Dark Knight rework ideas (yet another)

[inhaledcorn]

Okay, I like a lot of these ideas, except for Dark Arts. The problem Dark Arts didn't work was because, if you weren't using Dark Arts, you were losing damage. This is the same problem. It's not interactive. It's not fun. Why do you need to hit this one button to increase damage and not just roll the damage into the main attack? I've heard complaints about how Dragoon lost two uses of Nastrond but kept Lance Charge. It's not fun and interactive gameplay.



Now, there exists a skill on another job that functions similarly to how Dark Arts should: Eukrasia on Sage. Eukrasia works great because it changes the properties of their spells. It's a really cool and core function of their job that allows for player expression. I think a better use for Dark Arts is to follow the Sage model. Make Dark Arts change Souleater into Reprisal. Make Dark Arts change the Darkside extension on Edge of Darkness/Shadow into HP drain. There could also be a Reprisal version of Stalwart Soul for AoE. I'm not saying Dark Arts shouldn't exist, but I am saying it shouldn't be what it was in Stormblood, even if you decided that it would give stacks.

[Nivarea]

[...]The problem Dark Arts didn't work was because, if you weren't using Dark Arts, you were losing damage. This is the same problem. It's not interactive. It's not fun. Why do you need to hit this one button to increase damage and not just roll the damage into the main attack?[...]

While I do understand people not liking the design of Dark Arts, the fact is we can say it about practically every button. I mean, why have 3 buttons for a combo, or oGCDs? You could only have to push one button to do damage afterall. I'm obviously exagerating the exemple for the sake of the argument, but it's still something to be said.
What people do find fun and do not find fun differs. Some prefer straightfoward abilities, while other like to have fluff and doing more to have the same effect. I'm one of the latter group.

Now, there exists a skill on another job that functions similarly to how Dark Arts should: Eukrasia on Sage. Eukrasia works great because it changes the properties of their spells. It's a really cool and core function of their job that allows for player expression. I think a better use for Dark Arts is to follow the Sage model.[...]

I do understand and, in some way, share the sentiment, but the fact is... it doesn't work for Dark Knight and Tanks in general, we have the perfect exemple of this from the past actually.
Dark Arts used to be a skill modifier back in Heavensward, with some skills only gaining potency, while others were changing or adding effects. The fact is we did avoid to use Dark Arts on the skills that were only changing effects outside of absolutely needing it (and even then there were many that were still avoiding it).

Dark Arts is linked to a damage ressource, and because of how FFXIV works, people will always favour damage over utility if it's a choice between the two. That's why the devs changed Dark Arts in Stormblood the way they did.

You could advocate to remove Dark Arts from MP management, but then, you go back to MP being only a "Edge gauge", and it's the same problem of MP management not being interactive. My idea is not to just bring Dark Arts and make it replace Edge, but to make it works alongside it in order to create a choice, an optimization and, in the end, bring back a form of MP mangement with a priority system. Yes, it's not as interactive as the theoretical DA being a skill modifier, but it's still far better than the non-interactive and non-managing reality as right now.
Also, changing damaging skills into non-damaging skill could pose problems in some situation.

So, all in all, while I do agree it would be more interesting to have Dark Arts as a skill modifier, given how the game works, it would not work. People hate to lose damage, see how some cry about TBN having a fail state if not used correctly, so losing damage for utility is not something really viable in the game as it is designed right now, and I tried to do it for how the game is right now given I can't say for sure how it will evolve in the future.

You can still disagree with me and still advocating for what you propose, of course, but I do hope that you can at least understand my reasoning behind the choice I did make.

Hmmm, after testing DRK for couple of raids, I think the job still need help in terms of their kit,

now DRK is tankier than even, DPS is also great.

but their kit still doesn't feel unique it is a better defense warrior and that's it.

DRK require same treatment as SMN 6.0

I do agree about the defensive state of the job. It is, arguably, the strongest tank on a mitigation point right now, its only real downside being its more limited sustain. I do think that the tank sustain right now is actually overpowered, but that's a whole other debate and given that the dev team will not nerf it outside of reworking the job design philosophy (what they did back in ShB), that's why I did put some more sustain, to align DRK with the current Tank design and philosophy. If I had a say in how to design Tank sustain and mitigation, I would actually nerf the sustain from other tanks to put it were DRK sustain is right now, and even then, the tanks would still be very strong on the mitigation side.

On the other hand, while I do think DRK could use a rework, the "6.0 SMN rework" already occured back in ShB, like Reinhardt saif, when the team decided to change the job to share the same base as WAR's. I do hope that if they do rework the job, they will this time focus to make it more unique. I have some hope, given what Yoshi-p shared for 8.0 that it would be the case, but I'm still cautious about that. We do know what we lose, not what we would gain.

