Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

Instead, DRK should get something else that fits more with its nature (in terms of lore) as a "selfless tank who protects the weak".

Ehh, kinda feels more like you're describing PLD there, pre-shenanigans. DRK has from the start been themed around "Sacrifices are acceptable and may be necessary," and outright "You know what, f*ck these idiots" energy. "No half measures," and "Reject outside preconceptions" have always been their more unique core than "Protect the weak." Their selflessness is borne out more by finding their health, their fears, their reputation absolutely irrelevant than by any hero image you'd find among those popularly considered, by themselves or others, as "selfless".

If we give DRK more Healing abilities, it will always be a weak WAR in design and too similar in design.

Giving something self-healing doesn't turn it into an angry, half-naked barbarian. There are many different flavors and feels available to healing, just as with damage-dealing.

A better question is why warrior has life steal at all. Seriously, life leech is a dark aspected ability which belongs on DRK's kit. Warrior using rage to heal does make sense, but stealing life is plain stupid. I'm not saying make DRK broken, but give it enough to not be completely dependent on healer.

Because it's not "life-leech" per se. It's, quite definitively, living off the thrill of battle. (If we're going to consider technicals, at expense to all lore, like "but it's healing based on damage dealt" then note still that life-leech wasn't originally that; it was bonus damage that happened to heal you by the same amount, quite literally leeching that HP out of the enemy.)

As for why it was given that theme, it was then-reactive tank mirror to the only other, proactive tank, Paladin. It had no mitigation skills (save for Foresight, which was less than 7% miti over its duration), only a whole lot of HP increases and ways to keep in the fight by prepping and capitalizing on damage-dealing opportunities -- in the thick of things, always.