New DRK Overhaul Idea

So I want to preface this by saying that I am in no way an expert on DRK nor will I pretend to know what goes into the various calculations done on the subject of class balance. But I was bored at work and thought of a few ways to get DRK out of the current funk it was in and i'd like everyone's thoughts on it.

Firstly to summarize imo, DRK has 3 sore points for me when im playing it, that i believe are echoed throughout the tanking community as a whole.

The first is Identity, simply put DRK doesn't feel like anything, or to be more precise it feels like a 100 piece puzzle that is missing 5 pieces, yes you can kinda get the picture but its not whole.

Second, Synergy, DRK brings nothing to the table that the other 2 Tanks don't bring in either an easier way. WAR brings slashing and a ton of burst DMG along with some pretty hefty party wide shields. PLD is absolutely bonkers when it comes to mitigation and utility and its damage is nothing to scoff at either. Frankly you bring DRK for either a niche or because you don't want to be seen as a person excluding a class.

Third and probably the one i'll take the most flack for is Dark Arts. To make a long story short, both PLD and WAR have rotations that can be complex because they revolve around a damage window, to some degree or another, stance dancing offensive buffs and even certain defensive CD revolve around the fact that you know you will have a certain time during the fight where you can maximize your damage and use your skills effectively. For PLD switching to SwO popping a defensive CD in time with FoF then sliding to finishing with Requiescat -> HS spam means that all your skills have a certain flow and rhythm to their usage. DRK again does not really have this, due to the sporadic nature of DA and the fact that the cost to spam it is generally very high, playing DRK at anything other than a high skill level results in either lackluster damage or a stupid amount of micromanaging.

In light of these 3 things id like to propose the following changes to the DRK kit.

Dark Arts -> rather than a 1 shot use, Id like to change this to an activated stance useable on a 80 second CD, one that when active will slowly drain your MP lasting untill you are below 5% of your total MP and then turning off. All DA potency increases and effects would remain basically the same give or take away a few potency to account for the change in design. I believe that this would give DRK an active damage window and take away the clunky micromanaging feel of using Dark Arts.

Soul Survivor -> similar to Excogitation this would place a buff on either self or others that sits on a timer. It can be actively triggered or passively expire and would provide a magic defense buff based on the amount of HP the target has loss. Example at -80% 2.5% shield at -60% 5% and -50% 8%. This in my opinion would allow for great synergy between a party as well as provide a higher level of complexity than simply "put on target, hope it dies, get some chump change back"

Dark Dance -> Why the eff was this removed? bring it back, fluff damage and mitigation problems solved

Dark Passenger -> (stay with me here) Make this skill usable ONLY when Dark Arts is active remove its MP cost and place it on a 20 second CD, give it falloff damage and ... place a 5% magic vuln up on all targets hit. This is probably the single most important change to the kit imo. Not only does this help PUG parties that don't have w/e the eff the "meta" comp is, this allows for caster compositions to be focused around a DRK giving it more variability with the dominant phys composed parties. If for example you have a party that has a heavy phys presence but one of your members loves to play BLM or RDM or SMN then you as a DRK are not punished for being a DRK and they dont have to think "well I guess I'll switch to BRD or MCH since i don't want to hold the party back" It fits well with the identity of a magic knight class and adds some MUCH needed versatility to casters.

MP regen under darkside this has always been a silly thing for them to restrict. With this new build you could have casters/ranged who can focus on trying to maximize the up time on DA and allow for the Tank to stay dealing damage for longer.

Living Dead -> tbh i have no clue what to do with this, you either love it or hate it.

These changes, I believe could benefit both casual and hardcore players alike. As was shown with WAR, making the class easier to play doesn't have to take away from the challenge of mastering it. Allowing DRK to be less focused on arbitrarily press DA before every relevant skill, this would make it so that you need to rotate your MP regeneration and Damage output in order to squeeze as much time out of Dark Arts buff as possible.

I would love to hear thoughts and opinions on what I've come up with and see if there are any other ideas that are more along this track rather than the SE bandaid fixes of "you can have 10 more potency and that should fix it" :)

I don't see how your change would make DRK more enjoyable to play.
Your dark art change removed the entire mana management and is yet another berserk/requiesast.(the later being a very dull skill imo)

You are correct in that I modeled the system after those 2 skill types, mainly because they work so well. Currently DA does not reward optimization at all, playing DRK well simply results in you doing enough dmg to be sort of on par with the other 2. Placing your damage on a renewable window, ie you can increase the amount of time that DA is active via skils like Quietus, CnS, Blood Price/weapon or outside management would allow for an easier curve for new players and would make it so that (in theory anyway) optimizing DRK would result in numbers above PLD without simply just adding potency.

