The State of Dark Knight | FFXIV Dawntrail

[@DankTankXIV]

THE MEME IS DEAD Dark Missionary Lv. 66 😎

[@fennyfenris]

I'm convinced being miserable is just part of the experience of playing DRK.

[@baines803]

Suffering builds character

[@Schlittlenutacus]

The only reason to play it is really just aesthetic

[@ruikirisame1744]

Thought that was the paladin's thing

[@Ziggy8750]

Suffering is life

[@desubysnusnu]

Lore accurate DRK

[@mirageowl]

Removing both mana management and blood management from the job is also... kind of weird?

[@Lux_argent]

The way they kept Enhanced Unmend while gutting other skills tells me they don't know what to do with the job. In the meantime I've switched to VPR (enjoying it despite 7.05 happened) and will just wait until 8.0 to return to DRK.

[@wackantheduck6883]

7.05 viper complexity is what we can expect in 8.0. Future looking bleak

[@ponyponybwehe8880]

It would be cool if TBN heals by the leftover shield if it expires by timer. And what annoys me about DRK is that we lost Dark Arts + GCD Abyssal Drain, and then the same thing essentially exists in WAR.

[@levalexandrov4652]

Heals whom? If there is leftover shield then you wouldn't be missing HP.

[@NotRealAkira]

I honestly cannot understand why they changed Blood Weapon to only be 3 stacks, but then didn't just change the MP given from 600 to 1000 so you still got 3k? Like with their reasoning that's the change that would make sense! Same thing with removing the potency from the gapcloser... But then not redistributing it elsewhere until WAY LATER level

[@KazumiKiguma]

They keep having that issue, the same thing happened with AST with their new draws, you would think it would be obvious that reducing the number of draws would mean they need to increase the amount of mana they give and yet /shrug

[@NotRealAkira]

@@KazumiKiguma It's such a rookie mistake too, it's crazy that it even happens...

[@MAegcuru]

@@NotRealAkira There is always the issues that they overlook. From Misery not being compensated in potency in EW til 6.1. Also making dia a downgrade from aero 2 for a little bit, Not buffing macrocosmos ptency til 7.01, Not knowing the issues with light speed for the entirely of EW, them not buffing mnk aoe when they got rid of the twin snakes buff for a bit, the changes to paradox to where you couldn't use it in umbral ice anymore. not thinking about the new changes to blm mp to where it was awful before you could get umbral soul, it's all the little things here and there that seeps through the cracks.

[@SephirothsBIade]

DRK in normal dungeon pulls I have to try to make sure I dont die. Every other tank wall to wall pulls while watching a movie, 1 handed eating pizza, and a cat chewing on their headset and they shrug the damage off as if it is nothing. That level of disparity makes it feel like I am griefing my healer every time I want the play the best looking tank...

[@TheDragonsPit]

Exactly Dungeons for DRK's require you to actually focus on the game, every other tank wall to wall pulls while barely needing to do anything. Great example I wall to wall as PLD I literlaly only need to press Rampart and then Holy Sheltron or just normal Sheltron and I'm A-okay. DRK TBN ---> Rampart ----> Oblation ---> Abyssal Drain ----> TBN ----> Shadowed Vigil ---> Oblation again. ----> TBN (If you get a pull where the DPS are lacking.) This highlights a major issue that Dark Mind in particular serves zero fucking purpose in Dungeons that you'll forget it exists unless you do Savage or Ultimate. (You'll most of the time forget it exists in Extremes as well.) You will then go into the next wall to wall with Shadowed Vigil fuckoffed on a 120s cooldown (The same as a Invuln what the actual fuck?) so your options are either skin by and hope your healer is paying attention to everytime TBN breaks and immediately heals you or you pop Living Dead and hope the healer is paying attention to the fact you did and doesn't heal you. Dungeons aren't meant to be challenging content that's been made clear and DRK can easily clear them but the fact I need to put even double the effort of any other Tank to clear one is fucking ridiculous either NERF the other Tanks Mits (aka something that'll never happen) or put DRK at the very least on the same level with their Mits.

[@RobotboyX2]

i think dungeons really show that disparity(its not quite as noticeable in raid i feel like) , while drk may have the highest dmg, warrior just gives so much dmg uptime to your healers that it easily outperforms drk in basically every situation. feel like u always want warrior and then u just pick paladin for more party support or gnb for dmg, bringing drk always feels like a burden. Even when drk is mathematically a decent choice, it still feels bad due to execution, the dmg rotation may be easy but your average drk just does nothing special with tbn or oblation

[@Necrofitz]

As someone that spends a lot of time running healers through content, I always sigh when I get a DRK. Even a good DRK can only do so much with their kit at any given level, and variance in the amount of damage a given pull can output just isn't very compatible with DRK. They don't really have any backups to lean on if their normal survival setup won't actually keep them alive, and it can get legitimately stressful to heal as I get stuck scanning my hot bar to see if I have literally anything left to use that isn't a GCD heal during more troublesome pulls. Don't even get me started on how trash Living Dead actually is as an invulnerability move. It's great in say ex content where the boss has a brutal multi hit tank buster that healers just can't get you through on their own. You survive and pull yourself back up. Good for all involved. In dungeons though, Living Dead is more of a knee jerk reaction like any tank invulnerability move, and a lot of expectation is being put on the healer in that moment to both notice that LD is active and to completely stop all healing action (which gets especially annoying with Sage for example where the damage mit move also adds a regen). It's activation fundamentally restricting potent AoE heals can also be really inconvenient because can't let those touch the DRK with LD active. It's just a bunch of issues I don't have with any other tanks. Literally the worst thing any of the other tanks do to me is when a GNB smacks superbolide five frames after I pop Benediction on them, where at least there I still have some time to get their health back up without issue or restriction.

[@Zoeila]

Then you don't know how to play. I can solo mob packs with little healing

[@SephirothsBIade]

@@Zoeila Thanks for your valueable insight god gamer. Pray tell this lowly autistic player with mental health issues how to not need heals or living dead in my dungeon pulls when all the other tanks feel nothing.

[@CianaCorto]

"Savage tier is over" no the fuck it isn't, I'm still stuck on M2S as MT because DPS can't clear enrage.

[@sneakychopstick]

Dude I had a M2S reclear party from last week that hit 0.1% enrage with only one death, and 0 stacks on the boss. I looked through the logs and everyone potted twice. How the fuck is the dmg this low in PF, what the actual hell.

[@CaptnMarvelous]

@@sneakychopstick Probably Alarm Pheremones 1. Depending on the jobs/people focusing on not being hit, you have a solid like 20-30 seconds where people are just throwing ranged attacks and not bothering to spellcast/risk dying.

[@Talcor]

The fact that drk getting the same mit as every other tank this time is a breath of fresh air really tells you a lot about the state of drk.

[@DrakeWurrum]

My personal hope is they do something subtle like... "When TBN breaks or ends, you gain lifesteal on the next 10 weaponskills." That would keep to the theme of DRK while giving it some potential sustain. It obviously needs way more love, but I think that's a strong example of how they can keep a unique identity to the job while giving it the reworks it needs.

[@jomoko77]

Maybe a tbn pop could grant "abyssal drain ready"? Maybe even "carve and spit" ready" too. Slap a decent heal on c and s to keep single target utility. Give the abilities a reason to be tied. Concievably broken with a c and s every 15 seconds... but you get what i mean lol

[@Zoeila]

How about we not homogenize tanks by giving them all self healing

[@DrakeWurrum]

@@Zoeila - How about we recognize that, without self-sustain of some fashion, tanks become worthless in current game design. Three tanks have it. DRK is the only one without it. DRK is the least popular and least viable tank. You really think that's a coincidence?

[@Zoeila]

@@DrakeWurrum no they don't healers exist for a reason

[@DrakeWurrum]

@@Zoeila - Obviously. Because tanks only have some self-sustain. Just enough that they can give the healers breathing room so that the healers aren't CONSTANTLY on edge and blowing every resource imaginable. It's fun to joke that most tanks can solo dungeon bosses and say that it means healers don't matter. But that doesn't work in raids. Dungeon bosses are just undertuned for our job kits and too damn easy because the unskilled masses who are just here for the vibes don't know what the orange color on the ground means. And on top of that, it takes FOREVER to do it that way unless the boss was almost dead anyways. (I've soloed a boss from 50% to kill as GNB - it's not fun, it's tedious) When I queue for roulettes as healer, there's one tank and one tank ONLY that makes me sweat, and it's Dark Knight. I never enjoy having to heal them, no matter what level their gear is at.

[@4lUltr0rd]

9:28 the problem with this line of thinking is that drg is a DPS, not a tank. DRGs aren't occasionally going to have to weave extra mitigation in during their burst windows. That was the problem that needed solving, not just that drk was busy. They succeeded in this goal, but it introduced new issues.

