DRK fix: reduce oGCDs, Delirium>Power Slash, more self-sustain, add life-steal to LD

My DRK fix is the best.

Shadowbringer: Build charges with every Flood/Edge/Abyssal Drain (see below), kept track of with our job gauge. After three, the next Flood is upgraded to Shadowbringer, costs no MP, and does not consume Dark Arts. (Removes one button, and two double-weaves from our opener.)

Delirium: Instead of 3 stacks of Bloodspiller/Quietus, give 3 stacks which upgrade our melee combo skill potency, add AoE damage comparable to Quietus, and replace the animations with oldschool Scourge > Spinning Slash > Power Slash (with flashier effects?). Could swap out Spinning Slash with oldschool Delirium or another cool animation.

Abyssal Drain: Costs 3000MP, shares CD with Flood/Edge. Potency reduced to 120. Heal remains the same. Essentially oldschool Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain.

Oblation: Becomes a permanent buff like Kardion. When target receives TBN, damage taken is reduced by 10% for 10s, and when TBN shield breaks from damage, the target and the DRK (if not the target) receive a 200p, 15s HoT.

Living Dead: 200% personal damage > health when Walking Dead is up. With current health and damage values, this will usually be enough to save yourself. We'll still die if we don't have uptime, but it's cool and thematic. Only nerds would complain.

Reasons:
Building towards Shadowbringer makes it more interesting than a simple one-minute cooldown, and adds extra satisfaction to each use of Flood/Edge. Delirium is boring - this makes it more interesting, and brings back some of our favorite animations. Together, this should solve the problem of our dull rotation.

DRKs are too squishy in dungeons. DA+AD back in the day was really satisfying, and is a good way to keep us alive on big dungeon pulls. Oblation feels weak and annoying to use as a co-tank ability alongside TBN; why shouldn't it be a simple upgrade to TBN, like all other lvl82 tank skills?

Finally... why are we the only tank that has to rely on a healer to survive our ult? Saving ourselves by ripping into the enemy is perfect for DRK.

I actually think the Abyssal Drain would be a nice and easy change. It would not affect 8-mans at all and make AoE tanking a bit more interesting, I don't think you need to reduce the potency either, since it is already a DPS loss over Flood.

200% life leech is nuts, so no. But 400 potency per GCD would be nice and help the healers top us off. The invulnerability should last full 10 seconds too. When you reach 1 HP you should receive Walking Dead and something like Undying Fortitude. The latter always lasts 10 seconds and makes you unable to die, Walking Dead is what kills you if it's not cleansed.

Blood Weapon should have stacks.

And I'm all for reducing the oGCD bloat by whatever means necessary.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ShinShimon

Abyssal Drain: Costs 3000MP, shares CD with Flood/Edge. Potency reduced to 120. Heal remains the same. Essentially oldschool Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain.

---

I. . . I don't hate this at all.

And when TBN pops, it can come off CD so you can do a TBN / AD rotation on large pulls.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ShinShimon

My DRK fix is the best.

Shadowbringer: Build charges with every Flood/Edge/Abyssal Drain (see below), kept track of with our job gauge. After three, the next Flood is upgraded to Shadowbringer, costs no MP, and does not consume Dark Arts. (Removes one button, and two double-weaves from our opener.)

Delirium: Instead of 3 stacks of Bloodspiller/Quietus, give 3 stacks which upgrade our melee combo skill potency, add AoE damage comparable to Quietus, and replace the animations with oldschool Scourge > Spinning Slash > Power Slash (with flashier effects?). Could swap out Spinning Slash with oldschool Delirium or another cool animation.

Abyssal Drain: Costs 3000MP, shares CD with Flood/Edge. Potency reduced to 120. Heal remains the same. Essentially oldschool Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain.

Oblation: Becomes a permanent buff like Kardion. When target receives TBN, damage taken is reduced by 10% for 10s, and when TBN shield breaks from damage, the target and the DRK (if not the target) receive a 200p, 15s HoT.

