Blood Weapon / other DRK suggestions:

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Okay. I'll run through every single level 60 Instance from Aetherochemical Research Facility up and through Burden of the Son (Savage). One at a time. I am gonna just lump dungeons together, because they all function identically.

Dungeons
- Trash pack - SS at the end gives you Mana for the next pack or the following boss.
- Boss - SS at the end gives you Mana to turn Grit on and Mana for the next pack.

So does waiting for 3 seconds for your out of combat mana and health regeneration...

Anyways, your examples are valid but I like how you go: "A little extra help." on some of those things. It really shows how little the skills value is compared to a real cooldown. If Soul Survivor had a much shorter cooldown and a (This skill can only be used at enemies below a certain amount of % hp) it would be a much better ability. As well as not being able to use it on main bosses, because as I said before.

Your out of combat, so your base out of combat HP/Regen is better.

An entire ability shouldn't justify by waiting a few seconds...

Anyways, it seems you have something against DPS healers. However a Paladin in level 60 dungeons can go full defensive and let the healers DPS, especially scholars and mass pulling making the zone a cakewalk that can be done in 10 minutes.

[Granyala]

- It has no visual.

Erm... get your eyes examined?
There is a huge, honkin rune of death that appears upon application. Oo

I like the skill, esp on trash where extra mana is always welcome. I do agree though that the super long CD makes it feel kinda meh.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Erm... get your eyes examined?
There is a huge, honkin rune of death that appears upon application. Oo

I like the skill, esp on trash where extra mana is always welcome. I do agree though that the super long CD makes it feel kinda meh.

I am legally blind and can't see some things, but the other poster also complained about a visual as well. How big is it? I mentioned because in other games with skills like that, the monster usually glows or has a particle effect around him showing hes marked with something.

Healing can be tough if you pull half the zone.

[Granyala]

How big is it?

Pretty big. Black/reddish rune, visible for 2-3 seconds. After that nothing.

It's easy to miss in the constant melecamp spellgasm if you are not the tank though.

Healing is easy. It doesn't matter what stance you're in, a healer can only dps so much and won't need to heal until the same points in the fight either way. Fairies and regens do all the work for us in dungeon boss fights.

Yep, my biggest gripe with the current dungeon design.
There is nothing to heal. It's fucking ridiculous.

Hello SE, NEWSFLASH: I didn't roll a HEALER to DPS 80% of the time. >.<

I know what you mean though. I tanked dungeon bosses w/o grit and asked my healers whether they felt much difference: answer was "nope".

[MagiusNecros]

If the visual sigil of doom floated above the enemy's head for the duration it would be good so people know thing needs to die.

Survivor has no synergy with the DRK at all. It's based on knowing when a enemy will die and if the party's dps can be redirected to make a DPS check. That's the issue. If Blood Weapon/Bath/Price are up you probably won't need it. Clemency takes up GCD time but it can be used at will(and you can get your MP back up no problem as OT and even through Sheltron) and boosted by Convalescence(probably mantra as well), Equil will stack with Berserk and is on demand once every minute. Can a DRK buff their 58 skill? Nope.

If Sole Survivor had synergy with Living Dead to extend your life by an extra 15 seconds then it would be a great thing. But sadly Like Living Dead your only synergy is you guessed it...your party members. In LD's case...your healer. And if the healer is dead...you are dead very soon.

[JackFross]

Your out of combat, so your base out of combat HP/Regen is better.

An entire ability shouldn't justify by waiting a few seconds...

My out of combat Mana regen is +415 every 3 seconds.
Sole Survivor recovers me 1385 Mana in one shot.
Darkside costs 442 Mana to turn back on.

If you stand around for 10s+ to get enough Mana back to turn Grit back on after a boss (1326 Mana - 12s of Mana ticks) and then turn Darkside back on, I'll have already been halfway through my first Blood Price in the following mob pack, since I used Sole Survivor on the boss and skipped all of the waiting.

That's the difference.

Neither other tank needs to stand around after bosses die, waiting for resources so they can pull. DRK only has to if you actively force yourself to.

