Blood Weapon / other DRK suggestions:

[JackFross]

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.

See here:

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

In addition:
Clemency is still worthless. I still don't know why you consider it better than a skill you should actually be using.
Equilibrium is absolutely better, though, and I would never argue otherwise.
SoSu could probably use a buff. Turning it into Vengeance is not a buff. Taking away what it does completely because "it's not useful" is not a buff.

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.

You should always use DA+CaS in single-target. If you're starved for Mana when CaS is off-cooldown and have a single target in front of you, you played it wrong. Hence: intricate, advanced mechanic.

Sole Survivor is much more intricate than that, since you want to time it for specific points, not just use it because you need Mana. Using it mid-pull in a trash encounter is (generally) less effective than holding it for the end. You should never be ending any encounter with more than 50% of your maximum Mana remaining imho. If your Mana ever fully refills, you mis-managed your resource.

Hence: Complicated, advanced techniques which require more thought and planning than the other tanks to maximize. PLD and WAR are both just a strict, rigid rotation you do to maintain maximum DPS. DRK is that, as well, but has various pitfalls which can screw you up if you don't play it proper.

I can definitely agree that the CD could probably stand to be shortened to 90 or 60, since 120 is just a bit excessive for the skill as it is.


//meh - I don't think traits are needed. Traits are only there (really) to boost cross-class skills or to allow a Job to have a core mechanic skill (Heavy Thrust, for instance) early on and then make it better in endgame to balance it out properly. Doing traits for new skills would be silly. You'd waste a skill slot on buffing the skill you got 2-8 levels ago when the skill you got 2-8 levels ago should have just been the buffed version in the first place.

[MagiusNecros]

Well I do agree that changing SoSu into Warrior Vengeance is idiotic. Would only serve to attribute DRK has flashy effects but no identity even more the it already does. And honestly a little pick me up after a boss isn't needed if you pop DS off anyway after every pull/encounter until you go into battle for MP regen. And depending on content and your healer Grit may as well not exist.

Will always think it's pathetic how only 2 of 5 HW skills have DA effects.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Well I do agree that changing SoSu into Warrior Vengeance is idiotic. Would only serve to attribute DRK has flashy effects but no identity even more the it already does. And honestly a little pick me up after a boss isn't needed if you pop DS off anyway after every pull/encounter until you go into battle for MP regen. And depending on content and your healer Grit may as well not exist.

Will always think it's pathetic how only 2 of 5 HW skills have DA effects.

Agreed, that is a complete waste of a skill. Most of the time running to the next encounter on the way there will get you full anyways. Out of Combat Regeneration is large in this game. If anyone suggests to me that is a good skill I would deck the moron.

It "is" however, a very useful skill in a game like "swg" and "everquest" where out of combat regen is pathetically low and you have to sit for 5-6 minutes just to regenerate your mana and health. Unfortunately this game is modernized like WoW, so Soul Survivor is literally an extra 3 seconds, and if it was a hard fight you would still need to wait anyways because the healer is probably oom more then you are! LOL, waste of a skill to use it that way, tbh.

[KrenianKandos]

You can use Sole Survivor at the end of mob pulls for a Mana boost for the following pack.
You can also use Sole Survivor at the end of a boss to get a Mana boost for turning Grit back on for the following pull.
All of the situations I mentioned also apply to the normal modes of the mentioned fights, as well.

Soul Survivor has a two minute cooldown. I can take mobs down in around a minute with good dps. Which means I get to use Soul Survivor every two packs.

I never ever get to a situation where I need to boost myself up with Soul Survivor because my mana management is on par and I always finish with more than half. It's just knowing and feeling the fight the way it goes and when to use it. If I'm using Soul Survivor, it's because I messed up somewhere and have less mana than I thought I would at the end of the fight.

Same goes for the fight. It is nice but it is NOT a necessary skill to have. You can easily clear content without even once relying on your Soul Survivor skill and hurting yourself whatsoever by playing the class right. Sorry, I will respectfully disagree with you that it's a good skill. I find it lacklustre and it's one of those skills that you can easily forget you even have.