[@ShredderandShod]

It also had it's complete rework canceled because they thought the additions and changes they made fixed EW DRG. They mentioned it in the action LL before DT. Either way, he is right about DRK needing some love. It doesn't feel as good as the other tanks imo.

[@MannaChaves]

I'd suggest you to look into the job's description and read it out loud If it was for the party to have an extra melee dps it would be easier if the group had a samurai tanking than to have a DRK

[@CaptainCynica1]

​@@ShredderandShodThe lvl 100 burst feels really good to pull off actually, the filler phase is where it feels weak

[@Kuroganemk2]

I don't get people that just want to press more buttons, that should not be part of the fun lol

[@CaptainCynica1]

@@Kuroganemk2 CLEARLY you don't play gunbreaker

[@TheLogan1156]

Speaking as someone who played dark knight in a lot of different scenarios in Endwalker -- speed killing, parsing, hardcore prog, ultimate, etc. -- but has never mained it, I'm probably a bit biased when I say that Endwalker dark knight was constantly teetering on the edge of needing a rework anyway, and the changes they made in 7.0 shoved it off that edge. Dawntrail dark knight is easier and more simple than Endwalker warrior, and Endwalker warrior was REALLY easy and simple. In my mind, the problems have always been there, but a lot of people didn't see them until 7.0 for one reason or the other. TBN was good in Stormblood and Shadowbringers mainly because Sheltron, Raw Intuition, and Heart of Stone were/are kind of shit. But when the other three tanks got big upgrades in 6.0 -- and Holy Sheltron got further upgraded in 6.3 -- and dark knight got nothing, it made TBN look pretty bad in comparison. While I agree that Dark Mind is good when it's actually useful, it really only puts dark knight on equal footing with the other tanks in those scenarios because it lacks their self-sustain. Oblation is, frankly, just kind of shit in general. It should never have been a unique cooldown and instead have been part of TBN or something else. Shadowed Vigil is cool, but again, it's a day late and a dollar short compared to the other three tanks. I will absolutely echo your sentiment about level 70 dark knight, as well. It is just complete cancer at that level and brings literally no value to play compared to the other tanks to the point that you're almost griefing parties when you play it in UCOB and UWU. The recent change to Umbral Soul does give me some hope that they'll lower the level you get Dark Missionary, though, as that was a very similar complaint that black mage mains have had for years now and they just got around to fixing it. Edit: I also think it's worth saying that dark knight being as high in aDPS as it was -- and still technically is -- starting in Endwalker wasn't an intentional design decision. Paladin and gunbreaker were the two highest DPS tanks by the end of Shadowbringers, but dark knight and paladin switched places in 6.0 because of the changes to raid buff timing, which also ultimately led to paladin's rework in 6.3. A job being good incidentally is not good for its long-term health in the game, and we're really starting to see that fruit come to bear in Dawntrail.

[@shizachan8421]

The best case scenario is that the DT changes damaged DRK's representation in the game so badly that SE is forced to do an emergency rework, similar to what they did with PLD and MCH, otherwise it looks fairly grim for the class through all of DT.

[@justaman4887]

​​@@shizachan8421I don't think they'll will do a rework like they did with pld because pld just didn't work for the 2 min meta while drk works in DT it's just has a lot of fun related issues

[@mirageowl]

@@shizachan8421 I really hope the rework comes in at 7.3 and not 8.0, because with the changes I'm really not excited to play Dark Knight. I want to feel excited to play it again

[@shizachan8421]

@@justaman4887 They do revamps not only based on balancing issues but also due to player reception and go by which class is underplayed according to metrics. Thats why they never touched WHM despite it often being wastly underpowered compared to AST and instead focussed on an AST & DRG revamp which they initially wanted to release in EW, because those were underrepresented in the games metrics. So my hope is that DRK's current performance leads to a sufficent drop inside SE's metrics that they introduce an emergency revamp.

[@VoidAlone-lz8ww]

Very well said

[@nezunskyfire292]

I mained DRK since HW on a pretty casual level. I did lots of dungeon content, extremes, and dipped in and out of a few raid tiers. it was my favorite job aesthetically, lore wise, and gameplay. It's still to this day my most played job and I've completed every relic without fail for DRK. Even got a bunch of fanart of my character made using DRK weapons. I LOVED this job. I was one of the few DRKs that disappointed by the Shadowbringers rework. I understand that it was a balancing/design nightmare in HW (everything was). Stormblood went a little too ham on the Dark Arts spam, but it was still DRK at it's core. I would argue SB's DRK was peak for dungeon content, if you played well, you were a god and was unique in that regard, and was still a very solid pick for raiding. There were some changes I was pretty okay with for the ShB rework, but it feels like it's been the same job for five years now with barely anything new, or is lacking a "HOLY SHIT THAT WAS COOL" moment like pretty much every other job in the game. The new 1-2-3 Delirium combo is decent, but it's nothing even close to WAR pulling out a bigass axe from the ground and crushing it's foes, or Unlimited Blade Works+ for PLD (I'd also argue PLD's new Atonement Combo looks cooler than the Delirium combo), and the Lionhart combo is just PEAK GNB. DRK to me personally feels like a Dollar General brand WAR as of EW. We basically got nothing interesting for the job at all, and DT didn't come close to making the job fun for me anymore. Take some of the skills as an example. Got your three fel clea... "bloodspiller" hits. Got yourself a tasty HP shield that also gives you a buff heals on enem... oh wait that's WAR. You got a targeted mit skill that gives 10% DR, but if you time it, you get extra.. oh wait, WAR again. It honestly feels like the devs just don't know what to do with DRK. RPR is pretty much peak DRK without the sword. Lots of oGCDs? Check. An alter ego? Check. Fast paced burst window? Not anymore lmao. Edgy aesthetic that screams Linking Park's Hybrid Theory? Check. Whatever they do in 8.0, I hope DRK gets the TLC I think it deserve, and not to be left in the dust like MNK had been. Until then, this is the first expac I can sadly say that I'm no longer a DRK main.

[@ZackStrifeAMV]

I despise Shadowbringers because despite having DRK as the face of the extension, they took all the fun from it. SB was peak DRK indeed

[@apanofbread]

Idk I think growing dark magic demon wings is cooler than big axe but that's just me. And that's the only point I disagree with here

[@fastchevy3096]

I think one of the reasons I got disheartened over DRK was how often it feels like I have to work much harder to output as much damage as I can and still end up doing less damage than my friend that mains PLD/WAR. This combined with how the mp felt worse after the delirium change made me pull the trigger on swapping to GNB for this tier. The rotation feels just as mechanically demanding, but it feels like I actually have strong mitigation options that don’t have an unnecessary drawback

[@autastic1]

Warrior is just broken every patch. They clearly favor it and don’t want any other tank to outclass it. Might as well just switch to warrior and get it over with I guess

[@OizenX]

I wish they balanced the game for more than just week 1 savage specifically. I think its a disservice to this game how hard they're neglecting old content for balance. It shouldn't even be that hard seeing as Level Sync exists.

[@firewoodloki]

I hope they fix level sync. Remove skill and ability rewards in job quest. Make all jobs get their skills at every ten levels, make everyone gets a consistent skill set in between levels, maybe except after lv 90.

[@XanaverForge]

I don't think I'm ever dropping DRK, the class fantasy is way too strong for me to give up, but at least at level 70 I'll be picking up Gunbreaker or Paladin. Honestly, I like the class fantasy of being a tank who gives up their sustain for damage, doing everything they can to do damage, but the lack of buttons makes it feel like I'm not doing as much as I really am.

[@rexcyjones9416]

Tanks during filler rotation: -Warr had fel cleaves and infuriate cleaves with guaranteed crit -PLD has 3 attonement combo for every 3rd gcd combo + insta cast holyspirit -GNB had Gnashing combo + blasting zone every 30s -DRK has blood spiller for every 2nd souleater and one extra Edge of Shadow before 1min. Now if they add mana syphon on Bloodspiller like Syphon strike, then we'd get an extra EoS. A minor addition that i feel like could make some difference, coz mana has always been an issue for playing DRK.

[@aFinalNote]

The new gap closer feels slugish while plunge felt instant.

