With all this DRK feedback, can we get Scourge back please?

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

Yep, Bloodspiller is one of the coolest looking attacks in the whole game, you spiral through the air like something out of Metal Gear Rising and dunk the unfortunate target, on top of the black beam blasting into the air.

It's one of the most satisfying attacks in an MMO I've played, apart from needing to be stronger IMO.

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Agreed, and, and, the impact sound NEEDS to be at the point of the animation where your sword would hit the enemy. Currently you can hear the slash sound as you fly through the air which makes no sense.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Thunder
Bio I/II/III
Miasma
Miasma II
Windbite/Stormbite
Venomous Bite/Caustic Bite
Aero III
Aero I/II
Higanbana
Circle of Scorn

No it won't kill the game, don't be dense.

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Originally Posted by Aana

Combo oriented classes that had 1 bitton, apply 30 sec dot got killed.

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Which actually leaves.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Higanbana
Circle of Scorn

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Higibana is not quite a 1 GCD dot in line with phleb/frac/scourge, but I think that would be pretty obvious. Scorn isn't even a gcd, has additional effects (enmity/aoe), and is the shortest duration dot in the game and incapable of having 100% uptime. So please,

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Originally Posted by Crater

don't be dense.

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Dots that got the boot were non-combo dots on combo classes (why pld/nin kept their combo dots) and had no additional effect or nuance of any kind to make space for new jobs debuffs and lighten the load in 24/open world content. Just like they combined all 3 slashing debuffs to a single debuff. Removed healer dots. Removed any non-combo dots whos only purpose was damage on classes that centered around combos.

The deleted boring 1 off skills on combo classes to make space for all the new shiz (little things like new jobs). One of the #1 things when getting rid of bloat to make space for new skills on existing jobs and entirely new jobs is to delete the low hanging fruit skills that don't offer anything. fire and forget dots are the paragon of that fruit. They offer nothing except passive background damage.

Circle of scorn could have had its effect front loaded, the bonus enmity doesn’t care if it is applied as a dot or in one hit. And, while not 100%, has a higher up time, in the realm of 60%. Whether or not this damage was upfront or applied as a dot is not a necessary to the function of the skill, and if it made room for a move that would help patch up a job it should be a consideration.

The point remains that bloodspiller doesn’t make up for the potency lost from scourge, not even getting into all the oGCD skills we lost. Considering that it would also help to break up the SE SE SE SE spamming that is the Dark Knight dps rotation, giving us a dot to maintain is still not the worst idea to bring back that missing potency.

How you personally feel about applying dots is not a reason to deny an entire class from it. I don’t enjoy spamming Fell cleave but I don’t argue with warriors who want it more, I just don’t play the class and let its player base work it out.

Ignoring new skills like BS, new delirium etc, Drkgot straight up damage boosts in other areas at 4.0. The increased darkside damage. The increased potency from combining SE with delirium. The increased damage from not draining MP.

You act as though scourge was deleted and nothing was gained. They deleted scourge, buffed a number of other fundamental pieces of Drk damage, then added new skills.

Scourge arguments since 4.0 have consistently been a combination of:
* "The animation is cool we wants it back". Good for you. That's nothing to do with balance, but just aesthetic preference. Not related to 'fixing' a broken class. Maybe it will come back some day. /shrug.

and mistakenly conflating low damage with loss of scourge
* "Sourge got taken and we got nothing back now our damage sucks" (see above). Drk got large boosts to their basic kit at the same time scourge was removed. 5% darkside. Delirium Potency on SE (which is now your primary combo). No MP drain (mp is still damage right?). Those things alone MORE than counter the DPS boosts Drk lost. Scourge+low blow are completely negated by 5% darkside alone. Buffing the 95% use combo, deleting MP drain over time.

If Drk damage is still low, its not scourges fault. Its lackluster new skills. Bloodspiller, (new) delirium, etc. Drk was WELL compensated for the DPS tools it lost in buffs to its fundamental skills and actions. Scourge didn't put drk in the dumpster. Mediocre dilerium and BS mechanic did, though BS does do an excellent job of raising Grit damage, but no one cares about that. Pld and War did NOT receive broad damage buffs to their core <60 kit. Only drk did. War didn't get 5% damage because we lost frac, because frac was weak and did not need to be 'replaced'. Drk got a litany of pre 60 core buffs to account for scourge and its passive damage. TLDR: Scourge WAS replaced and then some. If you still had scourge you wouldn't have drkside buff. SE didn't just 'forget' about it. You aren't pointing out some oversight on their part.

