DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[InfiniDragon]

One difficulty in moving abilities around is the job quests. The Blackest Night, in particular, is strongly tied in to the Dark Knight job lore at level 70. I think that max level job balance is a more urgent issue than the play experience at lower levels.

Perhaps they could trait TBN in some way that enhances it at 70 and merge Enhanced Blackblood into the base Blackblood trait (which IMO should have been the case anyway), therefore keeping the lore significance which the DRK techniques always have over the other jobs without making you have to wait until effing 70 for such a crucial skill. Like for example, have untraited version be called Shadowskin and be 30 seconds, then have the trait change it to the 15 second CD and the TBN name like a Jolt > Jolt II sort of thing so that it keeps the plot significance. Or make traited TBN and base one have the same CD, but make traited still give some blood gauge meter even if the shield doesn't break.

[Mithron]

I'm still getting carpal tunnel symptoms due to just how much you have to spam Dark Arts now. It really needs to be removed from Siphon Strike.

[Xenosan]

The more I imagine Dark Arts not fading on some GCDs (Siphon,Souleater,Abyssal Drain), the more I like the idea of that as a lvl 6x trait. Permanent buff, not even a CD window.

[Lyth]

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The one difficulty with this approach is that we use MP for a lot more things than we do Blood (i.e. to power defensive cooldowns as well as attacks).

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Blood Weapon gives you about 2.5 DA and 36 blood. Delirium, if you get the full window, adds about 2.3 DA and 18 blood. You'll also generate 1.5-2 DA in the window from Syphon Strike, and 30-40 blood from SE. In total, this is about 4.3-4.8 DA and 84-94 blood.

With your 'Delirium Echoes', you'll probably see about 10 GCDs in the window, with about 6-8 DA uses. In an ideal situation, you'd gain about 3-4 DA uses and perhaps an extra one for the road. You'd probably need to find a way to add in something related to blood usage, however, and there's the worry that making MP usage more efficient in the window could lead to overcapping.

I like Xenosan's interpretation here, where the DA effect doesn't necessarily carry through, but simply isn't immediately consumed. I think if they made it so that the DA effect dissipates at the end of the GCD rather than on GCD activation, you'd be able to activate it for both a GCD and follow-up oGCD without worrying about double-weaving.

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I think if the goal is more burst, then the focus should be on redesigning our buff windows (BW/BP/Delirium) so that they have greater synergy with raid buffs. Every buff recast should be a multiple of 30 seconds. Otherwise, your second window just about misses the second TA, your third wanders into Brotherhood, and then you meet up with everyone on your fourth.

I like your suggested changes. I think that MP recovery on Bloodspiller and Blood generation on DA are essential changes (with the caveat that DA's blood generation doesn't work outside of combat). I'm not sure what the potency should be without testing, but Bloodspiller needs to come up more often, to keep the rotation feeling more varied.

The C+S and DP changes are good, keeping with the theme of sword actions using blood and spells using MP. Under such a system, though I wonder if it would make sense to give HS a DA potency option as well, since the only oGCD left over that could consume it would be DM.

The one issue that I have with your Delirum change is that it would only sync up with raid buffs every third Delirium (i.e. every 4 minutes). I think it's fine at two minutes, so long as you keep BW and BP's recasts at a multiple of 30 instead of 40. We haven't talked much about BP, but I do think that it needs a flat MP regen built in at the very least to offset the lower resource generation when single target tanking.

Lastly, Plunge needs to be 20y at the very least to bring it in line with all the other gap closers, especially with all of the longer distance knockbacks that we're seeing (i.e. Vacuum Wave/Double Attack). In all regards, it feels worse than Onslaught, with it's longer range, shorter animation, half recast, and enmity generation, especially when being the "mobile tank" was originally our shtick. Better yet, make it 25y to compensate for the slower recast and lack of enmity generation.

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Click for Lv.70 Spoilers:

"In your darkest hour, in the blackest night... think of me... and I will be with you. Always."

The line itself doesn't actually gain any lore significance until you've seen certain level 60+ plot events, and you're hit in the gut with who is shielding you. There isn't really any way this action could be granted prior to a level 60 job quest. There's actually an excellent write-up of this floating around reddit.

I think the easier solution to all this is: don't make TBN the be all and end all of DRK's defense. Even if you set LD's recast at 180 seconds and SW at 120 (or, you can use Syz's 5 second recast reduction per DA use, which amounts to roughly the same thing on SW.) You can do both of these things and still have a weaker free cooldown set than a level 50 WAR. Also, we're seeing shorter invuln recasts favouring (and pretty much shoehorning in) WAR on fights like V4S for Dualcast T3/Delta Attack, so recast reductions strike me as fairly important in achieving parity.

