DRK tanking. A little bit of pain.

[Xenosan]

A more empowering solution would be to expand MP recovery techniques, not reducing MP consumption. Aetherflow, Infuriate, Blood of the Dragon, Reload. Resource refreshes on 60 second timers are routinely available on other jobs, oddly DRK is limited to Blood Price/Weapon and Syphon Strike.

To the original topic, if you want HP sinks, why not first look at Blood Price? After all, that is the closest premise for a HP-for-MPAction use ability in DRKs kit. SE made a deliberate choice in making Blood Weapon return a static MP amount not based on damage delivered (ie Bloodbath's percent of damage inflicted), and Blood Price return the same static amount of MP also not based on damage received (Bloodbath + Vengeance, for example).

It's hard to imagine SE shifting gears on design after such obvious intentions; also by virtue of being a tank, I wouldn't want it anyway.

[Khalithar]

A more empowering solution would be to expand MP recovery techniques, not reducing MP consumption. Aetherflow, Infuriate, Blood of the Dragon, Reload. Resource refreshes on 60 second timers are routinely available on other jobs, oddly DRK is limited to Blood Price/Weapon and Syphon Strike.

That would be perfectly acceptable to me as well.

[JackFross]

Disagree, reducing the MP cost wouldn't require decrease of potencies in my opinion and actually more DA+SE is exactly what I want or rather more DA is what I want.

See, but the problem with that line of logic is that more frequent use of DA+SE due to reduction of Mana costs directly causes an increase in DPS output for Dark Knight, which is already in a perfect spot. It's slightly higher than PLD and slightly lower than WAR - arguably comparable to WAR if given the same preferential treatment. Increasing that would unbalance the tanks. If you decrease Mana costs you MUST decrease potencies alongside it to maintain Job balance.

It's a valid reason for why Mana cost reduction is a good idea, and I don't disagree with you at all, but this statement I quoted is flat out ignoring the issue that reduced Mana costs creates.

A more empowering solution would be to expand MP recovery techniques, not reducing MP consumption. Aetherflow, Infuriate, Blood of the Dragon, Reload. Resource refreshes on 60 second timers are routinely available on other jobs, oddly DRK is limited to Blood Price/Weapon and Syphon Strike.

But Blood Price is a reliable Mana sustain on a 40s timer in any boss encounter while tanking and Blood Weapon is similarly reliable on a 45s timer. Both are more effective. Both are more effective than a resource refresh.

In a boss encounter, used properly, Blood Price will get you at minimum 5 procs which is (unsurprisingly) 1765 Mana out of the 1768 cost for Dark Arts.
Blood Weapon will always net you seven GCDs at normal SKS levels - 1841 Mana not even counting any ogcd attacks or AA's (AA's will be ~6, so 3419)
...and then counting ogcds could be as high as +3 more procs of it (could even be 4-5, but 3 is Plunge+LB+CnS) = 4208 Mana ~4.7 SS hits - ~2.3 casts of DA.



However: Yes, I would /love/ for Sole Survivor (or something else) to be altered into a 2-minute cooldown with the sole purpose of refreshing your Mana in one quick shot. That would make it useful in ALL situations, rather than being situationally useful. I don't think Dark Knight NEEDS this change, by any stretch, but it's definitely the first one made in this thread that I'd personally agree with and support.

[Shurrikhan]

See, but the problem with that line of logic is that more frequent use of DA+SE due to reduction of Mana costs directly causes an increase in DPS output for Dark Knight, which is already in a perfect spot. It's slightly higher than PLD and slightly lower than WAR - arguably comparable to WAR if given the same preferential treatment. Increasing that would unbalance the tanks. If you decrease Mana costs you MUST decrease potencies alongside it to maintain Job balance.

Alternatively though, one could decrease mana gains. At that point the largest effect would basically be a Power Slash combo buff, as the mana gains skipped would be less detrimental (especially if other sources aren't reduced as much as Syphon Strike, thought that would increase CD dependence slightly) and an effectively larger pool. Why that would be a necessary, I'm not sure, but that's my impression on most of this thread as I've read so far. Some things I would like to see, sure, but few seeming really necessary.



