Dark Knight : Just another mitigation tank

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Originally Posted by Deusteele

As someone that mains a Blood Death Knight in WoW, which is a perfect example of what's the OP is asking for.

It's just a mitigation tank that absorbs a flat amount of damage.
-Death Knights work via an ability called Death Strike. When this ability is used, and can be used twice in a 10s window depending, the Death Knight is healed on damage done and receive a bubble based on amount healed.

While it does work at all levels of play decently, it's not really anything special. It took Blizzard the better part of two years to figure out balance on the design and it still starts weak at the beginning of an expansion and ends with being horrendously overpowered. It has the simplest form of Active Mitigation, and requires extensive personal and external cooldown usage.

The OP is really just wanting a different tank for "reasons". No real need for one and on the development side might require more effort to make work within this games structure.

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Thank you, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

Blood tanks are either "weak sauce" or "god tanks". There's no in-between, and mitigation tanks are far, far more reliable.

Also, WARs are mitigation tanks, despite what some would like to claim. It's simply that their basic mitigation comes from having higher HP rather than a flat defense %.

PLD has 20% damage reduction
WAR has 25% HP increase

Their eHP is the same. Plus, WAR has IB, which is effectively an anytime Rampart.

Blood death knights in WoW used to be like that.

It was awful.

They decided to turn them into mitigation tanks. They still have enough lifestealing abilities to make them gods at soloing content, though.

With lifestealing tanks, they will either be severely squishy or immensely overpowered, neither is acceptable. Having a few abilities for flavor hurts nothing, though.

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Originally Posted by Altena

Make a "mitigation" tank, that isn't simply pressing a random skill on a 60 sec CD.. How about some creativity, is all I am saying. I have also provided a number of mechanical examples of how blood tanks can be done. I have also provided examples of how they could use HP overflow or adlo-style shields for "mitigation" style buffs. I'm not a dev. I am asking for them to come out with something interesting and avoid flat out copying skills from one to another then layering a slightly different mechanic that has little impact on top of it.

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So you want to do more for sake of creativity (others will call it complexity) to do the same effect?

Yeah, that's going to go over well.

Kind of hard when Paladin released as absurd as it did.
Every tank they make going forward has to have a Pseudo- Hallowed Ground.

Actually .. the idea of what the TC is calling a "blood tank" is something that I'm not that unfamiliar with. And I can actually provide an example of a tank that actually has life tap spells, and other kinds of tap spells too!

Everquest has a thing called a Shadow Knight.

Like the other two tanks in that MMO, SK's are mitigation tanks. Their taps are more in the vein of utility; tapping a mob's armor to both weaken it and strengthen the group's AC is one example. Strength is another. And, of course, they have lifetaps. SK's, Paladins, and Warriors make up the three Tanks in that game. Warriors are the pure melee tanks. Shadow Knights are the "evil" knights, that steal their opponent's health and power. Paladins are the "good" knights with strong offense against the undead. Warriors tend to have the most HP, and the most AC. Knights have less, and do less damage in straight up melee, but their spells and other abilities make up for it. The abilities that each has make them ideal for different roles within a raid (they're pretty much interchangeable as tanks in the group setting) in a fashion not too dissimilar to the way people here take PLD to be the MT and WAR as the OT.

One thing though. Those classes are balanced around having many of each class in a raid. Raids in that game are 54 people strong. In fact, coming to FF14 from EQ, I have a very hard time taking the idea of a full party event as a "raid" seriously at all - that's just challenging one-group content, not a raid! Raids are multi-group events where I come from ... making the Crystal Tower chain the only three actual "raids" in FF14, at least until they produce some Heavensward equivalent to the Crystal Tower chain.

I honestly agree with the OP...but also disagree on the lifesteal idea and as a warrior who started in 2.0 I can safely say that we weren't the most useful tanks around and I felt really happy with the changaes in 2.1 (but I liked the 300% healing return from IB!)

I haven't played long enough DRK to see but, as soon as I gave a look at the skills I pretty much thought the same: it's a tank with some warrior and paladin skills, without actually being extremely unique and in another thread where people spoke about parry, some people actually mentioned the DRK since it heavily relies on such parrying and I even told that they could turn DRK into magic breakers, with essentially the unique possibility to parry magical attacks.

