4.1 Dark Knight Feedback and fixes

[Mycow8me]

I know ill get some flak for this, but theres a reason defiance is OGCD and 'free' and pld/drks aren't. When you turn on grit/oath you immediately receive mitigation while defiance gives you nada. The second you make them OGCD you just made them into 10 sec recast ramparts.

Pld/Drk:
TB coming: Shield oath/Grit on!
*3 sec and free rampart later
Sword oath/click grit off!

War:
TB coming:
um I guess....FELL CLEAVE!!!

The second that the grit/oaths become OGCD we will have problems. Its not just about 'costing resources'. Its about preventing stances from being abused like a CD.

Right now for war to get the similar effect we have to Defiance>IB. That costs resources and damage, just like oaths/grit.

What?! When you make the switch to defiance you instantly have access to a 20% cooldown with HP return or even equilibrium which is what anyone who switches to it uses it for other than hate. Some wars switch right before things like ahk mourn then switch back out just to pop in a IB for a tank buster or they are low on hp. It functions the same as what your complaining about for the most part.

Switching into grit would still mean that 10-15 second damage penalty, nothing is free going into tank stance.

[Chrono_Rising]

I know ill get some flak for this, but theres a reason defiance is OGCD and 'free' and pld/drks aren't. When you turn on grit/oath you immediately receive mitigation while defiance gives you nada. The second you make them OGCD you just made them into 10 sec recast ramparts.

Pld/Drk:
TB coming: Shield oath/Grit on!
*3 sec and free rampart later
Sword oath/click grit off!

War:
TB coming:
um I guess....FELL CLEAVE!!!

The second that the grit/oaths become OGCD we will have problems. Its not just about 'costing resources'. Its about preventing stances from being abused like a CD.

Right now for war to get the similar effect we have to Defiance>IB. That costs resources and damage, just like oaths/grit.

Actually I think for Warrior to have the equivalent its Defiance > Equilibrium giving you the full 25% hp more, which is basically the benefit of tank stance.

Defiance > IB is more like tank stance + rampart.

[Chrono_Rising]

I realize that, however the change only benefits defense when out of tank stance. What I was suggesting benefits the player universally no matter the stance they are in. By going the route of Delirium providing the benefits of Grit outside of the stance, it just makes it too reliant on having to be out of Grit to be worthwhile.

It is possible I'm missing something, if so please let me know. Your suggestion is not quite universal as it only applies after using delirium out of tank stance, after the effect dissipates blood price defense presumably goes away, so I'm not sure I see the benefit of this while not in grit as the two ideas seem identical. In grit, I don't really think dark knight has any defensive problems since TBN should be used frequently for defense and DPS.

Also you said that this makes us too reliant on being out of grit to be useful, but my suggested buff while in grit is to ignore the grit damage penalty while giving the DRK access to blood weapon. In other words, in my suggestion we are gaining access to all of our tools at maximum potency without a damage penalty for 30 seconds independent of your starting stance.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

The additional defensive effect that I suggested being added to Blood Price is independent of Delirium, it would just be a part of BP and therefore would make BP act as an extra low % defensive CD.

I just mentioned it in relation to the suggested Delirium changes because of the way they would interact.

Overall I believe we are on the same page and in general agreement over the concept, just of a differing opinion on some slight nuances mainly being higher power/longer recast vs. milder power/shorter recast.

[Chrono_Rising]

The additional defensive effect that I suggested being added to Blood Price is independent of Delirium, it would just be a part of BP and therefore would make BP act as an extra low % defensive CD.

I just mentioned it in relation to the suggested Delirium changes because of the way they would interact.

Are you also removing blood prices grit lock so that it can be used when not in grit and not after using delirium? Sorry if I seem like I'm coming off as pushing, I'm jsut interested because after the correction you pointed out:

A similar idea that I had earlier this week was to have Delirium, in addition to restoring MP, removing the stance restriction for BP and BW for a short amount of time, creating a window to be able to use either, or both, no matter what stance you are in.

If this was then paired with the oft made suggestion of adding a low-end % damage received down effect (10-15%?) added to BP, it would make Delirium into a gateway ability to a bit more offense in Tank stance and a bit more defense out of it, while also killing two birds with one stone (well technically two stones I guess), by providing two highly requested things: another small defensive CD and access to BW in Grit.