When I started DRK, I thought I would be happier with less toolkit conflict. At this point I hardly care. I just want to see Skill Speed reduce animation times so that I can still double-weave when using WTFast or single-weave without clipping on Plunge without it.

Personally, I've wanted Sole Survivor to be something that bridges the MT/OT positions a bit, as not to lock out so much of the DRK toolkit when put in a bad spot. Make it usable on allies, duplicating onto them a portion of your parry and self-healing done while causing parries and damage instances to cause procs for the both of you (Reprisal, Low Blow, Blood Price). As a gimmick, perhaps even keep the idea of you (or your ally) gaining the 20% HP & MP when the target (or other) dies.
When used on an enemy, it bleeds the mana and health gain over each strike, similar to Blood Weapon (to be revised) up to a cap (would require full uptime, many oGCDs, and a high attack rate to reach), and giving the remainder up to the capped amount if the enemy dies. Activation speed increased. CD adjusted to 90 seconds. Strong (probably too strong), but also versatile, and puts a choice between mitigation/toolkit and general mana maintenance.

I also feel like the Grit MP cost is a bit high for a mana-dependent job whose stance-change is on the GCD and carries no additional effects, but would be hesitant to sacrifice longer-term OT damage for buffs there.

[Xenosan]

Blood Price & Weapon are definitely integral to the DRK kit (I think often it's under-stated how integral they are), I didn't mean to down-play that. Also I think it's a mistake to even consider DRK a resource-based Job. DRK doesn't build resources, they sustain output.

As for Bloods being reliable, in the standard party configuration in instances with controllable aggro I think they do work as intended. But solo open world, unsynced dungeons, and PVP I feel a reduction in productivity of these CDs (especially bosses with down-time mechanics + single large-hit mechanics, which is a lot of them).

I do think, that come next patch cycle (whenever jobs get new abilities), DRK will get an additional MP recovery mechanic, I don't see how they can expand their magic kit without one, or they will continue to have this Achille's heel where they are less productive in solo/open-world/pvp/combat-mechanics than when in raids/dungeons with a group. (On a similar note, I think MCH needs/will get the same treatment, a solo-play-specific Rook that heals <only> the MCH, mitigation bubble <only the MCH>, etc).


A MP recovery concept:

DRK having a Greased Lightning type mechanic: a refreshable buff with a tight timer, dependent on 1>2>3 combos to sustain. This buff stacks to 3, like GL. Instead of DPS increases though, this buff increases the MP return of Syphon Strike, lowering the returns of Blood Price/Weapon, (or more accurately, the Bloods yield more MP per proc when this buff is absent or at lower stacks).

^I think a system like that would make DRK MP recovery more adaptable, in scenarios where Blood Price's productivity is marginalized there's a ramp up in Syphon Strike productivity (low frequency but high damage), and in scenarios where Syphon Strike is marginalized, Blood Price is providing the maximum of it's potential (AoE, multitarget, high frequency).

Put the blue flames visual on this new buff, switch Salted Earth to a MP consuming spell with potential 100% uptime (hell cost a GCD even, worth it), added HP absorb to Grit'ed Reprisal, and make Reprisal (or some new bada$$ oGCD attack) function like Tornado Kick / Geirskogul, on-demand use that consumes the GL-like stacks.

That's my DRK pie in the sky dream, anyway. Couldn't help but share.

[ADVSS]

yeah i thought maybe sole survivor could work like an additional mp recovery on demand which probably would make better use of the cd imo, the GL idea seems really interesting as well, I could dig that

[MagiusNecros]

Lvl 30 quest had you picking up Darkness stacks from dark flames. Afterwards the concept was never touched again.

