Dark Knight where is my Identiy

[currentlemon]

If SE insists that DRK will keep it's Blood Gauge (which I think they will, I don't mind the gauge), then they need to include skills other than Bloodspiller and Quietus. In the heat of battle, I used to forget that my Blood Gauge is full. I've grown out of this habit slowly, but it would help if we had a skill or two that uses up our gauge.

Suggestion

1) Cut the Blood Gauge Cost of both Bloodspiller and Quietus to 25.

2) Remove Living Shadow as a skill that requires Blood Gauge and keep it as an oGCD with a cooldown.

3) Add Dark Arts back as the 1st skill you gain that requires Blood Gauge. Make it cost 25 gauge meter and make it work similarly in 3.0 and 4.0, as a enhancer for DRK's weaponskills.

4) Bloodspiller and Quietus will be earned through levelling as usual, including 4th Blood Gauge skill. I'll let the HW and StB DRK players discuss what this 4th skill is.

[Danelo]

If SE insists that DRK will keep it's Blood Gauge (which I think they will, I don't mind the gauge), then they need to include skills other than Bloodspiller and Quietus. In the heat of battle, I used to forget that my Blood Gauge is full. I've grown out of this habit slowly, but it would help if we had a skill or two that uses up our gauge.

Suggestion

1) Cut the Blood Gauge Cost of both Bloodspiller and Quietus to 25.

2) Remove Living Shadow as a skill that requires Blood Gauge and keep it as an oGCD with a cooldown.

3) Add Dark Arts back as the 1st skill you gain that requires Blood Gauge. Make it cost 25 gauge meter and make it work similarly in 3.0 and 4.0, as a enhancer for DRK's weaponskills.

4) Bloodspiller and Quietus will be earned through levelling as usual, including 4th Blood Gauge skill. I'll let the HW and StB DRK players discuss what this 4th skill is.

Not Plunge

[Shurrikhan]

If SE insists that DRK will keep it's Blood Gauge (which I think they will, I don't mind the gauge), then they need to include skills other than Bloodspiller and Quietus. In the heat of battle, I used to forget that my Blood Gauge is full. I've grown out of this habit slowly, but it would help if we had a skill or two that uses up our gauge.

Suggestion

1) Cut the Blood Gauge Cost of both Bloodspiller and Quietus to 25.

2) Remove Living Shadow as a skill that requires Blood Gauge and keep it as an oGCD with a cooldown.

3) Add Dark Arts back as the 1st skill you gain that requires Blood Gauge. Make it cost 25 gauge meter and make it work similarly in 3.0 and 4.0, as a enhancer for DRK's weaponskills.

4) Bloodspiller and Quietus will be earned through levelling as usual, including 4th Blood Gauge skill. I'll let the HW and StB DRK players discuss what this 4th skill is.

1) Do we really need... even more Bloodspiller spam?

2) While I wouldn't necessarily hate having a slightly more crowded opener, I really don't like where that's going generally. It reeks too much of the unnecessary parts of NIN rework -- the parts that gutted any of its rotational complexity. I'd much rather Living Shadow act like an actual... living shadow, better living up to the hype people got from imagining its procedures following the ShB trailer.

3) And only weaponskills? To what end? If it amounts mostly to just bonus potency, you'd either never touch Bloodspiller or, having learned Bloodspiller, never again touch Dark Arts. (And even if usable to upgrade cooldowns, it'd just feel like your cooldowns are all locked behind further clunk, ramp up, and margin management, especially if they needn't have similar rDPS gains when compared against Bloodspiller.)

4) Again, to what end? The current blood skills exhaust their creativity upon having the player identify whether the present situation is single-target (Bloodspiller) or has 3+ enemies in self-centered AoE range (Quietus). What would this 4th skill provide that is meaningfully new and interesting?


_____________

Please forgive the edit; the parser thread has depleted my available post count.

