Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

I want to expand briefly on this dichotomy (between barriers and % mitigation -- or, front-loaded mitigation and steady mitigation, gear-scaled mitigation and content-scaled mitigation... however one may wish to name the two types).

Let us think of a fight as having periods of moderate and deep spikes of damage (each spike defined as or split at roughly the duration of a CD that'd reasonably respond to it) -- i.e., ones that fall short of the threshold by which content-scaled mitigation surpasses gear-scaled mitigation and ones that push past it. One might think then that because one works best over the highest densities of damage, it would therefore mitigate more across the whole fight, but that still leaves out two core factors:
First, a skill can have a higher maximum mitigation without having a higher total (such depends on the fight as a whole).
Second, as Ryaduera mentioned above, a typical party in any serious (and therefore 8-man) content has both types of mitigation, so small imbalances in which of two options (gear-scaled or content-scaled) would nullify slightly more damage over a whole fight are frequently overwhelmed by the available slight synergy in having both (being able to nullify more over both moderate and deep damage spikes, or stack both together without the anti-synergy of one source of GSmiti going partly to waste or of CSmiti being multiplicatively diminished by the first).
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That said, damage taken isn't like Crit rates; it doesn't progressively increase (relative to tank HP) over the course of the expansion. As such, there is no more reason to frame this situation as "after a certain threshold, content-scaled mitigation is better" than "below a certain threshold, content-scaled mitigation is worse." It's not as if the situations in which the one with a higher floor and lower maximum will just be necessarily expunged over time.

The problem with DRK isn't even its defensives, it's the reliance on healers. If, in dungeon pulls, you space out every TBN as well as you can (if a pull takes long enough using it every 15s can be hard if you didn't start with full MP, so its uptime can leave a lot to be desired) you technically reduce damage by more than the other tanks. The problem comes from the fact that, especially in AoE situations, once damage goes through, it stays there. You get 1 Abyssal Drain, that's it.

While I'd still offer that Oblation should be stronger... agreed; though DRK has comparable mitigation, its total sustain (combined mitigation + healing, in practice -- not accounting for would-be healing where it'd be bottlenecked by... dying) is undertuned. And if we do not wish to give DRK absurdly more mitigation than other tanks, increasing its self-healing seems to be the way to go.

And TBN should give a stack of Dark Arts on break and on expiration. So many times I thought "Yeah this will break TBN" and it just didn't and I was like oops there goes 450 potency. I should not be punished for tanking too well.

I have mixed feelings on this point.

Though each still aims to maximize sustain (including recovery possible... from just not dying, where that'd otherwise bottleneck it, or more efficient use of healing, etc)...
I think of (1) gear-scaled mitigation, (2) meaningfully duration-limited gear-scaled mitigation, and (3) TBN thus:

1. No further constraints.
2. Wants to just barely meet the break-even threshold, as not to waste nullification (so long as the delay in optimizing any single event doesn't cost it overall sustain).
3. Same as above, but greatly increases the punishment for not meeting that threshold.

Admittedly, I kind of like that about TBN, and prefer that TBN has a bit of unique skill-gap element and consequent anti-synergy with other skills (not wanting to overlap it to such an extent that TBN won't be fully consumed), but the punishment is awfully steep for something that doesn't fundamentally change how the skill is meant to be deployed.

While I don't like the idea of removing that doubled punishment entirely --as I do find it unique, and a sufficient excuse to slightly overtune DRK's maximum sustain due to its likely in-practice losses-- I wouldn't mind seeing it reduced or TBN made just a tiny bit easier to pop (say, via a return to the Stormblood 12-second 20% TBN), especially if we're going to end up with another expansion of increasingly undertuned dungeons that progressively make TBN harder to consume, etc.

[Ryaduera]

I have mixed feelings on this point.

So do I, but the rework people keep asking for likely won't happen, so this is the most probable way the devs would fix it. In my opinion, the "ideal" fix would be to make TBN just consume Darkside time instead. It still would have a cost where you might think Oh maybe I shouldn't use this, but it's only a DPS loss if you actually kill your darkside with it. It should be less than 30s such that you are still able to overcap on Darkside in burst windows with multiple uses of Edge, but it should consume enough time that you still want to sit on 3k mana to replenish after (or before) using TBN. This would also let the Darkside gauge interact with DRK kit, which would be nice. Even warrior has a shallow interaction with Surging Tempest (10 less gauge to refresh it. Yes shallow, but interaction). Maybe in this version Dark Arts augments Oblation instead of being another Edge/Flood

EDIT I will add I still think Dark Mind needs something to make it useful against physical damage, even if it's as simple as also giving 10% physical reduction.

