Issue with TBN

[Lyth]

There are plenty of mistakes that you can make that cost you dps. Dying costs you dps. Mismanaging resources costs you dps. Losing uptime costs you dps. That's part of what creates a differential in player skill.

The important part about TBN is that if you use it correctly, you don't lose any dps.

[TheRealQuah]

I feel like the root of this argument boils down to TBN actually requiring more forethought than just 'push the button and I'm safe' like the other short CD abilities.

100% correct. Some people don't like the fact that they have to actually think about when they want to use an ability. They would rather just make the game brain dead easy.

It's also a good point to note that none of the people in this thread that have criticised TBN even have a DRK at max level, therefore they haven't played it in end game content so aren't really qualified to comment on it.

[TheRealQuah]

What do you people not get on the fact that TBN is a "High risk, no reward" move. That is not okay. You can make it to cost MP, sure; but tell me this: why would you use the shield in the first place when you can use EoS upfront and mitigate a tank buster with Heart of Stone, Intervention, Nascent Flash from your co tank. Your job as a tank is to survive a tank buster with decent HP in case you take another auto attack to your face afterwards, not mitigate it to zero. All of this "but you safe your healer a GCD!" is straight up BS too when most of the healing is done via oGCDs.

So why is it okay for TBN to cost MP, being either a DPS loss or a DPS neutral move depending on when you do, when you can just go with EoS instead? In any case, a shield is not a freaking reward, that might be the case if you were a healer/DPS, but we're talking about a tank. Why should be defense tied to DPS when there's literally no pay off? Either make it cost no MP or make it a DPS gain, one of the other. No, it's not okay to be DPS neutral if you risk using when you never really have to with now all tanks having off tank skill.

You mitigate a tank buster with any of the abilities you listed and you will be dead. That's a dps loss.

If you think a tanks job is to just survive with enough to take an auto, then you need to reevaluate your decision to play a tank. A tanks job is to take as little damage as you possibly can.

[Arsthan]

You mitigate a tank buster with any of the abilities you listed and you will be dead. That's a dps loss.

If you think a tanks job is to just survive with enough to take an auto, then you need to reevaluate your decision to play a tank. A tanks job is to take as little damage as you possibly can.

Worded it poorly so I won't blame you for misunderstanding, but it goes without saying that you should use either Rampart or the 30% reduction skill along with the short CD defensives. That's how they're meant to be used obviously. If you think however, that not using TBN would kill you if you had for example Shadow Wall + Heart of Stone on you, or do any significant damage that might bring you down to 20-30% HP, you're wrong. Also the whole thing about TBN being DPS neutral comes down to the fact that you pay a price for using it and get the "price" you used back if it pops.

In SB, you should have used TBN on tank busters since tanks other than PLD didn't have mitigation tools for the MT. With that no longer being the case, it's rather hard to justify the use of TBN. You have two healers that will mostly heal via oGCDs and regens. If you take 40k or 70k (assuming TBN is a 30k shield) will have little impact on if they use a heal or not. If your goal is to reduce tank buster damage to 0, good for you but it it won't have any real impact on whenever your healer can DPS, since they'll do so either way. Obviously you should use TBN when you might otherwise die, I hope that goes without saying as well.

So then, why exactly are you guys so super against TBN being a DPS gain when it basicly just means that your good play with it will be rewarded with some extra DPS if you can make it pop every time? Would it be too broken? Since it certainly wouldn't considering that DRK is the last on the tank DPS chart anyway. You can't possibly be against a slight buff (which is what most want anyway) to DRK's DPS - and TBN is a great skill that can make the skill ceiling go up and reward you for good TBN usage with slightly more DPS.

I personally don't care if TBN stays with the 3k MP cost instead of costing nothing like the other short CDs on other tanks. As long as it is at least a bit more rewarding to pop, be it a guaranteed Direct crit on your EoS while you have Dark Arts or whatever SE can come up with. Heck, it could also be a DoT with a 15 sec duration. Breaking TBN every 15 seconds is not impossible at all if you know the fight. Usually 3 basic attacks break TBN and if you use it right before the auto hits you, you'd be guaranteed to break it.