[@TetsuRiken]

It was not felt it was sluggish thankfully they fixed it but still

[@colonelshades9991]

15:33 I’m really glad you think that way about TBN. Imo the best way to improve it while keeping true to form is to allow DRK to recycle TBN when popped. No mana and no CD so you can really come in clutch when there’s potentially lethal damage everywhere

[@Capzielath64]

I was thinking something similar both for TBN and the opposite for LD to make it feel a bit better in dungeons. If LD doesn't get triggered give it half cooldown. Doesn't matter much for raids as if you're using LD in a raid its typically for a cheese or a buster that you're using no other mit on but it will make it feel better in dungeons being able to use it as a safety net when a WHM is planning on using beni but didn't tell you. Now for TBN, Make the "dark arts" buff it gives work for another TBN rather then Edge/Flood and allow it to chain into multiple dark arts. A good DRK who uses their mit well will only ever pay 3000 mana for a fight an entire fight.

[@somnolence5339]

@@Capzielath64 I like TBN suggestion since it feels bad in multi-hit scenarios such as the M3S Knuckle Sandwich TB

[@kitt8132]

You know what they could do instead to help with the mana regen issue? Make it so that Blood Weapon stacks restore more MP to make up for the loss in 2 BW stacks. If they bumped it up to like 1000 MP instead you’d get the same amount of MP back and still have 3 stacks.

[@SokiHime]

Completing the dungeons as DRK is obviously not the issue. The issue is how comically easy it is with a WAR. Dungeons are not designed to be hard in 14, which is sad, but reducing the CD on Abyssal Drain to 30s would be pretty great on its own. There's no real reason why DRK shouldn't be improved in dungeons. They're content in the game, whether or not they're hard.

[@DankTankXIV]

100% agree, when compared to other tanks the difference is obvious

[@isildurfour]

abysal drain should just go back onto the gcd and cost like 2k mp. no reason at all for it to be a cooldown.

[@xAvitaLT]

Drain and Carve should have never been fused together

[@AleXwern]

StB DRK in dungeons was the most satisfying feeling ever. DA Abyssal Drain to heal yourself to full in 1-2 casts and BW Quietus to get a lot of MP back. It was the current WAR before that became a thing. Current Drain is so underwhelming in comparison.

[@corvoyami3192]

Dungeons should not be hard nor should they be the main focus of the game.

[@Ruenvale]

I got nothing against simplicity, many people don't. The way DRK plays now is less busy for sure but alot of folks are pretty happy with that. I think the universally agreed problems come with the lack of effective mitigation compared to other tanks for sure

[@Xion-Rotti]

I was in a dsr static as drk at the start of DT and man the job felt gutted at 90.

[@literalsoup]

Man this video hits so close to home. I started really playing at the very tail end of ShB and fell in love hard with Dark Knight's story. I loved DRK's super busy burst and learning 5/3 edge alignment was how I initially began to understand the concept of the two minute window. DRK was with me from MSQ all the way to my first EX and Savage clears. I had to leave this tier for greener pastures (GNB) because I just cannot handle how sluggish and slow it feels now. The fact that DRK's average APM is now lower than WAR's was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I just don't understand why they would nerf the only positive aspect of our short CD and then also take away a defining reason a lot of people gravitated towards the class.Plunge being gone is fine, but the fact that it leaves us two fewer weaves, minus the one already lost from BW+Delirium merge, and minus the third edge, the already barren earth of our 1 minute burst has been salted beyond repair. Fact of the matter is, they either made the blood weapon nerf on purpose or on accident and NEITHER option inspires much confidence in the design of the class as a whole. DRK always had problems in EW, but it had enough going for it for people to stick it out until DT when surely they'll add something to shore up how terrible the 1 min is. And instead, they just took stuff away, leaving a gaping hole with nothing to fill it. DRK at this point feels like it's being actively punished for being a 2m-dependent class when GNB just became a 2m class and is being actively rewarded for it (despite already having a more fun 30s and 1m burst). I think the worst part is how any number of small fixes would tide me over until a full rework but we're really just going to have to sit here and wait until 8.0 for them to remember that Dark Knight even exists. Give us our 1200mp/min back. Make CnS/AD a 30s, 2-stack CD (which would incidentally do a lot to patch DRK's shaky dungeon survivability). Make TBN cost 0 MP and change Dark Arts to not be tied to damage. IDK, anything. I beg.

[@jizzing]

I wish they would change living shadow, without it costing blood it is literally just a glorified 12 second dot on a 2 minute cooldown LOL. I honestly think they should make it function more similar to ninjas bunshin or something, that way you could be rewarded for pooling resources when it comes up

[@StofenThe1st]

It should be like Ice Climbers and have it mimic our weapon skills/spells. Including the non damaging effects. Don’t need heals when double TBN is in effect.

[@HowlingDoom]

@@StofenThe1st Would double tbn like apply to yourself if you target yourself? I kinda don't see the point of that

[@StofenThe1st]

@@HowlingDoom Yeah, would be double TBN for whichever target you're casting it on. Mostly that would be to serve as an answer to the low sustain by having access to beefy shields. Honestly though, I think a rework where Fray takes a larger role in DK's kit would be great. Instead of only being able to summon him every 2 minutes we would be able to weave him in and out to double cast some of our of abilities.

[@HowlingDoom]

@@StofenThe1st the idea of fray being more involved with the DRKs kit is something I'd be really down with, especially since RN without the blood cost he kinda is just there as a weird 12 second pet that you do every 2 minutes. Even it being made more similar to Automaton Queen would be neat because at least MCG get to use that more often.

[@deefour28]

At 4:15 that drg backflip was so clean

[@goldmeistergeneral]

Dark mind in this raid tier is just sad. It can have a place, but making it completely useless against half of the damage in the game is just bad

[@persos1126]

I genuinely don't understand how Carve still doesn't have a heal when it's linked to Abyssal

[@Slayeahlo]

I think another thing about TBN is that someone did math on it and if we were to get its equivalent mit/heal per minute, tbn is still the worst despite the shorter cooldown cause the other tank's mit just has so much more in it that greatly makes up the longer cooldown. And I really like DRK but I just wish we don't have to struggle so much just to stay alive. And I feel like people really love TBN because it feels like it's the only reliable thing we have in our kit to stave off death.

[@cattysplat]

Problem with TBN is it scales with gear health. Bad gear and it isn't enough, good gear and it might not even pop losing damage. It's just bad design.

[@PipoPoppy]

As just a "casual" player (the highest level content I've done are the two most recent extremes) and relative newbie to the game (player of about 8ish months, so I started in EW), out of all of the jobs I've tried, DRK drew me in the most, first by the great job quest and then by the gameplay, which I just found satisfying. The best I could put it with my limited knowledge was "it feels much smoother, but also kind of emptier now". Blood Weapon always felt like busywork and as much as I loved the animation of Plunge, it makes no sense for gap closers to have damage, but in turn removing them took away buttons you used fairly frequently, so I really think the "empty" complaint brought up in many places resonates with me the most. (At some point I also just got really fed up with Living Dead killing you because it felt like none of the other tanks had this issue. And turns out this is indeed the case! And you, in fact, get nothing substantial for it, either. It's just worse. And that's really annoying to know.) I still very much enjoy it on my part, but it feels like there is something missing, a bunch of room for more stuff. For example, I feel like Plunge should've been split into the gap closer AND perhaps another attack button, which would give a little more meaningful stuff to do, but I also don't know how it would fit together with everything else. I love the new Bloodspiller variations and Disesteem, but the latter is also a two minute. The less "substantial" DPS is truly what jumped out to me cause as mostly a dungeon runner I do find TBN procs really satisfying, so I at least want them to keep that aspect. I've also seen the "this is more unique" sentiment around for stuff that sounds just "worse" and I'm not sure I agree with that, either. Maybe, for example, instead of removing the death aspect for Living Dead, you make it more substantial or give it specifically an effect? Finally, my thing with the "busy opener" complaint is that the players playing on lower levels aren't really affected by it much. You don't actually *need* to optimise for most content. It's a fun bonus. I absolutely stumbled through DT's EXs. But all of the players are going to feel if the rest of the rotation isn't as "substantial". At the same time, from what I gather, Summoner is one of the most played jobs and it is also played by a lot of players because it is simple, which also seems like an aspect they consider when designing jobs. Accessibility, right? But in this case as much as I still do enjoy the job, it just feels less fun to me than it was. Viper is super simple, but feels more complete than DRK to me, for example. Again, this is from soneone who doesn't know the game as much and mostly plays lower level content. Loved your video, particularly you being honest and direct about your personal opinion.

[@AlastorXIV]

Yeah.. lvl 70 DRK feels weird as hell, for as much homogenization as they've done at cap there's a bunch of oversights for sync'd down content

[@janekgaganek3871]

Now look at lvl 60 drk in palace of the dead and the infamous 180 behemoth enrage push. That 300 potency lost on plunge basicly pushes it into crit luck territory xd

[@D01287410]

I notice that a lot of DRK mains have conditioned themselves to have the mind set of "ya this skills is very situational but in the situation it's useful it's amazing". I feel that this shouldn't be the case and the skills should just be useful all around, not worthless or god like. DRK is the only tank that has these skills and they have a bunch of them.

