Fixing Dark Knight, Properly

[SyzzleSpark]

Drastic decrease in MP usage for one, done in large by Dark Arts effects being added to base effects which is basically saying we no longer spend MP to gain them.

Pretty sure the only DPS oriented ability this was done to was C&S. What this amounts tois basically an extra 210 potency per minute. Thats not game breaking at all. Divide that up and that's like an extra 8 potency per GCD or something like that. That's like if SE gave us Scourge back, but nerfed the DoT to 8 potency per tick. Not really awe-inspiring. When I see a buff that looks powerful, I usually try and math out how much of a gain it actually is. Usually, I'm surprised.

DM's DA effect being raised to baseline really isn't that big of a concern honestly, considering PLD can now block magic. Its also meant to rid us of this system where we have to sacrifice DPS just to get our cooldowns to be fully functional. In a DPS context, MP=potency, so trading MP for potency via DA is the de-facto standard. It doesn't translate to mitigation though, any more than you can balance a Trick Attack with a Sacred Soil.

Those were the only two abilities that literally had their DA effects made baseline. Some other abilities had their DA effects buffed slightly, such as Quietus and AD. And when I say slightly I mean *sliiiiiigghhtttllyyyy* with a lisp, lilt, and slur. AD returning 120 MP per target hit when DA'ed is a gain of a whopping 7 potency per target. If 2400 MP is 140 potency, 120 MP is 7 potency. Its peanuts. Buffs like this are far from dethroning the other two tanks or making them irrelevant. That's why I said in response to Shao, the OP's changes are extremely conservative.

Also the Sole Survivor concept basically refunds the MP cost if you use Dark Arts as well as grant an added effect. I'm all for buffing Sole Survivor to make it more useful during a battle but that's over the top.

Not sure what you mean here, the OP's Sole Survivor had no interaction with DA.

If you're referring to the Shadow Wall change, I'll refer back to my previous statements about a sacrifice of DPS just to make our core cooldown suite function with a respectable degree of power being stupid. Anyway, its not a have-your-cake/eat-it-too situation. All it means is you trade one defensive ability for another. You're trading a dollar for 4 quarters instead of trading a dollar for 4 soybeans.

Its like if you were to ask PLD to pay a Holy Spirit's worth of MP unless they want to have a 30% Bulwark instead of 60%, or if you told WAR that Vengeance was gonna go back to being just a counter attack, and they'd have to pay 50 BG to get the 30% mitigation. Hell, WAR used to essentially get 10 BG just for pushing Raw Intuition or Vengeance. They actually got DPS *gains* from hitting mitigation buttons, and SE is gonna tell us its our lot to do the opposite?

Dude. All of the "hell no." All of it.

In no way is that fair, balanced, or even intelligent. And its not something people that play DRK should have to put up with, especially if their DPS is gonna be lower and their utility laughable in comparison. If I'm gonna pay for mitigation in DPS in ways no other tank needs to, the both of those things better be competitive at the absolute minimum, if not slightly better.

The fact that the community is conditioned to think this is just how DRK works is a problem in itself, and a double-standard on which partial blame lies for things like the plummeting usage statistics for the job. Its not fun. DA is DRK's FoF or Berserk. It provides a similar boost on a per-GCD basis. If you told PLD or WAR that any time they wanted to get full power off their defensive CDs they'd have to hack 5 seconds or 5% off of their next FoF/Zerk they would be apoplectic. The forums would erupt.

considerably OP and as a result will never happen.

History of tanking in this game says that not only is this untrue, its no less likely than the alternative. PLD can pump out more party mitigation than a SCH fairy, and WAR spent the whole of 2.x and 3.x having exclusive access to perhaps the 2 most powerful debuffs that have ever existed in the game, completely unchecked.

[Mycow8me]

On Part IV:
Dark knights lack physical mitigation severely, being the magic defense tank doesn't really do anything for us when paladin and warrior do just fine against magic attacks anyways. For dark mind it should be 15% vuln down and with dark arts +15% magic damage reduction on top of that. We should not have our party mitigation stacked with our personal mitigation skill, paladins/warriors is not. Either we need a new skill for it or SE needs to turn one of our mostly garbage skills into it like they did with shake it off, (looking at you delirium and soul survivor).

Shadow wall should be the dark knight equivalent of Vengeance for warriors. 20% mitigation for a 15 seconds. Instead of dealing a 50 potency attack it can drain HP from attackers for 25 potency. Dark arts 30% mitigation 20 seconds and 50 drain potency or something. Basically just making it all around stronger. Cooldown needs to be lowered to 120 seconds.

Adding dark arts affects to living dead will create dangerous scenarios in which you want to use dark arts before it on a skill that already procs late for emergencies due to server ticking and will end up getting us killed more often by the attack we were trying to prevent even though the animation went off. There's no reason to make this skill so detrimental when paladins and warriors functions so much more easily. At the "very least" SE could just make it so we come out of living dead with weakness status affect if not healed to full, give us +% healing during it, any number of other solutions if they don't want to change it fundamentally.

Part V:
I read this a few more times and it grew on me. The only thing I could add to this is that maybe despair should be a +% parry chance per stack on top of your listed affect in that we are becoming less concerned with dps and more concerned with our survival. Parry could also trigger a % chance of plunge cooldown reset giving dark knights back its parry proc dps. It would fit well with your listed plunge change too even make it possibly more weave lenient.

Something worth noting: Its been mentioned that dark knights could just as easily have TBN be AOEable for 10% with use of dark arts. This could work well as our party mitigator instead of using soul survivor or delirium, they could be altered instead to become a personal mitigation tool or stronger DPS tool. I feel like DRK should have more HP consuming/draining capabilities since that has been a part of its lore for as long as I can remember.

Edit: I also wanted to add that I firmly believe soul survivor should become a form of Instant HP grab with a cooldown of 1 minute instead of this compile thing. As it stands, were the only tank class that cannot heal itself in an emergency unless souleater is next on your combo list which doesn't seem fair...

[SplittingSkies]

Edit: I also wanted to add that I firmly believe soul survivor should become a form of Instant HP grab with a cooldown of 1 minute instead of this compile thing. As it stands, were the only tank class that cannot heal itself in an emergency unless souleater is next on your combo list which doesn't seem fair...

Don't forget, the HP drain effect from the damage on using Souleater is locked behind Grit. Along with gaining 2400 MP from Syphon compared to 1200 MP ALSO locked behind Grit.

[Mycow8me]

Don't forget, the HP drain effect from the damage on using Souleater is locked behind Grit. Along with gaining 2400 MP from Syphon compared to 1200 MP ALSO locked behind Grit.

Well the OP already noted a change to souleater so I didn't bother with it, his change seems fair.

[Joe777]

Not sure what you mean here, the OP's Sole Survivor had no interaction with DA.

I likely named the wrong ability then but I'm sure you know which one i mean lol

[Coatl]

I really like your new concept for Dark Arts. Essentially instead of Dark arts providing a boring upgraded version of the ability used, it will provide an alternation of said skill. I don't think Square would implement something that interesting into Dark knight, but it would definitely make Dark Knight very flexible and help it stand apart from PLD and WAR.