Dark Knight: Still Searching for Your True Identity

[Shurrikhan]

So yeah, it's clearly not better than Rampart, but it's absolutely not worthless. Implying it's "not a real CD" is silly. Would you say Dark Mind is "not a real CD" without Dark Arts? It's essentially the Magical equivalent to Foresight at current gear levels.[/I]

Foresight is far from laughable at this point, but it still a really weirdly designed CD.

Foresight looks like shit upon first reaching level cap but gradually builds up as Defense (given its modified effect per stat point at the new character level, per which seems to descale less than other secondary stats) increases. Iirc, it was already approaching 10% mitigation by i130 in ARR. Sadly, even for a Warrior, that was less than half the effect against only half the sources for the same CD as Rampart. It's gotten a bit more even now though, given our stat inflation, and will only get closer (magic mitigation component aside). I wouldn't be too surprised if it hit 20% physical miti by the end of 3.x. I just wonder why this CD and this CD only suffers from that sort of poor-to-decent scaling over the course of an expansion (flat-chance-additive abilities like Dark Dance suffering in the opposite direction, losing relative value as base parry increases). Did Warriors need a tiny, tiny entry level nerf that they wanted to gradually release? Was this somehow the ideal form for that nerf? Or is it an oversight of flavor text? And if Defense does in fact descale per level less than other percentile stats, will it eventually be hitting up to 30% mitigation, or more, in a future expansion? Would that too be intentional?

If Dragon Kick was split into 2 seperate debuffs this would be a non-issue. Already a non-issue because it didn't hamper world first progression.

Maybe if our BIG LEVEL 60 MP REGEN OGCD wasn't also OUR BIG BURST DAMAGE COOLDOWN I'd be happier. Or if DA gave lezz deepz but moar effectz

The funny thing is there's already precedent for split effects, as far back as the Vengeance buff (reflect + vuln down), and yet Delirium continues to place nothing, nor trigger an alternate effect on application failure, when DK is present. Not that it'd really hurt to just make Delirium a blunt down anyways, apart from the further lacking thematics.

As for DA though, as long as the cost isn't variable with the skill to which its' being applied, the idea is that it should have similar value in either case. Give it less of a damage bonus but more effect, and you just make DA seem all the less worthwhile, and the non-DA CD variants and regular AD seem like utter waste. Whatever shift you make to the balance needs to still end up... balanced. Or you need to allow for variable DA costs to allow for individual differentiation to costs/rewards.

I really enjoy DRK's gameplay, to the point where there's little I want to mess with. There are some self-conflicting parts of the toolkit that others find add interest to the strategy of DRK play but I just think limit options, but on the whole the only thing I'd really like to see changed at this point are certain mana costs, not to make MP management even easier, but to allow us a bit less relative cost of utility as to bring out what makes DRK unique.

If I could go over the top with the changes though, I'd want DRK to be the most free, highest-synergy tank, or even job, the game has to offer. Preferably with more vampirics and even more risky, high skill-cap incentives.

Not sure I agree with this. The main issue with Delirium is that it's a waste of space because DK supercedes it in utility(MNK benefits from the blunt resist down on top of the magic mitigation via INT down). If you want to create equal footing between the two, it'd probably be better to move the Blunt Resist Down effect to Demolish and keep the INT Down on DK and go from there.

Let's not utterly screw over Monk rotations in a much more key ability just to try to achieve a finely closer raid parity for one specific comp. A Demolish at full ticks already does 410 potency, more than a 3-hit Rockbreaker. It is already about as TP-efficient as a 8-hit Rockbreaker. It doesn't need additional buffs. At up to 75 potency lost per attack, Dragon Kick would be by far the largest potency loss made to give only raid mitigation, while contributing only half of Storm's Path's (unique, mind you) mitigation coverage, which it does for only 40 potency.