[@Isredel11]

What situational skills do they have anymore? The only one that comes to mind is dark mind, and even then almost every fight has magic damage you can mitigate, even if it’s raidwides. This would definitely be an accurate description of HW DRK (and SB to a lesser extent), but I find this statement hard to believe now when most tanks are pretty homogenized.

[@adognamedsally]

But it's cool to have really strong buttons. Dark Mind is legit insane, but it requires that you know where the magic damage is to use it properly. It's a knowledge check and offers skill expression.

[@joshuamaurer9784]

And if the magic damage doesn't exist the whole tier? Pretty frickin useless. Quit clinging to shitty stuff.​@@adognamedsally

[@D01287410]

@@Isredel11 TBN, Dark Mind, and Missionary. If your in a situation where tbn doesn't pop your fucked as the mana economy is rough now. Also with the poor economy your lose out on the benefit of its shorter cool down and being able to use it on teammates your can afford the mana cost. So at best it just does things that all other tanks short cd does and at worst your damage is hurt. Dark Mind is just a skill sitting there doing nothing if no magic damage is going out in a fight. Would be better if the mitigation was weaker but was limited. That way you can use it for autos like camo and bulwark. Or stack it for a big buster. Missionary and heart of light should not be worst versions of reprisal. The only benefit is that they don't need to be targeted to be used like reprisal. Those raid wides should just be 10% damage not limited to magic.

[@NotRealAkira]

​@@Isredel11Yeah, but unless you have a vuln stack there is no reason to use Dark Mind on a raidwide. Some fights only have physical too, and in those fights it's just completely worthless. It is thus situational by definition.

[@cold_ay_]

I really wish they'd do more job tweaks throughout patches/an expansion. It's nice that they at least acknowledged in the DT prelaunch stream that DRK has problems and they're aiming for a proper rework in 8.0, but since stuff like the 7.05 Samurai changes are the exception rather than the norm for every job besides Black Mage, I fully expect that it's just gonna get left out to dry for the next ~2.5 years, because apparently nobody at SE actually plays the job to run into the clear issues that it has. I really think that if they changed jobs more often (like a 1/month patch), and in ways beyond "+10 potency to your 123", jobs would overall be in a healthier place. Because even if not every tweak ends up being a success, they'd have more room to find out what does/doesn't work and what players do/don't enjoy, and trend towards better design in the long term.

[@aslanschwartzritter1321]

I haven’t been keeping up with the livestreams. They acknowledged DRK had problems?

[@kovapls]

If you do any content lower than 68 when you get delirium, you notice the mana problem immediately. Sure theres no meaningful content at that level, but why does a 1 minute not even give enough for 1 extra edge of shadow per minute? When they reduced stacks from 5 to 3, they should have just made the gain 1000 per bw stack and maybe make bloodspiller also give 1000. If would wind up being more busy in the burst windows - especially the 2 minute, but it would make mana management and not overcapping a bit more thoughtful while actually buffing dps and raising the skill cap. I think all 4 invulns need a rework so I won't touch that one, but for defensives, combine oblation with either tbn or preferably dark mind. It would wind up making dark mind really op on tbs in some fights, but as you said, a lot of damage this tier is physical, so it would wind up evening out.

[@benjeezyyabeezy]

This is the most I've heard Dank's voice and not it be raid call outs. 10/10 analysis

[@einjharrelraca]

My issue with derp knight is the extra damage they do isnt enough to justify being THIS FAR BEHIND every other tank in durability. Warriors bloodwhetting is quite litterally doing everytbing tbn does, and then more, and then EVEN MORE. Bringing in a derp knight actually might very well be a dps loss, just due to how much more healing the healer has to put into them, thus reducing their damage. Then add in that, if you arent in a super raidbuff heavy comp, you may as well just be even with the other tanks in damage, cause its still super reliant on those burst windows.

[@dysae4484]

I wish there was atleast a bigger focus on the barrier theme atleast. I said this in one of azurites videos but, in keeping theme with dark knight and blood usage, perhaps consuming hp for more barrier effects or adding buffs that convert mp usage into a bunch of smaller potency heals or consuming hp for potency buffs. I just think it would be a cool class fantasy idea and maybe living dead could combine based on the barriers you use or buff you have. Something out there that other tanks arent doing and increasing the ceiling and damage potential with a riskier more in theme playstyle with the class. Edit: I'm only thinking of rework ideas and anything that doesnt just make it identical to the other tanks. I still love the base dark knight class and its the only tank i really ever want to play even if the game "pushes" me to play the others.

[@MrJjjakey]

100% spot on. I loved DRK so much in EW but it just feels hollow in DT. I'm now less a DRK main and more just a general omni tank, unfortunately. I really hope they do something to bring the job back to the same feel it was before.

[@DankTankXIV]

@@MrJjjakey give us back our buttons 🥲

[@MrJjjakey]

​@@Dogan_TM Ok grandpa, I think it's time for your medicine and a nap

[@NabaniSaa]

As a DRK main and enjoyer, my big gripe with the Job that wasn't mentioned is that there's no inherent job identity for DRK in terms of game play. It feels too much like a diet WAR Fell Cleave but w/o the healing or auto crit/dh. Like, it uses mana? Idk, WAR is the drain tank, PLD leans towards a barrier/shield tank and GNB is like the dps/apm tank, I just feel really bland playing DRK in egc DT. Semi-related to above, but I'm playing both DRK and now GNB in the current tier, mostly cause I'm in a new static and my old OT used to be a strict GNB main, and also cause I wanna get better at GNB as it's the tank I have the least time investment into. But I'm ngl, there are times where I swap to GNB just cause it's a lot more fun to play, imo. Hoping for something before 8.0, but at least I know there is a glimmer of hope later down the line.

[@ThatZillyGuy]

For a random (uneducated) opinion on DRK, I would like to see a mini Carve and Spit MP Restore added to Bloodspiller and a mini Abyssal Drain added to Quietus to make DRK a little more sustainable/claw back MP loss. I doubt the timer or the shared cool down on Carve/Abyssal is going to change any time soon, so that feels to me like a healthy change until a rework occurs. It'd also be nice to see a mini shield on Oblation. I find myself (as OT) throwing Oblation and TBN around a lot on party members when they look a little low so it'd be nice to see a 10% shield accompanying it.

[@Mesarthim]

Blood weapon managed to make low level dungeons even more dull. Qarn normal happened once and you can't aoe combo. So not only do I not have an aoe mp generation but Blood Weapon only restores 3 hits, not 5...

[@FrossTea]

Coming here from Xeno's reaction, very long time Dark Knight player that swapped off the job and even the role when Endwalker launched. A lot of the things I loved about Dark Knight were absolutely gutted in EW and it's continued since then. DRK used to have the best 2 target (which felt so good in TEA) and it losing that niche really did rub me the wrong way back then. On top of this, the devs saying they didn't know Blood Weapon was a problem when it was on a timer (they did fix that in EW after saying that). Having to choose between damage and saving someone always felt bad when the other tanks really didnt have to, especially when EW released and essentially HoC, Resolve, and Bloodwhetting could all 'sort of' do what TBN could do without sacrificing damage. Adding all these things up with the fact slowly over the years DRK became more and more about facerolling the entire keyboard for your ogcd in any order you want, effectively dealing the same damage I realized the job direction was not really what I wanted anymore. It had other minor issues that were never addressed, such as skill speed not affecting your spells (I know paladin has this issue too), its very low recovery despite being the job that is thematically known for sacrificing but gaining a ton of hp, and I eventually fell off so hard I put the entire role down for difficult content. No hate to anyone that loves this job in any way now but for me at least compared to the other tanks, it's entirely lost all of the niche that I loved about the job, the biggest being best 2 target damage and helping with recovery for the party when something goes wrong in a meaningful way.

[@kohlicoide2258]

Tbh the whole Bloodweapon Stuff shows for me clearly what is DRK for the devs. "A unwanted relic from earlier days" I mean some Jobs get reworks with almost every AddOn but DT DRK is just EW DRK with less Buttons.. and EW DRK is just ShB DRK with _slightly_ more Button. Its obvious they dont rly give a sh*t about DRK and i hope they see soon that DRK need _much MUCH_ more Work then just some dps buff or give Plunge (imo overrated) back. He need a Rework now like PLD in EW or even better like SMN

[@nadiene19]

I'm a fresh DRK (but already a long term raider) and I have to say that apart from the mitigation (no sustain compared to other tanks, TBN consuming MP) I really like this class in the form it has now. I find it very enjoyable to play with it, although I know that most don't like how this class looks in DT.

