DRK Rework

[kashi11]

Second time trying my hand at a Dark Knight fix.

Please let me know what you think and give me as much feedback/suggestions as possible.

Changes account for approximately +17.63 PPS


Update: +11.73 PPS or +169.38 DPS

EDIT:1 PPS ~ 14.44 DPS
My target DPS increase for DRK is ~ +200 DPS, putting it safely between PLD and WAR
This Equates to around +14 PPS for DRK

CREDIT TO ALETIN for doing the math, visit his thread HERE

Souleater

• The effect “Absorbs a portion of damage dealt as HP” is no longer a Grit Combo Bonus and has been changed to a Darkside Combo Bonus

Dark Passenger

• The effect “Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to all enemies in a straight line before you,” has been changed to “Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 100 and unaspected damage over time to all enemies in a straight line before you. Damage over time potency is reduced by 20% for the second enemy, 40% for the third, 60% for the fourth, and 80% for all remaining enemies.”
• Damage over time potency: 80 update: 45
• Duration: 15s
• The Dark Arts Effect “Blind” has been changed to “Lower’s targets damage dealt by 10%”
• Duration: 15s
• The additional Effect “Increased Enmity” has been added.

Note: Total potency equals 500 update: 325 for first enemy, 420 update: 280 for second enemy, 340 update: 235 for third enemy, 260 update: 190 for fourth enemy, and 180 update: 145 for all remaining enemies
Note: ~ +16.7 update: 10.8 PPS single target


Dark Mind

• The effect “Reduces magic vulnerability by 15%” has been changed to “Reduces magic vulnerability by 15% while preventing most knockback and draw-in effects”

Shadow Wall

• The additional effect “Nullifies the chance of suffering critical damage” has been added.

Plunge

• Potency has been reduced from 200 to 100.
• Range has been increased from 15y to 20y

Note: ~ -3.3 PPS
Note: Animation lock reduced to match other gap closers

Sole Survivor

• The effect “ Marks target with the status Another Victim. If that target should be KO'd in battle, 20% of your maximum HP and MP will be restored” has been changed to “ Marks target with the status Another Victim, converting a portion of damage dealt to target as HP and MP. Weaponskills enhanced by Dark Arts inflict 10% more damage to the affected target. Only effects weaponskills used by you.”

Note: ~ +1.83 PPS


Carve and Spit

• An MP cost of 2400 has been added
• The effect “Delivers a threefold attack with a potency of 100. Also restores MP if used while not under the effect of Dark Arts” has been changed to “Delivers a threefold attack, each hit with a potency of 150.”
• Dark Arts Potency has been removed
• The Dark Arts Effect “Increases Blood Gauge by 50” has been added.

Note: ~ +2.4 PPS

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I myself have not much idea about in-depth damage maths, but to give my opinion on the matter...

Souleater - a smart change, an alternative to that is slap lifesteal on Blood Weapon, just sayin'.

Dark Passenger - That DOT is just overpowered and the diminishing returns don't give it any justice. Even if it still costs 2400MP, that is still a total 50 potency more over DA-Carve that can be used twice as often. The increased enmity is unnecessary considering the total damage this skill alone does.

Dark Mind - I am not a friend of this. I'd rather see Rampart return as a baseline Lv8 CD and Tempered Will being plunged into role actions, with the same 180s CD.

Shadow Wall - unnecessary overkill against critical tankbusters. You still have TBN + Shadow Wall and Rampart-TBN-Awareness for that...

Plunge - I like that, but given the cooldown remaining at 30s it can retain potency to like 150-200 regardless compared to Onslaught. It also has no extra enmity unlike Onslaught.

Sole Survivor - love it.

Carve and Spit - I although it looks like a three-fold attack, I genuinely wish it is not unless the initial hit dictates whether or not the follow up hits crit / DH like the first one. The consolidation of DA-CaS into one button is actually good enough to down the button bloat and DA consumption a bit. That Blood Gauge bonus is massive, maybe tone it down to 20-30?

[kashi11]

Dark Passenger - That DOT is just overpowered and the diminishing returns don't give it any justice. Even if it still costs 2400MP, that is still a total 50 potency more over DA-Carve that can be used twice as often. The increased enmity is unnecessary considering the total damage this skill alone does.

I agree, I just reworked the skill above and added some new math, let me know what you think. Enmity on this skill gives DRK a steady influx of threat to keep it on par with WARs and PLDs threat building ability

Dark Mind - I am not a friend of this. I'd rather see Rampart return as a baseline Lv8 CD and Tempered Will being plunged into role actions, with the same 180s CD.

DRK suffers the most from DPS downtime, to aid in its uptime I wanted to give the DRK knight something unique, and it is the only tank without an anti-knockback ability. I don't think the 60sec CD is a problem, since Surecast is on a 30s cooldown.

Shadow Wall - unnecessary overkill against critical tankbusters. You still have TBN + Shadow Wall and Rampart-TBN-Awareness for that...

