Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

Well, then don't use Ninja as such a literal framework.

I did not mean to imply a literal copy-over of its framework. I'd already argue that Ten, Chi, and Jin should optionally replace Spinning Blade, Gust Blade, and Aeolian Edge upon Ninjutsu's initial activation (since bunnying prevents use of weaponskills during that time anyways).

Rather, my concern was that you'd usually want at least three symbols. If you want to build that from a single-combo job, you simply replace that 1-2-3 combo with them. If you add a further combo, though, you'd probably want to keep going until you hit 3. And then you'd want at least two available through AoE. Etc., etc.

Finally, if you go more Sen-style, ordinal or otherwise, but those don't feel distinct in themselves though, you're going through all that effort just to see the difference only upon hitting that 'super-finisher', which could take a good 22.5 seconds or so.

Please understand that I'm just whipping this up in a hurry, it's not meant to be a 'final concept' that's locked in granite:

Understood, understood.

A further question though, albeit it based off the first spitball idea on the three glyphs:

Does it feel sufficient to you to vary these combos primarily just off of their DA resource generated? If you'd like to more to each Dark-Sam combo, what do you imagine you'd do for their individual effects outside of their (ordinal/ordered) Sen granted?

Else, you'd here be adding 5 new GCDs (3 new finishers, 1 new opener, and 2 converted skills), but DA-Iaijutusu aside, they would seem mostly the same skill, just giving a different Sen / rune / glyph / "sticker". (This, by the way, is what I was I meant to refer to above in the buttons likely necessary to situate such a system -- not a separate need for each discrete 'code' button.)

This would seem especially noticeable if each glyph had its own 1-minute lockout, such that you just cycle between each once per 20-22.5 (9 GCDs pre-Haste) seconds, rather than much being able to flex that per your desire for any of those particular effects.



My $0.02 in summary:

• I like the idea of having a sort of second-tier finisher in the form of Dark Arts (or whatever rename). This all looks pretty cool, especially as an avenue to explore further.
  
  
• Spitball: I'd especially like the idea of building up buffs that sort of represent some (pre-DRK-pilled or what have you) belief or value held before sacrificing it for a highly changed non-removable buff (or debuff-as-net-benefit for more obvious symbolic identity). The timing should feel crucial and the risk-reward element significant.
  
  
• If we are to spend some 9 buttons just on combo GCDs --a count greater even than on DRG or SAM-- I'd really like for those combos to do something distinct in themselves, rather than just forming which 2nd-tier finisher we start with (in much the way that BRD songs, limited by their individual CDs, now work mostly just as a one-time choice in which goes first/fourth/seventh, which goes second/fifth/eighth, etc.).
  
  
• Blood Meikyo sounds fun, honestly, but what other synergetic skill effects might we use here to avoid stepping on SAM/MNK's toes, if we wished to avoid that?