IMO they should just re-implement a lot of what was lost in heavenward. I really enjoyed the complexity of the way Dark Knight worked. Give us scourge back, give us shadow skin back. And rework sole survivor and park passenger slightly to make them not useless abilities and even if they don't just give us scourge and a little more mitigation. Dark Knight is in such a bad spot not because it needs an overhaul its because they tried to simplify it way to much.

I like Dark Arts to be a Dark Arts.

I just want it to be closer to HW frequency, rather than being available every second to third GCD.

Living death could give unlimited blood gauge like inner release does to warrior. :P

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Living death could give unlimited blood gauge like inner release does to warrior. :P

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Legit i have no idea how to change or improve that skill in a way that doesn't take away it's own identity, my only thought was that it should have some kind of built in regen only if you enter living dead, so that if the skill is used properly the burden of heal would be lessened. But if you used it when there would not be enough damage to bring you below 1hp you would still suffer a penalty.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Living death could give unlimited blood gauge like inner release does to warrior. :P

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But that is a totally different ability, you would then need to give them an additional utility to replace it with.IR is not tied to Holmgang so you cant make living dead like an IR.

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Originally Posted by SkyEdge1

Legit i have no idea how to change or improve that skill in a way that doesn't take away it's own identity, my only thought was that it should have some kind of built in regen only if you enter living dead, so that if the skill is used properly the burden of heal would be lessened. But if you used it when there would not be enough damage to bring you below 1hp you would still suffer a penalty.

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Or it should be a "zombie mode" type of ability in which if you die during it, you have 20 or 30 seconds of life to do everything and without any mp or blood cost. After duration end, drk get killed.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I like Dark Arts to be a Dark Arts.

I just want it to be closer to HW frequency, rather than being available every second to third GCD.

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My main thought behind the change was, making Dark Arts an activated stance that would be active as long as your MP was above a certain point meant that your uptime on Dark Arts (and as such your relative DPS) would be directly tied to player skill. A good player would be able to manage their skill use and MP in a way to keep DA active for a longer period of time or the duration of most fights, a poor player would find themselves MP drained much quicker by blowing all of their time throwing skills out and not watching their consumption then having to wait however long to re activate DA. I'm not by any means a DRK expert, but this would give it, imo, a very flexible dmg window, rather than one that is a flat timer like FoF/Req or IR/zerk. Easy to pick up, challenging to master.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Or it should be a "zombie mode" type of ability in which if you die during it, you have 20 or 30 seconds of life to do everything and without any mp or blood cost. After duration end, drk get killed.

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Why not a CD that doesn't outright kill you, WAR and PLD ultimates don't kill you, why exactly should DRK's? IMO instead of killing the DRK it should apply weakness if not healed to a certain threshold.

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Originally Posted by 347SPECTRE

Why not a CD that doesn't outright kill you, WAR and PLD ultimates don't kill you, why exactly should DRK's? IMO instead of killing the DRK it should apply weakness if not healed to a certain threshold.

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Then keep it likes war's hg, hp cant drop below 1, that's the only main difference between the two not talking about cooldown time and remove the needs to be fully healed part.

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Originally Posted by 347SPECTRE

Why not a CD that doesn't outright kill you, WAR and PLD ultimates don't kill you, why exactly should DRK's? IMO instead of killing the DRK it should apply weakness if not healed to a certain threshold.

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Actually it would be kind of cool that if you didn't heal it to a certain point, you enter 'zombie' for a certain amount of time where all you do is auto attack and there would be no MP or HP regen during that time, would still be punishing to mess up but would be way better than simply losing your tank because you mistimed a heal x.x

I was thinking of a new ability for the next expansion. To boost DPS and make better use of living dead.

You activate this ability, which gives you a flat damage boost in conjunction with draining your HP.
Pressing this ability again cancels it, but unleashes magic damage that scales with how much HP you allowed it to drain.
In addition, if your HP hits zero, it unleashes this magic attack automatically for it's maximum possible potency.