I think the other problem is that our cooldown kit is too reliant on DM to appear passable. I would rather see defensive value placed on BP as a 'weak' defensive, (i.e. Bulwark/RI). The DA DM effect is a bit superfluous, and I'd rather see it replaced with a flat cooldown (i.e 20%) that does something nice like absorb MP when you get hit by a spell. It basically tries to occupy the same niche that TBN does now, but does a worse job of it.

Lastly, we've talked in a few places about a Sole Survivor rework, and I feel that setting it up as a HP/MP/blood leech ability over time would be nice. In fact, if it were setup so that the amount drained depended on the amount of damage that you've taken (i.e. an inverse Spirits Within/Upheaval), then it would actually make Living Dead a bit more bearable, especially in the absence of a 'Minus Strike' action type.

[InfiniDragon]

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Minor 70 DRK spoilers below:

That's precisely why I mentioned having a trait change the skill's name to TBN.

As for making us less reliant on TBN itself, I'm sort of torn because I like the idea of having it for every single tankbuster if you're managing MP properly, it feels "tanky". But if SE refuses to address the other aspects of our kit without nerfing TBN then I suppose it's necesary, because it's silly that PLD and WAR just get outright superior defensive options and don't sacrifice damage or anything for them.

I honestly feel they could leave TBN alone and still fix Shadow Wall, Dark Mind and Soul Survivor and they still wouldn't be overpowered.

[Hierro]

Why is it so needlessly complex to AoE as DRK?


Back then you could use blood price in a large pull and spam abyssal drain for the entire duration of those 15 seconds. Was that too OP?

Now, we have to spend MP to gain blood via TBN. Then we use that blood to get more MP either through quietus or delirium.
the MP regen on BP is so poor I find myself staring at my blood gauge instead so I can use quietus instead. That mana is quickly spent because my shadow wall doesn't last long enough and find myself gasping for the HP bonus from DA'ing abyssal drain, which is not cheap by a long shot.

But even then the "spam" is short lived because quietus can only recover so much.

HW DRK was simple to dungeon with. SB DRK is rocket science by comparison. This isn't even diving into the added layer of complexity of quietus' interaction with blood weapon, which I myself still haven't figured out how to employ on a practical basis.

[SyzzleSpark]

Minor 70 DRK spoilers below:

That's precisely why I mentioned having a trait change the skill's name to TBN.

As for making us less reliant on TBN itself, I'm sort of torn because I like the idea of having it for every single tankbuster if you're managing MP properly, it feels "tanky". But if SE refuses to address the other aspects of our kit without nerfing TBN then I suppose it's neccesary, because it's silly that PLD and WAR just get outright superior defensive options and don't sacrifice damage or anything for them.

I honestly feel they could leave TBN alone and still fix Shadow Wall, Dark Mind and Soul Survivor and they still wouldn't be overpowered.

Crater made an interesing observation in this post, which is that DRK's design niche is tanking actively. Ever since reading that, I've changed my opinions somewhat, as he makes a very good point.

TBN is a powerful ability and one which really isn't like any other tank cooldown. The main things that need changing about it are its dubious effect on our DPS and resources, and people have suggested dozens of ways of fixing this, here are just a few examples:

-Reducing the mana cost
-Procing a DA effect if it pops
-Reducing the Blood Gauge cost/increasing the potency of Bloodspiller to make the gauge generation worth more potency
-Having TBN reduce the recast of various offensive abilities (C&S, Salted Earth, Delirium, etc.)

Nowadays, I'm fine with TBN being our "defensive Dark Arts" of sorts, however, even still, DM or Shadow Wall need fixing. The author of the post linked above believes the weakness of Shadow Wall is balanced by TBN (in much the same way as the old DD+Reprisal balanced it in 3.x), but that DM should be brought up to speed and work on physical damage, as well as receiving a duration increase, which I think is a good compromise, and one that, approaching 4.1, we are overdue for.

A cooldown that only works on magic damage in the current climate (PLD is able to block magic, WAR still as capable of tanking magic damage as it ever was) is just dated. Its powerful in o1, 2, and 4s, but that's it (and those encounters are clearly designed with it in mind, and indeed, the entire raid tier, as the only fight that has a physical buster (o3s) is designed in such a way that you have a ~30-40% extra mitigation CD in Awareness). Everywhere else it is extraneous, because magic damage is not present in this game in the way physical damage is. A cooldown like Raw Intuition may have the same problem from the other direction, however because of the ubiquity of physical damage, it is useful in the vast majority of content.

If this raid tier, and o3s in particular, proves anything to me, its that a change to DM surely is imminent, as SE will be unable to design a fight with a frequent physical buster that isn't a critical hit in the future, which seems like a ludicrous design restriction for them to enforce against themselves to accommodate a single job, especially when so much of the job's playerbase is acutely aware of said accommodation, and hates it.

