Core Issues With 4.x Dark Knight

[SyzzleSpark]

Though less an issue than in 3.x due to Bloodspiller and Quietus remaining on the global cooldown, and Delirium best being used on the global after BW (unless you would lose an AA over the duration by delaying to the latter half of the oGCD gap), the way DA's control has been implemented leaves it a frequent cause of necessary double-weaving, and now that the rate of DA has increased (outside of BP usage) that part has only gotten worse. Moreover, the need to enhance skills means that one is often potentially forced to delay an oGCD (DP or DM, generally) by a half-gap, and the game's netcode combined with the loss of oGCD queues on any desync can put DRK in a bind second only to NIN when a DA-consuming oGCD is followed by a DA-consuming GCD, which now account for all but two weaponskills.

It breaks my heart, it really does. In HW double weaving was FUN. You felt fast and furious, hacking, slashing, spewing dark energy and kicking shit in the face. Those moments when all your oGCDs would come off recast at the same time and you could dump all of them like a ton of bricks. Brings a tear to me eye. Now its a bloody chore. Out with the pewpew and in with the QQ.

TBN sees relatively rare use, and is far from free. Its breadth of usability also faces anti-synergy with defensive tools. To a degree, this seems like it could add some desireable complexity to the job, but in actuality, it makes TBN a relatively poor choice on which to spend mana in a few too many situations. I don't know if it needs to see an adjustment to functionality or simple retuning, but it feels faintly off right now.

I personally am a huge advocate of indirectly adjusting TBN by reducing Blood Gauge costs. Bloodspiller/Quietus/Delirium are great and all, but none of them pack the punch to warrant a whopping 50% of any resource. Bloodspiller isn't like Fell Cleave, its not a massive gain over the nominal PPGCD, and there are no buff windows native to the job to fit it in, so there's really very little reason why it needs to cost 50 gauge. If it was less, TBN would feel better to use by proxy, I feel.

Shadow Wall, worse still, stands as simply an inferior version of Sentinel or Vengeance. If it's being paid for via DM, then I have to ask what's covering its cost in physical mitigation and why DM is as expensive as it is, and if not... why? Why does it have the worst each of refresh speed and mitigation percentile, relative to its WAR/PLD counterparts?

I can really only furiously nod my head in agreement. Who thought it was a good idea for DRK to have only 2, ...TWO... T-W-O.... native cooldowns, that will mitigate physical damage, the overall most common form of incoming damage in the game by a landslide? Whoever it was, they need a bloody vacation. The CR options DRK is literally required to bring to close this wound are an almost insultingly obvious band-aid.