Increase Incentive for using The Blackest Night

Please adjust the incentive for using The Blackest Night to include something more than 50 blood. Dark Knights are avoiding using the skill, please add a small adjustment that would increase its frequency of use.

For example, when The Blackest Night is fully absorbed you reduce the recast of blood weapon/blood price by 3 seconds in addition to gaining 50 blood.

Avoid using? Currently the skill is a complete break even in terms of damage/mana cost. You lose maybe 6 personal DPS with every TBN but the healers will almost always gain an entire global thanks to your TBN. If the skill was a DPS increase to use, I think that might hurt the job because you're still constantly fighting for MP as a DRK, but now you're sinking 2400 MP into TBN and not just Dark arts.

Please. I know opinions can be mixed about TBN, but this is currently my biggest block toward finding the job smooth and fun to play. It feels incredibly frustrating to "waste" a TBN and not very rewarding to use it perfectly. I feel there is a pressure of making sure TBN uptime is perfect throughout a fight, since it is the only thing keeping Dark Knight comparable to the other 2 tanks.

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Originally Posted by Saeno

Avoid using? Currently the skill is a complete break even in terms of damage/mana cost. You lose maybe 6 personal DPS with every TBN but the healers will almost always gain an entire global thanks to your TBN. If the skill was a DPS increase to use, I think that might hurt the job because you're still constantly fighting for MP as a DRK, but now you're sinking 2400 MP into TBN and not just Dark arts.

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Small positive doesn't make it use on cooldown. Personally is seems as though people are not using it to its fullest extent. It doesn't need a huge incentive to use, but it needs to be a bit more so that people use it more frequently.

my only problem with TBN is that i don't want it to be on cd, when the next tankbuster is coming, so i rarely use it in between tankbusters. i know, the cd is short, but a cd is still a cd. and no, i am not that good in memory and knowing exactly when the next big hit is coming :x

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Originally Posted by Tint

my only problem with TBN is that i don't want it to be on cd, when the next tankbuster is coming, so i rarely use it in between tankbusters. i know, the cd is short, but a cd is still a cd. and no, i am not that good in memory and knowing exactly when the next big hit is coming :x

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You're not doing anything wrong. TBN is not a skill you use on CD, in fact I think I would only ever use it when it nets the healers an extra GCD. if I could guarantee TBN to pop on auto attacks, maybe i'd use it on CD but that also requires DRK to take priority in tanking over a WAR or PLD.

I fell like TBN has much more potential than it has right now, but it would require a design change.

Right now, I would like TBN to give 50 blood, once used. DRK already feels like you take penalities and only negate them by using your skills at perfect timing.
Imo it was a bad decision to set a requirement for TBN giving something in return. I just don't feel like I am getting rewarded for using a simple, yet costly cooldown.

Also, TBN giving a 10% shield to any other party member pushes DRK into OT position. Because it's best used on MT to guarantee TBN pops.

(And for DRK/DRK comp, TBN would still give 50 blood even when it has no effect on MT who also happened to cast TBN.)

shoulda been some kick A mamma jamma CD that you'd use. built in KB immunity, a percentage of damage taken while active is returned as blood and MP, and halves the costs of all blood/MP costs while active.

Oh boy, Edgy Inner Release

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Small positive doesn't make it use on cooldown. Personally is seems as though people are not using it to its fullest extent. It doesn't need a huge incentive to use, but it needs to be a bit more so that people use it more frequently.

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When something is already a small rDPS bonus or break-even at worst, any further benefit whatsoever does make it wholly or very nearly use-on-cooldown.

And I have absolutely no interest in an on-CD shield.

I'd be happy seeing it made less irritating, such as by actuating the effect faintly sooner and/or giving a proportionate Blood return at the end of the duration if not broken earlier, but I don't want to see its effective value increased, except perhaps (and just slightly) to other recipients.

TBN is good enough as is. For what it is, it gives sufficient and flexible coverage for tank busters and raid-wide AoEs. If the majority of dark knights aren't using it, it's not a fault of the skill, but a fault of the player.

Seriously, bad tanks not using their defensive CDs is nothing new.

Reading through this thread, I'm curious to know what Paladins think of Sheltron. It's also a resource-gated cooldown. It gives you 960 MP and a Swipe proc when it soaks up damage. The MP gain is 2/3 of the cost of HS, so it's effectively worth 253 potency before buffs. The Shield Swipe proc is an additional 100 potency oGCD on top of this. Here you have a short-recast mitigation cooldown which is a clear dps gain to use on recast.

Gauge in Sword Oath is a function of uptime. If you're landing all of your auto-attacks, it should take about 20-30 seconds to generate one Sheltron. Many of the top clears this tier have roughly one Sheltron use every 30 seconds or so. It is getting used on recast as a dps gain. Has this tarnished your enjoyment? Do you dislike having your defensive cooldowns also serving as an offensive boost?

Also, where do we draw the line? Is it a problem for longer recast defensive abilities, like Vengeance, to have dps gains associated with them?

Personally, I don't mind either way, but I would like to see consistency in the design. This is not even considering the fact that TBN already is a situational dps gain in some situations, and a situational dps loss in others. It's unnecessarily convoluted.

