Dark Knight Tank Stance Change +3.x Reprisal and 3.x Dark Dance

In a recent post attempting to balance dark knight dps, the idea was thrown around about making blood weapon and blood price a trait of the tank stances rather than independent moves. I believe that this suggestion along with a second suggestion, namely bringing back 3.x Reprisal to our kit, might actually address a large number of Dark Knight issues. I would add a third suggestion here which is to also bring back 3.x Dark Dance to the Dark Knight. The change would look something like this:

1. Darkside gains Blood Weapon as a passive trait.

2. Grit gains Blood Price as a passive trait, and toggles off blood weapon.

3. 3.x Reprisal replaces Blood Weapon as an action, now can be activated by breaking TBN.

4. 3.x Dark Dance replaces Blood Price as an action, buff the parry rate up to 60%.

This set of 4 changes would have little impact on Dark Knight's current rotation, but would fill in its missing dps, provide a fluff damage cooldown, and act as a party utility.

It would require a 5th change which is to change the action of delirium. I would propose the following delirium change:
Delirium:
Doubles the action of blood weapon or blood price for 15 seconds.
Recast: 60 seconds

My only issue with this proposition is the lock of dark dance behind grit.

I feel like using Grit is sturdy enough as it is. If anything, DRK just needs a non-locked mitigation CD or adjustments to current CD'S.

EDIT: Nvm. I don't see any mention of locking it to Grit. Ignore me. Proposition is good.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

My only issue with this proposition is the lock of dark dance behind grit.

I feel like using Grit is sturdy enough as it is. If anything, DRK just needs a non-locked mitigation CD or adjustments to current CD'S.

EDIT: Nvm. I don't see any mention of locking it to Grit. Ignore me. Proposition is good.

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It is early and I have not had my coffee, I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for where I suggested this before I read the rest of your quote lol.

This seems like the overall best idea so far on these forums. The only thing I could add to this is that souleater should do around 33-50% whatever SE thinks is fair, HP returns outside grit for more self sustain and do its normal % in grit. Also, Darkside and Grit should either be OGCDs with larger MP costs or GCDs with a very low mp cost, not both.

Something that needs to be elaborated on though is the bloodweapon that will be incorporated into darkside and bloodprice. What -recast%, +attack speed%, and MP per hit% should we have now that it can be full uptime? I said in that other thread 3% for recast and attack speed, maybe 2% MP per hit which would not be too problematic but at the same time it still may cause double-weaving issues. I think syphon strike Dark arts affect needs to go still to eliminate all doubeweaving issues except for dark mind. Blood price could return a bit higher %.

Maybe Reprisal wont give the -10% fluff mitigation without a dark arts in the case you get them back to back to prevent an always on 10%.

Edit: It might even just be easier to make darkside a dedicated DPS stance that gives the affect of bloodweapon and grit gives the affect of bloodprice. The +20% damage darkside used to give will have to be incorporated into potency changes though. This way traits are not necessary and delerium just enhances the stance for 15 seconds.

So I considered a blood weapon and price cut overall and mathed out the potency change. Turns out full time blood weapon as is brings dark Knight dps to where it should be. No change to the effects are necessary. I was surprised as hell lol

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Maybe Reprisal wont give the -10% fluff mitigation without a dark arts in the case you get them back to back to prevent an always on 10%.

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The original Reprisal had a 30s recast so it'd be impossible to keep up all the time.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

The original Reprisal had a 30s recast so it'd be impossible to keep up all the time.

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oh, that works then.

Blood returns from a full uptime bloodweapon would have to be dropped to 1 per hit or something otherwise we would be gaining alot of blood regularly. After using delirium it could go to 2 or even 4 per hit.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Blood returns from a full uptime bloodweapon would have to be dropped to 1 per hit or something otherwise we would be gaining alot of blood regularly. After using delirium it could go to 2 or even 4 per hit.

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I don't see why we would need to nerf the resource gain, care to elaborate? Full time blood weapon when not in grit gives us a competitive dps placing us between pld and warrior on its own as an off tank, lowering this just makes us less competitive.

