Dark Knight: How I'd Do It

[Jocelyn]

and Death Knight in wow were sword and shield and so were Shadow knights in EQOA and The guy from Tactics used a sword and shield.

Seeing as Death Knights and Shadow knights have absolutely no relevance here, in game or in FF lore, then this point is completely moot. (and Death Knights use 2H weapons fyi. Unless trolling, then it's a terrible attempt.)

[KoujiGeki]

Seeing as Death Knights and Shadow knights have absolutely no relevance here, in game or in FF lore, then this point is completely moot. (and Death Knights use 2H weapons fyi. Unless trolling, then it's a terrible attempt.)

Actually it is relevant cause the concept of Shadow knight is its the mirror opposite of a Pld. which almost every single lore in the world using pld is a healing tank. and Drk is always the life drainer class that usually is a Tank or DD.

[C-croft]

2H was an 11 only thing. Dark Knights original concept and use was a sword and board class/job that siphoned their hp to deal damage. Leon and Cecil are prime examples.

Either way, it still doesn't matter. It doesn't have to use 1h or 2h. as long as it is a dps. If you wanted to get technical, in FF3 you could dual wield with a dark knight.....

[C-croft]

I put it as a class ability instead of a job ability because I felt it worked better to provide it to the base class comparatively early on (similar to when MAR gets Berserk and PLD gets FoF) rather than waiting until 35+ for it to be made available, not to mention that it's the only DPS CD I provided (and both tanks get at least 1, which is basically a requirement for frontloading enmity). I intended Reaver to be something of a proto-Dark Knight similar to how Marauder is a proto-Warrior, and there's already some precedent for "iconic" abilities to belong to the class rather than the job (ARC gets Swiftsong and ACN gets to summon Carbuncle) as long as that iconic ability is functionally required for the base class to operate.

I can kinda see that. Assuming DRK will intro a new class instead of going the ACN>SMN/SCH route. My only thing is that DRK is such a huge DPS burst at the cost of hp style of play though. But screw it, change is good.

[Kitru]

2H was an 11 only thing. Dark Knights original concept and use was a sword and board class/job that siphoned their hp to deal damage. Leon and Cecil are prime examples.

No, it wasn't. If you want to get purely semantic, the first Dark Knight was a *spear* user, given the fact that Leon's best weapon was a spear, though the question of whether he is a spear + shield or simply spear fighter would be up for debate given the fact that there weren't 2h weapons so you would be wasting a slot by *not* using a shield. The same applies to the iterations of Dark Knight in 4 and Tactics: leaving a hand empty is just a waste (to use a sword 2h in Tactics, you have to specifically have the passive ability equipped and, even then, it's not really all that good). In X-2, the Dark Knight explicitly uses a 2h sword and that's an explicit stylistic choice similar to what would be involved in the ARR equipment choice since the equipment system for X-2 doesn't actually involve equipping weapons and armor.

The only iterations where Dark Knight was given its own gear rather than just sharing the equipment system with every other class in the universe gave it a scythe, which is pretty much a completely unique weapon within the annals of the FF gearing system, or a 2h sword. Since I dearly hope they don't decide to give DRKs botany offhand weapons as their mainhands, it's a strong possibility that, if they were given their own class, they'd be using a 2h sword (and it helps that DRK really is the only job/class that they have left that could feasibly use 2h swords as their iconic weapon). If they're DPS, I strongly suspect that they'll be sword and board, but only because they'll be slapped onto the GLA as a DPS job.

[SwordCoheir]

Kitru I want you to take this as constructive criticism from a viewpoint of someone who's familiar with most every job in the game. REV/DRK pretty much carbon copies the best between WAR and PLD with souped upped abilities from other classes and higher DPS, and frankly seems way too OP and lacks something that really sets it apart from either PLD or WAR.