However, I do agree that the DRK could use some unique traits: yes all tanks are mitigations "in the end" but even within their similarity each tank usually turns out to be unique somehow, with paladins and their strong cd and warrior with their huge hp pools and parry boosts from Raw Intuition, as well as with their IB mitigation and the chance of self healing very strongly with Equilibrium.
Sure, DRK are not bad by all means and they are strong on their own, but as a warrior I just don't feel like turning myself into one when I can easily pick the strongest mitigation tank in the game, or stick with the strongest OT in the game.

However speaking of WoW similarities, and the Death Knight's bubble and such, I actually think differently: what if the DRK worked like a druid instead?

What I mean is, in WoW the druid's tanking mastery is essentially this: you get hit and you obtain a shield based on a % of the damage taken. Less damage means lower shields, which means that if you use one of your CD your shields would become weaker since you receive less damage, or could not produce a shield at all.(http://www.wowhead.com/spell=155783/...acity#comments)

What do you think?

A: SK waswas so the weaker of the three tanks. You benefited more from warrior/paladins than you did running a SK. Solo or small groups? They were good. Anything else? Not so much.

B: EQ is a completely different beast from 14. Comparing the two ( since the raids were balanced around those numbers) is somewhat pointless.

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Originally Posted by Deusteele

As someone that mains a Blood Death Knight in WoW, which is a perfect example of what's the OP is asking for.

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Main recently, or when it launched? It was an absolute mess when it launched, then was only viable as a pvp build, then was super op, then sucked again for a while, and then I quit so I'm not sure. But while I played it was all across the board, hitting pretty much everywhere on the balance spectrum except balanced. DK is actually a pretty good example of this type of tank being a nightmare to implement.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

I honestly agree with the OP...but also disagree on the lifesteal idea and as a warrior who started in 2.0 I can safely say that we weren't the most useful tanks around and I felt really happy with the changaes in 2.1 (but I liked the 300% healing return from IB!)

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i remember seeing a warrior solo the first boss of WP pre 2.1. brought tears to my eyes. the way they initially designed it did see them suffer in coil however.

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I haven't played long enough DRK to see but, as soon as I gave a look at the skills I pretty much thought the same: it's a tank with some warrior and paladin skills, without actually being extremely unique and in another thread where people spoke about parry, some people actually mentioned the DRK since it heavily relies on such parrying and I even told that they could turn DRK into magic breakers, with essentially the unique possibility to parry magical attacks.

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yes, this would work nicely, and would give us DRKs an edge against a few bosses of note that use magic attacks exclusively.

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the thought of a class revamp

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though technically you did say DRK's "unique" trait above this thought...
I don't see this happening unfortunately (or fortunately depending how you look at it). for this to happen we would have to change dark knight at a fundamental level (so basically starting from scratch, note that this doesn't mean scrapping the skills it has altogether, just the way many of them work.) even Warrior wasn't changed so drastically. just look at the 2.1 patch notes. the only major changes were that storm's path damage debuff, the healing nerf and 20% damage reduction added to IB, and the hp recovery via healing magic was no longer a part of wrath, but permanently part of defiance.

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Sure, DRK are not bad by all means and they are strong on their own, but as a warrior I just don't feel like turning myself into one when I can easily pick the strongest mitigation tank in the game, or stick with the strongest OT in the game.

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where's the fun in that?

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-tanking, tree talker style-

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ehh, the idea of being hit makes me hurt less doesn't really make sense with dark knight, and depending on how it's set up it still would probably be reactive, which is a huge no-no with this game's raids. I however wouldn't mind DRK being turned into something like an evasion tank (parry king of FFXIV tanks) however, using the abyss to re-direct blows (or parry them. can we have the old parry scaling back now please?) before they can even scratch us. the raiding meta still revolves around big hits, so we would still need a few mitigators, but this would be a nice change of pace.

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Originally Posted by Asierid

Blood DK is also a mitigation tank that happens to heal. Just because DS heals or it runs on runes doesn't automatically make the tank something special. There are passive that allow for mitigation more than there are heals.

Anything that uses leeches/heals to sustain themselves with no sort of mitigation is just asking for failure. WAR 2.0 is an example of this.

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Indeed. The main problem with 2.0's WAR is that it had self heals as the sole way to stay alive instead of being part of a bigger tank model. This is something that was also repeatedly brought up in the tank forums because we knew that WAR was screwed unless it had some mitigation ability at the baseline. Self-heals are nice as part of your kit, but not as the only thing that makes you a tank.

