A few DRK abilities to which we will need quality of life changes to.

Hello! I am making a new thread about dark knight because it seems there is a lot of emotionally driven and even aggressive posts about the class. The purpose of this post is to bring a few abilities which urgently need a QoL change better into consideration while trying to be as brief, simple, neutral and objective as possible. This post will not take part for example dungeon balancing and so forth and is not supposed to be an exhaustive list by no means.

Short term changes:
1. Blood weapon. The skill seems to be affected by network connection, melding and other sources too much. For example, you must use it as a second oCD, meld enough skill speed to your gear and keep your uptime perfectly to get maximum potential off this ability. The best solution would be to make it stack based as delirium was made at the start of the expansion.

2. Living dead. This ability seems not in par with the other tanks' invulnerabilities. It does not provide much more utility compared to the risk it carries. I do not have much idea how to improve this, but it needs to be looked upon.

Long term changes:
1. The Blackest Night. Apart from the risky mana game mechanic it brings forth, it's also the must use ability at the start of dark knight opener, because has the potential to give you an additional Edge of Shadow for burst phase. This makes bosses, who start with a tank buster a bit inconsistent though, since you have already used The Blackest Night at this point.


This bring this representation of the needed changes to a close. Thank you.

Opening with a TBN just for the Edge of Shadow proc is a false economy, it's not "free", you've still spent 3000MP, and unless that mitigation is giving the healers more DPS it's pointless. As no other tanks are using their 'on demand' mitigation in the opener, I think healers are fine.

I do think TBN needs a bit of a buff though, considering the other tanks 'on demand' mitigations skills all got something very significant added. I was thinking something along the lines of:
Once TBN has expired, another buff is applied "The Darkest Dawn" (name TBC) which reduces incoming damage by 30% for 6 seconds if TBN was consumed, or by 10% for 6 seconds if it was not consumed.

This would give DRK a little more sustained mitigation for use in dungeon pulls, which is where it's currently weakest.


As for Living Dead, I would probably give it a couple new effects:
1. When under the Walking Dead effect, all abilities and weaponskills regenerate HP equal to 20% of the damage dealt. (stacks with other effects e.g. Souleater)
2. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 50% is restored, you will be inflicted with the Brink of Death effect. If less than 50% is restored, you will be KO'd.

This would A. make it much easier for a healer to heal you up by reducing the amount they need to heal, and B. may even under the right circumstances (with well timed Souleaters, Abyssal Drain, Bloodspiller and Edge of Shadow use, and maybe an odd Choco Cure for good measure) allow you to keep yourself alive, but suffer from Brink of Death as if you had been KO'd, but while not actually KO'ing you.


Rather than making Blood Weapon yet another stack based duration buff, why not just have it add 50 Blood Gauge by itself, instead of having every weapon skill give an extra 10? Then it will instantly half-fill the bar, and is only used for MP regen.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I do think TBN needs a bit of a buff though, considering the other tanks 'on demand' mitigations skills all got something very significant added.

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*Points at Oblation.*

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As for Living Dead, I would probably give it a couple new effects:
1. When under the Walking Dead effect, all abilities and weaponskills regenerate HP equal to 20% of the damage dealt. (stacks with other effects e.g. Souleater)
2. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 50% is restored, you will be inflicted with the Brink of Death effect. If less than 50% is restored, you will be KO'd.

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This still seems needlessly complicated. The skill has a longer cooldown and shorter duration than Holmgang. Just axe the Doom/duration-shortening effect entirely and, if it is to retain a longer CD than Holmgang, slap life-steal atop it. Then, with a 5-minute cooldown, you might at least be able to do what a 4-minute cooldown and part of an "on demand" could.

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Rather than making Blood Weapon yet another stack based duration buff, why not just have it add 50 Blood Gauge by itself, instead of having every weapon skill give an extra 10? Then it will instantly half-fill the bar, and is only used for MP regen.

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So, DRKishoten? I mean, that's fine, but I don't see why that'd be any better than stacks?

Similarly, if Blood Weapon's still going to have the same CD as Delirium anyways... why not just wrap the effect into Delirium by making it upgrade into the latter?

