Putting "DRK" back in DRK

[Satarn]

oh ok, also i agree with the tbn change by why lower the HP? dark knight still doesn't have that many good defense cds compared to other tanks with dark mind being a magic damage mitigation

DRK actually has a very good mitigation against tank busters(especially since those are usually magic damage) and the 5% on TBN wouldn't hurt too much there, especially with Dark Mind being buffed back to 30%. Dark Mind however doesn't really help much when it comes to auto attacks which are usually physical.

Current TBN's full 25% shield is pretty unlikely to break against anything other than tank busters(and even those can be an issue in more casual content), which makes it undesirable to use it on other things. With a slightly smaller value it could be more viable to use TBN as a filler cd for auto attacks and other fluff damage(on top of its normal TB usage) and still break, resulting in no damage loss. With increased MP rates(resulting from other changes) a slightly weaker TBN could be used with higher frequency to cover any holes in your cd rotation if need be.

Basically it's a small sacrifice in strength for a gain in versatility.

[Nedkel]

Well, looks like yours is already doing about that, so I suppose it makes no difference. : )



As mentioned, the potencies are mostly meant as a representation. That said, I would be most grateful if you provided theory crafting and simulations behind your conclusion, so that we can make adjustments based on them!

You decreased blood gain rate by around 60-65% this is first.
Second, delirium in current form is gone.
Third, oGCD strength has been nuked with nerf and got over 50% nerf in that department, abyssal and cas gone (equivalent of 4% total dps)
Fourth, you took away 5% bonus damage from buff

Now get a look on a competitive DRK logs and see what are the biggest contributing skills for his DPS, its basically flood of darkness and bloodspiller that got nerfed to the ground with your changes, add CAS and abyssal drain changes, sprinkle it with 5% dmg buff lose and you have easily 35% dps lower, gg wp DRK is unplayable.

[Satarn]

You decreased blood gain rate by around 60-65% this is first.
Second, delirium in current form is gone.

The Blood isn't actually reduced - keep in mind that BW would have a much higher uptime and procs from all physical damage, not just gcds - including autos as well as Plunges and CnS whenever they line up. This, together with Blood gained from Living Shadow should result in about the same number of natural Bloodspillers.

You are right however on how changing Delirium would reduce the amount of Bloodspillers, which without increasing potency results in a loss of total BS potency per minute. This missing potency is being covered by Salted Earth basically becoming a 100% uptime dot, resulting in a lot of extra damage per minute, as well as some added potencies(namely, Salted Earth placement and CnS buff).

Third, oGCD strength has been nuked with nerf and got over 50% nerf in that department abyssal and cas gone (equivalent of 4% total dps)

Edge/Flood potency had to be reduced in order to account for higher amount of casts per minute, resulting from quicker MP regeneration. It's the same as how NIN's Bhavacakra and Hellfrog Medium were "nerfed" last patch, along with their resource costs being halved and NIN sure as hell isn't doing less dps than before.

Carve and Spit is not gone - in fact it's buffed by 50 potency - it's just gained an MP cost to add depth to DRK's MP economy. EoS potency is reduced to match the amount of casts with CnS - and LS - costs taken into account already, so nothing's lost there.

I did kind of forget about ogcd Abyssal though, but this could be easily compensated by splitting that potency into slight buffs to CnS, Salted Earth placement or even Living Shadow hits.

Fourth, you took away 5% bonus damage from buff

The 5% removed from Darkside is due to adding the 10% attack speed component. Increasing DRKs gcds per minute would not only benefit flat potency from said gcds, but also quicker generation of both Blood and MP. That said, Darkside damage bonus as well as tick potency on Salted Earth, are two numbers that would be the easiest to adjust in order to increase/reduce total dps, due to their full uptime nature and I'm fully expecting this to be necessary if any of this was to be implemented.

TL: DR: There's a lot of moving parts at play which have to be taken into account while analyzing any individual change and a synergistic design is more than the sum of it's parts.

[edit] Slap 90 extra potency onto CnS, 20 on Dark Arts and 20 on each hit of Living Shadow - there's your 200 pot/min Abyssal Drain, easy. Alternatively, if we're really lazy could just boost Salted Earth Tick by 10, but I'd rather not make dropping it too punishing.

[DRKoftheAzure]

@Satarn; Still doesn't fix the fact that DRK only 1 combo path for single target that use more than any other action...


And honestly you're ideas, when read, make DRK in terms of DPS and gameplay a lot worse and make it seem like you don't want DRK to actually feel fun to play at all, and you also seem to make DRK feel even more of a discount WAR clone by giving DRK a combo ender that they wouldn't even use on single target because of it being a DPS loss, which means they can't get past enrage...