And the dot thing. No single dot will break the game, but each one is a step in that direction. They deleted dots with no mechanics of any kind attached to them. Aero. Frac. Phleb. Scourge. Just push button do damage dots that don't interact with the job's kit in any way got the axe. Bringing it back to just have a 5% passive damage boost you might as well just buff darkside again if that's all you want. But No one wants to buff darkside, yet 30 sec dots are just that. Flat potency boosts over time. No kit interaction. Just 1 more dot to deal with on the back end. If you want damage flat dots are just the most uninspired, and technically straining way to do it. Its the worst possible way to add damage to a class.

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Originally Posted by Aana

Dots that got the boot were non-combo dots on combo classes (why pld/nin kept their combo dots) and had no additional effect or nuance of any kind to make space for new jobs debuffs and lighten the load in 24/open world content. Just like they combined all 3 slashing debuffs to a single debuff. Removed healer dots. Removed any non-combo dots whos only purpose was damage on classes that centered around combos.

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Oh yes, how obvious your point was. When you said "they removed non-combo DoTs", what you meant to say was that they removed DoTs that:

- Belonged to classes that used combos
- But Machinist is exempt from that rule unless you're going to start trying to quibble and say that their combo isn't a "real" combo
- (And if you do that then you've got to backpedal again and explain why Touch of Death was removed even though Monk doesn't have "real" combos either)
- Were on the GCD
- Had no additional resource cost or trigger
- And also now there's some CYA bit in there about how additional effects can also potentially exempt a DoT from these rules


Do I really need to point out how stupidly arbitrary this laundry list of criteria is? How bleedingly obvious it is that it has absolutely nothing to do with design or balance, nothing to do with being a consistent or intuitive rule, and nothing to do with some imagined pearl-clutching sense of deep concern for poor DoT classes in 24+ person content? Can you give me one good reason why there would be a problem why adding "- Weren't on Dark Knight" would be any less valid of a removal criteria than the others that you've outlined?

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The deleted boring 1 off skills on combo classes to make space for all the new shiz (little things like new jobs). One of the #1 things when getting rid of bloat to make space for new skills on existing jobs and entirely new jobs is to delete the low hanging fruit skills that don't offer anything. fire and forget dots are the paragon of that fruit. They offer nothing except passive background damage.

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Absolutely wrong. They provide a rhythm to the class's gameplay, give you an intuitive onscreen way to keep track of encounter timing, provide an interesting middle-ground between single-target and AoE attacks in multi-target situations, and provide you with a source of damage that isn't affected by many instances of forced disengagement from the target.

Further than that, with the removal of many of these "non-combo, GCD-based DoT's on combo-based classes but only the ones that use standard combos and about half the classes that use pseudo-combos and have no additional resource cost*" skills, leaving one on DRK kind of automatically gets rid of the "ho-hum, how boring, so many classes have a skill that behaves vaguely similarly to this" aspect, and makes it a unique perk of the class - and "unique perks" are pretty much Dark Knight's #1 shortcoming in Stormblood.

*(This is, of course, ignoring the obvious possibility of simply giving Scourge a resource cost - at 20 Blood, otherwise unchanged from Heavensward, it would be just over 3x the Blood:potency return of Bloodspiller - which just so happens to be exactly how Upheaval compares to Fell Cleave)

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The increased darkside damage.

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The removal of Low Blow, Reprisal, and single-target Dark Passenger comprised an overall reduction in DRK's single-target damage of about 7%. Darkside increasing from a 1.15x multiplier to a 1.2x multiplier is only a ~4.35% damage increase. This is an overall damage reduction.

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The increased potency from combining SE with delirium.

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This is not increased potency. You did not - ever - use non-DA Souleater in Heavensward, so "buffing" it up to the level of the skill that you were using in its place 100% of the time anyway is not a buff.

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The increased damage from not draining MP.

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The MP you 'gain' from this is slightly less than the MP you gained from using Blood Price in Heavensward in a completely non-optimized way, meaning that this is a damage decrease to anybody who was using Blood Price properly.

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Ignoring new skills like BS, new delirium etc

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But why ignore them?

Scourge, in a single-target encounter, was a roughly 216 potency gain over a standard combo GCD, usable once every 30 seconds. Roughly 7.2 potency per second, averaged.

Bloodspiller is a roughly 134 potency gain over a standard combo GCD, usable roughly every 22 seconds (excluding Bloodspillers that come from TBN). That's an average of about 6 potency per second.

Bloodspiller is, despite being the replacement for Scourge, a damage decrease compared to Scourge.


That leaves Delirium. Which, as we know, is worth an absolutely pathetic 333 potency (Darkside/Slashing debuff normalized) every 120s, for a 62+ skill.


Besides that, there are exactly two other sources where Dark Knight actually got damage buffs from 3.x to 4.x.


The first is that Blood Weapon has gone from 30 MP potency per proc (ie: 265 MP at 60, 360 MP at 70) to 40 MP potency per proc (ie: 353 at 60, 480 at 70).

