I had a couple interesting thoughts cross my mind and thought I'd throw them out there. I can't say I've read ALL of the Drk suggestions but this is kind of a culmination of what I've gathered, and while not complete, maybe it's enough to help spark some other ideas or fine tuning.
Without further ado
Dark Arts
The main change to this is an effort to reduce the "spammy" feel commonly complained about. Instead of directly buffing a particular weaponskill or ability with extra potency, I propose it mainly be limited to combo finishers to achieve additional effects which will otherwise be modified from their current form. Such as:
Dark(side) Blade: Increases damage dealt by 20% for XX seconds (take away Darkside skill and have the damage effect be gained from finisher combo)
Delirium Blade: *either* reduces CD for blood weapon / blood price or increases duration blood weapon / blood price (take away Delirium and have the effect be gained from finisher combo)
(need something else for 3rd combo, perhaps Souleater combo that restores portion of hp outside of grit? lol.. Or how about giving DRK an exclusive damage down for party utility? Could be at the end of a "non-dps" combo so it's not a gain to always keep it up, and short duration of like 5 seconds so it's not up 100% of the time, just something you can time right to reduce party damage by 10% or so)
Obviously there would need to be adjustments so it's at minimum on par with current damage combos. Mainly just trying to make the kit more interesting than just "press this button", giving the weaponskills more synergy with the entire kit.
Additionally, I'd propose a stacking effect akin to monk or samurai. Either directly related to performing each combo or just simply stacking them 1-2-3. I was thinking of something along the lines of each stack increasing blood generation by X% so you could work to build this up then go ham with bloodspillers. And perhaps another ability that could convert those stacks to MP or HP. Or, even more interesting, tie the stacks into Carve & Spit, which could deliver an actual 1, 2, or 3-fold attack based on the # of stacks spent (something that could encourage you to build & spend vs build & sit on)
Blood Price
Obviously Blood Price and Blood Weapon should be free to use whenever, not limited to stance. My suggestion for BP is fairly simple, basically the same as now restoring a bit of MP, but let's also add some HP restore, and how about some Reflect damage to keep things interesting. (I think the potency would have to be lower than Vengeance if it's going to remain a short CD)
Living Dead
Sacrifices all but 1 HP to create a Dark Shadow for 10 seconds. The Dark Shadow will absorb all damage taken for it's duration, up to it's maximum HP. If after 10 seconds the Dark Shadow is not destroyed, its remaining HP will be restored to you.
So, just a few things I thought about. Please discuss!
DRK suggestions from a non-DRK
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09-13-2018, 01:13 AMwhiskeybravoDRK suggestions from a non-DRK
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09-13-2018, 03:39 AMHyperiusUltima
Just to note, the 20% Damage Buff would basically make DRK start to compete with WAR and leave Pally behind some(which I think is ok since they’re technically the ‘defensive’ tank). Blood Price restoring HP would increase the CD of it more than likely; but if they do that they’d Have to have good scaling.
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09-13-2018, 03:49 AMwhiskeybravoI guess I sort of forgot to mention that the 20% buff that currently comes from Darkside would be made into a DA combo finisher. Thus giving the class more interaction instead of just having a button you press for a stance and then forget about.Quote:
Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima
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09-13-2018, 04:35 AMshao32technically the rule is low utility high dps, DRK have the lowest utility of the 3 and even if we want to say TBN is equal in utility as SIO then DRK should have same levels of dps as WAR, PLD will not suffer on they spot bcs they have so much utility they still have a high impact on progresion and some strats.Quote:
Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima
Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
on the other hand i really like the livind dead change, it renforced the DRK lore of sacrifice but i dont get something, if DRK use living dead, sacrifice all his HP and being invulnerable 10 seconds, how would you expect dark shadow being destroyed for the HP? its then a super TBN and no a invulnerability? then its a super shield and depending of the strengh of the shield a TB or shared mechanic can kill you -
09-13-2018, 04:55 AMwhiskeybravoThat was a last minute idea I didn't get to fully flesh out. I imagined it as something like a shield, you could say, but if it isn't fully exhausted it just returns what's left. If the damage is more than the Dark Shadow's HP (let's say eating an Ultimate Embrace) then it's just destroyed and you're left with 1 HP.Quote:
Originally Posted by shao32
I think it would be OK to have the DRK able to receive heals for the duration so healers would be able to heal them up before the effect expires and they start taking damage again.
