Dark Knight Megathread

[Ignimortis]

As a casual player (who still spends hundreds of hours doing almost all the content that isn't Savage and up), I seriously don't care all that much about numbers. I try to optimize and play properly, because I like to know I did my best, but not to the extent of hardcore players, I think. I have also mained DRK since I got to HW in early 2017.

However, the issues with DRK are not really about "is it gonna be good or bad numbers-wise". If anything, all the attempts SE made at homogenizing the tanks were for their numbers (both clear rates and DPS) to be very similar, i.e. "bring any job, it'll work".

The issues with DRK are that it's a very unimaginative job gameplay-wise, with very few interactions between its' abilities and a lack of mechanical identity other than "I have TBN".

Now, I've heard that SE won't be returning any job to its' HW complexity level. That's fine by me. However, I would like to get some HW back — a cohesive design that feels distinct from all the other tanks. What I can't understand is, why not just make DRK the fast tank again? It's very easy to achieve, too, and would fix its' issues with downtime being very slow and unengaging.

• Reduce EoS/FoS costs (maybe to 1k, something almost spammable), reduce potencies appropriately.
• Shift Darkside from +10% damage to +10% skill/spell haste. Add a trait that makes your SpS equal to SkS, or just merge the two stats already, it's not like you can abuse it.
• Make TBN just refund MP on break instead of rather meaningless "Dark Arts", maybe a bit more to incentivize proper use.
• Change Blood Weapon to 5 stacks anyway.
• Drop Stalwart Soul to level 40. Better to have an empty level in ShB than to wait until 72 for your only AoE combo.

Now, if we want to go deeper and promote interaction between abilities, I do think EoS/FoS could serve the same function Dark Arts did previously, and you can repurpose the Dark Arts UI element for that.
Damage is already built into those abilities, so you'd need to make non-damage interactions.

• Make EoS->Souleater restore a chunk more HP or apply a HoT, or a shield equal to Souleater cure potency. Something similar with EoS->Stalwart. Both should also increase Blood gain by 10 to encourage the MP->Blood->MP cycle and make it a thing again.
• Make EoS->CnS also generate Blood. Change CnS cooldown to 30 seconds (not charges). If you really need to, reduce potency somewhat.
• EoS->AD might increase the heal significantly (say, 1000 pot? Equilibrium is still better), so it's worth something in single-target situations (which are the majority of even remotely challenging endgame content, as you know).
• EoS->Bloodspiller/Quietus...I got nothing. Those actions should restore MP by default, to play into the MP->Blood->MP cycle that has to be going on, so you can't add an effect that rewards spending MP on them, I think.

Ran out of space, Delirium/new stuff in the next post.