That amounts to (taking into account the lower number of oGCDs that can proc Blood Weapon, and excluding Delirium-BW time because that's already accounted for in the Delirium calculations) slightly less than 2 Dark Arts worth of MP over a 2-minute period.


The second is that the potency value of Dark Arts (and therefore MP) changed from 120 to 140 - however, note that this is also an effective 20 potency nerf to Carve and Spit (used to be worth 450-120 = 330 potency, is not 450-140 = 310 potency). So one DA per minute to use CnS, one more DA per minute to make up for the effective CnS loss, and then you're finally gaining 20 potency on every DA for the remainder of that minute.

That's gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-160 potency per minute (ie: one DA every 6-9 seconds, counting the initial two) - not nothing, but not exactly a gamechanger.


Ballpark estimate on the combined total of those three sources? Probably about the same as the ballpark estimate of the sum of the damage decreases from downgrading oGCDs->Darkside's 5%, Scourge->Bloodspiller, and HW Blood Price->SB Darkside MP.



So, no, DRK did not get buffs that "more than" countered what they lost.

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Originally Posted by Aana

Ignoring new skills like BS, new delirium etc, Drkgot straight up damage boosts in other areas at 4.0. The increased darkside damage. The increased potency from combining SE with delirium. The increased damage from not draining MP.

You act as though scourge was deleted and nothing was gained. They deleted scourge, buffed a number of other fundamental pieces of Drk damage, then added new skills.

Scourge arguments since 4.0 have consistently been a combination of:
* "The animation is cool we wants it back". Good for you. That's nothing to do with balance, but just aesthetic preference. Not related to 'fixing' a broken class. Maybe it will come back some day. /shrug.

and mistakenly conflating low damage with loss of scourge
* "Sourge got taken and we got nothing back now our damage sucks" (see above). Drk got large boosts to their basic kit at the same time scourge was removed. 5% darkside. Delirium Potency on SE (which is now your primary combo). No MP drain (mp is still damage right?). Those things alone MORE than counter the DPS boosts Drk lost. Scourge+low blow are completely negated by 5% darkside alone. Buffing the 95% use combo, deleting MP drain over time.

If Drk damage is still low, its not scourges fault. Its lackluster new skills. Bloodspiller, (new) delirium, etc. Drk was WELL compensated for the DPS tools it lost in buffs to its fundamental skills and actions. Scourge didn't put drk in the dumpster. Mediocre dilerium and BS mechanic did, though BS does do an excellent job of raising Grit damage, but no one cares about that. Pld and War did NOT receive broad damage buffs to their core <60 kit. Only drk did. War didn't get 5% damage because we lost frac, because frac was weak and did not need to be 'replaced'. Drk got a litany of pre 60 core buffs to account for scourge and its passive damage. TLDR: Scourge WAS replaced and then some. If you still had scourge you wouldn't have drkside buff. SE didn't just 'forget' about it. You aren't pointing out some oversight on their part.

And the dot thing. No single dot will break the game, but each one is a step in that direction. They deleted dots with no mechanics of any kind attached to them. Aero. Frac. Phleb. Scourge. Just push button do damage dots that don't interact with the job's kit in any way got the axe. Bringing it back to just have a 5% passive damage boost you might as well just buff darkside again if that's all you want. But No one wants to buff darkside, yet 30 sec dots are just that. Flat potency boosts over time. No kit interaction. Just 1 more dot to deal with on the back end. If you want damage flat dots are just the most uninspired, and technically straining way to do it. Its the worst possible way to add damage to a class.

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Yet you are ignoring that we lost single target dark passenger, low blow, low blow procs, and twice a minute reprisal, as well as scourge. We also took hits to our kit like blood price becoming unusable outside grit lowering our mana generation as well as lowering our tick. And at 70 yes, our damage is behind, so yes something is missing. People’s question is how to put it back. You don’t like dots, we got it.

Do we need to continue derailing this thread with debates about the exact number of dots the server can handle, theoretical slippery slope arguments that all classes will get their dots back, other classes rotations whose potency was gained back and then some, misinformation about our combo, and level 60 buffs without mention of half the nerfs? Or can we let other people enter the discussion about if they even want scourge back to even try and gain consensus on how we want our class to be put up to par with the others?

Whoooooah, wait a second, did we just forget about the incredible Blood Price nerf? I'm not going to crunch every little bit of numbers to see if 5% darkside damage makes up for Blood Price being horribly, well...horrible, but I reaaally don't think it does.