EDIT: Let me justify that the skill is fine, and the biggest issue I have is the cooldown. It's far too long for my liking. If they brought it down to a 60 second CD, I'd be more content with it.

[JackFross]

Yeah, I absolutely agree. 120s is definitely a bit excessive for what it does. I think it's a fine skill is what all I was trying to get at - people were saying the effect was garbage, and I disagree with that. I agree it just needs to have a shorter cooldown - be a bit more accessible and on-demand than it currently is. That'd make it a pretty worthwhile skill. Wouldn't change its effectiveness in raid content (which imo is already just fine) but would drastically improve its utility in dungeons (which is where it'd definitely find the most effective use).

The most upsetting thing is how it's essentially worthless in PvP. Setting it on a target is rarely gonna pan out for you, because the timeframe during which you'd have to use it is a timeframe in which you'd be spamming like every offensive skill you have to make the dude die xD It's nearly impossible to predict when those 15s will pay off.

[shao32]

so now with sole survivor huh? i don't know why you compared with equilibrium and clemency, sole survivor is more close to mercy stroke, in a long fight with adds is a dps up skill, you recover more mp and you can use it for another aoe or another DA+SE, and give you a tick of recover when you kill the boss, long cd meaby but in a raid fight except savage 2, you don't see many adds all the fight.

[Granyala]

You should always use DA+CaS in single-target. If you're starved for Mana when CaS is off-cooldown and have a single target in front of you, you played it wrong. Hence: intricate, advanced mechanic.

Sole Survivor is much more intricate than that, since you want to time it for specific points, not just use it because you need Mana. Using it mid-pull in a trash encounter is (generally) less effective than holding it for the end. You should never be ending any encounter with more than 50% of your maximum Mana remaining imho. If your Mana ever fully refills, you mis-managed your resource.

I disagree.
As Krenian already mentioned: the cooldown of SS is far too long to have it usable for every trashpack, unless your DPS are semi AFK in which case your tank DPS won't matter anyway.
So I cannot rely on it.

Also I heavily disagree about pulling additional trash with <50% mana. That is a pain in the ass, esp if you want to pull more than on group, because random DPS does not wait for anything. Having lots of mana as a buffer to be able to spam a bit of unleash till everything is in position makes tanking worlds more comfortable.

Sure, if you have DPs that knows how to hold their horses until you are actually in position and all mobs are standing in your first unleash you don't need mana. That is only true for organized, skillful groups though.

As for DA-CnS: Sure, I can reserve it to use with DA. Provided I don't have to redirect too much mana into defensive CDs, because I have the habit of rotating them, so I almost always have grit + some CD going.

[Yuni_Queen]

You should always use DA+CaS in single-target. If you're starved for Mana when CaS is off-cooldown and have a single target in front of you, you played it wrong. Hence: intricate, advanced mechanic.

Disagree. If you always have mana too low, or too high, you are indeed playing DRK wrong.

However, bosses very often have adds, by the time you use Grit again to pull adds, from around 50% of MP you sohuld have, you drop to 20%, which is not enough to hold threat, especially if your blood price is on cooldown (and i suppose you would say, it must be always on cooldown, since using CnS without buff is a blasphemy for you lol. But here i agree, blood price should be on CD until pack of adds are coming to give you some more mana than boss).

Also, if you havn't used Grit to hold threat of those mobs, you will use CnS to get more mana for unleash/AD anyway.

Using CnS without buff on single target is also absolutely fine, if you sit in Grit or no, because of reasons, that may happen.
CnS has mana recover and it shoudn't be discarded, or said that starving for mana was played wrong as DRK. i am always around 40%-20% mana after dropping grit between Blood Weapon cooldowns. And I know how to DRK, trust me. :P

[KrenianKandos]

Yeah, I absolutely agree. 120s is definitely a bit excessive for what it does. I think it's a fine skill is what all I was trying to get at - people were saying the effect was garbage, and I disagree with that. I agree it just needs to have a shorter cooldown - be a bit more accessible and on-demand than it currently is. That'd make it a pretty worthwhile skill. Wouldn't change its effectiveness in raid content (which imo is already just fine) but would drastically improve its utility in dungeons (which is where it'd definitely find the most effective use).