I feel the suggestion for delirium is doing exactly this. So far the only major difference I see is that this would not give an additional mitigation when in grit.

Out of grit, we gain mitigation, higher potency on blood spiller, the grit self sustain, and more mana regeneration by blood price and siphon strike.

In grit we retain the benefits of grit, while gaining access to blood weapon, and losing our 20% damage penalty.

[TouchandFeel]

Are you also removing blood prices grit lock so that it can be used when not in grit and not after using delirium?

No, BP is still locked behind Grit just as BW is still locked behind being out of Grit. Delirium would then allow you to gain access to BP while out of Grit and BW while in Grit since it removes the restriction.

Basically the changes you are suggesting and what I am suggesting are very very similar. You are tying the defensive boost to Delirium and would only get the def boost out of Grit. I tied it to BP so that it is available while in Grit but also then available outside of Grit when you use Delirium.

[Chrono_Rising]

No, BP is still locked behind Grit just as BW is still locked behind being out of Grit. Delirium would then allow you to gain access to BP while out of Grit and BW while in Grit since it removes the restriction.

Basically the changes you are suggesting and what I am suggesting are very very similar. You are tying the defensive boost to Delirium and would only get the def boost out of Grit. I tied it to BP so that it is available while in Grit but also then available outside of Grit when you use Delirium.

Ah, now I understand.

[Aana]

Actually I think for Warrior to have the equivalent its Defiance > Equilibrium giving you the full 25% hp more, which is basically the benefit of tank stance.

Defiance > IB is more like tank stance + rampart.

Not quite. The tank stance itself doesn't actually do anything immediately by itself (as opposed to drk/pld). It has to be paired with something to get that instantaneous effect (IB, equal, healer heal etc). If drk/pld stances were treated similar to defiance (ogcd etc as proposed) that balance would be gone. You could essentially flip rampart effect like a switch only when you need it and right back off when you don't and receive rampart effects on demand. War is limited by either a 1min CD (equal)+10 sec of defiance penalties or IB(instead of FC)+10 sec of defiance penalties. If drk was OGCD, they would need no secondary action to get their DR effect. They would not be locked in grit for 10 sec #clickoff.

The way it is now, wars turning on defiance is the 'least beneficial' defensively, but less costly offensively (less resources used, less damage lost) while pld/drks are more costly to turn on, but more immediately impactful. Obvisouly it gets more nuanced depending on the situation and what you pair with defiance, is it downtime, and a lot of other factors, but the bottom line is they function differently with that tradeoff in mind.

IF you were to change pld/drks to OGCD/lower cost that gets thrown out of wack. Pld/Drks stances are immediately more powerful without any additional CDs/heals/stuff that war would need for similar effect. If stance dance on pld/drk becomes as easy as wars, their stances will become flatly better no contest. And you can bet my bottom dollar it would get abused to all get out by flashing it on and off for a second at a time essentially getting the benefits of tank stance for free on everything but AAs if it were that easy to use.

To look at it another way:
War stance for 20% DR tankbuster costs: Equal+10 sec of trapped in defiance -damage. Option to trade equal for trading FC for IB
Drk stance for 20% DR tankbuster costs: 1GCD+MP potency. Click off instantly after used.
Pld stance for 20% DR tankbuster costs: 1gcd+MP(not sure how that translates to damage with overflow and depending on next req window, mana regen effects and many other thigns). Click off, but ultimately another GCD+MP for sword.

All those values are not 100% equal across the jobs and are situationally more or less punishing depending on the specific circumstance. But if you drastically cut the costs of pld/drks to war levels they will just be straight better and more abusable. Particularly drks as they can just click the damn thing off after 1 sec like nothing happened.

[Chrono_Rising]

Not quite. The tank stance itself doesn't actually do anything immediately by itself (as opposed to drk/pld). It has to be paired with something to get that instantaneous effect (IB, equal, healer heal etc). If drk/pld stances were treated similar to defiance (ogcd etc as proposed) that balance would be gone. You could essentially flip rampart effect like a switch only when you need it and right back off when you don't and receive rampart effects on demand. War is limited by either a 1min CD (equal)+10 sec of defiance penalties or IB(instead of FC)+10 sec of defiance penalties. If drk was OGCD, they would need no secondary action to get their DR effect. They would not be locked in grit for 10 sec #clickoff.