-Basically you give them an easy to maintain no drawback version of Defiance along with it's own version of Sword Oath so they can maintain an average 20% phys mitigation, 30% magic mitigation, along with a 30% HP boost but only 20% in damage loss.
-Dirty kick by far has the longest lasting effect and shortest cooldown of any Non-GCD stun in the game.
-Cripple has a ridiculously short timer, you could realistically maintain heavy and kite targets with ease all the time.
-If Exultant Swing is kept up Souleater's negative effect really isn't a drawback, and assuming Blood Sacrifice wasn't just poorly worded you can just pop that prior to using Souleater and reap it's benefits without any loss.
-After factoring in traits all the drawbacks are really minimized to almost negligible proportions when stacked with other abilities.

I also have to ask what cross classes were you considering for this job?

-GLA/MRD abilities would probably put's it's average mitigation close to PLD considering the extremely short cooldowns and trait effects on Pacts.
-Giving more than one PUG/LNC/ARC DPS buffs would prolly put DRK's DPS on par with well other DD's at least outside of Shadow Ward which just craps on tanks and DPS jobs in general having both damage, survival, and some self sustainability at their disposal.
-While ACN/CON might have limited ability uses for non-mage jobs Virus and Eye for an Eye are pretty powerful in their own right for mitigation, and Stoneskin topped with Exultant Swings effect is a pretty decent E-hp buff in a pinch or between fights when mages are trying to conserve mana.
-Really THM is the only thing REV/DRK wouldn't get much if anything out of it.

That's all I really have to say about it. I'm not saying it can't work but it needs some solid fine tuning, because the only real tradeoff on all that DRK is getting is the 20% reduction from Shadow Ward, when in turn it basically get's near PLD survivability, better than WAR HP, some self healing capability, good AoE capabilities, better DPS than either of the two jobs and factoring in cross class possibilities will only improve their standing.

[Gardes]

I still dont want them to completely abandon 2 jobs for 1 class thing (if they're not going to abolish classes completely) so I'd still rather see drk come from gld.

In fact, I want to see how they'd make other forms of role transitions. Right now we have: tank -> tank, dps -> dps, healer -> healer, dps -> healer
I want to see how they'll do dps -> tank, tank -> dps or even tank -> healer, healer -> tank, healer -> dps.

[Kitru]

-Basically you give them an easy to maintain no drawback version of Defiance along with it's own version of Sword Oath so they can maintain an average 20% phys mitigation, 30% magic mitigation, along with a 30% HP boost but only 20% in damage loss.

It's not actually "no-tradeoff", nor is it 30% magic mitigation. I specific said Magic *Defense* because it has a slower rate of return than flat our reduction. If it were flat mitigation, I'd leave it at 20% because that's the effective standard. The trade off between Shield Oath and Shadow Ward is that Shadow Ward is RNG based. It's not *reliable* so, while it's going to provide a similar amount over time, you cannot count on it constantly. Honestly, it would end up being *worse* than Shield Oath and roughly on par with Defiance (Defiance is reliable but weak, Shadow Ward is unreliable but comparatively strong).

-Dirty kick by far has the longest lasting effect and shortest cooldown of any Non-GCD stun in the game.

Yeah, not entire sure where I was coming from on that. I wanted to do something so that it wasn't just a Brutal Swing copy. The idea was that it would get a higher comparative uptime because it dealt no damage. It would probably be better to drop the duration to 3 seconds so that it's short duration but the payoff is in how often you can use it.

-Cripple has a ridiculously short timer, you could realistically maintain heavy and kite targets with ease all the time.

We're talking about a melee class here so kiting isn't really something that's likely to happen. Compare it to Feint, which has a 20 second duration and no CD. Also, I'm pretty sure that heavy is hit by DR so even if you *were* kiting a target, you couldn't do it indefinitely, not to mention that most of the stuff that you'd *want* to kite (like bosses) ends up being immune to it.

-If Exultant Swing is kept up Souleater's negative effect really isn't a drawback, and assuming Blood Sacrifice wasn't just poorly worded you can just pop that prior to using Souleater and reap it's benefits without any loss.

