Core Issues With 4.x Dark Knight

[Eyvhokan]

->If TBN breaks, cut Shadow Wall's recast by 5s. (If you spam TBN and it breaks every time this would whittle Shadow Wall down to about 120s recast).

Even with the best possible outcome, it's Vengeance but worse?

I'll take it; it's still an improvement.

[SyzzleSpark]

Even with the best possible outcome, it's Vengeance but worse?

I'll take it; it's still an improvement.

Well no not really, because you got to spam a +20% HP shield to get there.

[Rhais]

D) It matches up fairly well with DRK's current offensive identity, which is all about using Dark Arts as kind of a per-GCD Berserk

This is just another huge problem with DRK though, there is nothing even remotely fun about spamming a boring potency buff before all your GCDs. The current offensive identity of DRK is also very flawed and needs to be looked at. SE's current concept of DRK has so many problems both in terms of how engaging and fun the job is to play and how effective it is at doing its job that a few small tweaks to various skills are not going to be adaquate.

[SyzzleSpark]

This is just another huge problem with DRK though, there is nothing even remotely fun about spamming a boring potency buff before all your GCDs. The current offensive identity of DRK is also very flawed and needs to be looked at. SE's current concept of DRK has so many problems both in terms of how engaging and fun the job is to play and how effective it is at doing its job that a few small tweaks to various skills are not going to be adaquate.

A lot of people would disagree here, because what is the alternative? Just give DRK another FoF/Zerk clone? Not really my idea of a fix.

I agree that DRK's problems run deeper than that which mere potency buffs and random tweaks will fix, but the idea of actively boosting your damage on demand, gated by a resource rather than a cooldown that you push every 60s and then call it a day, is probably one of the more effective aspects of DRK's design, insofar as giving the job an actual identity. There are many things I would fix before this, assuming enough people see it as an actual problem.

[Crater]

But, in light of SCH/SMN getting back sustain after much outcry, [...] I feel like it's entirely within SE's capacity to repair the damage done.

Actually, reading this bit kind of caught my eye.

Hypothetically, let's suppose that SE gave the old 3.x Reprisal back to DRK, with the old effect, old potency, old everything, and just one small change: The skill procs either on a successful Parry, or when a TBN shield is broken.

Let's look at everything that would do for DRK;

- Gives DRK extra damage, up to 210 potency every 30 seconds. All by itself, this closes about half the gap between WAR and DRK in terms of total DPS.
- Gives DRK a reason to use TBN more often than "only when you're absolutely sure it's necessary or will save a healer GCD", without flipping things around so that every DRK wants to spam TBN on cooldown for max DPS.
- Gives DRK the party utility that it's now conspicuously lacking. The advantage it holds over the other tanks' party utility skills is that it has much higher uptime, but that's balanced out by the fact that it can only reduce damage from targetable sources, and that its mitigation is going to always be lower than Divine Veil/Passage of Arms, always lower than a 1-4 buff Shake it Off, and typically lower than a 0-buff Shake it Off (due to the nature of Shields versus mitigation).
- Bolsters DRK's personal mitigation, by restoring one of DRK's 3.x era network of low-effect-but-easily-stackable 'fluff' mitigation tools (Reprisal, Foresight, and Dark Dance, in 3.x). The high-uptime 10% would tend to be enough to keep DRK from getting trucked by standard attacks in between tankbusters, and also enough to let TBN be used as the 'primary' cooldown on most medium-large tankbusters, instead of needing to pair TBN with another cooldown anyway.
- It also solves the 3.x Reprisal problems, which were: 1) You couldn't use it if enemies had unparryable attacks, and 2) You couldn't use it as an off-tank. By allowing TBN to proc it, you could pop it against magic damage and you could pop it as an off-tank.

Honestly, if it had an enmity modifier, that'd be very close to solving DRK's relevancy issues in one move.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

Crater you're giving Lythia Norvaine (Lyth) a run for their money as my favorite person on these forums.

#BringBack3.xReprisal

[Chrono_Rising]

I really like that suggestion Crater, this solves a number of issues easily. Would TBN continue to restore blood in this hypothetical?

[Rhais]

There can be other ways to give the job an offensive boost aside from making a FoF or zerk clone. The way SE has chosen to do it though, it doesn't make for very compelling gameplay in my opinion. HW DRK didn't have an equivelent to FoF or zerk, and it still managed to function offensively, and was a lot more fun then the current design.

[Chrono_Rising]

There can be other ways to give the job an offensive boost aside from making a FoF or zerk clone. The way SE has chosen to do it though, it doesn't make for very compelling gameplay in my opinion. HW DRK didn't have an equivelent to FoF or zerk, and it still managed to function offensively, and was a lot more fun then the current design.

Beyond giving us back oGCD attacks, I think our unique offensive buffs need to regenerate our resources.

[Crater]

I really like that suggestion Crater, this solves a number of issues easily. Would TBN continue to restore blood in this hypothetical?

I think the MP and the Blood could stay the same with no issues.

However, one other indirect benefit to that would be that, if it's understood that every 30s or so TBN will result in a substantial potency boost (barring any Parry procs), there's less pressure on TBN, on Bloodspiller, on your Souleater combo, etc, to remain in this weird, tightly-bound network where all the potencies have to kind of more or less break even with one another for the whole system to stay together. I don't know if there would be any real call to do that, but it at least puts the option on the table for the future.