It'd be as if Blizzard had designed Death Knights entirely around Death Strike's self heal and removed Blood Shield (the effect that Inner Beast's damage reduction was based on), Bone Shield and Icebound Fortitude.

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Originally Posted by Averax

Blood death knights in WoW used to be like that.

It was awful.

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Well, I remember 3.0 Death Knights had to rotate cooldowns to make it through a fight. DKs came into their own once Blood Shield was introduced (they had to sacrifice my beloved Blood DPS spec to make it happen, but I can't argue with the results).

Uh, blood tank? What is this wow? I stoped reading after the second Sentence.

To a "blood tank" work in this game instead damage mitigation or evasion or self sustaining heal only , the tank should get skills that transform instant damage to damage overtime , balance this and it will work i don't think it's that hard.

and it's a good idea to keep the classes more unique

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

when did they give drk fast blade, savage blade and rage of halone?

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Imagine RoH with a GS. I need this...

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Originally Posted by SpecialKK

So you want to do more for sake of creativity (others will call it complexity) to do the same effect?

Yeah, that's going to go over well.

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As BLM and DRG got changes in Heavensward that add complexity for the sake of having complexity, it honestly wouldn't have surprised me if they had taken that route with DRK.

The problem with blood/lifesteal/leech tanking is scaling. As it has been said leech tanks like evasion tanks come in two flavors under and over powered. WAR 2.0 suffered from raid bosses damage scaling higher at a much faster rate than the players damage.

WoW spent years balancing this. Now where blood dks heal scaled off damage received and evasion is spread between two attacks. Little more than flavor differences in mitigation.

All mitigation is increasing your effective health pool. Armor, health, dodge, heal, and shields all complete this task with very little difference. Armor is consistent. Shield are just a different visual of increased hp and heals are just the delayed form. Evasion is spikey due to probability. At the end of the day you can balance these if they all scale off either the player OR npcs. They are just different flavors that represent the same number of a spread sheet.

Now if you want to talk about making a class different you can talk about how the flavor of mitigation is obtained. Passive armor and health stacking? Reactive skill? Proactive skill? Maintained via a set of actions?

Arbiter in rift is one of my favorite tanks. Its gimmick is maintaining shields via depleteing and building its focus resource.

The dark templar from age of Conan was a bad ass life drain tank but wasn't great against slow but heavy hitting boss.

Black Orcs in war hammer used skills and damage taken to increase their healthpool.

You can also niche your tanks via the content they are strong against. Lots of little attacks? Big spread out hits? Magic vs physical? Single target v aoe?

Why not brainstorm a class as an example, come up with skills, stats and such like an actual class/ job in game and post it as an idea?
Weapon style, attributes, cool downs, all of it.

Then post it and negotiate with the community.

Who knows, maybe SE might go with it?

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

It was an absolute mess when it launched, then was only viable as a pvp build, then was super op, then sucked again for a while, and then I quit so I'm not sure.

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Well, 3.0's DK had the issue of the talent trees being a mess and bliz's attempt to make it a tank regardless of spec. When talent trees were changed going into cataclysm, they made Blood the tank spec and made its main mechanic Blood Shield, which was a barrier that absorbed damage equal to damage healed at first but was changed to damage taken in the last 10(?) seconds. This was on top of Icebound Fortitude, Vampiric Blood, Bone Shield and their superior parries.

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Originally Posted by Altena

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Awww yeah, Sounds like a fantastic idea. A Tank that requires you hit a healing skill every single time you get hit because you're going to die to that second hit if you dont. Well, assuming you survived the first one.

Lifesteal tanks sound like a grand concept on paper, until you realize that it doesn't matter how much HP you can restore to yourself if you can't survive being hit at all.
And if you try to give it the same damage reduction as a WAR/PLD while ALSO giving it lifesteal, You become a WoW Blood Knight, which was broken so badly they had to revisit the entire concept of the class.

As Kiteless mentioned, they tried with Warrior, but it didn't work because even though the WAR had high HP and could heal for a big chunk fairly regularly, It didn't stop them from being burst down by a tank buster or several hits in a row without Inner Beast ready.
Not to mention that 99% of the time Inner Beast WOULD have healed you, it doesn't because the Healer is doing his/her job and actually healing you.

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Originally Posted by Daksun

Why not brainstorm a class as an example, come up with skills, stats and such like an actual class/ job in game and post it as an idea?
Weapon style, attributes, cool downs, all of it.

