Dark Knight Job Critique – Final Fantasy XIV (Patch 7.2)
Summary:
Dark Knight (DRK) is the edgiest of FFXIV’s tank jobs, wielding a greatsword and dark magic to deliver punishing bursts of damage while protecting allies with shadowy power. However, it also struggles with sustainability and quality-of-life issues that hold it back, particularly in casual content and long-form encounters.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Suggested Improvements:
1. Reduce Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain cooldowns to 30s:
2. Improve Abyssal Drain healing scaling:
3. Rework Living Dead for modern viability:
4. Quality of Life Enhancements:
5. Add passive regen or shield on The Blackest Night break:
Conclusion:
Reducing cooldowns on Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain, updating Living Dead, and enhancing TBN’s support capabilities would round out the job’s kit—preserving its identity as a brutal, high-risk, high-reward tank while giving it more tools to thrive in all content types.
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Summary:
Dark Knight (DRK) is the edgiest of FFXIV’s tank jobs, wielding a greatsword and dark magic to deliver punishing bursts of damage while protecting allies with shadowy power. However, it also struggles with sustainability and quality-of-life issues that hold it back, particularly in casual content and long-form encounters.
Strengths:
- High burst damage: With Delirium, Blood Weapon, and Living Shadow, DRK brings one of the strongest offensive bursts among tanks.
- Stylish and satisfying kit: Visually, DRK’s animations and theming are among the most striking in the game.
Weaknesses:
- Lack of self-sustain: DRK lacks the on-demand healing of Warrior or Paladin, making solo or low-healing content more punishing.
- Outdated utility: Skills like Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain feel underwhelming compared to newer tank abilities.
- Minimal party utility: Outside of TBN, DRK brings little direct support to the group compared to Intervention or Shake It Off.
Suggested Improvements:
1. Reduce Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain cooldowns to 30s:
- A 30s cooldown aligns them with modern tank skill pacing and enhances rotational flexibility.
- Abyssal Drain in particular becomes more viable as a sustain tool in dungeon and solo content.
2. Improve Abyssal Drain healing scaling:
- Increase its healing potency slightly and have it scale off target count more meaningfully (e.g., +10% healing per additional target hit up to 5).
- This makes it a true AoE sustain tool like Warrior’s Bloodwhetting or Gunbreaker’s Aurora.
3. Rework Living Dead for modern viability:
- Instead of a two-phase "cheat death," simplify it into a flat "damage reduction + life steal" mode (e.g., 10s duration, 20% mitigation, 20% of damage dealt is returned as HP).
4. Quality of Life Enhancements:
- Let Plunge charges scale with level (e.g., gain a second charge at level 94+).
- Auto-place Salted Earth under the target.
- Buff Blood Weapon to be more fluid with global cooldown usage (e.g., no delay from server tick rate desyncs).
5. Add passive regen or shield on The Blackest Night break:
- When TBN breaks, add a 100 potency shield or minor regen over 6s. This makes it a more proactive defensive tool rather than a purely offensive refund mechanic.
Conclusion:
Reducing cooldowns on Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain, updating Living Dead, and enhancing TBN’s support capabilities would round out the job’s kit—preserving its identity as a brutal, high-risk, high-reward tank while giving it more tools to thrive in all content types.
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