Dark Knight Megathread

[ItsUrBoi]

There's a couple interesting ideas here, though some are a bit awkward still and I'm not sure you entirely thought them through.

For instance, you don't cover what happens to Dark Arts or TBN's CD, but say TBN's "not tied to damage". You also have the 10% reduction innately stacked with the barrier on Oblation, making it slightly harder to break the barrier, creating minor anti-synergy with the healing effect you wrote for Edge/Flood.

Dark Mind isn't quite as useful as you would hope for Walking Dead, considering that you're still expecting Shield Healers to use GCDs on a DRK, and the idea of a "helper CD" just means having to burn two CDs for the price of one.
Also, what happens to the "healing Edge/Shadow" interaction when you Dark Mind and Oblation...?

Your Enhanced Unmend only makes a difference in combat once. And only if it's the first action you use it at the start of the pull.

Abyssal Drain not healing instantly is also an issue, since even with the heal you wrote on Edge/Flood, it's still our snap heal for W2W.

Also,

I have no idea what you're saying here.

I updated my post with more details. I wrote it late at night so I am sorry for the misunderstandings.

->TBN not costing MP is there to ensure you can use it on CD and make good use of its 15 sec CD. When TBN breaks, Dark Arts would buff the next Edge/Flood to grant healing equal to damage dealt. This will help in dungeon pulls and offer DRK the option to recover after a tank buster. TBN doesn't grant a free Edge/Flood, it just makes the next ones heal you as mentioned.
->Oblation doesn't have to be a part of TBN. It can be its own ability to grant 15% damage reduction. The reason why I see them being separate is so that you can use TBN and 1 stack of Oblation on yourself, the other stack of Oblation on your other tank.
->Dark Mind shouldn't be 20% specific damage reduction. Take a part of its damage reduction and put it on Oblation ( 10% -> 15 or 20% ? ). DRK has to double weave for 8 GCDs during burst, weaving defenses as well within those GCDs isn't fun, if anything you have to pop them before ( and they don't last too long ) , or you delay your damage. Instead have Dark Mind convert all shielding into healing with a slight bonus. If you need healing instead of a shield you can use TBN and heal yourself for 25% of your max HP. Shield healers can also help you. This will work very well with TBN being free, and allow DRK to deal with auto attacks too ( for which a 7s shield doesn't last long enough for usually ) Your Edge/Flood's healing can be influenced too.
->With TBN costing no MP, you can no longer do:
TBN on yourself / other tank -> BW -> Hard Slash -> Edge + Syphon Strike -> Souleater + Living Shadow. You will lose on 600 MP from BW.
Instead if your plunge grants 10 blood, you can:
Plunge -> Hard Slash -> Edge + BW -> Syphon Strike -> Souleater + Living Shadow. You won't lose on any MP and still get 50 blood.
Or any trait that allows you to get 50 blood at your 3rd GCD is fine I guess.

For the Delirium idea, I just thought that instead of spamming Bloodspiller over and over, you could have another combo that costs blood gauge per action so you use it when you are at >70 and Delirium grants the use of that combo for free.

[Archwizard]

-snip-

Wasn't contesting your reasoning so much as your conclusions.

[ItsUrBoi]

Wasn't contesting your reasoning so much as your conclusions.

Can you elaborate?

[Archwizard]

Can you elaborate?

I did in my initial response. Yours explained why you made your changes, your reasoning and intent, but didn't actually respond to the criticisms and concerns I presented about how you went about resolving those issues.

For instance, I understand Dark Mind being underwhelming and niche as a result of being mitigation for an underused damage type. But you didn't address when I pointed out that if you use your modification with TBN, you don't get Dark Arts, and the "you can use it with a barrier healer" still runs under the expectation they would burn GCDs healing you, assuming they noticed Dark Mind at all.

I understand the concern about double-weaving Oblation with TBN as a reason to merge the two into one button, and similar has been suggested several times. I disagree with layering the mitigation on top of the barrier as an innate effect and calling it a day, because as above, that also creates a modicum of anti-synergy with the actual Dark Arts interaction.
Which I mentioned previously, and again, went unanswered.