Then post it and negotiate with the community.

Who knows, maybe SE might go with it?

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It seems most of the detractors are more interested in telling the OP how wrong they are about their specific suggestions, instead of maybe looking beyond at the reason why this topic was even made.

There\\'s no real reason to play a DRK over any other tank right now, except unless you just feel like it. And the funny thing is a lot of the arguments against the OP mention how his idea doesn\\'t fulfill the utilitarian function of a tank, but then seem to offer no other alternatives. No one wants to talk other ideas. It seems to me that these people concerned with function over flair are ok with a tank that is both less unique, and less useful.

Undoubtedly, minor things about my post will be picked apart instead of addressing the fundamental issues.

-Why should I pick DRK?
-What can it do that the others can\\'t?
-What was the point of this additional tank of it seems so similar to the other 2?
-What can be changed about it so it can have its own identity?

Right now I feel there aren\\'t very good answers for any of these. I think this has to do with SE knowing what a good thing they having going with the game right now, after being utterly abysmal a few years ago. They don\\'t want to rock the boat too much, so to speak, and in doing so are hesitant to try and innovative even a little.

The only significant thing that DRK has that sets it apart imo, is Dark Arts and how this ability synergizes with other abilities, giving them additional effects. I don\\'t think that\\'s enough

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Originally Posted by Omskahn

Stuff

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That's because the core argument of this thread was, and I quote:

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Originally Posted by Altena

Where are the blood tanking skills?

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Otherwise known as life stealing/draining. The whole post was about how DRK is not a drain tank and why it is bad because it is not a drain tank. There was nothing about the functioning of a DRK or suggestions to make it better, only the notion that the class sucks because it is not Blood DK from WoW. The whole point of this thread isn't to brainstorm or offer ideas on alternatives, it is to point out how much DRK isn't a Blood DK, and why it sucks monkey balls to balance drain tanks and why we're (more than likely) not getting one.

Reading. More at 11.

Plus, you can ask those questions about PLD/WAR right now, they offer no new insight into DRK or lead into anything gamechanging. The defining difference is that the class has is the MP/DA system, just how WAR has a Wrath/Abandon system. No different from how BRD is based off of DoT procs and MCH is ammo/RNG procs, or how SCH is shields and WHM is power heals. Aside from that, the rest are merely number tweaks that will happen...once they get around to it.

In spoiler brackets is the 2.1 patch WAR fixes, for that discussion some context may help.

Brutal Swing
Recast time has been reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.

Overpower
Enmity generated has been increased.

Mercy Stroke
Recast time has been reduced from 60 to 40 seconds.

Thrill of Battle
Effect duration has been increased from 10 to 20 seconds.

Storm's Path
The combo bonus now also reduces damage dealt by enemies by 10%.TP cost has been reduced from 90 to 60.

Holmgang
Range has been extended from 3y to 6y. Enemies will now be pulled toward the caster. While under the effect of Holmgang, the caster's HP cannot be reduced to lower than 1. Players can now change the direction they are facing.

Vengeance
Now reduces incoming damage by 30% for 15 seconds.

Storm's Eye
TP cost has been reduced from 70 to 60.

Defiance
While under the effect of Defiance, characters will now gain increased enmity, and HP recovered via curing magic is increased by 20%.

Inner Beast
HP absorption effect has been reduced from 300% to 100%. Now also reduces damage taken by 20% for 6 seconds.

Unchained
Recast time has been reduced from 180 to 120 seconds.

Steel Cyclone
Now generates increased enmity.

Wrath
The increased HP recovery effect has been removed.

If DRK/AST are going to remain hybrids - I'm fine with that - but there are some tweaks that both could use to make DARKNESS and CARDS feel less clunky, less like an obstacle, and instead more distinguishable and role-enhancing.

IMO their development falls short due to the lack of a base Class in which JOB abilities build up upon. Rogue to Ninja for example - a solid-unique core with a layer of Ninjitsu thrown on top that further distinguish the Job. Arcanist into SMN/SCH - same deal.

DRK/AST don't have that kind of design. Darkness & Cards aren't vertical mechanics added to a solid core, instead they're horizontal. They serve as gates, restrictions, & limitations a player has to stance-dance or resource manage around to get access to half the role's repertoire.