I'm very much not on the DoT removal side of the fence because I encounter situations daily where I'd see them as incredibly useful, on demand ways of doing damage while you're not present. Some classes make a more meaningful use out of them, but that doesn't mean in their base form they're just buttons to push. That being said I do understand the counter argument, yet Dark Knight WAS NOT COMPENSATED. Pre or post 60, by any means. God, especially pre 60. Unleash as AoE! Ha! Can't just Scourge packs of 4 or less anymore. Bloodspiller and Delirium are already questionable boosts to damage as it is, there is no way in hell they and some magical 5% darkside make up for Scourge, Low Blow, Reprisal, Dark Passenger, and Blood Price.

5% darkside...jesus, I think that's many of our worst fears, is that's an acceptable way to compensate Dark Knight, and if we're complaining the answer is to just boost it by another 5% or so. Threads like this trying to outline why Scourge is important is a way of fighting THAT scenario. I'm not sure everyone is married to the idea of Scourge being back, but there's a reason we're not seeing "let's make Darkside have more % on it!" threads.

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

Whoooooah, wait a second, did we just forget about the incredible Blood Price nerf? I'm not going to crunch every little bit of numbers to see if 5% darkside damage makes up for Blood Price being horribly, well...horrible, but I reaaally don't think it does.

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It was more of a rework to how you gain resources in Grit than a nerf. In single target you get double MP from Syphon Strike compared to no Grit to make up for less MP from Blood Price, and in aoe you gain Blood that goes towards Quietus.

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Originally Posted by Launched

It was more of a rework to how you gain resources in Grit than a nerf. In single target you get double MP from Syphon Strike compared to no Grit to make up for less MP from Blood Price, and in aoe you gain Blood that goes towards Quietus.

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What about single target, gritless situations? The ones where...Dark Knight is trying to actually focus on damage?

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

What about single target, gritless situations? The ones where...Dark Knight is trying to actually focus on damage?

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Single target Blood Price didn't give a huge amount of MP. Now you're getting Blood from Souleater for Bloodspiller. Edit: and Blood from Blood Weapon too.

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Originally Posted by Crater

Oh yes, how obvious your point was. When you said "they removed non-combo DoTs", what you meant to say was that they removed DoTs that...

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Do we need to continue derailing this thread with debates about the exact number of dots the server can handle, theoretical slippery slope arguments that all classes will get their dots back, other classes rotations whose potency was gained back and then some, misinformation about our combo, and level 60 buffs without mention of half the nerfs? Or can we let other people enter the discussion about if they even want scourge back to even try and gain consensus on how we want our class to be put up to par with the others?

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But its not 'theoretical'. This isn't some made up BS that 'might' be a problem. There is a cap of debuffs on a target. Period. Theres no theory. Visual cap was 30, hard effect cap was 60. There was nothing 'theoretical' about people struggling to play their jobs on 24 man and openworld content. Its not a red herring. Its an actual problem that existed in THIS game before they culled the debuffs.

War used to be able to put up 3 debuffs 24/7. Now they can put up 1 permanently and it is overwritten by 2 other copies on other classes and a 5 sec debuff once a minute. Drg used to keep up 3 debuffs full time, (excluding lolFeint) and now only puts up 2 and a 10 sec feint every 120. Brd had 4 debuffs. Now they have 3 and foe cant last as long. Nin Deleted mutilate all together. Combined dancing edge and shadow fang. Virus (and its 3 debuffs) gone, replaced by narrower, role skill actions available to many fewer jobs. Smn the friggin dot class lost 3 debuffs abilities.

This is ignoring the reduction across the board in shorter things like silence/stuns that now have to be cross role instead of part of a permanent damage rotation.
ETC.

ETC.

ETC.

Net result is they have removed a HUGE number of long duration debuffs. They cut the duration debuffs are on. They removed guaranteed spam as part of rotations and moved them to role skills so they wont even be accessable to everyone all the time. End of the day the result is an utterly massive reduction of debuffs on monsters at any given time. Just in time for new open world content that relics will be grinded in. Last thing SE wants is smns unable to get relics because they cant dot things for points.

They didn't 'overlook' scourge. They didn't forget about it. They systematically went through the entire game to remove skills like this from every class. But sure, im the blind one here. SE obviously didn't have any reasons to mass cull debuffs from the game. Maybe you guys don't remember diadem and smns unable to get gold. Maybe you don't remember 24 man raids when smns could only spamm ruin on single target bosses. It was mildly annoying when I couldn't get a chaos thrust on or a phleb. But some jobs were unplayable in certain content. But screw all that. Drk needs scourge or were gonna flip forum tables.

They did a mass culling across the entire game of DOT effects and debuffs. You can put your head in the sand all you want and keep thinking they are going to bring back the same type of skill they methodically went through the entire game to remove all copies and versions of.

