Fixing Dark Knight, Properly

[MauvaisOeil]

I think there are great ideas, but also some not so thought forward.

What is the point of a threat combo if you can reach the big threat maker withouth connecting the chain ? On of the skills, syphon or spinning, will bloat the other as the real threat you want is power slash. I think something more interesting would lies in applying a self buff at some point, that would be the role of "reducing fluff damage", either by a flat % (5 to 10%) or by increasing parry rate by a significant amount.

The stance system of the monk is nice and I allways thought a tank should be built this way (I had thought it would be SAM before it was revealed as a DPS), but their whole potency system is not made of crescent strikes leading to a big upfront hit, but moderate hits with various buff/debuffs/dots to maintain. Such a change would require a rework of the potency of hard slash as much as other skills, but might bring back scourge (It could be the basic stance opener you only get once your cycled throught your whole serial once, the dragon tackle equivalent).

I don't like your idea of Dark art beeing a cost to refund ability. It's removing the fun of MP management, even if it's only for utilitary skills. I get that you want to remove the cost of "helping others", which is fine for your design of Dark mind, but I don't find it fulfilling on TLD or SW.

To me, shadow wall should repack somehow the damage it absorbed into a heal, late coming. I know it might sucks from a PVE TankBuster perspective, but I can't see the DRK somehow else that "A live draining desecrated knight", and I would like to see more emphasis on this, like increasing the healing from souleater and/or giving full lifesteal on bloodspiller. I don"t get why spending blood doesn't heal us, c'mon, Delirium animation looks like your injecting yourself some life force from others.

I know the line will be crossed if a tank gets damage a party buff. But honestly, PLD got a shield and a damage reduction, war got a shield, do we really need a shield ? We should have kept reprisal as a sole dRK ability for raid mitigation, but I don't really want an other "Tank LB3".


I don't think TBN with a so complex mechanic would be good either. It will be obscure and even if mathed right, counter intuitive to use. I think having Bloodspiller steal or restore a big chunk of life could make a counter blow of some sort, if your TBN is destroyed on a first hit from a multi hit TB, or if a second high damage skill is less than 15s away, you could compensate it with Bloodspiller instead of making it a copy paste of Fel cleave.

I'm all about making DRK more than a TBN bot, I'm just not sure about thoses new mechanics that seems overly complex or dubious. But I'm all in for a positive change.