Dark Knight where is my Identiy

[Lyth]

Given how much of your post history on these forums has required you to repeat that one line mantra to yourself, I suspect that it probably isn't.

Also, forum thread title, where is my 't'? I wish someone would edit it.

[AC9Breaker]

Mostly cause it never fails to get a reaction as you just demonstrated.

[Lyth]

Posting on forums usually gets replies, yes.

[AC9Breaker]

Crazy right?

[Brandedblade]

nope. If you're gonna go down that route of "A is B, but only because of [conditional], then they're more alike/identical than you think.
Here I'll go down the list

Del is IR, except no D.Crit.
Blood Wep is Infuriate, except over 5 (if youre lucky) GCDs instead of all at once.
E/FoS is Storms Eye, except one's a GCD combo finisher and the other's an oGCD.
Abyssal Drain is Equilibrium, except way worse.
Living Dead is Holmgang, except LD is garbage. (i.e. both trigger a "when <1HP, don't die" thing. It's just LD is garbage because of the kill gimmick.)
Shadow Wall is Vengeance, except no thorns bonus damage.
hot take incoming: TBN is Thrill, except for once TBN upfront is better.

Delirium- I'll give you that one because I don't disagree

Blood Weapon-I struggle to agree on the basis that I do consider Edge/Flood different enough from Fel Cleave/Decimation to not agree. Infuriate frontloads it's effect and even upgrades the attack even further. Blood Weapon basically mean "After 4-5 hits I can do an extra OGCD attack"

E/FoS/Storm's Eye- I again disagree here. You contradict yourself here by comparing Blood Weapon and Infuriate as one in the same. In addition, War has more ways to maintain the Storm's eye buff and is required to execute a GCD to apply it to themselves initially. Whereas DRK is triggering it through OGCD attacks that they have to maintain their MP to use.

Abyssal Drain/Equilibrium- AD is better in AoE/Equilibrium in Single Target. but even then they work differently outside of both being oGCDs with a 60 sec recast.

LD/Holmgang- Again, they work in different ways, different enough that I do consider them to be different, the only thing they have in common is that proper use of them stops the tank from dying.

Shadow Wall/Vengeance- True, but this one risks the slippery slope of brining Sentinel and Nebula into the equation, as the damage mitigation cd is a tank staple. Maybe if Shadow Wall had an additional effect it wouldn't be an issue.

TBN/Thrill- I disagree that these two are the parallel, Nascent/Raw Intuition is the parallel here. These are the "short term cds that can also be used on someone else" and even then they function incredibly different. TBN is still the superior one outside of large aoe pulls (where the warrior can make themselves immortal off the self healing) Thrill's parallel is Dark Mind (the short 60 sec/90 sec "gimmick" cooldown each tank possess). In which case I consider Thrill to be the more generally useful one.

My tl;dr is this, I personally don't consider different methods of achieving the same goal to equal "the classes are the exact same" I do absolutely agree that Delirium is identical to Inner Release, but I disagree that every other element of drk and warrior are "perfect clones" of one another outside of the tank staples that you risk bringing PLD and GNB into the equation over..

[WhyAmIHere]

Delirium- I'll give you that one because I don't disagree

Blood Weapon-I struggle to agree on the basis that I do consider Edge/Flood different enough from Fel Cleave/Decimation to not agree. Infuriate frontloads it's effect and even upgrades the attack even further. Blood Weapon basically mean "After 4-5 hits I can do an extra OGCD attack"

E/FoS/Storm's Eye- I again disagree here. You contradict yourself here by comparing Blood Weapon and Infuriate as one in the same. In addition, War has more ways to maintain the Storm's eye buff and is required to execute a GCD to apply it to themselves initially. Whereas DRK is triggering it through OGCD attacks that they have to maintain their MP to use.

Abyssal Drain/Equilibrium- AD is better in AoE/Equilibrium in Single Target. but even then they work differently outside of both being oGCDs with a 60 sec recast.

LD/Holmgang- Again, they work in different ways, different enough that I do consider them to be different, the only thing they have in common is that proper use of them stops the tank from dying.

Shadow Wall/Vengeance- True, but this one risks the slippery slope of brining Sentinel and Nebula into the equation, as the damage mitigation cd is a tank staple. Maybe if Shadow Wall had an additional effect it wouldn't be an issue.

TBN/Thrill- I disagree that these two are the parallel, Nascent/Raw Intuition is the parallel here. These are the "short term cds that can also be used on someone else" and even then they function incredibly different. TBN is still the superior one outside of large aoe pulls (where the warrior can make themselves immortal off the self healing) Thrill's parallel is Dark Mind (the short 60 sec/90 sec "gimmick" cooldown each tank possess). In which case I consider Thrill to be the more generally useful one.

