[Autumn]

Very much a simple thread where I don't wanna go into detail currently with what I think Black Knight needs, and instead listing its flaws and why it just doesn't feel right.

Black Knight is by no means a bad class at the current moment, its not exactly good in the light of mobility creep but I imagine that is one of its perceived weaknesses, they're not meant to move insanely fast and are restricted to the movement restrictions of heavy armor, which can limit them pretty severely. This isn't necessarily bad since castling can have a lot of range with black wind up so they can move and protect their allies efficiently, or at least that would be the case if protect functioned in a halfway reliable manner.

The largest issue I find with supportive black knights is that they just can't protect their allies as much as they want to, many basic attacks can straight up ignore protect, and there are a lot of abilities that are much more worth using on 2 targets instead of 1, so being next to your ally can often spell some disasterous things, like you being used as a 100% hittable sponge to trigger a knockdown from sonic shell or interference, while your dodgy friend might just be able to avoid that attack all together, something like metalaegis even prevents effects like this from getting out of hand with its absolutely insane version of protect, perhaps we could see that kind of mechanic implemented into Black Knight with a limitation.

Heavy armor doesn't feel terribly impactful to a Black Knight currently, many of its gimmicks can be utilized without it and the only reason you do use heavy armor is for a 10% DR which gets further mitigated by having more defense, this is an outdated mechanic from pre-GR I wager since we've learned that armor is terribly more impactful than %DR, this is the only suggestion I will make here, I'd much prefer it if Indomitable gave extra armor rating to Black Knights instead of %DR, I'd even go as far as to say this should probably be amplified as a main class benefit too.

Basic Attacking currently does not reward the Black Knight enough currently, where as some basic attack builds end up doing well, they're only doing well because of they're tailored to critically hit, Black Knight is not tailored towards critical hit checks so if you can't do that, you're better off spamming autohits, leaving a good portion of Black Knight's kit underutilized. Like in the case of a DH/BK destiny build you are very unlikely to ever basic attack. I personally like main class benefits for momentum efficiency, such as bloody shift, fleur and dagger dance. Chimera Stance is also one of my favorites but thats not main class.

Lastly, the autohits within Black Knight itself are all very niche and cannot be utilized effectively, Bright Bishop and Crescent Rook both scale from stats that a typical Black Knight wouldn't probably use ever, there's also the lack of a sword skill currently. I think that these sorts of elemental atk scaling skills should be dynamic similar to lift off, where say a venus badge would scale earth atk on crescent rook instead of wind atk.

In summary/tl;dr:

-Protecting an ally doesn't feel impactful, it is often a negative to be near them at all instead of by their side.
-Heavy armor doesn't feel crucial enough to a black knight, more incentive towards that may be required.
-Basic attacking without critically hitting should still reward a black knight somehow.
-Black Knight autohits scale from niche, non-used stats, board shaker is a good skill, but Bright Bishop and Crescent Rook are only good with specific builds.

Thanks for reading.

[Snake]

They could get a way to shirk damage from someone else to themselves by using Black Wind. Ways of keeping an enemy from escaping their grasp once they reach in melee range. Ways of utilizing swords better. Ways of making using a Sword and Shield worth and thematic. Ways of making Heavy Armor their go-to, and maybe something to minor support Light Armor too.

For a good example, stuff that's only Shield gimmicks such as Magnet Shield's ability to deviate basic attacks is a good start for what they could use, but being locked to equipment, something that a class by itself could make use is what I'm talking about here. Give Black Knights better ways to protect people. Their whole 'chess meme' is already set in stone. But where is the 'Black' and the 'Knight' in Black Knight, by the end of all?

That's one class that I wouldn't ask for anything but buffs. They had it rough thanks to pairing with other classes such as Boxer -because- they are just that pathetic to be used alone, or lack an identity in combat. In fact, I believe BKs use more from Soldier than the class itself, and all they're known for is just Stalemate.

And even then, that's boring to be their only worth.