[@felisrising7160]

I liked DRK in EW because of how bursty and spammy it felt during its 2 minutes and just how TBN felt like a skill expressive tank mit... This expansion though I think WAR or PLD is just going to be my go to tank.

[@SephirothsBIade]

As a casual normal content player that loves DRK's glamor enough to suffer the ability to die instead of the other immortal tanks, I feel like DRK hasnt changed since level 50. Sure it got new buttons, but every time it did other buttons were removed or given nonsensically long cooldowns... GNB has multiple spammable powerful heals at 45 and 82 PLD gets healed with every action it does by 90 in addition to having an actual heal button it no longer needs to use. WAR above level 56 can never die ever again ever... it literally doesnt need any other button to perma sustain itself yet it keeps getting more heals as it grows while dealing better feeling damage hits. DRK? We get a singular 1 minute CD hit of WAR's bloodwetting that they get to show off for 3 skills every 26 seconds. DRK looks and feels amazing... until compared to anything else the other tanks do.

[@codyswrath1063]

O12S MINE is the only time I’ve had to switch jobs in this game. We simply couldn’t survive the phase 1 eyeball cannon with me on DRK cuz I have no raid mit. Had to go PLD. Feelsbadman

[@DankTankXIV]

There seems to be a lot of confusion over why I call DRK the highest dmg tank despite it not being the point of the video so I will pin this here to explain: aDPS is the metric tanks care about in 99% of cases because tanks do not bring a raid buff of their own. Your job as a tank is to deal as much dmg as possible during raid buffs, so to ignore raid buffs when determining the highest dmg tank would not make much sense. rDPS ignores dmg from raid buffs so it is only relevant for the singular party comp in the game that does not bring party buffs: ex. WHM, SGE, SAM, VPR, MCH, BLM TLDR: aDPS is the metric that is used to determine tank dmg. The less raid buffs you bring to the raid, the less powerful burst jobs like DRK become and the closer tank dmg will resemble rDPS. My point was to show the disparity that even with DRK being the highest aDPS job at the time of recording, there is a very low player count for DRK showing that there are underlying issues with the job making players choose other tanks over the dmg benefits.

[@coycen]

well you can certainly look for arguments to help you. doesn't make it correct tho

[@DankTankXIV]

@@coycen bait used to be believable lol

[@njstudent155]

and despite all these issues somehow IM the one stuck healing these drk all the time D:

[@coycen]

@@DankTankXIV I'd rather accept accomplished top tier raiders claims than a nobody who admits in his pwn video that he is biased towards DRK

[@DankTankXIV]

It's fine if you don't agree, but this is twice now that you've made no actual argument of your own, and now you're switching to insults because you have nothing of actual value to say. I'd love to hear who these "top tier raiders" are lol

[@cagemerchant219]

I don't think this topic is about "dark knight is bad" it's more about "dark knight is boring". Dark knight feels so incredibly slow. Slower than playing Dark Mage on a moving focused fight. It's such an amazingly cool class. Big sword, cool abilities that rival reaper, yet doesn't hit hard, isn't active, and repetitive. Aim to make the class fun and worry about balancing in the future. Warrior is an extremely fun and active class and yes, its healing is a fucking crazy, but it's FUN. GNB has the best MIT in the game and does great damage, but its busy and FUN. PALADIN IS BEGINNER FRIENDLY, AMAZING ANIMATIONS, DECENT DPS, AND DECENT MIT. ITS FUN. Dark knight isn't fun, doesn't hit, and shadow vigil really doesn't compared to WAR. Yes, WAR is broken, but it doesn't even come close, which it should. DRK needs a re-work and a busier kit. ty for reading :D

[@ShoryukenPizza]

I only dabble a bit in DRK in UWU and some dungeons, but it really feels like I'm griefing just bringing DRK in any hardcore content, especially UWU.

[@ShoryukenPizza]

@@threenotesoddity oh thats actually good to know. Never even tried to take all 3 homing lasers. I really meant in other content aside from damage. Dark Mind isn't doing much in this first raid tier, but who knows for the others. My group doesn't particular need single target mits either as my healers are cracked. So I just have Missionary to bring. I get it though, but I still feel like I'm griefing.

[@chipslight738]

I'm very happy you brought up the discussion of Lv70 Dark Knight because I think that a lot of jobs in the game (especially the newer jobs starting from EW) are designed to function at Lv80 and higher and the rest be damned. Reaper is miserable to play under Lv80, Viper and Picto's Lv70 kits feel barebones and Sage unlock its dot 20+ levels after every other healers (which stays the weakest dot tied with Scholar's until Lv72). I really understand why the devs are not designing their jobs with the idea of teaching the players what you would need to ideally do in raids/trials. Why not turn some capstone abilities into weaker versions of themselves at lower levels (TBN is just a shield before Lv70 for exemple) ? Why not put abilities earlier than they are to teach the player their importance (Reaper gets Arcane Circle at 72 ? Why not put it around 50 ?) ? This is an issue that seeps into other facets of the game : you've already brought the importance of your point in Ultimates and similar levels Savage but what about Deep Dungeons ? People are just gonna play unfinished/barebones kits up to Lv60 and 70 in PotD and HoH respectively ? I'm gonna use my Viper in Eureka but my cool Lv90 ability is just not available in this mode at all. And what about someone buying a level skip because they wanted to try or use this cool Reaper job throughout the MSQ for roleplay purposes ? Nice 25$ spent for a kit that starts being enjoyable past Lv80 my guy, you're sure gonna keep playing the MSQ learning that you have essentially 200 hours of story to go through to finally reach the content where your job feels good to play... Obviously, I'm not a dev, I don't know coding and I'm just a guy passionate about his favorite game so I'm unsure if adding new abilities or downgrades to older kits or upgrades will fuck up the game code somewhere or the space available for it needs to be optimized with each release but seeing the amount of abilities lock to other games modes (Lost Actions, Pomanders, old abilities still present in the game to possibly come back like Wide Volley), there has to be a way to make those job kits more concised and semented even at lower levels, isn't there ?

[@NoelAmakra]

Man until the job gets a full rework I'd love if they cut delirium to 30 seconds and put living shadow at 1 min, lower potencies and what not just let me click more buttons.

[@filipvadas7602]

DRK , in my opinion, suffers from needlessly and consistently overbalanced & obsolete design: TBN has *no reason* to only last 7 seconds and not heal you and/or your targeted ally when the shield goes away. Dark Mind is a hyper situational tool that you literally don't use 99% of the time. Its total garbage. Abyssal Drain still sharing a cooldown with Carve and Split is so stupid. A lot of these issues aren't new either. They're just magnified cause the Job has been hollowed out nearly to the bone. Salted Earth has no reason to just be identical to its PvP version. The issue with Living Shadow STILL not doing anything for the first ~5 seconds of its duration, technically making it actually usefull for 15 seconds of its full 20 second duration, is insane to me.

[@DankTankXIV]

you know, the pull in on salted from pvp would be sick for dungeons

[@filipvadas7602]

​@@DankTankXIV exactly lol

[@Jorvalt]

- Yes. Why the fuck is it still 7 seconds when everything else is 8 ALSO WHY DOES IT STILL COST 3000 MP IT SUCKS - Also yes. BRING BACK DARK DANCE PLEASE - Yep. Honestly I'd love for them to bring back something similar to how it was back in the day, just make it a spell that costs MP and heals you with damage. This has absolutely no reason to share a button with a single target ability that does a fundamentally different thing. - Yeah. - It isn't? I actually didn't know what the pvp version of Salted Earth was but I looked it up and it's not even close to the same. 1/3 the cooldown, draw in effect, way higher damage, restores HP, 20% mit - Also yeah. I mean, like, a 15s duration thing is still not bad, but it's weird that it's advertised as being a 20s duration when it's animation locked for the first 5 seconds.

[@RekiWylls]

@@Jorvalt PVP Salted Earth has higher damage because potency is calculated differently in those modes, but yeah, that version of the ability is so much more fun to use. I'm fine with them having the weird 5s animation lock on LS, but it feels weird that summoning Esteem does literally nothing. Pressing LS could do a splash of damage, like summoner primals, at least. And yeah, 7s on TBN feels awful--doubly-so when taking how the game interacts with shield applications into account. My ping's not super high, but I still see last-second TBNs show up visually and not actually shield people fairly commonly.

[@filipvadas7602]

​@@JorvaltLiving Shadow should either be reworded to where it more accurately represents how it plays out or the countdown should *only start counting down once the clone actually starts doing damage, or at least when its summon animation ends*

[@conroconro]

Shadowstride having no damage is fine, but the problem with it right now is it works completely different than Plunge did in 6.x and earlier. Shadowstrike draws a packs attention first, moves you, then updates your position. This makes enemies run behind you for a moment and it feels awful. Before, Plunge would move you, update your position, then draw attention. If they revert it back to how it used to be drawing attention wise, it'll be perfect.

