Dark Knight Megathread

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

Honestly, speedrunners opinions shouldn't be listened to too much. A job can be broken, they'll say it's fine if it's DPS is the highest.

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Speedrunners complain plenty about how jobs play. What are you on about? Shit job design affects them more than anyone because they're the ones pushing jobs as far as they can go.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

It is funny that you mention this, because in ShB, DRK got, despite being the Posterboy, completely outshined by GNB which was not only a new Tank to the Rooster, but also advertised in a very flashy way by Tankred in the Trailer.

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Sure, the point I was just trying to make is that the twin notions that the devs:

1. Wanted DRK, specifically, to fail, but then made it a posterboy for an expansion and cast all player focus and scrutiny onto it
2. Wanted to dunk on a tank job, or ran out of ideas to balance more than just PLD and WAR, but then introduced another tank that "outshined" it in that period

... are utterly ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by shao32

From my point of view the Devs actually don't try to make DRK fun at all just balanced,

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And that's a valid concern to have. However, I remind you that fun is subjective, and devs (as creators) innately have a biased understanding of what others find enjoyable to play in their game.

And even when they agree that gameplay X is fun, they may not believe that it is a healthy position for the job or a direction they want to undertake for the future. For instance, they will probably get around to nerfing WAR because by the same merits, being OP is "fun" but unsustainable.

Yes, they removed several actions from DRK, but A) they wanted to take the job into a new direction with the introduction of/focus on TBN and B) given the sheer number of actions they removed according to the compilation video, clearly they realized they had bloated it with way too many buttons and sought both to streamline and future-proof it. I will grant that it's plausible they trimmed too much off in favor of TBN, but at this point several of the actions removed are incompatible with the current system anyway.

And frankly, as a Stormblood-baby, I cannot tell you if there were flaws of the HW DRK that might have pressed such decisions, or whether its praise is tinted in shades of rose. All I can say is I've heard mixed reviews about the old Dark Arts system, despite how often people seem to beg for its return when talking about what the job "lost".

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Originally Posted by Archwizard

And that's a valid concern to have. However, I remind you that fun is subjective, and devs (as creators) innately have a biased understanding of what others find enjoyable to play in their game.

And even when they agree that gameplay X is fun, they may not believe that it is a healthy position for the job or a direction they want to undertake for the future. For instance, they will probably get around to nerfing WAR because by the same merits, being OP is "fun" but unsustainable.

Yes, they removed several actions from DRK, but A) they wanted to take the job into a new direction with the introduction of/focus on TBN and B) given the sheer number of actions they removed according to the compilation video, clearly they realized they had bloated it with way too many buttons and sought both to streamline and future-proof it. I will grant that it's plausible they trimmed too much off in favor of TBN, but at this point several of the actions removed are incompatible with the current system anyway.

And frankly, as a Stormblood-baby, I cannot tell you if there were flaws of the HW DRK that might have pressed such decisions, or whether its praise is tinted in shades of rose. All I can say is I've heard mixed reviews about the old Dark Arts system, despite how often people seem to beg for its return when talking about what the job "lost".

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From my experience with this game and the dev team i have to arge about the "direction" of the job. For example, there was a time the dev team consider that Bard and the new ranged job Machinist should become casters, Bard was one of the most "popular" jobs of the expansion in HW if we judge his usage across the game but that didn't stop getting a wave after wave of complains about his gameplay and they change they mind and make the Ranged role the one we know today based on that, even Bard get changed when they lose they party support gameplay from SB and they finally bring it back as players request, something that doesn't seems to work for DRK and his mechanics for some reason despite of all this years complaining about it.
They has made several reworks/simplifications of mechanics and several adjustments on many skills across the years on many many jobs, but DRK seems to be a special case, why? bcs at contrary that jobs like DRG who get his blood of dragon mechanic simplified and adapted better so the player could manage better the new skills and mechanics on top of it or just have less annoyances like when wheeling thrust and fang and claw proc use to be totally rng when you get one DRK just only saw his mechanics complety removed or destroyed to have "mechanics" that have zero playability like current Darkside or living shadow.

From the original DRK back on HW only the parry mechanics aka the procs of low blow and reprisal and the tank stance was an inconvenient to the current direction of the game, things like Scourge, combo finisher Delirium, Dark arts, SB Delirium, original Abyssal drain, Reprisal and a large ect never has represented a problem for the current state of the game but we still see them removed or painfully degraded to an almost useless state for no reason.

There is no direction of the job, i can't say what cross they minds but i can judge they work and DRK screams no only a total lack of direction but total negligence and care from them, compared to other jobs DRK is totally forgothen for them and considering the huge amount of time the job has only seen degradation of his mechanics and his very esence without nothing to replace it to justify such actions just easily make any person belive that they don't have any real consideration for the job and the players who play it.
I will point i won't say such a thing so lightly in normal circustances but DRK has seen years and years of Devs behavior against the job.

So with all respect of course i will disagree on any statement to point that the Devs care about the job, i leveled many jobs and i follow they evolution across the expansions and at contrary that jobs that have been changed in a way on an other with a direction on mind DRK changes it's really clear that hasn't been made bcs they have a purpose on them more than "they complain about it? remove it then and don't bother to add anything interesting either to replace it, in fact just copy paste inner release", there is nothing that justified living dead stay what it is, neither Abyssal drain, the copy paste of Inner release or the 2 lazy traits of living shadow and unmend trait too.
In a game where every job get traits the same way i would accept it partially and call it a day but in a game where only DRK suffer such things and how they keep ignoring our request and do nothing about it just feed my opinion about they don't care at all about the job nor even work for make us happy with it, just dealt with it and keep working on the jobs they like it more, it's clear they have devotion for the game and want they customers enjoy it as much as we want but that devotion cleary doesn't apply on DRK at all and im still waiting for them to prove me wrong.

sorry for the biblic post ^^

Hello!
I have started doing savage and I noticed that DRK's mitigation isn't nearly as good as the other tanks right now - not only that, but Living Dead is also a pain to deal with because everyone is playing Sage right now, and the number of healer compositions has gone up massively. Basically, unless you have a White Mage, you are powerless to even contribute to you being healed to full.
I'd like to point out that while the mitigation is close to the other tanks, although not great, it still has many problems.
Here are my suggestions:

->Oblation could be a trait which upgrades TBN to offer an additional 15% damage reduction as well, besides its 25% shield, and changes its animation to Oblation's. It looks cooler I think.
->TBN should not cost MP. I am not experienced enough to say if its CD should be changed.
-> If broken TBN would grant 1 free use of Solve Survivor.
->Remove Dark Mind and add Sole Survivor. Dark Mind's damage reduction and Oblation's is moved to TBN's upgrade to compensate as an overall damage reduction for all damage types.
->Sole Survivor could heal you for a high potency. For example: 800 potency heal. off GCD, 20 seconds of DarkSide as cost.
The cost and heal potency should be thought more of before however. The point isn't to allow yourself to get out of Living Dead on your own, but to make it easier for healers to take you out of it, while giving you some sustain after a tank buster properly mitigated or a bit of heal on demand. An implementation based on stacks like Oblation could also work, I thought correlating it to Darkside would allow more experienced players to play around with the duration according to Edge , Blood weapon, and raid buff windows to maximize - which would give the job some fun in my humble opinion.

