[Shadowbringers] 5.0 DRK: Take five, leave five.

With the announcement of the new expansion, there's a lot of discussion on how the existing jobs will change in 5.0. One of the biggest influencing factors will be the introduction of new actions between level 70-80.


Unfortunately, the addition of new actions often comes along with the removal of old ones, due to hotbar space limitations. Barring the introduction of a new system designed to combat action bloat while retaining old skills (such as job-based skill/talent trees which let you choose between optional actions), we're likely going to be giving up some actions in the process.

As of Stormblood, DRK has fewer job actions (25) than any other tank (one less than WAR (26), and three less than PLD (28)), so there is an argument for removing fewer actions from DRK. But let's consider the worst case scenario.

You can add any five actions that you want. But you have to leave five behind. What do you add, and what do you discard?

Discard:
1. Unleash: This ability becomes redundant once you get Abyssal Drain at level 56. If you dropped Abyssal Drain down to level 6, it could replace Unleash.
2. Blood Price: The Grit lock isn't doing this ability any favours, and the devs seem to be struggling to balance the amount of resources that it generates.
3. Darkside: This could be converted to a trait. MP regeneration occurs when there are no active mobs (including when the boss goes untargetable to perform a special attack), and stops when there is a targetable mob in combat.

Alternatives:
1. Blood Weapon: This could be merged with Delirium to free up a hotbar slot.
2. Spinning Slash: We don't use enmity combos all that much, and this is largely a filler step to get to Power Slash. Why not branch Power Slash directly off of Hard Slash?
3. Grit: This is a fairly complex issue, discussed here. Can you redesign the tanks such that tank stance is no longer needed? If so, you'd free up a hotbar slot here.
4. Dark Mind: This is one that I'd hate to see go because of how powerful it is, but I think the whole "physical tank, magical tank" concept is a bit outdated.

Ideas for Additions:
1. Dread Spikes/Wraithform: Any time you deal damage or are hit by an enemy for the next X seconds, you recover a portion of the damage back as HP. Your actions generate additional enmity. Gives you that purple flames aura that we've been asking for.
2. Backstep/Reverse Cut: 10 yalm backstep. Resets the recast timer on Plunge.
3. Runic Blade: Absorbs a portion of the damage from the next enemy spell, converting it to MP.
4. Shadowbringer/Omnislash: Every time you activate a Dark Arts enhanced action under the effect of Blood Weapon/Delirium, you gain a stack. Using this ability consumes all stacks and removes the effect of Blood Weapon/Delirium. For every stack consumed this way, you perform an additional slash for X potency. You also deal Y potency based on the remaining time on Blood Weapon.

What other possibilities are there? You could upgrade an existing action with an new trait. Living Dead is a good candidate for a rework. I'd also be interested in seeing "counter-attack" abilities to be used following a big boss hit, like Reflect or Minus Strike. I left out potencies deliberately, because that's a balancing issue.

I just threw a few ideas out there quickly, but it'll be really interesting to see what the devs come up with.

Warrior only have 22 actions (plus role actions) on their bar though, 3 swap depending on stance and Inner Release upgrades Berserk.

I agree with discarding Darkside, it's pointless these days.

Abyssal Drain could just replace Unleash once you reach the level it's obtained at.

Just in general, they could deal with the button bloat by not only removing skills and adding new ones, but "upgrading" the ones you have to something fancier and more powerful.

See the combo skill in Pvp? Add that and you use two slot instead of five. You can then use more skill without or less remove

Unleash is essential for low level play, they cant afford to get rid of that or it will be unplayable for new players or when synced down.
They could have it auto-upgrade to Abyssal Drain though like thunder/aero etc.

Blood Price is essential when in Grit, if anything they should merge Blood Price and Blood Weapon. They're used exclusively in or out of Grit respectively, and do the same thing but from different perspectives, one is receiving hits in tank stance, the other is dealing hit in dps stance.

Make Darkside a trait, nothing more to say about that.
There, weve saved three already.

I dont think we necessarily need five more skills from 70-80. Because button bloat is going to be an issue for all jobs, i think a better course if action would be to only add maybe 2 new skills, and provide other upgrades via traits that change the function of existing skills.

I like the proposed Runic Blade snd Shadowbringer though. Should definitely get stuff like that.

Naoki Yoshida was always looking how to make tank... Well... True tank... Perhaps it's time to add more traits that make tank stance rewarding when actually tanking monster or bosses

Darkside trait

blood weapon/price merge

PvP combo buttons for both SE and PS.