Enhanced Unmend amounts to 10 Blood Gauge for an entire encounter, if you don't get put on a threat table before take the Plunge. You're also creating an instant double-weave for activating BW.
(But seriously, can we at least rename it Enhanced Plunge II or something, using the Unmend name when you redefined it to have nothing to do with Unmend makes me think you have it proc off opening with a spell GCD.)

[ItsUrBoi]

I did in my initial response. Yours explained why you made your changes, your reasoning and intent, but didn't actually respond to the criticisms and concerns I presented about how you went about resolving those issues.

For instance, I understand Dark Mind being underwhelming and niche as a result of being mitigation for an underused damage type. But you didn't address when I pointed out that if you use your modification with TBN, you don't get Dark Arts, and the "you can use it with a barrier healer" still runs under the expectation they would burn GCDs healing you, assuming they noticed Dark Mind at all.

I understand the concern about double-weaving Oblation with TBN as a reason to merge the two into one button, and similar has been suggested several times. I disagree with layering the mitigation on top of the barrier as an innate effect and calling it a day, because as above, that also creates a modicum of anti-synergy with the actual Dark Arts interaction.
Which I mentioned previously, and again, went unanswered.

Enhanced Unmend amounts to 10 Blood Gauge for an entire encounter, if you don't get put on a threat table before take the Plunge. You're also creating an instant double-weave for activating BW.
(But seriously, can we at least rename it Enhanced Plunge II or something, using the Unmend name when you redefined it to have nothing to do with Unmend makes me think you have it proc off opening with a spell GCD.)

I see what you meant now. Thank you.

1.The problem with weaving mitigation is that you have to weave TBN + Oblation + Dark Mind and maybe more. What I meant to say was for:
->TBN and Oblation to be separate CDs. TBN with the shield. Oblation with a stronger damage reduction, somewhat taking the role of Dark Mind.
I did re think and it makes sense for TBN to be a separate CD from Oblation. But Dark Mind and Oblation do not make sense, it should be just Oblation with a stronger ( 15% - 20% dmg reduction ).

2. The Dark Mind I mentioned would convert all shielding into healing for 15 seconds. This means you can burn a TBN and heal yourself. Furthermore if you use TBN, wait for 5-6 seconds just as its running out and then use Dark Mind, you can use 2 TBN's within 10 seconds, healing yourself for 50%. The 10% ( or slightly higher ) healing bonus is there to help healers heal you. Of course shield healers may already have shields on you, case in which they will be converted into healing.

3. The plunge trait could just make it so that whenever you plunge you get 10 blood. This would synergize fairly well with using Enhanced unmend to make sure your GCD spins on downtime, and it would encourage watching the plunge CD.

3.1 I did think on Dark Mind a little more and after I have played DRK for so many hours, I realized that what it needs is in fact just regens. It could be made so that when used it grants you a massive regen but uses up a Dark Arts. Dark Arts is granted by breaking TBN. No free edge/flood. You can have stacks of Dark Arts. Or perhaps it uses a portion of DarkSide ( the timer you get +30s of when using Edge/Flood ).

Also, a quality of life I think would be nice, would be for TBN to cost less MP ( 1500 ) and the Dark Arts buff you get from breaking it, could grant that the next Edge/Flood costs 1500MP instead of 3000MP. This would be a massive quality of life because in your 2 minute / 1 minute burst you always end up on ~1k MP if played optimally. What do you do if a tank buster comes immediately after? You do not have enough MP. Of course, you could delay that one Edge and use it outside of raid buffs, but you end up losing out on damage. It also ensures you do not over cap on MP when starting your 1 or 2 minutes burst when you have an Dark Arts stored since you will have to use the free Edge first then another one to reduce your MP as it is now.

[HyperiusUltima]

Snip.

Maybe consider not putting more blood on our abilities? We already have a steady gain every 30s as is, so I don't think it'd be a good idea to focus so much on resources even when trying to change DRK's kit. While yes, DRK needs sustain, it needs a proper sustain - not something you just slap on there like WAR does with Bloodwhetting and just straight up self-Benediction(which is still pretty broken imo). The other idea for TBN granting half MP cost would screw up our MP economy quite a bit, esp. since we tend to hold our DA Edge for burst or when we put our next TBN up last time I checked since it's a 3000 MP pay ahead. Halving the MP is basically the same effect but worse.

