Dark Knight follow up thread

[TouchandFeel]

TBN is the only defensive ability (belonging to tanks) in the game that is in direct opposition to offensive skills. The TBN shield may be awesome, but losing 500 potency when it doesn't pop is just garbage. Easiest way to fix TBN is as follows:

Remove the mana cost on TBN, remove Dark Arts entirely, and increase the TBN CD to 25 seconds. This will eliminate the issues with TBN being a damage loss when the shield does not break, while also bringing it in line with other short CD tank abilities (Shelltron, Raw Intuition, and Heart of Stone)

While I agree that the situation of TBN not breaking and losing the DA proc sucks, especially with how easy it is to do right now, I greatly disagree with the changes that you proposed.

First off, I feel that the whole TBN breaking and then enabling a strong attack is one of the most interesting parts about DRK game-play and helps sell the sense of bringing retribution to an enemy for them attacking you.

As for just functionality, the 15s recast as opposed to the ~25s of the others is incredibly helpful in some situations, like wall to wall dungeon pulls where keeping TBN on cooldown really helps with your ability to mitigate damage.
Additionally, the DA proc is very useful when used strategically since you can plan out a TBN use and have it break before a burst period, build your MP back up before your burst and viola you have an extra Edge in your pocket to use during your burst. Dark Arts is literally a container to set aside an Edge to use at a later time. That is super useful when taken advantage of, so much so that I want the devs to expand it so that I can store two Dark Arts instead of just the one. To me getting rid of it is just simply not a good idea.

So yes, the TBN not breaking to get Dark Arts situation we currently have is problematic for a number of reasons, but there are far better ways to address the issue than to just burn it to the ground. It's like cutting off your leg because you have a tendency to stub your toe.

[Alaray]

While I agree that the situation of TBN not breaking and losing the DA proc sucks, especially with how easy it is to do right now, I greatly disagree with the changes that you proposed.

First off, I feel that the whole TBN breaking and then enabling a strong attack is one of the most interesting parts about DRK game-play and helps sell the sense of bringing retribution to an enemy for them attacking you.

As for just functionality, the 15s recast as opposed to the ~25s of the others is incredibly helpful in some situations, like wall to wall dungeon pulls where keeping TBN on cooldown really helps with your ability to mitigate damage.
Additionally, the DA proc is very useful when used strategically since you can plan out a TBN use and have it break before a burst period, build your MP back up before your burst and viola you have an extra Edge in your pocket to use during your burst. Dark Arts is literally a container to set aside an Edge to use at a later time. That is super useful when taken advantage of, so much so that I want the devs to expand it so that I can store two Dark Arts instead of just the one. To me getting rid of it is just simply not a good idea.

So yes, the TBN not breaking to get Dark Arts situation we currently have is problematic for a number of reasons, but there are far better ways to address the issue than to just burn it to the ground. It's like cutting off your leg because you have a tendency to stub your toe.

You don't really ever sit on enough MP for the DA proc to be considered extra in a buff window. You can only do so many things in such a window to start with, and a DA EoS isn't going to do anything (since if you didn't cast TBN, you still have that 3k MP, that is now expended on an EoS anyway). It's not a reward, and it's often more of a punishment for using something defensively (especially if you used it to save a healer from a raid-wide and it didn't pop).

They could just make the shield, when it expires, explode for 500 potency but not refresh Dark Side. Which just keeps it damage neutral in all cases, while also not letting people dump all their MP into it (since you'd lose darkside)

[Tex_Mex]

They could just make the shield, when it expires, explode for 500 potency but not refresh Dark Side. Which just keeps it damage neutral in all cases, while also not letting people dump all their MP into it (since you'd lose darkside)

I like this a lot. It would also fit well with the aesthetic of the DRK. Absorbing an enemies damage and then redirecting it back.

[ashwich]

You don't really ever sit on enough MP for the DA proc to be considered extra in a buff window. You can only do so many things in such a window to start with, and a DA EoS isn't going to do anything (since if you didn't cast TBN, you still have that 3k MP, that is now expended on an EoS anyway). It's not a reward, and it's often more of a punishment for using something defensively (especially if you used it to save a healer from a raid-wide and it didn't pop).

The reward is 25% of your health worth of damage, vanished. As a tank if that's not rewarding we should just all be playing DPS. Try that a few more times than the 3 tank busters per encounter, it makes a huge difference for your healers too. Every GCD saved is a net gain.

People often talk about risk and reward, this is one of those things, why all of a sudden punishment for misuse of ability is bad? Because other tanks don't have to deal with it? I thought we all want interesting, unique and challenging mechanics for DRK.

[Alaray]

The reward is 25% of your health worth of damage, vanished. As a tank if that's not rewarding we should just all be playing DPS. Try that a few more times than the 3 tank busters per encounter, it makes a huge difference for your healers too. Every GCD saved is a net gain.

People often talk about risk and reward, this is one of those things, why all of a sudden punishment for misuse of ability is bad? Because other tanks don't have to deal with it? I thought we all want interesting, unique and challenging mechanics for DRK.

That's not a reward, and using it on a TB guarantees a pop anyway.

