Dark Knight where is my Identiy

[Rollout]

funny how by that description, technically that's what Delirium's supposed to be.

Delirium changes what it is each expansion. It was originally a combo action off Syphon Strike in Heavensward. Then it became an ability that increased the duration of Blood Weapon and Blood Price in Stormblood. Now it's a poor man's Inner Release, since it doesn't give you guaranteed Critical-Direct Hits.

[Kalaam]

I wonder, which Delirium version did you all prefer?

1: 3rd combo action that applies a intelligence debuff ?
2: Prolong Blood Weapon/Pride ?
3: Inner Release

[shao32]

the combo and the MP + more Blood weapon time by a mile, any onf those options are good to me, current Delirium is trash.

[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.

[WhyAmIHere]

Delirium changes what it is each expansion. It was originally a combo action off Syphon Strike in Heavensward. Then it became an ability that increased the duration of Blood Weapon and Blood Price in Stormblood. Now it's a poor man's Inner Release, since it doesn't give you guaranteed Critical-Direct Hits.

Delirium
noun
an acutely disturbed state of mind that occurs in fever, intoxication, and other disorders and is characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech.

so, delirium changing each expansion is even more fitting.

[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

[A-Omega]

The biggest issue for DRK is they gave its original identity to PLD. When DRK was launched, it was the magic tank. Much like stealing WAR’s damage and putting it somewhere else for whatever reason (which robbed the job of its identity), the same is true here.
PLD was the defense tank, WAR was the damage tank, and DRK was the magic tank. Simple formula, but that all changed as PLD improved while everything fell to ruin.
3000 mp cost for skills with no resource gain to sustain the expense is ridiculous. PLD’s mp cost is set at 2000 with 3 skills that restore the resource 500, 1000, and a 3 hit combo for 400 each strike. Mp the key to DRK’s survivability as well as damage so why is it so lopsided?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg... delirium (aka inner release lite) is underwhelming, add in the laughable damage and it’s even worse when compared to it’s better version. Living Shadow, a creative minuscule damage increase. 3000 cost on skills with for laughable damage, including Edge with a sad excuse for a damage buff. I could go on, but I think the point is made.
On a completely personal note...the weak job matches the animations. My gigantic Roe looks like he’s gonna throw his back out trying to swing the great sword. I don’t look mighty but I guess that’s why my numbers are there.

[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.

[Xenosan]

Living Shadow, like Delirium in Stormblood, has that overly heavy gate of 50blackblood and hard recast. Why both, pick one. 50 blood only (would be more fun imo, blackblood expenditure would involve more thought) or fixed recast.

Curious to see if in Endwalker they do the same thrice in a row, another capstone with a heavy cost/gate

With Del in Stormblood you could feel its affect via the increased uptime of every-other blood weapon (and increased mp over-cap risk), where as living shadow is more fire and forget.

Risk/Pressure of over-capping I miss, and in HW it was hitting them low blow procs and hoping for more (you get a 100 potency, you get a 100 potency, you get 100 potency). If DRK had those 2 gimmicks ever again I'd be pleased ... also Scourge and Sole Survivor animations are missed