My tl;dr is this, I personally don't consider different methods of achieving the same goal to equal "the classes are the exact same" I do absolutely agree that Delirium is identical to Inner Release, but I disagree that every other element of drk and warrior are "perfect clones" of one another outside of the tank staples that you risk bringing PLD and GNB into the equation over..

1) good.
2) You're missing resources. Infuriate gives 50 gauge, enough for a fell cleave/decimate or whatever the "upgraded" skills are called. BW, if all 5 GCDs hit under it, gives you 50 gauge and 3k MP, enough for an E/FoS and Bloodspiller. so "press button, get resource for 50-cost gauge spender" versus "press button, hope to get resources for 50-cost gauge spender + oGCD damage buff extender."
3) ...what ways other than AoE, and IR does WAR have to upkeep storms eye... other than reapplying it through that combo? That besides the parallel is "do damage, get damage up buff." that's kinda the whole point I was making in saying "A is B except for [reasons]."
4) AD being better in AoE doesn't mean EQ is "better" in single target in comparison. EQ is always good. AD is only good in AoE. by that logic "press button, get healed" EQ wins out. 1200 potency heal versus "200 potency per enemy hit (if i remember right)," you tell me which has more usability.
5) LD/Hg are in their own category by triggering effect, as much as I pair HG and Super. The former two have "when your HP hits 1 or less, instead of death, stay alive." The latter two are "take 0 damage," with HG having the longer recast, and super having the "but go to 1HP first" condition. However where WAR's invuln is just "for 8s, you cannot be killed," DRK's is "for up to 10s, you cannot be killed, but if you don't receive healing equal to your health in the duration, just die anyways."
6) Agreed. Vengeance should lose the thorns effect, IMO. Or give every tank that thorns effect. I think it's stupid WAR's 30% mitigation gets a lil bonus nub that's only been kept on as a legacy thing, not for any practical purpose.
7) admittedly it's a hot take, but it's also a bit of a PITA to explain my already flawed logic on this. For me it's a matter of who TBN is used on. If it's used on yourself is where I'd like to compare it to ToB. But I know what you're saying is also the general consensus, plus it does make sense. IDK for me trying to compare TBN to what other tanks have is an annoying thing. "NF is a two-way heal! TBN is a big bubble with a cost; but if it breaks free E/FoS!" Meh.

Of course they aren't perfect clones. But you cannot say a banana and a plantain don't look like the same thing but are different things. That's what I'm saying.

[shao32]

snip

WAR and DRK are consider clones bcs they GCD gameplay is basically the same, both tanks spend their time spaming 1 combo with a ocasional Fell cleave/Bloodspiller until inner delirium spam, Bloodspiller is basically Fell cleave and Quietus is Decimate and since this comform the vast majority of both jobs gameplay i hope you can see why ppl are very upset with that.

Think right now apart of they GCD gameplay being basically the same, (yeah WAR have a diferent combo finish every 30s but they spam most of the time Storm path), the rage system and the blood system is exactly the same, Darkside and storm eye damage buff are the same, blood weapon and infuriate fullfill the same purpose of grant 1 fell cleave with some diferences and the only real diferences betwen both tanks right now is that WAR personal mechanics grant him more fell cleaves and DRK lack of any mechanics just make it have a oGCD spam fest every 60s on top of his obvious copy paste gameplay experience bcs raid buffs, so they are more than Delirium copy Inner release if you look at it.

[Absurdity]

nope. If you're gonna go down that route of "A is B, but only because of [conditional], then they're more alike/identical than you think.
Here I'll go down the list

Del is IR, except no D.Crit.
Blood Wep is Infuriate, except over 5 (if youre lucky) GCDs instead of all at once.
E/FoS is Storms Eye, except one's a GCD combo finisher and the other's an oGCD.
Abyssal Drain is Equilibrium, except way worse.
Living Dead is Holmgang, except LD is garbage. (i.e. both trigger a "when <1HP, don't die" thing. It's just LD is garbage because of the kill gimmick.)
Shadow Wall is Vengeance, except no thorns bonus damage.
hot take incoming: TBN is Thrill, except for once TBN upfront is better.

I'm not disagreeing there but the same can be done for Paladin, which honestly shows a certain lack of diverse tank design imo.