If you want to mitigate as DRK, you have to press 3 to even 4 abilities ( TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind +/- Shadow Wall ). Being the heavy off GCD tank that is way too much.
All the other tanks mitigate Savage tank busters and mechanics in Ultimate with usually 2 abilities ( GNB: HoC + Nebula, PLD: Holly Sheltron + Sentinel etc ), and perhaps adding in something else as is the case.
Upgrading TBN to include Oblation and Dark Mind's damage reduction's would solve this I think.
The reward for TBN breaking could be that instead of an Edge, you get a free Solve Survivor which you could use to heal the damage you have taken after a tank buster.
Sole Survivor in my example, would solve many problems. 20 seconds of Darkside would be enough to help yourself trough Living Dead massively. while you won't be able to spam it for too long because you will run out of DarkSide. Getting 1 Sole Survivor if TBN breaks would allow you to heal back damage after a very dangerous tank buster.
This would also mean the more Edge/Flood you do, the more damage you do, the more you can heal - but it still wouldn't beat the sustain of Warrior, Paladin's, and GNBs.

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

->TBN should not cost MP. I am not experienced enough to say if its CD should be changed.

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I like these ideas and I'll just comment on this in a constructive way. If you are removing the cost of TBN it should definitely have a longer cooldown because while TBN currently has a <50% uptime, you not only don't get the full 7s ideally but it also is most certainly not used off of cooldown because it uses DRK DPS resource, so it's uptime is significantly smaller than that of HoC, HS, BW, from the other tanks (especially HS since its recast time is so short that using it with full oath gauge does not risk losing it for heavy incoming damage and can have 2 consecutive uses). 15s would be too short for an ability as potent as a 25% barrier with 15% reduction that has no cost otherwise, but I can see it going into the 25s area. Alternatively it could cost Darkside time (Technically indirectly costing MP, bot post-spending which would be better design than pre-DPS based defensives in the current state of the game) and keep a short recast as a result, but that's just conjecture. I like your ideas though, especially to bring back Sole Survivor.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

If you are removing the cost of TBN it should definitely have a longer cooldown because while TBN currently has a <50% uptime

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Given that you can pop more than 3 TBNs per minute (hold over 75% [time on cooldown]) even in most floors of Normal Pandemonium, couldn't its Savage uptime issues (consequent more to faint potency loss than insufficient incoming damage) be largely remedied just by letting Dark Arts stack (or give a faint damage bonus to the DA'ed cast enough to keep it worthwhile to do more casts per raid buff cycle than just the one cast more than is necessary to avoid overcapping MP)?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Given that you can pop more than 3 TBNs per minute (hold over 75% uptime) even in most floors of Normal Pandemonium, couldn't its Savage uptime issues (consequent more to faint potency loss than insufficient incoming damage) be largely remedied just by letting Dark Arts stack (or give a faint damage bonus to the DA'ed cast enough to keep it worthwhile to do more casts per raid buff cycle than just the one cast more than is necessary to avoid overcapping MP)?

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It is literally impossible to keep more than 50% uptime. The ability lasts 7 seconds at its longest and it's cooldown is 15 seconds. Even if the barrier lasted all 7 seconds that is less than 50% uptime, but ideally it breaks pre-7 seconds. If you got all 7 seconds out of the ability and used it off cooldown every 15 seconds no matter what that is 46.6(repeating 6)% uptime so I have no idea where you're getting this 75% uptime idea from.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

It is literally impossible to keep more than 50% uptime. The ability lasts 7 seconds at its longest and it's cooldown is 15 seconds. Even if the barrier lasted all 7 seconds that is less than 50% uptime. If you got all 7 seconds out of the ability and used it off cooldown every 15 seconds no matter what that is 46.6(repeating 6)% uptime so I have no idea where you're getting this 75% uptime idea from.

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Sorry, I mispoke. I should have said "time on cooldown".

Or, to put it another way, you're able to get out at least 75% HP shielding per minute. For a shield, so long as that shield does in fact get fully consumed, uptime is hardly the most relevant metric.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Sorry, I mispoke. I should have said "time on cooldown".

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In that case I'll clarify that post was specifically playing off his ideas which involved removing Dark Arts from the ability and replacing it with Sole Survivor, making the duscussion of Dark Arts stack count not exactly relevant in context. At least, that's how I read it. Letting it give 2 stacks of 2 different things would be a bit much to say the least. Also, in the context of adding a mitigation percentage to it, uptime becomes more important since from Barrier style defensives all you really want out of it is for the entire shield to be absorbed, but for percentages you want uptime.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Or, to put it another way, you're able to get out at least 75% HP shielding per minute. For a shield, so long as that shield does in fact get fully consumed, uptime is hardly the most relevant metric.

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And for the above post the hypothetical added a percentage to it, making uptime now important on the ability. Again, we agree on this point. Shields only matter if the entire shield was utilized, but percentages require uptime to be useful. An ability with both must also do both.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

And for the above post the hypothetical added a percentage to it, making uptime now important on the ability. Again, we agree on this point. Shields only matter if the entire shield was utilized, but percentages require uptime to be useful. An ability with both must also do both.

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Gotcha, gotcha. Sorry, I just brainfarted as a result of talking to some DRKs about their TBN "uptime" in savage, where they used "uptime" to refer to their ability to break as many TBNs as possible (portion of possible cooling time not wasted nor punished beyond not getting those Edges under raid buffs). Given that I've gotten picky about terminology before, there's no excuse for my slip-up there. Again, my apologies.

Yes, so long as we stick the 15% mitigation onto TBN, uptime would be of import, too. I think at that point you'd care less about the overall uptime than just timing it to tankbusters, especially if the cooldown remained more flexible --but that flexibility would in turn require a bottleneck, be that MP or some other means of potential punishment-- but just the same.

@ItsUrBoi. My main concern with this TBN suggestion is that it'd then amount to a 25% HP shield, a 15% damage reduction for 7s, and an 800-potency heal. Even on 25s, which I'd rather avoid regardless, wouldn't that be especially strong (and, truly pushed all into TBN, rather than TBN just being overvalued or DRK's EW kit neglected)? Now, that's not necessarily a problem; it's just not a direction I'd want to dig that much more deeply into, as I'd love to spread those capacities about a bit more as to offer further interest to the rest of our kit (e.g., Blood skills giving some added sustain, since they're decently bankable and could therefore pack a good punch and would be nicely timeable).

