Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

That makes sense, I suppose. I can't say I'm a fan, though, just because it's taking the meatier, more interesting ability and shelving into OT situations alone. (Granted, I also wanted Shelltron and Intervention to be consolidated into a throwback to Aegis Boon, and was glad to see Heart of Stone not get the same button waste.)

Agree to disagree here. I'm all for the idea of a tank having the options of a personal mitigation effect that's more attuned to their own specific needs and playstyle (like increasing life leech and MP return), and an off-tank effect that's more general use given playstyles that might not want those same effects -- a Paladin can raise his shield in his own defense, but can't exactly hand it off to someone else. A Warrior can shrug off pain, but maybe doesn't want to help someone else do that who is empowered by it, like DRK.
There are plenty of ways to make them both equally interesting and viable, and if anything this dodges DRK being reduced to tossing a bland mitigation skill on an ally.

Plus, it's a bit of an aesthetic thing on my part. As I said before, I see DRK as a tank whose use of barrier magic would extend more to the defense of an allied charge for lack of any other means to defend them... since for his own purposes, he has no qualms about using foul magic to sustain himself on the literal blood of his enemies while dishing out immediate and brutal justice upon the wicked.

Think Sidurgu. Takes sadistic joy in smashing in corrupt Temple Knight faces while arguing it's for the betterment of the common folk, tons of mileage to be had out of Drain magic. Probably would not want to subject Rielle to healing through vampirism though since that would offend her sensibilities; just gonna put her in a bubble.

TL;DR: TBN ain't edgy enough.

[Dracosavarian]

I just tried DRK and... I closely paid attention to my MP management.
And I realized TBN is much more worse than what I was thinking.

It's on a 15s technically, but a 60s cooldown in reality. Since you cannot store more than 1 Dark arts and are supposed to keep your MP until next 60s, you are not encouraged to use multiple TBN.
Am I right? At this point, TBN should straight up be a simple shield on 15s CD.

If SQEX absolutely wants a rewards if you break it, why not make Dark Arts impact defensive or 60s cooldowns?
Between every minute, you need to break 1 TBN (available every 15 seconds, therefore around 3 occasions) to get Dark Art and empower your 60s phase.

Oh and buff Oblation. 10% is weak, 10s is short for 10%, 60 seconds cooldown is ridiculously high, I have not found uses for the second charge.
Hopefully BW on stacks like Delirium is coming to 6.1.

Effectively, you are correct. If a Dark Knight wishes to maximize their dps and not lose out on anything in it’s rotation, it will be using TBN roughly once per minute.

If it’s utilized more often than this, it starts colliding with the issue of shifting potency out of raid buff windows. Which equals a damage loss.

In addition, TBN has no scaling. Once you blow through your 25% hp, that’s it. You’re spent. You have to wait for it to come off of cooldown. In comparison to all of the other damage mitigations which are % based. Meaning, if there is a second attack, those damage mitigations are still there to help keep you alive.

[WhyAmIHere]

people said this about dark arts and 90% of HW drk abilities lost

Its not a matter of can or can't due to players being use to it

Its a matter of is it worth keeping it or worth dropping

wrong. it's tied in to the job quest of lvl 70 DRK. I highly doubt, given that and JP's feelings towards TBN, that the skill is going anywhere.

[Anhra]

wrong. it's tied in to the job quest of lvl 70 DRK. I highly doubt, given that and JP's feelings towards TBN, that the skill is going anywhere.

I wouldn't be so sure on that. Squeenix certainly didn't shy away to alter AST Jobquests with ShB changes, so it will most likely happen with other Jobs as well when certain Skills get reworked or straight up removed.

[Shurrikhan]

In addition, TBN has no scaling. Once you blow through your 25% hp, that’s it. You’re spent. You have to wait for it to come off of cooldown. In comparison to all of the other damage mitigations which are % based. Meaning, if there is a second attack, those damage mitigations are still there to help keep you alive.

Right, but let's say you similarly have a 25% mitigation over that whole duration. Over that duration, you'd need to absorb damage enough to have otherwise killed you (a quarter of 100% of HP) in order to mitigate as much over that whole duration as TBN could have mitigated in a single hit (again, 25% of your HP).

