DRK major ideas to increase synergy

[AeraCross]

At the moment, the Dark Knight toolkit feels very chaotic/random and some spells/abilities are very counterproductive to each other. My goal with the major ideas I am suggesting is to ultimately synergize the DRK toolkit without taking away the uniqueness and fun of the job. This is not meant to be a buff/nerf (though it might seem that way).

Spells/Abilities:

Unleash
- Removed

Abyssal Drain
- Now acquired at level 8
- Potency decreased to 100
- Mana cost reduced to match the cost of Unleash
- Dark Arts effect remains unchanged
- Abysall Drain no longer breaks your combos

Before I go any further allow me to explain this change. While I do acknowledge that each spell can have their own advantages/disadvantages, the function of both spells are just too similar. Additionally, unleash is basically a copy of PLD flash but with damage and no blind effect. The goal is to make each tank feel like they have their own AOE ability that work differently enough but serve the same purpose. PLD = Flash, WAR = Overpower, DRK = Abyssal Drain.

Unmend
- Removed Additional Effect(Trait): 30% chance that next Unleash will cost no MP.
- Added Additional Effect: Causes your next Plunge to deal damage in an AOE equal to 50% of the damage done to the intial target. Increased enmity. Duration: 10s

This idea is to make Plunge feel more interesting while additionally preserving the Unleash animation. Basically when the Dark Knight plunges, the moment he/she lands the ground animation for Unleash will show and cause AOE damage around the target. The initial target will receive the original damage of 200 potency while each additional target will receive damage equal to 100 potency.

New Ability: Acclimation
- Acquired at level 56
- Grants the effect of Acclimation for 12 seconds. While under the effect of Acclimation, potency will be generated equal to a percentage of mana spent through spells and abilities. When the effect ends, erects a magicked barrier which nullifies damage equal to the amount of potency accumulated. Maximum potency: 1200. Cooldown: 90s

As necessary as it is to avoid homogenization, DRK should have their own method of survivability equivalent to Equilibrium and Clemency. While not a heal, Acclimation serves the same purpose in the form of a damage barrier.

Reprisal
- No longer requires a parried attack to activate
- Parried attacks will lower the current cooldown of Reprisal by 3 seconds
- Potency reduced to 170

This allows for the damage reduction provided by Reprisal to be more consistent. There is nothing wrong with RNG based gameplay. It can be fun and rewarding at times. However, when playing as a tank stabilizing the amount of damage you take provides less stress on your party's healers and allows for less surprises. Playing from the perspective of all three roles, I understand the importance of mana management as a healer and it helps when the amount of damage taken by the tank has some predictability.

Living Dead
- Living Dead component remains unchanged
- Walking Dead component reworked: While under the effect of Walking Dead, you will be brought to 5% of your maximum hp and all damage is reduced by 99%. Walking Dead Duration: 5s

This is another change that is meant to be more party/healer friendly as well as make the ability feel more reliable. In high intensity fights, Living Dead is extremely stressful on healers as they have to make sure to heal you for an amount equal to your max hp. This could force your healers to use their more mana intensive abilities just to keep you alive, and until they have reached the healing threshold they pretty much have to focus on healing you and nobody else.

New DRK exclusive debuff: Crazed

Crazed
- Targets affected by Crazed have their auto-attack speed increased by 100% while decreasing their auto-attack damage by 50%.
- Does not work on bosses and certain mobs.

Crazed increases the amount of incoming auto-attacks but decreases the amount of damage those attacks do. Potency of spells/abilities are not affected. Damage taken by the Dark Knight will mostly remain the same but allows for more opportunities to parry foes, which is one of the Dark Knight's most important form of mitigation, providing quicker reprisals and low blows.

Spells/Abilities/Traits that utilize Crazed:

Dark Passenger
- Removed Dark Arts Effect: Blind
- Replaced with Dark Arts Effect: Crazed. Duration: 10s

Dark Dance
- Removed Dark Arts Effect: Evasion
- Replaced with Dark Arts Effect: Any damage parried while under the effect of Dark Dance will apply Crazed to the parried target. Duration: 10s

Enhanced Unmend
- No longer reduces the mana cost of unleash (since unleash has been removed)
- Now causes unmend to apply the crazed debuff to the target. Duration: 10s

Evasion and Blind while useful, are completely counterproductive to DRK. Parry is your most useful defensive. As such, it is important for Dark to get as many opportunities to parry as possible.

Feedback

Please think about concepts and not numbers. Numbers can always be adjusted.
What did you think?
What did you like?
What did you not like?

[Dererk]

Ok as a DRK main i do like some of your ideas some not all.

While i agree that boosted Dark passenger for blind may not be useful in pretty much every boss content pass level i wana say 49. It is still a great thing to have in trash mob pulls I use it on every pull in a dungeon. The problem isn't that blind is useless but it's useless in higher level content especially on boss fights.


Reprisal. If you make this so you don't need a parry to use then it's more than likely that you will get either one of 2 things with the debuff. 1 the thing your using it on will start gaining resistance to it. 2 it will just resist it out right. Like with stun either it works but the mob gains resistance or the debuff is just not applied.

I do not think unleash should be removed.

[AeraCross]

Ok as a DRK main i do like some of your ideas some not all.