Your version of Dark Mind causes issues for Shield Healers in particular who mitigate the damage thinking this way. If you use Dark Mind when a Tank Buster is coming up and it's Physical, OOPS! I got rid of my shield and now I'm dead because I didn't have enough mitigation to cover it. I would prefer that we don't push them in that direction and instead just replace Dark Mind with something that works in tandem with DRK's kit in general since it's an archaic relic of HW. DRK just needs a 3rd generalized mitigation to apply to itself to match the other tanks and it'll feel better in terms of survivability(sans sustain, which we'll get to in a second).

I've been trying to wrap my head around how to deal with DRK's dilemma given how much of an issue it is just to stay alive during pulls(TBN cracks in large pulls VERY QUICKLY). AD has a stupid cooldown and is tied to C&S, so it's unreliable except for burst heal situations on 5+, and to top it off the only attack that actually heals you is Souleater(it's garbage). In general: Why don't we just bake in healing to the AoE combo? Not as a trait, just in general. It'd make DRK's survivability far greater in dungeons, since in ST DRK doesn't have as hard a time outside of needing a heal here or there that the healer can provide. If it's not enough, then simply just follow what the other tanks are doing: Give Oblation a Regen effect. All Tanks generally get their regen/recovery effect at 82 or so, so let DRK follow that path too. It may be "homogenization", but DRK desperately needs it to be able to operate without requiring the skill floor it already has when playing the job.

[ItsUrBoi]

Maybe consider not putting more blood on our abilities? We already have a steady gain every 30s as is, so I don't think it'd be a good idea to focus so much on resources even when trying to change DRK's kit. While yes, DRK needs sustain, it needs a proper sustain - not something you just slap on there like WAR does with Bloodwhetting and just straight up self-Benediction(which is still pretty broken imo). The other idea for TBN granting half MP cost would screw up our MP economy quite a bit, esp. since we tend to hold our DA Edge for burst or when we put our next TBN up last time I checked since it's a 3000 MP pay ahead. Halving the MP is basically the same effect but worse.

Your version of Dark Mind causes issues for Shield Healers in particular who mitigate the damage thinking this way. If you use Dark Mind when a Tank Buster is coming up and it's Physical, OOPS! I got rid of my shield and now I'm dead because I didn't have enough mitigation to cover it. I would prefer that we don't push them in that direction and instead just replace Dark Mind with something that works in tandem with DRK's kit in general since it's an archaic relic of HW. DRK just needs a 3rd generalized mitigation to apply to itself to match the other tanks and it'll feel better in terms of survivability(sans sustain, which we'll get to in a second).

How would a 1500MP TBN mess up with the MP economy? If anything it'd make it better because you do not have to have 3000MP to mitigate, you only need 1500MP. And you still keep the bonus equal, but its so much more comfy when you need to mitigate, just from the perspective of you have ~4000MP and are doing burst, right now , you cannot use an edge if a tank buster is coming, but with the change you could. And it won't affect your DPS negatively, like it does now.

I am pretty sure that having a stronger Oblation ( 15 - 20% ) along with Shadow Wall and being full HP, is enough for a tank buster. Besides , why would you use it when taking a tank buster? Its purpose should be to solve the DRK sustain issue, where you are eaten alive by auto attacks and cannot heal Living Dead ( or even contribute to it ).

There surely are other ways to deal with this, however I only thought of mentioning the issues I have with DRK as a Savage/Ultimate raider:
-> Too many buttons to mitigate. TBN or Oblation should be enough, and one of them slightly stronger. Having to double weave for 8 GCDs, and also weave in defenses...
-> Having mitigation tied to damage, reduces your current strength , which is dps.
-> Living Dead , Blood Weapon.
-> Dark Mind is ok to mitigate with, but its one more button that offers rotational mitigation, Oblation should do that. Also, you cannot recover from a tank buster. It should address that.