I did the math in a another thread, but my aim is to raise us up to near warrior levels. We need a potency per second change of around 17 to 19 potency per second to be in the same ballpark, this change to blood weapon is on the high end, but in the correct ballpark. Or we could shoot for the moon and try to go for 24 to 26 potency per second, in which case I agree we would need to make the damage down on reprisal a dark arts ability. This change doesn't quite get us that high though.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I don't see why we would need to nerf the resource gain, care to elaborate? Full time blood weapon when not in grit gives us a competitive dps placing us between pld and warrior on its own as an off tank, lowering this just makes us less competitive.

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That's why I deleted my message, since you posted your results while I was busy writing it :p

Yet the initial Delirum comment still stands. Spending Blood and MP to gain more Blood and MP is weird. It's best to make the skill free but its effect weaker.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

That's why I deleted my message, since you posted your results while I was busy writing it :p

Yet the initial Delirum comment still stands. Spending Blood and MP to gain more Blood and MP is weird. It's best to make the skill free but its effect weaker.

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I am also fine with this. I removed it from the OP, it is only a 4.4 potency transfer anyway.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I don't see why we would need to nerf the resource gain, care to elaborate? Full time blood weapon when not in grit gives us a competitive dps placing us between pld and warrior on its own as an off tank, lowering this just makes us less competitive.

I did the math in a another thread, but my aim is to raise us up to near warrior levels. We need a potency per second change of around 17 to 19 to be in the same ballpark, this change to blood weapon is on the high end, but in the correct ballpark.

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I didnt math it out cause math is not my forte especially potency calculations, but my gut feeling told me it would be too powerful. I can handle basic math. Were around 10 physical gcds for every 50 blood not including auto attacks or a plunge so closer to 8 or even 6 gcds for every blood spiller (that includes 2 souleaters) if blood gains are not lowered. Not to mention quietus spam will be very heavy with current bloodgains and full uptime unless were not considering dungeon or adds content. That just felt OP to me but if we are trying to achieve war's dps, I probably cant get a feel for that not using math.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

I didnt math it out cause math is not my forte especially potency calculations, but my gut feeling told me it would be too powerful. I can handle basic math. Were around 10 physical gcds for every 50 blood not including auto attacks or a plunge so closer to 8 or even 6 gcds for every blood spiller (that includes 2 souleaters) if blood gains are not lowered. Not to mention quietus spam will be very heavy with current bloodgains and full uptime unless were not considering dungeon or adds content. That just felt OP to me but if we are trying to achieve war's dps, I probably cant get a feel for that not using math.

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Fair, providing some analysis: Blood weapon nets us about 450 potency per use in the form of mana and blood, or 30 potency a second for its duration of 15 seconds.

To see the effective change we multiply this by the change in uptime between its current maximum theoretical uptime of 68/120 and my proposed uptime of 1.

Potency per second change: 30(1-68/120) = 13 (this is above paladin but less than warrior, it is surprising but yes this is exactly 13)

Adding back Reprisal will net us a maximum of 7 potency per second, bring our change to about 20 potency per second change.

Well reprisal would be a perfect scenario of maximum use on cooldown which will probably not happen. Thanks for the calculation though, I guess ultimately we are aiming to be as close to wars dps as possible? Ironically with all the recent talks of utility vs dps balancing we should be higher than warrior in terms of dps due to how our utility skill works... I have a feeling that would cause a uproar though.

Edit: Mostly because our utility skill is a single target and our fluff utility may not be possible for certain powerful attacks where boss is not targetable anyway.

Right, but with both changes this puts us a head of warrior precisely because our utilities are weaker.

I'm curious as to how auto attacks was worked into bloodweapons potency equations and even more curious how it would effect us with full uptime.

Edit: nevermind, I just hit a dummy for a while it seems like auto attack is roughly a 100 potency hit. With 10% faster attack speed its basically just an assumed 110 potency during bloodweapon from auto attacks I'm guessing? This is why math is not my forte.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

I'm curious as to how auto attacks was worked into bloodweapons potency equations and even more curious how it would effect us with full uptime.

Edit: nevermind, I just hit a dummy for a while it seems like auto attack is roughly a 100 potency hit. With 10% faster attack speed its basically just an assumed 110 potency during bloodweapon from auto attacks I'm guessing? This is why math is not my forte.

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Thank you for looking so closely into this. Yes, the faster attack speed is another question. In general, the effect of attack speed varies greatly with fights, and its rewards can be diminished in fights with multiple phase transitions where enemies cannot be targeted. It also has a feedback effect into blood weapon since the higher attack speed also helps to generate more resources.