[Undeadfire]

It still would have a cost where you might think Oh maybe I shouldn't use this, but it's only a DPS loss if you actually kill your darkside with it. It should be less than 30s such that you are still able to overcap on Darkside in burst windows with multiple uses of Edge, but it should consume enough time that you still want to sit on 3k mana to replenish after (or before) using TBN.

Really depends how much time is taken, 15s+ will make TBN exceptionally useless. Drk currently lowers Darkside timers below 15-25s before raid buff windows.

[Shurrikhan]

So do I, but the rework people keep asking for likely won't happen, so this is the most probable way the devs would fix it. In my opinion, the "ideal" fix would be to make TBN just consume Darkside time instead. It still would have a cost where you might think Oh maybe I shouldn't use this, but it's only a DPS loss if you actually kill your darkside with it.

That's not quite the case. It'd also then end up a loss if you had to delay Edges out of the raid buff window just to have enough Darkside to use TBN n times within the 2-minute cycle's lull, which would certainly be a consideration here.

We effectively enter the 45s lull with a minute's duration, but that leaves us only 15s to spare per minute under the present system. With TBN no longer consuming MP, we'd be forced to use another Edge outside of even TA in order to avoid overcapping MP, pushing that up to 45s, but that still leaves us fewer available TBN casts per minute than is presently the case (as, without timing TBN into excessive overlap with other CDs or boss-downtime, it's pretty hard not to consume TBN). At even just 15s cost, you'd be able to use TBN fewer than 3 times per minute without losing Darkside, as compared to the current 4 (and its ability to delay would-be MP-overcap Edges into raid buffs instead).

To put it another way, this would effectively change proper TBN usage from granting one additional Edge inside of raid buffs to losing at least two per cycle if one wanted actual access to TBN (without losing 10% damage).

I think there are ways to make this work despite that, but I have to wonder... why? The damage penalty would still be there, just in a way that's harder to understand. And while I like that it's finally making use of Darkside... it does so in only the subtlest and wonkiest of ways.

[Archwizard]

As long as the rework to Living Dead isn't simply a number change like:

• A heal requirement reduction or healing received buff (which would be counterproductive as it would shorten the invuln time)
• A max duration extension (which would be only marginally useful)
• A cooldown reduction (which would just amplify anxiety as a result of having the same effect occur more often)
• Or some combination of the above

... I'll be happy with basically any change to it.

Preferably a complete mechanical rework that does away with Walking Dead's healer dependence entirely.

I just want to see it become something I don't have to coordinate in a pug or roulette group, and with minimal stress on healers -- especially if DRK's sustain doesn't shift much otherwise.

[LoadedVirus]

Soul Eater: Cure Potency 300 -> 400 (brings it in line with Gunbreaker)

Blood Weapon: Restores 100% base MP

Living Dead: Remove the healing requirement (yeah just worse Holmgang)

Abyssal Drain: Cooldown no longer tied to Carve and Spit, Cooldown reduced to 30sec

The Blackest Night: MP cost removed, Dark Arts removed

Oblation: Trait: When The Blackest Night is fully absorbed reduce damage by 10% for 10sec (keep animation ideally)

[Undeadfire]

Soul Eater: Cure Potency 300 -> 400 (brings it in line with Gunbreaker)

Blood Weapon: Restores 100% base MP

Living Dead: Remove the healing requirement (yeah just worse Holmgang)

Abyssal Drain: Cooldown no longer tied to Carve and Spit, Cooldown reduced to 30sec

The Blackest Night: MP cost removed, Dark Arts removed

Oblation: Trait: When The Blackest Night is fully absorbed reduce damage by 10% for 10sec (keep animation ideally)

Drks potencies would have to be tuned down for this level of changes, christ...

And TBN would be broken AF.

[Archwizard]

And TBN would be broken AF.

Which is why I prefer the solution of Oblation giving 10-15% mitigation for the remaining duration of TBN, if it breaks early. Then just a very small duration increase on top of it, to between 8-10 sec.

Though honestly, even if Oblation was limited to applying if TBN was broken in the first 4 sec and Dark Arts had a life drain component, it would probably be on par with the other three on-demands.

[Derio]

Even if Dark Mind only gave a 5% physical damage reduction. That would be better than its current form. Any form of self sustain is welcomed at this point, whether its through oblation or life steal on blood gauge attacks anything is welcome.

As for living dead I fully expect them to simply change it to a knock off version of holmgang.

[Lyth]

I wonder if the solution to improve Oblation's effectiveness is to make it an actual upgrade on TBN, such that damage mitigated in the first 4 seconds or so gets converted to healing up to some hard cap. That would preserve the 'timing' aspect of the other short recast mitigation moves, while giving DRK some skill based self-sustain.