SE has explicitly stated the hard cap numerous times. They also mentioned the cap when developing stormblood. This isn't some made up slippery slope crap to keep drk from getting toys. It has been a serious problem in the past and SE has been uncharacteristically straight forward in discussing this. But you guys are gonna keep whining for scourge just like the last year straight regardless of the plainly obvious and rational reasons it got deleted. You don't need me telling you the obvious truth. This forum has begged for scourge for a year straight. By all means, go forth and be perpetually disappointed every patch you don't get a dot back even though its plainly obvious its not coming and theres rational reasons why.

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Originally Posted by Aana

TLDR: Scourge WAS replaced and then some. If you still had scourge you wouldn't have drkside buff. SE didn't just 'forget' about it. You aren't pointing out some oversight on their part.

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It still leaves the possibility of undertuning. Yes, maybe they intended for the boost in other areas to make up for Scourge, but it just didn't end up being enough.

I like Crater's point about "a source of damage that isn't affected by many instances of forced disengagement from the target." I'm sure the damage-loss impact is relatively minor in this particular situation, but it helps reinforce the point that maybe the boosts simply weren't enough to make up for the changes.

I mean, either they did "forget" and overlooked a few relatively minor aspects that have since snowballed in to an overall bigger issue. Or they knew the disparities existed even after the changes and simply chose to ignore it and leave them as-is. It's pretty cut and dry in this regard, imo. Either they didn't realize it was going to be a big deal, or simply chose not to care. I don't really see a middle ground. Their statements about balance being fine right now doesn't really help clarify which, either.. They still don't get it, or they still don't care? Idk.. Lol

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Originally Posted by Crater

So, no, DRK did not get buffs that "more than" countered what they lost.

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It would be nice if, in some alternate universe, there was an untouched-from-HW Lv70 DRK to compare against Lv70 SB DRK.

It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call... the Twilight Zone.

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Originally Posted by Aana

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But its not 'theoretical'. This isn't some made up BS that 'might' be a problem. There is a cap of debuffs on a target. Period. Theres no theory. Visual cap was 30, hard effect cap was 60. There was nothing 'theoretical' about people struggling to play their jobs on 24 man and openworld content. Its not a red herring. Its an actual problem that existed in THIS game before they culled the debuffs.

War used to be able to put up 3 debuffs 24/7. Now they can put up 1 permanently and it is overwritten by 2 other copies on other classes and a 5 sec debuff once a minute. Drg used to keep up 3 debuffs full time, (excluding lolFeint) and now only puts up 2 and a 10 sec feint every 120. Brd had 4 debuffs. Now they have 3 and foe cant last as long. Nin Deleted mutilate all together. Combined dancing edge and shadow fang. Virus (and its 3 debuffs) gone, replaced by narrower, role skill actions available to many fewer jobs. Smn the friggin dot class lost 3 debuffs abilities.

This is ignoring the reduction across the board in shorter things like silence/stuns that now have to be cross role instead of part of a permanent damage rotation.
ETC.

ETC.

ETC.

Net result is they have removed a HUGE number of long duration debuffs. They cut the duration debuffs are on. They removed guaranteed spam as part of rotations and moved them to role skills so they wont even be accessable to everyone all the time. End of the day the result is an utterly massive reduction of debuffs on monsters at any given time. Just in time for new open world content that relics will be grinded in. Last thing SE wants is smns unable to get relics because they cant dot things for points.

They didn't 'overlook' scourge. They didn't forget about it. They systematically went through the entire game to remove skills like this from every class. But sure, im the blind one here. SE obviously didn't have any reasons to mass cull debuffs from the game. Maybe you guys don't remember diadem and smns unable to get gold. Maybe you don't remember 24 man raids when smns could only spamm ruin on single target bosses. It was mildly annoying when I couldn't get a chaos thrust on or a phleb. But some jobs were unplayable in certain content. But screw all that. Drk needs scourge or were gonna flip forum tables.

They did a mass culling across the entire game of DOT effects and debuffs. You can put your head in the sand all you want and keep thinking they are going to bring back the same type of skill they methodically went through the entire game to remove all copies and versions of.

SE has explicitly stated the hard cap numerous times. They also mentioned the cap when developing stormblood. This isn't some made up slippery slope crap to keep drk from getting toys. It has been a serious problem in the past and SE has been uncharacteristically straight forward in discussing this. But you guys are gonna keep whining for scourge just like the last year straight regardless of the plainly obvious and rational reasons it got deleted. You don't need me telling you the obvious truth. This forum has begged for scourge for a year straight. By all means, go forth and be perpetually disappointed every patch you don't get a dot back even though its plainly obvious its not coming and theres rational reasons why.

