Dark Knight Idea thread: Suggestions

These are suggestions I would make to change the Dark Knight class, these are not something I would ask to change all at once, but these are to make the class more fun altogether and more practical compared to other tanks. Right now I believe they are unpowered compared to both Paladin and Warrior for plainly obvious reasons.

I stayed with the life-tap theme, however I also added some penalties to the abilities. Giving them a more unique flavor altogether.

Darkside:
Remove the Aura effect altogether and replace it to something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGw_fqmzfgA&t=0m25s
Give it a health cost instead of MP cost.

Reprisal:
Lower cooldown to 15 seconds.
Lower potency to 160.

Blood Price:
Sacrifice 15% of your life over time for its duration.
Restore 50% of your mana over time for its duration.
Instant Cast, 40 second cool-down.

Blood Weapon:
Sacrifice 15% of your life over time for its duration.
Increases attack speed by 15% and converts physical damage dealt into MP.
Can now be used with Grit.
Instant Cast, 40 second cool-down.

Dark Arts:
Additionally removes the damage penalty of Grit for the ability your using "Dark Arts" with.

Shadow Wall:
Reduces damage taken by 30% and restore own HP with a potency of 50 every time you suffer physical damage for 15s.
Instant Cast, 120 second cool-down.

Salted Earth:
Creates a patch of salted earth at your feet, dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 100 to any enemies who enter and restore own HP with a potency of 75 for each foe hit.

Dark Mind:
Gain the ability to block.
Modifies Block Rate by 4*level: 240 at level 60.
Modifies Block Strength by 10*level: 600 at level 60.
Dark Arts +:Additionally gain a dark shield which prevents damage.
Duration: 15 seconds.
Instant Cast, 60 second cool-down.

Living Dead
Duration: Forever.
Yes, it is now a death prevent. =)
Ofc, you still die if your not healed fully.

Souleater
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Syphon Strike, Combo Potency: 260
Dark Arts Potency: 240
Dark Arts Combo Potency: 400
Grit Effect: Absorbs 100%(200%) of damage dealt as HP.
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

Power Slash
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Additional Effect: Increased enmity
Combo Action: Spinning Slash
Combo Potency: 300
Dark Arts Combo Potency: 400
Dark Arts Additional Effect: Forces target to target you for 3 seconds.

Carve and Spit
Reduced cool-down to 16 seconds from 60.
Delivers a threefold attack with a potency of 75. Also restores MP if used while not under the effect of Dark Arts.
Dark Arts Potency: 250
Dark Arts fades upon execution.

Sole Survivor:
Guards the target while it remains within 20y. While active, the target takes 5% less damage and generates less enmity and you gain 10% base parry when you are near the guarded target. Requires Grit. Cannot be used on players using Grit Stance, Shield Oath, or Defiance.
Cool-down: 120 seconds.
Duration: Forever.
Cast Time: Instant.

If the target dies you gain a buff called "Vengeance" which increases damage done substantially whilst also increasing enmity gain.
Duration: 10 seconds.

i love drk.. only thing I'm having trouble with which is not un common is it makes it really hard to hold agro when your getting dps attacking diff things ps4 is a pain to number and target some times… being every thing based on mp with and the mp drain with dark side i find my self spending a lot of time trying to recoup mp in case i loose agro and then for the next mob if any thing its a little excessive to have us drain so much mp..

I know a lot will say manage your mp … I DO and i can run through any of the new dungeons very well and I've got a good rotation that keeps me set up for the next mob etc and dark side active the whole run BUT one to many dps attack diff things etc or the odd mistake even if a enemy dies to quick and its all to shit

so just a little less mp drain would be perfect to just make it not so unforgiving if dps decide to attack diff things or i make a mistake here and there.. other wise loving the class my alt account character is all classes to 50.. never really tanked much just now and then.. this expan 59 nearly 60 drk:)

not sure if its under powered but i do spend most time using skills to regen health and mp rather than just pure attack!!

and lets be honest how many times do ppl want to take a run slow …

That Aura is even more obnoxious then what you currently have...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ragnorak

That Aura is even more obnoxious then what you currently have...

