[Shadowbringers] 5.0 DRK: Take five, leave five.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't think Dark Knight's real estate is nearly taken up yet to the point that we'd have to sacrifice useful abilities. Nor does it especially need much new. I think it just needs to make far better use of what it has.

Surrounding Changes Assumed:

• Role Actions Removed, sparing Dark Knight 6 actions worth of low-value skills. Dark Knight now gains only Shadowskin, Low Blow, Reprisal, and Wordless Command. (-6)
• TP and MP consolidated. This changes nothing for DRK except that it can no longer consume or therefore run out of TP. Weaponskills will not consume MP. Effects previously like Goad (wholly revised), Tactician, Spire, Ewer, and Refresh combined.
• Context: With the removal of TP, all jobs that previously used TP instead use it for some additional mechanic or as a means of allowing their weaponskills to be used without their requisite combos, but at increasingly higher cost per step skipped. These purely physical jobs begin with 500 TP, and may use that amount to add flexibility to their rotations. Players regenerate 50 TP per GCD. Openers are unchanged, but each step beyond now has a significant, but still reduced combo-less potency (e.g. 200, down from 250, for Vorpal Thrust), and will consume 50 to 100 TP for one step skipped, and 100 to 200 for two steps skipped, with potency further reduced (e.g. FT 350, down from 450; CT 230+300, down from 280+350). Thus, a DRG opening straight into HT (free), CT (200), CT (200), Db (100) to DoT two mobs and begin focusing a third would have already drained the full amount of his flexibility. DRG and only DRG retains Invigorate, giving the job with the most inflexible combo structure the greatest means by which to break from it if necessary.
• Physical MP classes such as Dark Knight can still combo-skip, but, as their mana is valuable for other reasons, this is not recommended.
• Now that in most cases Area-of-Effect skills no longer have necessarily increased cost over Single-Target skills, all single target skills that appear to cleave multiple target now match their appearance in their effect. Those most changed by this adjustment tend to have proportionate cost to their cleave. Spinning Slash is especially significant among these, costing up to greater amounts than Abyssal Drain when striking very high target counts.
• A generic Cleave formula has been added to the game. All skills which Cleave now state simply "Cleave: <factor>". The factor entails how much of the original damage they maintain with each additional target affected. An AoE with Cleave: 100, would simply do potency*n damage total. Values below 100 are more complicated, dealing damage equally across all enemies struck from a total of 100% potency + (100% + Factor%)/2 + [(100+Factor%)/2 + (100% + Factor%)/2)*Factor%)/2]... etc., each step averaged with the one before but approaching, multiplicatively, the given factor. A 100-potency of <Cleave: 60> would deal 100/80/64/51.2/40.1... potency with each additional enemy, which would be totaled and evenly spread. Most cleave factors range between 90 and 70.
• Accuracy reworked. Accuracy is now granular, not bimodal (hit or miss). Rather than damage varying +/- 5%, Accuracy now does, with damage or damage bonus (from excess Accuracy) rapidly falling off from "normal" damage as if situated on a normal bell curve. If more than half the damage is lost, the attack is counted as a miss and the enemy is awarded a dodge proc.
• Evasion and Parry reworked. These now instead directly sabotage enemy Accuracy. Parry is calculated using your own Accuracy against theirs before inflicting the Parry value to diminish enemy Accuracy, and is thereby diminished by Blinds or of course Stuns. Evasion, on the other hand, saps enemy accuracy automatically, but can be nullified with Binds and of course Stuns. This is especially important for Dark Knight, who again makes use of Evasion, but in a bigger and more significant way.
• Block reworked. It now additionally nullifies a portion of enemy attack power before acting like parry, making it stronger against weak attacks while still otherwise functioning with the same exact strength as before against stronger hits. This will also be important for Dark Knight's revised Shadowskin mechanic.