[Autumn]

Yeah I 100% agree with Snake's comment that Black Knight currently just lacks a combat identity currently too, its a support class for other classes, its "Hanging" for duelists and "Crit Evade/Stalemate" for anything else.

[Snake]

Adding to Spo said, the fact that they lack ways of fighting cheese and "cowardly" ways of fighting such as people who poison them and keep reapplying poison whenever and watch that damage consume their innards is a fault for the class lacking ways of having better defensive options against those things, additional to magic.

They could gain a lot of better tank capabilities to compensate their lack of offensive abilties. I don't think we'd want it to become another Demon Hunter. We already have enough damaging classes in the game, we need more go-tos for themes where you're trying to mitigate damage and protect your allies.

[Lonestar]

I think one of the changes that I would like to see the most and also would apply to the basic hitting nature that BK has would be changing the scaling on Sudden Death/Prophylaxis from WIL to SKI. It never made much sense that WIL would be the scaling there as buffs/debuffs that those two passives gives benefits more basic attackers considering that they barely use WIL in any basic hitting build (unless the weapon scales off from it).

You would mostly only see the WIL scaling being used from people that only use BK as a subclass for Stalemate and the extra defenses, which only brings to the point stated above about the class losing their identity overall.

[Maksimum_Fire]

Ehh, I can't say I'm fully in favor of a lot of these things.  Black knights aren't a perfect class, and they're not meant to be.  But I'm gonna point out a couple things here and now.

Black knights are versatile as hell.  Often, they're seen as taking up a lot of SP for important passives, but honestly, you don't *need* all of them.  Prophylaxis isn't something that works with every build, and that's fine.  Negation is absolutely monstrous for any non-lich, so it's a no-brainer to max it, but that doesn't mean it's not worth the 5 SP.  Same with the 10% DR from Indomitable.  Stalemate?  Combined with Negation, you can basically say goodbye to basic attacks.  Like, BK seriously asserts dominance in any sort of battle with its passives alone.  But that's not even all it has.

Crescent rook.  Radical movement skill that's actually a projectile, so immobilize doesn't affect it.  Can be used for all sorts of combos, or, if the opponent has a visible mirror, it's well known for being used to bait the mirror and bring the opponent to you.  It's kinda a sweet mechanic, and sick when people use it.  It doesn't have perfect elemental scaling, but this doesn't impede the excellent utility of the skill.

Hanging.  Arguably the most movement skill that also includes a basic attack at the end of it- With extra hit, to boot.  Even if you don't build around basic attacks, that can still be a fresh free 100% SWA that you're smacking down.  Compare it to Haunting, and it looks leagues better.

Checkmate.  A devastating attack.  It's short range, but the mobility options of a BK can help you get in on the action.  It's certainly not perfect, a basic attack, after all...  But under certain conditions that many BK manage to consistently replicate, it can just automatically hit, *and* it's got a +scaled defense to damage tag.  On a class that gives +6 defense as an innate.  That's incredibly meaty.

and ALLL of its utility skills tend to be just kinda sick.  Forced move gives Black Knights a monstrous presence in Teamfights, Steel Aura completely turns off a ton of different builds, Steel Blood gives them a reliable poison counter, and Steel Body lets them easily shrug off Arbalests and their ilk.

If anything?  I feel like BK suffers from having too many options.  Some of them feel a little tricky to use, but they've all seen some incredible use.  And above all...

The Black Knights of Chaturanga are chivalric beings, for hire.  Their job isn't to be some old bastion standing around and taking hits, but to be a valiant warrior, on the front lines of battle.  They crush their enemies beneath their bootheel, working with their team as a cohesive unit to make sure no one's hung out to dry.  I think that's a wonderful identity for the Black Knight, and I think it fulfills that role very nicely.




With that all said.

I can sympathize with a couple things regarding Black Knight.  With Charge's nerfs, it can be a little nerve wracking pursuing a mobile character.  And even if you don't need them all to make an incredible black knight, not being able to take on all of them just kinda feels disappointing.  Maybe the boxer treatment, reducing a couple of their passives to 3 rank, could go nicely.  Giving board shaker a touch up would be nice, as well, as it'd give Black Knight a good autohit in an element that it nearly always scales.  It's something that needs to be treated with care, though, as it'd be easy to get out of hand with that AoE.