---

Huh? I meant the animation. Not the Aura part, I don't want the weapon effect, just the animation. =P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

These are suggestions I would make to change the Dark Knight class, these are not something I would ask to change all at once, but these are to make the class more fun altogether and more practical compared to other tanks. Right now I believe they are unpowered compared to both Paladin and Warrior for plainly obvious reasons.

Darkside:
Remove the Aura effect altogether and replace it to something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGw_fqmzfgA&t=0m25s
Give it a health cost instead of MP cost.

---

Counter intuitive for tanking to cost health instead of MP, especially if the skill is allowed to be used with Grit. Perhaps if it was turned into an off tank toggle, unable to be used with Grit, no cost of hp or mp, since an HP cost, no matter how you spin it, is not very smart on a tank, OT or MT

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Reprisal:
Lower cooldown to 15 seconds.
Lower potency to 160.

---

Hmm... perhaps. Not a bad suggestion. Same cooldown as Bloodletter, and it would be easier to refresh the debuff when tanking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Blood Price:
Sacrifice 15% of your life over time for its duration.
Restore 50% of your mana over time for its duration.
Instant Cast, 40 second cool-down.

---

Again, draining your HP for MP is counter intuitive for any tank. I'd suggest changing the skill to instead reduce damage received by 10% during the duration, convert the damage that was reduced into MP. This gives it a higher tactical skill, while also helping with damage reduction on things like tank busters when MT. Not as strong as Inner Beast with a longer effective cooldown, so it wouldn't be over powered. Can only be used while under Grit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Blood Weapon:
Sacrifice 15% of your life over time for its duration.
Increases attack speed by 15% and converts physical damage dealt into MP.
Can now be used with Grit.
Instant Cast, 40 second cool-down.

---

Again, counter intuitive for any tank to sacrifice HP. The current skill is quite alright as it is, however, for the sake of consistency with my comments on Dark Side, here's my suggestion. Reduce cooldown to 40 second, duration is 15 seconds like Blood Price. Can only be used while under the effect of Dark Side. Converts 10% of damage done into MP. Essentially a DPS equivalent to Blood Price.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Dark Arts:
Additionally removes the damage penalty of Grit for the ability your using "Dark Arts" with.

---

In crease cooldown to 30 seconds, and eliminate the MP cost of the skill. Allows the unleash of certain special aspects of certain skills, depending on your current stance.

Power Slash:
Grit: Increased Enmity
Dark Side: Lowers target's magical resistances by 5%, stacks with Foe Requiem, lasts 15 seconds

Soul Eater:
Grit: Lose the potency boost, absorb 200% of damage as healing instead of 100%
Dark Side: Potency boost to 400, recover 200 TP

Dark Passenger:
Grit: Blind targets hit for 15 seconds
Dark Side: Poison for 15 seconds, potency of 50

Dark Mind:
Grit: Increases potency to 30%
Dark Side: Increases the magic defense of surrounding allies by 15% for 10 seconds, 5 yalm radius

Abyssal Drain:
Grit: Absorb 100% of damage done
Dark Arts: +20% slow on all enemies hit, 20 second duration

Carve and Spit:
Grit: Restore MP
Dark Side: Potency increase to 450

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Shadow Wall:
Reduces damage taken by 30% and restore own HP with a potency of 50 every time you suffer physical damage for 15s.
Instant Cast, 120 second cool-down.

---

I like this... but I would keep the 10 second duration, for balancing purposes. Healing is not the same as damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Salted Earth:
Creates a patch of salted earth at your feet, dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 75 to any enemies who enter and restore own HP with a potency of 75 for each foe hit.

---

Too much self healing now. This is nearly equivalent to the WHM's new buff. If you need it at your feet, fine, remove the healing though. The skill that it was was fine honestly for someone who uses a third party macro system to activate and place with one button.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Dark Mind:
Completely absorb the next magical hit and instead heal fully for its damage.
Duration: 30 seconds, removed when hit with a magical attack.
Dark Arts +: Gain a dark shield when used with Dark Arts.
Instant Cast, 60 second cool-down.