What I'm about to suggest likely will never happen, but it would stave off ever-present fears of homogenization (and avoid the awkwardness of a cooldown called "Dark Mind" mitigating physical damage somehow):

Dark Mind: Reduces magic vulnerability by 10% for 15s. Recast: 50s. DA effect: Increases reduction to 30%.
Dark Shell: Reduces physical vulnerability by 10% for 15s. Recast: 50s. DA effect: Increases reduction to 30%. Shares a recast with Dark Mind. Has Shadowskin's old animation.

Why is it so needlessly complex to AoE as DRK?


Back then you could use blood price in a large pull and spam abyssal drain for the entire duration of those 15 seconds. Was that too OP?

Now, we have to spend MP to gain blood via TBN. Then we use that blood to get more MP either through quietus or delirium.
the MP regen on BP is so poor I find myself staring at my blood gauge instead so I can use quietus instead. That mana is quickly spent because my shadow wall doesn't last long enough and find myself gasping for the HP bonus from DA'ing abyssal drain, which is not cheap by a long shot.

But even then the "spam" is short lived because quietus can only recover so much.

HW DRK was simple to dungeon with. SB DRK is rocket science by comparison. This isn't even diving into the added layer of complexity of quietus' interaction with blood weapon, which I myself still haven't figured out how to employ on a practical basis.

In a word, yes, it was too OP. Or at least that's what SE thought. Imagine if WAR's old Zerk-Bloodbath-Overpower spam not only leeched HP but also TP, then you have an idea of what we enjoyed back in the day.

I'll admit DRK's AoE tanking rotation is far more complicated now. However, one thing hasn't changed: DRK needs big pulls. Everything hinges on it: Blood Price, Quietus, AD, even TBN. That having been said, there is a correct way to do it, at least based on my experience. Based on some key statement you made in your post, I don't think you're pulling enough, which is not a new problem for DRKs, as I frequently recall telling others to do this in 3.x as well.

There's a basic foundation you have to lay first: Pop a CD, Salted Earth, and BP. That's step 1. The next is TBN. If you've pulled enough it should pop quickly. This first burst of Blood is for Delirium. Delirium BP will sustain you very nicely. BP may have been nerfed hard but it is still very effective in large pulls. After that its just a matter of DA-AD ->Quietus ->TBN.

The key is to watch BP and adjust your play accordingly when it falls off. While its running you shouldn't have any problems. When it does fall off, its recast has only 9 seconds left (because of Delirium), so that's basically 3-4 GCDs, which I usually spend using HS-SS-SE-(DA)AD. After that you have BP and Salted Earth again and everything starts over. It is really complicated, but after most of the complexity of our job was removed in this expansion, I'll take my challenges where I can find them.

All this having been said, there are still key perks to AoE tanking on DRK that the other tanks don't have. In order to recover the resource PLD uses to AoE, they have to Flash and wait for TP ticks, which means doing no damage at all. We have cooldowns to do this while we continue AoEing, or at worst, we have to switch to a single-target rotation for a few GCDs, which is still damage. On WAR, you can recover your AoE resource through single-target, but that is it. There is no way to generate gauge or recover a significant amount of TP while AoEing. On DRK you can do it all simultaneously, so I'm fine with enduring added complexity in exchange for that.

[Xenosan]

I don't even think BP nerf was due to being AOE overly strong, more-so collateral damage to a necessary change to address defense play of lvl70 DRK, they realized 4.0 DRK, defensively, is now almost entirely a resource-centric kit.

The BP -> (Grit)Siphon Strike MP adjustment was needed to normalize DRK MP returns so defensive output wasn't limited or too varying and contingent on a 15s-in-every-40s CD window. (since we've already got the long recast limitation of PLD kit bar DM/Bulwark)

For defense I think they could just embrace new resource playstyle for DRK. Resource based actions should have much lower cooldowns, as emphasis is on having the resource necessary to use them, not waiting for a recast for them to be available. Apply this to Shadow Wall, make it resource emphasis, not just recast, or a mix of both (ie Dark Mind).

To compensate for MP demand, improve DRK MP restoration by either addressing Bloodspiller (Siphon MP restore) or improve MP restore CDs so DRK has larger than just a 15-of-40 second window (imo a third for 30 seconds in 40 uptime). 37.5% uptime is not enough considering the resource demands and what DRK gets for that cost.

I think I'd be okay with full resource style DRK defense kit, if they actually commit fully to that mold, and not this one-foot-in, one-foot-out transition 4.0 changes put DRK in.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

Nothing personal, but I aggressively disagree with most of this post.

I'll start off just by saying that what you suggest could work with massive buffs to our resource generation as you said, but this doesn't actually fix the core problem. You give the job more resources, then there's just that much more incentive to use as small a portion of those resources on mitigation as possible. If we go from generating an average of 1000 MPS to 2000 MPS it still just means we'll want that much more of that mana to go to DA or AoEs instead of mitigation.