The way it is now, wars turning on defiance is the 'least beneficial' defensively, but less costly offensively (less resources used, less damage lost) while pld/drks are more costly to turn on, but more immediately impactful. Obvisouly it gets more nuanced depending on the situation and what you pair with defiance, is it downtime, and a lot of other factors, but the bottom line is they function differently with that tradeoff in mind.

IF you were to change pld/drks to OGCD/lower cost that gets thrown out of wack. Pld/Drks stances are immediately more powerful without any additional CDs/heals/stuff that war would need for similar effect. If stance dance on pld/drk becomes as easy as wars, their stances will become flatly better no contest. And you can bet my bottom dollar it would get abused to all get out by flashing it on and off for a second at a time essentially getting the benefits of tank stance for free on everything but AAs if it were that easy to use.

Aana, I think we have a misunderstanding. I'm not disagreeing with your points about tank stances. I'm disagreeing with what you are claiming are equal in tank stances. Warrior tank stance is not awesome, just awesomely flexible.

Defiance + Equilibrium is enough to heal your 25% extra HP, effectively giving you the ability to survive a hit up to 1.25 times your HP when not in tank stance, this is comparable to drk/pld tank stance at its 80% reduction for one less button, we can survive a hit up to 1.25 times our hp when not mitigated. I'm saying this pairing is equivalent to going into tank stance.

Defiance + IB is a self heal worth a bit, I don't 100% know how much but I believe it is a nice chunk of the hp you gained from defiance, and then gives you 20% damage down. This means you now have around 1.15 (since IB does not restore all of your HP) times your HP and you have 20% mitigation which means taking a hit up to about 1.44 times your hp. This costs extra buttons but gives extra benefit, its not equivalent to tank stance in the slightest, that is all I was implying in my post.

[Aana]

Anna, I think we have a misunderstanding. I'm not disagreeing with your points about tank stances. I'm disagreeing with what you are claiming are equal in tank stances.

Defiance + Equilibrium is enough to heal your 25% extra HP, effectively giving you the ability to survive a hit up to 1.25 times your HP when not in tank stance, this is comparable to tank stance at its 80% reduction for one less button, we can survive a hit up to 1.25 times our hp when not mitigated.

Defiance + IB is a self heal worth a bit, I don't 100% know how much but I believe it is a nice chunk of the hp you gained from defiance, and then gives you 20% damage down. This means you now have around 1.25 times your HP and you have 20% mitigation which is stronger than normal tank stance.

War can most certainly 'flash' tank stance to survive in a similar fashion to drk/pld for a big hit and survive. My point is that it takes the stance + something else and the total costs are often glossed over like Mycow8me seems to be. Removing the costs/gcd requirements of drk/pld stances is a common request and often compared to war's 'free' stance dancing. But when you look at it, the war has to do something else to get that mitigation effect and costs 4 GCDs (10 sec) of damage loss. If you pair it with IB, its functionally on the GCD like plds/drks in that it costs a GCD, it lowers damage (IB could be FC and 10sec of defiance penalty while drk just clicks it off or uses bloodspiller for zero loss beyond the up front GCD/MP cost). Or you are limited to once a minute by using equal and still have 10 sec of defiance penalty. Similarly overlooked misconception about wars just 'poping' equal for threat. You don't jump into defiance for 10 sec just to get equal's threat.

TLDR: People point to defiances' 'free' nature for justifying pld/drk OGCD/Low cost stances, but overlook the 10 sec locked in defiance and no immediate benefit unless we also use a secondary action which further limits the frequency or increases the cost of the swap. The GCD is there for a reason. Removing it would just mean adding new strings, like being trapped in grit for 10-20 sec etc. Why trade 1 set of swapping shackles for another?

Drk pays it all up front for immediate gain and can click it off instantly. Pld pays some now, some later, gets the benefit now. War pays it all later but gets the benefits later unless combined with another action shuffling and muddying the cost around. Im not a fan of homogenizing abilities that are already pretty balanced. That just making jobs similar for no reason imo.