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Dang, your new sig is no joke, Ryu. I think your race has changed twice over these last two posts?

Maybe it would be too strong, but also let's not forget TBN should have some damage reduction along with the shield to be decent against multi hit attacks. Not as good as the others, but decent at least.
Paladin gets 20% + 15% + 1000 heal over time ( yes, I know its not 35% added)
GNB: 15% + 15% + 900
Warrior: 400 shield + 10% + 10% + 1600 Heal
DRK according to my post: 25% shield + 15% damage reduction + ( optional : 800 heal, you could use it or save it for maybe when you took auto attack damage, or Living Dead etc).
The damage reduction could be 10% instead of 15%. But this is a number game already, instead the idea of using less buttons to mitigate into TBN and having an ability to heal urself with at the cost of Darkside, or for free if TBN is broken, is the idea I wish to share. So that you will heal a bit whenever you want, help with Living Dead, and have a fun mechanic with your main resource.

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Originally Posted by ItsUrBoi

DRK according to my post: 25% shield + 15% damage reduction + ( optional : 800 heal, you could use it or save it for maybe when you took auto attack damage, or Living Dead etc).
The damage reduction could be 10% instead of 15%. But this is a number game already, instead the idea of using less buttons to mitigate into TBN and having an ability to heal urself with at the cost of Darkside, or for free if TBN is broken, is the idea I wish to share. So that you will heal a bit whenever you want, help with Living Dead, and have a fun mechanic with your main resource.

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You're only focusing on Dungeon performances, HoC/BW/Sheltron are far less effective vs TBN in Savage/Ultimate raids, TBN+Oblation alone are strong enough to soak a buster without a need of Rampart/Shadow Wall/Dark Mind. Damage reduction is more effective than Barriers when you're fighting multi targets, mitigation value. Single power hit, TBN dominates BW/HoC/Sheltron by miles, major sum of damage is removed. Taking TBN further on damage reductions would only lead more problems than solving casual content. You could extend cooldown, but then Drk would suck in dungeons more, and remain balanced in raids, and boosting TBN would only make Drk insanely overpowered in Raids for it's damage mitigations.

This needs to be adjusted an alternative plan than trying to competition Pld/Gnb/War ability.

I don't know what game your playing but against Heart of Corondum and its heal, TBN + Oblation are not that strong. If HoC wouldn't have a heal, than yeah.
Also I am not saying that TBN and Oblation are bad - I am saying they should be within 1 button and the reward for breaking TBN would do much better as a heal. Weaker than HoC, but tied to Darkside. So you can use a bit more of it when needed ( Living Dead or when very low), and recover after a big hit.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

You're only focusing on Dungeon performances, HoC/BW/Sheltron are far less effective vs TBN in Savage/Ultimate raids, TBN+Oblation alone are strong enough to soak a buster without a need of Rampart/Shadow Wall/Dark Mind. Damage reduction is more effective than Barriers when you're fighting multi targets, mitigation value. Single power hit, TBN dominates BW/HoC/Sheltron by miles, major sum of damage is removed. Taking TBN further on damage reductions would only lead more problems than solving casual content. You could extend cooldown, but then Drk would suck in dungeons more, and remain balanced in raids, and boosting TBN would only make Drk insanely overpowered in Raids for it's damage mitigations.

This needs to be adjusted an alternative plan than trying to competition Pld/Gnb/War ability.

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TBN is only stronger if the damage outright kills the tank, which it almost never will after mitigations are applied, even in ultimates, where other tanks often just invuln anyway.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5778466

For the purpose of discussing how well a tank can handle a tank buster, there are 3 stages.

Stage 1: Preparing for incoming damage

Stage 2: Actually taking the damage

Stage 3: Aftermath of the damage

The only stage that matters for calculating the tankiness of the job is stage 3, which leaves every single other tank in higher standing. I've said it before, in this regard, TBN is actually the weakest when not paired with another cooldown. It simply must be paired with another cooldown to compete.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

You're only focusing on Dungeon performances, HoC/BW/Sheltron are far less effective vs TBN in Savage/Ultimate raids, TBN+Oblation alone are strong enough to soak a buster without a need of Rampart/Shadow Wall/Dark Mind.

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Let's put it this way:

TBN's shield is typically estimated to ~1270 potency. Unless the added eHP matters (i.e., we'd otherwise die, which is sadly infrequent threat in this game), that mitigation provides no more sustain than does healing (as that healing wouldn't be bottlenecked unless you'd die).

:: Sustain can be split into 'max and current eHP-increases' (mitigation) or 'current HP-increases only' (healing), but mitigation is only as uniquely advantageous as it manages to prevent healing (or healing opportunities) from being wasted -- be that by overhealing or death. If the healing isn't bottlenecked by maximum health nor falling short of minimum eHP at any particular point, they provide the same sustain (i.e., will keep you alive for the same time).
Percentile, as compared to potency-based, mitigation has its own limitations, in that its relative (or potency-equivalent) value is dependent on incoming damage, but that's the crux of it all.

For TBN+Oblation to outperform HoC, the latter's extra 20% mitigation in seconds 0-4 and extra 5% mitigation across seconds 5-8 (though offset by doing 10% less in seconds 9-10 relative to Oblation) would have to amount to less than ~370 potency of shielding. Generally, the most we can hope for is that TBN's added frequency might provide more mitigation per minute in spikey (but not so spikey as to favor HoC's 30% miti periods) but ultimately low-damage-taken-per-minute situations.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

TBN is only stronger if the damage outright kills the tank, which it almost never will after mitigations are applied, even in ultimates, where other tanks often just invuln anyway.

The only stage that matters for calculating the tankiness of the job is stage 3, which leaves every single other tank in higher standing. I've said it before, in this regard, TBN is actually the weakest when not paired with another cooldown. It simply must be paired with another cooldown to compete.

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Oblation is another cooldown, I didn't say TBN alone.

TBN+ (Damage miti extra) and Oblation is incredibly strong if this is the suggested fix. And it's not about surviving the damage, it's mitigating much as possible through out the whole fight and using other tank cooldowns for the initial auto attacks. Invulns are better used on cheesing mechanics than busters, the value difference is enormous, both Tank and Healer. Many years in Savage raids, Invulns cheesing mechanics has always earned far better value.

In Ultimates you only use Invulns for busters to free up cooldowns, there's nothing to cheese with them. Except for TEA, 1 tank soak double busters from Pepsiman, and the 2nd tank does the same, keeping them near permanently stacked.