---

Ummm... I see this being abused with skills like Raven's Accent, or Ahk Morn. Refer to my suggestion above.

Well, the thing is you are right. However you also said: "To much self healing" yet you don't add my skills that kill you with those skills. Yes, you kill yourself, but you also heal yourself.

I agree 100x, but you have to see where i'm trying to drag this.

Its not counter intuitive for a tank to sacrifice HP, Shadow Knights were very successful tanks in the Everquest Series, one and two. Necromancer pets with a similar (yet less of) the mechanic were also successful. You just can't use the abilities at the wrong times, you use them when your topped off.

Its ok to sacrifice health as long as your getting something like mana which can be used for defense. The more mana you have the more abilities you can use to help you survive.

You should not need a third party program to fix an ability or play the game, IMO.

Too many times have I seen people, tanks especially, live by just a sliver of HP left after taking a bit hit, or multiple of them.

Now imagine a Drk having to use that HP just to use a certain skill.

It may work for a DPS, but it wont work for a Tank. Not in a game like this.

Blood Price, in its current form is really only a a useful mp return if you are pulling 3+ mobs in dungeons. Maybe this is me misunderstanding the game, who knows. At that, this whole class is a misunderstanding with its current mechanics.

MP was the correct choice in "draining resources" that said though, there are too many mp "drains" so to speak. Why should DRKs have to monitor MP + mechanics + all the other things PLD/WAR do to do "okay"?

One last addition... Living Dead... Changes depending on Dark Arts or Grit.

Grit: Living - Death refuses your corrupted soul. If you should fall to 1 hp because of damage from most skills (No wipe mechanics) during the duration (10 seconds) of the Living Buff, you will be restored to 100% HP.
Dark Arts: Dead - Resurrect one party member from the grave to 50% hp. Should they accept this raise, they will be applied with the Living Dead buff for 10 seconds. If they are healed to full, they will remain alive. If their HP drops entirely during the buff's duration, or if they are not healed to full, they return to the dead state. No resurrection sickness will be applied if raised in this method.

Increase cool down to 420 seconds.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Snip

---

The more posts I see from you the more thankful I am that you had/have no influence on the design of this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rogandiamond

MP was the correct choice in "draining resources" that said though, there are too many mp "drains" so to speak. Why should DRKs have to monitor MP + mechanics + all the other things PLD/WAR do to do "okay"?

---

Because of the 3, Drk was probably intended to be the far more advanced tank in terms of doing well with it, which is good. You'll easily be able to tell a bad Drk and a good Drk apart, just like you could with War's, even more so now with the new things they've gotten.

They should stick with this, but fix the glaringly obvious problems the class has.

I just can't get with the idea of a tank dropping HP just for MP.. I can just see something like this killing a tank more then helping it

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ragnorak

I just can't get with the idea of a tank dropping HP just for MP.. I can just see something like this killing a tank more then helping it

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cutie_McSnuggles

The more posts I see from you the more thankful I am that you had/have no influence on the design of this game.

---

Ok let me explain this to you so you understand.

You sacrifice your health, to gain MP.
You sacrifice your health, to gain MP and attack speed.

You use MP, to use Dark Arts, to buff your spells to get health.
You use your spells and lifetaps to get more health then you sacrificed.
You use your spells in conjunction with other spells to not only fight the penalty but get over it.
You have to use your brain to make this work, if you don't use your brain it is just sacrificing HP.
However, if you combo it well you can get far more health then you sacrifice.
The concept, is one of the basic concepts of black in magic the gathering.
Sure, you sacrifice health. However you have lifetaps and many ways to get it back.
I don't see how that is so hard to understand.
Does that explain it pretty well, or should I say more?

How about this.

