Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

In my head, the idea that 'dark knight ramps up their attack speed over time, like they fight harder and faster the longer they fight' seems a really neat concept if executed properly.

Perhaps they could lean into that as a rotation that caps out with some kind of finisher? Building levels of speed before needing to finish it off and reset or 'rest', then ramping up again.

I've proposed something very similar before, with manually entered Darkside phases ramping up from each Edge use to increase both, positively, Attack Speed and Damage, and negatively, Darkside's drain rate, such that you want to time your phases to cap out on that buff with less than a second left on the timer (just enough time for a final nuke oGCD like CnS).

The problem, of course, as Eorzea has mentioned, is the 'tyranny of raid timers', so to speak. Without something compensatory, of our own making, that pacing isn't something we control so we are controlled by it -- and thereby forced to engage with at optimized timings:

Enter Darkside when timer has at least X seconds stored (which, in perfect uptime at ideal SkS, will be T-A seconds); first Edge at T-B seconds; second Edge at T-C seconds; third Edge at... etc., etc.

I guess my main question (for anyone/everyone), then, is what might we do that could create situations or events that could more worthwhile anchors for our bankable skills and resources than are raid CDs?

Naturally, that would require that their advantages are more potent than a certain degree of raid buffs.

That has a couple new problems, of course, if DRK's bankable/flexible skills and resources don't exceed what they can use for their own anchors/windows outside of CD alignments: When raid buffs are too few or weak, those raid buff windows become irrelevant and the job loses that gameplay; and, when raid buffs are too many or powerful, DRK's own anchors may lose relevance and therefore cost DRK that play. So, we'd probably ultimately need to give DRK a bit more to work with there (which is nebulous in that there are so many ways to go about that, including even just expanding particular oGCD's cooldowns, like Edge/Flood's, as not to be all dumped into a single of DRK's own new windows).

:: To be clear, though, I'm all for the ramping, pace-varying, "risk-reward focused" DRK. That's what I wanted most from DRK when it came out, and I've only come to want it more over time.