Another point, TBN can cheese one current raid tier mechanic, P4S Part 2, Act 2, Blm can solo the Fire Stack with TBN + Manaward, or AOE mitis + Manaward. Possibly more can be discovered. I've always been extremely against TBN buffs just to feel stronger for dungeons, it's one ability that can push lengths shouldn't be possible max ilvl gear, not even HoC/Intervention/Nascent can do.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

I've always been extremely against TBN buffs just to feel stronger for dungeons, it's one ability that can push lengths shouldn't be possible max ilvl gear, not even HoC/Intervention/Nascent can do.

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While there's nothing inherent to AoE damage that'd make TBN worse (such is merely a matter of DTPS) and I wouldn't want to see TBN remain as large a portion of our (presently undertuned) kit as it is now and so would prefer to buff other areas and means of sustain... the external mitigation cheese available to TBN has no serious relevance to dungeons.

I see no reason why DRK would have to be shortchanged of a personal tack-on effect or the like just because its external mitigation can, very rarely, have outsized benefits due to debuff nullification or the like. I love the latter element of TBN and wouldn't want to sacrifice it, but... neither would anything that'd make DRK's kit stronger in dungeons require that we sacrifice it, so...

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

Oblation is another cooldown, I didn't say TBN alone.

TBN+ (Damage miti extra) and Oblation is incredibly strong if this is the suggested fix. And it's not about surviving the damage, it's mitigating much as possible through out the whole fight and using other tank cooldowns for the initial auto attacks. Invulns are better used on cheesing mechanics than busters, the value difference is enormous, both Tank and Healer. Many years in Savage raids, Invulns cheesing mechanics has always earned far better value.

In Ultimates you only use Invulns for busters to free up cooldowns, there's nothing to cheese with them. Except for TEA, 1 tank soak double busters from Pepsiman, and the 2nd tank does the same, keeping them near permanently stacked.

Another point, TBN can cheese one current raid tier mechanic, P4S Part 2, Act 2, Blm can solo the Fire Stack with TBN + Manaward, or AOE mitis + Manaward. Possibly more can be discovered. I've always been extremely against TBN buffs just to feel stronger for dungeons, it's one ability that can push lengths shouldn't be possible max ilvl gear, not even HoC/Intervention/Nascent can do.

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You're getting into semantics now and discussing purely conjecture which has nothing to do with the objective state of the job and its kit. I also know you didn't say TBN alone, the math listed in the linked post by yours truly was all considering using TBN with Oblation.

This suggestion was also about combining Oblation with TBN, so you would not be capable of stacking this TNB+ with Oblation because with this proposition Oblation doesn't actually exist, so I'm not really sure what you're on about there.

Cheesing mechanics is a different discussion and arguably shouldn't be plausible in the first place for game balancing, and is therefore also conjecture.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

While there's nothing inherent to AoE damage that'd make TBN worse (such is merely a matter of DTPS) and I wouldn't want to see TBN remain as large a portion of our (presently undertuned) kit as it is now and so would prefer to buff other areas and means of sustain... the external mitigation cheese available to TBN has no serious relevance to dungeons.

I see no reason why DRK would have to be shortchanged of a personal tack-on effect or the like just because its external mitigation can, very rarely, have outsized benefits due to debuff nullification or the like. I love the latter element of TBN and wouldn't want to sacrifice it, but... neither would anything that'd make DRK's kit stronger in dungeons require that we sacrifice it, so...

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Yeah I mean I would much rather see Dark Mind turned into something useful in all content than a TBN total rework, but it's also not to say a TBN rework can make the jobs defensive kit feel better as well. On this we agree, but it's also poor debate to outright refuse a viable fix just because we don't want it. TBN is nice, I'd like it implemented better, but if it was reworked into something new, then so be it, a fix is necessary either way.

Drk has no identity atm and that gives the devs nothing to work with. The how and what we should be is lost. They keep trying to form us like Warrior and a Paladin, that concept makes us a caster tank. Why not change our skills to work on the principle?

Living Dead
Level: 50
Instant
300 seconds
N/A
0
0
Grants the effect of Living Dead. When HP is reduced to 0 while under the effect of Living Dead, instead of becoming KO\\'d, your status will change to Walking Dead.
Living Dead Duration: 10s
While under the effect of Walking Dead, most attacks will not lower your HP below 1. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 100% is not restored, you will be KO\\'d.
Walking Dead Duration: 10s

Salted Earth
Level: 52
Instant
45 seconds
N/A
0
5
Creates a patch of salted earth at your feet, dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 50 to any enemies who enter.
Duration: 15s

Abyssal Drain
Level: 56
Ability
1.5 sec channel
Charge: 20 max 3 stacks
Mana: N/A
Range: 20 yalms
Radius: 0 yalms
Deals life draining damage with a potency of 250.
Additional Effect: Restores own HP
Cure Potency: 200
Additional Effect: Restores MP
Mana Restoration: 1200
Combo Action: Living Dead
Combo Effect: Reverse Drain
Combo Bonus: Restores own HPS
Combo Cure Potency: 1200
Combo additional effect: Restores MP
Mana Restoration: 200
Combo Action: Salted Earth
Combo Effect: Abyssal Drain is now AoE
Combo Potency: 150
Combo Mana Restoration: 300 per target

TBN
Level: 70
Instant
15 seconds
3000
30 yalms
0
Creates a barrier around target that absorbs damage totaling 25% of target\\'s maximum HP.
Duration: 7s
Grants Dark Arts when barrier is completely absorbed.
Dark Arts Effect: Consume Dark Arts instead of MP to execute Edge of Shadow or Flood of Shadow
Bonus Effect: Lingering Shadow
Lingering Shadow: Heals for 200 HPS over 21 secs

Oblation
Level: 82
Instant
60 seconds
N/A
30 yalms
0 yalms
Erects a magicked barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage equivalent to a heal of 400 potency.
Additional Effect: Grants 5 stacks of
Oblation
Duration: 15s
When the barrier is completely absorbed, a stack of Oblation is consumed and a new barrier is applied.
When the effect duration expires, a Abyssal drain effect is then applied.
Abyssal Drain Heal Potency: 200 per remaining stack of Oblation
Abyssal Drain Mana Potency: 600 per remaining stack of Oblation


Salt and Darkness
Level 86
Ability
20 seconds
N/A
0 yalms
0 yalms

All enemies standing in the corrupted patch of Salted Earth take additional unaspected damage with a potency of 250 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.

※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.

Trait
Enhanced TBN
Level 84

When consumed, TBN now grants Lingering Shadow Effect.
When not consumed, TBN returns 50% of the casting cost.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Cheesing mechanics is a different discussion and arguably shouldn't be plausible in the first place for game balancing, and is therefore also conjecture.