Could be used in two ways:
Use when at high HP when solo or in easy content in order to use your HP as a resource for more DPS.
Or, use it when near death, in order to get off a heavy hitting finisher while also giving yourself and your healer a better and more predictable cue for Living Dead. Us it when at 10% HP followed by Living Dead, your HP hits 0, your magic blast goes off, healer starts healing you like mad.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I was thinking of a new ability for the next expansion. To boost DPS and make better use of living dead.

You activate this ability, which gives you a flat damage boost in conjunction with draining your HP.
Pressing this ability again cancels it, but unleashes magic damage that scales with how much HP you allowed it to drain.
In addition, if your HP hits zero, it unleashes this magic attack automatically for it\\'s maximum possible potency.

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This is actually really interesting, I don\\'t think that using HP as the resource would be ideal, but what if you know there is going to be a lul in the fight or there is going to be a break in contact where your MP will have enough time to either regenerate or be brought back to full, you could use this as a "charge until discharge" type of skill where you can drain MP down to 0 for an incredibly powerful hit? Would be better than just sitting there capped on MP until the boss is back.

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Originally Posted by 347SPECTRE

Why not a CD that doesn't outright kill you, WAR and PLD ultimates don't kill you, why exactly should DRK's? IMO instead of killing the DRK it should apply weakness if not healed to a certain threshold.

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Making it same as them would be boring.
I wrote it wrong probably, but i wanted it so if you die, you are turned into the ghost for 20 seconds that could cast skills with no cost and then die.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Making it same as them would be boring.
I wrote it wrong probably, but i wanted it so if you die, you are turned into the ghost for 20 seconds that could cast skills with no cost and then die.

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A dead tank, even if you can cast for 20 seconds is still a dead tank, which is bad.

This would also cause healers to have to waste even more MP to revive you.

Hang on a second. A dead tank, who can still draw aggro when they're technically dead, is actually a pretty good thing.
It gives the off tank a time window to jump in to main tank position and healer a chance to plan a res.

Living Dead really doesn't need to be touched. It's nowhere near as bad as people here like to think. It has the same duration as Hallowed, it doesn't require a target, the DRK can move freely while it's active, and it doesn't require much more healing than Holmgang (because let's be honest, any planned use of Holmgang will have the healers heal the WAR for a huge chunk of HP right after anyway. That's not unique to DRK). Its cooldown is in the middle which means it's up for things that Hallowed can't be up for. The healing requirement is the reason it can have most of Hallowed's advantages on a shorter cooldown. If you want to change that then the skill needs to be nerfed in some other way.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Hang on a second. A dead tank, who can still draw aggro when they're technically dead, is actually a pretty good thing.
It gives the off tank a time window to jump in to main tank position and healer a chance to plan a res.

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And the name of the ability would be appropriate. xD
It could even be a support ability casted on allies too, this would be super op.

Living dead doesn't need to necessarily be touched, but then Vengeance and Holmgang definitely need to be nerfed. Holmgang's movement restricting "downside" often ends up being an advantage and it has double the uses on Hallowed, and let's face it, if Vengeance is better in every way, then it should be on a longer recast than Shadow Wall.

Living dead should only recieve a visual effect, big enough for healers to notice it and heal the drk on time.

Also for other skills, I think that dark arts really should be reworked into something less spam and more utility kind of buff. Using DA before every skill is just so boring :V Since we don't have much utility or dps, we should first decide the direction in which drk needs to go (be excellent utility or dps job). This would then help us to think on the skills rework!

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Living dead doesn't need to necessarily be touched, but then Vengeance and Holmgang definitely need to be nerfed. Holmgang's movement restricting "downside" often ends up being an advantage and it has double the uses on Hallowed, and let's face it, if Vengeance is better in every way, then it should be on a longer recast than Shadow Wall.

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No, they don't need to be nerfed. Holmgang being both an invuln cooldown and WAR's Tempered Will isn't some huge advantage because you're forced to choose between them, plus not being able to move is always a bad thing. Requiring a target also sucks because it means there are mechanics that WAR can never invuln, and there are also mechanics that take >6s to deal with.

Vengeance should be better than Shadow Wall, because WAR doesn't have a skill like Sheltron/TBN/IB available in dps stance. When PLD uses Sentinel it's also going to use Sheltron for 56% mitigation, when DRK uses Shadow Wall it's also going to use TBN for 30% mitigation plus a 12k+ shield. If WAR wants more than 30% mitigation it needs to use another 90s+ cooldown, but Sheltron/TBN give DRK and PLD free mitigation on every tankbuster on top of their proper cooldowns.