Would love for SoSu to be a on demand drain spell every 200 seconds. Gives the DRK synergy with their own kit instead of once again relying on the party to kill something in 15 seconds with a debuff that actually does nothing to the enemy.

[SyzzleSpark]

You know what I'd love? If folks that can't excel with DRK's kit would kindly re-roll instead of suggesting changes to dumb-down a job that, by design, has a high skill cap and is intended for veteran players, the best of which have been proving for almost a year now that the job is a world prog tank and capable of great things.

There are exactly TWO things that DRK *could* use, but it doesn't NEED them.
1. An extra piece of utility accessible while not tanking anything. Doesn't (and IMO shouldn't) need to be Reprisal, but something.
2. A PINCH (I'm talking like, Shadeshift-sized) of extra physical mitigation.

All I've seen on the front page for the past two weeks is "give DRK all the things, all the time, regardless of stance, regardless of MP, at the same time, forever, with shorter CDs, and no forethought required. I don't wanna manage my MP, I don't wanna think about how to optimally use my buffs/debuffs in a rotation (I wanna blind things and pop Blood Price at the same time and then complain about it), screw it, I just don't wanna push buttons period." Please consider what you could be doing to play the job more efficiently and optimally, accept the fact that you are playing a job with a high skill cap and a lot of active thought required beyond the basics of tanking, and either press on, or play a different job.

[Violette]

You know what I'd love? If folks that can't excel with DRK's kit would kindly re-roll instead of suggesting changes to dumb-down a job that, by design, has a high skill cap and is intended for veteran players, the best of which have been proving for almost a year now that the job is a world prog tank and capable of great things.

There are exactly TWO things that DRK *could* use, but it doesn't NEED them.
1. An extra piece of utility accessible while not tanking anything. Doesn't (and IMO shouldn't) need to be Reprisal, but something.
2. A PINCH (I'm talking like, Shadeshift-sized) of extra physical mitigation.

[/B]

Serious question, did your main account get banned? >.>

Though instead of physical mitigation, maybe increased self healing? I.E. Souleater returns 1.5 the damage dealt.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

1.5x the damage dealt would be borderline OP if you ask me. BUT, I think it would be neat if the heal ignored the Grit damage penalty. Because as it stands, you're never getting the full potency of Souleater in the heal. Not something I'd devote a thread to, but neat.

I said physical mitigation because in a very select few highly physical fights, when they were new content anyway, saw DRKs having to get creative with CDs against physical TBs when Shadowskin/Wall were on cooldown. I remember there being at least 1 TB in ThordanEx where I had to prepare DD+Reprisal, hit Foresight+Conva, and clench. Nothing unsurvivable, but usually left me with only a few thousand HP left. It was just unpleasant.That was back when STR tanking was a thing though and it was a race to see how small you could get your HP -_- A little idea I had previously in Spooky's old thread in regards to redesigning all tanks, was to give Dark Dance an additional buff that was like a 10-15% physical Stoneskin/Shadeshift effect (Shadeshift is 20% iirc? which would be a little OP with 26-27K HP.) Although with all the threads lately about (badly) redesigning/changing DRK I'd hate to jump on that train. I'd be perfectly content for DRK to be left entirely as-is until 4.0 when they will undoubtedly be upgrading all jobs in some form or fashion (moar traits please! )

Souleater I really don't see as being a big issue because it works for what it is, which basically amounts to a regen. Its such a frequently used skill. And when the boss is just wailing on you with AAs and you're hitting DASE, it extends (albeit not by a lot) the duration of time your healer can wait before healing you. Its not much but its still noteworthy. My WHM's regen ticks for about 1.4-1.5K on me, my SCH's fairy hits me for about 1.9-2K, and my Souleaters give me about 2.1K (factoring in Grit, of course), with about 3.5-3.7K if they crit. The only comparable ability is IB which differs significantly in usage since you want it for the mitigation while the heal is just a little bonus. Souleater just kind of happens. So with that said, I don't think it particularly needs changing. But if they boost it by 20-50% I won't complain.