You sacrifice your health to gain attack speed, then pop Bloodbath. Simple combination right? Now your attacks are faster and they heal you. However because your attacks are healing you faster your getting rid of that penalty. Then you have a 4 more dark arts you can pop. Each dark arts version should out heal what damage you lost from the MP you gained.

I don't understand how that is hard to understand.

It is an interesting concept, it may sound counterproductive. However it is also counterproductive and suicidal to use "Inner Beast" for example, for no reason. Your killing yourself. Its the same with sacrifice mechanics, use them unwisely and your silly and stupid. Same concept, except instead of health you have to worry about cool-downs.

It. Is. Different. But. The. Same.

It is counterproductive to pop every single defensive cool-down you have. However, it is designed that you can actually do that. It is not recommended.

I guess Everquest is the only game so far which can make different concepts work and work well. I am trying to make things different, I don't want 3 of the same tank here. However, instead of spewing nonsense why not make a concept that works like the other posters. Mostly @cutie, reviewing is nice and all, but its not nice to say things like that without adding to the conversation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Ok let me explain this to you so you understand.

You sacrifice your health, to gain MP.

You use MP, to use Dark Arts, to buff your spells to get health.
You use your spells and lifetaps to get more health then you sacrificed.
You use your spells in conjunction with other spells to not only fight the penalty but get over it.
You have to use your brain to make this work, if you don't use your brain it is just sacrificing HP.
However, if you combo it well you can get far more health then you sacrifice.
The concept, is one of the basic concepts of black in magic the gathering.
Sure, you sacrifice health. However you have lifetaps and many ways to get it back.
I don't see how that is so hard to understand.
Does that explain it pretty well, or should I say more?

---

I don't think what is making sense to you is that Health is literally life or death.

You hit 0 Health, you die. So taking away your OWN health, when enemy attacks are smacking 50%+ of your HP on every tank buster, auto attacks smacking you repeatedly for stupid amounts, dots being a thing, whatever else that reduces your HP being in play, really is not a smart thing to do. Especially with Drk's being as fragile as they are right now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ditto

I don't think what is making sense to you is that Health is literally life or death.

You hit 0 Health, you die. So taking away your OWN health, when enemy attacks are smacking 50%+ of your HP on every tank buster, auto attacks smacking you repeatedly for stupid amounts, dots being a thing, whatever else that reduces your HP being in play, really is not a smart thing to do. Especially with Drk's being as fragile as they are right now.

---

Yes, that is why you don't use it when your getting slammed like that. You use it when you have your own way to mitigate that for a cost. Shadowknights in EQ were getting hit for more then their HP and they managed to make it work, and it worked well. If it can't work here then there is something wrong with your concepts. Now, you sacrifice your health to get Mana, and other effects. However you are also using that mana to gain more life then your taking away.

It worked in a game where you had multiple death prevents, and attacks would literally take you from 100% to 0. It works if you are a lifetap tank with multiple ways to gain health.

Also, look at Living Dead. I just added it to the list. =D

To be honest i dont understand why people continue to open new topics about the same stuff (this is the third already)...

Anyway, you guys dont understand that SE will never rework the job cause you dont like it?

The only REAL problem that the drk has, is the MP management, that imo was designed to have both blood sword and blood price avaible in grit stance... Then for some reason it was changed in the end...

So stop to try to change the whole job's system, it will never happen...

From my point of view, we sould have changes on our utility (I like the Living Dead insta rez idea btw) for the group, and on our paradoxical skills.
I mean, 20% evade with Dark Dance? How will Blood Price works then ?
Same for Dark Passenger? This blind is cool for smalls packs of mobs but useless otherwise + it won't help with Blood Price.

My 2cents :

Dark Arts + Dark Passenger : Debuff the target with a 20 sec 10% magical vulnerability. Stacks with Foe Requiem (since AST and DRK magical attacks are unelementals).
Doesn't blind anymore.