[@Jorvalt]

Same problem exists with GNB. This seems more like an oversight than intended. An easy fix would be to make the provoke effect happen _after_ the animation stall instead of before, like how it works with the gap closers that do damage.

[@omegaxtrigun]

Why are people pulling with their gap closer instead of their ranged attack?

[@conroconro]

@@omegaxtrigun Because they actually know how to play the game

[@Zrynnn]

i wanted to play drk this tier but ended up on war because m1 and m3 were nearly all physical damage. the utility of shake and the lack of use from dark mind and dark missionary pushed me in this direction. while i was glad to see gap closer damage go, i feel like this also was a nerf to sub 100 content since the damage to make up for the loss of plunge damage and mp is in your passive 123 buff which is at like 94 or something. (also no dark missionary still at 70 like the other tanks?) I would really like to see Carve & Spit and Abyssal Drain have their cooldowns untied as well, carve and spit doesnt even give you hp like drain does so it just seems really odd that they share a cooldown. Would like to see Abyssal Drain be like PLD's Holy Spirit where you can get a proc from your combo for a free drain for more self sustain.

[@mocmeo4425]

Just wish they rework the dps rotation, its so hollow now

[@jackjohnson8305]

Has been ever since SHB, i hope they're serious about job identity in 8.0 cuz DRK needs to be spiced up already.

[@omensoffate]

The dps rotation has been the same for almost 4 years now lol

[@scorpiowarrior7841]

@@jackjohnson8305 ALL of 14 feels very hollow in so many regards, but DRK just got shot. Being a poster class is a fucking curse and DRK proved that more then any other job.

[@mocmeo4425]

@@omensoffate its even more so now because they lost a lot of weave every minute

[@Ducksquare]

5:39 you are at simping levels critical

[@DankTankXIV]

LOL was a close call

[@yuNgsuma]

I've mained DRK ever since it dropped alongside GNB ever since that dropped, and as I've been playing DRK compared to playing GNB through this expac I found myself asking out loud "the fuck are we even doing" whenever I'm on DRK, and that's coming from someone who's a casual. I love DRK to death, but iunno man. Shit ain't it.

[@apileofcats6051]

Excellent video. I'm pretty invested in DRK (I do resources for the Balance and Icy Veins) and have seen a LOT of discussion about it, and this is probably the first big discussion I've seen. Absolutely based from minute one with the educated aDPS comparison. I agree wholeheartedly on literally every single point you made. I still love the job and its more defined strengths and weaknesses (which is a bit ironic considering how many people just describe it as bastardized WAR or whatever), but there are absolutely things that could be made better about it. I don't really have much to add because again, I just completely agree with everything you said down to all the little nuances.

[@AzemSP]

Thank you for all the work you do. I use the balance religiously 🙏

[@sparks8459]

I always found it frustrating with dark missionary in 70 ults is that even tho it was a shb ability its stupid its 76 gnb was also new and they get heart of light at 64

[@PH03NIX96]

I need my Dark Arts (Eukrasia) back, and I need it now.

[@HyouVizer]

I miss it with GCD abyssal drain, seeing green numbers flood the screen. Some forget DRK was the original self heal tank long before Warrior. Shadowbringers ruined DRK, been meh ever since (Lore based Fray dot and LD lifeleech I admit good additions, but still).

[@rhysgarland9295]

Genuinely annoyed when they launched Sage & I realised there was no good reason to remove Dark Arts

[@narmeya3177]

There was no good reason to nerf all the gameplay of the game at all, yet they still did it for the dumbfuck, and with how easy ff16 is, i know its yoshida's fault

[@thanatos113]

By what metric do you determine that DRK is the highest dps tank now? I'm looking through stats on fflogs but across all fights i can't find any category that DRK dominates, whether I look at rdps vs adps, median vs max. It seems like its mostly 2nd or 3rd with a few 4th and few 1st. Not saying you're wrong i just don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing

[@unixtreme]

Did you change the percentile? Some jobs are meh for most players but if you change it to the top 1% you realize they are a lot better.

[@thanatos113]

@@unixtreme yes I looked at mostly higher percentiles and at the very max. It's better in some and worse in others but never the clear #1

[@Justawanderingtraveler]

We're so back

[@destrmath]

White Mage suffers from a lot of what you are saying about dark knight at 70 as well. No mit (ast has a 60s mit) no healing on move (ast has lightspeed and star). They took stuff away on SHB release that made them useless. They made adjustments at 90 that turbo buffed level 80 whm, but they offer nothing at 70, on top of double shield just being better in 90% of content in the first place.

[@MrNikh0o1]

I knew i couldn't be the only one who cares about lower level jobs. They literally killed SAM at lv 70 lol

[@mirageowl]

yeah like wtf xd

[@autisonm]

Wdym? I heard the SAM nerf were to the upgraded abilities so SAM at 80~ below isnt effected.

[@zephroy8570]

I hope that this will not become a habit of them, to implode jobs at lower level. I tried to play DRG, but the class is not fun until 70 My hope for now is that SE adds the skills and ogcd at a lower potency

[@tgr3423]

@@zephroy8570 I felt the exact same way going from SHB to EW. I was super excited to start unlocking Dragoon's actual tools and kit at Lv. 60, but when I logged back into the game in 6.0, I was completely confounded as to where my Dragon Blood Gauge went, and the rest of the abilities that I unlocked, only to find out they moved all of them up to Lv. 70+. Made me drop levelling the class entirely.

[@etukekv4073]

they didnt kill SAM what are you on about? kaiten gone doesnt mean it's dead lmao

[@tetrahedron_in_space]

I am an Omni tank who prefers to MT as a WAR in PF (no statics since Asphodelos) and I’ll OT as a DRK and never felt I had problems even going MT as DRK at all in EW if I really had to. One situation this happens with me is when I play with a friend who is a GNB main. He prefers OT because of his ping and how consistently busy GNB is, so I always MT’d when playing with him and would often play DRK. I have an alt now that I only play with him with when he is available to prog the current tier, and when I made the alt, I bought a level & story skip for DRK and didn’t think too much of it. But now I feel like an asshole when I MT as DRK, especially this early in the tier when I don’t have raid / tome gear yet on my alt when I play with my friend. I can’t tell you how many times I died in M1S and M2S to just auto-attack damage before I had to basically play MP-perfect to keep TBN on me constantly during large auto-attack sections, and even THEN sometimes PF healers just aren’t looking. Now my friend basically keeps Aurora on me pretty much the entire encounter to help me stay up. The huge heal from Shadowed Vigil is awesome, but I have to keep it for tank busters more often than not or risk getting especially low. This would be fine if most of the tank busters were magic damage, because then I could roll in Dark Mind with an Oblation and be set and then just use Vigil whenever I need healing, but most of the tank busters are physical. Just feels very bad to main tank savage so far.

[@piconio]

Im sorry but drk is shit since its rework in shadowbringers the only upside it had was dmg, now, with 95th percentile in fflogs drk is only SLIGHTLY better by few numbers from gnb in aDPS this job is a pieace of shit, lets face it without coping, the sooner we talk about it openly they sooner we get changes from SE

[@skivvac]

Since they took away the blood cost on Shadow, they should make it like Vergil's doppleganger where it actually copies your moves and you are entirely responsible for its damage. Imagine planning the timing of your burst around when your Shadow's up so you get all your big buttons twice, that'd be sick. Honestly I've always had a problem with DRK's biggest button being "summon the guy and let him do your damage for you," so this change would let you have a lot more impact on that. To combat only 3 stacks of Blood Weapon, I'd love to see Salt give you increased mana regen while you stand in it, to give it a reason for being a ground aoe besides just "spicy dot." Maybe change the CD and make Salt activate move it to you like BLM ley-lines, that'd be sick. I honestly feel like they should decrease the potency of Edge and Flood, but increase DRK's overall mana gain a lot, so you're able to use TBN more often and less strictly. Also idk why they didn't give you the new Scarlet Delirium combo as soon as you unlock Delirium. PLD got its new Atonement combo at lower levels, so why shouldn't DRK? The job just feels like dogshit and is objectively worse than it was in EW at 90, it's really sad playing it in old content right now. They took away a bunch of stuff and gave it nothing in return. Even the DT version feels a bit like that honestly. I'm curious to see how Squenix responds to all our complaints, and if we could actually see a DRK rework in DT. If not, and the job will be like this for the whole expansion, it's gonna be a sad three years.

