I’ve been waiting to share my opinion on Dawntrail’s iteration of Dark Knight until after getting to prog the first savage tier on it. I tried to cover all the complaints I’ve heard about the job along with my own.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:45 Offensive Kit
09:48 Survivability
15:51 LvL 70 DRK
20:50 Closing Thoughts
source
It’s the most boring tank to play by far. And it sucks because it was my main tank since Hw and one of my fave jobs in FF of all time
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.
DRK was my favourite tank in ShB but going into EW seeing it not get any kind of big defensive upgrade like BW and HoC and HS just felt like a gut punch. Especially when they add fucking oblation and enhanced unmend instead. Like just slap in the face to every DRK when the other 3 got so much. Then DT comes they address none of the issues remove plunge take away 2 stacks of blood weapon and say haha fuck you go play WAR idiot. Oh yeah and Abyssal Drain still useless too. Dark Mind is dumb too. Like cmon
So now I'm leveling WAR
I think that more blood gauge interaction would be cool, like getting some blood back after breaking TBN or using oblation. If they ever rework abyssal drain then there could be an opportunity for more usage. With living shadow not costing anything I agree that managing blood just doesn't mean shit now but maybe it can be saved as well as making down time a little more interesting.
Dark Knight has been my main job since 4.5, ever since I have played this job in some way shape or form almost every time I have logged into the game. While there are things I miss about the older versions of Dark Knight, and things I wish the job did better I do over-all enjoy the job. I wish it had more self-healing, I wish putting TBN on your party members felt more impactful. I WISH THEY WOULD SEPERATE CARVE AND SPLIT AND ABYSSAL- I do however love the job, am currently using it to prog savage, and couldn't imagine playing any other job as my main. It's a Dark Knight life for me baby.
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
I knew i couldn't be the only one who cares about lower level jobs. They literally killed SAM at lv 70 lol
TBN needs to be reworked or it needs to go. Oblation is basically the same skill but mit.. combine em, make it a two charge shiled and mit or shield with a heal and let them Edge of Shadow freely. It can't be tied to their dps anymore and it needs something done to not restrict the classes design
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
Disesteem actually puts you even further back on mp regen since its a gcd.
DRK highest dps? when did this happen , Gunbreaker is, then other 3 are about the same fight depending
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
Not the highest dmg tank unfortunately…
His voice tho 😍
just make TBN active like SAM's third eyes and make it refund as extra mana if break, done.
Still a sprout, but DRK has been my go-to tank for a good while… until Dawntrail. I'm looking to get into current EX/Savage content once I unlock it, and the state of DRK as I understood it when DT launched was my primary motivation for currently power-leveling the hell out of PLD. Even if it does (and did, pre-7.05) even less damage, PLD still has way better AND MORE CONSISTENT mitigation and party support, meaning party finder groups are more willing to take a low-dps tank that is nearly unkillable over a slightly higher dps tank that is VERY killable. I hadn't thought about past content, but you raise good points especially about DRK at 70, to the point I'm very glad I plan to have one or two other tanks I can pick from just so the sweatlords don't always shut me out of PF groups.
I still love DRK for the story and the aesthetic, and it's my favorite glam I'm currently rocking, AND I don't have the context of previous iterations of the job since I started playing in EW (so I have less to miss about the past and/or be tired of about the present). But even only knowing what I knew, I was still disappointed to see where my baby sat in terms of performance when DT came out. DRK still needs some design love.
Sorry, this was very stream-of-consciousness. Just wanted to say you got some pretty good points.
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.
More sustain just doesn't seem like an answer to me. What, we're just going to dip into Warrior a bit more? How about rather, let's get the Dark Dance back…. slap it on oblation or dark mind. 20% parry! Now rather than sustaining the fight you can just block those autos that are chewing through you. Next, fixing MP? TBN, Edge and Flood, lower them to 2000 mana. Maybe this means Flood and Edge get slightly lowered potency. Sustain still? Sustain… I honestly don't care but since it's all about dungeons or something, just put a small cure on the basic AOE combo, simple and easy.
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.
Few ideas of my own, general ones, im not saying all of them combined are good:
-Reduce cooldown on abyssal drain so u can get a comfortable use on every trash pull in dungeon. I dont mind reducing dmg potency to make up for it.
-Make TBN cost blood gauge and not mana (not the full amount of bloodspiller ideally) makes room for more skill ceiling in a sense that u look for more ways to protect urself and others so u gain darkside and makes bloodspiller more strategic in low damage fight phases and u still need more dps.
-combine carve and spit and abyssal drain into one button "does x to first enemy and 50% to others" button that has the heal
-give TBN another effect in case it doesnt break (idk exactly what, maybe regen when it breaks and darkside if it doesnt?)
-give oblation additional effect when used on others to encourage protective plays (regen, shield? whatever idk)
This is the most I've heard Dank's voice and not it be raid call outs. 10/10 analysis
5:39 you are at simping levels critical
This was my first tier tanking and have to say while I get the idea of dark mind being good in certain fights I don't think it's worth what it's missing from other tanks. I find myself only wanting to ot on drk because pld and war just put less pain on my healers.
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
Dark knight is not fine in dungeons. Please stop simping for the current iteration of TBN and do not even try to crutch on Living Dead. Healers will, without fail, always cuck you out of proccing walking dead, and then you are sitting there with nothing left to get any extra time alive to finish the wall to wall pull because the healer isn't doing damage and the only time they heal is to grief your invul. Dark knight will not be fine in dungeons until it gets some self healing, preferably before level 70.
I need my Dark Arts (Eukrasia) back, and I need it now.