Compact Spitball Suggestion Set:

Dark Dance (replacing Dark Mind) - 12 duration. Causes 30% of damage to instead be taken over time. (Splits 20% of incoming damage over global ticks over the remaining duration. Any overhealing received reduces the would-be DoT value stored. These ticks themselves can be mitigated by existing mitigation effects, essentially double-dipping on the mitigation.) Dark Arts Effect: Attack Power and Evasion increased by 1% of damage mitigated or delayed during Dark Dance. [Now stacks incredibly well with Living Dead.]

Living Dead - Now simply prevents death for 10 seconds. Would-be fatal damage instead becomes a debuff which absorbs an equal amount of healing. (No, Benediction will not heal this portion in addition to 100% of Max HP, and no it cannot be cleansed.)

Shadowskin - Returned. Reduces Magic Damage taken by 15% and Dodge and Parry chance by 15%.

The Blackest Night - Now shields others for 12% of the DRK's HP. (50k -> 6k)

Sole Survivor - Your and your allies' attacks drain HP from the target.

That's not bad either, the changes to Dark Dance and Shadowskin still give DRK a much needed +1 to defensive skills, as for living dead, I'm still kinda torn on why DRK invul skill seems to have to co me with a negative payout, I get the whole living on the edge of sacrifice motif but in terms of practical gameplay it's always seems like a handicap given just because it fits the overlying theme.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I like Dark Arts to be a Dark Arts.

I just want it to be closer to HW frequency, rather than being available every second to third GCD.

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Well see, this is a legitimate request. I prefer the new version but I totally understand why people would prefer the last one. I do agree that we spam it a bit too much for very little effect tho.

On the other hand, I don't understand why so many people want scourge back. I just can't understand how this skill was interesting and brought anything to the job. (if your concern is purely dps, bumping up a few potency on your main combo would do the trick)

Having a dot for the sack of it is totally uninteresting. A bit like that post about SMN dots having no purpose because they don't interact. They are just there.

Lastly, remodeling skill purely around dps optimisation a dangerous route leading to unnecessary homogenisation. The proposed change to DA was made with Berserk and Requisath in mind. DA is the one truly unique thing about DRK and you propose to make it like another dps cd.

The problem I see is also the way the proposed DA was formulated. A good DRK would be able to keep it longer and do more dmg.
I do not say that optimizing dps is bad far from that. But I'd like to point that the one thing you want to address on a tank is "dps optimisation"
In other words, DRK tanking ability, design and effectiveness aren't your concern. Your concern is how DRK can optimise its dps and you would destroy the one unique thing about it to make it more like a dps rather than what it should be in the first place, a Tank.

Your proposed idea for instance destroy the improved on demand regen/aggro from our main combo, or the interaction it has with defensive or offensive skills.

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Living death could give unlimited blood gauge like inner release does to warrior. :P

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Tank Mitigation and tank dps OGCD's should not be sharing the same button, as all that you create is a meta where the defensive aspects of the skill are massively or completely ignored due to how much of a dps loss it is to NOT use it for offense. It's a similar issue to Unchained VS Inner Release that was plaguing WAR before 4.2; why would you ever use unchained when Inner Release is just infinitely more important in comparison? Or how much WAR avoids IB unless it's absolutely necessary due to Fell cleave being so much stronger?

Even on DRK itself; look at how TBN interacts with Bloodspiller, and how if it's not at least dps neutral, you'll have optimal DRK dps play never using it outside of emergency situations.

Though beyond that, I would have an issue tying DRK's ultimate dps ability to having to die. That's just begging to cause drama and wipes due to mis-use and/or arguments with DRK's telling healers to stop healing them during their burst window, when the other two tanks can use their ultimate dps C/Ds with no repercussion. There are better ways to make a dps C/D more interesting than having massive drawback to it.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

On the other hand, I don't understand why so many people want scourge back. I just can't understand how this skill was interesting and brought anything to the job. (if your concern is purely dps, bumping up a few potency on your main combo would do the trick)

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I can't speak for anyone other than myself; but it's simply because DRK feels way too straightforward. WAR and PLD at least have some nuance to their combo chains, DRK is just "RAWR Dark Arts!" with soul eater spam over and over. I personally wouldn't want Scourge back as a 1-button DoT; I'd want it to come back in a new iteration similar to goring Blade, where it's a combo ender off of siphon strike to have more fun managing combos and timers than DRK does now, with adjusted potency to it and Soul Eater due to its addition so DRK stays roughly the same on dps.