[@WoahItsCrazyMike]

TBN change I'd wanna see while keeping it unique: Free mana cost, same CD time. when it breaks it empowers your mana spending ogcds to heal you when you hit with them, single target one heals more, but line attack (which would be cool if it becomes a circle aoe when empowered for dungeons) heals for each enemy hit, giving us a warrior style big burst heal in dungeon pulls.

[@rivvysenpai]

Fellow DRK Main, ty for having a discussion and bringing more attention to this. It's truly a shame that over the years SE has taken away from drk and returned almost nothing, and this includes the games skill expression as a whole, but thats a different topic entirely. I like how dark knight operates and I think keeping the core design is ESSENTIAL to avoid further job homogenization as making drk like other tanks isn't a solution, it's a bandaid over a gaping wound. Personal suggestions of mine to hopefully spark some ideas in the community. Carve and Spit - 30s CD and heal 400 cure potency on use, this will return some apm to the job and make it's minute intervals stronger aswell as fix the 1200 mp loss from the combination of BW DELI TBN - still 3k mp, 33%hp Shield(12 seconds) and 15% mit for 8 seconds(lasts even after the shield breaks) and if the shield breaks, be given 600 cure potency after 3 seconds and a dark arts proc. If it DOESN'T break, apply a regen to (target) and allow the next tbn to be casted for free The Larger shield % is to make it more valuable during leveling Change Oblation to be like Intervention where you instead give a large potency shield to a target. Add a Trait that returns spent mana back to the player as HP ex. 400 hp cure per 3k mana Living Dead: no longer able to die, prevent HP loss once triggered. Blood Gauge- increase generation of Blood Gauge through normal filler, make bloodspillers restore health. New Skill - Sacrifice (ogcd with 60s cd) Basically you trade 30% of your hp for 30% mp(3k mana)

[@JesseBakerH]

The most cool part of playing DRK is being driven to madness having to press 1 2 3 over and over until your psyche breaks. Very flavorful!

[@mas8705]

*hears dark missionary explanation* Actually, that’s a good point. Another example I can think of (which I don’t know if it was said since I stopped after the white mage example) is Black Mage getting Umbral Soul. A level 76 ability that suddenly got dropped to level 35 (which means it was a move introduced halfway through Shadowbringers but recently has been dropped down to now be one of the first spells one can learn upon changing to the black mage class). Not to say Dark Knight needs to have this move or anything else be like one of the first moves you learn when starting the class, but one ability or two can be made available at lower levels to make the class feel more engaging. I do enjoy dark knight, but lately I do feel like it has been lagging behind other tanks for me.

[@kirigherkins]

4:15 sick dragoon backflip, you love to see it

[@TubeTAG]

What if they just doubled the MP regained from blood weapon? I don't play DRK so I don't know if that would push into overcap range but it would be a very simple solution to fix the Blood Weapon change. As an aside, my proposed TBN change would be: Combine with Oblation, 25s, no mana. Normal TBN shield, normal Oblation mit. If the shield breaks, CD -10s. If it expires without the shield breaking, heal for the same amount of remaining shields.

[@maciej8587]

It seems it's a bit overlooked but at lv100 we're down not 1200 but 600MP/minute since the Torcleaver combo generates 200MP per hit on top of 600MP from Blood Weapon. I think folks (myself included) looked at the tooltips and went "oh they just added the MP gen from Blood Weapon in the tooltip", but it's in fact a different effect. Now just put CnS and AD on 30s cooldown, give Carve a 600p cure on top of MP and we're good.

[@kosbebot6360]

Why would they not add your mp bar to the job gauge? The only thing you need to manage on DRK is your mp.

[@Kylesico912x]

For the Blackest Night, would cutting the shield portion in half but making up for it in a major heal help? Like maybe twice the potency of the shield heals the Dark Knight. Should give more sustain and more reliability proc the free ability usage.

[@Lex-nd2dt]

Just add a selfheal to the “edge of shadow” that you “cast” from the TBN procc. Since that “stack” never runs out, it would be great to keep for situational use as long as you don’t overcap MP . Make it heal more when TBN was used on a target other than yourself. Or, let it scale flexible, the higher the hit that ultimately breaks your TBN the higher the heal. So it’s less “self sustain” in dungeons were it breaks from low hits taken, but can safe your ass if used after a heavy hitting TB

[@timjames1709]

I love how drk plays though I agree on where it sits overall. Everything makes sense in terms of flowing together. The problem is the results just don't match up. To have the lack of sustain and inability to pass tbn around like before we'd need to have a bigger damage advantage than the current 1-2%. This said decouple carve and spit and abyssal drain, or combine them. That and one out of a small dps increase (another 2-3%), upgrade the mdmg% cd to be more frequently useful in someway (perhaps a regen or mp restoration for damage they take while active? hard to tune), increase mp restoration, or another reliable self sustain. Even without the change just one of those would be a big help if done right.

[@shinjimikej]

great video, agree with you on most, if not all points and this seems like a more informed opinion on the absolute (current) state of dark knight in dawntrail while most people seem to repeat some points that would do more harm than good to drk only because it's the "safe opinion" the blood weapon change felt like something they did to try out and never revisited it, that mp loss makes drk feel more rigid, when 7.05 dropped i thought they'd add it again and just go like haha it was a joke but no, however, could definitely see it going back to 5 in the future but i think that won't really solve its mp issues (rigidness) as a whole the idea of reworks or current changes in this game seem to be more of a thing of not punishing the player for messing something up and allowing them to recover where, as you said, if before you didn't have 50 blood entering a burst then it meant you were fucked out of living shadow and you can see this with viper too, it was changed so that before 7.05 you were soft punished for dropping noxious gnash, you still had your rotation but you lost some potency, now it makes it so that that failure state for the player isn't present, what this means for drk's future is uncertain if they ever plan a rework for it your idea of cns healing is very good, i don't like the idea of homogenizing sustain across tanks and yeah it's an overblown issue, you can survive in dungeons with just your mits specially now that you have a 15 sec reprisal it means that rep and then your oblation charges can last you for almost an entire minute before you have them again, going back to mp changes it may be better if you could have more uses of tbn during dungeon pulls but in content where you aren't getting auto attacked every time or constantly or often you have more ways to survive, having drk be the big mit little sustain tank is actually a good way to differentiate it from its peers, me personally i never had any issues with healing or dying in dungeon pulls but i know that's not everyone's experience, however, we do have a rampart that increases healing, a tbn that is guaranteed to break with a lot of mobs (just wait for the whm holy stun to be fully resisted if you're concerned about that), 2 10% 10 sec mits and now shadowed vigil which is absurdly strong that the only reason someone may or could die in dungeons is a misplay, yes there may be more healing required at lower levels but come on... who is thinking of sustain and balance for older DUNGEONS? and don't healers wanna heal more? and on that note of having great mits, changing tbn to just be another 25 sec cooldown is just removing a core identity of the job itself to be just another hoc/bw/sheltron, more tbn uses will be better so the best idea imo is not to change this to be 25 sec cooldown but instead give it more uses without the risk of losing dps, tbn is only bad when misused and or when you have enough ilvl that using tbn won't break at which point, does it matter? you probably already cleared or have more than enough gear to clear, i think the idea of changing tbn is that some people just don't want to use it smartly, my main concern about its future is that it may just turn into dark paladin or gunbreaker without continuation, it was already memed to be dark warrior but the community has to make an effort to avoid just spouting changes that will turn X job into Y with different animations and then they'll proceed to complain about how all these jobs in this role feel the same... HUH, i wonder why that is, tbn as it stands now being a risky tool that rewards smart usage will always be GOATed and drk as a mit machine is very strong, changes that would boost the uniqueness of the job are better than changes to make the job in-line with other jobs so i think the community as a whole should aim for that, if they change tbn or oblation to just be like the other 25s cds then you know a core part of drk's uniqueness died in favor of homogenization to avoid complaints of differences between jobs also agreed with your take on lvl 70 drk but i think this is just a general problem, having your full kit or very important parts of it locked in old replayable high level content is just miserable, hell i would also like to have at least 1 oblation charge before 70 very good video i'm glad it was smarter than the usual complaints you see around, i love this job too it's been through some rough changes since its conception but it is still the king of cool and very fun to play in a lot of scenarios, i will keep playing it and i'm sure it'll do great in FRU since it's also the best tank for downtime phases but it needs more sauce or at least more mp gen to fully utilize its kit yoship please collab

[@LudaneRua]

Completly agree, making TBN like another mitigation tool its just doing the wrong thing to do, it steals the identity of the job and its smart usage

[@quinn8599]

I feel the unmend trait is useless and should be reworked given theres absolutely no need for it since plunge is gone Abyssal drain should be reworked a bit to have its flat heal increased to be meaningful while getting rid of the higher scaling of it for alot of packs being present(while turning it into the 3rd combo of DRKs 1-2 AOE combo) TBN needs some work, maybe a trait to lower its cost or something.. i dont know i want it to be better but 1 wrong buff and it becomes o.p. Living dead is still garbage and i think it should just not kill you if youre not at 100% maybe 30 or 50% if they're going to keep this gimmick, 1 thing i think DRK needs more then other things though is sustain.. literally all the other tanks can live on their own and well at that in case of the party going down or just your healer, etc. Lower level DRK(looking at YOU LEVEL 70 DRK) needs desperate help.

