About TBN

I really think, and i honestly believe, that TBN on it current state should be MB free. But if the devs are religiously against it being MB free, then it should be changed to when the shield pops we gain it as HP.

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Originally Posted by Guts-BSM

I really think, and i honestly believe, that TBN on it current state should be MB free. But if the devs are religiously against it being MB free, then it should be changed to when the shield pops we gain it as HP.

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The moment it becomes MP free is likely the moment the Cooldown goes from 15s to 25s and the Dark Arts proc will be removed. The MP cost is the reason why the cooldown is so short and the refund mechanic exists to use it regardless of MP cost. I highly doubt we will ever get Dark Arts procs on a free version of TBN either, as it would directly equate into DPS gains.

Is it punishing unlike other short cooldowns if you mess up? Yes it is. But I honestly believe that correct TBN usage is about one of the last skill expressions left on this job, along with the other tanks having too much handholding and safety in their kits. So please let us keep TBN the way it is.

Instead, let us hold a 2nd stack of Dark Arts rather and utilise the Dark Arts mechanic more.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

The moment it becomes MP free is likely the moment the Cooldown goes from 15s to 25s and the Dark Arts proc will be removed. The MP cost is the reason why the cooldown is so short and the refund mechanic exists to use it regardless of MP cost. I highly doubt we will ever get Dark Arts procs on a free version of TBN either, as it would directly equate into DPS gains.

Is it punishing unlike other short cooldowns if you mess up? Yes it is. But I honestly believe that correct TBN usage is about one of the last skill expressions left on this job, along with the other tanks having too much handholding and safety in their kits. So please let us keep TBN the way it is.

Instead, let us hold a 2nd stack of Dark Arts rather and utilise the Dark Arts mechanic more.

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what you said is great and i agree with it. But it seems like you didn't focus on the second part of what i said, which is the reason i made this post. i know it will never be mb free, and i'm totally cool with the punishing aspect of it, however i want to know what do you think about the hp gain i mentioned ? because drk desperately needs some selfheals.

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Originally Posted by Guts-BSM

what you said is great and i agree with it. But it seems like you didn't focus on the second part of what i said, which is the reason i made this post. i know it will never be mb free, and i'm totally cool with the punishing aspect of it, however i want to know what do you think about the hp gain i mentioned ? because drk desperately needs some selfheals.

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Sorry about that I missed that.

I am not too sure about the need for self heals on Dark Knight. While not wholly efficient in the scheme of raid buff optimisstion, DRK produces an extraordinary amount of HP shields if capable to use TBN on cooldown. While I am not against the idea of additional HP recovery, I think DRK does currently a bit too much damage to deserve additional HP recovery/eHP beyond Souleater, TBN and Living Dead. But if it were to come to it, thematically lifesteal would be the best fitting one.

The one thing I would suggest is splitting Dark Mind in half magical + half generic mitigation similar to Camouflage.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Sorry about that I missed that.

I am not too sure about the need for self heals on Dark Knight. While not wholly efficient in the scheme of raid buff optimisstion, DRK produces an extraordinary amount of HP shields if capable to use TBN on cooldown. While I am not against the idea of additional HP recovery, I think DRK does currently a bit too much damage to deserve additional HP recovery/eHP beyond Souleater, TBN and Living Dead. But if it were to come to it, thematically lifesteal would be the best fitting one.

The one thing I would suggest is splitting Dark Mind in half magical + half generic mitigation similar to Camouflage.

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If the engine allowed it, I'd from steal Death Knight a bit more and have Bloodspiller restore X% of damage taken in the last Y seconds, minimum of Z% healed (adjust for balance as necessary). For BDK atm, that's X = 25 (can be increased with talents), Y = 5sec, Z = 7% of max hp as minimum heal. Go all in on DRK being the 'counter' tank.

Or bring back Sole Survivor, but as a 100% uptime thing where you mark one enemy, and attacking that restores 75p per hit you do, including OGCDs. A way to have a constant, but very low, trickle of healing over time. Feeds the lore that DRKs just seem to keep enough energy to fight even when they should be exhausted

How about the addition of a Carve & Spit-like skill that recovers HP instead of MP? A single-target Abyssal Drain, if you will. I hate that recovering HP button is shared cooldown with recover MP button and that you can't do both still, but if you had a single target oGCD version of Abyssal Drain, it could be a threeway share for all I care. Just seems like a waste that their only non-Souleater HP gain skill is so directly tied into the AoE set of skills these days. Maybe Oblation can be the one with an HP gain rather than TBN, since I agree with Reinhardt_Azureheim about the skill expression aspect of having to use MP instead of thoughtlessly bashing it for a freebie like other tanks. Giving up a chunk of something for extra effectiveness is part of dark knight's identity since the classic games, it's part of what makes it satisfying. If anything, maybe warrior and gunbreaker can be given something to do with those useless MP bars of theirs? That would help distance TBN's MP cost from being perceived as a weakness, instead of a strength. Paladin's Sheltron does take job gauge, remember, so maybe the perception should be that the freebie mitigations are a warrior and gunbreaker specific thing rather than an issue of dark knight being the odd one out.

