Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

I personally am in the boat that it is absolutely possible to use HP as a resource on a tank, however to facilitate this, one of two things needs to happen to not put unreasonable burden on healers for the DRK to up his damage:

A.) DRK needs a significantly bigger pool of HP as a buffer for using HP as part of your damage mechanics, between 25-75% more than other tanks, either in form of a low CD ability or passively.

...Why, though? Why would that be necessary? You don't spend HP in the moments you need the HP. You spend it when you don't as to prevent HoTs from being wasteful and to, say, prepare defensive resources thereby afforded for the moments you do need added eHP.

Nor is there any reason for increased %HP; HP has no difference from eHP provided by any other means outside of having been thematically attached to Warrior. And again, you don't need that permanently or as any compensation to the kit beyond what the HP spending should, itself, rightly afford.

Damage is the least sensible use to design for spending HP. Consider instead, for instance, when MP was spent for augmented defensives, (increased) self-healing, or increased enmity (with any potency bonus being part and parcel with the latter two, even if perhaps very slightly overwhelming). Such would be a far more sensible direction for what HP spending would ultimately offer -- even if the exact mode of that spending would still determine if DRK must be, say, more proactive that most tanks -- if we must borrow from past approaches (in this case, that of HW).

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Damage is the least sensible use to design for spending HP. Consider instead, for instance, when MP was spent for augmented defensives, (increased) self-healing, or increased enmity (with any potency bonus being part and parcel with the latter two, even if perhaps very slightly overwhelming). Such would be a far more sensible direction for what HP spending would ultimately offer -- even if the exact mode of that spending would still determine if DRK must be, say, more proactive that most tanks -- if we must borrow from past approaches (in this case, that of HW).

And how exactly would non-damage utility exactly be balanced to neither be pointless nor too strong when using HP as a resource?

What point is there to spend one part of eHP (actual HP) to generate another? Either the output is significant enough for me to do this and consider playing DRK because the output is actually meaningful especially when having their HP healed once spent, or I play a tank that does this equal or better without requiring additional HP or HoTs to generate this utility.

While I can see that people still seek to relive the days of HW where spending MP (or HP) on enhancing utility was at least relevant, it had massive issues that come to light once you take the rose-tinted glasses off and try to think how this would be affected by the current PVE design - leaving aside SE / Yoshida clearly said they will not go back to class design based on HW times.

Again, I am all in for using HP as a resource, but spending it for survival is either really good (Superbolide) or not worth it, depending on the conversion. It can have a middle ground of power level, but is only helpful if the DRK player can generate the lost HP at least partially on their own - again, see Warrior.

"Wasted HoTs / heals" are by nature wasted and not something to base on, but YMMV.

[Shurrikhan]

As a tank hp is being used as a resource already while your being hit. Unless you’d want to tie it to LD in some way it seems it would be a difficult implementation.

That would only be a problem if we had no control over the pacing of the HP expenditure, unlike, say, our MP spending.

And how exactly would non-damage utility exactly be balanced to neither be pointless nor too strong when using HP as a resource?

The same way as any other form of complexity, such as MP at present. It's a tool to be worked with and around that provides a unique form of skill-ceiling.

GNB has its APM tax; while it's perhaps a bit overly restrictive, we cannot deny that it nonetheless seeds identity.
WAR has its Nascent windows; you are expected to optimize around them, but we cannot deny that they seed identity.
Etc., etc.

Unique Merits: Can survive some things others cannot under errant circumstances. Allows for more immediate and/or offensive uses of large heal CDs. Slightly greater downtime effectiveness due to being spend HP just before nonthreatening boss jumps or other forms of forced downtime during which healing is available.

Unique Task: Time HP spending around healer abilities and prior to upcoming damage. Spend HP additionally for further damage (less efficient) before forced downtime during which healers can still heal you (and would have nothing else/better to do).

If there is no appeal to having such, what is the basis for our complaints about identity over the last 4 years, especially over Shadowbringers?
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What point is there to spend one part of eHP (actual HP) to generate another?

You answered it yourself:

the output is significant enough for me to do this and consider playing DRK because the output is actually meaningful

It reduces the spikiness of damage intake. You have, per player pacing, more missing HP during lulls (which in turn means more room for increasedly efficient-over-time), and less during spikes.

Could you survive without it on optimized CD schedules? Yes.
Could you survive things you otherwise could not, making up for a slower top-off or a slipped minor CD at some point? Also yes.

If differences of that level are irrelevant, why would we ever complain about any lack of uniqueness in, say, a defensive toolkit? Would it be better if everything about them were interchangeable, dropping tank job skills names entirely in favor of "25s CD", "60s CD", "90s CD", "3 minute CD", "raid CD" and "invuln"?

There's a reason things like Quietus under Blood Weapon into DA-AD are fondly remembered. They're capacities and playflows that are at best indirectly analogous to other tanks, that actually let the given job feel unique.