The biggest problem that I have with the mentality surrounding TBN is the link with Bloodspiller. We don't have the luxury of big dps multipliers like other tanks get with IR and Req. As it is, Bloodspiller gets used less frequently and has a much lower relative damage contribution when compared to equivalent abilities on other tanks. Do we really need more reasons to restrict Bloodspiller's effectiveness?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Reading through this thread, I'm curious to know what Paladins think of Sheltron. It's also a resource-gated cooldown. It gives you 960 MP and a Swipe proc when it soaks up damage. The MP gain is 2/3 of the cost of HS, so it's effectively worth 253 potency before buffs. The Shield Swipe proc is an additional 100 potency oGCD on top of this. Here you have a short-recast mitigation cooldown which is a clear dps gain to use on recast.

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Gauge in Sword Oath is a function of uptime. If you're landing all of your auto-attacks, it should take about 20-30 seconds to generate one Sheltron. Many of the top clears this tier have roughly one Sheltron use every 30 seconds or so. It is getting used on recast as a dps gain. Has this tarnished your enjoyment? Do you dislike having your defensive cooldowns also serving as an offensive boost?[/QUOTE]

Sheltron in 4.0 is easily PLD's best ability next to intervention. The move mitigates so much damage and helps your DPS out tremendously by allowing you extra holy spirits in the fight thanks to the MP absorb. The 100 potency from shield swipe also helps a ton. I use Sheltron to mitigate hard hitting attacks that are not autos, like aoe busters. The fact that a PLD can block aoe damage thanks to blocking working on magic is insanely good, since you ensure your tank always takes way less damage than the party simply because they blocked.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Also, where do we draw the line? Is it a problem for longer recast defensive abilities, like Vengeance, to have dps gains associated with them?

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I think having only one per tank is best. That way, you're never in a situation where one tank will tank everything so they can get the most amount of DPS out of their ability. It also adds a dynamic to tanking where they swap simply because they have their buff that allows them to do damage while tanking, so the WAR will tank while vengeance is running (we normally use vengeance as we pull so vengeance is ticking under Inner release) then the PLD will take the boss to proc shield swipes after the WAR has ran through their CDs.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The biggest problem that I have with the mentality surrounding TBN is the link with Bloodspiller. We don't have the luxury of big dps multipliers like other tanks get with IR and Req. As it is, Bloodspiller gets used less frequently and has a much lower relative damage contribution when compared to equivalent abilities on other tanks. Do we really need more reasons to restrict Bloodspiller's effectiveness?

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I think giving DRK's a burst is the answer. Blood weapon is by far the dumbest DPS increase move ever on DRK because double weaving oGCDs while having a 2 second GCD is very clunky and if your GCD is getting delayed because your ping isnt good enough to double weave oGCDs, then blood weapon will feel awful. I think Blood weapon needs to increase damage instead of skill speed and I want Delirium to be removed from the game in place of a DPS augment move so DRK's can join in on the burst bonanza when Trick, Litany, cards and Embolden are running. This of course means nerfing DRK's potencies but overall it might just be better to synergize as a DRK with the party. Moving focus off or on of Bloodspiller won't really make a difference.

EDIT: Actually, on second thought DRK potencies wouldnt need to be nerfed since they still have the lowest aggro and utility. They should straight up do the highest damage of all tanks if they are going to be the weakest everywhere else.

I don't actually like using TBN, it's not fun IMO, so instead I'd prefer it to be a bigger cooldown more impactful button that does a lot more in a single use but takes much longer to come back up so it wasn't as "spammy."

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Originally Posted by Mithron

I don't actually like using TBN, it's not fun IMO, so instead I'd prefer it to be a bigger cooldown more impactful button that does a lot more in a single use but takes much longer to come back up so it wasn't as "spammy."

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I'm actually the complete opposite.

I love knowing TBN is always available if needed, and it being a shield with a counterattack in the form of BS is cool IMO, especially in 4 man content where you can outright take no damage at all from certain attacks and therefore just stay in and keep DPSing without a vuln up debuff.

I just think they need more CD options for stuff that isn't a tankbuster and to be less healer reliant than they are.

Remove the MP cost and Blood Interaction.

Increase the cooldown to 30 seconds.

When TBN breaks, it deals damage equal to the amount shielded to the targets around you. Ignores Grit's Penalty.

The cooldown here is short enough that it will be available for what you need and a few times extra, but long enough that a mistiming is punishing and would force Cooldowns you may have been able to keep.

Honestly, the only thing I can think of dark knight in terms of balance right now is that TBN is meant to be popped on cooldown as damage reduction. I cannot see why it would be given a 15 second cooldown that it would try to not use. That said, I think using it frequently and well could be a positive for the class.

As janky as it is to say, would lowering the MP cost of TBN to 1800 be a bad thing?

Honestly, I feel like TBN is a victim; and Dark Knight in general, of their mindset in Stormblood of not rewarding higher leveled play, or jobs that are more complex. Yoshi P said time and again that they wanted to raise the bottom floor by doing so, but in doing so they've removed a reason for people to try and optimize their jobs to the fullest and made it so that jobs that do require more to learn receive nothing in the long term.

I like your idea Chrono, but that would go against their design philosophy for this expansion; which was flawed from the start and should have been called into question well before launch, I just don't know if they'd willing to backpedal on something that they've so fervently worked to pointlessly maintain.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

I just don't know if they'd willing to backpedal on something that they've so fervently worked to pointlessly maintain.

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That's what they did from 3.0 to 4.0. Some of the "simplification" was back-pedaling from what they did from ARR to HW. It was/is fine on a few jobs, the issue is they didn't really review all jobs and noticed what would be lost for that job. Much less think what could be done to compensate.