Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

Given that you can pop more than 3 TBNs per minute (hold over 75% uptime) even in most floors of Normal Pandemonium, couldn't its Savage uptime issues (consequent more to faint potency loss than insufficient incoming damage) be largely remedied just by letting Dark Arts stack (or give a faint damage bonus to the DA'ed cast enough to keep it worthwhile to do more casts per raid buff cycle than just the one cast more than is necessary to avoid overcapping MP)?

It is literally impossible to keep more than 50% uptime. The ability lasts 7 seconds at its longest and it's cooldown is 15 seconds. Even if the barrier lasted all 7 seconds that is less than 50% uptime, but ideally it breaks pre-7 seconds. If you got all 7 seconds out of the ability and used it off cooldown every 15 seconds no matter what that is 46.6(repeating 6)% uptime so I have no idea where you're getting this 75% uptime idea from.

[Shurrikhan]

It is literally impossible to keep more than 50% uptime. The ability lasts 7 seconds at its longest and it's cooldown is 15 seconds. Even if the barrier lasted all 7 seconds that is less than 50% uptime. If you got all 7 seconds out of the ability and used it off cooldown every 15 seconds no matter what that is 46.6(repeating 6)% uptime so I have no idea where you're getting this 75% uptime idea from.

Sorry, I mispoke. I should have said "time on cooldown".

Or, to put it another way, you're able to get out at least 75% HP shielding per minute. For a shield, so long as that shield does in fact get fully consumed, uptime is hardly the most relevant metric.

[Ryaduera]

Sorry, I mispoke. I should have said "time on cooldown".

In that case I'll clarify that post was specifically playing off his ideas which involved removing Dark Arts from the ability and replacing it with Sole Survivor, making the duscussion of Dark Arts stack count not exactly relevant in context. At least, that's how I read it. Letting it give 2 stacks of 2 different things would be a bit much to say the least. Also, in the context of adding a mitigation percentage to it, uptime becomes more important since from Barrier style defensives all you really want out of it is for the entire shield to be absorbed, but for percentages you want uptime.

Or, to put it another way, you're able to get out at least 75% HP shielding per minute. For a shield, so long as that shield does in fact get fully consumed, uptime is hardly the most relevant metric.

And for the above post the hypothetical added a percentage to it, making uptime now important on the ability. Again, we agree on this point. Shields only matter if the entire shield was utilized, but percentages require uptime to be useful. An ability with both must also do both.

[Shurrikhan]

And for the above post the hypothetical added a percentage to it, making uptime now important on the ability. Again, we agree on this point. Shields only matter if the entire shield was utilized, but percentages require uptime to be useful. An ability with both must also do both.

Gotcha, gotcha. Sorry, I just brainfarted as a result of talking to some DRKs about their TBN "uptime" in savage, where they used "uptime" to refer to their ability to break as many TBNs as possible (portion of possible cooling time not wasted nor punished beyond not getting those Edges under raid buffs). Given that I've gotten picky about terminology before, there's no excuse for my slip-up there. Again, my apologies.

Yes, so long as we stick the 15% mitigation onto TBN, uptime would be of import, too. I think at that point you'd care less about the overall uptime than just timing it to tankbusters, especially if the cooldown remained more flexible --but that flexibility would in turn require a bottleneck, be that MP or some other means of potential punishment-- but just the same.

@ItsUrBoi. My main concern with this TBN suggestion is that it'd then amount to a 25% HP shield, a 15% damage reduction for 7s, and an 800-potency heal. Even on 25s, which I'd rather avoid regardless, wouldn't that be especially strong (and, truly pushed all into TBN, rather than TBN just being overvalued or DRK's EW kit neglected)? Now, that's not necessarily a problem; it's just not a direction I'd want to dig that much more deeply into, as I'd love to spread those capacities about a bit more as to offer further interest to the rest of our kit (e.g., Blood skills giving some added sustain, since they're decently bankable and could therefore pack a good punch and would be nicely timeable).

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Dang, your new sig is no joke, Ryu. I think your race has changed twice over these last two posts?