DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Lyth]

People really don't like using actions that punish you when you use them. There is absolutely no reason why players should be coming up with suggestions for appropriate punishments for using Living Dead when Holmgang is objectively better in direct comparison with no drawback whatsoever. Rather, players should be asking what sorts of significant added benefits Living Dead should provide over Holmgang to warrant the minute longer recast.

If I was reworking DRK, I would do the following:
1) Make Darkside provide a baseline faster GCD, in the same vein as Huton and Greased Lightning.
2) Make DRK really be about resource management. Every time that you use an action that costs MP, have it generate a small amount of Blood. Every time that you use an action that costs Blood, have it generate a small amount of MP. Have Blood Weapon amplify these exchanges.
3) Turn abilities like Bloodspiller and Carve and Spit into a multi-hit attacks instead of one big Fell Cleave styled hit. Have Delirium amplify the number of times each action hits. Have Living Shadow link into all this. 99-hit combo? Yes please.
4) Build around a shield theme defensively:
Have Souleater give you a small barrier shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have Dark Mind increase your magic defense by a small amount while you have an active shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have TBN apply a shield to both yourself as well as an ally, with the option to not target anyone. If NF gives you that option, so should TBN.
Have Dark Missionary spread your existing shield to all nearby teammates and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have your invuln convert the lethal damage that you take while at 1 HP to a shield, up to a maximum of say 50% of your health total, and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have your rate of resource generation increase while you or a teammate has an active shield.

[bundythenoob]

snip

I think that your idea of having our abilities extend our shields durations could work if we get a baby TBN introduced at lv 30 (something like a 10 second shield that mitigates 15% worth of our hp) that upgrades to TBN at lv 70, or else there might not be a point to "managing shields" if we don't get it started till lv 70. otherwise we end up in the current state of DRK which is just a blue DPS with some tanking cooldowns and no utility.

The only problem I find is, do we incentivise making long lasting shields and keeping them up, or incentivise using small but powerful shields during specific times that pop to proc Dark Arts/mana refunding?

For Bloodspiller and CnS being multi hits, I think it might be better if Quietus could be the multi hit aoe attack while CnS could be the multi hit single target, which have their effects amplified by your new delirium. as for bloodspiller, if delirium is changed once again to enhance abilities, BS could be changed under new delirium to be a sort of "STB delirium" attack that consumes 50 blood but refunds us enough mana for a TBN, just in case we need to convert resources like Delirium used to, and that way its not a spammable attack, but instead is a big hit with resource conversion that we can use sparingly (maybe every 60-90 seconds, depends on Delirium cooldown)

if Dark Missionary is meant to spread shields, it definitely needs to be introduced before TBN for raid utility. if dark mind only works while you have a shield, your shields might need to be strong enough to survive while you pop the buttons back to back on multiway combat, but in single it can work as a preemptive for a magical tankbuster.

if we generate mana/blood more than the current build, do we introduce abyssal drain as a spender to make up for souleater no longer healing? does dark arts spend mana, or is it on a charge system? would TBN and its baby version refund mana if popped/proc DA, or absorb mana thru hits if we go with consistent shielding, maybe having a blood price effect attached to them that maxes at 3000 mp (since theyll be castable to other members under your suggestion, it wouldnt force DRK in the MT slot like in the past)

our resource generation skills would have to be looked at too. Blood weapon is currently our only resource generation tool, so would it be better to shorten the cooldown or strengthen its effects and duration? would stalwart still work the same as it does now? do our shields have blood price effects added to them, or would that make them too strong in terms of dps via resource generation?

I love your LD idea though. having it proc when our HP drops to 1, but converting all subsequent damage into a shield that maxes at 50% would be a cool way to change the skill, while still keeping it different from the other invulns. I would say that change alone would make LD much better than its current iteration by a lightyear.