As for possible CD, I was thinking 4 mins. I don't think it would be good (for PLD) to have both DRK and WAR on 3 min invulns compared to Hallowed. Especially considering there's been some debate about increasing Holmgang's duration.. But that's a large scope issue in general. I think the CD could be reduced given it's not a "guaranteed" 10-sec invuln, could just be for one attack. It get's rid of the die-by-your-own-ability problem and becomes a little more useful during an emergency. -
09-13-2018, 05:18 AMZyneste
The only think I really want from DRK is to give Soul Eater an HP return while outside of grit. Why is this even a thing. On this same logic, Storm's eye should cause damage up while in deliverance but change to Storm's path in defiance and cause healing return.. but it doesn't because more freedom with utility is better. ;-;
The best living dead change ive seen is that when the DRK dies and isnt healed in time, to just place brink of death on them instead of actually causing them to die. Its a large punishment, but not as bad as dying.
If I were to give it a new skill in the next Expac it would be to reduce max HP by like 10%. Reduce Damage taken by 10% and increase damage done by 10%. Making the value of Soul Eater's self sustain heal go up. -
09-13-2018, 05:42 AMwhiskeybravoThat still sounds like a terrible Living Dead lol. The whole point is that there shouldn't be a punishment to using your invulnerability skill. PLD isn't punished. WAR isn't punished (thought the root-in-place can suck in dungeons with lots of aoe mobs, generally not a problem in raids). So why is DRK?Quote:
Originally Posted by Zyneste
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09-13-2018, 05:46 AMZynesteWAr can trap themselves in AOEs and is unable to use invuln without a target.Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
PLD can use the god of all invulns but its cool down is only accessible once or twice an encounter.
DRK has allot of flexibility in his cool down, allowing him to pop it up to 10 seconds early, not a second of his invuln is wasted. It will proc when he actually needs it. He can also run around and use it without a target.
Living dead has allot of things going for it. The punishment mechanic is fine, its just a little too much. This sort of compromise would avoid wipes from failing the skill.
Having a reliable non Grit Soul eater heal would also help in getting their max health back without losing DPS. -
09-13-2018, 06:30 AMshao32i preffer the use all you HP and being unable to die for at least 7 seconds with the same recast, since we can move it will be perfect, only we need a reliable source of recovering hp.Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
im in the opinion no invulnerability should be less that 5 min so i dont think that should be done.
the 10 seconds precast just make it easy to use but no matter if is holmgang or hallowed no healer would heal the tank if he know they will be use a invulneravility and precast it 10 seconds its worthless you archive the same result when you saw the attack and all done, the 10 second after are the same, except WHM the other 2 healers arent going to wait to DRK reach 9 seconds to heal him and if you are a WHM you just trow benediction bcs is a offgdc so dont affect you rotation at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zyneste
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09-13-2018, 06:40 AMwhiskeybravoNeeding a target has not really been an issue with WAR. Sure, there are a few mechanics spread about, such as Nael diving in on UCOB where PLD might pop HG early (without a target). But those are very few and far between in my experience. And, you can certainly get trapped in AoEs in dungeons, but as I already mentioned it's not been an issue in any savage raid this expansion, at least. The only thing I can think of that comes close is forsaken 3 & 4, you can't pop Holm too late or else you won't make it the edge in time if you get confuse tether. Worst case, it's not like CDs have a strict usage so if you can't use Holmgang for something in particular you just use it on something else. And the most obvious difference should be, WAR doesn't need to be healed to full after Holmgang. That's really the whole kicker with LD, why is there this additional burden? It's not like it's so much better than Holm and Hallowed that it needs a negative condition attached to it everytime you use it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zyneste
I think the HP restore is made a bigger deal than it really is. Sure, all the return heals add up over the course of a fight, but at any given moment it's not going to save you, it's not going to get anywhere near close to saving you. And WAR is not performing Storm's Path for the self heal, they are doing it for the gauge generation. The self heal is just there.