Oh, and make nu-bloodprice/weapon a 60 second cooldown with the perks of Delirium built in, exactly in the same way how berserk and inner release were built into a single 90 second cooldown. BW is a 40 second cooldown, delirium is an 80 second cooldown. Berserk was 1 min, IR was 2 minute, but combined resulted into an average of 90 seconds, and that's how I arrived at a 60 second BW cooldown.

boom, right there you freed up 7 buttons without sacrificing anything DRK currently has.

I will go a little farther and not only put what I think is / should be culled / added but what I'd like to see modified.

Actions Culled

1. Blood Price
2. Blood Weapon

These are removed as their own individual actions, instead becoming fundamental parts of Grit and Dark Side. Their function in the current kit will not change overmuch, but they are still being 'removed'.

Edit - On further consideration

Black Blade and Dark Mind existing together steps on each other toes while also expanding the Dark Knight's kit against magic damage to a nigh broken degree. Of the two, Black Blade simply offers more.

3. Dark Mind

Actions modified

1. Dark Side

Rather than be Gritless, Dark Side is the de-facto Not-Tanking stance. The two are exclusive from each other. The Dark Knight builds blood and MP by dealing damage with weaponskills.

The Dark Knight's attack speed is increased, ranging from 5% to 15%, with the highest bonus attainable when over 75% maximum HP.

Upon activating Dark Side, the Dark Knight delivers a cleaving strike to all enemies in front of them.

2. Grit

Grit is the de facto Tank stance. Grit's prior bonuses do not change, still granting increased damage reduction and increased threat generation. Grit will no longer inherently reduce damage dealt.

Grit Dark Knights build blood and MP primarily by taking damage.

While in Grit, the Dark Knight gains increased parry chance and increased parry strength.

Upon activating Grit, the Dark Knight drains health from all enemies around them.

3. Unleash

Instead of removing certain abilities, we trait them, removing the need for level swapping, while adding a more tangible sense of progression. (While Abyssal Drain is superior, Unleash serves the purpose until it's gotten.)

With this in mind.

Upgrade Path

Unleash (Level 6) -> Unmend (Level 15 trait) -> Abyssal Drain (Level 54 (or wherever it was) Trait))

Unleash is modified thus-
Dark Arts: Gain the damage dealt as health.
Unmend: Unleash, when an enemy is targeted, additionally sends out a ranged bolt of energy at the target in addition to current effects.
Abyssal Drain: Unleash, in addition to current effects, now also deals the ranged damage in an AoE around it.

Animation change
Unleash: Unchanged
Unmend: Abyssal Drain's motion, Unmend's spell effect
Abyssaldrain: Unmend's motion, Drain's spell effect.

I didn't count this as removal as it just makes more sense from the angle of ability progression. In this same manner, Warrior's Brutal Swing should have more gracefully transitioned into Upheaval.

4. Sole Survivor

Gains a trait in the 61-70 range. Soul Drain. Drains 30% of the Dark Knight's maximum health from the target. May be activated early to gain the health immediately, but do damage and drain MP proportional to the time left.

5. Delirium

Recast: 120
Effect: You gain the MP and Blood generation of either Dark Side or Grit, whichever is not active, for 20 seconds.

Actions added

1. Black Blade

Blackblade - Ability
Recast: 45 seconds
Effect: Raise your blade for 3 seconds, parrying the next attack flung against you. Blackblade enables parry against Magic damage.

Dark Side: Blackblade deals a retaliatory strike for 220 potency and increases the attack speed bonus of Dark Side by 100% for 10 seconds.

Grit: Blackblade deals 120 magic potency to enemies around you and increases parry rate to 100% for the next 2 attacks against you.

Vita In Morte

Vita In Morte
Spell
Cost: 50 Blood
Effect: Grant yourself 100% Life Drain and 25% increased MP returns for 20 seconds.

Shadowblade

Shadowblade
Ability
Recast: 45
Effect: Mimics your last used weaponskill at the target, dealing 100 potency and applying any additional effects that were present.

Dark Side: Shadowblade counts as a weapon skill and deals the damage over two separate strikes.
Grit: Shadowblade's cooldown is reduced each time you parry.

Reprisal

Reprisal
Ability
Channeled - 15 seconds
60s Recast
Effect: Reflect attacks taken for 30 potency while channeling. Moving or using another action to resolve Reprisal causes it to deal 100 potency to enemies around you. Each time you take damage, Reprisal's final potency increases by 10.