For most other things, like using it on auto attacks, using it to mitigate raid wides, using it to save a party member, you're punished with a 500 potency lost for a tiny bit of mitigation (since the full shield might not be used in these instances, and a use could be small but could save someone's life who might be sitting at 2k HP). Which, in the grand scheme of healing mapping, won't be impactful enough for your healers in terms of their damage gained to make up for the damage lost.

It's not risk v reward. It's pure risk.

[ashwich]

For most other things, like using it on auto attacks, using it to mitigate raid wides, using it to save a party member, you're punished with a 500 potency lost for a tiny bit of mitigation (since the full shield might not be used in these instances, and a use could be small but could save someone's life who might be sitting at 2k HP). Which, in the grand scheme of healing mapping, won't be impactful enough for your healers in terms of their damage gained to make up for the damage lost.

It's not risk v reward. It's pure risk.

You're right, there are mechanics where even popping the shield is meaningless, in the grand scheme of things. for example, if you eat lightning in titania, pop LD and TBN. Yes that would be very pointless. But I'm not talking about those, lets keep those separate. And that's where the optimization comes in. Did you know in current ex trials in currently relevant gear, every 3 boss AA breaks TBN? And there are very limited opportunities throughout the encounter those continuous AAs are guaranteed. It takes a lot of "risk" and many clears to find those little timings to squeeze them in and making sure they pop. It's a game I happen to enjoy. It may not be for everyone, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily pointless.

Once you're at 1/4 or 1/3 of a healers' HPS because of TBN, I doubt it isn't "impactful". And keep in mind, this is assuming you pop all of them.

[Danelo]

The reward is 25% of your health worth of damage, vanished. As a tank if that's not rewarding we should just all be playing DPS. Try that a few more times than the 3 tank busters per encounter, it makes a huge difference for your healers too. Every GCD saved is a net gain.

People often talk about risk and reward, this is one of those things, why all of a sudden punishment for misuse of ability is bad? Because other tanks don't have to deal with it? I thought we all want interesting, unique and challenging mechanics for DRK.

The point is that every other tank can do something similar without using an ability that eats into your dps. It's the same as if heart of stone took ammo or if raw/nascent flash(glint) took a portion of the beast gauge (500 potency loss respectively for the sake of argument). Now imagine if the full value of that ability was not used and you're out the potency.

As it is now, the two jobs mentioned above have it as a gain no matter what. War has a self sustain out of it. Heart of stone is just free. So those jobs get the mitigation at no cost. TBN is neutral at best. It's a simple disadvantage.

All I want is good gameplay to be rewarded. If you jack up, fine, eat the 500 potency loss. But if you do it well then it's a gain and not neutral.. The idea that it's neutral or loss just sucks.

[ashwich]

The point is that every other tank can do something similar without using an ability that eats into your dps. It's the same as if heart of stone took ammo or if raw/nascent flash(glint) took a portion of the beast gauge (500 potency loss respectively for the sake of argument). Now imagine if the full value of that ability was not used and you're out the potency.

As it is now, the two jobs mentioned above have it as a gain no matter what. War has a self sustain out of it. Heart of stone is just free. So those jobs get the mitigation at no cost. TBN is neutral at best. It's a simple disadvantage.

All I want is good gameplay to be rewarded. If you jack up, fine, eat the 500 potency loss. But if you do it well then it's a gain and not neutral.. The idea that it's neutral or loss just sucks.

See the last part of my previous post about the comparison to other tanks. Also, how is saving my healer the need to heal 30K health worth of damage a pop not a net gain??? what do you want to gain, dps? in the severely reduced scaling of tank damage in the current exp? that very healer GCD you potentially saved is worth more than whatever dev team is willing to throw our way as some sort of "net gain".

[Danelo]

See the last part of my previous post about the comparison to other tanks. Also, how is saving my healer the need to heal 30K health worth of damage a pop not a net gain??? what do you want to gain, dps? in the severely reduced scaling of tank damage in the current exp? that very healer GCD you potentially saved is worth more than whatever dev team is willing to throw our way as some sort of "net gain".

I read your post and congrats on taking the 1% of TBN usages and applying them to the whole. A bit snarky but if you're going to argue a point it should be on its general usage. Ideally you're healer should learn from their mistake and not get hit by the hypothetical AoE. It's dps neutral, again, at best, and considering the totality of mp regain resources within the current DRK kit it's entirely a loss.

When you compare it to other similar tank CDs it's that much worse.

[ashwich]

I read your post and congrats on taking the 1% of TBN usages and applying them to the whole. A bit snarky but if you're going to argue a point it should be on its general usage. Ideally you're healer should learn from their mistake and not get hit by the hypothetical AoE. It's dps neutral, again, at best, and considering the totality of mp regain resources within the current DRK kit it's entirely a loss.

When you compare it to other similar tank CDs it's that much worse.

What AOE though, I'm talking about using it on yourself, or your co-tank. on otherwise unavoidable damage. I fail to see how using TBN to mitigate damage puts it in the "1%". If you only want to optimize damage and have brainless defensive CDs. I'd call it taking the "lazy approach" to tanking.