[/QUOTE]
The problem I see is also the way the proposed DA was formulated. A good DRK would be able to keep it longer and do more dmg.[/QUOTE]

My main problem with Dark Arts as a whole is that its quite simply a button to press to gain a boost in numbers mainly as a DPS increase. My problem with DRK as a whole is that it has to do SO much more to achieve similar results that both PLD and WAR are able to do with relative ease. This doesn't make the class unique in my opinion, simply cumbersome. The proposed change is simply to allow Dark Arts to provide a more regulated curve for the current DRK's kit. Example if you were out of Grit and needed to maintain aggro Power Slash would retain its aggro boost during your DA window, however you would presumably lose out on an SS -> SE combo and would lose 3GCD's worth of the MP drain that I proposed for DA. So you are effectively choosing whether or not the regen from SS - SE is worth the balance to aggro from PS. It takes the complexity out of Dark Arts use, yes this was intentional, instead I moved the complexity unto DA management. It gives you a flexible window one that can be maintained for a much longer period of time and one that rewards fight knowledge, proper planning for CD, and overall player skill. Its not a timed window like FoF or IR its a stance that is lost if a player is bad. Similar to how Darkside was during Heavensward. I do however understand that it is very DPS focused change. However unless I'm horribly mistaken (serious I'm not a DRK expert) Dark Arts is done mainly as a damage increasing modifier. The Sustain from DA -AD and the Aggro boost from DA-PS seem to be the only non-damage uses for Dark Arts. The proposed change won't really affect that since it still wouldn't allow you to mindlessly spam skills as they still use a hefty chunk of MP.

On the topic of WAR and not having a TBN...

Thrill of battle is basically a TBN for tank busters. Choosing to align thrill of battle with upheaval is your choice as a warrior instead of using it for a tankbuster and in some cases it may align anyway. Ironically the same decisions drks make to use TBN for a tank buster or to use that mp for dark arts. You guys get a free tank stance every 90 seconds for 20 seconds. If you know a tank buster is coming, theres nothing stopping you from switching to defiance for extra HP and an IB with unchained for 20 seconds.

Edit: Let's not forget equilibrium is there for when you switch to defiance for instant access to extra HP.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

I can't speak for anyone other than myself; but it's simply because DRK feels way too straightforward. WAR and PLD at least have some nuance to their combo chains, DRK is just "RAWR Dark Arts!" with soul eater spam over and over. I personally wouldn't want Scourge back as a 1-button DoT; I'd want it to come back in a new iteration similar to goring Blade, where it's a combo ender off of siphon strike to have more fun managing combos and timers than DRK does now, with adjusted potency to it and Soul Eater due to its addition so DRK stays roughly the same on dps.

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This touches on my biggest issue with the current version of DRK. Outside of the Abyssal Drain -> TBN -> Quitetus combo for large pack trash tanking, there seems to be a distinct lack of "flow" to DRK and it's abilities which I would say is mainly brought about by a lack of synergy and interaction between it's abilities. They are just too isolated in what they do or only really seem to be limited to one basic interaction that tends to be the same or barely different from the interaction of most of the other abilities. This just results in very bland game-play that just feels shallow and fragmented.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Lastly, remodeling skill purely around dps optimisation a dangerous route leading to unnecessary homogenisation. The proposed change to DA was made with Berserk and Requisath in mind. DA is the one truly unique thing about DRK and you propose to make it like another dps cd.

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I'd also point out that Dark Arts is fundamentally not (solely) a damage ability. If that were its function, then it would simply be baked into the abilities themselves.

What Dark Arts allows (more so in HW than now) is for the MT to sacrifice damage for survivability, much more alike to how Inner Beast and Fell Cleave work atop their respective stances than anything like Berserk or Requiescat.

Blood Weapon and CnS are as close as DRK is going to get to a burst phase, and, imo, that's a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

On the topic of WAR and not having a TBN...