If I were to give my thoughts, I'd like to see Board Shaker become 60/65/70/75/80 SWA and 100% earth attack, with an increase of 30(or 40)% SWA if Battle Weight is above 40.  It's kinda long overdue for that to become a SWA thing given how much less damage boardshaker will usually do just using torso weight as a base.  That's just a basic quality of life thing.

Overall, though?  BK still dominates as a class.  It meshes very well with the base benefits provided from soldier(of which there are many), can be specialized into any of a dozen different roles because it's so versatile as a subclass- and as a mainclass, with the right support, it can become absolutely immovable.  15% Bulwark DR and 20% Indomitable DR+guard DR+Negation+Stalemate just gets terrifying- and they can even cripple an opponent's mobility.

Buffing it in general is, in my opinion, not really a priority, as it'll just go back to, instead of being present in most pvp like now, in all pvp, like it used to be.

[Lonestar]

I don't believe Black Knight, as a standalone class is very strong as you state it is. It has strong tools, but the biggest power in spike is when BK is combined with classes that doesn't require any of the skills and is simply used for the passives alone, which it not particularly healthy when the class has so much more to offer. Combos that are very famous out there can go from BK/Priest, Hexer/BK, LB/BK, Summoner/BK and much more. You become tanky simply by having +6 DEF, a parry that works on your front/flanks against three types of weapons and free crit evade.

Black Knight as it is, is around the same problem Boxer has, which it is only used thanks to a gimmick, which in the case of Boxer is their Geist, but also differently, Boxer offers so much more compared to Black Knights in terms of different skills and offensive capabilities, to the point that they match their theme. Black Knights are not frontline warriors or bulky protectors, they're in fact, both, to the point that they have skills meant to support your team through sheer guardians like Castling or Soldier's Protect. Lorewise they're both used as Chaturanga's army to defend their home and mercenaries-for-hire that can range from jobs such as bodyguarding due to their increased defenses. They're the game's best physical tank so I don't see why they could not be that role.

As it is, I don't believe  they're a case of 'suffering from success'. They have strong tools and underused tools, and not all the skills and passives matches what the Black Knights usually built for stat-wise. Some of the powerful skills have cooldowns and others can be kited around, alongside one that requires a very peculiar positioning (looking at you, Bright Bishop). The changes are very much welcomed and BKs, and it could change how people approach it, instead of being a forever sub-class option.

[Maksimum_Fire]

I think very few classes in a standalone sense measure up to be incredibly strong.  Black Knight works phenomenally well as a support class in multiple ways because you have various different passives that you can hone in on depending on what you want to focus on, and likewise- various utility skills to shore up your weaknesses.  Not every build wants every skill from BK because things aren't generically good, they're designed to synergize in one way or another.

I don't think that BK is a 'gimmick' class right now.  It does work very well as a subclass because... Well, the only mainclass things it has are Bulwark from Soldier, the flatfoot bonus or w/e from Charge/Bash, and then bonus DR from Indomitable when using Black Wind.  Like Priest, there's not much, if any, encouragement to run it mainclass unless you're a shield build, in which case it suddenly becomes much, much harder to hurt because of how Bulwark works, and because of how frequently Black Knights can trigger black wind if they'd like to.

when it comes to 'protective' tactics in Sigrogana Legends 2, we don't have many skills meant to just, block things.  We have personal defensive measures, and then we have mobility.  Protect exists as a skill, and while it's not perfect, it still shuts off options for enemies.  It doesn't need to become something present in every fight, as long as it has places where it takes the spotlight.  I think if you want to take a defensive role beyond that, it should involve repelling opponents from your allies, taking advantage of your knightly strength to zone off opponents or otherwise force them into positions where they can't harm your allies.