Our net potency per second at a GCD of 2.45 is given by (770/(3*2.45)+110/3) = 141.4 potency per second, note this is dependent on our GCD. Speeding this up by 10% will result in a potency per second of about 15.71.

The net change due to skill speed of full time blood weapon is given by: 15.71(1-68/120) = 6.81 potency per second.

I won't lie, this is a little higher than I was expecting, and some tweaking to reprisal or delirium may be needed.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

With 10% faster attack speed its basically just an assumed 110 potency during bloodweapon from auto attacks I'm guessing?

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Not exactly but as such low values, it doesn't make a real difference. Haste effect exponentialy increases damage, that's why Skill speed and Spell speed have such low effect.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Not exactly but as such low values, it doesn't make a real difference. Haste effect exponentialy increases damage, that's why Skill speed and Spell speed have such low effect.

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It doesn't make a real difference in very small windows. If we are talking full uptime, that is a huge difference in comparison. This probably needs evaluation if you are trying to keep DPS at a certain point.

Edit: To get even more technical, you have more chances to crit/direct the duration you have it up as well. This is why I find turning these scenarios into a math equation so difficult for anything other than estimating.

I could see Blood Weapon and Blood Price maintained for 100% uptime similar to Blood/Life of the Dragon via Delirium, Bloodspiller, and Quietus.

or both allowed with/without Grit to allow DRK to rotate them for 100% uptime (combined) like a Bard rotates Ballad/Peon/Minuet.

or Delirium providing a 20-30 second buff like Dreadwyrm Trance, replacing some actions with buffed alternatives, like changing Price/Weapon (whichever one your locked out of based on your whether you're in Grit or not) into a skill that can be used in either..

But that's all not very likely to happen, and would still need additional tweaks to get some of the mentioned skills in a better place.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

It doesn't make a real difference in very small windows. If we are talking full uptime, that is a huge difference in comparison. This probably needs evaluation if you are trying to keep DPS at a certain point.

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I wasn't talking about the overall effect of Blood Weapon, but the assumed increased potency. Increase speed by 10% is, in reality, reducing the delay by 10%, so you increase the DPS by 1/(1-10%).
But at 10% speed, the potency is 111 instead of 110.

If we were at 20% increase in speed, we wouldn't increase DPS by 20% but 25%, and if we were at 50% increase in speed, we would double our DPS.

Perhaps we should stop using attack speed for wording it and use exactly what it says which is a -10% delay reduction. That flat out means you are doing an extra hit every 10 hits. All the math I'm doing sees that as a 10 potency gain per hit, I don't know where you are getting the extra 1.

Edit: technically you would see +100 potency increase every time 10 hits would otherwise be possible without the -delay due to the extra hit. In a situation where 10 hits were not possible before something happens (a phase change or something) there would be no potency gain due to no additional hit, so saying +10 potency per hit is an error. Its +100 potency every 10 hits or nothing.

I believe Reynhart is correct. The explanation is that decreasing the time between attacks is equivalent to increasing the frequency of damage. In other words, we are only doing a 110 potency attack, which is what you are seeing, but we are doing it more frequently. Since we decrease our GCD by a factor of .9 this is equivalent to increasing our frequency by 1/9 which is 11.1%.

I wasn't talking about the GCD's only auto attacks. Every 10 hits you would do an additional one, if you don't make it to 11 hits for whatever reason, you have not gained any potency from auto attacks.

It's true you are increasing the frequency but the frequency is +1 hit for every time 10 hits that was possible without the -delay reduction. So for example if this new stance for darkside was incorporated and we kept the -10% delay. Every 11 hits we have seen a +100 potency due to having done an extra hit in that 10 hit period of time without the -10% delay. I don't know how I can word what I'm deducing any better.

Edit: correction is 11 hits with the -10% delay. 11 hits transfers to a 100 potency gain due to the extra hit. If you only make it to 10 hits before something becomes untargetable, you didnt gain anything.

Edit#2: GDCs are affected by the -10% recast, they have nothing to do with the auto attacks other than causing interruptions. If you don't make it to 11 hits you still have not seen any gain.

Edit#3: The only other gains that are possible for the 11'th hit are the extra +blood and +MP that come with it, along with the extra chance for a critical or direct hit. So I guess its not just a 100 Potency, you have to include those forms of potency as well and they are also all or nothing. Either the hit happens and you gain those extra or the hit doesn't happen and you don't gain those either.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

I wasn't talking about the GCD's only auto attacks. Every 10 hits you would do an additional one, if you don't make it to 11 hits for whatever reason, you have not gained any potency from auto attacks.