TL;DR
the way i see it, we either go with short powerful shields and have Dark Arts remain as a proc for TBN which affects multiple abilities, or we go with the sustained shield model, which means DA would have to return either as a spender or charge ability. introducing Shadowskin at lv 30 (15% hp shield, 1500mp cost, 10 sec duration, 30s recast) would be needed for either build, since it could either be sustained or refund mana if popped.

if we go with short shields, I would say let Dark Mind gives us 20% magic dmg reduction and generate its own shield that is worth 10% hp. otherwise your idea works for sustained shields model.

Delirium could enhance Bloodspiller to generate a large chunk of mana on usage, make quietus and CnS have multihits while retaining their innate mana generation. maybe even enhance stalwart to generate extra resources per hit.

Dark arts could give free Edge/Flood/Abyss Drain, could possibly give CnS/quietus a potency boost with no mana generation, could give shadow wall the blood price effect (for MTing) or maybe could give Dark Missionary a blood price effect (for OTing). blood price effects would have to cap at 2000-3000mp to not be dps advantage over the free spenders. if its on a charge system, we could make it grant the blood price effect to our TBN instead of shadow wall.

Blood weapon, Stalwart, and Syphon would remain our standard mana building tools, with CnS and Quietus having inherit mana generation which are enhanced by Delirium, or removed for potency buffs by DA. Salted Earth should return as a blood builder as well.

Living Shadow could definitely be our burst source, perhaps esteem mimics our rotation to output extra damage.

Your LD idea is pretty bomb, so we keep that one regardless of which build we go with. much better than square's version.

Lastly, I would change souleater into power slash, but that's just a personal choice cuz I think the skill has a sick animation.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Lastly, I would change souleater into power slash, but that's just a personal choice cuz I think the skill has a sick animation.

Honestly I would bring back enmity combo JUST for Dark Knight(the whole combo) because of how cool it is and satisfying it was to use back in the day...

[Starkbeaumont]

Honestly I would bring back enmity combo JUST for Dark Knight(the whole combo) because of how cool it is and satisfying it was to use back in the day...

I would just trade the Souleater animation. that "uppercut" is really not fitting and old Power Slash (which isn't a slash anyway) is just more fitting and visually appealing

[Lyth]

If you want DRK to have more combos, it should be something analogous to MNK in which you can jump between two different combos so long as you follow the correct order. An easy way to do this is to have one combo (1 2 3) restore MP, and a second (1 A B) build up blood, such that you can mix and match (i.e. 1 A 3 or 1 2 B) however you like to build up MP and blood as needed. The caveat would be that each step (2 vs A or 3 vs B) should be equivalent in terms of both potency and resource generation.

...

If you want to incentivise shields, you have to reward the player for defending themselves and their teammates with shields. Replace the Darkside timer with a number from 1 to 100. Every time your shields mitigate some damage, the meter goes up, which in turn increases your attack speed and power up to some maximum threshold, while reducing the recasts of some offensive oGCDs. Let it then decay over time, with some abilities (let's say Edge and Flood) that halt the decay. It should feel like you're building up offensive momentum as you shield more and more damage.

I'm not sure what the skill progression should be while levelling. It's okay for TBN to come a bit later. Sometimes it actually works out really well when a missing piece of the puzzle slips in to make everything else work out better.

I find it a bit strange that we have some very clearly copy pasted abilities (Sentinel, Shadow Wall, and Nebula) while getting rid of others (Shadowskin). I think the solution, like has been done with Vengeance, is to keep each ability similar with a job flavoured twist. So bring back Shadowskin, and have it give you a bit of shielding. Do the same for Shadow Wall, as its bonus effect (Vengeance has a bonus thorns effect that nobody else has, so there's no reason why every job can't have a bonus effect).

As for resource generation, I think the simplest way to do this is to have magical attacks that aren't part of your standard combo (Abyssal Drain, Salted Earth, Edge/Flood etc.) cost MP but give you blood back, and physical ones (Bloodspiller, Quietus, etc.) cost blood but give you MP back.

[DRKoftheAzure]

If you want DRK to have more combos, it should be something analogous to MNK in which you can jump between two different combos so long as you follow the correct order. An easy way to do this is to have one combo (1 2 3) restore MP, and a second (1 A B) build up blood, such that you can mix and match (i.e. 1 A 3 or 1 2 B) however you like to build up MP and blood as needed. The caveat would be that each step (2 vs A or 3 vs B) should be equivalent in terms of both potency and resource generation.