At least my ideas are made with making DRK look AND feel fun/cool to play over what you suggesting while also making sure DRK can actually clear content by doing decent amount of DPS compared to the best healer doing nothing but Glaring and the occasional Dia cast at the enemy or someone doing more DPS than that, over making DRK needing healers and DPS carrying either the worst DRK ever because they don't know how to play DRK, or carrying the best DRK ever because DRK DPS is WAY TOO LOW...


The only changes that you suggested that I actually agree with is the Darkside Mastery trait change, Dark Mind to a certain extent, Spell recasts being tied to skillspeed over spellspeed, Quietus(though Bloodspiller would also need to get the same treatment), duration increase on Blood Weapon, MP restoration increase on Syphon Strike, most of Salted Earth but it's cooldown is still way too long, Abyssal Drain going back on the GCD, and having The Blackest Night going back to it's Stormblood iteration, but that's it...

[Satarn]

@Satarn; Still doesn't fix the fact that DRK only 1 combo path for single target that use more than any other action...

What gives you the idea that the Scourge combo is only meant for AoE? Or that it's meant for AoE at all? Just because Salted Earth can hit multiple targets, does not mean that you wouldn't want to keep it up on single target - it's still 1000 potency per minute at a cost of about 6 Blood(which is worth only 100 potency, so 10 times less) from the replaced Souleaters. It's a massive gain, not a loss.

I don't see where do you get the WAR clone part from, considering that I've shifted the focus back to continuous MP management and spending it on ogcd skills(like HW and SB DRK), rather than tight windows of burst damage(which is what WAR and SHB DRK are), removed delIRium which has been copied over from WAR and brought back a lot of speed and weaving.
I suggest you reread the opening post, because it seems you might've misunderstood a lot of it.

DRK DPS is WAY TOO LOW...

If you're refering to Nedkel's dps "nerf" estimate, I have already explained why it was extremely off base due to not taking into account completely changed rotation.

Moreover, the early part of my post already explains that the potency numbers are mostly symbolic, to show the rotational flow as that's my focus - the intention is to neither nerf DRK nor buff it, it's to change gameplay only. The dps should stay about the same and if the changes listed affected it, then it could - and should - be adjusted.
Don't try to figure out how much dps it would do, because that's not the point of the thread - think how it would play.

The only changes that you suggested that I actually agree with is the Darkside Mastery trait change, Dark Mind to a certain extent, Spell recasts being tied to skillspeed over spellspeed, Quietus(though Bloodspiller would also need to get the same treatment), duration increase on Blood Weapon, MP restoration increase on Syphon Strike, most of Salted Earth but it's cooldown is still way too long, Abyssal Drain going back on the GCD, and having The Blackest Night going back to it's Stormblood iteration, but that's it...

Okay, now I'm kind of confused, because you list a major part of the suggestions presented and then end with "that's it" as if you only liked 1 or 2 ._.

Regarding Salted Earth - I did not reduce the cooldown because that would defeat the purpose of the new combo-ender. You're meant to keep it up through the entire fight anyways by refreshing it with Scourge.

As for Bloodspiller - just restoring Blood Weapon, Delirium and Syphon Strike to their old versions already provides tons of MP to spend on all the cds and plenty of Edge of Shadows. If we added more, then EoS would get just as spammy as DA was in SB and nobody wants that.

[Hierro]

Here's an idea, just bring back SB DRK, but keep arm's length, dark missionary, and the two-charge'd plunge. FIXED.

[Shurrikhan]

Here's an idea, just bring back SB DRK, but keep arm's length, dark missionary, and the two-charge'd plunge. FIXED.

And fix living dead, and offer a pre-upgraded version of TBN for whilst leveling. Dare we call it... Shadowskin?

Now fixed.

[Kabooa]

Here's an idea, just bring back SB DRK, but keep arm's length, dark missionary, and the two-charge'd plunge. FIXED.

I really like Edge and Flood animations though. Can we keep those?

[Shurrikhan]

I really like Edge and Flood animations though. Can we keep those?

Perhaps just give those our lifesteal and again do away with DA and thereby DA-AD in favor of 5.0 immediate damage (and sustain)?

[Satarn]

Here's an idea, just bring back SB DRK, but keep arm's length, dark missionary, and the two-charge'd plunge. FIXED.

SB DRK is basically the goal here, just with SHB skills re-purposed to avoid the spammy DA situation.