Every 'free' 10 Blood is worth about 37.6 potency. Each % of (or, 100) additional/'free' MP is worth 15.3 potency, putting current Blood Weapon at around 648 potency value if it gets in 5 hits. An additional 10 Blood and 1200 MP per strike under Delirium would carry a very similar 663.6 potency without having to deal with any awkward fractional Blood counts (as per a total of 45 under 15 per strike, etc.). Or, drop the MP gain per Delirium hit a bit and increase C&S's contribution. Whichever.

I'd rather not lose Blood Weapon's animation. It's one of the coolest we have had.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Opening with a TBN just for the Edge of Shadow proc is a false economy, it's not "free"

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I edited my post for better understandability. I meant the proc itself, as it costs no mana. When you have filled up your mana for burst phase, it will reward you one additional Edge of Shadow for it ^^

How about no invuln, but give it a massive shield instead. That makes it more unique. You don't have any ability to pause damage occuring, but you've got like a super blackest night on a long cooldown.

I don't like gnb's invuln move either. Could replace that with something unique like a 400% increase to heals received for a short duration.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

*Points at Oblation.*

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Oblation TBN compares most closely with Holy Sheltron.

HS
-Charges in a little as 20 seconds
-4 seconds of 32% damage mitigation
-4 seconds after that of 20% mitigation
-1000 potency of healing

OTBN
-60 second charge time
-[Roughly] 1500 Potency Shield
-10 seconds of 10% mitigation

I love DRK, think people are exaggerating the squishyness, and even the Oblation is slept on, but it's not "something major" by any stretch

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

Oblation TBN compares most closely with Holy Sheltron.

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I think that really the main discrepancy between Oblation+TBN and the short recast defensives of the other tanks is the frequency that Oblation is available. Having it on a 60s recast, even with 2 charges, means that at most you are getting the approximate equivalent of those other abilities half as frequently, plus a flex use because of the extra charge.
I really feel that Oblation should have it's recast reduced and potentially have an increase to it's mitigation. If keeping the 10% mitigation, a 30s recast would make it relatively equitable to the ~25s recast of the other tank abilities. If the mitigation was increased to say 15%, then perhaps a 45s recast.
If Oblation were buffed a bit and players got better about layering their defensive abilities, I think that most of the complaints on DRK "feeling squishy" would likely dissipate.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Just axe the Doom/duration-shortening effect entirely and, if it is to retain a longer CD than Holmgang, slap life-steal atop it. Then, with a 5-minute cooldown, you might at least be able to do what a 4-minute cooldown and part of an "on demand" could.

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I agree that just removing the "or you die" and "healing cancels the invuln" aspects would probably be the easiest and most straight forward way to make Living Dead far more user-friendly. It does leave it a bit too much like Holmgang and honestly a tad bit boring in my opinion.

While there is likely an amount of intrinsic bias involved, my favorite rework idea for Living Dead is the one that I proposed a while back.

Lvl.50: Danse Macabre (Replaces Living Dead)
Ability –Range: Self - Cast: Instant – Recast: 300s
Recovers HP to full and renders you impervious to most attacks for a duration of 10s.
Additional Effect: Afflicts the Dark Knight with Death’s March.
- Death’s March effect: Gradually damages the Dark Knight over 10s for a total of their maximum HP. This damage cannot reduce the Dark Knight below 1 HP

Basically providing a psuedo reverse Superbolide that heals you to max and then damages you over the duration of the invuln, leaving you at 1hp if you don't get any healing.

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Originally Posted by Kalaam

It's one of the coolest we have had.

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So losing it would be par for the course!

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

How about no invuln, but give it a massive shield instead. That makes it more unique. You don't have any ability to pause damage occuring, but you've got like a super blackest night on a long cooldown.

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This ^

Invulns have actually been breaking raids for a while, recently discovered a mechanic in P3S can just pop Invuln of both tanks and everyone else does nothing, easy pass. Honestly wouldn't complain if they removed Invulns.

The problem with TBN/Oblation is that they are both, together, flat out weaker than the other short-cd tank abilities. This is more obvious in dungeon pulls where 25% of your health is absolutely nothing for mobs to rip through, so TBN is destroyed shortly after you use it. And then it's buddy Oblation is less mitigation than Sheltron/Corundum at base, doesn't heal, and has a much longer cooldown.