That said, I don't see a particular reason why the self heal is currently locked behind grit. (I think it's a relic from the sweeping tank changes SB initially brought) It'd be the same for DRK, not spamming soul eater for the heal but because it's your highest dps combo. The heal just happens to be there. But I'd rather see a significant HP restore for DRK, changing soul eater alone isn't enough. It doesn't really do anything make DRK appreciably better than before.
So I didn't really approach that in my OP since I'd like to see something a bit different. Such as, being able to accumulate another stacking resource by performing Dark Arts that could then be converted into HP or MP in a given situation. It would need to be a fairly simple resource since DRK is already managing 2 (MP and Blood), I just think having another resource like that would open up a lot of avenues to make DRK unique again. Give it a noticeably different feel than the other tanks.
Mmm.. I kinda see what you're saying, but in my head the DRK is "technically" invulnerable. I guess I worded it kind of short, but the idea is to have the clone take all damage while it's up. I know it kind of sounds like "if I have 60,000 HP then the clone will only absorb 59,999 HP worth of damage" but that's not exactly what I meant. It would be treated just like you, if you have 60k HP and take 100k damage, you just die. The 40k left-over damage doesn't transfer to someone else. So the clone would be the same. You could pop it a little early to absorb some AA and a TB. But this change wouldn't allow you to use it on something like UE+Hyperdrive because the UE would kill the clone (as there wouldn't be any HP left after). If we change it around and say Hyperdrive was first instead of after, maybe Hyperdrive doesn't do enough damage to kill the clone right away so it's still up to take the UE.Quote:
Originally Posted by shao32
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09-13-2018, 07:53 AMshao32ahhh i see you point, creates a shadow of you in theory (bcs will be a buff and meaby anew effect around you) , able to take x certain amount of HP but dont affect you the excess of damage the shadow will take from a TB and if it dont die you get full recovered right? then yess i belive its a good idea, ok ok sounds pretty, but it doesent matter that relative weaknes since the current living dead make you get the dot tooQuote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
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09-13-2018, 08:25 AMTintI think you don't understand how important the ressource management for DRK gameplay is. It is the core of the job. The constant mana spending and rebuilding is what makes a DRK a DRK (in this game).Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
You just can't remove the Dark Arts spam without offering an alternative to spend that mana on. Changing Dark Arts to affect combo finishers is nice and all - but it doesn't solve the core problem: The ressource management.
We had the automatic mana drain through Darkside in 3.0 and we have the manual mana drain through Dark Arts in 4.0 now. The manual drain is spammy, but it gives you more control over your mana.
The question is not what else can Dark Arts do - the question is how can DRK spend his mana without losing control over it and without spamming too many buttons.
We already have a tank with different combos and buffs: WAR. I think DRK should keep his ressource management gameplay. -
09-13-2018, 09:12 AMFalar
Spoken like someone who.......doesn't play the class.
Moving on. -
09-13-2018, 11:13 PMwhiskeybravoIt's not that I don't understand how it works, but I didn't want to get into suggesting potency or specific values because I'm probably going to get it wrong (and at this stage it's relatively unimportant). But it did cross my mind and the only thing I could really come up with is increasing the base MP cost and increasing the recast a bit. And as for resource management, I did offer a 3rd resource to manage... And I didn't exactly come up with a whole concept here, so if you wanted to use your imagination and create other avenues to spend MP, via self buffing or other abilities which would consume it, you are absolutely free to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tint
At the end of the day, if it's a bad idea it's just another bad idea. No harm? I thought this approach was at least slightly more interesting than continuously buffing Soul Eater and things for +140 potency.