Dark Arts: Reflected attacks have 100% life drain. Final potency increases by 20 each time you take damage.

Dark Side: Reprisal counts as a weapon skill.
Grit: Gain the damage dealt as healing. Overhealing converts into a shield, up to 20% of maximum health.

Scourge

Scourge
Weaponskill
Recast: 1.5 seconds
Effect: Strikes twice for 75 potency. Marks the target for execution for 30 seconds. Scourge's potency increases by 15 against the target every 3 seconds. Using Scourge again resets the bonus.

Scourge must follow Bloodspiller, Quietus or a Combo Finisher.

Dark Arts: Scourge strikes one additional time.

Dark Side: Scourge's duration increases by 15 seconds.
Grit: Scourge applies at half damage for all enemies around the primary target.

Button Economy - 5 removed, 5 added.

I don't think Dark Knight's real estate is nearly taken up yet to the point that we'd have to sacrifice useful abilities. Nor does it especially need much new. I think it just needs to make far better use of what it has.

Surrounding Changes Assumed:

• Role Actions Removed, sparing Dark Knight 6 actions worth of low-value skills. Dark Knight now gains only Shadowskin, Low Blow, Reprisal, and Wordless Command. (-6)
• TP and MP consolidated. This changes nothing for DRK except that it can no longer consume or therefore run out of TP. Weaponskills will not consume MP. Effects previously like Goad (wholly revised), Tactician, Spire, Ewer, and Refresh combined.
• Context: With the removal of TP, all jobs that previously used TP instead use it for some additional mechanic or as a means of allowing their weaponskills to be used without their requisite combos, but at increasingly higher cost per step skipped. These purely physical jobs begin with 500 TP, and may use that amount to add flexibility to their rotations. Players regenerate 50 TP per GCD. Openers are unchanged, but each step beyond now has a significant, but still reduced combo-less potency (e.g. 200, down from 250, for Vorpal Thrust), and will consume 50 to 100 TP for one step skipped, and 100 to 200 for two steps skipped, with potency further reduced (e.g. FT 350, down from 450; CT 230+300, down from 280+350). Thus, a DRG opening straight into HT (free), CT (200), CT (200), Db (100) to DoT two mobs and begin focusing a third would have already drained the full amount of his flexibility. DRG and only DRG retains Invigorate, giving the job with the most inflexible combo structure the greatest means by which to break from it if necessary.
• Physical MP classes such as Dark Knight can still combo-skip, but, as their mana is valuable for other reasons, this is not recommended.
• Now that in most cases Area-of-Effect skills no longer have necessarily increased cost over Single-Target skills, all single target skills that appear to cleave multiple target now match their appearance in their effect. Those most changed by this adjustment tend to have proportionate cost to their cleave. Spinning Slash is especially significant among these, costing up to greater amounts than Abyssal Drain when striking very high target counts.
• A generic Cleave formula has been added to the game. All skills which Cleave now state simply "Cleave: <factor>". The factor entails how much of the original damage they maintain with each additional target affected. An AoE with Cleave: 100, would simply do potency*n damage total. Values below 100 are more complicated, dealing damage equally across all enemies struck from a total of 100% potency + (100% + Factor%)/2 + [(100+Factor%)/2 + (100% + Factor%)/2)*Factor%)/2]... etc., each step averaged with the one before but approaching, multiplicatively, the given factor. A 100-potency of <Cleave: 60> would deal 100/80/64/51.2/40.1... potency with each additional enemy, which would be totaled and evenly spread. Most cleave factors range between 90 and 70.
• Accuracy reworked. Accuracy is now granular, not bimodal (hit or miss). Rather than damage varying +/- 5%, Accuracy now does, with damage or damage bonus (from excess Accuracy) rapidly falling off from "normal" damage as if situated on a normal bell curve. If more than half the damage is lost, the attack is counted as a miss and the enemy is awarded a dodge proc.
• Evasion and Parry reworked. These now instead directly sabotage enemy Accuracy. Parry is calculated using your own Accuracy against theirs before inflicting the Parry value to diminish enemy Accuracy, and is thereby diminished by Blinds or of course Stuns. Evasion, on the other hand, saps enemy accuracy automatically, but can be nullified with Binds and of course Stuns. This is especially important for Dark Knight, who again makes use of Evasion, but in a bigger and more significant way.
• Block reworked. It now additionally nullifies a portion of enemy attack power before acting like parry, making it stronger against weak attacks while still otherwise functioning with the same exact strength as before against stronger hits. This will also be important for Dark Knight's revised Shadowskin mechanic.