The core argument was DRK doesnt play much more differently than the other existing tanks. The whole life stealing bloodtanking thing was just a solution that people took and tore apart while the OP tried to defend it. A lot of the inferences you make you seem to believe must treated as facts. It is also entirely possible to make your own points without trying to belittle other people in the process. Let's go from here, lets just say the lifestealing is a bad idea for arguments sake, because it really doesnt matter, what next?

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Originally Posted by Asierid

Plus, you can ask those questions about PLD/WAR right now, they offer no new insight into DRK or lead into anything gamechanging.

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Wait...the old/existing classes need to offer insight into the new one? I don't know if you just conveyed your point poorly or what but this doesn't make any sense. And I don't get at all what you're saying about the questions, all of them have either distinct answers...or quite literally make zero sense to be asked. I'm missing your point.

And the issue with DRK compared almost all other classes is that they usually have full systems that go in making their theme. WAR is quite not just about Wrath/abandon stacks, its also about having high dmg, high helath, self-healing, Aoe dmg, and aoe enmity - as anyone familiar with the class could tell you. I could say similar things about any of the other classes you mentioned. DRK on the other hand doesnt have unique systems, It has an ability that gives other abilities different effects and it uses mana to use many of of those abilities on top of existing skill ideas present in the other tanks. These being the basically ONLY defining traits, with one literally just being resource management, do not give DRK its own theme.

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Originally Posted by Malevicton

And please don't just say "blood tank because it worked in a pvp rts"

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Relying on lifesteal only gets you killed very, very fast against anything else but creeps and some 1v1 encounters in Dota 2. It doesn't even work in there.

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Originally Posted by Omskahn

And the issue with DRK compared almost all other classes is that they usually have full systems that go in making their theme. WAR is quite not just about Wrath/abandon stacks, its also about having high dmg, high health, self-healing, Aoe dmg, and aoe enmity - as anyone familiar with the class could tell you. I could say similar things about any of the other classes you mentioned. DRK on the other hand doesn't have unique systems, It has an ability that gives other abilities different effects and it uses mana to use many of of those abilities on top of existing skill ideas present in the other tanks. These being the basically ONLY defining traits, with one literally just being resource management, do not give DRK its own theme.

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I've come to notice the further you stray from straighforward, the weirder the design gets. WAR and PLD by design are straightforward, since PLD has Halone combo + cooldowns, WAR has enmity combos, some cooldowns, two (three if you count Fracture) debuffs to keep on the mob and Inner Beast.

DRK has...abilities that work a certain way except when you pop Dark Arts, lacking inherent mitigation because of how parries work (I'm surprised DRK was not given a "better parries" type trait that either gives them greater benefits from STR or allows them to parry magic or something), HP drains that are pretty much only worth while with DA, and a couple of mitigation things (though I'm of the belief that Dark Mind needs a redesign).

The more I look at it, the more I think that Dark Arts gating stuff the way it does (as in, most abilities are not worthwhile or don't have full effect unless DA is up) is part of the problem. If MP management is supposed to be a thing for DRK, then it should be tied entirely to Darkside and abilities used while under Darkside. Dark Arts looks more like an extra button to push for the sake of having an extra button to push.

There's two ways I can suggest to deal with this. One would be to can Dark Arts and give abilities with Dark Arts effects an additional MP cost when under Darkside. If the MP cost of popping Dark Arts is supposed to be a prohibiting factor, then add that big MP cost to those abilities. In tandem with this, trim the list of abilities with Dark Arts effects; Power Slash for one shouldn't have its enmity tied to Dark Arts.

The second way would be to change Dark Arts into a resource. Instead of something to click to activate, it becomes a buff that gives abilities an extra effect at an additional MP cost. So as soon as you hit Darkside you have the buff Dark Arts. Upon using a skill with a Dark Arts effect, the buff is consumed and is reapplied to you after 10 seconds. This would mimic the current design without the extra button to push, adding fluidity to combat.

As far as DRK having its own style of mitigation, there's also two suggestions I can give. One would be to grab Souleater and nerf/remove the heal, and instead have it prop up a barrier that absorbs damage determined by the damage Souleater dealt (yes, this is a copy of how Death Strike + Blood Shield work in WoW).

The second option would be removing the INT debuff from Delirium and instead have it give you a stacking buff (caps at 3 stacks, call it "Veil of Shadows", and can only be obtained while under Darkside) that does something. Either increases mitigation, or maybe increases defense from armor, or chances to parry; could be anything that adds to survivability. It'd be something that encourages you to keep the buff up (not unlike WAR's relationship with Maim) while being unique to DRK. I'd add it to Souleater but that would warrant nerfing the heal considerably.

