My Thoughts on ShB Dark Knight: Likes, Dislikes, Proposed Changes

[ADVSS]

Seem pretty sensible to me, Although it doesnt seem like LD will ever get looked at anytime soon or ever. Beyond that, the proposals could work. I like the suggestion of putting Delerium somewhere in the middle of Req and IR, it would feel a little better, under your proposal to have a more ranged option to blow the damage all at once-or, at the very least the skill will have some real impact with that final hit. Though my other gripe with Delirium is that theres only really 2 blood spenders it works with, and not much else. An option, to me, like having AD be a blood spender would at least give it some alternate option(clemency spam under requiescat)putting it more in the middle of both, but again that is my opinion, and not a very popular one. I dont think that tanks should be regarded only by their damage, I like seeing options that can be mitigative or defensive, to break the monotony, if one should so choose.

[Danelo]

To get the obvious out of the way, the new DRK has not much in common with the previous installments of the class. BUT, I have enjoyed it for what it is so far.

To work within the framework which has already been provided by the devs I would propose these changes:

Siphon strike:
Buff MP gain from 600 to 800 or 1000. (Modest MP gain won’t be game breaking but would allow it to not feel MP starved all the time outside of BW).

Quietus:
Give it a modest MP return, HP return or buff damage. (Feels weak, just another button press. I would like a reason to press other than dumping blood).

Blood weapon:
Ping issues cause this to not be as useful as the devs may have intended.

Self sustain:
DRK appears to be slightly behind the curve compared to the rest of the pack except in dungeon content. I propose leaving everything in place except for a buff to SE cure. Tag on a trait that allows for an automatic direct hit cure, crit hit cure, or direct crit cure when Darkside is active. This, overtime, will bring you in line with the other tanks self-sustain. It will also prevent tinkering with AD since it appears to work well enough in line with the other tank heals in wall to wall pulls.

Please comment on this because I’m considering a separate thread for the devs since this is buried.

[shao32]

blood weapon: now abyssal drain and carve and spit get benefic from this skill or get a damage buff, i find pretty weird that this 3 skills have the same recast time of 60s and don't interact at all.

Delirium: extend blood weapon duration and add X amount of potency increase to all GCD during the duration of the skill, bam unique and fun, no more BS spam.

simple changes that don't solve the problem of have only 1 combo and will increase only a bit the APM but i think this will make DRK at least unique and more closer to his origins and most important, become more fun for the ones we love the old version without being hard and have more complexity.

pd: i still think DRK need sole survivor back as a heal of some kind.

[TouchandFeel]

Please comment on this because I’m considering a separate thread for the devs since this is buried.

Okay, then. Here are a few comments.

Siphon strike:
Buff MP gain from 600 to 800 or 1000. (Modest MP gain won’t be game breaking but would allow it to not feel MP starved all the time outside of BW).

The previous version of Syphon Strike provided 1200MP per use outside of Grit, which is what we should really be comparing to, whereas the new version is 600MP. This seems like a huge loss until you factor in the native MP regain that DRK now gets which is 200MP every 3 seconds. If you factor that in, you actually get 1000-1200MP per combo rotation depending on where the 3s regain ticks land, so it is actually very close to what we were getting in SB as far as general consistent MP regain outside of buff cooldowns like Blood Weapon.

Quietus:
Give it a modest MP return, HP return or buff damage. (Feels weak, just another button press. I would like a reason to press other than dumping blood).

Quietus is arguably more powerful now than it was in SB, giving the 210 potency of the Dark Arts version of the ability but without any MP cost, so it is actually 50 potency more powerful than the standard SB version of Quietus. The only reason people seem to think it is now weaker is because of the previous dungeon tanking game-play of using the MP gained from Quietus to fuel DA+AD spam, which was removed because the devs felt that level of self-sustain was too powerful and so they removed it just like they removed the self-heals from Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone due to the self-sustain from spamming either of those under IR.
Quietus itself is now actually stronger, it's just the game-play around it that changed.