Dark Arts + Dark Dance: Parry bonus up to 40 %. Reduce Reprisal CD by 2 sec for each successfull parry. No more evasion (it's shit anyway).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beoth

From my point of view, we sould have changes on our utility (I like the Living Dead insta rez idea btw) for the group, and on our paradoxical skills.
I mean, 20% evade with Dark Dance? How will Blood Price works then ?
Same for Dark Passenger? This blind is cool for smalls packs of mobs but useless otherwise + it won't help with Blood Price.

My 2cents :

Dark Arts + Dark Passenger : Debuff the target with a 20 sec 10% magical vulnerability. Stacks with Foe Requiem (since AST and DRK magical attacks are unelementals).
Doesn't blind anymore.

Dark Arts + Dark Dance: Parry bonus up to 40 %. Reduce Reprisal CD by 2 sec for each successfull parry. No more evasion (it's shit anyway).

---

I may agree if you say that Dark Dance and Dark Passanger COULD be better since they already damage our MP management...

But i hope i'm not the only one that complains about MP management..... THAT one is the real problem guys ^^" (i hope you all tried to do some raid content and not only dungeons runs...)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cutie_McSnuggles

The more posts I see from you the more thankful I am that you had/have no influence on the design of this game.

---

I could not agree with you more...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seferex

I may agree if you say that Dark Dance and Dark Passanger COULD be better since they already damage our MP management...

But i hope i'm not the only one that complains about MP management..... THAT one is the real problem guys ^^" (i hope you all tried to do some raid content and not only dungeons runs...)

---

Well I have absolutely no MP issue on Bismarck EX while keeping Dark Side and swiging my Dark Arts here and there...
Just turn off Dark side when you don't fight and optimize your use of Blood Price. On Bismarck for instance, i requested to tank the two right adds for this very reason.

I don't know why you have issue with MP management man, you don't have to buff every spells.

MP Management isn't really an issue once you learn how, at least not in the way most people talk about it.

What REALLY annoys me though is MP management outside of fighting. I know it's crazy, but going from 1 pack of mobs to another, where you have to constantly dump MP in order to hold that crowd, if you cannot regain a decent amount of MP before the packs die, you're kind of screwed going into the next fight.

High DPS and AOE classes really hurt Drk's.

What we need is a skill we can channel outside of combat that quickly restores our MP. Something like Abyssal/Dark Syphon, restores 20% of your MP er second as long as you can keep it casting, and are out of combat.

That or do something with Sole Survivor so that it's more useful in replenishing yourself when battle ends.

So you basically use Dark Arts just sometimes?
So you just want to play a pld that sometimes buff one ability? ^^"

If they did not want that you spam Dark Arts, they would make the CD higher... If they make it 5 sec, means you should use it often... If you can use blood sword in Grit Stance, all change...

But you dont have to agree with me offcourse, i'm not the one that designed the job... But i kinda lol when i see a lot of guys that want the whole job redesigned or that play it like a copy of the pld...

Anyway i've said enough my opinion (that may be boring at this point), so i will stop to reply to any topic relating the drk... We will see what will happen

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seferex

To be honest i dont understand why people continue to open new topics about the same stuff (this is the third already)...

Anyway, you guys dont understand that SE will never rework the job cause you dont like it?

The only REAL problem that the drk has, is the MP management, that imo was designed to have both blood sword and blood price avaible in grit stance... Then for some reason it was changed in the end...

So stop to try to change the whole job's system, it will never happen...

---

mp management is the key to the role .. i love the class don't see a need to change much but either give us more base mp or slow the reduction of it..

i will ask this though now drk is holding well with players with good dps with some mp management but as we are lvling etc its sort of a even playing field now.. 1 to 2 months from now how are they going to stack up with blms and big burst damage dps classes that may be better geared??
my fear is that drk will be left behind ..I've already seen dps pull stuff off me simply because a lot run theses dungeons etc by just killing whatever .. if i then spam aoes etc to get it back no mp!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seferex

So you basically use Dark Arts just sometimes?
So you just want to play a pld that sometimes buff one ability? ^^"

If they did not want that you spam Dark Arts, they would make the CD higher... If they make it 5 sec, means you should use it often... If you can use blood sword in Grit Stance, all change...