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Aana, literally your entire post is a red herring and a distraction. No one debates the hard cap, what is debated is whether or not 1 more dot would cause issues. They added miasma 2 without issue clearly there is some wiggle room. And if we are at the cap now, then I suggest SE add scourge back as a self buff like salted earth which avoids the issue entirely. Or take away paladin's Circle of Scorn dot and just have it be aoe damage for the full potency including the dot damage and enmity upfront (this is actually a slight buff since nothing will die before the dot finishes ticking), then there is room for another dot in the game.

You point out rational reasoning yet aren’t responding to what the slippery slope is and instead constructed a straw man argument that we claimed that the hard cap is theoretical, I don't doubt its existence and as far as I can tell no one in this thread has either. Yet you keep pointing at it as if we are saying it is made up (which to be clear it isn't).

The slippery slope argument you presented has to do with dark getting back scourge so all classes must get their dots back. That is the slippery slope argument I am calling a theoretical distraction, because like most slippery slope arguments we have no basis for this even being a slippery slope. I don't think Monk's dot would fix its issues, but I imagine it is in a different situation than dark knight. MCH, DRG, and NIN do not need their dots back, they are in a very good place right now without them so I see no reason for why they would need to have them restored.

Summoners are more popular now, what's stopping an alliance of mostly Summoners, Bards and Scholars to clog the DoT limit currently? And for like the 10th time, people are trying to work with that logic anyway, thinking of ways to fill the Scourge-shaped gap in Dark Knight's toolkit in new and more applicable ways. It just so happens Scourge filling a Scourge shaped gap works rather nicely. Something that allows a GCD to mix up the spam of Dark Arts, that has a lasting effect that also increases our overall damage done by a little bit.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

It would be nice if, in some alternate universe, there was an untouched-from-HW Lv70 DRK to compare against Lv70 SB DRK.

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That's an interesting and ultimately super depressing rabbit hole to leap into. There are plenty of level 70 ilvl 330+ Machinists who miss their level 60, ilvl 270 playstyle for example.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

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This is why I said much earlier that the 'bring scourge back' comes in 2 varieties. Animation is cool the 'scourge will fix our damage problem'. The 1st just aesthetic point which has no point in debating what 'looks' cool, the second is strictly 'Drk damage is to low scourge would fix it' (to some degree depending on exact numbers anyway). Bringing back scourge as it originally was is just damage at the expense of an extra dot which have been systematically removed for rational, reasonable reasons. All scourge does is up drk damage and theres already existing weak and underused actions that DONT have dots attached. Which DONT require adding more buttons/combos/mechanics/needlessly that can do damage.

If all you want is damage why isn't there a dark passenger buff thread for every scourge thread? Why not be OK with other passive damage buffs like darkside?


If the proclaimed problem REALLY is that drk doesn't do enough damage, then why is scourge the predominant battle cry to fix damage? Even if it has negative effects on the game?

The game doesn't benefit from bring back a 1 off dot. It actually is hurt by it. You can claim slippery slope, but the fact is adding 1 more dot raises the avg number of debuffs on encounters by a measurable amount. When you have millions of players doing stuff constantly, that '1 little dot' is a very real increase to the average number of debuffs for a given encounter and when dealing with open world content that is a very rational concern. Is it going to singlehandedly take the servers down? Of course not. But it will bring the average debuffs up and increase the instances over time that it negatively affects other players. Most balance changes don't actually degrade other players experience and its just a QQ like "You don't want drk to be better cuz it knocks you off the top" kidna stuff. This is one of the few instances that a specific 'buff my job' suggestion would actually hurt other players outside that job. There are infinite numbers of ways to increase drks damage without adding a dot that hurt no one in any conceivable way. So why get stuck on this one? Because people are conflating their 'Scourge aesthetic was cool' with 'Drk needs more damage'. That's why there are 1000 scourge threads. The dot is not good for the game. But people wont move away because they are stuck on the 'coolness'. HW Scourge will never be the solution to Drk damage.

Because, as has been stated multiple times, a dot to apply and upkeep would actually break up the combo monotony that is Dark Knight at the moment. Two birds one stone. Dark passenger also needs love, but it doesn’t solve the rotation being reduced to constant SE spam.

Just to repost it: Dark Knight currently applies zero high-uptime debuffs. Wringing your hands over Ohhh, there's a debuff cap, won't somebody PLEASE think of the debuff cap?! at the prospect of a class going from zero debuffs to one debuff is so flagrantly ridiculous that it's difficult to believe anyone could seriously expect the argument to be taken seriously for even a second.

Ruining a thread over it for multiple pages, getting increasingly more and more pedantic and logically unhinged, can't really be explained in any way other than "This person is trying to deliberately poison the discussion."

My advice? Just ignore it. Every post at this point has been thoroughly refuted long before it's actually posted.

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Originally Posted by Aana

If all you want is damage why isn't there a dark passenger buff thread for every scourge thread? Why not be OK with other passive damage buffs like darkside?

