Dark Knight Feedback

[Allyrion]

11. Sole Survivor is a pretty underwhelming ability.

- It’s nice to get a little bit of mana back to continue AoEing during a trash pull or to get ready for the next wave, but doesn’t serve any real purpose in most encounters.

- I’d like to see the “Another Victim” debuff weaken the target it’s placed on for the duration of the debuff.

Suggestion: “Another Victim” reduces the amount of damage the target deals to the Dark Knight by 15% and Increases the damage the target receives from the Dark Knight by 15% for 15 seconds.

Sole Survivor is underwhelming. I love that ability. Using it well is one of the most fun parts of playing DRK to me.

It's 20% mana at the very least. The heal randomly helpful - can be amazing, can be entirely overheal - but that's okay, since the mana is always useful.

There are few fights in this game where you can't use this. Actually, it's reliably useful on every Alex fight and the Ex Primals, so pretty much all serious Endgame Content.

Though it's limited to certain parts of the fight in some cases, it's off cooldown on others. That's just the type of ability it is.
Not all abilities have to always be useful, it's a powerful niche ability. And by niche, I mean it should still get used in every fight and has decent returns when it does get used.
Also it's very reliable due since it has a 15s wait for the target to die.

I would only want the CD to be like 90s instead of 120s. Otherwise, I love Sole Survivor.

Also, I don't like your suggestion because I find the most usage on adds that don't attack me or I don't necessarily attack. I.e. Ravana's Ghana, Dolls in A4, Robots in A1, Adds I'm not tanking in A2 and Bismarck.
Like your idea sounds like a very good CD, but I don't think Sole Survivor needs that tacked on to it.
It currently has that freedom that anything that dies around you, you can eat. If that was added, you'll be using it on the boss and it's just another boss CD.

[Calib0s]

There are few fights in this game where you can't use this. Actually, it's reliably useful on every Alex fight and the Ex Primals, so pretty much all serious Endgame Content.

I'm aware of the situations in which Sole Survivor is usable. I take advantage of it whenever I can, because why not.

However, that doesn't make the ability good or particularly useful. It restores roughly 1300 MP, so not even enough for a single Dark Arts. It grants you one additional Abyssal drain every two minutes in the absolute best case scenario. The HP restore is largely inconsequential since it's not something your healers will be anticipating. If you're low enough for the healing to matter, they likely already have a heal queued up for you. It is almost always overhealing, or causes the next healing spell to be so.

Not saying my suggestion is even a great solution - these are really just throwing ideas at the wall in order to spark a discussion about potential solutions to what I feel are pretty underwhelming parts of the Dark Knight kit. I personally feel that this ability needs to provide more than what it currently does.

Do you feel that it's really useful in its current incarnation?

[Allyrion]

I'm aware of the situations in which Sole Survivor is usable. I take advantage of it whenever I can, because why not.

However, that doesn't make the ability good or particularly useful. It restores roughly 1300 MP, so not even enough for a single Dark Arts. It grants you one additional Abyssal drain every two minutes in the absolute best case scenario. The HP restore is largely inconsequential since it's not something your healers will be anticipating. If you're low enough for the healing to matter, they likely already have a heal queued up for you. It is almost always overhealing, or causes the next healing spell to be so.

Not saying my suggestion is even a great solution - these are really just throwing ideas at the wall in order to spark a discussion about potential solutions to what I feel are pretty underwhelming parts of the Dark Knight kit. I personally feel that this ability needs to provide more than what it currently does.

Do you feel that it's really useful in its current incarnation?

I do.
Why? Because it's free HP & MP in pretty much any sense.
It has no other effect and it's off the GCD. The only sacrifice is time off the GCD, which pretty much doesn't cost anything.

It doesn't need to be amazing because it makes a dramatic difference, since it's already amazing because gives those returns for free.
1300 MP return for nothing is a lot in that sense. It has a very large 25y range.

On the healing portion, like I said it could be entirely overheal. It shouldn't save your life, but it can save your healers mana.
Healers adjust for incoming heals all the time between themselves. If you're not close to topped off and you jump up 20%, good healers will adjust accordingly.
And it's easy to imagine situations where healing is tight enough that any little bit counts and 20% isn't anything to scoff at.

I wouldn't mind if the returns were better somehow.
But considering its place where you get it just because there's an add in the fight, if the returns were better they may end up limiting it in some other way.

Right now I think it has a good place.
It's useable in any of the real fights, and it has no downsides (except the animation delay).

If it were to be buffed, it should keep it's niche. Either lower CD or 25% return instead of 20%.

That's not what efficiency means, but actually looking at the values again I was wrong. They're nearly identical in terms of mana efficiency. Abyssal drain will yield more DPS since it is higher damage per cast for the same mana efficiency.

This is entirely missing the point however. They are nearly identical spells that fill exactly the same role. There's really no reason to have both.

Yes, I understand the mechanical difference and marginal usefulness in having a spell that requires a target vs. a PBAoE. I just don't think that's enough to justify a spell slot.

I can agree with that.
If AB's lifesteal was built-in, it would be justified though.
I think putting the DA effect on AB wouldn't be too OP since it's already expensive enough that you can't spam it.

Right now, they compete for the same spot while using both is pretty hard even with Blood Price because DA-AB is absurdly expensive to weave in.
If AB didn't need DA, then you could weave it in more reasonably as part of an AoE rotation and they wouldn't compete so much.

[Calib0s]

I do.
Why? Because it's free HP & MP in pretty much any sense.
It has no other effect and it's off the GCD. The only sacrifice is time off the GCD, which pretty much doesn't cost anything.

Fair enough.