The shorter cooldown of TBN doesn't make things better when it's almost immediately destroyed and the other tank cooldowns will always mitigate for a full 8 seconds. This means there's more of a 17-second downtime for those abilities.

Oblation could really use a mitigation boost (maybe 15%), a shorter cooldown, and a half-decent heal comparable to the other tank abilities. I'd prefer to see it buffed instead of TBN because it doesn't use a resource that's also needed for damage.

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

-[Roughly] 1500 Potency Shield

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I keep seeing this figure, and I have to say, it's sus.

In i580, my Dark Knight (well all tanks) have roughly 72,500 HP, so blackest night will shield for approximately 18,125 damage.

My warrior's equilibrium (1200 potency) will hit between 16500-17500. Likewise, bloodwhetting's 400 potency is on average ~5700, or x3 for 17,100.

My initial guesses during media tour were that every 100 tank potency was roughly 1.8% of their maximum health, which actually puts TBN closer to 1350 tank potency back then. Using the above numbers from the live build to run this test again is 18,125 / 17,100 = X / 1200.

1.06 * 1200 = ~1270 tank potency.

So wherefore is this extra 20% being applied, and better yet, where's it coming from?

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I keep seeing this figure, and I have to say, it's sus.

In i580, my Dark Knight (well all tanks) have roughly 72,500 HP, so blackest night will shield for approximately 18,125 damage.

My warrior's equilibrium (1200 potency) will hit between 16500-17500. Likewise, bloodwhetting's 400 potency is on average ~5700, or x3 for 17,100.

My initial guesses during media tour were that every 100 tank potency was roughly 1.8% of their maximum health, which actually puts TBN closer to 1350 tank potency back then. Using the above numbers from the live build to run this test again is 18,125 / 17,100 = X / 1200.

1.06 * 1200 = ~1270 tank potency.

So wherefore is this extra 20% being applied, and better yet, where's it coming from?

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When 577 was the max I just checked how much Souleater restored and scaled from there for a guess, then had my GNB friend do similar math with their heals and it approximately checked out (We weren't being super precise) and nobody has called me out and other people who have also been showing specific math have run with the figure so I didn't really question it. I'll go ahead and start using 1270 now though, especially since it only drives the point I was making further.

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

When 577 was the max I just checked how much Souleater restored and scaled from there for a guess, then had my GNB friend do similar math with their heals and it approximately checked out (We weren't being super precise) and nobody has called me out and other people who have also been showing specific math have run with the figure so I didn't really question it. I'll go ahead and start using 1270 now though, especially since it only drives the point I was making further.

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To be honest, I'd just use %max HP. The shield value is going to fluctuate on a few things, because it scales with Vit, but not weapon damage, so applying potency to it is messy.

On non-tanks it's considerably weaker as well, nearly 40% weaker, where as flat healing potency is constant.

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

I love DRK, think people are exaggerating the squishyness, and even the Oblation is slept on, but it's not "something major" by any stretch

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It's not, but it was just really weird to me that the OP pretended we somehow hadn't gotten anything defensive at lv82. A trait isn't inherently so much stronger than an extra, freely usable defensive CD that the latter ought to be excluded from the "what tanks got at level 82" conversation.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

I agree that just removing the "or you die" and "healing cancels the invuln" aspects would probably be the easiest and most straight forward way to make Living Dead far more user-friendly. It does leave it a bit too much like Holmgang and honestly a tad bit boring in my opinion.

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Doesn't that already go for every immunity?

PLD: Pure Invuln.
GNB: Pure invuln, but drops you to 1 HP to save a minute's recast time.
WAR: Prevents fatal damage.
DRK: Prevents fatal damage, but has a shorter duration, longer CD, and finds another way to kill you.

The later two tanks have always been clear templates of one of the prior two, and since Holmgang got its duration buffed, even it and Hallowed Ground feel barely different outside of the rare old raid from which Hallowed can prevent debuffs.

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Originally Posted by Rufalus

How about no invuln, but give it a massive shield instead. That makes it more unique. You don't have any ability to pause damage occuring, but you've got like a super blackest night on a long cooldown.

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Hmm...an HP shield equal to your max HP? Basically gives you a second health pool for 10s.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Doesn't that already go for every immunity?