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Tangent, but...

I'd rather have some cheese (or, "features") here and there, so long as such doesn't pushing out more interesting decision-making. E.g., Inner Release lining up to prevent a knockback (or murder your party in O6S), TBN cheese, Cover cheese, and hopefully GNB getting something in turn.

(Invulns, contextually, do push out more interesting decision-making or overly disarm fights for having not been sufficiently accounted for, though, so that's another story.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Tangent, but...

I'd rather have some cheese (or, "features") here and there, so long as such doesn't pushing out more interesting decision-making. E.g., Inner Release lining up to prevent a knockback (or murder your party in O6S), TBN cheese, Cover cheese, and hopefully GNB getting something in turn.

(Invulns, contextually, do push out more interesting decision-making or overly disarm fights for having not been sufficiently accounted for, though, so that's another story.)

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Oh don't misunderstand, I, too, love cheesing mechanics, but when discussing game balance it shouldn't actually impact anything because it's a slippery slope to "But I want my job to be able to just do anything I damn well please regardless of game health" on the grounds that if you have an ability with the purpose of cheesing mechanics in mind, you probably don't have balance health in mind. But yes, I love slapping on TBN and mitigations to eat a mechanic that should give me a debuff just to not get a debuff, same goes for the occasional Hallowed Ground and Bolide in some content. Maybe I just don't want to do the thing? So I just won't lol.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

You're getting into semantics now and discussing purely conjecture which has nothing to do with the objective state of the job and its kit. I also know you didn't say TBN alone, the math listed in the linked post by yours truly was all considering using TBN with Oblation.

This suggestion was also about combining Oblation with TBN, so you would not be capable of stacking this TNB+ with Oblation because with this proposition Oblation doesn't actually exist, so I'm not really sure what you're on about there.

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A miss understanding, apologies.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Cheesing mechanics is a different discussion and arguably shouldn't be plausible in the first place for game balancing, and is therefore also conjecture.

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You're right, I spiralled off the subject. For reply, cheesing mechanics has always slipped in throughout the years, shouldn't be plausible, but SE has supported it. Changed the system, 0 Damage: No debuff, barriers as you know, treat it as 0 damage till broken, overlay barriers: no debuff. Oblation + TBN merge is fair, it's a filler ability.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Oh don't misunderstand, I, too, love cheesing mechanics, but when discussing game balance it shouldn't actually impact anything because it's a slippery slope to "But I want my job to be able to just do anything I damn well please regardless of game health" on the grounds that if you have an ability with the purpose of cheesing mechanics in mind, you probably don't have balance health in mind.

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Oh, absolutely. I just don't want to see unique means of cheese ever specifically targeted or outright removed in favor of some ultra-tight balance (which is the only point at which that'd become necessary, far from our [DRK's] current state). If it really comes down to it, we can use arbitrary exceptions, like those debuffs that somehow go through Hallowed Ground.

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But yes, I love slapping on TBN and mitigations to eat a mechanic that should give me a debuff just to not get a debuff, same goes for the occasional Hallowed Ground and Bolide in some content. Maybe I just don't want to do the thing? So I just won't lol.

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DRKs: Smileton last boss had ground-obstructing mechanics? How did I never -- Oh, oh right.



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Originally Posted by Siimodo

Lingering Shadow: Heals for 200 HPS over 21 secs.

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Should this suggestion have been 200 per tick (total of a still overpowered 1400 potency of healing, down from 4200 healing, every time you break TBN)?

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

A miss understanding, apologies.



You're right, I spiralled off the subject. For reply, cheesing mechanics has always slipped in throughout the years, shouldn't be plausible, but SE has supported it. Changed the system, 0 Damage: No debuff, barriers as you know, treat it as 0 damage till broken, overlay barriers: no debuff. Oblation + TBN merge is fair, it's a filler ability.

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Aye no worries. On the topic of cheesing mechanics, it will always happen, there is no possible way for even the highest budget and perfect and most intelligent and well trained devs of any game to figure out what every single player is going to come up with when given an ability/item/whatever the game has. Many devs even enjoy when something is cheesed and/or broken (*Note on this below). The fact that 0 damage = no debuff even exists proves Squeenix is largely okay with cheesing happens as long as Bolide and Hallowed both nulify all damage. It would be pretty easy to either remove that fact or make it so they cause you to take only 1 damage instead.

*I recall watching the devs behind Doom Eternal watching a speedrun where the speed runner exploited a bug that would essentially launch the player beyond the levels bounds because of a feedback loop in the physics engine. Instead of saying they should patch this out and make sure it can't happen, they instead said they should put little hidden messages behind level borders for speedrunners to discover. Things like this are probably why Squeenix supports it. A player finding something creative to do with an ability you created feels nice sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

DRKs: Smileton last boss had ground-obstructing mechanics? How did I never -- Oh, oh right.

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Me in discord with my healer: "I'm gonna eat that mine. burst window is up. Don't worry about it though."

EDIT: I feel like the forum is calling out my fantasia addiction. This stuffs like Skooma.

SE has always put Easter Eggs in 14, one I actually discovered this Xpac and seen no one has mentioned yet, and it's from the game Hearthstone.

Edit: I should get back on topic, I have nothing else to say.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Me in discord with my healer: "I'm gonna eat that mine. burst window is up. Don't worry about it though."

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I just do it every time. I rarely get significant damage windows enough to warrant worrying about the faint potency loss. Just for fun, I've got the 2nd boss down pat enough that I can break TBNs with little delay (which is really just to get a Sage friend ticked that he can't even use a single oGCD fruitfully), but outside of the infrequent TB, there's just... nothing else to play around with on boss 3.

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EDIT: I feel like the forum is calling out my fantasia addiction. This stuffs like Skooma.

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Yeah, sorry about that.

But, here, I can distract with a couple hot takes:

• AoE heals should be smart-heals* but less potent (especially in 8-man, perhaps as a result of being partly split instead). "Smart-heals" here refers to heals which split would-be overhealing to the remaining allies that would still be wounded even after the initial heal. Or, basically, heals split by HP to be restored rather than merely by allies in range. (No, really, this would make personal defensives feel so better since they wouldn't just be healing what would have been healed anyways.)
• I want back the old Shake it Off (but also the post-Berserk debuff and/or some sort of Stagger mechanic in place of pure miti on Vengeance, and for SiO's cleanse to apply to more, rather than less, than all Esuna can apply to). Give a Leech window raid buff instead if need be. ...This is mostly because I want another means to cheese stuff if it lines up well enough. Though maybe I should be satisfied enough with just having Holmgang.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I just do it every time. I rarely get significant damage windows enough to warrant worrying about the faint potency loss. Just for fun, I've got the 2nd boss down pat enough that I can break TBNs with little delay (which is really just to get a Sage friend ticked that he can't even use a single oGCD fruitfully), but outside of the infrequent TB, there's just... nothing else to play around with on boss 3.

