Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

Understood. Thank you.

So, this new skill, Occult Accumen would have effectively no use outside of consuming other skills? Little to no cooldown, either?

Again, though, I'm still worried about how it'd treat duration. If this were to work like Shake it Off, for instance, we'd sacrifice only the final half-second of duration for an effectively free HoT, in which case players would be right to wonder "Why not just make OA like Aurora or its HoT a trait attached to DM/Oblation if the difference from such is already just an annoying but small skill-/weave-check?"

I think something like this would have a relatively longer cooldown, no? Duration and cooldown are hard for us non-devs to actually balance. I know from my modding experiences, even if we think we can balance those, trial and error is the only way to truly know if it's "fair" but if I were modding this game, I'd start with a longer cooldown. Something around 90 seconds. It could have an additional "only available under the effects of x" to make it more understandable why it's a consuming ability and not just some trait. You can only turn Oblation/Dark Mind into a HoT every 90 seconds makes it more understandable why it's not just a trait so the heal isn't coming every 30s from Oblation (recharge ability cooldowns are recharge time divided by charge count, so 30s cooldown on Oblation in "perfect" rotation)

Again, just a morning coffee idea that's probably a waste of energy to actually think about lol.

[RyuDragnier]

Patch notes out for 6.08, and DRK got a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

Not even a cure potency increase to Abyssal Drain. Understood, only WAR is allowed to heal big, nobody else.

[Archwizard]

I strongly disagree because of the lore of Dark Knight in this particular version. The abyss empowers you to push on, the abyss is keeping your body alive, the abyss needs you alive to express its fury, and so the darkness within you empowers you to push on. If you want a tank that gets power from slaying, that's Warrior, the Dark Knight gets power by embracing the abyss within them.

Definitely a place of wildly different interpretations.

As I see it, DRK is a job that is first and foremost about the principles of vindication, pragmatism, and paying evil unto evil, all while willfully setting aside their conniptions about "dishonor" or "scarring their soul" for the power to accomplish this task. This (combined with its history) puts it into a position of such profane acts as fortifying itself with the blood and life force of its foes -- as you say, pushing on through embracing the abyss.
I mean hell, one of its signature skills is Abyssal Drain, just a shame about how far it's fallen.
It's not just about the source of the magic, but the depths you would willingly plunge to both for and with it. As you tell Sidurgu, "So long as innocents suffer, I will not forsake the abyss."

Meanwhile, WAR's style of tanking is about persistence and shrugging off hits due to a mix of the Inner Beast suppressing their ability to feel pain, and battlefield adrenaline.
I see its shift into being the "drain tank" more as just an evolution of the popularity of using Nascent Flash over Raw Intuition. And it getting Nascent Flash in the first place as a copout to not really knowing how to have WAR be the offtank by this interpretation, given "pain suppression and adrenaline" are all-natural and hard to stretch beyond what is self-serving, where at least the other three tanks have some magic for flexibility in this dimension.

[Archwizard]

Patch notes out for 6.08, and DRK got a whole lot of absolutely nothing.

I'm not sure what y'all expected, the devs said weeks ago that 6.08 was just number adjustments.

DRK's survivability is a mechanical issue, not a numeric one. Our hopes for that would only ever have been for 6.1.

[RyuDragnier]

I'm not sure what y'all expected, the devs said weeks ago that 6.08 was just number adjustments.

DRK's survivability is a mechanical issue, not a numeric one. Our hopes for that would only ever have been for 6.1.

They could have at least buffed Abyssal Drain's Cure Potency to 300 so it at least helps more than it does now.

[Archwizard]

They could have at least buffed Abyssal Drain's Cure Potency to 300 so it at least helps more than it does now.

We'd still be in the same boat, with it only available once a minute and tied to C&S.

Plus, would y'all be any less upset if that was the only thing we got? We'd be seeing the threads flooded with how it's meaningless.

[MagiusNecros]

DRK's survivability is a mechanical issue, not a numeric one.

Actually it is numerical. Oblation should be 20%. And as stated the heal potency on Abyssal is shit. And Souleater heal potency needs to be buffed big time since DRK's sustain is laughably low and 2x worse then Brutal Shell.

For Abyssal to be good you need 6 targets. Will you have 6 targets in Raids? No.

Abyssal is only marginally good for a wall to wall pull if it hits everything.

May as well remove Abyssal and stick with CnS since damage is king.

[Archwizard]

Oblation should be 20%.

Which is very different from a potency adjustment for attacks.

For Abyssal to be good you need 6 targets. Will you have 6 targets in Raids? No.

May as well remove Abyssal and stick with CnS since damage is king.

Which is an entire discussion that also involves either disconnecting it from C&S or empowering C&S to make up for it in single-target -- either of which is a mechanical adjustment.
Without such consideration, you're just swinging the pendulum to "may as well remove C&S because Abyssal is king."

And Souleater heal potency needs to be buffed big time since DRK's sustain is laughably low and 2x worse then Brutal Shell.

Souleater's better than Storm's Path in that regard, Brutal Shell is an outlier and its effects are tied to its on-demand DR.
Plus if Souleater's healing was that significant to DRK's survivability, that would bring up an entire discussion about its Blood Gauge and AoE skills -- which is another mechanical discussion.

The numbers you're talking about here would at best be bandaids on a way bigger issue.

[RyuDragnier]

We'd still be in the same boat, with it only available once a minute and tied to C&S.

Plus, would y'all be any less upset if that was the only thing we got? We'd be seeing the threads flooded with how it's meaningless.

Yes, because it's not like being ignored is making any of us feel any better, now is it? Just a simple potency increase would make us feel better and give us hope for 6.1. Which btw, could be at the end of Feb or beginning of March. Instead, we're being told by the lack of changes that DRK is fine, when we all know it isn't.

[MagiusNecros]

Do your mental gymnastics if you want. This patch is just a baby systems change. It does literally nothing to address problems a multitude of other classes are having when it comes to damage. PLD/DRG patch more like and is well deserved.

Healers were lambasted.

Souleater currently is not significant to DRK's survivability because it has none. It needs it's hand to be held by a healer or a Warrior. Pretty sad for a Blue DPS.

They could have done something. Chose not to. Just like they have for 6 years. It'll be 7 years soon. Holy shit.