Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

Forgot about early Flood. Yeah, drop Abyssal potency to 100-120 if it's spammable.

Oblation HoT gives us effective single-target sustain, tied to our lvl 82 skill like other tanks. Other tanks have it tied to their TBN equivalent, so why shouldn't ours? If TBN isn't going to break, we probably don't need the heal anyway.

Makes sense. My only hang-up is that Oblation doesn't presently have to be used together with TBN, nor saved for TBN (due to having two charges). That's a unique advantage I'd rather hold onto. The two charges would still mitigate the impact of that a bit, but a lot of the time you'll use Oblation over the 10 seconds before swapping out on a buster, in which case, raid heals would soon have taken care of the rest anyhow (whereas something like Nascent can also put that healing where it's useful, such as the swapped-in tank's damage taken from auto-attacks).

I guess it's mostly going to come down to balancing. If we're balanced under the expectation that the self-heal may be partly wasted, then that's fine. If we're not losing something to get it, and it doesn't make us OP, sure, totally fine. (And with WAR getting no nerfs despite still outDPSing PLD atop all that excess healing, we probably would be.) If we're balanced around actually milking it, though --as arguably PLD was around Intervention swap-outs (maxing damage absorbed by Sentinel and Rampart before feeding half their effects each to the cotank as they swap in-- then... ehhh, I'd kind of rather not.

(Also, I liked using Flood on 2 targets. I want to use Flood on 2 targets. Please revert Flood nerf.)

Agreed. Without bonus at two-targets, gauge alternatives quickly feel like bloat outside of dungeons.

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@Ryaduera:

Whether or not you want to believe healing is a form of mitigation in the context in which tanks are using it does not change the fact that it absolutely is, but clearly logic and common sense won't convince you so I want continue to try. It is and that's enough. It was also never said that they were the same thing. I am genuinely lost on where you think I said that. I specifically called them different and acknowledged there are hypothetical cases where the shield is more important, but the other point I made is that this moment literally doesn't exist. You,re right, they aren't the same thing, I never said they were, just that they have similar effects. Damage mitigated is how much damage you have after all incoming damage has happened. That's why heals factor in.

You may as well say that blue and red are the same in the context that they're mixed together.

A thing with an added function is not the same as another without it. They may, in most cases, amount to the same thing, but they are not literally the same.

It's proportional with no drawbacks IE you don't use your DPS resource on it, even if you do get it back that's still bad design in a game where DPS is the only thing they look at.

Ahhh, okay. I see what you mean. Since you replied to a quote discussing scaling, I thought the drawbacks you were talking about were likewise a matter of scaling. I still disagree that all other short-CD mitigation has "all of the benefit" of TBN.

The only scenario in which TNB is "better" is one that doesn't exist in the game save for saving DPS/healers and having too many vuln stacks. It's a useful tool but saying it's the best in a scenario like this is, again, conjecture.

Literally just an hour ago played the Dorito for a clear party and saved the healers a total of 4 times (dps another, so 5 together) in a single pull when they weren't in place for the spin mechanics which would otherwise have one-shot them. The latter situation does exist.

I don't get it. Where do you think I'm saying anything about percentage mitigations scaling off of gear?

This was based on the earlier misunderstanding. Having responded to a quote about gear-scaling, I assumed the downside you were discussing was related to gear-scaling. Admittedly, I got a little confused, also, in your bit about incoming "damage also scaales with ilvl so the porpotion of damage generally stays the same anyway. But heals from those abilities do" since both comprise only a small part of the larger picture and are obviously not unique to the other short-CD defensives (DRK's Defense stat likewise increases, as do its self-heals).

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Let's be clear here. To mitigate means "to lessen or reduce". You cannot not lessen or reduce things that has already hit you. You recover from them.

There is no such thing as "post-damage mitigation." The closest you get to that (i.e., to reduce or lessen damage taken after you've already taken it) is for you to (1) increase max eHP and then later (2) restore a portion of damage taken, in which case you really have two effects (as usually shown by two distinct buffs), one which increases your maximum eHP for a duration [mitigation] (perhaps infinitely, as per invulns) and another than then heals you after the fact [healing]. Even the likes of Purifying Brew, by which to purge DoT damage to be taken (based on a portion of direct damage that was delayed, instead being dealt over time), must still be done prior to that DoT damage taken. Meanwhile, the likes of "heal for 30% of damage taken in the last 4 seconds" is just content-scaled healing.

That's how "reactive" tanks work; they increase their eHP, typically without increasing the effective value of each point of health, and then self-heal the difference. But that does not turn healing into damage reduction. If they did not have access to maximum eHP (be it by passive or active means) greater the passive values of other tanks, they'd be unplayable outside of casual content in most MMOs (i.e., any that actually expects tanks to, idk, use their defensives for more than just the occasional healer GCD saved).

There is no "I unmake your having hit me in the face by parrying your strike afterwards." There is mitigation (literally "(damage) reduction") and there is healing. That's it.

If this is a situation of "by 'can't' I really meant 'can'; language is flexible," then... okay, but... there's otherwise no sense to your position outside of having overgeared content so greatly that the tank needs not pop a single defensive ability over the whole fight, which is not a condition you want to design tanks around. (Vengeance? Thrill of Battle? Rampart? The mitigation component of Raw Intuition? Nah, don't need them. Nothing can kill you anyways now that you overgear this tier, so let's just focus on you healing yourself back up afterwards. Not like there's a next tier.)