherever, but you usually want to save it for your 2m or 1m window so you can better align with damage buffs from your party members. So in practice that would just make the opener even busier without giving us anything extra to do in between.

You could use the first two whenever you wanted, you'd pool the last two for the 2m burst. Just like how Plunge used to be.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Unpopular opinion - DRK's 123 Souleater combo, for how often it occurs, actually has the greatest impact from a survival standpoint and amounts to a lot of healing potency per minute. Technically Brutal Shell is more, but you have a lot of cartridge actions to use so there is less of it.

But is the filler in general boring? Oh yes, no doubt on that. Usually what I do is spend 25% of my MP on Dark Arts to enhance my Souleater- oh wait, they removed that.

[Oizen]

Unpopular opinion - DRK's 123 Souleater combo, for how often it occurs, actually has the greatest impact from a survival standpoint and amounts to a lot of healing potency per minute. Technically Brutal Shell is more, but you have a lot of cartridge actions to use so there is less of it.

But is the filler in general boring? Oh yes, no doubt on that. Usually what I do is spend 25% of my MP on Dark Arts to enhance my Souleater- oh wait, they removed that.

I think thats why DRK doesn't have an easy fix. Just adding Disesteem impacted MP in a negative way due to how hard the job relies on Syphon Strike right now.

Its MP generation needs a complete rethought, its too low right now but we cant even have more GCDs because we need Syphon Strike MP

[mallleable]

DRK should steal from PLD, and be given its own Atonement combo. Put Carve & Spit on the GCD, and build a combo from it, and each step regenerates MP. Souleater now procs the new Carve & Spit combo. Adjust gauge generation so you have enough gauge for a Bloodspiller after completing both combos.