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You really don't have to detonate the mine to be melee uptime safe, there's a small spot between Safe/Mine you can stand at, it's next to the arrow, Smileton final boss.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I just do it every time. I rarely get significant damage windows enough to warrant worrying about the faint potency loss. Just for fun, I've got the 2nd boss down pat enough that I can break TBNs with little delay (which is really just to get a Sage friend ticked that he can't even use a single oGCD fruitfully), but outside of the infrequent TB, there's just... nothing else to play around with on boss 3.


Yeah, sorry about that.

But, here, I can distract with a couple hot takes:

• AoE heals should be smart-heals* but less potent (especially in 8-man, perhaps as a result of being partly split instead). "Smart-heals" here refers to heals which split would-be overhealing to the remaining allies that would still be wounded even after the initial heal. Or, basically, heals split by HP to be restored rather than merely by allies in range. (No, really, this would make personal defensives feel so better since they wouldn't just be healing what would have been healed anyways.)
• I want back the old Shake it Off (but also the post-Berserk debuff and/or some sort of Stagger mechanic in place of pure miti on Vengeance, and for SiO's cleanse to apply to more, rather than less, than all Esuna can apply to). Give a Leech window raid buff instead if need be. ...This is mostly because I want another means to cheese stuff if it lines up well enough. Though maybe I should be satisfied enough with just having Holmgang.

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Smileton last boss autos are all magic and I'm not 100% certain but aren't the mines also magic damage? It's one of the few times Dark Mind is actually Chef's Kiss.

Maybe not all heals are smart heals, but having some as an option for oGCD would defenitely fill that purpose. I also have no opinion on that Shake it Off comment as I was least active throughout Stormblood. My static kicked me out for having a full time job that required me to go in to work when called in (They knew in advance this was a possibility) and left me sour so I was very casual and so I'm not really familiar with old SiO as I also was playing RDM at the time.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

You really don't have to detonate the mine to be melee uptime safe, there's a small spot between Safe/Mine you can stand at, it's next to the arrow, Smileton final boss.

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I did not know this and will proceed to abuse this. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

I did not know this and will proceed to abuse this. Thanks!

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https://youtu.be/UUz_Cyo5ybI?t=273

4:33, stop the video there, you'll see an open spot you can stand, it's mirror for other side.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

You really don't have to detonate the mine to be melee uptime safe, there's a small spot between Safe/Mine you can stand at, it's next to the arrow, Smileton final boss.

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Oh, it's not for me (well, unless I'm too lazy), hence my doing it ahead of time if it'd be an actual obstruction in the coming round of mechanics. Have you met the average DF goer?

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Smileton last boss autos are all magic and I'm not 100% certain but aren't the mines also magic damage? It's one of the few times Dark Mind is actually Chef's Kiss.

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They are, but I don't think they hit hard enough to need more than Oblation + TBN. Heck, TBN may have been enough raw...

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Maybe not all heals are smart heals, but having some as an option for oGCD would defenitely fill that purpose.

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It's just the AoEs on which it'd really matter to me. Granted if we did something crazy like giving WHM a chain-heal from would-be overhealing (*cough* they treat healing as water-aspected anyways *cough*) as to increase its heal efficiency and cut down on button bloat, I could see it being attached to a bit more so long as it was still a pretty unique feature, but I just want to stop seeing personal defensives go to waste the moment not everyone in the whole party has roughly equal sustain available to them (at which point you just whip out an AoE oGCD anyways).

...That and I'd actually like to increase healer offensive ppgcd and reduce their free healing over time such that there's actually some significant value to be afforded from healing requirements being lessened through others' sustain.

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I also have no opinion on that Shake it Off comment as I was least active throughout Stormblood. My static kicked me out for having a full time job that required me to go in to work when called in (They knew in advance this was a possibility) and left me sour so I was very casual and so I'm not really familiar with old SiO as I also was playing RDM at the time.

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Ahh, damn, that sucks. I went from basically the same in StB (though I kicked myself rather than letting anyone else do it) to starting into grad school + part-time work later into ShB. Still in that now. I used to at least PuG a bit on my tank alt, but I've lost a bit of that willpower over time.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Ahh, damn, that sucks. I went from basically the same in StB (though I kicked myself rather than letting anyone else do it) to starting into grad school + part-time work later into ShB. Still in that now. I used to at least PuG a bit on my tank alt, but I've lost a bit of that willpower over time.

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"Hey guys I'm a security supervisor so if I get called in to work I pretty much have to show up, it's in my contract so if i get called in on raid night I will have no choice. I can join this static if you're ok with that?"

"That's fine, yeah."

*Get's called in and can't show up*
*Shocked Pikachu Face*

"Unacceptable, kick him out."

Gonna leave that there since this discussion is no longer productive to the issues DRK faces and we're just idly chatting, but I had to add that bit for humor.

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Originally Posted by Ryaduera

Gonna leave that there since this discussion is no longer productive to the issues DRK faces

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Alright, I've got something for you then. Most of them are probably terrible ideas, but I just want to see what paint sticks, so to speak.

Context:

• I'd like more control over at least one element of our burst period(s), but also for our burst period(s) to be more varied, whether that be by including reactive elements, having less of its tools synced strictly to every 60s, purposely offering mini-burst periods, or whatever else.
• Living Shadow NEEDS to be more interesting.
• I'd like to bring back some element of empowering one's abilities, but ideally for utility and control rather than potency.
• Obviously, Dark Mind and Living Dead need fixing.
• DRK needs to get certain of its capacities sooner. (This has been covered to death, though, so let's just assume I'll be using the same recommendations as before regarding Dark Missionary, Stalwart Soul, and Blood skills and Blood generation.)
• DRK needs more sustain*, ideally without empowering its potency-based mitigation to cheesier heights. (I use "sustain" as a larger umbrella term that seats both healing and mitigation, which can both be stat- or potency based or content-based [percentiles].)

The following random ideas do not necessarily all belong together. Pick and choose a set from among them as you please.

A Core Thematic Trait

Blood for Blood
Upon the death of any party member or any enemy that would grant experience, regenerate 10% of your MP and HP. Additionally, your self-healing is increased by a percent equal to your missing %HP. (Damage over time effects will cause this trait to act as if you had already lost the full, normal amount of health to be lost from those effects.)

