A challenge to Naoki "Yoshi-P" Yoshida

[Chrono_Rising]

About every 2 AD you can get a Queitus off which changes it. The 2 minutes are only if you're lining up with Delirium. On AoE packs (5 or more) it is also better to save the DA to continue to AD than DACS and CS returns generally enough mana to get off an AD. Especially if you weave it into a partial SE combo for Syphon Strike.

Yes, I don’t disagree with the priorities you are setting. It doesn’t change the fact that the ideal for selfsustain is under delirium which is on a two minute timer.

Warriors on SC alone are restoring the effect of 2.7 AD. Not to mention that warriors will not break their combos in ideal conditions. To spam AD you actually want to stop using SE cutting away some of your self sustain. And warrior still has cooldowns for selfsustain once all this is finished.

Warrior definitely has better selfsustain over Dark Knight.

[Wintersandman]

Yes, I don’t disagree with the priorities you are setting. It doesn’t change the fact that the ideal for selfsustain is under delirium which is on a two minute timer.

Warriors on SC alone are restoring the effect of 8 AD. Not to mention that warriors will not break their combos in ideal conditions. To spam AD you actually want to stop using SE cutting away some of your self sustain. And warrior still has cooldowns for selfsustain once all this is finished.

Warrior definitely has better selfsustain over Dark Knight.

I am also not disagreeing that DRK couldn't use some adjustments. I just disagree that it is unplayable which this whole thread is about. I have only seen some good suggestions to changing DRK but the rest are just OP or return it to 3.0.

Also you are ignoring that you can DA + AD every 3 GCDS which I already stated you would cutoff SE to use AD. Also realistically you would be at 3 AD by the time you got off one SC. 9 GCD to get off 3 AD if you are weaving in Syphon and not spamming DA AD. With 7 GCDs for an SC. So 312 WAR vs 345 DRK with the potencies you referenced above. Yes you can add in Storm's path but the equivalency diminshes as it is ST based on the number of enemies.

If anything I would like to see BP and BW be usable in any condition. Also BW should be equivalent to Berserk as a Damage buff and not just a timer/tp reduction.

Also make Passenger a TP ability instead of MP and remove the DA requirement.

[Chrono_Rising]

I am also not disagreeing that DRK couldn't use some adjustments. I just disagree that it is unplayable which this whole thread is about. I have only seen some good suggestions to changing DRK but the rest are just OP or return it to 3.0.

I agree that it is viable for all content, DRKoftheAzure would have to tell us themselves what the point of this post is I'm not trying to take a guess. My point is that dark knight is below the other tanks. My responses here to you is that warrior's selfsustain is in a better position than dark knights.

Also you are ignoring that you can DA + AD every 3 GCDS which I already stated you would cutoff SE to use AD. Also realistically you would be at 3 AD by the time you got off one SC.

But you are losing about 1000 mana every time you do this (maybe partially mitigated by blood price), eventually you need to quietus or siphon extra times to refill adding in extra GCDs. This also drops quickly if you ever need to use The Blackest Night.

9 GCD to get off 3 AD if you are weaving in Syphon and not spamming DA AD. With 7 GCDs for an SC. So 312 WAR vs 345 DRK with the potencies you referenced above. Yes you can add in Storm's path but the equivalency diminshes as it is ST based on the number of enemies.

Tomahawk -> Infuriate -> Gauge build. 1 GCD to prep SC which I would hold while you build more gauge. The reason for gauge building is that Steel cyclone can restore a huge amount of HP, which means you have time to sit on this one while you build gauge and accumulate damage. While you build that gauge you are building HP with your combo which is an added bonus because while you build your mana on dark you get nothing for your HP. Meanwhile you still have Equilibrium on a 1 minute cool down if you are slightly behind on HP and then still Thrill of battle which is around an 14k heal if you are super desperate.

Also you are comparing 312 on 7 GCDs to 345 on 9 GCDs (ignoring added heals from combo of course?) on a GCD to GCD basis is a 9 potency difference in favor of war per GCD not adding in 107 potency from doing at least one combo ender, though this is ST so that should be kept in mind.

[Wintersandman]

I agree that it is viable for all content, DRKoftheAzure would have to tell us themselves what the point of this post is I'm not trying to take a guess. My point is that dark knight is below the other tanks. My responses here to you is that warrior's selfsustain is in a better position than dark knights.

In the most optimal scenario WAR's may excel. DRK's self sustain is part of their normal rotation. WAR's is not. Once aggro is established all DRK's do is self sustain for AoE and ST and it is part of their normal AoE rotation. Which is why I used raw potencies and didn't include Berserk because it is a CD and may not always be up and like Aana said you wouldn't be spamming SC the entire time. TBN usage will be based upon if Mitigation > Self healing for the mana usage and it may very depending on pack size and what the incoming damage is.

So while War has high potential for self healing in reality boils down to other mitigation techniques where that's what DRK was designed to do. Let's also point out the classes weren't designed to be tanking in dps stance the entire time. They were designed to be Tank stance for their mitigation which is why Bloodspiller almost has no positive bonus in and out of Grit (~20 potency difference). This is also probably why we saw the removal of Bloodbath from warrior because Decimate and Overpower spam keeping warriors up.