The only times, moreover, in which the follow-up after TBN's consumption would be vitally important are the times in which, if not for that mitigation being frontloaded, you'd already have been killed (i.e., before that further scaling could be put to use anyways).

Outside of overhealing made unavoidable (and TBN isn't powerful enough nor survival needs tight enough to cause such), the span doesn't matter, only the total mitigation + healing.

:: I don't know why people undervalue TBN on the sole basis that it isn't a percentage. That's like treating Trick Attack as having more value than is clearly stated in rDPS just because "it's a raid buff".

[Dracosavarian]

Right, but let's say you similarly have a 25% mitigation over that whole duration. Over that duration, you'd need to absorb damage enough to have otherwise killed you (a quarter of 100% of HP) in order to mitigate as much over that whole duration as TBN could have mitigated in a single hit (again, 25% of your HP).

Outside of overhealing made unavoidable (and TBN isn't powerful enough nor survival needs tight enough to cause such), the span doesn't matter, only the total mitigation.

:: I don't know why people undervalue TBN on the sole basis that it isn't a percentage. That's like treating Trick Attack as having more value than is clearly stated in rDPS just because "it's a raid buff".

Because it’s not as strong as Holy Shelltron, Bloodwhetting, or Heart of Corundum.

TBN is not Mitigation. It’s Nullification. It’s handled differently by the formula.

A shield that crumbles to dust with a single hit or two, does little to stop the onslaught of multiple attacks over a period of time. Once that shield breaks, it’s ability to stop incoming damage ceases entirely

Mitigation that is % based and lasts over a set duration remains for that duration.

[Oizen]

I have not found use for Oblation at all honestly. Its the closest I've ever come to not having a skill on my hot bar.

Its cool that it has 2 stacks, but 2x0 is still 0.

[Kalaam]

Technically double oblation is 18%~ mitigation on 120s cooldown to get that full value again.

[Shurrikhan]

Because it’s not as strong as Holy Shelltron, Bloodwhetting, or Heart of Corundum.

It is unless your Holy Shelltron, Bloodwhetting, and Heart of Corundum would have mitigated ("nullified") and healed more than 25% of your HP over their durations.

Mitigation amounts to your aforementioned "nullification". If it "nullified" nothing, it'd have done nothing. 25% mitigation that spans 12k would-be damage will "nullify" 3k damage. That is its value.

That value is not changed by when it or at what pace it did that mitigation because the only pertinent part of that, the fading percentile mitigation as you drop from the first to latter 4 seconds of their duration, is already accounted for in the damage nullified. It is not changed by having died early, because that would likewise have changed the total damage nullified. A mitigation tool's value is, simply and wholly, what is has nullified.

We could add effective healing atop that, which would then have its mirrored factor in being wasted by overhealing -- or what would have, a tick later, have been overhealing -- but such would again be accounted for right there in that metric. That it is a HoT or single heal would have no bearing on its total effective healing.

A shield that crumbles to dust with a single hit or two, does little to stop the onslaught of multiple attacks over a period of time.

A shield that crumbles to dust after nullifying 3k damage does exactly the same amount of mitigation as an 8-second duration effect that ends up nullifying 3k damage. TBN gets outscaled only under extreme values of damage taken over 8 seconds. And for all short of that, TBN outperforms its competitors.

Let's say you're a tank with 12k HP. A TBN is therefore 3k. Subtract the healing the competitors could do from that value and you have 8 seconds then to make up the difference.

If you can make up the difference in under 8 seconds, the competitor comes out ahead; if it can't, TBN comes out ahead. And there are plenty of situations where you cannot make up that difference, and TBN will therefore come out ahead.

There is, again, no inherent further weakness to front-loaded mitigation; it's simply a matter of which nullifies ("mitigates", in normal people talk) and resets ("heals") more damage.

[Oizen]

Technically double oblation is 18%~ mitigation on 120s cooldown to get that full value again.

I don't think you can stack oblation, I believe it just refreshes the cooldown. At least thats what it seems like to me.

But honestly I've found that everything people say Oblation can do, I've already been doing with rampart for a long time.