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Originally Posted by Kaedan94

Their eHP is the same. Plus, WAR has IB, which is effectively an anytime Rampart.

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Except for a few things... *hides because it's a side-note from the thread topic*

IB takes five stacks of Wrath to execute, which means two and a half combos (or two combos and either of Berserk/Vengeance, the second of which is already a damage mitigator). This takes 8 GCDs, so about... 12 seconds. This is less than Rampart's 60 seconds, yes (provided all attacks hit and you don't have to dodge away due to AoE or the boss has Invulnerable/Gone moments). It also doesn't last as long as Rampart (only 6 seconds vs 20), so it's trickier to work with, plus it needs a target to execute.

(Example: Catching three balls in A4. PLD can pop Rampart, and it'll last for all of them. WAR can pop IB by whacking a leg before running over to the balls, and IB will most likely have worn off by the time she gets there, and if not it'll be gone after the first ball.)

Add to that that WAR only has one other damage reduction (Vengeance, as mentioned) that effectively works, since Foresight only works on physical damage. Thrill is kind of damage mitigation, through a self-heal plus increased max HP of the same amount. The new Equilibrium is also a self-heal -- or TP heal, depending on stance.
(And, of course, that a PLD can always Hallow up in case of emergency while chasing said balls and taking Ray to the face... Holmgang isn't quite as useful there :p)

It would be awesome if they had different types of tanks that both worked in and of themselves and in comparison to the others. It's been a common observation that PLDs have relatively steady HP levels while a WAR's HP tends to jump up and down like an over-excited chihuahua. While some healers think the latter is fun to heal, others prefer the former since it's less stressful (and because PLDs are less likely to put on STR accessories). I haven't healed much since HW hit, and I haven't tried DRK out more than picking the job up, so I don't know how DRK performs in comparison to that. I've only heard there's a huge number of bad DRK -- which doesn't say much about the job in itself.

Like others have said, though, I can see how it would be difficult to balance different types of tanks without making one of them either too powerful or too weak/squishy.
Instead of 2.0's WAR, would you want to end up with something like TSW's Glance Tanks? (Note: I know it's not really a good comparison, since TSW has a completely different approach to character/class/skills, but...)

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they experimented with a new type, but the problem is that it would most likely take a long time until they figured out how to balance things, and the raging from the players in the mean time would be horrible. Either you'd get every other tank crying out for a nerf because no one wanted their jobs in raids anymore, or you'd get the few people wanting to stick with the new tank job crying for buffs because no one wanted them. I can well see how it'd be easy to just give up and go, "You know, fine. Let's just ease this job closer to the other ones so people can just choose the job they want to play instead of being forced one way or the other while we try to figure this out."

What OP wants is WoW's DK.

Which has been either completely broken OP or complete crap the entirety of it's existence.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=49998/death-strike


Focuses dark power into a strike that deals 135% Physical damage and heals you for 1.(number is a base, it's affected by stats and weapon damage)
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77513/mastery-blood-shield

Each time you heal yourself with Death Strike while in Blood Presence, you gain 16% of the amount healed as a Physical damage absorption shield.

So you hit like a truck, heal yourself every time you do, and gain an absorption shield every time you heal yourself with it. It's basically a WAR with Adlo attached to their main attack.

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Originally Posted by Metabug

this is not a tank

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Everquest 1 and 2 would like to have a word with you.

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Originally Posted by Noxifer

Personally, I wouldn't mind if they experimented with a new type, but the problem is that it would most likely take a long time until they figured out how to balance things, and the raging from the players in the mean time would be horrible.

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I agree with this. My question then is why bother make a new tank if it really isn't going to bring anything new? It gives people another option to play, and with more option the tank pool in the game will undeniably increase. Was this all they hoped to achieve though i wonder?

Currently, there isn't any reason to bring a DRK in a party unless you just want to. This might be enough for some ppl, but I feel it just leaves it being less special than it could be. So i guess i'm more disappointed than upset.

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-Why should I pick DRK?
-What can it do that the others can\\'t?
-What was the point of this additional tank of it seems so similar to the other 2?
-What can be changed about it so it can have its own identity?

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This is a problem.

You dont' want one tank doing something others can't. It leads to cherry picking when it comes to encounters. There's a reason why everyone's got access to what was previously a whm trait, Proshell.