It's true you are increasing the frequency but the frequency is +1 hit for every time 10 hits that was possible without the -delay reduction. So for example if this new stance for darkside was incorporated and we kept the -10% delay. Every 11 hits we have seen a +100 potency due to having done an extra hit in that 10 hit period of time without the -10% delay. I don't know how I can word what I'm deducing any better.

Edit: correction is 11 hits with the -10% delay. 11 hits transfers to a 100 potency gain due to the extra hit. If you only make it to 10 hits before something becomes untargetable, you didnt gain anything.

Edit#2: GDCs are affected by the -10% recast, they have nothing to do with the auto attacks other than causing interruptions. If you don't make it to 11 hits you still have not seen any gain.

Edit#3: The only other gains that are possible for the 11'th hit are the extra +blood and +MP that come with it, along with the extra chance for a critical or direct hit. So I guess its not just a 100 Potency, you have to include those forms of potency as well and they are also all or nothing. Either the hit happens and you gain those extra or the hit doesn't happen and you don't gain those either.

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Ok, for 10 GCDs the difference is small and it is difficult to tell the difference betweeen 11 attacks and 11.1, try the same thing for 100 GCDs. For 1000 GCDs you can fit in 111 attacks. This is the long term difference.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Ok, for 10 GCDs the difference is small and it is difficult to tell the difference betweeen 11 attacks and 11.1, try the same thing for 100 GCDs. For 1000 GCDs you can fit in 111 attacks. This is the long term difference.

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100 is not a multiple of 11.
10 attacks becomes 11 1 extra attack due to -10%
20 attacks becomes 22 2 extra attacks due to -10%
50 attacks becomes 55 5 extra attacks due to -10%
90 attacks becomes 99 9 extra attacks due to -10%
100 attacks becomes 110 10 extra attacks due to -10%
110 attacks becomes 121 11 extra attacks due to -10%
1000 attacks becomes 1100 100 extra attacks due to -10%

I am confused as to what you are trying to imply and where this .1 is coming from.

Edit: .1 cannot be considered an attack, either attacks happen or they don't. In a very rare occurrence you may be able to get off the 10th attack with no bonus attack before an enemy becomes untargetable due to the -delay (implying that without the -10%delay you only made it to the 9th attack because your attacking slower) but that would be an extremely rare scenario.

Right now, my GCD is 2.35. With a 10% reduction, I end at 2.12.

On a 10s window, both GCD allow me 4 attacks, for 400 each time.
On a 30s window, the first GCD allows me 12 attacks (30/2.35 =12.77) for 1200 potency, while the second GCD allows me 14 attacks (30/2.12=14.15) for 1400 potency. 1400/1200 = 1.17, so 17% increase
The same calculation at 60s gives 2500 and 2800, ending in 12% increase
For 150s, the same calculation gives 6300 and 7000, for a 11% increase
At 300s, 12700 vs 14100, for, again a 11% increase.
And so on...

Can someone humor my ignorance for the need that DRK need group utility? What's wrong with having self-sufficiency in spades? 3 GCD + DA for a Souleater that does a pitiful job of healing. Does every tank need some kind of utility to be viable? Paladins have two, Wars have SiO, and to a very crappy extent, DRK has TBN. I don't raid, so this is why I ask. I'd rather be more self-sufficient, taking the needs of my healers off me longer to manage the rest of the raid to be that selfish tank whose buffs only strengthen their own power and defenses. MP is our HP when compared to the olden FF games and I love that. I just want that feeling of being Leon or Cecil unleashing hell on something or soaking up my MP to defend myself. Hell, I'd take a DA TBN for a longer barrier that surrounds nearby party members with the 10%. There's utility at the cost of a LOT of MP. But that's the price we'd pay. Especially if the ideas from the OP ever see the light of day, we wouldn't have to worry too much about our MP, but we'd be more free to burn it as we please.
Thank you for reading!

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

100 is not a multiple of 11.
10 attacks becomes 11 1 extra attack due to -10%

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Your math is off, you gain 1 extra gcd under bw every 9 hits outside of bw. ie at base ss you get 9 hits in 22.5s, with bw gcd of 2.25 you get 10. Thus the 11.1% increase, not 10%

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Snip

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So in 10 unbuffed GCD units we do 10 unbuffed GCD's.