I don't think anyone wants a world in which squishies entirely stop worrying about positioning, because it becomes the meta for a Black Knight to follow around puppyguarding them.  That'll lead to even slower team fights than what we have now, and it's not something I'm super keen on seeing.

A Black Knight is meant to be flexible in tactics due to their great training.  I think they need to range to more jobs than just bodyguarding, like you explained, Lone.

I'm actually glad bright bishop got brought up.  It's a very wacky skill and rarely seen, but I'm honestly a fan of it.  It's a long-range diagonal skill, something that I don't think we see anywhere else in the game- it's almost like a shinken out of the corner of your square.  I think it's a perfect tool for catching kiters off-guard, since, typically, attacks come out of the front- of if they don't, they're not super long range, since they'll be free targeted.  Bright Bishop circumvents this, and has appreciable bonus effects, especially from elemental impacts.  I think its only real weakness is being Faith scaling, which makes it tricky to run on a lot of builds, and the fact its scaling in general is a little lower than it could be.  It's another example of 'niche, but good' in the series of skills that BK has.

You just gotta pick the niches you're interested in fighting, kinda thing.  Black knights get hella options, and seriously, all of them are good except board shaker.  Board shaker rework and maybe less SP for skills is all I think that Black Knight really wants.  So, basically the same treatment Boxer got not long ago.

Edit:  I actually took another look at board shaker.  with the 100% strength part of it, honestly, it's not that bad aside from FP costs.  I can see great use being made of it.

[Autumn]

Ehh, I can't say I'm fully in favor of a lot of these things.  Black knights aren't a perfect class, and they're not meant to be.  But I'm gonna point out a couple things here and now.

Black knights are versatile as hell.  Often, they're seen as taking up a lot of SP for important passives, but honestly, you don't *need* all of them.  Prophylaxis isn't something that works with every build, and that's fine.  Negation is absolutely monstrous for any non-lich, so it's a no-brainer to max it, but that doesn't mean it's not worth the 5 SP.  Same with the 10% DR from Indomitable.  Stalemate?  Combined with Negation, you can basically say goodbye to basic attacks.  Like, BK seriously asserts dominance in any sort of battle with its passives alone.  But that's not even all it has.

Crescent rook.  Radical movement skill that's actually a projectile, so immobilize doesn't affect it.  Can be used for all sorts of combos, or, if the opponent has a visible mirror, it's well known for being used to bait the mirror and bring the opponent to you.  It's kinda a sweet mechanic, and sick when people use it.  It doesn't have perfect elemental scaling, but this doesn't impede the excellent utility of the skill.

Hanging.  Arguably the most movement skill that also includes a basic attack at the end of it- With extra hit, to boot.  Even if you don't build around basic attacks, that can still be a fresh free 100% SWA that you're smacking down.  Compare it to Haunting, and it looks leagues better.

Checkmate.  A devastating attack.  It's short range, but the mobility options of a BK can help you get in on the action.  It's certainly not perfect, a basic attack, after all...  But under certain conditions that many BK manage to consistently replicate, it can just automatically hit, *and* it's got a +scaled defense to damage tag.  On a class that gives +6 defense as an innate.  That's incredibly meaty.

and ALLL of its utility skills tend to be just kinda sick.  Forced move gives Black Knights a monstrous presence in Teamfights, Steel Aura completely turns off a ton of different builds, Steel Blood gives them a reliable poison counter, and Steel Body lets them easily shrug off Arbalests and their ilk.

If anything?  I feel like BK suffers from having too many options.  Some of them feel a little tricky to use, but they've all seen some incredible use.  And above all...

The Black Knights of Chaturanga are chivalric beings, for hire.  Their job isn't to be some old bastion standing around and taking hits, but to be a valiant warrior, on the front lines of battle.  They crush their enemies beneath their bootheel, working with their team as a cohesive unit to make sure no one's hung out to dry.  I think that's a wonderful identity for the Black Knight, and I think it fulfills that role very nicely.




With that all said.