Abilities Discarded/Condensed:

• Role Actions removed. (-10)
• Blood Weapon/Blood Price - Revised. Shared hotkey. Cooldown not shared; both cooldowns are instead shown on a single slot wherein the outer cooldown represents the skill currently available by stance (Grit or lack of Grit). (-11)
• Unleash/Abyssal Drain - Revised. Combined. AoE now circles self and target. Dark Arts adds 140 potency split over all enemies. (-12)
• Delirium - Revised. No longer has a cooldown of its own. Now replaces Blood Weapon or Blood Price upon their respective activation. (-13)
• Dark Arts - Revised. Now a trait. Reuse the would-be affected skill during its animation to bolster it. To change Carve and Spit from a mana-generator to a mana-spender, just hit the key again during its animation. To add 140 potency to Souleater, hit the skill again while it's in its animation. Each animation will now be slightly augmented for its Dark Arts version. The former animation will be given instead to any duration ability which could be augmented by Dark Arts, such as Dark Mind or Dark Dance. Shadowskin and Shadow Wall may also make use of Dark Arts but use unique secondary animations. This secondary effect trigger and process are called its Shadow and Shadowing, respectively. This is not to be confused with your "Shades", which can be split off from you during Shadowskin in order to focus enemies towards a former location while moving to safety, or can be unleashed for additional damage during Dark Passenger or Carve and Spit. (-14)
• Living Dead - Consolidated. Now a trait called Dying Breath attached to Dark Dance, allowing Dark Dance to prevent would-be fatal damage once per 5 minutes, creating a healing-absorption debuff based on the would-be fatal damage (to a maximum of 1 HP short of the Dark Knight's maximum HP), which must be cleansed by outhealing the debt to prevent death from occurring after 10 seconds. Once the trait is triggered, it will create a debuff lasting 5 minutes called Living Dead, during which time Dying Breath cannot trigger again. (-15)

Abilities Returned:

• Shadowskin - Revised. No longer a Rampart equivalent. Now a central mechanic. (-14)
• Dark Dance - Revised. No longer a simple parry buff. Still synergizes with Low Blow and Reprisal. (-13)
• Reprisal - Slightly revised. Still a reactive, but no longer necessarily parry based. (-12)
• Low Blow - Returned alongside its old reset mechanic. (-11)
• Scourge - Revised. Still a DoT of sorts, but synergizes with certain other skills. Now cleaves. (-10)
• Wordless Command* - In place of Provoke. "Provokes the enemy, increasing your enmity to the highest among those engaged with the target." (-9)

New Skills

• Deathgrip - Allows Unmend to be Shadowed, drawing the enemy to you. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Nightgrasp - Allows Salted Earth to be Shadowed, drawing enemies into Salted Earth and gripping them with dark tendrils. May be Shadowed a third time to detonate the effect. Detonation cost decreased with remaining duration on Nightgrasp buff, which replaces Salted Earth upon its Shadow. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Schadenfreude - Allows Dark Mind to be further Shadowed, causing your negative effects against enemies to affect you in the inverse, positive direction when attacking or attacked by them. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Nightfall - Allows Dark Dance to be further Shadowed, spreading darkness over all enemies within 25 yards, reducing their Accuracy the closer they are to you to a maximum effect at within 8 yalms. This coexists with, but does not stack with, other Blind effects. While within Nightfall, your Shades may move instantly to any enemy you've debuffed by other means. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Life or Death - Allows Sole Survivor to be Shadowed, preventing fatal damage dealt by the target and increasing your damage by 20% and refunding 20% of your mana costs against the target. However, if you do not kill the target within the duration, you die. Once Life or Death is activated, the cooldown on Sole Survivor stops cooling, and the amount of time spent not cooling will be added to its recast time after the buff's depletion. (-9)

I can give the contexts for the changes if anyone's interested, but that's the portion relevant to button economy.

Button Economy - 15 hotkeys removed. 6 added. Net: 9 hotkeys condensed.
Skill Economy - 10 cross-class skills removed. Net 5 condensed. 6 skills re-added. 5 optional augmentations added. (You've traded 10 lackluster non-DRK skills for 9 DRK skills and 1 DRK-styled copy-paste skill.)