Requiescat is just IR, except you press a different button at the end.
Sword Oath is just Infuriate, except for the next 3 GCDs instead of the next 1 GCD.
FoF is just Storms Eye, except an oGCD.
Clemency is just Equilibrium, except way worse with an attached cost and a wasted GCD.
Divine Veil is like Shake it Off, except worse.
Sentinel is like Vengeance, except no thorns.
Shelltron is like Raw Intuition, except kinda worse because it gets ignored by critical hits.


PLD sets itself apart in the sequence those abilities are executed but just from a design standpoint they are rather similar.
And I would probably compare TBN with Nascent Flash instead of Thrill, similar low cooldown but one absorbs the damage while the other heals the damage.

TBN is still the superior one outside of large aoe pulls (where the warrior can make themselves immortal off the self healing)

I'd argue that it isn't, or that it atleast wasn't until the current raid tier (because I don't even know the current HP values in BiS gear). Sure TBN is an incredible absorb shield but in terms of "damage that doesn't need to be healed" Nascent Flash would be ahead. TBN is only dps neutral if you take enough damage to pop the shield which limits it to specific attacks (granted it can most likely be popped by autos in the current tier). Nascent Flash on the other hand doesn't come with any potential dps loss, heals more damage on average than TBN absorbs (this is based on previous HP and warrior damage values) and because it doesn't come with a cost attached can be used more freely, only limited by your own rotation if you want to maximize your HP gain.


Now you could argue that TBN is vastly ahead of NF in cases where the attack would otherwise kill you but I can't remember a single fight in E1-E8s where I had to use Raw Intuition to survive a mechanic, which would mean a DRK wouldn't have had to use TBN to survive it either.


They seriously need to give Dark Knight more of an identity than "hehe, big shield"

[Lyth]

The devil is in the details.

We can be even more reductionist and say that any offensive cooldown just adds burst. The perceived differences come down to player expectations and and experiences. Holy Spirit/Requiescat has a much older parallel with Fell Cleave/Inner Release, dating back to Stormblood. But there was never really a competition between the two. Nobody expects Holy Spirit to beat out Fell Cleave. It feels like just a phase in PLD's extended rotation rather than a 'window'. But it also brings some unique advantages to the table, in that you're using ranged attacks.

The problem with Delirium and Bloodspiller is that we've set up an unwritten rule that you can't do bigger burst than WAR. So if all Delirium has to offer is 'spamming big hits', then it's always going to be seen as just an inferior version of Inner Release. To fix this, you need to address Bloodspiller and Quietus. It's not enough for them to be big hits. They have to do something additional such that you can't draw a simple comparison with Fell Cleave/Decimate spam. Perhaps they extend the timer on Living Shadow when active. Perhaps they give you back a sizable chunk of MP, even at baseline. Perhaps they give you shields. Perhaps they give you a brief stackable haste buff.

I think it's telling how, despite the massive buff to Raw Intuition this expansion, it's been essentially supplanted by NF. I think that's largely a reflection of changes in fight design and in how tanks receive damage. When the only really threatening damage that you receive is in the form of a few tankbusters that you're going to resolve with invulns, traditional defensive cooldowns become a lot less important, and we just look at them in terms of reducing healing requirements. In a Living Liquid style fight where you're tasked with mitigating a stream of timed cleaves, your short recast cooldowns become much more important for survival. Death Knight styled 'mitigate through self-healing' techniques only really become interesting when you're up against more than just tickle damage.

[Recon1o6]

If dark knight got an identity again and it was fun, I'd come back to the job regardless of its stats (unless it was unplayable bad). Like the healers, I abandoned them because they took what I enjoyed about them and smacked repeatedly with a sledgehammer and spamming 1-2-3 in duties below 68 is as dull as 2-1-1-1-1

Dark knight had a slew of unique and fun buttons. Now we're just a warrior clone who happens to have the best mitigation button in the game after paladin's invul. Without TBN we'd have nothing.

Dark's in a terrible spot: worst sustain, no/worst rotation, no gameplay identity, no invul by itself, a capstone that weakens if the boss moves away, poor mp restoration after death, worst damage and finally worst latency compensation (inner release, blood weapon, bloodspiller etc)

its old hw and sb incarnations had several combos and debuffing (hw) and self buffing (sb)

Dark needs all of the above fixing in order of importance
1. Branching combos with scourge, power slash and og delirium in it
2. Significant buff to lifesteal
3. Alter living dead so its an actual invul for the dark knight, not a "I eat a double tankbuster in savage" button
4. Dark arts system that synergises with the kit and has several options for spending that are equally valuable, buffs, debuffs etc
5. Scrap blackblood or change it to synergise properly. Ideally, mp would be used on defence, dark arts offence and blackblood sustain.
6. Change the capstone so it doesn't get confused when a boss is moving during repositioning