Dark Knight Megathread

[AziraSyuren]

If they were to go the old Dark Arts route of having it confer alternate effects to skills as well as raw potency, those alternate effects would still have to result in something DPS neutral if timed right or executed properly. In essence, they'd have to double down on TBN's design. I don't think that's a bad thing- I'd much rather it be a central theme to a job than simply one mechanic that doesn't fit in when compared to others of its ilk like TBN is now- it's just an idea.

They could even reuse the Living Dead thing where you have to get a certain return on self-healing to get a refund for your resources. That might be pretty cool.

[baklava151]

If that's coming at cost to the free Edge/Flood, then we'd have to actively avoid using Bloodspiller/Quietus until having used DA on Edge/Flood. Even some 600 potency of healing isn't going to be worth losing 460 ST or 160 AoE potency for.

So long as something is sufficiently bankable, its timing is an active choice (sometimes favoring raid buffs, sometimes favoring the reduced chance of a DF healer panicking and using a GCD heal). Locking the heals behind TBN, moreover, means making that healing far less responsive, something you may have to prep up to 8s in advance.

I wasn't clear, that's based on the convo a few pages back about bringing old DA back but having it affect abilities in ways other than straight potency increases. It'd definitely be a bad idea on current DRK

[RyuDragnier]

Yeah, anything that's a potency increase is a bad idea currently. Hell, MP cost on DA is a bad idea currently due to the loss of Edge uses. So it'd be better as a charge system with charges coming back rather rapidly (think 15-20s recharges).

[Nosaji_]

It could be cool to have DA turn Souleater into a lower potency Scourge, maybe make the DoT syphon health to you, nothing insane but maybe around the level of Salted Earth's heal in PvP.
Again like PvP, Plunge could apply Sole Survivor with DA- Sure it would be blatantly better than a regular Plunge but it'd be situational.

Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth could be merged, remove the heal from the regular cast and make it drop the puddle, but with DA have it turn into the old Tar Pit from PvP which was a circle AoE based on you that healed based on the damage it did.
DA Salt and Darkness could apply a blind to any trash mobs in it a la Dark Passenger.

There's a lot of cool shit they could do if they brought it back.

[SoulSamurai]

I think it would be interesting to dump quietus and bloodspiller and use

Abyssal Drain- 500pot dmg/heal to target 200 dmg/heal to remaining targets

CnS- same as maybe a potency buff is needed

So you get to choose which option you want to use and being a 3 stack you can choose at which points you want to aoe heal in dungeon or, the heal will be strong enough for solo content and progression as an emergency heal. If you want more DPS you have CnS to use as a damage ability and another way to return MP. It would be essentially a on steroid version of their natural combo but could be tailored to the choice of what they want, heals or mana/DPS. This would also still be on GCD so the potencies may need to be changed but this would add some interesting things to the rotation and burst phase. And most importantly... continue the lore of 'draining' abilities.

[baklava151]

Yeah, anything that's a potency increase is a bad idea currently. Hell, MP cost on DA is a bad idea currently due to the loss of Edge uses. So it'd be better as a charge system with charges coming back rather rapidly (think 15-20s recharges).

Alternatively, they could remove the MP cost from Edge, put it on a CD and move the Darkside increasing effect elsewhere. Like if I spitball a random idea, using DA on Souleater increases Darkside by 30 seconds.

[Shurrikhan]

I wasn't clear, that's based on the convo a few pages back about bringing old DA back but having it affect abilities in ways other than straight potency increases. It'd definitely be a bad idea on current DRK

Ahh, gotcha. My bad for not checking far back enough for context.

I'll toss my $0.03 into the old-DA hat, though:

Ideally, (A) make that DA not consume animation weave space (use your "Dark Passenger" / Shadow Self for it instead) as to feel less like it's cluttering your weave-space; (B) make it continue off of the most recent applicable action instead of having it augment your next applicable action, as to let it feel more responsive; and (C) avoid potency increases... unless --apart from the occasional rotational obligatory spender that you make sure to keep enough MP for, such as Carve and Spit-- they can truly be roughly equal in practice, with those nominally weaker spender options being situationally the strongest.

Examples (again, each involving hitting DA AFTER using the given skill, for a follow-up Shadow Self animation unique to each):

• After using Carve and Spit, you could hit it again on its cooldown (or a separate DA key if you want C&S to have multiple charges) in order to have your Shadow Self unleash a further flurry of blows.
• Dark Mind might initially last only a very short time, but if you hit it again while it's on cooldown, it consumes MP to extend its effect and add a further effect for which one needn't be especially responsive (such as gaining a bit of HP for each attack taken).
• Shadowskin replaces Rampart functioning as it did before, but you can re-use it to have each hit landed against you raise your Evasion (again, not an effect that needs to be activated so immediately).
• DA you Unleash to slow enemy movement and attack speed.
• DA your Stalwart Soul to fortify any existing shields based on damage dealt.
• DA your Souleater for extra healing, perhaps as a HoT.
• DA your Bloodspiller for a leech period.
• DA your Quietus for a brief buff that causes you to be healed whenever an enemy you've engaged dies.
• DA your Unmend to pull all enemies in a line between (and beyond) you and the target, up to Unmend's max range, towards you and suppress their damage dealt.
• DA your Syphon Strike to, in effect, bank MP (spending MP to generate a buff that generates that same amount of MP over time).
• Etc., etc.

All utility uses of MP.

[baklava151]

Might be interesting to make it Continuation, honestly not sure I have a preference one way or another. I'd only get worried that giving too many things a DA effect would make it easy to overwrite what you want on accident. Like say you pop Dark Mind, then CnS in the same weave space, but wanted the Dark Mind effect.

[Colt47]

Dark Knight feels like they wanted to have a tank that feels like it also is a DPS job, but then backed out on that direction in Shadowbringers to make it a Warrior Clone so it lost that feel to it. However, the direction of being a tank that feels like a dps is still kind of lingering so it ended up with having a lot of excess actions. Aesthetically they have the job nailed.

The only thing I can absolutely say is that Quietus and Delirium are my least favorite part of the job and would rather just have the entire thing removed from it along with how they setup Esteem. That setup copied too much from Warrior and esteem feels like it's tacked on for no reason. We could easily have had something where we just merge with esteem and have a cool aura around ourselves that enhances all our damage without having to go through some alternative rotation system. That would also make it a ton less bloated and open up space for the defense cooldowns.

Warrior doesn't even feel like it is going out of it's combo when it does infuriate compared to Dark Knight.

[Shurrikhan]

Might be interesting to make it Continuation, honestly not sure I have a preference one way or another. I'd only get worried that giving too many things a DA effect would make it easy to overwrite what you want on accident. Like say you pop Dark Mind, then CnS in the same weave space, but wanted the Dark Mind effect.

That's why I'd have the effect on the same button as the original activation, with a brief safety period, instead.

If you want CnS-Continuation, hit the CnS button again. If you want DM-Continuation, hit DM again.

The only reason to have a discrete DA button for continuing previous actions via DA would be if that action were repeatable (such that you'd have conflict between a successive use of the base form and its DA continuation).

Allow players to bind Dark Arts, but don't force them to do so. While bound to hotbar, GCD skills that could be used next GCD (e.g., a Bloodspiller with Delirium up or enough Blood Gauge to be used again) would use the discrete DA button instead. When it's not bound, they'd simply prefer successive uses over continuation via DA once within the queuing period (0.5 seconds) of GCD refresh.

And, of course, ensure that the DA ("DRK-Continuation") effects aren't something you vitally need to activate instantly.