Living Dead: 200% personal damage > health when Walking Dead is up. With current health and damage values, this will usually be enough to save yourself. We'll still die if we don't have uptime, but it's cool and thematic. Only nerds would complain.

Reasons:
Building towards Shadowbringer makes it more interesting than a simple one-minute cooldown, and adds extra satisfaction to each use of Flood/Edge. Delirium is boring - this makes it more interesting, and brings back some of our favorite animations. Together, this should solve the problem of our dull rotation.

DRKs are too squishy in dungeons. DA+AD back in the day was really satisfying, and is a good way to keep us alive on big dungeon pulls. Oblation feels weak and annoying to use as a co-tank ability alongside TBN; why shouldn't it be a simple upgrade to TBN, like all other lvl82 tank skills?

Finally... why are we the only tank that has to rely on a healer to survive our ult? Saving ourselves by ripping into the enemy is perfect for DRK.

---

Seems like it would be an easy enough change for now and much better than whay we currently have - seems very similar to SB DRK, which i didn’t hate at the end, was just gimped but it’s frequency of dark arts use and the lack of functional sustain options in single target (somewhat fixed by sole survivor post 4.3) sustain would appreciate something in line with scourge, spinning, pwr, but way more flashy if it’s going to be something special.

All in all I like where your head is at

Quote:

---

Abyssal Drain: Costs 3000MP, shares CD with Flood/Edge. Potency reduced to 120. Heal remains the same. Essentially oldschool Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain.

---

This is brilliant. Though I would think the potency doesn't need to be changed. Losing all that survivability in dungeons back in the day felt bad. Feels even worse now that Warriors literally don't need a healer for dungeons at all. Would be nice to gain some of that survivability back.
Perhaps paired with Soul Survivor making a return it would help even the playing field a bit for dungeons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ShinShimon

Oblation: Becomes a permanent buff like Kardion. When target receives TBN, damage taken is reduced by 10% for 10s, and when TBN shield breaks from damage, the target and the DRK (if not the target) receive a 200p, 15s HoT.

---

This would make it harder to pop TBN in content like Expert Roulette, all while turning an enjoyably active and flexible skill... into a passive and reducing the freedom of TBN targeting. It's also not at all where I'd want my self-healing. Not a fan.

In terms of self-healing, I'd much rather, for instance, see Bloodspiller open up a lifesteal window since it's more bankable and wouldn't constrain our TBN usage.

Quote:

---

Living Dead: 200% personal damage > health when Walking Dead is up. With current health and damage values, this will usually be enough to save yourself. We'll still die if we don't have uptime, but it's cool and thematic. Only nerds would complain.

---

Guess I'm a nerd, then. I still don't like being unable to deal with a penalty that has no reason to exist anyways (since it makes LD shorter than Holmgang despite having a considerably longer CD) before downtime in which I can't attack or losing my death prevention early just because I'm in my burst window and topped myself in only a few GCDs. Just axe the Doom component entirely.

Quote:

---

Delirium: Instead of 3 stacks of Bloodspiller/Quietus, give 3 stacks which upgrade our melee combo skill potency, add AoE damage comparable to Quietus, and replace the animations with oldschool Scourge > Spinning Slash > Power Slash (with flashier effects?). Could swap out Spinning Slash with oldschool Delirium or another cool animation.

Abyssal Drain: Costs 3000MP, shares CD with Flood/Edge. Potency reduced to 120. Heal remains the same. Essentially oldschool Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain.

---

I like these.

Quote:

---

Shadowbringer: Build charges with every Flood/Edge/Abyssal Drain (see below), kept track of with our job gauge. After three, the next Flood is upgraded to Shadowbringer, costs no MP, and does not consume Dark Arts. (Removes one button, and two double-weaves from our opener.)

---

Pretty 'meh' on this one, as I like being able to track Shadowbringer right alongside Blood Weapon and Delirium, but I also play at low ping, so take that with a grain of salt.