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Because Dark Passenger has become a joke bigger than the number of clipped GCDs on a Ninja: There are people who actually advocate removing it from the hotbar so you don't press it by accident.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Aana, literally your entire post is a red herring and a distraction. No one debates the hard cap; what is debated is whether or not 1 more dot would cause issues. They added miasma 2 without issue clearly there is some wiggle room.

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Given that Miasma II is SCH's ONLY direct AoE spell, that its return was absolutely necessary for parity, and that far fewer debuffs are inflicted during AoE situations, this is also a red herring.

I'll agree on all other accounts, but let's also note that, as lip-service as any reason actually given may be, Yoshida explained the removal of DoTs as mitigation of gap-building artificial difficulty. While in fact, it probably has more to do with hard cap, some unknown avenue of future-proofing, or curtailing cleave DPS, we do at least know that development for whatever reason wanted DoTs gone from most jobs, and Yoshida was willing to mouthpiece that.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Given that Miasma II is SCH's ONLY direct AoE spell, that its return was absolutely necessary for parity, and that far fewer debuffs are inflicted during AoE situations, this is also a red herring.

I'll agree on all other accounts, but let's also note that, as lip-service as any reason actually given may be, Yoshida explained the removal of DoTs as mitigation of gap-building artificial difficulty. While in fact, it probably has more to do with hard cap, some unknown avenue of future-proofing, or curtailing cleave DPS, we do at least know that development for whatever reason wanted DoTs gone from most jobs, and Yoshida was willing to mouthpiece that.

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This is not an example of a red herring, since the topic is adding back a dot and how much room we have to the hard cap I don't see how this can be considered a red herring at all. Though Miasma II is certainly scholar's only "direct" (quoted because I'm not sure what makes this aoe over shadow flare and Bane is it the initial hit?) AOE you make a major unjustified assumption that the job only uses the skill during AOE situations. It has multiple single target uses during everyday raid mechanics as well.

If two or more raid buffs are about to drop and you don't have time to cast, Miasma II's potency could reach above an unbuffed broil II.

If a single target is about to become untargetable but still take damage and you do not have time to cast broil II miasma II can be used on insta cast.

If you are forced to move for a period of time Miasma II can be used to recover some damge.

If you need to get another Energy Drain off but do not have swiftcast or need to put up bio, miasma 2 can avoid the clipping associated with broil 2 energy drain.

Clearly the developer can have their reasons for not wanting these skills, but then I need a justification on why they left dots on any melee. I would also like to point out that just becuase the developer wants something doesn't mean it is the be all end all of discussion.

As far as "dot maintinence" can be considered challenging, I consider it to be about in the same relm as self buffing on brd, drg, mch, mnk, etc. Put it on our bar give it more visuals to make it easier to see when it waers off and the challenge level comes down.

Miasma II often has 60-80% uptime on purely single-target encounters.

You lose about 55-60 potency every time you use an oGCD between two Broils, but only 30 potency if you exchange one of those Broils for Miasma II.

If people don’t like scourge as a GCD to be maintained, how would people feel about it being an oGCD skill more like circle of scorn?

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

If people don’t like scourge as a GCD to be maintained, how would people feel about it being an oGCD skill more like circle of scorn?

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Wasn't there some concern about the limited amount of GCDs available to "hold" a dark arts?

Yes, but scourge doesn’t have a dark arts effect so I don’t think it would apply in this case. It would however increase our double weaving, I’m not sure it would be significant however.

Honestly I feel like most of the interesting and fun things about Scourge were related to it being a non-combo, GCD-based DoT, including the aesthetic elements of the animation, which would be constantly truncated as an oGCD ability. If they were to restore a lost skill as an oGCD, I'd probably rather have something more like the original Reprisal or Low Blow, or even just a particularly good rehabilitation of Dark Passenger.

I don't know if there's really much of a backlash against the DoT management aspects of Scourge though.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Yes, but scourge doesn’t have a dark arts effect so I don’t think it would apply in this case. It would however increase our double weaving, I’m not sure it would be significant however.

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My apologies if it wasn't clear, I meant that having scourge on the GCD would give you another option for possibly holding a DA if you needed. But I suppose it might not be an often-enough used GCD to make a big difference in that regard.

@Crater, I also prefer the dot management system to the oGCD.

@Whiskeybravo oh I see what you mean, I think it would work nicely on giving us two consecutive GCDs that don’t eat a dark arts. It would work well in that case since it would line up with Carve and Spit as well.

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

There are plenty of level 70 ilvl 330+ Machinists who miss their level 60, ilvl 270 playstyle for example.

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Main MCH here, I agree...