Thrill of battle is basically a TBN for tank busters. Choosing to align thrill of battle with upheaval is your choice as a warrior instead of using it for a tankbuster and in some cases it may align anyway. Ironically the same decisions drks make to use TBN for a tank buster or to use that mp for dark arts. You guys get a free tank stance every 90 seconds for 20 seconds. If you know a tank buster is coming, theres nothing stopping you from switching to defiance for extra HP and an IB with unchained for 20 seconds.

Edit: Let's not forget equilibrium is there for when you switch to defiance for instant access to extra HP.

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No, Thrill isn't WAR's TBN. Their similarities end at the 20% hp. TBN stands out because it's up so often, not because it's based on a percentage of your hp. Comparing TBN/Dark Arts to Thrill+Upheaval is stupid, because you don't actually lose any dps by holding MP for TBN. Defiance still isn't free because of Deliverance's 5% damage buff, and IB is also a dps loss.

If WAR wants more mitigation than a single cooldown without sacrificing dps, it needs to use another 90s+ cooldown. That's not true for DRK/PLD.

We dont lose dps from holding the mp... we lose dps from using the mp on tbn instead of dark arts. The only time tbn wouldnt be a dps loss is for adds and quietus or an additional blood spiller during raid buffs.

Even if you take out the IB you have defiance and equilibrium available to you every minute. Unchained for 4 gcds then back to deliverance and thats +25%hp for a buster. If you think drks are spamming tbn on cooldown, i can assure you they are not. You are giving tbn too much credit. I'm sorry you have to sacrifice 5% dps for 10 seconds should you want extra hp at no gcd/cooldown cost and save your other stuff for fluff.

So tbn for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or dark arts... thrill for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or use it on cooldown with IR upheavels. Seems like a fair comparison to me. The only difference is drks are more limited in other options and our invuln option could even kill us.

Haven't read through this thread so I have no idea if people have already mentioned these, but the ideas my group of friends had for DRK was to basically fuse Shadow Wall and Blood Price so shadow wall isn't just a bad Sentinel, and make it so you can use Blood weapon while in Grit. Maybe tweak some of the numbers but I feel that would make it feel better to play. The best suggestion I've seen for Living Dead is it make it so that if you drop to 0, instead of having to be healed to full, when the timer wears off your HP and MP "swap" so you're left with 0 MP but now have some HP

Living dead should not require the healing to full. It is still inferior to hallowed ground even without this requirement, since hallowed ground has the ability to negate mechanic damage entirely whereas Living Dead only negates any damage greater than the DRK's health pool. The DRK will always need some healing afterwards anyway, whereas the paladin can use HG to stay on 100% health through things that would otherwise kill them.

I don't demand that LD be a DRK-themed Hallowed Ground, but it would be nice if the gap between the usefulness of these two actions was made a tiny bit smaller. It seems just a tiny bit unfair.

Just remove Walking Dead part of LD. So Living Dead: DRK won't die for 10 seconds (HP stops at 1). It's better than Holmgang, but on a longer CD. What's the problem.

Don't need more convoluted gimmicks to try to distinguish DRK any further.

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Originally Posted by Xenosan

Just remove Walking Dead part of LD. So Living Dead: DRK won't die for 10 seconds (HP stops at 1). It's better than Holmgang, but on a longer CD. What's the problem.

Don't need more convoluted gimmicks to try to distinguish DRK any further.

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Sounds good to me, personally. It'd probably warrant a slightly longer CD at that point, but mechanically that seems perfectly sound.

Can't simply allow negative HP for the duration, sadly, so this seems the equally simply solution albeit with greater strength.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

We dont lose dps from holding the mp... we lose dps from using the mp on tbn instead of dark arts. The only time tbn wouldnt be a dps loss is for adds and quietus or an additional blood spiller during raid buffs.

Even if you take out the IB you have defiance and equilibrium available to you every minute. Unchained for 4 gcds then back to deliverance and thats +25%hp for a buster. If you think drks are spamming tbn on cooldown, i can assure you they are not. You are giving tbn too much credit. I'm sorry you have to sacrifice 5% dps for 10 seconds should you want extra hp at no gcd/cooldown cost and save your other stuff for fluff.

So tbn for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or dark arts... thrill for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or use it on cooldown with IR upheavels. Seems like a fair comparison to me. The only difference is drks are more limited in other options and our invuln option could even kill us.

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You dont lose DPS on TBN...