The most upsetting thing is how it's essentially worthless in PvP. Setting it on a target is rarely gonna pan out for you, because the timeframe during which you'd have to use it is a timeframe in which you'd be spamming like every offensive skill you have to make the dude die xD It's nearly impossible to predict when those 15s will pay off.

On a PvE aspect, I think the skill is just lackluster compared to it's comparables: Mercy Stroke is simply flat out better for the use. I think if Soul Survivor was more in line with that, it would be a neater skill, but then you would have people screaming about homogenization and seriously, I'd be one of them too. I like differences between my classes. My only argument is that the skill itself is kinda boring. That's all. It's a fire, forget, and hope the thing dies within 15 seconds. I'm sure it has its uses but it just flat out isn't really required to be used. But on that note, so is Mercy Stroke.

On a PvP aspect, I can't honestly see the justification to ever use it because of the nature of the fight. And I don't think it ever was meant for a PvP use, really. You spike down people to get them to die before the healers realize who's being targeted. You can't honestly have enough clairvoyance to know when to fire it and have it ACTUALLY fire off with a kill. So yeah, I don't PvP but I could definitely see the uselessness.

Maybe they should just make it a 20% and below attack which is on a 15 second CD. That way, you feel like you can fire it and it'll do something...


Something of a caveat as to why exactly Soul Survivor is not the greatest of skills for me: I normally run with a SMN and BLM as my DPS in my runs, and a WHM healer. As such, there's a lot of AoE and the unpredictability of blowing SoSu on an add is difficult at best. I actually have to try to figure out at around 20% who to choose and at that point, with the amount I pull (I can normally pull 3 groups with ease but I have to pay attention to AoE because with Ranged as my DPS, direction doesn't necessarily matter anymore.) it distracts me from doing my job if I have to guess. So at that point, I actually forget the skill period. But with that in mind, I normally finish my fights with above 60% Mana so I can walk to the next group and have enough to do my opening.

Which leads me to my opening on these groups: I use a very mana intensive rotation to open up in order for my casters to go balls to the walls when attacking. And even then, I sometimes lose on aggro because of having so much chaos going or if I get unlucky with a tick or a hit or if my WHM wife decides to Holy too early while Blood Price is up.

Gather everything together, and by this point, I've already used Unleashed and Plunge as well as Scourge on some adds to keep them on me. At this point, this means I'm not at 100% mana. Drop Bubble, Unleash a couple of times, DAAS to get health/aggro, and DADP to blind them. That's a REALLY intensive amount of mana. We're talking at least around 80%+ of my mana at full bar. This is why I actually try to finish fights beyond 60% of my mana in order to make things smooth. And that honestly removes the absolute need of using SoSu.

It really depends on your playstyle. If you do it right, SoSu is pointless. Because, I have other things to do than to fire something that is somewhat meh. And yet, I still can fire off Mercy Stroke from time to time. It's because it's a one time shot that has DPS increase skills and allows me to kill something faster.

SoSu does nothing but when it dies. maybe if it had a damage DoT component..? That's all I can think of that would help.


Oh! Why not make it a 15 second cast, but a DoT drain? Every tick gives you a certain amount of mana/health! This would probably kill off the whole need of the burst at the end but I think it would be neat if it's some sort of DoT you apply to a mob that does a drain of sorts. If you want to keep it as something of a final attack, you could make it 20% only activated but I think that would be a neater way of dealing with that attack and keep it in line with Dark Knights.

Thoughts?

[MagiusNecros]

Could pair well with Salted Earth and make SoSu always do something instead of a chance to do nothing. And 100% chance of something is better then 50% chance of getting nothing.

Plus it synergizes with the DRK instead of the party.