[Chrono_Rising]

In the most optimal scenario WAR's may excel. DRK's self sustain is part of their normal rotation. WAR's is not. Once aggro is established all DRK's do is self sustain for AoE and ST and it is part of their normal AoE rotation. Which is why I used raw potencies and didn't include Berserk because it is a CD and may not always be up and like Aana said you wouldn't be spamming SC the entire time. TBN usage will be based upon if Mitigation > Self healing for the mana usage and it may very depending on pack size and what the incoming damage is.

So while War has high potential for self healing in reality boils down to other mitigation techniques where that's what DRK was designed to do. Let's also point out the classes weren't designed to be tanking in dps stance the entire time. They were designed to be Tank stance for their mitigation which is why Bloodspiller almost has no positive bonus in and out of Grit (~20 potency difference). This is also probably why we saw the removal of Bloodbath from warrior because Decimate and Overpower spam keeping warriors up.

Though dark knights self sustain is part of their optimal aoe, their ability to keep themselves up is still surpassed by warrior. I will admit that it might not be optimal, I'm not convinced on it not being optimal on the basis of healer dps gain, and that is partly because of warrior's being able to do so much selfsustain in their rotation. As far as I've always understood in trash pulls the order goes dps>healer>tank.

You did count delirium and C&S in your break down of dark, its only reasonable to include berserk when looking at warrior. Also, you don't necessarily need to run into battle with full gauge on warrior, infuriate at the beginning or very end of a pull is a thing. Saving 50 gauge to do SC over a ST Inner Beast is definately a dps gain.

And as Aana, and now you, have pointed out part of the equation which is being ignored is mitigation, which warrior has huge advantages in tank stance here as well.

I have no idea why you are bringing up tanking out of stance at this point. As far as I can tell no one has said anything about being out of stance. I'm also very confused about why we are talking about HW now where warrior was definitely the top of self-sustain. Out of stance with single target warrior will out self-heal a dark knight any day of the week.

[Wintersandman]

I have no idea why you are bringing up tanking out of stance at this point. As far as I can tell no one has said anything about being out of stance. I'm also very confused about why we are talking about HW now where warrior was definitely the top of self-sustain. Out of stance with single target warrior will out self-heal a dark knight any day of the week.

WhiskeyBravo did bring up out of stance on page 5. Also since you factored in Berserk what would the potencies be over a 2 minute period? I would love to see the math breakdown. Because you used 312 as a baseline for SC which only lasts 15 seconds. The rest of the time it is 240. Which it may or may not be up. With Queitus (not on cooldown) you generally get enough back to do a DAAD (of course this depends on pack size). So you can exclude delirium.

Why I brought up HW is because out of stance was brought up by WhiskeyBravo and why I also believe that SE only attached the HP gain to SC as an illustration that the self sustain is only intended to be used in Tank Stance. Also because if we are to look at the Player Meta this is where DRK falls really behind.

Like I said in an earlier post. The class isn't unplayable but not saying it doesn't need improvements.

[Chrono_Rising]

WhiskeyBravo did bring up out of stance on page 5. Also since you factored in Berserk what would the potencies be over a 2 minute period? I would love to see the math breakdown. Because you used 312 as a baseline for SC which only lasts 15 seconds. The rest of the time it is 240. Which it may or may not be up. With Queitus (not on cooldown) you generally get enough back to do a DAAD (of course this depends on pack size). So you can exclude delirium.

Why I brought up HW is because out of stance was brought up by WhiskeyBravo and why I also believe that SE only attached the HP gain to SC as an illustration that the self sustain is only intended to be used in Tank Stance. Also because if we are to look at the Player Meta this is where DRK falls really behind.

Like I said in an earlier post. The class isn't unplayable but not saying it doesn't need improvements.

Ok I worked out the first two minutes of game play without ever touching berserk. However, I included mp and blood gains for dark knight at generous values to assume we could quietus every time we needed to equal out our mp.

Dark Knight Self healing: 1440n where n is the number of targets over a 2 minute interval.

Warrior Self Healing: 2160n where n is the number of targets over a 2 minute interval.

Warrior notes and assumptions: Now the warrior rotation as noted is not optimal for personal dps, though it may be optimal for party dps. The healing factor DOES NOT include healing from path, equilibrium, or Thrill of Battle or additional effects from berserk, for this purpose I pretend they don't exist on my hot bar and start my encounter at 0 gauge. These are the least friendly assumptions to warrior self heal I felt I could make while be extremely friendly to dark knight starting them at maximum MP and guage.

Once again what is very clear using excel is that Dark Knight can use abyssal drain about twice for every steel cyclone, but even at base potency warrior gets extra uses from infuriate and extra path combos result in a slightly higher usage of SC, and the heal factor from steel cyclone is a bit more than twice abyssal drain even without using berserk.

WhiskeyBravo did bring up out of stance on page 5. Also since you factored in Berserk what would the potencies be over a 2 minute period? I would love to see the math breakdown. Because you used 312 as a baseline for SC which only lasts 15 seconds. .

Lastly Berserk is 20 seconds, not 15. Also just as a quick corollary the warrior does more aoe damage in the same interval.