• You now get to reap mobs. That's pretty much always fun, especially in terms of "You die or I die!" gambles at the end of a pack, or FATE-grinding in general. It feels good to be able to overspend at the end of a fight and still be able to cast something within the first 20 seconds of another fight immediately thereafter. Simple as that.
• This has synergies with "stagger" mitigation (whereby damage is delayed to instead be taken over time), since your self-healing is immediately increased.
• Unskilled, or underhealed, party members can now provide blood for the blood god.
• No longer is "HP-bar Limbo" just an AST game. You are rewarded with increased sustain for shuffling to higher DTPS spans as much percentile mitigation as you can survive without. You'll scare the poop out of healers for doing so, but that's also fun in itself so long as you can, say, nail a couple meaty Bloodspiller crits to immediately bounce back a fair bit.
• Edited out the "that would grant experience" clause, since with the changes to exp from dungeons, this would no longer work.

Selective Mitigation Types Without Needing Extra Buttons

Shadowskin (replacing Dark Mind)
Delays 30% of incoming damage to instead be dealt over 6 seconds after it would have been taken and grants the effects of Dark Mind and Dark Dance.
Dark Mind: 50% of your magical damage dealt is stored as a barrier which absorbs incoming magical damage, causing it to instead heal you.
Dark Dance: 50% of your physical damage dealt is stored as a barrier. While the barrier is active, you parry all incoming physical attacks. The mitigation provided in this way depletes this shield at the same amount.

• Obviously, I've not tuned this. It's just a basic concept. Hit Shadowskin, and blow Edges, Floods, and Shadowbringer to absorb magic damage or Bloodspillers and Carve (or Quietus in dungeons), etc., to briefly guarantee parries.
  Dark Dance has the further advantage of being all mitigation, no healing, and quantizes (still parries the full hit even if only 1 HP remains on the shield), so it really should be tuned back relative to Dark Mind.
• The whopping 30% damage-delay is because you could immediately by hit with a tick that'd hold a third of the delayed damage, making it really feel like 20-30% anyways. (Depending on the technicals of implementation, of course.)

Some Possible Sustain "Solutions"

Bloodspiller and Quietus adjusted
Down to 40 Blood cost, allowing natural generation of Blood spenders to no longer be so badly dwarfed by what's produced by CDs (Delirium and Blood Weapon) alone.
Now also either (A) generate a leech period (e.g., Requiem - 4s - The DRK heals for 30% of damage dealt) or (B) heals for a portion of their own damage alone.

• That's the simplest solution, honestly. You add a bit more banking, granting 2 uses per 35 seconds, accelerated from 42.5 seconds, of natural generation, and let those bankables heal.
• Obviously, you could also do this through just buffing Abyssal Drain, giving Carve a heal to compete at 3 or fewer enemies, and lowering their shared CD. Or, plenty of other ways. I slightly prefer this one, though, just because, especially if using a Leech period, it makes Blood feel more integral and impactful.

A Slight Blood Spender / Delirium Adjustment

Rather than Delirium, alone, refunding the MP generation lost to using Blood spenders, Bloodspiller and Quietus themselves will refund their third or half of an ST or AoE combo's MP, respectively.

• To put it another way, rather than Delirium tacking on effect to blood spenders, Bloodspiller now always grants 200 MP and Quietus always grants 300 MP.
• Quietus simply gives 500 MP right now because the intern in charge of DRK forgot that with EW they nerfed Stalwart Soul's MP gen from 1000 to 600. 600/2 = 300, not 500.
• Edit: Some further clarification.

The Obligatory Living Dead Fix

Living Dead
Grants the effect of Living Dead. When HP is reduced to 0 while under the effect of Living Dead, instead of becoming KO'd, you are healed to 50% health and status will change to Walking Dead.
Living Dead Duration: 10s
Healing received is nullified up to an amount equal to 50% of your HP. While under the effect of Walking Dead, most attacks will not lower your HP below 1.
Walking Dead Duration: 10s

• Not a huge fan of it so far, but it covers the basic needs.

An Actually Maybe Fun Living Shadow

Living Shadow
Ability - 90s recast time
Conjure a simulacrum of your darkside to fight alongside you, duplicating your attacks for 50% effect. While the Living Shadow is active, your damage is reduced by 25%.
Reactivating Living Shadow during its duration will cause it to hold its position and will cause enemies to attack you through your Living Shadow instead. Your Living Shadow will not take damage from un-targeted attacks. Use the skill again to toggle this effect off.
Duration: 15s
Blood Gauge Cost: 50 (or 40, with the suggested Blood spender changes below)

• This is still a 12.5% net damage increase, atop what all is provided by 50% increased active HP, MP, and Blood generation.
• Until commanded to hold position, this acts more like Bunshin than an Automaton Queen, moving whenever you move, in the same way that you move -- just lagging about a meter behind (except as necessary to reach the enemy).
• You are now in full control of what your Living Shadow does. It also spawns in far more quickly, at your position, and fades out far more quickly.
• You can use the skill reactivation to hold mobs in place as you move to grab things. Honestly, it'll probably rarely be all that useful, but hey, it's an obvious use of the button.
• Yes, the 90s cooldown is intended, mostly to offer multiple degrees of burst over time.
• Edit: Some effect clarification. You do not take double the area of effect damage. Rather, you can use LS to hold mobs in place while you dodge out of AoEs.

A Complementary Mirror to TBN

Blood Price
Ability - 40s CD.
Causes each hit taken to generate 2% MP and a stack of Blood and Steel.
Duration: 10 seconds.
Blood and Steel: Damage taken is reduced by a flat amount equal to 2% of your HP, stacking up to 10 times. Effect ends when Blood Price ends.
Cannot be used simultaneously with Blood Weapon.

• This effect accumulates with, but is not refreshed by, each additional hit. (It is strongest just before duration's end.)
• Here, I'm offering sort of a mirror to TBN's purely stat-based defense, in a manner reminiscent of FFXIII's Steelguard and WotLK-era Unbreakable Armor. It still obviously benefits noticeably from stats, but in a way that disproportionately affects frequent and otherwise overwhelming hits, which tend to be found in the same situations as TBN's weakness, higher total damage.
• The more hits you take, the less you take from each hit (flat damage reduction), to the point of laughing off chip damage, some likely outright turned to 0, by the end of its duration. It also synergizes well with the DoT damage DRK can choose to take by delaying damage.
• Like Blood Weapon, below, it gets stronger over time. That seems a decent note to have for flavor, even if shallow in itself.

Oblation (now an upgrade of Blood Price)
Ability - 2 charges. 40s recharge.
For 10 seconds, grants self Blood and Steel and self or target party member the effect of Blood Price.
Upon reactivation, triggers Woe-eater.
Blood Price: Causes each hit taken to generate 2% MP and a stack of Blood and Steel.
Blood and Steel: Damage taken is reduced by a flat amount equal to 2% of your HP, stacking up to 10 times. Effect ends when Blood Price ends.
Woe-eater: Heal self or target party member for 20% of their damage taken over the last 4 seconds.