I can sympathize with a couple things regarding Black Knight.  With Charge's nerfs, it can be a little nerve wracking pursuing a mobile character.  And even if you don't need them all to make an incredible black knight, not being able to take on all of them just kinda feels disappointing.  Maybe the boxer treatment, reducing a couple of their passives to 3 rank, could go nicely.  Giving board shaker a touch up would be nice, as well, as it'd give Black Knight a good autohit in an element that it nearly always scales.  It's something that needs to be treated with care, though, as it'd be easy to get out of hand with that AoE.

If I were to give my thoughts, I'd like to see Board Shaker become 60/65/70/75/80 SWA and 100% earth attack, with an increase of 30(or 40)% SWA if Battle Weight is above 40.  It's kinda long overdue for that to become a SWA thing given how much less damage boardshaker will usually do just using torso weight as a base.  That's just a basic quality of life thing.

Overall, though?  BK still dominates as a class.  It meshes very well with the base benefits provided from soldier(of which there are many), can be specialized into any of a dozen different roles because it's so versatile as a subclass- and as a mainclass, with the right support, it can become absolutely immovable.  15% Bulwark DR and 20% Indomitable DR+guard DR+Negation+Stalemate just gets terrifying- and they can even cripple an opponent's mobility.

Buffing it in general is, in my opinion, not really a priority, as it'll just go back to, instead of being present in most pvp like now, in all pvp, like it used to be.

I made sure to specifically mention that Black Knight is not a weak class, but it certainly has a ton of outdated scalings, mechanics and flaws to it that end up being a detriment and end up creating massive flaws for characters that end up truly wishing to be a "Black Knight" centered character rather than a character that simply relies on it as backup, there's not a LOT to do with the central mechanic black wind as an example of this.

Furthermore, there is no reason to hold back a class from being true to its theming even if it weren't weak, I wouldn't exactly have called Verglas or Ghost very weak but look at their states now from what they were, and the community generally agrees their reworks did more for the feel of those classes. Though I don't feel like Black Knight needs a complete rework, I feel like it needs more to do with Black Wind and basic attacks.

Moving onto the nitty gritty specifics of things, it seems like you're proving a lot of my points, negation is as you say an incredible passive and is pretty much the sole reason why basic attackers have issues vs black knights, but I will comment that those black knights specifically have LUC and/or FAI to back up that crit evade massively, there's no reason this passive should ever change and I never mentioned it should. Stalemate on the other hand is pretty lackluster and has a low chance to proc, you get way more tanky just but equipping Eviter because that counts for autos too.

Crescent rook is a mid-ranged projectile that travels in a straight line and moves you too, it ignores immobilize sure but you can visualize it more like a warp than a movement skill, similar to warp strike or pinball strike, however I don't think the utility of this skill justifies it to ever be max ranked, spear BKs would love to be able to use this skill more effectively and helping them out via a dynamic scaling would certainly not push the class to far, not even the slightest.

Agreed on hanging, hanging is way too versatile and is probably the best basic attack skill Black Knight has, I'd argue there should be a stigma to it where you can only leap to the Target's front in a chivalrous way. If you wanted to offset BK's current strengths to grant them elsewhere. Checkmate is also very good so I won't even get into that.

I wouldn't call Steel Blood a reliable poison counter, especially because turn order changes can mess with them in that regard, I really do wish it granted poison immunity on a successful cleanse, perhaps even as a main class benefit.

Black Knight's identity is supposed to be the defacto physical tank of the game, but you end up getting tankier being a ghost with wraithguard and eviter, and also block magic to boot. They're only really good at denying basic attacks when stalemate isn't being finicky and unreliable.

Bright Bishop certainly needs some attention as well in relation to Crescent Rook, dynamic scaling would probably make both of these skills equally usable. 

Many good points I do agree with here, I'm just pointing out the flaws in Black Knight that generally don't feel good to play, and not their inherent perceived weaknesses as a class, such as the lack of low momentum cost mobility and the adversity vs magic, which are likely intentional weaknesses that should certainly stay.