But i kinda lol when i see a lot of guys that want the whole job redesigned or that play it like a copy of the pld...

---

I use Dark Arts at least every two combos depending on :

- Number of hits incoming while on Blood Price.
- Current threat level for at least 2 combos (mono & multi)
- CD of Carve & Spit
- CD of Sole Survivor and HP of nearby adds


It's a LOT more micro management that any other tank class so no, i'm not playing this like I'm playing PLD.
You have 9 OGCD abilities, more than a DRG to swing + a stance dance in some cases.
If you play DRK just as a DA/Souleater spammer you're doing it wrong!

DRK Aura is bugged they will fix it and morover they dont trade life or blood for powers its just that we dont trade our soul or like a undead warrior like death knights we are more of drawn to darkness and casts powers from abyss not sacrificial soldiers

I like DRK the way it is best class mechanics i have seen so far good work SE

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beoth

I use Dark Arts at least every two combos depending on :

- Number of hits incoming while on Blood Price.
- Current threat level for at least 2 combos (mono & multi)
- CD of Carve & Spit
- CD of Sole Survivor and HP of nearby adds

---

let me understand, you can control the number of hits? .........
Current threat? (you dont already do this with pld?)
CD? (right pld does not have cds................)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Beoth

It's a LOT more micro management that any other tank class so no, i'm not playing this like I'm playing PLD.
You have 9 OGCD abilities, more than a DRG to swing + a stance dance in some cases.
If you play DRK just as a DA/Souleater spammer you're doing it wrong!

---

And i guess you are playing it right........ And yes, you can handle the MP management with 9 OGCD (that use even mp lol)... Using just blood price... Come on... lol

Anyway... As i said, i dont want to talk anymore about this stuff and i dont want that somebody tell me if i play it good/wrong after just 1 week of release... So have fun to flame on others and have a nice topic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by slml320

i will ask this though now drk is holding well with players with good dps with some mp management but as we are lvling etc its sort of a even playing field now.. 1 to 2 months from now how are they going to stack up with blms and big burst damage dps classes that may be better geared??
my fear is that drk will be left behind ..I've already seen dps pull stuff off me simply because a lot run theses dungeons etc by just killing whatever .. if i then spam aoes etc to get it back no mp!!

---

That's the biggest problem right now I feel. Our AOE enmity relies too much on constant use of our MP, but we don't have a way to get that MP back for when we need to use it again unless very specific conditions are met. Which they often aren't.

When pulling pack of mobs, just to keep them from mauling apart good DPS or a healer that is pouring heals onto you because you eat damage like a bag of chips, you gotta dump a LOT of your MP into costly skills. If the battle ends before you can get it back, you're left sitting there going into the next fight with little to no MP, and no way to gather the pack that immediately runs off to the healer because they healed you on the spot, until you get a syphon strike off. And then it's a game of hoping they're going to hit you enough to get your MP through Blood Price, which funny enough, only lets the healer generate even more enmity by having to heal you through all of that, lol.

As far as single target goes, our enmity is amazing though. Every now and then though you'll run into that Dragoon or Monk who's going in so hard you cant leave Grit to Blood Weapon at all without them flying up the enmity table.

Maybe the only thing that would be nice IMHO, is if Reprisal would proc from a dodge as well. Apart from that I am truly enjoying the class and have yet to hear I'm too squishy. Also, a lot of people complaining about MP management don't seem to toggle Darkside in Grit stance very much. Once I burn my MP I switch it off, suddenly a bard's MP song and my own MP regeneration work again and I am up pretty quickly again. It's all about knowing how to play it from what I can tell so far. :)

Darkside effect is very annoying, I wanted to main a DK but it's so annoying to look at the character that I'll drop it if SE doesn't change it.

Personally, I really like the specifics of our current toolset, for the most part. The changes I would like to see:

1.Blood Weapon able to be used in Grit. We rely too heavily on our mp to have this vital ability locked out to us while tanking and it's not like we get any real offense CDs anyways.
2. Cooldown timers. Holy cow, some of these REALLY need to be shortened. Looking at you, Shadow Wall.

