Quote:
Originally Posted by
SuSpence26
Yeah yeah another DRK rework post. I know it's a dead horse. To be clear, I enjoy the job! It's just bland right now. Curious to hear all of your two cents too!
* Lv.1/4/26 New Basic Combo
* Hard Slash/Spinning Slash/Power Slash (old Delirium animation)
* No longer restores MP, Blood and HP by default.
* SS and PS become Syphon Strike and Souleater during Dark Arts respectively
This change is odd, and I know it's supposed to evoke the feeling of Stormblood DRK (I guess?) but this would be an entirely new mechanic or aesthetic for DRK that does not already exist. This was Machinist territory before they straight up changed that, and I doubt they're going to add it back in. Also, an attack being named 'power slash' but having the old, somewhat slow strike of Delirium would be kinda odd.
The fact that these combos don't give you MP by default is also a problem. I predict that when you die, or dump all your MP, you're going to be at the mercy of Blood Weapon to get it back.
Quote:
* Lv.35 Blood Weapon
* 40s CD
* Only affects weaponskills
* Costs 20 Blood Gauge
* duration is replaced with granting 5 stacks of Blood Weapon.
* Gains ability to increase Blood by 10 with trait at Lv. 66
Just make it Sks Blood Weapon dawg. Especially if it's going to cost me 2/5 of a Bloodspiller to use, there should be some sort of airy-fairy DPS gain to be had. At level 66 in this concept it's a net gain of only 30 Blood (and some MP, which you desperately need).
It does not help that since this has an initial cost, when you die you're peckered. You need to make it a full gcd combo to get blood weapon to get stacks that will eventually get you enough MP you desperately need in order to get your buffs back up and defensive CDs back online. Especially if you expect people are going to wanna use DA-TBN for some reason.
Quote:
* Lv.38 Dread Spikes
* 120s CD Ability
* Reduces damage taken by 30% and deals unaspected damage at 60 potency whenever you suffer physical damage
While I personally like counter-hit mechanics, and liked the WAR version, I think this is unnecessary. While I know people crow about tank homogeneity, giving one job an old version of another job's ability is again, odd.
Quote:
* Lv. 40 Dark Arts
* No longer a buff tied to TBN
* 5s CD Spell
* 1000 MP
* Grants the effect of Dark Arts, upgrades some weaponskills and enhances most spells.
* Fades upon execution of applicable skills
:cool:
Quote:
* Lv.40 Syphon Strike
* Dark Arts upgrade to Spinning Slash
* Restores 3000 MP (2000 MP gain)
Spending MP to get MP is awkward.
Quote:
* Lv. 45 Stalwart Soul
* No longer increases MP by default.
* Dark Arts Effect: Recover MP
Ditto.
Quote:
* Lv.50 Scourge (no JQ)
* 2.5 CD Weaponskill
* Costs 20 Blood Gauge
* Deals damage and inflicts 18s DoT
This can probably be designed to be the same as the Gunbreaker skill. Also I'm not sure why there's a blood requirement? Or it's an 18s DoT? Assuming it's optimal to maintain uptime, that has to be used every seven GCDs (well, Eight). That's pretty short for a DoT, and it could easily be a longer duration so that you have more blood to dump into bloodspillers.
Quote:
* Lv.50 Living Dead
* Now decreases maximum HP by 20% during Walking Dead, easing heal requirement
Increase healing potency instead.
Quote:
*Lv.54 Abyssal Drain
* 2.55s CD Spell
* 2000 MP
* Same dmg and heal as now
* Dark Arts Effect: Increase healing potency to 400
Why is the GCD longer than a natural GCD?
Quote:
* Lv.56 Carve and Spit
* Now a Weaponskill that doesn't share other CDs
Why?
Quote:
* Lv.60 Shadow Wall
* 15s CD Spell
* 2000 MP
* 20% damage barrier for 6s
* Dark Arts Effect: 25% damage barrier for 7s
* Becomes TBN at Lv.70 with the Shadow Wall Mastery trait
That's one ridiculously expensive dark arts effect. People didn't like DA-DM in HW if they could avoid it, and that was for a substantially larger % gain.
Quote:
* Lv.68/78 Dark Missionary/Mind
* Missionary 60s CD
* Mind 90s CD but 30% magic defense
??? I'm rife with confusion. Is Dark Missionary getting a 30s CD reduction as a raid-wide mitigation tool? Is Dark Mind an upgrade for it? A Side-grade? Is it Stormblood Dark mind? Because these are grouped together like they share some sort of similar function, but there's no way that's your intention.
Quote:
Lv.70 TBN
* 15s CD Spell
* 2000 MP
* 25% damage barrier for 7s
* Increase Blood Gauge by 50 if barrier is broken
* Dark Arts Effect: Extends Darkside by 30s (60s max) if broken
DA effect seems prohibitively expensive. A DA nets you at least 140p if used on its own, and FoS extends the effect of Darkside anyways. Why DATBN when you can just use regular TBN and DA a Syphon Strike and use FoS. Sure, DATBN saves you from using FoS, but you're using your MP for damage anyways?
Say you need to re-up Darkside. If I DATBN I refresh it, and have 1k mana left over, which I can use with another DA to deal some additional damage. If I don't DATBN, I have the entire 2k to spend, and I can FoS to deal damage (Maybe even AoE damage!) and re-up all the same. If FoS has the same value as a DA, then I've used the same amount of MP and done the same amount of damage single-target. If it's 300p to 140p, then it's more than twice as good.
Quote:
* Lv.80 Living Shadow
* Now also ups Darkside's dmg increase to 20% for duration
* potency and duration adjusted for removal of EoD/EoS
Adding a 24s 20% damage buff to DRK (kinda) on a 2 minute CD? Eh, why not lol.
I feel like I know why you're going the direction you're going with this re-design, I just think the grab-bag is a bit too deep here. There's a combination of retrieving old mechanics, adjusting (or just re-implementing) them, as well as taking some ideas from other jobs. I think what this would inevitably feel like is Stormblood DRK without BW (the GCD reduction I mean). You'd be awash in MP, burning it on FoS and DA-SS, struggling to burn it all when Blood Weapon came up if you had to weave while making rough love to the FoS button. It's certainly different then how it works now (in a way), but it would definitely be reminiscent of SB.
If that's what you want, that's perfectly fine. I had few deep-seated issues with SB DRK aside from the fact that LD was on a silly-long CD (and still is) for what it does.