While i agree that boosted Dark passenger for blind may not be useful in pretty much every boss content pass level i wana say 49. It is still a great thing to have in trash mob pulls I use it on every pull in a dungeon. The problem isn't that blind is useless but it's useless in higher level content especially on boss fights.


Reprisal. If you make this so you don't need a parry to use then it's more than likely that you will get either one of 2 things with the debuff. 1 the thing your using it on will start gaining resistance to it. 2 it will just resist it out right. Like with stun either it works but the mob gains resistance or the debuff is just not applied.

I didn't know that Reprisal's damage reduction suffered from diminishing returns. I thought it functioned liked Warrior Storm's Path? aka no diminishing returns

[Freyyy]

Don't ever delete Unleash. The major advantage of this move compared to Abyssal Drain is that it doesn't break your combo and it's around you, not around your target. Granted we use Abyssal Drain much more often, but Unleash is far from useless. It has the same uses as Flash on WAR and I don't want it to be removed ever. Maybe just add a special effect to it but that's all.

I like your "acclimation" idea but I think it could be added to an already existing skill. Maybe add an adlo-like barrier effect to Souleater when using DA (on top of the self-heal of course). I don't know, and I'm not really good with this kind of suggestion. I prefer letting the developpers do their job with that.

Edit :

I didn't know that Reprisal's damage reduction suffered from diminishing returns. I thought it functioned liked Warrior Storm's Path? aka no diminishing returns

it functions like Storm's Path. There is no resistance system for Reprisal's debuff.

[pandabearcat]

Yea I love Unleash.

It is very good when you only need AoE for threat, not damage, so you can continue your combo. It also costs less mana and is PBAoE instead of target, which is useful if your primary target is not the one near the aoe.

Its also good for running past mobs and getting hate instead of trying to point at them and use laggy drain.

[AeraCross]

Don't ever delete Unleash. The major advantage of this move compared to Abyssal Drain is that it doesn't break your combo and it's around you, not around your target. Granted we use Abyssal Drain much more often, but Unleash is far from useless. It has the same uses as Flash on WAR and I don't want it to be removed ever. Maybe just add a special effect to it but that's all.

Oh, well in my intended idea I meant to make it so abyssal drain would no longer break your combo. I don't think Unleash is useless at all either. Just that I think the spells function way too similarly. I felt that Abyssal Drain had a more "job defining" feel to it if you get what I mean. PLD would have an aoe around themselves, Warrior would have an AOE in a cone in front of them, and DRK would have a targetable ranged aoe. I attempted to compensate by applying unleashes effect to plunge via the ideas stated above. Its not meant to be a nerf but I see where you are coming from.

[Xenosan]

I think what would have made sense for Abyssal Drain would have been for it to have it's own combo - providing a combo bonus that reduces the Spell's MP cost (or some other effect).

Unleashed > Syphon > Abyssal Drain

^That would have been very similar to Monk's "Arm of the Destroyer > Twin Snakes/True Strike > Rockbreaker" combo, and when considering Darkside's degen, I think that would have provided a net positive MP return (unless Dark Arts spamming) a little more reliable than current DRK system of relying strictly on Blood Price and the occasional Syphon while holding aggro (talking about dungeon trash, multi-target situations)

[Noha85]

Better mitigation and more utility.
Dark dance recast to 40 sec sound nicee and change the DA effect to increase the parry rate,this change help mitigation/proc.
Shadow wall recast down to 120 sec,180 to much,look to Vengeance and Sentinel.
About utility...int down on Delirium is good but if a monk is in the party the only thing Drk bring is a higher dps then Pld(at least for now)i was thinking to give a second debuff will be the thing to do(no,not another DA buff skill)many say magic weakness...nice indeed but never gonna happend,i was thinking to a str debuff(yep same as pld) this way Drk have a better utility and can cooperate better whit Pld(something like war/ninja) and if no Mnk and Pld is in party Delirium will be golden! And this thing will help Drk defense in any situation in game.
Sole Survivor can be Drk "oh s***" button and restore hp/mp asap,and Living Dead should not have the healing thing whit him(is a skill i dont thrust at all)

[Airswimmer]

I'd be fine with the changes to Unleash/Abyssal Drain is targeted AoEs weren't based around the center of the target's hitbox. Using an Abyssal Drain on a Gobwidow, for instance, will often end with you hitting next to nothing.

The Unmend change is nice for flavour, but DRK already does great AoE damage. They don't really need any help in that department.

While I like the idea behind Acclimation DRK already has an equivalent to Equilibrium and Clemency: Souleater.

I feel like Reprisal was designed the way it was because it stacks with Storm's Path, so I'm always wary of changes that allow an OT DRK to utilize it. There's a chance that changes of that nature could make the WAR/DRK composition even more potent.

The Living Dead change is interesting, I suppose, but you've just changed from a slightly different Hallowed Ground to a slightly different Holmgang. Living Dead really doesn't need a change. In any coordinated group it can end up having a longer "invincibility" period than Hallowed Ground.

The Crazed buff is an interesting idea, and I like it, but you'll never see something like that implemented.

[MeeYow]

The only fix that Dark Dance needs is to have party strength buffed to 30 or 40% whilst under Dark Arts.

Most likely 30% because 40% would make it like a supercharged bulwark with its 1min cool down.