Yea well, can't say I'm a WAR main who doesn't care about the state of my co-tanks. Least I tried /shrugQuote:
Originally Posted by Falar
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09-14-2018, 12:44 AMXenosan
I think there maybe solutions to Dark Arts that live closer to it's current implementation, like tweaking some of the current abilities that are just lack-luster. Like Delirium.. not much to complain about - they even buffed in a patch.. but if DRK could trade that for WHM's Thin Air they'd probably be better off. Dark Knight: when healers have a better burst cooldown than you.
For Dark Arts I'd just want a faster activation/animation, and though it is meme-worthy: let us Dark Arts the Dark Arts. Or more accurately - let DRK hold more than 1 DA at a time. This is just a QoL, it's not about removing the spam nature of Dark Arts, but makes it feel less intrusive to the rotation.
Also move Dark Arts to lvl30 (unlocked simultaneously with Darkside as the 1st Job Quest reward), has anyone lvl'd a DRK alt since SB? Is a laughable job intro without a MP exhaust action component.
The issue for me isn't the act of Dark Arts spam itself, it's the fact that SE uses the feature as an excuse to give sub-par performance base-abilities down the pipe because, 'well you should DA it, or trade a DA for it'. -
09-14-2018, 01:15 PMLythDark ArtsQuote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
The difficulty with DRK's design in Stormblood is the rate of MP generation. The MP drain from Darkside in Heavensward was designed to partially offset the MP gain from Syphon, resulting in a gradual rise in MP with each combo. In Stormblood, this MP gain is unopposed, so it happens very quickly. This is why we're required to use Dark Arts so frequently. You can make as many interesting DA effects as you like, but you can't change the frequency with which it is used without addressing DRK's resource generation/expenditure.
The other difficulty is that DRK's total MP capacity, while suitable for Heavensward's rate/expenditure, doesn't work as well with this kind of design. Because you're gaining and spending large quantities of your MP bar every GCD, you have very little leeway to defer spending MP on your next DA move. Of course, if you make the MP capacity too large, then burst becomes less about Blood Weapon/Delirium timing and more about stockpiling resources.
If you want to decrease Dark Arts usage without re-implementing the MP drain from Darkside, then you need more actions that consume MP. oGCDs, like Dark Passenger and Carve and Spit, could be good candidates for this (especially if they moved the DA cost of Carve on to the ability itself, shaving off one DA use every minute). The problem with oGCDs, however, is that they tend to be bunched up together. So you'd either need something on a shorter recast or proc-based, letting you burn off excess MP consistently throughout combat.
One commonly suggested solution is to let Dark Arts activate for X GCDs, or even function as a stance that you can toggle. The difficulty here is that DRK's present MP generation happens in spurts, which is why you need to be able to burn it off in a GCD by GCD basis. You could still make it work, though.
Solution
Here's one possible solution.
1) Give every base combo action (Hard Slash, Syphon Strike, Souleater) a small amount of fixed MP generation.
2) Give the enhanced versions of these a fixed amount of extra potency and blood generation, without any MP generation.
Let's say that you activate Dark Arts, such that it lasts for the next 3 GCDs or so (this could be any number of GCDs, in theory). The main cost of activating Dark Arts would then be to stop your MP generation, in exchange for more blood and more damage.
Either way, it's a fairly complex problem that requires a rework of how our resource generation works. This is before we've even got into a discussion of Delirium, which is a more difficult issue in itself.
Blood Price
Abilities that generate resources on being hit are very difficult to tune. I remember that WoW had a similar issue with Rage generation, in that you often had too much or too little. In the case of Blood Price, if you tune it for single target, it becomes too powerful when you have multiple targets. If you tune it for multiple targets, it becomes nearly useless in single target.
What made this more obvious going from Heavensward to Stormblood was the fact that it was both stance locked as well as being re-tuned for very big pulls. Abilities locked behind Grit generally aren't going to be used to begin with.
I think that if the developers don't like the "resource gain on hit" idea, they should just drop it, rather than keeping it in its present form. If we get another ability crunch going into the next expansion, Blood Price and Unleash are my two top picks for replacement.
