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.

[Crater]

What is the point of a threat combo if you can reach the big threat maker withouth connecting the chain ?

There are a lot of reasons why you might choose to use Spinning Slash for your enmity in that instance rather than Power Slash.

First, it's important to remember that the enmity difference between Spinning Slash and Power Slash isn't that high. At 220 with a 5.25 modifier, Spinning Slash is 1155 enmity-potency; at 300 with a 5.5 modifier, Power Slash is 1650. That's a difference of less than 500, which in the grand scheme of things is not particularly high. For comparison, the difference between Savage Blade and Rage of Halone is almost 670 enmity-potency, and the difference between Skull Sunder and Butcher's Block is 700.

Second, it's important to note that Spinning Slash does not have a Dark Arts effect. I'm sure any 3.x DRK will remember specifically using Delirium as a combo finisher instead of Souleater in order to hold on to a Dark Arts that they'd already popped. Currently, Hard Slash is the only GCD that won't consume DA, and there are a lot of instances where you'd like to be able to hold onto it a GCD longer, even if it costs you a 30 potency loss in damage (particularly if DA becomes more important as a modifier for defensive abilities).

Third, there's the difference between losing 30 potency directly by using Spinning Slash instead of Syphon Strike, and the difference between losing 10 Blood and the self-heal from Souleater. On paper, in a vacuum, 30 potency is roughly equal to 10 Blood, but there are frequently specific points where an extra 10 Blood won't help you, and specific points where 10 Blood will provide you with a big gain in damage - making a decision about which one would be more helpful at any given moment would be a skill-based element of optimization added to the class.

Finally, it's just an issue of timing. If an add pops when you're in Mid Stance, you can use Spinning Slash to secure aggro; if it pops when you're in High Stance, you can use Power Slash. There are a lot of cases where either enmity skill would provide enough enmity, but you're forced to use both of them, back to back, even though you'd much rather just do the pickup with Spinning Slash and then go right into Souleater - similarly, there are times when you'd much rather use Syphon Strike on the main target right before an add spawns, but are forced to use Spinning Slash and eat a massive damage loss, just so that you'll have Power Slash available on an add.

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.

I feel you there - I really do - but you just cannot design a balanced version of DRK that has to manage their MP between offense and defense.

If you balance DRK against WAR assuming that DRK is going to use x% of their MP to augment their defensive abilities, then a DRK that uses that x% of their MP to augment offensive abilities instead must deal more damage than the WAR. If you balance DRK against WAR assuming that a DRK is going to use 100% of their MP to augment their offensive abilities, then DRK must have defensive abilities that match WAR's even when used without any DA augmentation. Ultimately, no matter how you try to do it, DRK is going to end up either overpowered or underpowered in comparison. And given all of 3.x through to today in 4.1, it's overwhelmingly likely that DRK ends up on the "underpowered" side of that line.

MP management has to be decoupled from DRK's standard defensive cooldowns. There's just no other way for it to work. The MP management aspect between offense and defense still exists, mind you, but would be limited to TBN, which is a much more manageable situation that is a lot more feasible to balance.

I don't think TBN with a so complex mechanic would be good either.

It's actually a deceptively simple change - certainly much easier to get your head around than any sort of counter-attack type of mechanic.

What it boils down to is: You can use TBN to mitigate whenever you need it, as long as you have the MP, but using it consecutively will become more and more costly, until you stop using it long enough for the 15 second 'cooldown' to expire.