Exultant Swing is meant to cover multiple bases. It's meant to provide the needed hp cushion for relying on an RNG mechanic as a primary source of damage reduction (Parry rate/block fom Shadow Ward) as well as offsetting the cost of Souleater and Blood Sacrifice (it's been a month since I posted this, so I can't remember if it's supposed to be hp loss or max hp loss on Blood Sacrifice but I *think* it was supposed to be max hp). On top of that, because Body Pact and Soul Pact (which I think would need to have their numbers tweaked down to something like 50% instead of 100%) increase your damage taken from other sources for the duration so the higher max hp is meant to offset that as well.

-After factoring in traits all the drawbacks are really minimized to almost negligible proportions when stacked with other abilities.

The idea was to have the drawbacks significant and brought back in to reasonable levels with the traits and other abilities. Remember that the stuff that we're comparing these gain/loss abilities from are being compared to abilities with no downside like Foresight, Rampart, etc. Looking back on it, I actually like the idea of having more of the abilities operate like Body Pact and Soul Pact such that they only work on one type of incoming damage or the other so that, if you screw up and use the wrong one, you ended up making your life harder rather than easier. It would be something to play with during testing.

I also have to ask what cross classes were you considering for this job?

I'm pretty sure that I was going with MRD and GLA. MRD adds almost no real tankiness when included as an additional class because Foresight and Bloodbath are such jokes and GLA's only real contribution is Convalescence, which I would consider not including on the DRK's additional skills list. The useful options for that DRK would have would be Flash, Foresight, Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke, Provoke and Awareness (Fearsome Challenge is an equivalent to Tomahawk/Shield Lob, not Provoke), which I don't think present any problems.

That's all I really have to say about it. I'm not saying it can't work but it needs some solid fine tuning

The numbers were always intended to be kind of fuzzy. I didn't do any math to balance out anything except for Shadow Ward and just went with gut numbers for the rest of it.

when in turn it basically get's near PLD survivability, better than WAR HP, some self healing capability, good AoE capabilities

It's got similar mean mitigation to PLD but has only marginally more eHP than either the WAR or PLD while having abilities that specifically reduce eHP as part of their "schtick". The self healing capability is effectively a joke given Sanguine Sword's pitiful potency (and, yes, I fully intended it to have a potency of only 100 even when combo'd) means that it provides less than even Storm's Path does (240 potency w/ 50% heal); you'd only really get anything out of Consuming Darkness and, in any situation where you're actually fighting enough enemies for it to be worth it, it's not going to be providing a huge amount to offset the increased damage taken while also only being able to be used once every 7.5 seconds at most. The AoE capabilities are intended to be a compromise between PLD and WAR: Whirlwind>Black Sky>Consuming Darkness (i.e. the AoE rotation) wouldn't have the same costs as Overpower spam but would actually cost *something* unlike Flash spam and their total enmity potency per GCD is only 143, which is a far cry from Overpower's 240, with damage potency of 110, compared to Overpower's 120 (which can be increased with Maim and Unchained to be a *lot* higher).

better DPS than either of the two jobs and factoring in cross class possibilities will only improve their standing.

I sincerely doubt that it would be even remotely close to overrunning WAR or PLD damage. Consider that PLD and WAR have almost the same damage potency per GCD while in Sword Oath and while outside of Defiance respectively. PLD gets an extra ~55 potency per GCD from Sword Oath and 25 potency per GCD from Circle of Scorn and Spirits Within. The Halone combo provides 203.33 damage potency per GCD and auto-attack is 83.33 so you're getting 391.66 damage potency per GCD before you even factor in Fight or Flight, which, as a 10% increase to damage dealt, puts the PLD dp/GCD at 430.8.

The damage rotation for DRK would be Wrack>(Endless Night + Onyx Wave)>(Cruel Bite combo>Onyx Wave)x3; at 300 potency per GCD for Wrack and Onyx Wave, you'd get 242.1 dp/GCD. Add in the auto-attack and you get brought up to 325.5. Souleater has a 25% uptime and, at 50% +dam, provides 12.5% increased damage. Momentum only lasts for 6 attacks every 48 (12.5% uptime) and provides about 25% increased crit chance thanks to how it builds up. Building off of a 10% base crit chance, this would provide a 12.0% increase in damage dealt while it's active or only a .96% increase. Multiply all of that together and you get only 369.7 damage potency per GCD (321 * 1.125 * 1.0096). If anything, my iteration of Dark Knight would have *inferior* damage compared to DPS PLD and WAR. Onyx Wave could be cranked up to 400 potency and dp/GCD would only go up to 402.1. At 450, it's 418, which is finally within 5% of the PLD's 431.