They tried the different types of tank thing in WoW even. You ended up taking X and/or Y, and not Z because Z wasn't useful enough in enough situations to warrant it.

Even more annoying now because there's three tank jobs.. You just basically told everyone's static "hey guys, yeah, level all three of your tank jobs beacuse we're gonna need you to switch back and forth all the time.

It's annoying. Stahp.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

They tried the different types of tank thing in WoW even. You ended up taking X and/or Y, and not Z because Z wasn't useful enough in enough situations to warrant it.

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Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I recall tanks still having flavor even after blizz went down the idiotic "everyone is an active mitigation tank because we liked how it turned out on Death Knights" route. Sure, prot warriors and bear druids weren't heavily represented when placed next to prot paladins and blood DKs, but each at least had something to help one stand out from the other aside from the tier sets.

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Focuses dark power into a strike that deals 135% Physical damage and heals you for 1.(number is a base, it's affected by stats and weapon damage)
http://www.wowhead.com/spell=77513/mastery-blood-shield

Each time you heal yourself with Death Strike while in Blood Presence, you gain 16% of the amount healed as a Physical damage absorption shield.

So you hit like a truck, heal yourself every time you do, and gain an absorption shield every time you heal yourself with it. It's basically a WAR with Adlo attached to their main attack.

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I think the most obvious adaptation of this ability would be to get rid of the heal. The shield is there to help make up for the lack of a shield (though this is because parry, block and dodge count towards overall mitigation in WoW). If DRK were given this separate from Souleater but still requiring Dark Arts, the DRK has the choice between a damage shield and the self heal. At least on paper.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

This is a problem.

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What's really annoying is people bringing up WoW for every single inference made about anything.

WAR and PLD currently are very different in how they go about doing the same thing - being effective at tanking. It's crazy how often people mention WoW for every single example of something that's been tried before. WoW has to balance classes with 3 different specs each, for both pvp and pve therefore trying to cater a much larger pool of interests.

Do NOT begin to tell me that a tank CANNOT be distinct because of balance issues. WAR operates different from PLD. SCH different from WHM. NIN different from MNK. Because you can't wrap you're head around it means it should'nt even be discussed or attempted? I don't think that's right.

Let me ask you, If DRG and MNK were the only two melee classes, would you suggest that NIN shouldn't be added because it would cause cherry picking? Has that happened, Are DRGs forced to play all 3 mdps? I mean there are things that NIN can do that the others can't? Does a BLM need to level SMN even though their playstlyes are nothing alike?

The point is there are different routes to fulfill the same objectives. The classes don't have to to be totally insular, no one is asking for that. Trying to make DRK have it's own more distinct identity isn't even a challenge, its a choice of whether to just do it or not.

All of this and you're clearly overlooking the fact that DRK utilizes MP and augments abilities through DA. How is that not a distinctly different from of gameplay compared to the other two tanks? The three operate in completely different ways while achieving the same goal.

Is DRK weaker? Yes. But that's not the question being presented. DRK has its own identity, everyone in this thread is pissed because:

A: it's not their version of the class.

B: it sucks compared to the other two. Which is great...but that's not what's being asked here.

And yes, I can tell you it's because of balance issues. It's only been done before numerous times and has been stated by devs before how much of a pain in the ass it is to balance leech tanking. So they don't do it or overhaul the class completely in favor of passive mitigation.

Op your points are well made. I agree with you, and find it funny people always complain about wow like the ideas wow come up with is a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Wavaryen

Op your points are well made. I agree with you, and find it funny people always complain about wow like the ideas wow come up with is a bad thing.

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Actually drain tanking isnt WOWs idea. They just badly copied it. It existed before (hey EverQuest), and as well as drainhealing (hey EverQuest or Vanguard) it is hard to balance because it has to scale with MOB damage, not with the tanks damage, in order to work even remotely. You ll notice how it didnt work well in WoW either, because it basically really had to be balanced around the current mainstream content, and was always broken in anything below that.

I am not happy with the weak performance of the DRK, but leech tanking has been done before, and so far nobody made it work for more than a small sliver of content.
I d thus venture a guess and say its probably not worth the effort.

This thread is soo wrong. Complaining that DRK is a mitigation tank? All tanks are supposed to mitigate damage! and SE already tried a self healing tank in 2.0 warrior but it sucked and was improved in 2.1.