• Oblation could be a decently natural fit for that earlier Blood Price, simply allowing it to be usable on allies and to have a further degree of timing flexibility, if we wished.

Making Blood Weapon Mildly More Interesting

Blood Weapon
Ability - 40s CD - 2 charges
Increases Blood Gauge by 10 and restores MP upon landing weaponskills or spells. Each attack landed additionally decreases your auto-attack and weaponskill recast delay by 8%.
This ability's duration and recast will not progress until your next successful weaponskill.
Duration: 12s

• As long one doesn't clip, this is guaranteed (largely by the second line in the description, which removes the loss of duration otherwise caused by the animation ICD, to get out 6 hits, ending with a 1.6s GCD. Variable, ramped-up speed can be fun.
• Alternatively, we can have Blood Weapon unlock Blood variants of various weaponskills, giving us a sexy "red combo" that we'll simply want to enter at such a time as to maximize ppgcd bonuses over the duration. That idea has already been given earlier in the thread, though, and I don't to be the one pushing ideas that others have thought out more thoroughly than I have. I will just note that you can find that interesting idea earlier in this thread.
• New: At 3 casts per 2 minutes, these 2 charges allow for a 40-second flex period per 2 minutes which better allows for DRK to deal with downtime.

Blood Weapon v2
Ability - 40s CD - 2 charges
Increases Blood Gauge by 10 and restores MP upon landing weaponskills or spells. Additionally, decreases your auto-attack and weaponskill recast delay by 12%.
This ability's duration and recast will not progress until your next successful weaponskill.
Duration: 12 seconds.

• Haste is fun. Not all CDs always lining up every time is also more fun than, well, there only being two gradations of action (burst-of-any-sort and lull-of-any-sort). The 12s duration also gives a true second spare at a 2.5s GCD.
• New: At 3 casts per 2 minutes, these 2 charges allow for a 40-second flex period per 2 minutes which better allows for DRK to deal with downtime.

Minor TBN Adjustments

The Blackest Night
Ability - 12s recast
Creates a barrier around target that absorbs damage totaling 25% of target's maximum HP.
Duration: 7s
The MP cost of your next Edge of Shadow or Flood of Shadow is reduced proportionately to half the barrier consumed or removed entirely if the barrier is fully consumed.

• The idea here is that MP remains a bottleneck enough to prevent more than 4 casts of TBN per minute. Given that, TBN is made slightly more flexible.
• Just a thought I hadn't seen brought up yet. See also Archwizard's ideas a few pages back as to tack-on effects that'd be decently fitting, potent, and interesting.

Some Further Intentional Desync (at least from the 60s bursts)

Carve and Spit
Ability - 40s recast - 2 charges
Delivers a threefold attack with a potency of 510 and heals you.
Additional Effect: Restores MP
Cure Potency: 300.
Shares a recast timer with Abyssal Drain.

• That's it. Just a recast timer change. You'll still get it on your 2-minutes, but there's a bit more to track and hit between those full raid buffs.
• New: Having 2 charges allows for a 40-second flex period per 2 minutes in non-NIN comps without losing any bonus damage. This flexibility should also help to exploit the attached cure potency.

Currently working on leveling tanks now.
I dreaded leveling DRK (from Lv30) during ShB.
And the feeling is the same now in EW.

Always feel I'm at the mercy of my healer. Abyssal Drain just sucks so bad.
It's the only tank that I use Trust to level because I don't feel confident enough to run the at-level dungeons with it.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Carve and Spit
Ability - 40s recast
Delivers a threefold attack with a potency of 510.
Additional Effect: Restores MP
Shares a recast timer with Abyssal Drain.

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I'd also recommend adding a ~500p "Restores HP" effect to it and bumping the potency of AD to at least 170p/target (or 220p to main target with 30% falloff), if they're going to continue sharing a CD.
Possibly putting them on charges instead of a desynched CD.

As for the rest of your suggestions... I understand that you're trying to come up with unique and creative tools, but you have to remember that sometimes things need to be simplified for the sake of the players, and existing systems like barriers, life drain and flat percentage mitigation effects already can cover things like Blood & Steel or Shadowskin while being more palatable to/recognizable by most players.

Also, the "reaping" aspect of Blood for Blood is both
A) Stepping on the toes of RPR (I know DRK had it first with Sole Survivor, but it was dropped years ago and admittedly doesn't really fit the job's own aesthetic anyway -- more Death Knight than Dark Knight).
B) What we call a "ribbon": there for flavor, but kinda pointless in encounters such as most trials and 8-man raids, unless you're banking on your allies dying for small heals.
... plus as you have listed, our self-healing is limited to 3 attacks and maybe Woe-eater.

DRK is crappy. At least in dungeons, I think in raids it will be aight to play. However understand the frustrations of players here tbh.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Shadowskin

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I really like this Idea, it is a way more fitting way for DRK to deal with incoming damage than TBN which is just a overglorified Shield.

As for Bloodprice, the way it works is also really good, but i think it would be better if it had the reverse effect instead. Like, when it is active you get a stack of Blood and Steel everytime you get hit which grants you MP, up to, say, 5 stacks. Once you reach 5 stacks, you gain another Buff which replaces the Stacks which we will just call Bloodprice for now, which will convert any damage taken for its duration, to your Manapool instead of your HP until it goes dry.

On the matter on Lifesteal effects on DRK, i think it would be way better it Bloodweapon would be the only way for DRK to get this effect, BUT one of the mitigation tools should have in a similar way on how Holy Sheltron/Bloodwhetting/HoC works, if you get hit during the 4sec "parry" window, you get either the Bloodweapon effect granted, or it resets the CD of it.

I've been leveling tanks finally this xpac, and man DRK needs some love in the way to defense. I feel like wet paper. I understand wanting to have "magic defense" as a niche, but practically speaking it level DRK is a poor position when running dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Navnav

DRK is crappy. At least in dungeons, I think in raids it will be aight to play. However understand the frustrations of players here tbh.

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All could be fixed with unlinking ad and c&s and making ad a GCD w/cost. Won’t make it op in raids either... I’m not sure what the hold up is with this change.

Thinking on it, they should probably remove TBN from the MP cost and remove its free Edge/Flood. Instead, make it so TBN has an HoT on it, and shattering it burst heals you for the remaining potency. This changes the move into something you don't care whether it pops or not, you're getting healed by it the same regardless.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Thinking on it, they should probably remove TBN from the MP cost and remove its free Edge/Flood. Instead, make it so TBN has an HoT on it, and shattering it burst heals you for the remaining potency. This changes the move into something you don't care whether it pops or not, you're getting healed by it the same regardless.

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Maybe they should let DRK equip Axes too