Just make Abyssal Drain cost 3k mana and have no CD. It will do absolutely nothing for 8-mans and allow people to spam healing on trash packs.
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Just make Abyssal Drain cost 3k mana and have no CD. It will do absolutely nothing for 8-mans and allow people to spam healing on trash packs.
The biggest problem with DRK is a large amount of the mitigation is on the back end of the leveling.
Should get TBN a LOT earlier. Call it "The Black Night" 10-15% shield, upgrades to The Blackest Night later
Oblivation should be acquired a LOT earlier, like lvl 30. Get that 2nd charge later.
Stalwart soul needs to arrive a LOT earlier as well. The 2nd part of their aoe combo shouldn't be at level freaking 72. This has the added effect of giving back mana in aoe, something lacking in early game. Every other tank gets their second at lvl 40. Why the huge discrepancy?
Combine Dark Mind and Dark Missionary into a single ability that simply targets all party members, balance accordingly.
When TBN Pops it should immediately bring Abyssal Drain off CD. This allows for a TBN > AD > TBN for dungeon trash. Every 15s you can do one of each. Edit: Or what has been mentioned a few posts later, simply add a healing component to Flood of Darkness. Creates good synergy with TBN natively.
Remove Carve and Spit, reduce Abyssal Drain cooldown to 30s, boost damage potency with reduced damage after first target to compensate. Replace Enhanced Unmend with Enhanced Abyssal Drain boosting it's cure potency from 200 to 400. All in all that would still be just a fraction of healing WAR gets with just Bloodwhetting, but between TBN and rotating cooldowns properly it should be enough to have that extra oomph to bring you back from the brink.
Also just remove the dying part from Living Dead, making it a slightly better Holmgang but with longer CD should be fine, and we can actually use it as an "oh shit" button in dungeon pulls without dying except for those rare scenarios when you get paired with WHM who saved benediction just for that.
Done, no need for a complete redesign.
Put spikes on everything so DRK can be the spikiest tank.
Shadow Wall? Spikes.
Dark Mind? More spikes.
Dark Missionary? Spikes on everybody.
Blood Weapon? HP draining spikes.
Oblation? Would you believe me if I said more spikes? What about spikes of the MP draining variety to encourage more Edge/Flood of Darkness usage?
Abyssal Drain? Turn it back into a GCD so we can lob more spikes.
I just want to see spikes don't judge me :(.
If by this you also mean to make it oGCD, then you make button-bloat of both Flood and TBN in AoE (unless AD's damage is absolutely terrible, in which case DRK's sustain uniquely comes at DPS cost). If GCD, then you make button-bloat of TBN and, until MP is depleted, Unleash and Stalwart Soul.
As long as you make it spammable and cause it to share resources it will produce anti-synergy with the rest of the kit.
While I'd agree that Oblation needs to be stronger if we're to spend a button on it...
Improving the levels at which one acquires their mitigation does not preclude improvements to DRK's mitigation kit at later levels.
Moreover, there is no set number to total skill count, trait count, nor skills+traits count. Nor is there any standardization in how many skills and traits one can get at a given level. The only rigid standardization is in which levels are capable of giving anything. As such, having a trait later upgrade a skill will not cost you any actions, only alternate sources of added ppm or sustain at that given level (since the needs they'd fill will already have been thus met).