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I'm not sure what you took away from my comment which you are quoting part of since the response seems to deviate from what I said.
I didn't defend the way Living Dead works so I don't see the need to reiterate to me the issues with it.

While simply removing the death penalty and early cleansing aspects would be effective at a base level, I would just like something a little more interesting and I happen to like the idea I presented, that is all. I'm not trying to argue with anyone or anything.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

I'm not sure what you took away from my comment which you are quoting part of since the response seems to deviate from what I said.
I didn't defend the way Living Dead works so I don't see the need to reiterate to me the issues with it.

While simply removing the death penalty and early cleansing aspects would be effective at a base level, I would just like something a little more interesting and I happen to like the idea I presented, that is all. I'm not trying to argue with anyone or anything.

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Let me be clearer, then. I just don't think, given that Living Dead already has a longer CD than Holmgang, it needs to diversify itself by way of penalty, rather than just by its compensatory bonus.

Your Dance Macabre lacks Superbolide's invulnerability (and therefore its rare debuff immunity), nets a higher HP cost, and makes use before swapping out more awkward than via Holmgang. It'd still be objectively the worst invuln, and yet without the shortest CD.

That's technically fine if made up for elsewhere somehow (without being overpowered in that compensatory capacity), but I just have to wonder... why not just let it be as strong as its CD would seemingly afford, especially if it's not going to tap into some new integral mechanic?

Edit: Nevermind most of that; I indeed misread. I'd still prefer Living Dead to simply be Holmgang-but-better (to a degree commensurate to its 25% longer CD) than Superbolide-but-worse if it's not going to go in some truly distinct direction nor capitalize on some new, integral mechanic, however. (Note Lyth's suggestion below. Now that looks unique, but also sufficiently strong to warrant its CD.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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If that is what you wanted to say, why didn't you just say that?

Your initial response just went into a vague allusion that all the tank invulns are boring and basically the same and that Living Dead was the worst of them. Neither of those were things that I presented any argument against or even really went into, hence my confusion at such a response.

Anyways, my idea does not function the way you described it.

It does have the same type of damage immunity that Superbolide has.

Recovers HP to full and renders you impervious to most attacks for a duration of 10s.

You are set to full HP and then get the same immunity to most damage as Hallowed and Superbolide. I directly copied the wording of those abilities for the immunity description.

The ability then places a DoT on you that bypasses the immunity and does the equivalent of 99.999...% of your max health, i.e. would reduce you to 1 HP if you received no healing.
Functionally it work the same as Superbolide but instead of immediately reducing you to 1 HP it stretches that damage out over 10s. This makes it slightly more complex to heal compared to Superbolide because you would have to time big heals more towards the end of the immunity duration but that is the counter-balance to the shorter recast compared to Superbolide.

I would imagine that the opposite of Superbollide is something like this:

Living Dead: Prevents most attacks from reducing your HP to less than 1. Any damage prevented this way converts Living Dead to Walking Dead.

Walking Dead: Renders you impervious to healing spells and most attacks.
Additional Effect: Converts a portion of damage dealt into HP.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I would imagine that the opposite of Superbollide is something like this:

Living Dead: Prevents most attacks from reducing your HP to less than 1. Any damage prevented this way converts Living Dead to Walking Dead.

Walking Dead: Renders you impervious to healing spells and most attacks.
Additional Effect: Converts a portion of damage dealt into HP.

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Love this.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

This ^

Invulns have actually been breaking raids for a while, recently discovered a mechanic in P3S can just pop Invuln of both tanks and everyone else does nothing, easy pass. Honestly wouldn't complain if they removed Invulns.

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Yeah, the only way to balance the Invulnerabilities would be to make them all the exact same or remove them.

Make them all the same in 6.1, then get rid of them in 7.0

Too much drama and headache involved with these abilities.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I would imagine that the opposite of Superbollide is something like this:

Living Dead: Prevents most attacks from reducing your HP to less than 1. Any damage prevented this way converts Living Dead to Walking Dead.

Walking Dead: Renders you impervious to healing spells and most attacks.
Additional Effect: Converts a portion of damage dealt into HP.

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Best version of LD and WD we'd ever get.