Living Dead
The number one problem with Living Dead that you always have to "work around" using it. As long as that's the case, players are going to hate using it. You should be rewarded for pressing the button.
If an ultimate move has a two minute longer recast, I want to see it have a more powerful effect. What would I like to see? I'm open to anything that doesn't involve that doesn't involve the present "heal or die" game. But here's an idea:
Living Dead: Lose all your current HP except for 1. For the next 10 seconds, you can't take damage. All attacks done to you or by you restore HP at a fixed rate (like a Blood Weapon/Price effect).
Would be a bad ability to accidentally fatfinger, but the same is true for any ultimate move.
Either way, thanks for giving your take on things. -
09-14-2018, 01:37 PM347SPECTRE
The problem with axing unleash is that you're kinda screwed out of an AoE aggro move when synced down below the level in which you get abyssal drain. And if there were to get rid of Blood Price, I'd suggest removing the stance lock on Blood Weapon.
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09-14-2018, 01:51 PMLyth
In the absence of Unleash and Blood Price, I would drop Abyssal Drain down to level 6, and make Blood Weapon stance independent. I know that some people like their circular AoEs, but AD is incredibly versatile in its targeting.
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09-14-2018, 09:18 PMTint
I actually have an idea how to fix the Dark Arts spam without reworking the job too much.
Idea is to bring the automatic mana drain back. Darkside is a useless skill now anyway, activate it once and then forget about that button. So Darkside gets the mana drain back.
But instead of the mana drain over time, it becomes a mana drain for every action you use, similar to MP-Turbo. Basically every attack skill (excluding auto attacks) will have a small mana cost attached, as long as Darkside is up.
This should be closer to HW-DRK gameplay wise, but still has some benefits of SB-DRK to keep the job accessible for not so good players.
However, this idea leads to problems with TBN usage and especially to problems in tank stance, like lost selfheal from Souleater (because you can't use Dark Arts that often on it anymore) and lost damage from Dark Arts usage on Bloodspiller (Dark Arts does technically more than 140 potency when used in tank stance together with Bloodspiller).
Of course you can adjust the selfheal and potencys... but I fear there really is no easy solution. And a complete redesign of the job will upset a lot of people. -
09-15-2018, 02:50 AMKabooa
I would really rather we move away from Maintenance Weaponskill and Spam Weaponskill. Dark Knight only has Spam at the moment, but adding Maintenance to that doesn't make it more interesting. It just becomes another carbon copy.
I want to point out that "Dark Arts Spam" itself is a symptom of an underlying problem - That most OGCD abilities are just the sort you can spam whenever the cooldown is off, outside specific buff pairings. Dark Arts just reduces this to the base level - Hit button for potency. Hit it more during buff window. That said, I enjoy the idea of adding specific Dark Arts effects, which we could use more of. Rather than 'reduce Dark Arts spam', we should diversify the options for 'Dark Arts'. In a for fun rework, Dark Arts simply became a subset of abilities with the same uniform MP cost.
So using your Combo-Ending buff-granting schemata, we'd have something look like this.
Dark Arts: Black Blade
Cost: [Current DA Cost]
Recast: 30
Effect: The next 3 Weaponskills gain 60 potency. Power Slash, Soul Eater, and [New Attack] gain additional effects.
Rather than have 'maintenance' and 'spammers' you instead apply more situational boosts to an individual combo line, granting a more immediate boon instead of a rotational requirement. Ideally none of them are a 'go-to' and while this Dark Arts would be used as much as possible, the decision of which one to utilize would be made when it comes up.
Off the top of my head
Power Slash: Applies an empowered Provoke effect, matching Enmity to the highest target and adding 10% to that.
Soul Eater: Marks the target with Drain for 15 seconds, granting party members attacking it 20% of the damage they deal as health, up to 20% of your maximum health.
Guillotine: Guillotine and the next two weapon skills have their range extended by 15y.