And my personal favorite change:
3. Slight mechanic change to increase mitigation - I say go kinda like the Death Knight route. Siphon strike could work like adloquium and add a shield on top of its current heal equal to the heal. Any overhealing from this ability could also be converted into a shield to give us a sort of mini Divine Veil. Not a big leap in mitigation, but it would certainly help make up for a bit of our parry/evasion RNG.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RuneSevalle

Personally, I really like the specifics of our current toolset, for the most part. The changes I would like to see:
3. Slight mechanic change to increase mitigation - I say go kinda like the Death Knight route. Siphon strike could work like adloquium and add a shield on top of its current heal equal to the heal. Any overhealing from this ability could also be converted into a shield to give us a sort of mini Divine Veil. Not a big leap in mitigation, but it would certainly help make up for a bit of our parry/evasion RNG.

---

^I like, It would be an ondemand mitigation option. Between Shelltron and Inner Beast both PLD/WAR look reliable for at-ready tank buster mitigation

DRK can feel like 2.x PLD when it comes to mitigation CDs, but have less to work with (I guess cross-classed actions from both WAR/PLD were suppose to cover for this).

My original thought was have HP absorbed via Souleater & Abyssal create a barrier buff equal to the amount of HP healed over max health (so barrier only happens if HP's topped off). Think Adloquium Lite. Call it Doom Spikes.

(I think I partly like this because it would help justify STR > VIT ;d )

Been DRK since early access. Love it very much but it's a jack of all trades master of none at the moment. Sightly higher dps than PLD but less defense. And WAR is lol right now since their damage is off the charts. DRK could seriously use some MP love. I can effectively run through a whole dungeon with no issues(aggro or mp), but that's just if I cycle everything towards that. Carve and Spit is almost only just a small mp cooldown. No point using dark arts on it when you could use it for soul eater doing close dps but better benefits. If you or another accidentally pull before having enough MP for unleash then RIP, someone's likely to die before generating hate or mp for unleash/abyssal Drain. Blood price only works if they hit you which at that point hey aren't. (Blood Weapon with Grit on would be super effective)

If I could say anything to help with them its lesser time on cool downs. Too often in high level fights I find myself all on cooldown timers. I enjoy the 'If you parry it lessens time on reprisal' idea. That's a huge effectiveness booster, otherwise it's just a crap shoot(boosted with parry buff but still).

So in a nutshell DRK could use some better mitigation tweeks to be a better tank and MP management reliability.

Back before the expansion I was PLD and could effectively output dps. War could always do this too. I hope DRK can go offensive say in PvP without the whole feel of playing in a dungeon requirements on MP. Similar to Monk pre-expansion.

I'm not so sure about Blood weapon in Grit stance for several reasons:

- TP management: We can only regen use Unleach, Unmend and Abyssal drain on gcd to save some TP, which all require MP and makes us lose dps. Therefore we rely on the off-time during fights (while cancelling Dark Side at the same time). Other tanks have inbuilt mechanics to manage it whitout too much downsides (Shield Swipe is/was a up of dps, Inner Beast/Steel Cyclone). NIN/AST/BRD are our saviors on long fights.

- Threat generation/ DPS: 10% Attack speed for 15 sec with 40 sec CD, that's 37,5% uptime. It's a big increase of our dps, not to mention the gain of mp which permit a lot more Dark Arts use.

Other suggestion: Dark Arts + Dark Passenger = 10% magic vulnerability (no more blind). Bring us more utility pls !

If I had to make tweaks to the class here's what I would do, part 1. Keep in mind I'm at level 53 for DRK so there will probably be some things to add later.

Blood Sword: Decrease the percentage of damage that gets absorbed as MP but allow it to be used in Grit.

Unleash: Keep the initial enmity boost but make it a relatively small AoE life drain DOT. We're talking about 10 -15 HP per tick per mob for 20 seconds. A drain tanking class like DRK really does well with having at least one life drain DOT. The idea is to give DRK a fairly passive form of healing when tanking large numbers of mobs.