Delirium:
Ping issues cause this to not be as useful as the devs may have intended..

I have zero ping issues in regards to Delirium and I have seen virtually no complaints, until now, in regards to this. It is exactly the same in this regards to Inner Release and it works fine there.
Perhaps you are confusing Delirium with Blood Weapon, which according to another thread on the forums, may be having issues with not fitting in that 5th GCD attack potentially due to having a longer initial animation lock, potentially registering the bonus MP and Blood gained on hit instead of ability usage, or potentially a different cause. That and the fact that DRK's AoE abilities are spells and therefore aren't affected by skillspeed, resulting in longer recast times on them and then potentially not being able to fit 5 into Blood Weapon's buff window should be looked into.

[ADVSS]

MP gain is doable, its fine. Just never go under 3k(This is with more playtime post 80m fairly easy to do also as long as you have no desire to push). Living Shadow, however, there is really a disconnect, long animation time, then 4 secs of its duration is spent before it even begins to engage the target. Outside of all that, its a tank, thats about all so I guess its fine, Just terribly unengaging for my taste. Flood looks cool animation wise. Esteem has some dope sound effects and intro when you summon him and even that locker noise it makes when he dissipates. Just pull big to avoid BS spam, Quietus spam looks a hell of a lot cooler. Overall Edgy job,

[Tint]

I think a small rework to Abyssal Drain would help with DRKs selfheal.

Make it an 800 potency heal on the first target and an additional 200 potency heal for every other target hit.

This way the heal is not completely useless in single target and will actually be better in AoE situations.

DRK needs 6 targets to break even with the heals of the other tanks right now. With this change he only needs 3 and with bigger pulls he is in an advantage, like he is at a disadvantage in single target situations.

[Danelo]

Okay, then. Here are a few comments.



The previous version of Syphon Strike provided 1200MP per use outside of Grit, which is what we should really be comparing to, whereas the new version is 600MP. This seems like a huge loss until you factor in the native MP regain that DRK now gets which is 200MP every 3 seconds. If you factor that in, you actually get 1000-1200MP per combo rotation depending on where the 3s regain ticks land, so it is actually very close to what we were getting in SB as far as general consistent MP regain outside of buff cooldowns like Blood Weapon.

I concede that what your saying is true BUT the price for things in SB were 2400 mp and now they are 3000 mp across the board. 1000mp to 1200mp depending on the server tick is still on the low side without factoring in the increased cost of tbn and fos/eos in ShB. The issue is only exacerbated when you look at not getting the full usage out of BW. (Yes, I meant BW regarding the ping issues, not delirium, it has been corrected in the original post. Thanks for catching that).

[cold52]

like the idea's.
I actually had an idea for delirium myself though, id change it to interact with living shadow by having it extend the duration and for the time extended have it so every edge/flood of shadow cast have it cast a lower potency version of it, maybe reduce the cost of edge/flood to allow us to cast it multiple times.

[Danelo]

like the idea's.
I actually had an idea for delirium myself though, id change it to interact with living shadow by having it extend the duration and for the time extended have it so every edge/flood of shadow cast have it cast a lower potency version of it, maybe reduce the cost of edge/flood to allow us to cast it multiple times.

I like the shadow but I'm not sure want to keep it around at a reduced potency for the sake of having something more to do. It might begin to feel like busy work and less impactful.

But I see where you're going. The jobs are very close dps wise and every little tweak will most certainly have an impact of that balance.

[cold52]

I like the shadow but I'm not sure want to keep it around at a reduced potency for the sake of having something more to do. It might begin to feel like busy work and less impactful.

But I see where you're going. The jobs are very close dps wise and every little tweak will most certainly have an impact of that balance.

ow i wasnt suggesting it would lower the shadows damage, more like adding an ogcd for the shadow (based on when we use edge/flood) giving us more interaction with living shadow and maintaining deliriums idea that its a burst window. as you said though any changes will have an impact on balance and i hope any changes dont have drastic effects on the tank balance as currently dmg wise all tanks are pretty close.