Interestingly enough, after doing this math, I'm actually pretty sure that, as originally written, its *enmity* would suck compared to WAR and PLD as well. The enmity rotation would be CB>CB>ES, which provides only 400 enmity potency per GCD (splicing in Onyx Wave after each CB, which leaves you 1 Darkness after ES to activate Ebony Shield, it actually drops the enmity potency down to 343; if Onyx Wave had a 2x enmity mod, it would go up to 472.14). If you include an Ebony Shield every 30 seconds that soaks 2 attacks, you're getting an extra 8.33 potency per GCD, so, pre-multipliers, you're getting 408.33 ep/GCD (~480 w/ additional enmity OW). Tack on auto-attack and the multipliers (.8 with SW, 1.125 from Souleater, 1.01 from Momentum, 2x for tank stance) and you get 908.1 ep/GCD (1025.0 w/ additional enmity OW), compared to the ~1400 that PLD and WAR get.

There *are* some tweaks that could be done to fix these numbers. With the previously mentioned 2x multiplier on Onyx Wave, if you increase Cruel Bite's combo damage to 320, potency per GCD would go up to 428, and increase ep/GCD to 1077. Crank Onyx Wave's enmity modifier up to 3, and ep/GCD goes up to 1193.81. An interesting fix that could be applied would be to have Darkness provide a passive bonus of increased enmity from all sources while it's active; remove the Shadow Ward requirement on Darkness generation (which I think was actually a typo) and give it a 50% increased enmity generation (the combo finishers wouldn't benefit from it; to max enmity, you'd want to use Onyx Wave right before you use the combo finisher; to minimize it, such as when OT, you'd want to use it immediately) and you get 1390.8 ep/GCD.

Here's the formula for those interested:
((((150 * 1.5 + 200 * 1.5 * 3 + 320 * 5) + 450 * 3) * 2 + 150 * 1.5 + 100 * 1.5 + 260) / 14 + 8.33 * 1.5 + 83.33 * 1.5) * 1.125 * 1.01 * 0.8 * 2 = 1390.75
And broken down...
(150 * 1.5 + 200 * 1.5 * 3 + 320 * 5) = enmity generated by Cruel Bite combo; the 1.5x are the Darkness modifiers
((XXX) + 450 * 3) = enmity generated by Onyx Wave
((XXX) * 2 + 150 * 1.5 + 100 * 1.5 + 260) / 14 = enmity generated by total combo; the 2x represents how the CB combo and OW are used twice per total rotation and the 1.5x are the Darkness modifiers; the 14 is the number of GCDs consumed and provides the average enmity per GCD
((XXX) / 14 + 8.33 * 1.5 + 83.33 * 1.5) = inclusion of Ebony Shield and auto-attack; 1.5x are Darkness modifiers
(XXX) * 1.125 * 1.01 * 0.8 * 2 = end modifiers, 1.125x is Soulstealer, 1.01x is Momentum, .8x is Shadow Ward's damage debuff, 2x is Shadow Ward's enmity buff (I realize it's actually smaller than this, but that's the number I used for the enmity calcs for WAR and PLD)

All in all, the DRK as originally written needs *buffs* to make it do the proper amount of damage/enmity: increase damage on Cruel Bite to 320, increase Onyx Wave's damage to 450 and provide it with a 3x enmity modifier while in Shadow Ward, and have the Darkness buff increase all enmity generated by 50% while it's active (which provides an interesting tweak to the DRK playstyle; not using Onyx Wave would increase ep/GCD to 1433.9 but would tank damage so there is still a strong impetus to use Onyx Wave).

[Ebon_Drake]

I would do it like this..

[killergerms]

and Death Knight in wow were sword and shield and so were Shadow knights in EQOA and The guy from Tactics used a sword and shield.

They never used a shield never....