I did try to make it more unique with the imagination tho, taking inspiration from older version of DRK, but trying to change things that didn't work or were a bit flawed to make it work in the current game design. I'm not thinking that what I propose is the perfect DRK at all (I'm sure there is flaws in the design, I'm no professional game designer) or that other designs could not work or even please me, but I still think that it's alright and, for my taste, far more fun than the current DRK. o/

[Oizen]

I like it.
I hate when people try to remove the entire TBN break reward thing and I always wanted more MP spenders and more interactions from TBN break so I think this is neat.

[Nivarea]

Bumping it after 7.1 to gather some more opinions, good or bad, don't hesitate! I'm always glad to see what people think about this.

I've been happy with the 7.1 changes in the defensive toolkit. Dark Missionnary and Dark Mind changes have been exactly what I've proposed here, a logical change that was long due, given I mostly proposed changes that people were already sugesting on this front.

I'm less pleased with the added sustain put on Carve and Spit. While it's not a bad thing, I do think that it is mostly unconsequential given that we will absolutely not hold it for its sustain, the damage loss of drifting it would be too big. I do think puting healing elswhere would have been better (i.e. on oblation...). That change on abyssal drain is not bad, but a bit overkill. I do think that lowering its cooldown would have been far better.

That's actually what i'm proposing as an alternative of what I've put in the first post for it.

Abyssal Drain (oGCD)
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Additional Effect: Restores own HP.
Cure Potency: 200 per enemy
Recast Time : 30s
Maximum Charges : 2

=> This would be separated in timer from Carve and Spit (which is a stupid thing to begin with).
I'm putting it back at 200 cure potency, which was fine, but we would use it more often, even in single target situation. That's why I also lowered the damage potency. This would help sustain far more in dungeon (which is already fine) than the 7.1 change, and help a lot more in single target situation. The charges are to make it flexible and availble to be used for healing without having to drift it.
And yes, because it's not linked with Carve and Spit anymore, the MP regen effect is also gone.

All in all, 7.1 changes are a good step in the right direction, and outside of MP changes at most (and even for that I'm not holding my breath), I'm not expecting any other changes for the remaining of DT.

Also... Funny that they buffed DRK DPS when it already was the top DPS when accouning exploiting party buffs. That was not needed, but I take it since I'm going with DRK for FRU.

[BabyYoda]

Hmmm, after testing DRK for couple of raids, I think the job still need help in terms of their kit,

now DRK is tankier than even, DPS is also great.

but their kit still doesn't feel unique it is a better defense warrior and that's it.

DRK require same treatment as SMN 6.0

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

DRK require same treatment as SMN 6.0

...DRK had that treatment with 5.0 and this is what we currently have now.
I'd much rather they spare us another simon-says or ultra simple + slow rotation style and ACTUALLY innovate. 6.0 Summoner was only good visually, but the gameplay is boring.

[Rithy255]

I think in general tanks need less defensive bloat (Such as Rampart, DM/Bulwark ect). I think the strength of things would be fine if we didn't already have so many cooldowns, also not saying everything has to go, I just don't really like having four cooldowns about self mitigating in different levels of strength I don't think its a good allocation of space all the time, I'd also like more individuality in these cooldowns.

Focus on what actually we know works rotations theirs no reason why tanks should all have very basic 1, 2, 3 "spend gauge" rotations, they are already designed to be more slow in gcd I think it's time we had actually had tanks feel different in rotations and had more interesting differences DPS wise it would make them a lot more interesting in the way that counts (instead of having a slightly different heal/mit effect lol)

These buffs might make Dark knight more strong and slightly more useful in AOE situations but they don't tackle the core issue and I think all tanks share the same core issues, that at the end of the day they have over bloated defensive kits while not really having actual fun dps kits, I really think it's time to bring back some actual rotations and combo paths to tanks, I mean even if we didn't remove any defensives I'm sure you can fit 1 or 2 skills to each tank to spice up their actual gameplay.

I do hope 8.0 will evolve tanks in a direction that's more fun. Theirs some doubts in that with current design but I guess we will see, I don't think theirs a way to fix dark knight without actually looking into some core issues of tanks in general.

[Nivarea]

I think in general tanks need less defensive bloat (Such as Rampart, DM/Bulwark ect). [...]

I'm not disagreeing. Tanks are very powerfu defensivelyl in XIV, that's a fact. I'm not against nerfing defensives tbh, but I don't think SE will take that direction with the game, I would be very surprised if they do. I've seen people arguing about removing Invulns for exemple, since they make mitigating fights too easy.
That would be a complete philosophy change, for sure, and would probably meant touching up many fights.