Or what, wanna go back to the SB days of TBN lasting 5 seconds because "7 seconds is actually too braindead, let's make it even worse for no reason and not reward anyone even if they break it."?

[kazzel120]

Separate defensive abilites from DPS resources!

SE did the first step by removing Shield Swipe in 5.0.

For everyone who doesn't know what Shield Swipe was, here a summary: Shield Swipe was an ability off the GCD with 100/150 potency on a 15 second CD. Everytime an attack successfully blocked, SW would proc and was available for use for the next 5 seconds. Sheltron (and Bulwark [+60% block rate]) was used to proc Shield Swipe for extra damage. But that would weaken PLD's mitigation, so they had to re-think whether it was worth spending gauge on a low damage attack or save it for a high damage attack, but lose DPS due to Shield Swipe not proc-in'.

With Shield Swipe gone PLD can use their gauge purely for mitigation, just as it should be.

However, this rule doesn't apply to The Blackest Night. TBN is tied to mana, and mana is a valuable resource for our damage skills - Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow. The cost is just the same as your damage skills - 3000 mana (or 30% of your mana pool).
On lvl 74 DRK gets the enhanced version of Edge/Flood of Darkness in form of Edge/Flood of Shadow.
[For simple math purpose, I will calculate single target only - Edge of D/S]
So, 3000 mana is worth 350 potency below level 74. On 74 and above it's 500 potency.
In 4.x one Dark Arts gave us 140 additional potency on most skills, its cost was roughly 25% of your mana pool (2400/9480), but still same as TBN.
Due to 5.0 mana regeneration revision, let's say it is equal to 3000 mana now (and to keep it simple). If our shield didn't break, we effectively lost 140 potency.
Now in 5.0, our shield TBN got stronger (from 20% on self/10% on others to 25% on all). Thus breaking our shield got even more difficult. In addition - as stated above - our new "Dark Arts" skill got buffed to 350/500 potency.
Not only did it get harder to break the shield, but the punishment for not breaking it got harder, too.

tl;dr: DRK loses up to 500 potency if the shield doesn't break!

TBN should not cost DPS!

SE needs to separate TBN from our damage skills or change it, so we don't lose damage by using our mitigation tools.

TBN does not cost dps at all. Stop using it to block bosses melee attacks its not ment for that.... it refunds the cost when it breaks.

You should use TBN for big pulls and tank busters where its guaranteed to break. Not every damn time its back up. From what ive seen the only people who want TBN changed are people who dont use it right.

[Izsha]

Tbn
Cost: 3kmp
Reward 1: 500 potency (DA)
Reward 2: 25% hp shield.

Dark arts:
Cost: 3k mp
Reward 1: 500 pot
Reward 2: nothing

All this talk about 'where's the reward'. Are you blind? Dark arts does 1 thing. Tbn does the same thing as DA but adds an entire other funtion at zero additional cost. If a candy bar costs a dollar, but the store next door sells a drink+candy bar for 1 dollar, which one has more value?

If you want tbn to INCREASE damage, then go ahead and give shelltron a shield swipe proc and raw intuition equivalent counter attack. Because thats what you are asking for.

[Absimiliard]

DPS difference between tanks is around 5%. It's so small it's not really a consideration to take into effect.

Incorrect. The meta has called for as much DPS as possible for the longest time. The best mitigation is killing the boss faster.

[Deceptus]

Incorrect. The meta has called for as much DPS as possible for the longest time. The best mitigation is killing the boss faster.

Based on the data we have so far, a 5% difference between tanks is true. I.E: It really doesn't matter which one you bring because they all work almost equally as well.

[ReiMakoto]

Incorrect. The meta has called for as much DPS as possible for the longest time. The best mitigation is killing the boss faster.

The meta calls for the highest RDPS, if using tbn properly saves healers healing gcds, it makes up for the 5% difference, also 90% of players arn't even good enough for that 5% difference at the top end to matter anyway

[Nedkel]

snip

You have 3 other tanks to play, play them instead and leave DRK for people who likes to play it and enjoys thinking a little.
Tanks never been as well balanced as they are right now, there is no need for any big changes just a miniscule tweaks.