Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

My rough expectations -

• Living Dead: Completely reworked. (Free space on the bingo card.)
• Blood Weapon: Soft rework, grants 4 stacks that last 15 sec.
• Carve and Spit/Bloodspiller/Quietus: Now have 400p heal effects attached.
• Abyssal Drain: Damage increased to 170p.
• Oblation: Effects increased to 15%.

This is my "I'll be underwhelmed if we see less, though I think this much is pretty reasonable" baseline. Especially since none of this would impact DRK's damage in trials and raids.

Do I want more? Absolutely. But I'd call this a bare minimum.

Putting a heal on Carve and Spit makes sense if they want to keep it linked to AD but at the same time nobody's ever gonna hold it for the heal so it's kinda pointless.

Mostly pointless -- it'll probably heal some auto-attack damage -- but again, parity.
I mean it's not like AD was that strong a heal either outside W2W.

[Danelo]

The “unofficial translation” is on the balance discord. Not a trick, it’s a one-liner. Didn’t come into here to get into an argument but you seem dead set on having one. “I agree that we should temper our expectations” is where you response should have ended. What exactly are you disagreeing with me on? My pessimistic attitude towards the devs? Fully warranted and you would know that if you have been around since 3.x regarding DRK.

[Absurdity]

[*]Blood Weapon: Soft rework, grants 4 stacks that last 15 sec.

5 stacks. Everything below that would just be a slap in the face because it'd be a flat out nerf, you'd be losing 10 blood and 600 mp every minute compared to now.

[Archwizard]

5 stacks. Everything below that would just be a slap in the face because it'd be a flat out nerf, you'd be losing 10 blood and 600 mp every minute compared to now.

Optimally (as is entirely the point of the change), though given they shrank Delirium and Inner Release to 3 each when they originally had the same timer, I don't have high hopes they care to faithfully recreate the "optimal" alignment.
Though I suppose those are a different case, given that a potency adjustment to the skills they affect to account for reduced casts-per-minute would have resolved those two, which is harder when Blood Weapon doesn't directly impact any skills...

That said, to preserve it overall, it'd be easier for them to have Delirium replace Blood Weapon, go up to 4 stacks and increase to 900 MP/hit, kill bloat at the same time. But, I shouldn't speculate further lest we get hopes up.

[Marxam]

My rough expectations -

• Living Dead: Completely reworked. (Free space on the bingo card.)
• Blood Weapon: Soft rework, grants 4 stacks that last 15 sec.
• Carve and Spit/Bloodspiller/Quietus: Now have 400p heal effects attached.
• Abyssal Drain: Damage increased to 170p.
• Oblation: Effects increased to 15%.

This is my "I'll be underwhelmed if we see less, though I think this much is pretty reasonable" baseline. Especially since none of this would impact DRK's damage in trials and raids.

Do I want more? Absolutely. But I'd call this a bare minimum.

you forgot; Increase TBN duration to 8 seconds (up from 7). Assuming they keep the short cd recast. Honestly that one second can make a difference a times and is probably the biggest gripes I have with TBN not being up long enough to proc with enough hits. Heck they could even increase it to 15 secs for all I care. The idea is to remove the penalty of TBN or at the very least reduce it. The game no longer has cds with draw backs attached to them, so why DRK is still designed like its in HW/SB is a quagmire.

Personally I would like to see TBN share the same recast as the other tank cds (25 secs) but given two charges and no MP cost. The MP cost of TBN is pointless because that 3k MP would have been used on a shadow spam in the first place and regardless, you would still use TBN as a cd. Putting an MP cost on it is redundant in EW and the changes I propose would increase its utility and pair well with oblation.

In a light party you can cover each player with either mitigation or shields and in raid situations you can put TBN/Oblation on both tanks for tank busters or on both healers for some mechanics. The flexibility is there and with no penalty, just the ease of use. Just get rid of Dark Arts and either rework it into an actual skill in the next expansion or just get rid of it entirely. It's sad to see it DA used as just flavor text when you compare to what it once was.

[Absurdity]

Optimally (as is entirely the point of the change), though given they shrank Delirium and Inner Release to 3 each when they originally had the same timer, I don't have high hopes they care to faithfully recreate the "optimal" alignment.
Though I suppose those are a different case, given that a potency adjustment to the skills they affect to account for reduced casts-per-minute would have resolved those two, which is harder when Blood Weapon doesn't directly impact any skills...

There is another difference between IR/Delirium and Blood Weapon, they reduced the cooldown of Delirium and Inner Release from 90 down to 60 seconds. Keeping those 2 at 5 stacks but with 30 seconds less cooldown would have been a rather sizeable buff, especially for warrior.

Sure, they could've reduced the potency of Bloodspiller and Fell Cleave to account for this but that would've affected the job's "neutral game" outside of burst as well.



Blood Weapon however is already on a 60 seconds cooldown so there is 0 reason to nerf the amount of stacks, it is simply a quality of life change that has no influence on the job's performance.

[Archwizard]

you forgot; Increase TBN duration to 8 seconds (up from 7).

No I didn't forget it, it's just not on the short list. Most of the time TBN barely lasts 3 seconds so an extension is the most mild of quality-of-life adjustments, and would have minimal impact on DRK's survival. It's a want, not a need right now.

Would I like to see TBN adjusted and pulled in line with the other on-demands? Absolutely. But again, this was a bare minimum list to bring DRK up to speed with the other tanks, and a complete rework of DRK's survival (much as I want one) would be an indulgence.

[WhyAmIHere]

Optimally (as is entirely the point of the change), though given they shrank Delirium and Inner Release to 3 each when they originally had the same timer, I don't have high hopes they care to faithfully recreate the "optimal" alignment.
Though I suppose those are a different case, given that a potency adjustment to the skills they affect to account for reduced casts-per-minute would have resolved those two, which is harder when Blood Weapon doesn't directly impact any skills...

That said, to preserve it overall, it'd be easier for them to have Delirium replace Blood Weapon, go up to 4 stacks and increase to 900 MP/hit, kill bloat at the same time. But, I shouldn't speculate further lest we get hopes up.

BW is analogous to Infuriate.
4 stacks would be worse than an insult. Just give it 5 for parity with how it optimally should function.

[Recon1o6]

Am I the only one concerned they will somehow make Dark knight even shitter given the track record of their "reworks" being worse or more boring than before?

[Shurrikhan]

Am I the only one concerned they will somehow make Dark knight even shitter given the track record of their "reworks" being worse or more boring than before?

No, but I think the majority opinion is that DRK's dipped about as low as it can in terms of depth, so the risk is minimal compared to potential gains.