I understand your point. However, I made this decision because Shadow Wall is 30% for 10s on a 3 min recast, Sentinel is 40% same duration and recast, and Vengeance is 30% +55 potency physical dmg counter for 15s on a 2 min recast. DRK also has the least amount of fluff mitigation cooldowns, and would benefit the most from dropping awareness in some fights in exchange for a different role skill (like convalescence, to aid healers when using Living Dead)
This is one skill that I would feel comfortable leaving alone however.

Plunge - I like that, but given the cooldown remaining at 30s it can retain potency to like 150-200 regardless compared to Onslaught. It also has no extra enmity unlike Onslaught.

I did this for 2 reasons, to help balance out the buffs in other places and to reduce the dps costs of holding it for use as a gap closer.

Carve and Spit - I although it looks like a three-fold attack, I genuinely wish it is not unless the initial hit dictates whether or not the follow up hits crit / DH like the first one. The consolidation of DA-CaS into one button is actually good enough to down the button bloat and DA consumption a bit. That Blood Gauge bonus is massive, maybe tone it down to 20-30?

I understand the concern about Crits/DH, however, there are 3 chances for at least 1 hit to Crit/DH, I think this change would relatively balance out with itself in that regard say your chance to Crit/DH was 15%, over the course of a 12 min fight thats 12 CnS uses, you will Crit/DH (1.8) 1-2 times. Now if it was broken up thats 12 uses and 36 hits/chances to Crit/DH, you will Crit/DH (5.4) 5-6 times. Since the potency is divided into 3 hits, this equates to 1.7-2 original CnS Crit/DH. My adjustment can account for fractional potencies of the original, but I'd say its relatively the same overall.

I'd like to point out that the Blood Gained here is for a DA version of my CnS, which has the same MP cost as current DRK passenger, so really you are just trading a DA for 50 blood, similar to TBN, but without the added benefit of a shield. This would be a potency loss or gain depending on when/how it was used, just like TBN. This would mainly be used to proc delirium when you are unsure if TBN break.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

First, forgive me that I will not use the per-argument format the way you do, hope you don't mind. (°u° )

Dark Passenger - updated version looks fine to me, you got a fair point regarding the enmity and in retrospect I can now see it as a Circle of Scorn with DRK flavour regarding MP cost and increased damage. Eventually comes down to the mathmaticians in our community to determine how much DPS it will give.

Dark Mind - While you have a fair point regarding uptime and DRK not having an anti-knockback ability unlike almost everyone else in the game, I personally think that the trend of 30s / 60s "cheese knockback mechanic" abilities is a bad thing for the future of fight designs. Knockback mechanics can now be entirely circumvented on demand, rather than having to actually do the mechanic properly. In my personal opinion I'd nerf said cooldowns to 90s+ to make the cooldown placement matter more. Back in the statement of knockback immunities I suggested reworking some role action skills to rotate out of the list and be swapped with other skills that are more situational but still good, giving you more of a choice. Simply put, Tempered Will in role actions.

Shadow Wall - Your statement about bad fluff mitigation is not without merit, but putting critical nullification on it isn't the right solvent. Against magic damage, DRK has decent fluff mitigation in form of Dark Mind and / or Rampart, where it lacks is physical fluff mitigation without TBN - which on its own is not great to mitigate fluff but rather busters. An idea would be to move the currently rock-bottom tiered role action "Anticipation", aka HW Dark Dance without evasion out of the role action and bring it back as "Dark Dance", although maybe with a 40% parry chance instead. On a further note this could allow to bring back the parry-punishment engine with Reprisal and Low Blow, although with different names and effects in a similar fashion of PLD's shield swipe. To make DRK not look completely dorky as an Off-Tank or in magic battles, you could chain TBN's shield break to count as a successful parry to activate the effects.

Alternatively, based on Yoshida's response about Shadow Wall's cooldown that fights are designed around cooldown timers of tanks, an additional 5 seconds of duration would instead be a fine solvent, although a relatively lackluster one.

Plunge - fair enough on that, indeed having to sit on a 200 potency ogcd rather than a 100 potency one is indeed frustrating.

Carve and Spit - Without taking Crit and DH buffs into consideration, the equalizing of chances is overall not too bad. However the benefit is not so great if you play in a party setup that boasts with crit and direct hit buffs (DRG, SCH, BRD, etc). Theoretically speaking, we have a 15% chance of Crit without buffs and about 40% with buffs (Battle Litany + Chain Strategem). If it was a single hit, it would be a 40% chance to crit and either is or isn't and be done with it. With a three-fold attack that calculates criticals individually, you have to go through each hit with a 40% chance. To get the same benefit as single hit CaS, all three need to crit, which in theory is a chance of 40%*0.4*0.4, which results in a chance as low as 6.4% to get the same output of hitting a single critical hit. Depending on the crit damage multiplier you have at that moment it could have devastating effects on criticals.