Anyways, it seems you have something against DPS healers. However a Paladin in level 60 dungeons can go full defensive and let the healers DPS, especially scholars and mass pulling making the zone a cakewalk that can be done in 10 minutes.

Healing can be tough if you pull half the zone.

I play Scholar mainly in dungeons on my main these days. I tell my tanks to pull big. They pull maximum size groups. I cast one Adlo pre-pull and then spend the entire rest of the pull in Cleric Stance, maybe dropping to re-cast Adlo with a Lustrate after everything has my baned DoTs once.

I pull 13-1400 in those large pulls (or more) at i213, and my tanks never come close to death, even when they don't pop CDs. So... yeah. I totally hate dps Healers. They're the worst!

Survivor has no synergy with the DRK at all.

I don't understand this logic. I don't understand how you can still feel this way after the posts I've made in this thread today. I'm getting tired of trying to convince someone a skill is good when they're dead-set that we need Vengeance instead.

Survivor has a very deep, important synergy with the DRK kit. It gives us burst sustainability at the end of a mob encounter in dungeons and moderate additional bursts of Mana during longer, sustained-combat content. It gives you as much mana as one and a half shots of Syphon Strike when something dies. I will never understand how someone can think that a skill which restores so much Mana to the DRK has no synergy with the kit that burns Mana as fast and efficiently as possible.

Pretty big. Black/reddish rune, visible for 2-3 seconds. After that nothing.

I just wish it had some visual effect when the mob with the mark dies is all. I see the mark go out, I just wanna see something to show I drained their life energy.


It all comes down to this:

Dark Knight is an advanced tank Job. You can't even play it until you've already cleared the entirety of the 1-50 storyline. In much the same way as Wildfire, Hypercharge, and Reload on Machinist require an intricate understanding of how and when to DPS for maximum success, skills like Sole Survivor, Dark Arts + [Cooldowns], and Carve and Spit require you to have an intricate understanding of how Tanking in this game works in order to utilize them effectively and efficiently.

Dark Knight is undeniably harder to play than Paladin or Warrior at a high level - this is a statement of fact, and it is absolutely intentional design. The Job is advanced and plays as such. Because of this, it's super silly to sit here and critique the more advanced skills in its kit by saying - "These skills are too complicated! Make them simpler!" - because that's the point. They're intentionally complicated. They require thought, preparation, and proper execution.

If you don't like that aspect of Dark Knight, the Job is just not for you. And that's okay. But don't come here and tell me about how you think my Job needs tweaks to its core mechanics because you don't like how it plays.

[cold52]

id personally be happy if sole survivor gave the player a regen for every moment the enemy lived on top of its current effect maybe add the ability to dark arts it to add a party wide regen to it or something.

[MagiusNecros]

Sole Survivor can't be buffed. Clemency and Equilibrium can. With inherent skills they have. That's synergy within their own kit. Relying on a target to get bopped is synergizing with that enemy not you. 4k HP and slightly over 1k MP isn't even enough for a free Dark Arts. It's just barely enough for a free Grit. In the same time it took to down the marked enemy I could have gotten 2 Siphon Strikes in there if I wanted. Hell I could throw a MP restoring CnS if I'm that starved for MP. And with SS and CnS that's already more MP I'm getting back then SoSu is gonna give me. Not to mention unlike the other 2 your value restored is preset. Clem and Equil can crit.

And if it's a Boss encounter with no adds at all then the skill is worthless. You can argue LCoA (Hard) but that's just one boss.

[Granyala]

skills like Sole Survivor, Dark Arts + [Cooldowns], and Carve and Spit require you to have an intricate understanding of how Tanking in this game works in order to utilize them effectively and efficiently.

I don't know man. I can use DA-CS when burst is needed on say Arcane orb from that Lion boss, but to be honest: most of the time I am mana starved so I just use it for the 800MP.

Sole survivor is a cool skill and imo very easy to use, just mash it on a mob with <10% HP if you need mana.
For what it does it's CD is a bit too long.

[MagiusNecros]

Honestly what I think is just missing is traits for HW skills. Because when a WAR gets that traited 40 second recast mercy stroke I get salty when I compare the 2 in terms of availability.