[sadbot]

I think that black knight has landed itself in a very good spot after the GR2 changes, but I think that it's for a multitude of reasons that aren't entirely to do with its own power. I'd say that it's certainly one of the better classes now and agree that it's probably one of the most played right now, but I don't think I'd agree with changing it much if at all.

I could see checkmate having a three round cooldown instead of two to be honest. It would make it a little less spammable for what is essentially black knight's signature/finishing move and reign in black knights damage a little, though I don't think it's unreasonably high. Crescent rook and bright bishop are both in a weird place. They definitely have very strong scaling, but their elements don't mesh well with black knight for gauging the damage numbers and actually taking advantage of it. wind is the opposite of what black knight wants to do, and faith isn't something that can be reasonably dumped into as much as other stats without severe sacrifice elsewhere, leaving the elemental scaling not adding much for its high % scaling. A skill focused build with a badge can be a different story though. The only suggestion I could make is perhaps keep their high scaling but make enchants not change their scaling element?

Not much to say about heavy armor and shields and armor reduction itself. They're a prime example of what I mean when I say that black knight is in a strong place due to factors that aren't its power as a class. I think they're strong sure, but I don't think they're so strong that they need nerfing.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I think that part of black knight just being in a good spot generally is due to their main weakness of mobility being one of the easiest things to cover with your other class.

TL;DR black knight has landed in a strong position since GR2 for a combination of reasons, but I don't think it's so strong that it needs to be reigned in much. It's massive popularity since GR2 speaks for itself of course, but I think no more than some minor changes like an extra turn of cooldown on checkmate or a fixed element scaling on crescent rook and bright bishop are needed to bring it more in line with comparable classes.