It "functions" currently though if it were free from MP then yes I would say that its cd needs to be increased. Though I would also consider putting 2 charges on it and changing the trait Enhanced Unmend to Enhanced TBN where popping the shield will shorten the recast by 5 secs.

However, TBN is a strong cd, to the point where I question why other tanks like WAR and PLD have to suffer in dps for it. Anyone who plays DRK and knows how to use TBN doesn't even see the MP cost as an issue but rather the duration of the shield is the issue. I've had multiple instances where the shield didn't pop because I didn't take enough dmg and in savage I would say that it is just a bit better for tankbusters. Though they did balance it out with dots but if the dots weren't there I would say TBN is better in single hits.

Currently I believe its kind of a balancing act, if TBN was free then its cool down would likely be homogenized to 25s with the other tank cooldowns, which honestly would be a massive nerf to dark knights survival especially in dungeon content, DRK is completely capable of spamming TBN even with the MP cost, so almost doubling its cooldown really wouldn't benefit the job at all.

Its true that TBN doesn't match up as a 1 to 1 with the other tanks mitigation tools, but who says it has to? TBN's strength is the fact its the fattest shield a tank can give themself, and shield HP pairs really well with raw mitigation, something Dark Knight has in excess thanks to Oblation and Dark Mind. DRK is a busy job both offensively and defensively, and those skills it has are worth more than the sum of its parts.

Which is why, despite the fact TBN isn't as Flashy as Bloodwhetting or Heart of Corundum, DRK manages to be the strongest tank for this tier with the only competition being GNB.

I don't personally care about the MP cost, I just want Dark Arts to stack to 3 or something, because it's just not satisfying to have to fire off flimsy "random" Edges in the middle of nowhere just because you want to use an extra TBN.

I don't even care about whether it's a 1%, or 0.00001%, DPS loss to shoot out "unbuffed" Edges — it's not about numbers for me (even though they technically do apply). For me, it's just more interesting and enjoyable to me, to stack up something steadily over time, and then unleash it at a chosen moment... rather than just jerkily flinging it off the instant something lights up, just because it's going to overflow otherwise.

Same reason I despise Monk Chakra system, actually.

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Originally Posted by DustyBlue

How about the addition of a Carve & Spit-like skill that recovers HP instead of MP? A single-target Abyssal Drain, if you will.

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The problem with tying lifesteal to any long CD offensive OGCD is that its borderline useless for actual sustain.

It could be a 10,000 potency heal but it'd be irrelevant if the damage you wanted to sustain against didn't happen at the one minute window when C&S came up. Simply because its a dps loss to hang onto it for any duration of time as it risks drifting/loss usage and no serious DRK would hold it.

If DRK gets any form of self-sustain, the only 'real' targets to receive it that would actually be useful to DRK are the MP spenders, the AoE combo (ideal target if talking about Dungeon sustain), the Blood spenders, and (best choice) Oblation since those are used very frequently and/or you have more liberty to use them.

As for the topic, TBN would be an alright choice, but only if the heal was a regen after the fact or it left an excog like ability behind. An upfront heal / heal on TBN break like suggested would be borderline useless since the entire ethos of TBN is to reduce the damage you're about to take as close to 0 as possible through non-diminishing return shielding. A direct heal would be useless when you want to be as close to max HP as possible before the hit and the healers will be getting you up there anyway, meaning if your shield broke by only 100 damage, you'd get a 99% overheal.

Was just mentioning to a friend, spitballing an idea, what if we made Abyssal Drain the 2nd step of the AOE combo, and Stalwart Soul an upgrade to Unleash? Unleash looks pretty crap graphically compared to other stuff we have now. Since AD would be used so much more, I was thinking we make it like, 50p heal per enemy hit. Bloodwhetting is 400p, so 50p should be fairly fair, to equal single target BW (or Holy Circle, now) you'd have to hit 8 mobs

Also we make Carve-N-Spit a cone AOE

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

While I am not against the idea of additional HP recovery, I think DRK does currently a bit too much damage to deserve additional HP recovery/eHP beyond Souleater, TBN and Living Dead.

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Normally I would agree that DRK's damage makes up for the lack of self-sustain, but gunbreaker does as much if not more with a lot more self-sustain than DRK could ever have. Honestly I feel DRK at this point should do more damage to make up for the lack of self-heals, or nerf gunbreaker's damage since it has so much self sustain (both party-wide and self since aurora and bullet excog can be on others).

Making AD the third part of an AOE combo would do wonders for DRK in a dungeon setting.