About the explanation of your Blood Gauge gain - while indeed it would end up the same MP cost of TBN, it lacks the possible penalty for such a high gauge gain compared to TBN. If using DA-CaS would have some sort of risk of not delivering blood given specific circumstances (like TBN with shield not breaking = loss) it would justify the 50 gauge on top of being one of the heaviest hitters, otherwise it would end up as a riskless Delirium setup (which gives back the 2400 mana already). So either a condition where gauge gain can fail or it should be lower, but 30-40 instead to not have as big as a gap as I suggested earlier.

[kashi11]

First, forgive me that I will not use the per-argument format the way you do, hope you don't mind. (°u° )

Don't worry about it, I definitely don't mind. ^_^

Dark Mind - While you have a fair point regarding uptime and DRK not having an anti-knockback ability unlike almost everyone else in the game, I personally think that the trend of 30s / 60s "cheese knockback mechanic" abilities is a bad thing for the future of fight designs. Knockback mechanics can now be entirely circumvented on demand, rather than having to actually do the mechanic properly. In my personal opinion I'd nerf said cooldowns to 90s+ to make the cooldown placement matter more. Back in the statement of knockback immunities I suggested reworking some role action skills to rotate out of the list and be swapped with other skills that are more situational but still good, giving you more of a choice. Simply put, Tempered Will in role actions.

While I agree with you, shuffling role skills is a bit 'out of the scope' of what I think would actually be done by the devs anytime soon. That being said, cheesing knockback mechanics can currently be done by every Job, save DRK, BRD, and MCH.
Dark Mind, similar to holmgang, is used as mitigation. Players would need to determine whether they could use Dark Mind as a knockback protection and still have it be up in time to be used as a mitigation cooldown.

Carve and Spit - Without taking Crit and DH buffs into consideration, the equalizing of chances is overall not too bad. However the benefit is not so great if you play in a party setup that boasts with crit and direct hit buffs (DRG, SCH, BRD, etc). Theoretically speaking, we have a 15% chance of Crit without buffs and about 40% with buffs (Battle Litany + Chain Strategem). If it was a single hit, it would be a 40% chance to crit and either is or isn't and be done with it. With a three-fold attack that calculates criticals individually, you have to go through each hit with a 40% chance. To get the same benefit as single hit CaS, all three need to crit, which in theory is a chance of 40%*0.4*0.4, which results in a chance as low as 6.4% to get the same output of hitting a single critical hit. Depending on the crit damage multiplier you have at that moment it could have devastating effects on criticals.

In a vacuum of 1 instance yes, however, battle litany is on a 2 min cooldown, so lets say you get 6 CnS in a 12 min fight under those buffs all happening at once for a rate of 40%. (2.4) 2-3 CnS will be Crit/DH. As a 3-fold attack thats 18 hits and (7.2) or 7-8 Crits/DH, or 2.33-2.66 original CnS. On average over the course of a fight, partial CnS Crits/DH can smooth out when the current CnS doesn't Crit/DH

About the explanation of your Blood Gauge gain - while indeed it would end up the same MP cost of TBN, it lacks the possible penalty for such a high gauge gain compared to TBN. If using DA-CaS would have some sort of risk of not delivering blood given specific circumstances (like TBN with shield not breaking = loss) it would justify the 50 gauge on top of being one of the heaviest hitters, otherwise it would end up as a riskless Delirium setup (which gives back the 2400 mana already). So either a condition where gauge gain can fail or it should be lower, but 30-40 instead to not have as big as a gap as I suggested earlier.

TBN can still be a loss, even if it breaks. In fact, most threads and math point to it being a loss more often then its a gain, however we are only talking in the neighborhood of +/- ~10 potency. In order to understand the math behind mana to blood DPS weights we have to acknowledge the GCD shift from using bloodspiller vs oGCD DA.

standard combo with 1 DA use:
{150+250(+70)+440}/3 GCDS = 303 Potency/GCD

standard combo with Proc'd 50 Blood (from either TBN or CnS):
{150+250(+70)+300+400}/4 GCDS = 292.5 Potency/GCD

now looking at the same 3 GCD window, we can see how the Potency/GCD is affected by GCD shift due to Bloodspiller.

Replacing Hard Slash:
{400+250(+70)+300}/3 GCDS = 340 Potency/GCD

Replacing Syphon Strike:
{300+400+150}/3 GCDS = 283.33 Potency/GCD

Replacing Soul Eater:
{150+400+250(+70)}/3 GCDS = 290 Potency/GCD

Now the next part I'm only going to talk about CnS, because it's are topic of discussion and this is where it diverts from TBN (because of differences in recast time)

CnS is on a 60s recast or 24 GCDs or 8 sets of 3 GCDS.

7 sets will all be the standard combo at 303 Potency per GCD

One set will be one of the above, depending on which GCD gets replaced by the Bloodspiller proc'd by CnS.

Replacing Hard Slash is a gain with:
(7*303 + 340)/8 = 307.62 Potency/GCD +4.62 Potency/GCD

Replacing Syphon Strike is a loss with:
(7*303 + 283.33)/8 = 300.54 Potency/GCD -2.45 Potency/GCD

Replacing Soul Eater is a loss with:
(7*303 + 290)/8 = 301.37 Potency/GCD -1.63 Potency/GCD