Granted the three main lines would likely still fall into maintenance and spammers, but Dark Arts relating to weaponskills expands the toolkit rather than simply matching the others. -
09-15-2018, 04:06 AMwhiskeybravoThis is more along of the lines of what I was trying to consider. Bring back the 3rd combo (so DRK at last has 2 for when they don't need aggro) and have a little variety between them instead of just flat potency boost. Have some interaction with the rest of DRK's kit so it has more synergy with itself. Someone said it sounded like WAR, but it's been discussed on here that WAR has the best synergy with it's kit out of all the tanks, so I tried to apply similar logic to how the abilities feed off each other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
And I'll admit, I need to play DRK more often.. I Just.. There's no wow factor in it for me. As simple as WAR is, there are just moments when it's really enjoyable. Like, when someone says to go ahead and LB3 the boss and I say "Oh, you mean Inner Release? Here you go". Back to running experts in Deliverance with my static healer "it's pretty bad when the tank is top DPS". That's a WOW factor. Is it OP? Yea probably, but that's what the other tanks need too (not that my suggestions necessarily accomplished that, still). There's gotta be something more they can do! -
09-15-2018, 04:19 AMKabooa
I agree, I severely hope 5.0 is the tank and healer expansion. They need more diversity in their kit and flow. Stormblood DPS is a good foundation and transitional period and I foresee few issues in terms of aesthetic and flow moving into Not-Garlemald. Black Mage isn't like Machnist isn't like Monk isn't like Dragoon isn't like Summoner isn't like Samurai isn't like Red Mage.
They need to cement a mechanical theme for each the tanks, as the aesthetic theme is fine. They play too identically to each other, and that's partially why Inner Release, in every iteration thus far, has been so notable. For that window, Warrior breaks apart from the 123 123 123 and just goes HAM. No matter how effective it is, it has as you mentioned the 'Wow factor'. Meme Cleave aside, that feels good, and as a foundation ability, it opens up the opportunity for Warrior to have stupid interactions down the road, and that's good. In this regard, warrior is pretty much set. A calm period before a window of furious button mashing.
In my opinion, moving forward, Paladin and Dark Knight need a similar central mechanical theme, along with any other tank that gets introduced. -
09-15-2018, 05:04 AMTouchandFeel
Just an off-the-cuff 5.0 rework musing ...
What if they completely revamped the DRK resource mechanics by taking it more in a RDM direction where you have MP like now but it only fuels Dark Arts and maybe Unleashed, although I would not be opposed to Unleashed being completely replaced with DRK only having Abyssal Drain.
Then, somewhat akin to RDM, they give you two additional resources to use, Shadow and Blood.
Most of the old abilities that cost MP are now given Shadow costs instead of MP and all existing Blood abilities continue costing Blood.
In addition the resource gain from combo abilities is redone to accommodate the new resource mechanics. So for example Syphon still gives MP since that is still used for DA but it also gives a little Shadow and a little Blood. Then the two combo-enders that come off that, Soul Eater and a new one that we get, give a larger chunk of one of the two resources with Soul Eater giving Blood like it does and the other giving Shadow. DAing either of these boosts the amount of the resource it gives while DAing Syphon gives a bit more of both.
Lastly they implement greater interaction between the abilities for each resource where some Shadow abilities will give you Blood and vice-versa and then, again like RDM, there are some timer-locked OGCDs that require certain levels of either resource to be able to be used with the most powerful requiring a high level in both.
Oh, and of course new Blood based abilities would be added to flesh-out that aspect of the kit and to provide counter-points and interactions with the Shadow abilities.
Anyways, like I said just a quick off-the-cuff spark of an idea that would definitely need refinement and fleshing out but could be interesting if done well. I just feel that the way the current resource mechanics are implemented with DRK, with too much overlapping and competing abilities and mechanics far too tethered to MP makes it inherently awkward and clunky and that it would potentially work much better and provide for a more defined play-style if the resources were isolated and encapsulated a bit better to simplify the resource pool part, freeing up more interesting ways to implement resource exchanges and interactions.
Probably too drastic of a change but eh ... I can dream.