[@emerald6597]

if they just decoupled carve and abyssal drain like it was in shb drk would immediately feel like 50% better

[@monsterdc0303]

i came back to this game after a year , got burned out from eureka and i found out something is missing as i am pressing things on muscle memory and something felt off later i saw bluod weapon missing and plunge doesnt work. Also it suck because its the only class i played that i was confident on and now i cant even survive somehow (also capped at lvl 70 because ftp)

[@darkspine133]

ex DRK main: i took a mostly break from EW raiding. But wanted to come back to DRK, the changes felt kinda underwhelming, and outside of burst it felt super boring minus managing your mana/edges. Ended swapping to GNB as its the only other "fast" tank, while still having super solid party mits, its less of a hassle, and is more enjoyable outside of your burst thanks to the gnashing combo. Overall a similar feeling as it's fast while still having really powerfull mits that can safe people in corundum

[@TahuRaisao]

Honestly, my breaking point was after clearing DSR. I wasn't having much fun with jobs, and even less with raids. After clearing it 3 times, I retired from raiding altogether after playing a tank since ARR. I've been tempted to raid this tier, but not having to worry about job designs, odd changes, schedules has been a breath of fresh air. It does still make me a little sad hearing some of these issues persist.

[@karlklein2263]

Everyday i miss 3.0 dark knight

[@axis8396]

I definitely agree with giving the final rotations earlier, it would make low level so much more interesting like why tf does Paladin have a single aoe button until level 40? I'm a big proponent of giving the rotation early to keep the job busy for the vast majority of the leveling process but then just give us traits that up the potency at whatever breakpoints. This allows people to effectively test the job without deciding if they want to spend days of their life leveling a class they ultimately don't like the feeling of

[@obliviousthunder]

so... someone correct me if im mistaken... ( i aint always the sharpest tool in the shed lol ). but dark knight is pretty damn bare bones is that correct? it can still run all content tho right? just not as effectivelly has a paladin can?

[@DankTankXIV]

DRK can definitely clear all content just fine and I still play it regularly as my main. But it can definitely feel lacking once you look at the other tanks because DRK requires much more effort to be self sufficient so if the devs can find a way to close that sustain gap that would feel great for the job.

[@spiritus-strata]

if they made TBN a 25 second cooldown they would *have* to remove the MP cost. the reason it's on a shorter cooldown because it has a cost to use, which should definitionally make it more powerful than the other short cd mits

[@keinchi]

I've been saying this since I watched Xenos' latest video on it, but(from order of importance to least): *They really should add 2 more stacks of Blood Weapon(don't even need to touch the delirium stacks, at most, increase the timer on the delirium buff countdown), this pretty much puts DRK back to ShB/EW DRK with Blood and MP generation. *Split C&S and Abyssal Drain, maybe increase Abyssal Drains healing potency to 400, and give us two stacks of it, this helps with the sustainability issues and then maybe decrease recast for Abyssal to 30 or 40s. *Add a heal if TBN expires before the shield breaks, the full percentage of the shield made, or the remainder plus some healing potency(don’t increase recast seconds, this is DRK’s Clemency, if they change TBN's recast time, Clemency should change as well). I think ultimately the DPS neutrality from a timed shield popping is fine, but getting health as an exchange if it expires before, is a fair gain in helping sustainability. *Lastly change Oblation to 20%(I've said 15 before, but fuck it) mit, if it's not going to do anything else, it should be able to at least handle this much mitigation since we have already have Dark Mind specifically for Magic. With this AD replaces plunge, gives some sustain in form of two stacks (as well as MP regeneration assuming they don't change that) and helps keeps the job busy. TBN dropping a heal if the shield pop, is again, something of sustain assistance, and with Oblation getting buffed to being a second Rampart with stacks, it makes it the proper CD comparable to Blood Whetting/Holy Sheltron/Heart of Corundum upgrades. I think it keeps the jobs current identity solid until they do the full fix.

[@Forsakei]

Former dark knight one-trick here. I'm making progress into gunbreaker now as I just feel like DRK is missing everything. I will say that, at least visually, it has more *oomph* in its kit, but that's where it ends. Compared to every other tank, it feels like it's missing its niche. Also would have loved to get into Ultimates with it, but I cannot imagine losing well over half my kit and sustain over it.

[@skykid]

I'm not smart enough to figure out a replacement/improvement for the mana system, instead I'll point to what I think the main issue with drk design has always been, it SHOULD be the tank that heals itself by damaging the enemy. It even has a combo action that does, but compared to War, it doesnt even come close...and that's the issue, War came first and took that design as a means of standing out from Pld, so now Drk's mitigation kit feels anemic, and it always has. People said for the longest that TBN was the best defensive mit, but it was inexorably tied to the clunky mana management design, and thats largely all we've had. I mean TBN is rly good for tankbusters sure, and it's reliable on dungeon pulls, but even then you get back to mana. I don't personally hate DRK as is, it's serviceable. But yeah, there's really nothing they can do for QoL (except reduce shadowed vigil CD) until they design mana/tbn usage

[@hakaiuchiha4515]

I wont ever stop playing DRK. Not ever. Theres no state they can put it in to ever make me change. And i 100% agree with everything said. of course. I want my job to be better.

[@ridleyroid9060]

Drk is gonna be my tank of choice (I am not a tank main, it's a tertiary role but as I am a healer I kinda need to be aware of tanks kits). I leveled GNB first because that was my go to tank in the previous expansions but It feels weird at 100 to me, being that having an out of whack SkS punishes you that much harder now and since Im not really rocking amazing gear it being a tertiary role it's no fun to run in EXs where everything just goes completely out of whack. It's a thing of practice sure but I'd rather just go with dark knight so Im not as punished just by having "pick up what you can" gear.

[@boogiebam7104]

Is that zeno in the thumbnail since you'll knew he'll steal the video? 😄

[@ragingmonkey4592]

It's wild to me that DRK has lower self sustain than other tanks. It should be the highest self sustain. The job is thematically the one that drains HP from it's enemies (as it has been in other FFs, FFXI DRK main of 15 years here). Draining hp and being better at mitigating magic were the main identities of the job, yet for some reason WAR gets all the "heals while doing dmg" abilities. Coming from other FF games, this DRK has always felt lackluster to me because it feels like the neutered the Drain aspect for "balance" (yet in every endgame cycle I've played in, DRK has been the weakest tank). If they do rework it, I'd love to see them lean more into the drain and sacrificing resources aspect of things.

[@wol_-]

Paladin main here, but I play every tank on the side. I really enjoy how 2 mins have been reduced in terms of weaving just because I felt it got in the way of actually fulfilling your role (mainly just taking busters because that was literally our entire role in EW), and I think its a perfect amount of weaves to be comfortable now. However, I feel that 1 min windows are just like…there is nothing going on at all. You literally only have 2 buttons you actually need to press in that window, being CnS and Delirium, and you don’t even actually need to put your edges in that window. It just feels so empty compared to even Warrior. Job feels fine but it doesn’t have anything going for it except damage right now, and Paladin is kinda broken so I have no real reason to hop off it.

[@SkyraM]

i want them to give tbn an action that when you press the tbn button while you still have shield it eats it and heals you for the value, and gives you 30s dark arts + the free edge use. actually let you set up your burst (without needing a raidwide or mech at the right time) and give you some sustain if you're not taking enough damage in the 7s tbn window, but are still taking damage over time

[@Solozocker]

One change i would love to see is if for tbn they made it like a 20 second cd removed the manacost but keep the free edge or make it give back like 1k mana if that is too busted. Would give us our missing edge (and maybe then some) from the lower bloodweapon stacks back and give us a minigame of trying to ether use it on cooldown for the extra edges or keep it for normal mit or if you manage both. Would make it feel very unique tho idk if they want us to spam it like that on cd

[@alchemyknight6027]

Don't forget if the boss moves while Living Shadow is out, Esteem will Shadowstride to the target now instead of plunging like before, so the Shadowstride change also tanked Living Shadow's potency. Great takes though, was refreshing to not see a drk main screaming about this phys heavy raid tier.

[@ProphetOfTruth_]

What’s the piano that plays during closing thoughts?

[@DankTankXIV]

It's called Unchanging, Everchanging, from the Shadowbringers ost.