Abilities Discarded/Condensed:

• Role Actions removed. (-10)
• Blood Weapon/Blood Price - Revised. Shared hotkey. Cooldown not shared; both cooldowns are instead shown on a single slot wherein the outer cooldown represents the skill currently available by stance (Grit or lack of Grit). (-11)
• Unleash/Abyssal Drain - Revised. Combined. AoE now circles self and target. Dark Arts adds 140 potency split over all enemies. (-12)
• Delirium - Revised. No longer has a cooldown of its own. Now replaces Blood Weapon or Blood Price upon their respective activation. (-13)
• Dark Arts - Revised. Now a trait. Reuse the would-be affected skill during its animation to bolster it. To change Carve and Spit from a mana-generator to a mana-spender, just hit the key again during its animation. To add 140 potency to Souleater, hit the skill again while it's in its animation. Each animation will now be slightly augmented for its Dark Arts version. The former animation will be given instead to any duration ability which could be augmented by Dark Arts, such as Dark Mind or Dark Dance. Shadowskin and Shadow Wall may also make use of Dark Arts but use unique secondary animations. This secondary effect trigger and process are called its Shadow and Shadowing, respectively. This is not to be confused with your "Shades", which can be split off from you during Shadowskin in order to focus enemies towards a former location while moving to safety, or can be unleashed for additional damage during Dark Passenger or Carve and Spit. (-14)
• Living Dead - Consolidated. Now a trait called Dying Breath attached to Dark Dance, allowing Dark Dance to prevent would-be fatal damage once per 5 minutes, creating a healing-absorption debuff based on the would-be fatal damage (to a maximum of 1 HP short of the Dark Knight's maximum HP), which must be cleansed by outhealing the debt to prevent death from occurring after 10 seconds. Once the trait is triggered, it will create a debuff lasting 5 minutes called Living Dead, during which time Dying Breath cannot trigger again. (-15)

Abilities Returned:

• Shadowskin - Revised. No longer a Rampart equivalent. Now a central mechanic. (-14)
• Dark Dance - Revised. No longer a simple parry buff. Still synergizes with Low Blow and Reprisal. (-13)
• Reprisal - Slightly revised. Still a reactive, but no longer necessarily parry based. (-12)
• Low Blow - Returned alongside its old reset mechanic. (-11)
• Scourge - Revised. Still a DoT of sorts, but synergizes with certain other skills. Now cleaves. (-10)
• Wordless Command* - In place of Provoke. "Provokes the enemy, increasing your enmity to the highest among those engaged with the target." (-9)

New Skills

• Deathgrip - Allows Unmend to be Shadowed, drawing the enemy to you. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Nightgrasp - Allows Salted Earth to be Shadowed, drawing enemies into Salted Earth and gripping them with dark tendrils. May be Shadowed a third time to detonate the effect. Detonation cost decreased with remaining duration on Nightgrasp buff, which replaces Salted Earth upon its Shadow. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Schadenfreude - Allows Dark Mind to be further Shadowed, causing your negative effects against enemies to affect you in the inverse, positive direction when attacking or attacked by them. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Nightfall - Allows Dark Dance to be further Shadowed, spreading darkness over all enemies within 25 yards, reducing their Accuracy the closer they are to you to a maximum effect at within 8 yalms. This coexists with, but does not stack with, other Blind effects. While within Nightfall, your Shades may move instantly to any enemy you've debuffed by other means. Uses a unique animation, rather than Dark Art's. (-9)
• Life or Death - Allows Sole Survivor to be Shadowed, preventing fatal damage dealt by the target and increasing your damage by 20% and refunding 20% of your mana costs against the target. However, if you do not kill the target within the duration, you die. Once Life or Death is activated, the cooldown on Sole Survivor stops cooling, and the amount of time spent not cooling will be added to its recast time after the buff's depletion. (-9)

I can give the contexts for the changes if anyone's interested, but that's the portion relevant to button economy.

Button Economy - 15 hotkeys removed. 6 added. Net: 9 hotkeys condensed.
Skill Economy - 10 cross-class skills removed. Net 5 condensed. 6 skills re-added. 5 optional augmentations added. (You've traded 10 lackluster non-DRK skills for 9 DRK skills and 1 DRK-styled copy-paste skill.)