In 9.9 buffed GCD units we do 11 attacks, and end .1 GCD early. Those .1 GCD's will add up eventually.

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Originally Posted by Deathgiver

Your math is off, you gain 1 extra gcd under bw every 9 hits outside of bw. ie at base ss you get 9 hits in 22.5s, with bw gcd of 2.25 you get 10. Thus the 11.1% increase, not 10%

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So this is where i was going wrong thank you. -10% delay means 9 hits becomes 10 not 10 becomes 11. Just did that on calculator and it is 11.1, I feel kinda dumb now but then again i admitted upfront math isn't something I'm good at.


Edit: I don't want to double post but I feel like I derailed the thread so in the spirt of continuing it: I'm wondering if an always on -10% would be stressful for long fights, maybe it should be closer to around 3% or 5% tops, it may line up with what you are wanting the potency change to be closer to. I just think keeping up with the gcds and paying attention to mechanics with always on -10% would be extremely taxing for a long period of time.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Edit: I don't want to double post but I feel like I derailed the thread so in the spirt of continuing it: I'm wondering if an always on -10% would be stressful for long fights, maybe it should be closer to around 3% or 5% tops, it may line up with what you are wanting the potency change to be closer to. I just think keeping up with the gcds and paying attention to mechanics with always on -10% would be extremely taxing for a long period of time.

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I don't know, I always felt drawn to dark knight for the fast feel of the class. The speed does give a nice potency jump, which could be tuned by tuning reprisal or delirium. However, I realize speed is an issue for some. I think it is better to turn this to the forums. What does the community want?

A fast paced tank with a flurry of damage, or slower with larger hits?

Honestly I would prefer a faster paced tank which is why I find DRK so fun, the speed boost from BW. feels good man. It's also why I can't stand PLD, almost everything is GCD so it feels really slow.

Personally, the image of the job itself drawn me in, and the active APM gameplay kept me in.

Dark art is a magnificent key itself, but it lacks interaction or interesting choices yet. The now useless dark passenger makes 2 key a minute less to press, the loss of the offensive reprisal 2 key per minute, the loss of the offensive part of low blow and it's associated reset...

I can't remember low blow's cooldown, I believe it was something like 25s, so 2.4 key per minute. The total loss here is around 6+ press per minute, which is quite consequent as it is a press every 10s at least. Even if we gained some dark art spam, it's really not the same feel to press the same button more, and to have to press an other sometimes.

The one button wouldn't be so bad if there were more variations in what it did, albeit most of the time you are compromising damage if you don't use it in such a way hence the likely reason dark arts is as it is.

Exactly, I would love to see dark arts do more than just give us 140 potency. One can hope for 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Exactly, I would love to see dark arts do more than just give us 140 potency. One can hope for 5.0.

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But people would just not use it for anything else. The community has made themselves clear: they never want anything other than more damage.

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Originally Posted by Ekimmak

But people would just not use it for anything else. The community has made themselves clear: they never want anything other than more damage.

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This is quoted in a post asking for both utility and an extra defense cooldown. Whatever dark arts additional action does it needs to measure up to 140 potency. Otherwise I agree it’s no dice.

Shadow wall cooldown adjustments. Dark mind needs to have physical damage mitigation as well.
Dark Passenger mp cost cut in half.

So many adjustments needs to happen to the job. That I am really afraid they wont make any adjustments due to them already announcing some job adjustments earlier and not mentioning DRK at all.

I don't normally post but I'd love to see improvements to Dark Arts.

I'd turn it into a buff for ~6 secs with a ~15 sec cooldown like TBN.

DA usage would drop meaning it would feel more purposeful. You'd need to look at MP cost / potencies but by buffing 2 gcds (possibly 3 with enough sks / bw) and any ogcds you increase DPS / burst and allow for planning of DA windows.

Sks would be desirable, bw would have a lot of synergy, dark passenger is likely to become far more viable etc.

Delerium could maybe increase DA duration as well as bw / blood price. You could add a third combo finisher that increased duration of DA too.

As a persistent state SE could also add that black flame aesthetic that was teased for darkside way back.

Then for raid mitigation I thought dark mind could change from a personal DMG reduction to a reprisal like skill for magic damage for the same amount as now.