Save for magic damage taken and paladin's shield block, warrior has every single type of mitigation and in some cases better versions of it than drk though. It's hard to say that parry is drk's thing when a warrior has a 100% parry skill. Hard to say that life steal is drk's thing cause warriors can do it too and just as hard (maybe even harder? dont have a 60 war yet). Even then warrior has more hp related skills than drk by having bigger natural hp pool in tank stance AND a temporary max hp up. On vital % based mitigation that you need for big attacks both paladin and warrior has drk beat.

Going back to the magic damage reduction thing...it's the one unique type of mitigation that drk has and they still have to pay cold hard mp to use its best version and its technically just a sub type of % based mitigation. It's basically an extra % based mitigation for drk...IF the fight involved magic. So basically adding drk to the game is just SE imposing an additional checklist for designing fights on themselves: "do we have magic damage on this fight?" One could argue that this basically eliminates variety in fights (must always have both, cant be physical only, magic only or both). Unless SE somehow forgot about that checklist or decides that drk shouldn't get to use their 'best thing' in a particular fight.

I don't particularly feel that DRK needs to be revamped mechanically but I do think that 'good at taking magic attacks' isn't good enough. Especially when it's ONE skill out of the entire skill set that does less than the others (shadow skin and wall having less duration and longer cooldown, parry up only 30% for 60sec cd vs 100% for 90 sec cd). Oh and I think while pld and war has skills specifically pressed just to heal up (not life steal), drk doesnt have one so that's one 'mitigation' that drk also doesnt have.

So yeah, maybe soul eater SHOULD get a unique effect to their life steal effect.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Omskahn

What's really annoying is people bringing up WoW for every single inference made about anything.

WAR and PLD currently are very different in how they go about doing the same thing - being effective at tanking. It's crazy how often people mention WoW for every single example of something that's been tried before. WoW has to balance classes with 3 different specs each, for both pvp and pve therefore trying to cater a much larger pool of interests.

Do NOT begin to tell me that a tank CANNOT be distinct because of balance issues. WAR operates different from PLD. SCH different from WHM. NIN different from MNK. Because you can't wrap you're head around it means it should'nt even be discussed or attempted? I don't think that's right.

Let me ask you, If DRG and MNK were the only two melee classes, would you suggest that NIN shouldn't be added because it would cause cherry picking? Has that happened, Are DRGs forced to play all 3 mdps? I mean there are things that NIN can do that the others can't? Does a BLM need to level SMN even though their playstlyes are nothing alike?

The point is there are different routes to fulfill the same objectives. The classes don't have to to be totally insular, no one is asking for that. Trying to make DRK have it's own more distinct identity isn't even a challenge, its a choice of whether to just do it or not.

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Well the thing is at least with this thread that the OP was basically summing up Blood Dead knight from wow. No idea if this was a coincidence or not but it's really hard to not compared it when it resemblances it so much.

Give them a "Dread Spikes" stance the reflects/drains 20% of damage taken instead of a revamped Shield Oath. (And you can even reduce their potencies so that they do less damage by themselves to keep balance)

Cons : Healers need to keep DRK at higher HP than other tanks for the drain to take effect after damage.
Pros : More damage when MT'ing with the reflected damage.

There, another stance for tanking that will make DRK as useful as the other tanks in 90% of the content. For the remaining 10%, it's fine for each tank to be better in a specific situation.

I was playing WoW during WotLK when they introduced Death Knights, and with it a tank tree oriented around life-steal. We referred to these entities as "Blood DK's", It was viable. When my guild killed the LK, we had a Blood DK MT. I forget the exact numbers but their life-steal restored a percentage of maximum health i think it was 9% of total health and had you juggled your "runes" correctly you could use that 9% health back 3 times in a row and wind up another 3x combo in 12 seconds. This was the bread and butter of the blood DK, but still merely a single piece to the grand design.

I only know that after playing a DRK since HW's launch, I'll be swapping back to PLD main until they balance the class. It's defensively weaker than a PLD, with far less "oh crap" buttons, a wonky invulnerability, and also less does damage than a WAR. Feels like a jack of all trades, master of none class. It's in a really unpleasant middle-ground at the moment.

There is very little that distinguishes the class from other tanks other than the added game of MP resource management (which is really just using blood price whenever it's up).

Oh and Dark Passenger and a bevy of other abilities are literally garbage-tier. No idea why they even exist other than to pad out skills.