I think very few classes in a standalone sense measure up to be incredibly strong.  Black Knight works phenomenally well as a support class in multiple ways because you have various different passives that you can hone in on depending on what you want to focus on, and likewise- various utility skills to shore up your weaknesses.  Not every build wants every skill from BK because things aren't generically good, they're designed to synergize in one way or another.

I don't think that BK is a 'gimmick' class right now.  It does work very well as a subclass because... Well, the only mainclass things it has are Bulwark from Soldier, the flatfoot bonus or w/e from Charge/Bash, and then bonus DR from Indomitable when using Black Wind.  Like Priest, there's not much, if any, encouragement to run it mainclass unless you're a shield build, in which case it suddenly becomes much, much harder to hurt because of how Bulwark works, and because of how frequently Black Knights can trigger black wind if they'd like to.

when it comes to 'protective' tactics in Sigrogana Legends 2, we don't have many skills meant to just, block things.  We have personal defensive measures, and then we have mobility.  Protect exists as a skill, and while it's not perfect, it still shuts off options for enemies.  It doesn't need to become something present in every fight, as long as it has places where it takes the spotlight.  I think if you want to take a defensive role beyond that, it should involve repelling opponents from your allies, taking advantage of your knightly strength to zone off opponents or otherwise force them into positions where they can't harm your allies.

I don't think anyone wants a world in which squishies entirely stop worrying about positioning, because it becomes the meta for a Black Knight to follow around puppyguarding them.  That'll lead to even slower team fights than what we have now, and it's not something I'm super keen on seeing.

A Black Knight is meant to be flexible in tactics due to their great training.  I think they need to range to more jobs than just bodyguarding, like you explained, Lone.

I'm actually glad bright bishop got brought up.  It's a very wacky skill and rarely seen, but I'm honestly a fan of it.  It's a long-range diagonal skill, something that I don't think we see anywhere else in the game- it's almost like a shinken out of the corner of your square.  I think it's a perfect tool for catching kiters off-guard, since, typically, attacks come out of the front- of if they don't, they're not super long range, since they'll be free targeted.  Bright Bishop circumvents this, and has appreciable bonus effects, especially from elemental impacts.  I think its only real weakness is being Faith scaling, which makes it tricky to run on a lot of builds, and the fact its scaling in general is a little lower than it could be.  It's another example of 'niche, but good' in the series of skills that BK has.

You just gotta pick the niches you're interested in fighting, kinda thing.  Black knights get hella options, and seriously, all of them are good except board shaker.  Board shaker rework and maybe less SP for skills is all I think that Black Knight really wants.  So, basically the same treatment Boxer got not long ago.

Edit:  I actually took another look at board shaker.  with the 100% strength part of it, honestly, it's not that bad aside from FP costs.  I can see great use being made of it.

Black Knight is something I'd consider far from a gimmick class in all honesty, its just a bunch of passives and a synergetic skill to basic attackers really, as a physical tank it is outperformed by Ghost or Bonder in many ways, including magical. Indomitable is not a good passive at all and there's nothing interesting to do with black wind, on top of that, maintaining it every single turn is so annoying to have to deal with. I would much rather Black Wind have a longer duration so there can at least be some sort of consistency present with it. This would also turn Black Knights to using heavy armor more likely than other armor types since they'll get to keep the benefits of indomitable that way.

Of course I don't think that squishies should be un-mindful of their positions in a fight, infact I don't think Black Knight should excuse them entirely, but the ability to grant DR to your teammates unlike Castling, and being more centered on using a shield would incredibly helpful to the type of character that wants to fit the role of "Tank" in a fight, your goal is to protect your allies through mitigation similarly to how a healer protects their team through healing instead, shields already sorta limit your damage potential anyways barring how overpowered the Mirrored enchantment is.

I do personally think that more elementally dynamic scaling should be introduced to the game, we've never had issue with Lift Off's dynamic scaling after all. What's wrong with Bright Bishop/Crescent rook receiving that treatment too? It only further diversifies what people will want to do with the class with different elements.