Resource based mitigation isn't a playstyle, its a handicap, particularly when our DPS is resource based as well. Paying for DA-DM and TBN is already an obnoxious cost, so making the entirety of our kit like this will doubtlessly not be a popular change. Its akin to making FoF or Berserk or Requiescat share recast timers with Sentinel or Vengeance or ToB. I can only imagine the rage changes like that would cause, and rightfully so. Making defensive skills and offensive skills share recasts with one another is almost exactly the same concept and effect as making our entire kit resource based.

Our DPS is resource based, and that is fine, but in a sense, almost every job in this game is resource based in one way or another, and to varying extents, so I submit that this is not an identity or a playstyle in any real sense of either term.

I once again have to agree with Crater's analysis in the thread/post I linked above, which is that DRK is about active DPS, and active mitigation. If there's anything that SE has done successfully with DRK its giving it this identity. You don't push Berserk and get a 30% boost for 20s, you push actively push DA and get an on-demand, Berserk-style boost on a per-GCD basis. TBN works in almost the exact same way, but for defensive merit rather than offensive. Resources are the problem, not the solution.

Now that I think of it, its kinda funny that people complain about PLD's gauge being used only for defense, because this actually works in the job's favor. It pulls from TP and MP for DPS and its gauge for defense. There's no conflict of interest in that design, such as it is (there could be more uses for the gauge altogether other than the mere 2 that currently exist, but I digress). This is not to say I would want Blood Gauge usage to be purely defensive/offensive, and Mana usage to be purely the other, but its interesting to note.

An interesting mechanic SE seems to be testing the waters with is the exchange of these resources, which is what needs to be expanded on. TBN is already a little pass-fail game mechanic of its own. If you use it properly, it pops, it gives you something back for your investment. Currently however, you don't cut a profit from this. 2400 Mana that can be spent OFF the GCD > 50 Blood Gauge that, outside of Delirium, can only be spent ON the GCD. 4.0 DRK is old enough now that timing TBN is not as daunting as it was at first, but that still doesn't fix the problem. A popped TBN is only a gain in Grit, which means overall, its a loss. You put all of our defensives on this same price-cost markup, and you've just made a tank that literally never wants to tank.

SE has already committed to an active tanking playstyle with DRK and this was true in 3.x as well. There's not a problem with this design, and again, as stated in that link I posted earlier, I have to agree that this is pretty much DRK's entire reason for existing in the game. We go your route and we end up with just a really expensive WAR/PLD clone that can't DPS and mitigate in harmony. The problem isn't in the design of the job, honestly, but in its tuning. Costs are too high and benefits are too paltry. The best way to remedy this is to expand on TBN as a resource converter, possibly add more resource conversion into the job's toolkit, and reward us more concretely for mastering it on a fight-by-fight basis. TBN is already such a large proportion of our total mitigation now that there isn't any need to design our other CDs in this same fashion, and DM already is a middle ground between the two in terms of resource usage (or it should be, if they can simply have it work on physical damage.)

There's other design choices in DRK that really don't make sense or jive with this active playstyle, but are just tacked-on. TBN works mechanically for what it is, but things like Living Dead and Sole Survivor are just overly-conditional, meandering, convoluted "if/if not-then" nonsense and frankly just need to be simplified. Simple solutions and simplification in general were supposed to be a defining motif for this expansion. LD could just be a 12s Holmgang with a longer recast. Sole Survivor could just be an instant 20% HP/MP restore and it frankly wouldn't be broken given its recast compared to the accessibility of Equilibrium and Clemency. These have nothing to do with a resource-based or active playstyle, and are just messy and needless.

They just need to fix DP, make TBN a significant DPS gain when used properly, and either cut Shadow Wall's recast and increase its duration, or (preferably) make DM work on all damage types. There's other tweaks here and there that could be made (LD, Sole Survivor, etc...) but if they could just fix these 3 things, everyone's life would be so much easier.

[Hierro]

In a word, yes, it was too OP.

I don't think a fair comparison can be made to WAR's zerk OP spam. It carried far more power and sustainability than AD spam, even with grit off. Today WAR's AoE is better than ever thanks to berserk being available for every pull and IR for every other pull with decimate spam, but SE only removed the self sustain. Since DRK's damage is nowhere near that level, why couldn't they have removed the self-sustain and leave the rest alone? Why is it complex to do casual content and simple to do endgame raiding?

Back in 3.x I pulled as far as the dungeon allowed. I'm no stranger to making big pulls and using my CDs effectively and gauging what I can and can't handle. That said, I have deliberately not pulled as much as allowed in certain spots for one reason or another. Either healers today just aren't what they used to be, or these mobs are hitting incredibly hard.