Welcome to a beginner’s job guide starring the Dark Knight. Let us begin with all the stuff you need to know about the Dark Knight without further ado.
To play the Dark knight, you need to have unlocked certain progress in the Heavensward content. It means you need to access the icy towers and castles of Ishgard, which will require the completion of Realm Reborn as a whole and another job you have chosen before to have reached level 50. also, note that upon taking up the Dark Knight’s job crystal, you’re starting it at level 30. But fear not, the level downfall is easily compensated by following certain leveling methods.
Combat System Basic
You will have access to a straightforward weapon skill combo consisting of three attacks: Hard Slash, Siphon Strike, and Soul Eater that will construct your single target attack sequence except having your cooldowns ready.
In between these weapon skills of your combo, which will cause a global recast timer of basically 2.5 seconds, our goal is to weave in as many off global cooldown (OGCD) abilities as possible but better not more than two. Examples are Edge of Shadow, Abyssal Drain, Salted Earth, and many others.
From this section alone, you will run into a proper button smasher but very strategic and enjoyable nonetheless. This will significantly highlight the overall combat speed, and one or two OGCD should always come after each of your weapon skills as long as you’re in good mp condition.
MP Management
Managing your mp pool allows you to use Flood of Darkness or Edge of Darkness; the first being an AOE attack, the second being a single target hit.
On level 74, both will transform into their Shadow version being stronger, namely Flood of Shadow and Edge of Shadow. These two attacks will also put you into your dark side stance, granting a 10% damage boost. Try to always use one shadow attack at the beginning of each fight, and don’t worry about keeping up the buff. As MP will regenerate through time, you can frequently use these attacks but should always try to use them when your party throws out their great support or in dungeons, use Flood of Shadow when many targets are available.
Another exceptional tool casting MP, The Blackest Night, learned at level 70.
Before you reach that level, the Dark Knight may feel a bit squishy but at least then everything changes, and you’re engulfed in darkness and sturdiness. The Blackest Night, also referred to as TBN, will absorb damage equal to 25% targets maximum HP and if that shield is consumed within 7 seconds, you will also receive one free stack to use Flood or Edge of Shadow without MP cost. So in the best case, you will use this as much as possible and keep trying to let the shield be absorbed in that 7 seconds duration. Note that it can also be applied to other friendly targets, which can be very helpful to some party members to survive certain raid mechanics or in dungeons when your hitter has taken a slight peak of enmity.
The Blood Gauge
Next up, we want to know what our Blood Gauge does, which we receive on level 62. Using weapon skills under a Blood Weapon effect or using a combo-activated Soul Eater will fill up the gauge.
These gauge points are required to make use of Bloodspiller and Quietus.
The first is strong on single targets and should still be used when two or fewer enemies are around, while Quietus on level 64 deals insane waves of damage to three or more targets. All this is highlighted by our Delirium ability learned on level 68. For those warrior players, it will remove the cost of Quietus and Bloodspiller under its duration, which can be seen as the evil and dark version of the warrior’s Inner Release. We always want to land five weapons skills inside of this window.
We should aim for a good value of skill speed as bosses can easily hinder your consistent attack sequence by turning away in a rush. So I highly recommend not be too precise with these skill speed values to leave some headroom for improvisation. Just head for high item level gear and choose those pieces that have skill speed and other good stats on them and avoid those with tenacity or mostly. Above that, all this should be applied to our Blood Weapon duration as well bringing in 5 weapon skills into that window will guarantee you a solid gauge point management. Otherwise, you could have trouble inside most openers.
Gauge Spend
Another special gauge spender is Living Shadow, which is your heaviest cooldown and the undisputedly coolest ability this game offers. Using 50 gauge points, you will summon a shadowy servant who will throw out random abilities into your target. But even when you cannot interact with this minion, all the buffs and attack bonuses you receive are also stacked upon your shadowy servant. So make sure to use it in buff windows. Another thing to mention is that this shadowy servant will cleave with all of its attacks, so using it for a big pack of mobs inside dungeons can pay out very well. Just go for it when you have stacked up gauge points or when many targets are around. Most of the time, this will automatically fit perfectly into notable timings.
Manage Defensives
Another important topic is to manage your defenses. The first and most important knowledge is to not use all of them mindlessly into a single blow as most of these have a very long cooldown, and you have to split them because of multiple attacks being thrown at you or your party. While Shadow Wall, the Rampart, and of course The Blackest Night is primarily used against all sorts of tank busters.
Dark Mind, Reprisal, or Dark Missionary should be used against raid-wide damage.
Where the last two will also mitigate damage, your party members receive. Using The Blackest Night frequently will help you and your party’s survivability a lot. So find spots where it will be consumed completely and before even thinking about other defensives on yourself. Saving some MP for it will always be helpful, of course. By the way, your Abyssal Drain can also help you reduce threats from big dungeon pools as it will heal you for its damage cost, and when using it on five or more targets, this number can be truly massive.
Last but not least, Living Dead.
For you healers out there, this topic is more important for you than for the dark knight itself. Living Dead is a skill that can be used as emergency survival or for skipping or reducing the threat of certain big split tankbusters.
When living Dead is used, the Dark Knight will take up a buff for 10 seconds, which keeps him alive even when hit below one hp. If that faint death effect is triggered, he will receive the Living Dead status where the Dark Knight needs to be healed up by 100 of its maximum life. Whatever happens elsewhere, healers should heal your precious Dark Knight now, and you have around 10 seconds to make that happen; otherwise, he will die a demotivating and cruel death. So make use of spells that will grant 100 of target’s hp like Benediction. Those are very heavy buffed single target heals.
That is mostly everything crucial. Everything else is just reading your tooltips and abilities correctly. Remember that it’s a feature and not a ballast. So go through all your spells and abilities and familiarize yourself with your toolkit.