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

If people don’t like scourge as a GCD to be maintained, how would people feel about it being an oGCD skill more like circle of scorn?

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just add a dot to dark passenger maintaining current effect, mp cost untouched, just a dot potency add on it.

As much as I'd like to see the return of an old drk skill... I really don't want another DoT to manage on top of salted earth, even more so one that needs constant uptime. Bloodweapon makes this class intense enough for brief periods at a time and I can easily see myself forgetting to reapply a DoT. There are times I don't even get salted earth up the moment it becomes available cause I'm still burning through bloodweapon and having to position an aoe circle during it can be difficult if not wanting to clip. If the idea is to make the skill gap between drk players wider and challenging then I guess this would fit the bill in that it would not be a huge loss if you forget to reapply for a brief period. Dunno really, ogcd animations are kinda pointless cause they often times get interrupted and you don't see them very well. Carve and spit is a good example of this, its a long animation and you don't get to see it all due to it being weaved, your character erratically changes motions in the middle of it while the attack animations continue...

Salted Earth isn't a dot you need to manage, it's an action you use whenever it's up like C&S. You can forget to press the button but it's the same thing as forgetting to use Spit, dot management would be reapplying the dot in such a way you make the most of it (have as much uptime as possible, snapshot a buff with it, etc). But yeah, I personally liked Scourge, especially knowing how powerul it was was cool. I agree with Crater that if we'd get an oGCD back I'd much rather have it be Reprisal or the like instead.

The only part of Scourge I want back is the animation. As far as weaponskills go, one-shot bleeds are pretty dull and I don't miss the majority of them except for when they fit the filler inside timers, which Dark Knight doesn't really have.

Try using a macro to auto-target Salted Earth. It makes weaving it far easier.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

Try using a macro to auto-target Salted Earth. It makes weaving it far easier.

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I need to do some testing on that. Macros are always slower than just using the ability (they don't 'cue' and therefore have to wait for the previous action to end, add in reaction time, then add ping instead of just cueing up skipping the human+ping parts). But ground AOEs are time consuming to put down especially for us controller users. Not sure which is the lesser of 2 evils there. Either way it sucks.

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Originally Posted by Aana

I need to do some testing on that. Macros are always slower than just using the ability (they don't 'cue' and therefore have to wait for the previous action to end, add in reaction time, then add ping instead of just cueing up skipping the human+ping parts). But ground AOEs are time consuming to put down especially for us controller users. Not sure which is the lesser of 2 evils there. Either way it sucks.

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I will admit that a macro won't "queue", but I have minor issues with getting targeted aoes to behave sometimes. Of course, when I begin testing to remember what that exact thing was, it works perfectly, so I can't remember why I started using them.

I've used a macro for it and haven't, but I prefer not even with fiddly mouse/controller shenanigans that always seem to happen, simply because it's very beneficial to clip the edge of a target for positioning while pulling or grouping things together, or even pre-placing to catch multiple stationary targets. There's also Dark Knight's immense oGCD weaving reliance, which Plunge puts a damper on, and it may be restrictive to have two skills one has to plan extra space between GCDs for.

Of course, one can have both on their hotbar, space permitting.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

I will admit that a macro won't "queue", but I have minor issues with getting targeted aoes to behave sometimes. Of course, when I begin testing to remember what that exact thing was, it works perfectly, so I can't remember why I started using them.

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Thing is, ground AoEs don't queue either (the ground reticle doesn't appear right away until the GCD is finished casting, most noticable with SCH/SMN's AoE), so unless you need to pre-place it I think the macro is superior.

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Originally Posted by WayofTime

Thing is, ground AoEs don't queue either (the ground reticle doesn't appear right away until the GCD is finished casting, most noticable with SCH/SMN's AoE), so unless you need to pre-place it I think the macro is superior.

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Ill have to give the macro a go. I tend to avoid macros unless absolutely necessary so I never even tried it for ground aoes. Here goes nuthin.

I've had a macro for Salted Earth for the longest time, but a month or so back I tried using it vanilla and haven't used the macro since (I use mouse though, so unfamiliar with how much of a pain it is to put down ground aoes with a controller.)

With the macro on I found myself spamming the button and it clipping my GCD, sometimes not even registering that I used it. On top of that there are scenarios where there are 2 monsters with big hitboxes that, were you to use it on one it won't hit the other, same thing goes for giant pulls, I'd tab through all of the mobs for a straight 2 seconds until I found one that's perfectly in the middle of all the chaos. Or you want to put SE down before you reach the mobs, etc etc. to name a couple of issues that come with it.

Macro for Salted Earth generally works in the 'early middle' to 'middle' of a GCD, because it needs to wait for the attack animation of the GCD to finish. Around the middle, it shouldn't clip the next GCD unless you have too much SkS.