Some More DRK Ideas

[Mycow8me]

Disclaimer: I don't expect anything out of this, I just wanted to post my thoughts since others have.

Some Ideas on changes for dork knights.

Core class changes:
-Darkside will no longer give +20% damage but instead will convert 5% of all damage dealt to HP. Mp regeration stops and refresh status affects granted by others have no affect. Potencies of all attacks will be changed to mimic the +20% damage that darkside use to give. Let me explain why I think this is intuitive, dark knights will be able to choose between more self sustain or more dps with MP regenerative affects and server MP tics/potions/songs/manashift/etc... Darkside is no longer a once and done skill unless people choose it to be that way while in reality it could be a situational skill. All skills that required darkside in order to be used can now be used without darkside on. Darkside will cost the current same MP and be turned off with skill reuse. If a DRK is doing 3.5k per second that is a return of 175 HP per second or 10500 HP per minute which seems like a fair amount over the course of a minute (feel free to disagree, maybe this is OP honestly I'm not 100% sure), in this sense dark does not need an HP grab cooldown and as drks get stronger so will the draining to accommodate HP pool growth.

-Dark knights will receive a skill titled: Last Resort alongside TBN at 70 (currently dark knights have less skills than paladin and warrior so adding one seems to be the simplest solution to party utility. Afterall they stole reprisal away from us.)

DPS skill changes:
-Syphon Strike will return MP equal to one dark arts cost while in grit and half a darkarts outside grit. Will keep its dark arts potency to be use as an extra dps increase MP sponge when we are high on MP in this part of our combo rotation.

-Souleater will return 75% of damage dealt as HP to accommodate darkside changes and only steal HP in grit, out side of grit it steals Half a dark arts MP cost.

-Plunge will have a larger range and smaller animation lock. Parrying gives a 30% chance of cooldown reset. This gives us synergy with anticipation role skill. Its not the old reprisal but its better than nothing.

-Blood weapon will no longer have the -10% recast or auto attack delay but instead give a flat 5 blood per hit and 5% mp return per hit on physical attacks (combos, quietus, and carve and spit). This eliminates doubleweave clipping during bloodweapon from its speed bonus.

-Salted earth with dark arts applies a 5 % magical damage vuln up debuff to all mobs in its area of affect.

-Blood Spiller, Dark passenger, and Salted Earth are now unaspected magical damage,

-Delerium will do what it currently does but only cost 20 blood with same cooldown. I cant think of a way to make this skill more useful other than just cutting blood cost.

Mitigation skill changes:
-Shadow wall: 30% vulnerability down. 10% of the damage received is drained from attacker. Duration is 15 seconds and cooldown is 180 seconds. (To clarify, the total mitigation is 40%. If you survive the attack, 10% more of the damage received is returned as HP from the attacker on top of the original 30%) This makes shadow wall a punishing buff against attackers.

-The blackest Night: When shield breaks it gives 50 blood and a free dark arts status affect (without having to press dark arts) This may also help some doubleweaving. Lasts for 6 seconds.

-Soul survivor is renamed to Soul Corruption and applies the another victim status affect, all incoming damage returns 5% hp for 15 seconds and keep current cooldown time.

-Blood Price will return MP based on the number of targetable enemies on the enmity list. 400 divided by number of enemies. IF this isn't possible SE is going to have to code enemies on our enmity list that are not targetable properly or something, I dunno they can figure it out.

-Living Dead will have a +20% healing applied to it to eliminate the need for dark knights to bring convalescence just for this skill...

-Last Resort:: Generates a large TBN aoe around you that stays up for 15 seconds and negates 10% of all incoming damage. AOE is just a little bigger than salted earth. Applies a 2% MP refresh to everyone in area of affect including DRK that ignores the affects of skills that cancel MP regenerative affects (like umbral/astral for example). The effect is canceled if player moves or uses another action.


The idea was to focus on caster synergy and becoming the HP drain tank. Still considering things but honestly its whatever at this point, there's already been tons of feedback for the devs.

[MauvaisOeil]

Not bad. Can't comment on the exact tune, but it fits better my view. Even If I'm sure the 10% lifesteal of Shadow wall will be fluff, but would a +10% damage reduction change something here really ? As long as SW + TBN is enough to survive, I doubt it will save a healer's GCD.

[Mycow8me]

I thought it was more along the lines of to hurt attackers similar to wars Vengeance but with a twist, it heals that HP and since its an extra 10%, it should still have a longer cooldown. If you receive 30,000 points of damage from a tankbuster after the 30% mitigation is factored in, you receive 3000 HP back and the mob takes 3000 damage. Sounded neat so figured why not. It will hurt large group pulls as well I guess.

[Shinkyo]

A pretty good mix of various good ideas that have been floating around.
Magic vul debuff tied to salted earth is a pretty good idea.

[CelestialWyrm]

So Last Resort is basically an AST bubble but gives MP regen instead of HP regen. Works for me, DRK needs some kind of party-wide mitigation to hope to compete anymore.
Living Dead is also a good one that really needs to get changed.

[MauvaisOeil]

-Living Dead will have the a +20% healing applied to it to eliminate the need for dark knights to bring convalescence just for this skill...

Massive lifesteal gain could be interesting if the DRK could weight a bit in the balance for LD's counterpart...

[Mycow8me]

Massive lifesteal gain could be interesting if the DRK could weight a bit in the balance for LD's counterpart...

In another thread I made fun of the fact that DRK doesn't have drain and could make the most of it but casters do and will never use it. I also had darkside at 10% but thought people would think thats too OP cause it drains over 20k HP per minute and beyond that soul survivor is available every 2 minutes for an additional 5% and thought that was definitely OP.

Soul survivor could be turned back into the 20% HP grab it was but it would definitely need to work in a different way. It would definitely help DRKS out with LD.

[MauvaisOeil]

To me, sole survivor sounds more like "I will survive and you die" than "I will feel a bit better if you die". While I get the Soul stealing part associated to death, the name itself is quite poor adequate.

Why couldn't sole survivor offer a hefty life drain while active, and a bonus/compensation if the ennemy dies before you took plenty use of it.

[Mycow8me]

To me, sole survivor sounds more like "I will survive and you die" than "I will feel a bit better if you die". While I get the Soul stealing part associated to death, the name itself is quite poor adequate.

Why couldn't sole survivor offer a hefty life drain while active, and a bonus/compensation if the ennemy dies before you took plenty use of it.

This is a good point, it could drain like 10% of your HP from the target and if the target dies while Another victim is still up, you could gain another 10% or something. Not a bad idea at all really.

Edit: Actually if it drained the HP it would be a large DPS increase for DRK so that would have to play into DRK's overall DPS somehow.

[MauvaisOeil]

This is a good point, it could drain like 10% of your HP from the target and if the target dies while Another victim is still up, you could gain another 10% or something. Not a bad idea at all really.

Edit: Actually if it drained the HP it would be a large DPS increase for DRK so that would have to play into DRK's overall DPS somehow.

How does Health drain impact the DRK's DPS ? It's mostly sustain, which is a great ability in solo, overgeared situation or unsync, but less powerfull in relevant encounter. Albeit it's not essentially balance, but I can't see a PLD beeing so versatile and sustainable, and a DRK beeing nothing than a warrior with smaller hits and a lack of resilience.