Focus on what actually we know works rotations theirs no reason why tanks should all have very basic 1, 2, 3 "spend gauge" rotations, they are already designed to be more slow in gcd I think it's time we had actually had tanks feel different in rotations and had more interesting differences DPS wise it would make them a lot more interesting in the way that counts (instead of having a slightly different heal/mit effect lol) [...]

Hard agree here. Nothing else to say.

I do hope 8.0 will evolve tanks in a direction that's more fun. Theirs some doubts in that with current design but I guess we will see, I don't think theirs a way to fix dark knight without actually looking into some core issues of tanks in general.

Same thing, I agree with that and have some hope, but I'm not expecting a huge change in philosophy, just more identity and maybe, but that's a very non-comital maybe, a slight bump in overall job complexity.

Dark knight does not need a rework.

You're right in that DRK works very well right now and that a rework is not needed if we take this approach.

On the other hand, a good amount of people, myself included, do think that the current iteration of DRK is too simple, stripped off from its historical fun points of gameplay and needs more spice to become very fun again. hence why people, want a rework, it's not a number of efficiency thing, it's a playstyle thing.

The only ability on dark knight that needs a complete rework is The Blackest Night. Oblation needs a regen added to it. TBN is the last terrible job design gimmick for tanks that a minority of players are still clinging to for keeping the job "unique" when it is undeniably the worst tank cooldown in the game, and it's days of being so are probably numbered.

That's a hard disagree for me. TBN is nowadays one of, if not the only thing, you actually have to pay some attention while playing DRK. Can it be improved? Sure, you can lower its penalty, you can add another effect on it. But just making it a clone of other tank short mitigation would suck, because Tanks are already too similar to each other. And contrary to Dark Mind, TBN works on all damage, even Darkness damage.

Also, people do not value the real strenght of TBN (and DRK defensive toolkit by extension) being its flexibility and availability.

Yes, in a vaccum, TBN is "weaker" than current other Tanks short cooldown. In situation, you would need to have an absurd amount of damage and only be using short cooldown for it and no other mit to actually really see a difference. The only fights the game can throw such amount of damage are basically Ultimates and... oh, surprise, DRK was, before PLD gained Bulwark after 6.3, the only Tank able to tank without any exterior help the abolute highest hitting damage ability of the game compared to our max HP, being Soul Teather in DSR without using its invuln. WAR, pre-6.3 PLD and GNB couldn't, they all needed help from the healers or a DRK with its second charge of Oblation.
Also, TBN being a shield make it scale really well with other mitigations, so it ends up as powerfull as other short tank mitigation.

The only way I would agree to have TBN lose it's fail state would be if the job was really reworked and had other mecanics to pay attention.
It's fine, it's strong enough to do the job efficiently and its fail state is just a way to alert you that, if you weren't even taking 25% of your HP as damage in 7s, why would you actually need to use mitigation anyway?

[AnjouMaaka]

Dark knight does not need a rework. They pretty much already got that with the combination of Delirium and Bloodweapon. The damage on dark knight has never been a major problem, but it got buffed anyway in 7.1. 7.1 even fixed most of what the job was lacking in the level 70 ultimates. The only ability on dark knight that needs a complete rework is The Blackest Night. Oblation needs a regen added to it. TBN is the last terrible job design gimmick for tanks that a minority of players are still clinging to for keeping the job "unique" when it is undeniably the worst tank cooldown in the game, and it's days of being so are probably numbered.

[AnjouMaaka]

Doesn't matter how flexible and available something is if it has a 50% chance of hindering your gameplay or performance. The ability is cool in name only. Half the time you have no way of guessing if something will break TBN. It should just be a shield with maybe a small excog effect applied if the shield breaks, but at 25% of max HP, it's worthless, even as a shield. Scholar shields more than that by just casting Adlo, and that is before buffing it with Fey Illumination, Dissipation and Protraction. I often get more value out of Oblation than I ever see out of TBN. If not for it's value in the level 70 ultimates, TBN probably would have already been reworked. You think I don't value it's strength? No I have far more understanding of how it works and when to use it, and I still see it unexplainably fail to break sometimes. Either someone unknowingly adds in their own mit at the last second, or damage variance actually rolls low enough for it to not break by single/double digit numbers, in which case, oops, guess you were just that unlucky. Sometimes I'm waiting for enough MP and it's so close to when I need it that latency sometimes says "no, you didn't have TBN up in time." That really only happens in 70 ultimates where I'm using TBN way more often than in savage, but it's still a major flaw in the design of TBN. It may be unique, but it is definitely not good, regardless of how you look at it. The in a vacuum argument is completely irrelevant when there are plenty of examples outside of that which show the ability to be even worse than it is in a vacuum.

TLR
This isn't 2016. Heavensward dark knight is never coming back. Homogenization is the name of the game. If you aren't used to it by now, you are probably playing the wrong game. Oblation needs a regen. The Blackest Night needs to be overhauled.