Part 2

Reprisal: Lower the damage and remove the parry requirement. DRK needs a reliable to debuff the enemy physically and sadly the combination of long cooldown and the parry requirement prevents this.

Dark Arts: Reduce the MP cost to 3/4s of what it is currently. I like the idea of Dark Arts but the cost is insanely prohibitive when combined with the costs of some of the other skills used to get the wanted effect.

Dark Dance: Change the DA combo to be a form of mitigation rather than dodge increase. Yes, I know this is intended to be used with Dark Passenger but the MP cost is astronomical and dodging doesn't work well in raids. A tank is meant to withstand damage, not dodge it.

And finally part 3

Dark Passenger: Change this to either a cone or circular AoE. Line mechanics usually don't work all that well for tanks since they tend to be surrounded on all sides by enemies rather than having them stacked together. Having a much easier AoE helps to justify the cost and ensure the DRK is maximizing its usefulness.

Living Dead: Provide a visual aura to this skill like a sickly green aura around the DRK. This lets the healers easily know what's happening and to prepare their full heals to prevent the KO. Yes you can set this to a macro, but in pitched battles people aren't going to be looking at the chat window that much and instead focusing on the enemies and the party making this a favorable method of showing what's going on.

Making Blood Weapon usable while in Grit (OR) removing GRIT from GCD is a necessary QoL change.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Stormsoul

also, dark passenger needs to just cost 0 MP. it's almost useless without it's dark arts effect, and with dark arts costing an absurd amount of MP, i just can't ever justify using this skill. it's also counterproductive, as the only time youd have that much mana to burn is under blood price... and blind means you're getting hit less, which means less mp. it's a questionable skill in my opinion.

drain's dark arts effect.

---

I said this exact thing about Dark Passenger in a thread last night. Absolutely crazy dumping mp for DA and then still incurring the fulll mp cost of dark passenger. Atleast make it reduced.

My general thoughts/ideas so far.

- Salted Earth: Change it from a ground target aoe to dropping at the feet of the current target. Keeps the flexibility of using it at range but removes the clunkiness of ground targeting as a melee class.

- Grit: Lower activation cost.

- Darkside: Change the visual fx to be more tightly concentrated on the drk's body so it is visible on the player even when it the middle of combat with lots of spells/abilities going off, but not so intrusive when people are just standing around a hub.

- Dark Dance: Get rid of the dodge/evasion DA effect and just make it increase parry more by 20%-30%. Dodging things goes completely against the functionality of the main MP regaining CD, Blood Price, and has zero synergy with any other ability. At least parry helps with other abilities.

- Shadow Wall: Decrease the recast time on it to 150 seconds, like Vengeance, plus each physical hit received has a chance (30%?) of applying blind for 10 seconds (p.s. make blind more viable in high lvl content in general, very meh debuff at the moment due to resists/immunities).

- Reprisal: Remove proc requirement, increase cd to 45 seconds, increase debuff duration to 30 seconds, parry refreshes the ability.

- Delerium: Change debuff to "takes X% more magic damage" instead of INT down.

- Carve and Spit: Increase MP gain from it.

- Dark Passenger: Decrease MP cost, change from line to conal aoe, change blind DA effect to applies the debuff Doom Spikes for 10 seconds to the target where they take a 50 potency hit every time they deal damage.

- Plunge: add the ability to use DA with it and have it apply the buff "Grave Determination" for 10 seconds which make the player immune to knockbacks and pull-in effects and removes binds and movement impairing effects (essentially gives DRK a Tempered Will like buff but ties it to DA usage to avoid ability bloat).

- Living Dead: provide better visual feedback for activation of the zombie state (not the ability activation but going into the Walking Dead state). This could be done with a visual effect on the player, but it would have to not clash, cancel out or get lost in the Darkside visual effect. Also add in to the Walking Dead state that heals received are X% (20-30%?) more effective so that the insta-death punishment is eased a little.