Complete Rework to DRK because boredom

[Claire_Pendragon]

Grit: Remove it. Bake its effect into Darkside. Increase damage by 10% instead of 20%.

Wanted to point out, the additional 20% from DS, and the removal of 20% from grit equates a 4% loss in damage dealt.
so making it +10% is actually making it +14%

On a side note, I always felt WAR should have been the straight up -x% tank, focused on dmg% tanking.

Then defiance and other max HP increases should have been given to DRK, instead of dmg% taken. (with minor exceptions)

by doing this, you are now left with a few other styles of tanking

**Caster/Healer tank, who relies on self healing.
**RNG tank (like evasion tank) who has a shorter Holmgang like ability, to handle TBs reliably, but only works for a single attack, and wears off. (RNG is for trash mobs and auto attacks. Ends up feeling similar to current DRKs lack of mitigation and TBN for TBs)
**hybrid, a little bit of it all, sort of what PLD is, and should be.

Also feel DRK should have had something similar to how monk works in WoW, where they lower dmg taken by 30% for 10s. There is no CD for this ability, the moment u pop it, u can pop it again.
The reason for this, is that there is a cost to using this ability. You gain a debuff, which states for 5mins the ability no longer mitigates dmg the next time u trigger it, but instead, the next time you use this ability, you take 30% of your max HP in damage.
You can use another ability to make it stack with the prior debuff, changing it to -60% of your max hp, but allows you to use the CDs mitigation again. (This is where the real CD is, 2mins)
You can repeat this to a max of 5 charges. as 4 charges is enough to kill you, but with enough shields, maybe you'll survive.

Pop living dead, and then you can pop your CD and remove all stacks, refreshing the CDs usage.

Also, i'd like an ability to remove the stacks directly, though i havnt thought that far into it.

(and yes, Dark Side should have been -1% hp drain, and Grit should have let all auto attacks heal a small amount of the dmg dealt)

WAR should also have focused solely on using actions that always target the opponent, like inner beast maim, storms path, storms eye, and holmgang, which requiring hitting the opponent to gain a positive effect.

Oh yeah, with current DRK, DP should have the blind backed in, with DA giving all enemies hit with a -5% dmg dealt debuff, to counter WARs new party shield, but not surpass TBNs possibility of being used for single target.

EDIT:
Some minor things Id want to mention about;

- Putting Dark Passenger back to its 3.X state, essentially halving its MP cost while raising its base potency to 150 and DA potency to 250

You only need to change mp cost, or change potency, doing both is unnessisary. DA is 140 potency, so DP being 150 potency is already a DPS increase in every situation. Lowering the MP cost too is a bit much. (I think it shoul dbe an MP cost reduction, so we're using DP ffor the blind, more than the DPS, since we lack filler mitigation atm)

- Making Dark Mind reduce all damage instead of just magic, while raising the recast time to 90s if too powerful

Id make its 20% magic by default, and then DA adds an additional -10% of all dmg sources, going to -30% magic, and -10% physical. then we stack it with reprisal, and its a rampart when when we must have one.

- Reducing Shadow Wall's recast time and maybe giving it a little extra effect, like for example a small MP regain when hit just like Blood Price, with the same potency benefit as Vengeance's counter attack effect

personally rather it extend by 5 seconds, to fill in gaps of mitigation, instead of the refresh effect. the reduction in time i have no issue with either.

- Shortening Plunge's animation-lock and increasing its range to make it on par with the other gap-closers and maybe give us the ability to double-weave it

THIS, right here. There is no reason to use plunge instead of just running up to the enemy, other than for its dps increase. its range is too awful, and the animation lock takes just as long as it would to walk up to the enemy. it also doesnt trigger far enough away. if it were further by even as small as 5 yalms, then it would be an actual gap closer. (though it should be 25 yalms)

- Remove the Grit requirement on Souleater's lifesteal, or atleast give us half the lifesteal when Gritless instead of just removing it completely

Thats technically a life steal for only 36% less. It would have to be lowered by more than half, to actually get a life steal thats 50% of a grit soul eater.
Since DS is adding a 24% dmg increase, that would add to how much it heals for.

[Freyyy]

You only need to change mp cost, or change potency, doing both is unnessisary. DA is 140 potency, so DP being 150 potency is already a DPS increase in every situation. Lowering the MP cost too is a bit much.

But that's exactly how DP was in 3.X and it wasn't an overpowered ability by any means. It used to cost half a DA while dealing 150 potency and 250 DAed. Which made it second priority in MP usage without DA in single targets (after C&S) and with DA on 2 targets or more. In SB they both DOUBLED the cost AND nerfed the potency to the ground for no reason. The skill was perfectly fine.

Id make its 20% magic by default, and then DA adds an additional -10% of all dmg sources, going to -30% magic, and -10% physical. then we stack it with reprisal, and its a rampart when when we must have one.

The problem with this option is that we'd still be at a significant disadvantage in physical fights since we'd have to waste an extra DA for DM to be effective, and for 10% mitigation I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't use it at all in optimal play (for the same reasons that we don't use Grit), leaving us just as squishy as we currently are in heavily physical fights compared to the other tanks. It wouldn't fix the issue. Since PLD can block magic now, there's no reason to keep DM a magic mitigation CD. PLD doesn't have to sacrifice DPS for Sheltron or Bulwark to block magic. Why should we have to sacrifice DPS for DM to mitigate physical damage ?

[Claire_Pendragon]

But that's exactly how DP was in 3.X and it wasn't an overpowered ability by any means. It used to cost half a DA while dealing 150 potency and 250 DAed. Which made it second priority in MP usage without DA in single targets (after C&S) and with DA on 2 targets or more. In SB they both DOUBLED the cost AND nerfed the potency to the ground for no reason. The skill was perfectly fine.



The problem with this option is that we'd still be at a significant disadvantage in physical fights since we'd have to waste an extra DA for DM to be effective, and for 10% mitigation I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't use it at all in optimal play (for the same reasons that we don't use Grit), leaving us just as squishy as we currently are in heavily physical fights compared to the other tanks. It wouldn't fix the issue. Since PLD can block magic now, there's no reason to keep DM a magic mitigation CD. PLD doesn't have to sacrifice DPS for Sheltron or Bulwark to block magic. Why should we have to sacrifice DPS for DM to mitigate physical damage ?

I already know thats how it was in 3.x, im saying, with the current style, we technically only need one of those, not both. (im fine with both btw)

As for dark mind, we alrdy used DA on it for the magic tank busters, or at least i did back in A12S.
And I had to use foresight, mixed with reprisal, to survive physical tank busters in 3.x when living dead/shadow wall/skin were down.

So it would just be a more costly foresight.

But the reason for this, is because we alrdy have TBN for TBs, so if you're really out of CDs, pop grit like a ghetto inner beast, then turn it off.

But this -10% dmg would be best used for trash mobs, as a filler mitigation tool. For bosses, stack it with reprisal, and it then acts as a pseudo rampart.

Over all, we dont NEED this, just so much as an emergency option.

Of course, this is asking for scraps, instead of asking for a whole new meal.
(Im inclined to think SE wont give us anything too crazy, so im looking for small patches instead.)

I also think it should never go full mitigation, as i personally liek the flavor of it being more magical. But it could then just be 10% magic, and then +20% to both, etc.
But either way, i think the DA version needs an extra 5-10 second duration, as its BS that it doesnt last very long, considering how useless it is anyways, no reason it should be short.

[Eyvhokan]

Since PLD can block magic now, why can't we have a passive that allows us to parry magic?

Then tag on a '100% chance to parry next hit' onto something, maybe DA Dark Mind so it can be used against physicals.