New DRK Overhaul Idea

[Shurrikhan]

Lastly, remodeling skill purely around dps optimisation a dangerous route leading to unnecessary homogenisation. The proposed change to DA was made with Berserk and Requisath in mind. DA is the one truly unique thing about DRK and you propose to make it like another dps cd.

I'd also point out that Dark Arts is fundamentally not (solely) a damage ability. If that were its function, then it would simply be baked into the abilities themselves.

What Dark Arts allows (more so in HW than now) is for the MT to sacrifice damage for survivability, much more alike to how Inner Beast and Fell Cleave work atop their respective stances than anything like Berserk or Requiescat.

Blood Weapon and CnS are as close as DRK is going to get to a burst phase, and, imo, that's a good thing.

[Launched]

On the topic of WAR and not having a TBN...

Thrill of battle is basically a TBN for tank busters. Choosing to align thrill of battle with upheaval is your choice as a warrior instead of using it for a tankbuster and in some cases it may align anyway. Ironically the same decisions drks make to use TBN for a tank buster or to use that mp for dark arts. You guys get a free tank stance every 90 seconds for 20 seconds. If you know a tank buster is coming, theres nothing stopping you from switching to defiance for extra HP and an IB with unchained for 20 seconds.

Edit: Let's not forget equilibrium is there for when you switch to defiance for instant access to extra HP.

No, Thrill isn't WAR's TBN. Their similarities end at the 20% hp. TBN stands out because it's up so often, not because it's based on a percentage of your hp. Comparing TBN/Dark Arts to Thrill+Upheaval is stupid, because you don't actually lose any dps by holding MP for TBN. Defiance still isn't free because of Deliverance's 5% damage buff, and IB is also a dps loss.

If WAR wants more mitigation than a single cooldown without sacrificing dps, it needs to use another 90s+ cooldown. That's not true for DRK/PLD.

[Mycow8me]

We dont lose dps from holding the mp... we lose dps from using the mp on tbn instead of dark arts. The only time tbn wouldnt be a dps loss is for adds and quietus or an additional blood spiller during raid buffs.

Even if you take out the IB you have defiance and equilibrium available to you every minute. Unchained for 4 gcds then back to deliverance and thats +25%hp for a buster. If you think drks are spamming tbn on cooldown, i can assure you they are not. You are giving tbn too much credit. I'm sorry you have to sacrifice 5% dps for 10 seconds should you want extra hp at no gcd/cooldown cost and save your other stuff for fluff.

So tbn for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or dark arts... thrill for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or use it on cooldown with IR upheavels. Seems like a fair comparison to me. The only difference is drks are more limited in other options and our invuln option could even kill us.

[LilOtoto]

Haven't read through this thread so I have no idea if people have already mentioned these, but the ideas my group of friends had for DRK was to basically fuse Shadow Wall and Blood Price so shadow wall isn't just a bad Sentinel, and make it so you can use Blood weapon while in Grit. Maybe tweak some of the numbers but I feel that would make it feel better to play. The best suggestion I've seen for Living Dead is it make it so that if you drop to 0, instead of having to be healed to full, when the timer wears off your HP and MP "swap" so you're left with 0 MP but now have some HP

[Rathael]

Living dead should not require the healing to full. It is still inferior to hallowed ground even without this requirement, since hallowed ground has the ability to negate mechanic damage entirely whereas Living Dead only negates any damage greater than the DRK's health pool. The DRK will always need some healing afterwards anyway, whereas the paladin can use HG to stay on 100% health through things that would otherwise kill them.

I don't demand that LD be a DRK-themed Hallowed Ground, but it would be nice if the gap between the usefulness of these two actions was made a tiny bit smaller. It seems just a tiny bit unfair.

[Xenosan]

Just remove Walking Dead part of LD. So Living Dead: DRK won't die for 10 seconds (HP stops at 1). It's better than Holmgang, but on a longer CD. What's the problem.

Don't need more convoluted gimmicks to try to distinguish DRK any further.

[Shurrikhan]

Just remove Walking Dead part of LD. So Living Dead: DRK won't die for 10 seconds (HP stops at 1). It's better than Holmgang, but on a longer CD. What's the problem.

Don't need more convoluted gimmicks to try to distinguish DRK any further.

Sounds good to me, personally. It'd probably warrant a slightly longer CD at that point, but mechanically that seems perfectly sound.

Can't simply allow negative HP for the duration, sadly, so this seems the equally simply solution albeit with greater strength.

[Nedkel]

We dont lose dps from holding the mp... we lose dps from using the mp on tbn instead of dark arts. The only time tbn wouldnt be a dps loss is for adds and quietus or an additional blood spiller during raid buffs.

Even if you take out the IB you have defiance and equilibrium available to you every minute. Unchained for 4 gcds then back to deliverance and thats +25%hp for a buster. If you think drks are spamming tbn on cooldown, i can assure you they are not. You are giving tbn too much credit. I'm sorry you have to sacrifice 5% dps for 10 seconds should you want extra hp at no gcd/cooldown cost and save your other stuff for fluff.

So tbn for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or dark arts... thrill for a dps loss and more hp mitigation or use it on cooldown with IR upheavels. Seems like a fair comparison to me. The only difference is drks are more limited in other options and our invuln option could even kill us.

You dont lose DPS on TBN...