The idea of DRK having a free flow combo system could work in theory, but in practice you would need to make sure it doesn't cause the same problems that MNK runs into, then you have GNB where their second combo is a burst combo that doesn't even interrupt the current combo you were on when you decide to use it. Though you did provide an idea for my more combos suggestion.

If you want to incentivise shields, you have to reward the player for defending themselves and their teammates with shields. Replace the Darkside timer with a number from 1 to 100. Every time your shields mitigate some damage, the meter goes up, which in turn increases your attack speed and power up to some maximum threshold, while reducing the recasts of some offensive oGCDs. Let it then decay over time, with some abilities (let's say Edge and Flood) that halt the decay. It should feel like you're building up offensive momentum as you shield more and more damage.

I think that would be part of the leveling process from 80-90 or whatever the next level cap will be...

I'm not sure what the skill progression should be while levelling. It's okay for TBN to come a bit later. Sometimes it actually works out really well when a missing piece of the puzzle slips in to make everything else work out better.

This more of my personal observation but I think that trying to figure what the skill progression should be like while leveling might be the source of a good chunk of the disagreement that a lot of the DRK discussions tend to fall apart at... I could be grasping at straws here though...

[DRKoftheAzure]

People really don't like using actions that punish you when you use them. There is absolutely no reason why players should be coming up with suggestions for appropriate punishments for using Living Dead when Holmgang is objectively better in direct comparison with no drawback whatsoever. Rather, players should be asking what sorts of significant added benefits Living Dead should provide over Holmgang to warrant the minute longer recast.

This is so true...

If I was reworking DRK, I would do the following:

Oh boy, here we go...

1) Make Darkside provide a baseline faster GCD, in the same vein as Huton and Greased Lightning.

I'd go 1 step further and make it so that you need to activate Darkside to even generate Dark Arts in the first place and require you use Blood Weapon/Price, but yes haste effect can help, and and Blood Weapon can still generate MP with Blood Price generating HP.

2) Make DRK really be about resource management. Every time that you use an action that costs MP, have it generate a small amount of Blood. Every time that you use an action that costs Blood, have it generate a small amount of MP. Have Blood Weapon amplify these exchanges.

See my recent quoting(surprised that's even actually a with spellcheck) and responding of bundythenoob.

3) Turn abilities like Bloodspiller and Carve and Spit into a multi-hit attacks instead of one big Fell Cleave styled hit. Have Delirium amplify the number of times each action hits. Have Living Shadow link into all this. 99-hit combo? Yes please.

Same as the last sentence mostly, though I will add my thoughts on Living Shadow; just make it an ACTUAL TANK PET that TANKS, COMPLETE WITH TANK ROLE ACTIONS(yes I do expect SOME Shirk shenanigans with this idea).

4) Build around a shield theme defensively:

Can work with constant HP recovery of Blood Price suggestion.

Have Souleater give you a small barrier shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.

To elaborate on why I would want Souleater to restore MP as well HP, Syphon Strike I also want to restore HP and you would need to have it generate barrier that stacks with the Souleater barrier.

Have Dark Mind increase your magic defense by a small amount while you have an active shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.

And already I have no idea what this is supposed to mean...

Have TBN apply a shield to both yourself as well as an ally, with the option to not target anyone. If NF gives you that option, so should TBN.

Good idea that I am in favor of, so long as it also applies to the Shadowskin Suggestion I made.

Have Dark Missionary spread your existing shield to all nearby teammates and extend your cumulative shield duration.

All of them? Sweet.

Have your invuln convert the lethal damage that you take while at 1 HP to a shield, up to a maximum of say 50% of your health total, and extend your cumulative shield duration.

The devs are gonna find a way to NOT implement this idea...

Have your rate of resource generation increase while you or a teammate has an active shield.

Ehh... kinda be too OP if we combined this with my idea so there would need to be HEAVY resource generation nerfs for this to probably work IF it does end up being too powerful...