What's going to be the strength of Dark Knights now?

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

Shouldnt we look at the MP gain from Syphon strike as Potency?

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Yes, it should be. They should be calculating a +70 potency to that combo since you're gaining MP for another DA use later. This is why BS is so mediocre.

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Originally Posted by Decederes

This is why BS is so mediocre.

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No, it still isn't. Bloodspiller does not cost MP and is still better than SoulEater combo even with that 70 potency.
HS = 150
DA-Syphon = 390+70 for MP return = 460
DA-SoulEater = 420
Average potency (150+460+420)/3 = 343 vs 380 for basic Bloodspiller.

The MP calculation using TBN just tend to prove that it's more beneficial to let the Blood Gauge charge naturally with SoulEater/Blood Weapon/Blood Price than "wasting" several thousands MP to proc TBN.

And, again, this reasoning does not take into account the Grit's Penalty or the fact that, at the core, you want to use TBN to mitigate damage in the first place. The surge of Blood Gauge is just icing on the cake.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

The MP calculation using TBN just tend to prove that it's more beneficial to let the Blood Gauge charge naturally with SoulEater/Blood Weapon/Blood Price than "wasting" several thousands MP to proc TBN.

And, again, this reasoning does not take into account the Grit's Penalty or the fact that, at the core, you want to use TBN to mitigate damage in the first place. The surge of Blood Gauge is just icing on the cake.

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This seems correct. A natural filled blood spiller at 380 potency is stronger than any other GCD. TBN is a miniscule 10 ish potency loss per use (maybe more factor that soul eater generates blood) for a 20% shield.

I haven't calculated BN usage in grit but from a rough guess I'd say it's a dps increase because bloodspiller ignores grit penalty. Everything else including dark arts suffers a 20% loss. Interesting enough, using dark arts on blood spiller ignores the damage reduction too so that makes things interesting

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

This seems correct. A natural filled blood spiller at 380 potency is stronger than any other GCD. TBN is a miniscule 10 ish potency loss per use (maybe more factor that soul eater generates blood) for a 20% shield.

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Which likely is intended to push TBN into being used for utility with a very low dps loss while OTing rather than making TBN another dps boost used on cooldown.

While the Dark Knight is OTing versus a single target, they should likely be focusing on keeping there MP as close to 2400 as possible with TBN off cooldown in case someone needs a shield to survive a raid wide or tank/dps/healer buster. Any excess MP should be spent on DA.

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I haven't calculated BN usage in grit but from a rough guess I'd say it's a dps increase because bloodspiller ignores grit penalty. Everything else including dark arts suffers a 20% loss. Interesting enough, using dark arts on blood spiller ignores the damage reduction too so that makes things interesting

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This will likely put the emphasis on properly timing TBNs while MTing with DA usage being a secondary event when you have excess MP.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Which likely is intended to push TBN into being used for utility with a very low dps loss while OTing rather than making TBN another dps boost used on cooldown.

While the Dark Knight is OTing versus a single target, they should likely be focusing on keeping there MP as close to 2400 as possible with TBN off cooldown in case someone needs a shield to survive a raid wide or tank/dps/healer buster. Any excess MP should be spent on DA.

This will likely put the emphasis on properly timing TBNs while MTing with DA usage being a secondary event when you have excess MP.

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Absolutely. I feel that the TBN may be the best offensive utility while providing great defense utility as MT.

I'm interested to see if dropping Grit as MT will cause a few misses in raid scenarios. They may keep the idea that enemies are harder to hit from the front. Without an accuracy stat, that 5% accuracy loss might cause problems.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

Absolutely. I feel that the TBN may be the best offensive utility while providing great defense utility as MT.

I'm interested to see if dropping Grit as MT will cause a few misses in raid scenarios. They may keep the idea that enemies are harder to hit from the front. Without an accuracy stat, that 5% accuracy loss might cause problems.

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I doubt they would do this, but honestly, that would be absolutely perfect for fixing "MT has tank stance" and "OT has DPS stance".
(Im not fully against dropping tank stance, so technically Id even make a new tank that sorta has 2 tank stances, one of which drops the 2nd stance, which is only threat, to raise some offense)

But the miss rate from the front, needs to be nearly 25% to make it absolutely worse to try and do dmg from the front.
(some bosses dont have positionals, so dropping tank stance is still within reason there)

Let's gather what we have atm.

Single target:
- outside of grit TBN to gain blood (except in a very short burst window) is not a good offensive CD. But the time you don't take damage can be used for 1 or 2 gcd from your healer to do damage
- with grit the threshold is much higher, unless the fight goes on for over 10min it could be used on cd. if the shield needs to be broken to give blood, this might not work out though. but again healers can use the time to do more damage
- TBN is probably best used on tank busters, the blood gained this way might actually better used on Delirium if you need the mp
- assuming on almost all content slashing debuff is present, MP prio for damage should be CnS > DA+SS/SE/BS > DP
- Bloodspiller gained through SE/BW/BP is always a damage gain

AoE:
- DRK shines during big pulls more than ever, neither PLD nor WAR come even close
- either you can BP > Delirium > spam Abyssal drain until everything is dead
- or you fill your blood > drop grit > use BW > DA Quietus spam + TBN on CD

I feel DRKs original design, was to be inbetween PLD and WAR, but ended up with its own specialization, and felt more like PLD with a few extras.
The new design lost its specializations, but seems designed to be inbetween PLD and WAR in its mechanics. (though a lot of balancing needs to be done compared to the last info given to us.)

If you compare the current DRK to 2.0 PLD and WAR, its like they took the PLD mechanics of just long CD mitigation, in comparison to WAR. Circle MP spam AoEs of PLD, with some of the dmg of WAR for AoE.
Looking at it now in 4.0, PLD now has the worst AoE, and WAR having the best, DRK falls in the middle. (Though WAR will have issues dropping tank stance for more dmg/gaining TP, due to tank swaps wrath cost, and lack of bloodbath. But it still keeps zerk/storms eye for overpower spam, and the occasional steel cyclone or decimate)
PLD has the easiest AoE to maintain. WAR has the hardest now. DRK in the middle.
DRK also has a steel cyclone copy, that takes up more gauge.
DRK also gained something that feels like Inner Beast, except split into 2 abilities.
The Blackkest Night + Blood Spiller.
Can only use it twice, unlike Fell Cleave/Inner Beast now.
And TBN can be used 4 times, until out of MP, but its oGCD.
PLD can cover allies for -20% dmg, Clemency others, and now use their wings to protect 15% of the dmg.
DRKs TBN acts as just one mini -10%.

The only parts of DRK that doesnt feel like its "in the middle" of, are;
Blood Weapon in comparison to Flight or Fight, and or Berserk.
But this is because they keep their "DPS stance" active at all times.
Which aligns with WARs Storms Eye self attack buff now. (was maim)
and
Living dead being the less user friendly version of holmgang, and less MP friendly version of Invincible.