Dark Knight Megathread

[Nosaji_]

Compare other jobs' branching combos:
WAR's branching combo either gives instant damage and resources, OR extends the duration of a damage buff that facilitates the former.
PLD's branching combo either gives instant damage and resources, OR applies a DoT to the target that's more potent overall than the former.
In both of these cases, there is an element of necessity enforced by time: to use the latter combo more than strictly necessary to maintain their status effects is a damage loss compared to using the other combo finisher, but failure to maintain those status effects in favor of spamming the alternative combo is also a loss of damage

If DRK was to have the 600mp on Syphon Strike taken away and moved to an alternate finisher, it would be made necessary to do that finisher to regain MP in order to maintain Darkside and also use your main mitigation tool, I'd say that's enough incentive to use it. I did say that it'd need to have lower potency since, with Warrior at least, the actual damage loss from using Storm's Eye over Path is that you get less gauge, they both do the same amount of damage. But MP isn't used for Bloodspiller, which does do higher damage than Edge, but not by a lot.

Honestly I think Edge being a 1 second recast and having such a high potency compared to Bloodspiller is kinda dumb considering it gives DRK's 10% buff and doesn't have the downside that Storm's Eye does. It's also not exactly engaging just spamming it during bursts or to avoid overcapping, it feels quite bloaty to me. Warrior is meant to spend gauge rather than use Storm's Eye over Path to avoid overcapping, while DRK has to... spend their gauge to avoid overcapping, but in the process, refresh their buff :/

So yeah, Edge being what it is seems to be root of the problem that should be addressed, rather than just slapping on a second finisher.

As I said, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it, just trying to think of a rough idea of how they could liven up the time between bursts a bit. I think the best alternative would be something like Scourge from your mockup, DRK could probably do without a constant upkeep effect- but I'd be surprised if they did something like that

Although if they did remove the MP cost from TBN then all of that stuff about an MP finisher would be complete garbage- but I wouldn't complain >.>

[Shurrikhan]

If DRK was to have the 600mp on Syphon Strike taken away and moved to an alternate finisher, it would be made necessary to do that finisher to regain MP in order to maintain Darkside and also use your main mitigation tool, I'd say that's enough incentive to use it. I did say that it'd need to have lower potency since, with Warrior at least, the actual damage loss from using Storm's Eye over Path is that you get less gauge, they both do the same amount of damage. But MP isn't used for Bloodspiller, which does do higher damage than Edge, but not by a lot.

I agree, for the most part. Just don't forget that Bloodspiller will have to be more than an Edge's worth of damage more than combos' average ppgcd.

In practice, we'd essentially...

• involve the second combo through Surging Tempest (but with an extra step),
  
  
• receive a bit more penalty from unbroken TBNs (though, such is pretty easily avoided anyways, so that's no huge factor), and
  
  
• need to siphon some potency from Edges to Bloodspillers and/or to reduce Bloodspiller/Quietus's relative Blood costs.

Is that an improvement? Yeah, sure. Having Darkside actually be a mechanic, even a copied one, is better than a non-mechanic.

A significant improvement? Honestly, no idea. It would depend on how you define "significant"?

[Archwizard]

If DRK was to have the 600mp on Syphon Strike taken away and moved to an alternate finisher, it would be made necessary to do that finisher to regain MP in order to maintain Darkside and also use your main mitigation tool, I'd say that's enough incentive to use it.

So here you run into two new issues:

1. How many GCDs are you spending generating the Darkside buff? Because those are GCDs necessarily being taken away from Blood Gauge.
2. Is the decision-making here esoteric to the point casual players need to look up a guide to understand how to play the job at a basic level, or may end up suffering choice paralysis when faced with a branching combo?

[Shurrikhan]

1. How many GCDs are you spending generating the Darkside buff? Because those are GCDs necessarily being taken away from Blood Gauge.

Though this compensatory step is absolutely necessary, it seems decently easy to deal with.

2. Is the decision-making here esoteric to the point casual players need to look up a guide to understand how to play the job at a basic level, or may end up suffering choice paralysis when faced with a branching combo?

That seems unlikely. If Edge maintains buff and MP gen allows for Edges enough to maintain said buff, that seems little to offer little more choice paralysis than WAR's Surging Tempest.

In MP, you'd have both a maintenance [Darkside] and banking consideration [banked Edges], while Blood offers both a strict marginal/milestone consideration [Living Shadow] and a subtler banking consideration alike to Edge-banking [Bloodspiller casts].

I still can't say as of yet whether that would be a significant improvement, but it does seem pretty straightforward.