If Dark Arts is added as a Blood Gauge skill and both Bloodspiller and Quietus remain the same, then Dark Arts will be used almost every single time. The only way this can change is if both Bloodspiller and Quietus are significantly buffed in terms of potency or they gain an additional effect that would make DRK players want to use either skill (maybe both?).

So, you'll have to keep a couple things in mind here. The more often Bloodspiller and Quietus are available to provide a ppgcd (potency per GCD) advantage, the less ppgcd advantage each of their casts can provide, unless you rely upon awkward trait interactions whereby the rest of the AoE and ST kit is nerfed after those skills' respective acquisitions. Put another way, you can't really skew damage much more towards Bloodspiller and Quietus without dropping feces on the leveling experience. Tbf, that's kind of just a side-note, and BLM's been saddled with leveling/skill-acquisition-flow issues for two expansions now without popping their lids, but still.

Again, though, if you want Dark Arts added, it needs to do something different. oGCD damage bonuses and ppgcd damage bonuses, if each properly calculated, are not, ultimately, different. We've already taken up the barebone AoE to ST distinction, too. If Dark Arts must likewise be tied to Blood, that really only leaves you with indirect contribution, but even that seems all too likely to quickly equate to mere ppgcd advantage, just seen through healer resources saved. (Think DA-AD in dungeons so your healer can spam more AoE, though now competing with Quietus instead of sourced by it through Blood Weapon.)

However, you could also take the Living Shadow approach by placing Dark-Arts-as-Blood-spender on a CD, so long as that CD is noticeably greater than your other spenders' typical interval of use at any given level (ideally, decrease DA's cooldown as Blood generation increases past the point "filler" Blood skills like BS/Quietus are acquired). In that case, Dark Arts can be, always, better than Bloodspiller/Quietus without Bloodspiller/Quietus being pushed out entirely. You'd begin with very low Blood generation paired with Dark Arts, which is available often enough to (more than) spend all your Blood. With the first "filler" Blood skill would then come higher Blood generation, giving reason to use said filler. At that point you're free to place whatever flavor elements you wish upon DA, such as having Syphon Strike regenerate further MP (since DA itself no longer costs MP), Souleater indirectly contribute raid potency through a massive boost to its damage-to-healing multiplier, Dark Passenger indirectly contribute through Blind, etc., etc.

That said, Dark Arts does not necessarily need to be a Blood spender. There's also the option, for instance, of using it as a nearly use-on-cooldown free CD, returning it to an indirectly contributing MP spender competing with Edge and Flood, or even a manner of tapping into your own HP (dipping HP as not to let DoTs overheal) to generate additional tanking-useful effects (which in turn, when properly employed, save more HP than they cost and could make DRK a uniquely smooth-to-heal job), etc., etc.

[currentlemon]

snip

You are right. Dang. I didn't think about that. If Dark Arts is added as a Blood Gauge skill and both Bloodspiller and Quietus remain the same, then Dark Arts will be used almost every single time. The only way this can change is if both Bloodspiller and Quietus are significantly buffed in terms of potency or they gain an additional effect that would make DRK players want to use either skill (maybe both?). Good call. Maybe I should rethink my suggestion a bit.

[currentlemon]

snip

You know, I wouldn't mind having Dark Arts sap DRK's HP a bit. It would be really cool, and most importantly, make the job stand out among the other tanks. I think that kind of Dark Arts would even benefit from the 6.0 Healer Direction that SE is going with. WHM and AST can cast their Regen spells while SCH and SGE can keep their shields spells up as DRK will continue to use Dark Arts.

Damn, you just gave me an idea. Need to think about this.

[ItMe]

That said, Dark Arts does not necessarily need to be a Blood spender. There's also the option, for instance, of using it as a nearly use-on-cooldown free CD, returning it to an indirectly contributing MP spender competing with Edge and Flood, or even a manner of tapping into your own HP (dipping HP as not to let DoTs overheal) to generate additional tanking-useful effects (which in turn, when properly employed, save more HP than they cost and could make DRK a uniquely smooth-to-heal job), etc., etc.

That would be pretty classic DRK.
Hmm...