Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

And, as for this, there's always the Mudra/Ninjutsu middle ground. You could put it on the GCD, at very rapid-fire recast times.

Which I figured would be part of the ideal solution (either way it's coded as an Ability), my concern was more that with the significant skew we have towards oGCD output compared to other tanks, creating a window where we're locked out of using any other oGCDs at all for multiple seconds at a time could be... somewhat problematic to the design.

Which also creates a bit of an awkward position, because if the lockout periods are infrequent, we don't invalidate the existing oGCDs... but then lose the element of "shaking up the monotony of our rotation". It's a fine balance.

[Oizen]

In terms of short term changes for the job, I really hope that 6.2 brings a buff or change to Oblation.
The more I'm playing high end content on this job, the more and more I'm neglecting that skill entirely.

I've never seen its 10% mitigation be the difference maker in saving someone, and if I'm mitigating for myself, its almost always TBN + Shadow Wall, Rampart or Dark Mind.

I think the only time I've actively used it this tier is during the 2nd phase of P3S, and even that is entirely because I have it and its there, its not making my job any more comfortable.

[Archwizard]

In terms of short term changes for the job, I really hope that 6.2 brings a buff or change to Oblation.
The more I'm playing high end content on this job, the more and more I'm neglecting that skill entirely.

Yeah, agree. Considering how negligible it is, I expect that by 7.01 it'll either be significantly buffed, reworked, or replaced completely.
Although, "significant buff" is a relative term considering how small it is in the first place.

Granting, I feel the same way about LD -- something about its current state just reads to me as a holdover to get us to the next major patch cycle. In Oblation's case though, the job is already in need of some trimming, and as a decidedly unpopular and relatively inconsequential tool, I think it's near the top of the list to at least get rolled into another skill (probably either TBN or Dark Mind) if not chopped.

[Lyth]

@Archwizard: Movement is fundamental to tanks and melee, and any action that facilitates uptime is worth its weight in gold. DRK was the very first tank to ever have access to a gap closer, and it has historically been a very fast, agile job in this game. I find it strange to deliberately make the job slow and ponderous simply because a couple of games like Monster Hunter and Dark Souls have painted greatswords as clumsy, unwieldly weapons, especially when the series' legacy around the weapon has been the very opposite.

Having an ability that returns you to a preset point is not a 'unique' characteristic. If you take a game like Overwatch, were roughly a quarter to half of the ability budget is dedicated to movement alone, there are a couple of characters with this type of 'escape' move, yet they don't feel similar in the slightest.

I think that you can push the skill ceiling of a job significantly higher through the interaction of movement abilities with fight mechanics than you can with the target dummy rotation itself. There's always room for more.

The move that you've shown is aesthetically very similar to the Advent Children Omnislash scene that I referenced. It's kind of hard to do something cinematic like that given the standard GCD length, though. Perhaps having a channeled move is the solution?

@Shurrikan: No. You'd just consume a Dark Arts stack every time that you wanted to move through a higher potency combo, and gain Dark Arts stacks from your Edge/Flood/Shadowbringer uses. The only real advantage over the Bloodspiller approach is that it forces you to be a little smarter about how you time your oGCDs. In retrospect, I think I'd prefer to see them build on the Blood system instead.

[Shurrikhan]

@Shurrikan: No. You'd just consume a Dark Arts stack every time that you wanted to move through a higher potency combo, and gain Dark Arts stacks from your Edge/Flood/Shadowbringer uses.

Right, but is that per combo step or per combo activation, and what is the imagined maximum number of stacks one could hold?

Since there are "stacks" involved, I would assume at least two, but would 2 stacks amount to some 6 GCDs, or 2 GCDs? Because those would provide very different gameplay impressions. That's all I'm asking.

The only real advantage over the Bloodspiller approach is that it forces you to be a little smarter about how you time your oGCDs. In retrospect, I think I'd prefer to see them build on the Blood system instead.

Is "them" the devs or these new Dark Arts stacks? And what is "the Bloodspiller approach" against which this is being compared? The "(every) Bloodspiller combos into Torcleaver" one?

[Lyth]

I think that it would need to be one stack per GCD step, not per combo. Otherwise you would probably overcap during your opener unless the gauge capacity was very large, especially if Shadowbringer gives two stacks.

'Them' refers to the devs. It would be nice if the Blood system offered more than it does presently, so if I had a choice between seeing a combo system built around Blood vs. one built around the Dark Arts gauge element, it's probably better to expand on the former.

[Shurrikhan]

I think that it would need to be one stack per GCD step, not per combo. Otherwise you would probably overcap during your opener unless the gauge capacity was very large, especially if Shadowbringer gives two stacks.

'Them' refers to the devs. It would be nice if the Blood system offered more than it does presently, so if I had a choice between seeing a combo system built around Blood vs. one built around the Dark Arts gauge element, it's probably better to expand on the former.

Thanks for the clarification.

Personally, I'd rather have more control over the combo and its timings, and at this point, I do feel like Edge is much more thematically central to DRK gameplay than Bloodspiller, so I'd rather go with the Edge/Flood/Shadowbringer-built combos, but I can see the merit in either.

[baklava151]

Lv. 96 Blood Armor: Upgrades Dark Mind. % Damage reduction progressively increases with every attack performed or received while active. Ending the buff restores HP based on accumulated resistance.

Running with this, we could move this effect to Oblation instead to make it more interesting, and have it give a barrier for each hit done. I think they could lean into DRK being more of a barrier tank that way rather than simply reducing damage.

[Lyth]

I'm partial to flat damage shields myself, so I would actually have a lot more fun with Oblation if was a bubble. I don't think the damage reduction mechanic that I described works with that concept, though, unless the shield triggers at the end of the duration all at once like a 'defensive Wildfire' of sorts. You could very easily do it with %DR mitigation, though.

I was thinking of the description from the DRK quest series:
'As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...'

[baklava151]

I'm partial to flat damage shields myself, so I would actually have a lot more fun with Oblation if was a bubble. I don't think the damage reduction mechanic that I described works with that concept, though, unless the shield triggers at the end of the duration all at once like a 'defensive Wildfire' of sorts. You could very easily do it with %DR mitigation, though.

I was thinking of the description from the DRK quest series:
'As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted...'

Yeah I wasn't sure if it would be better to have the shield build up with each hit or have it come all at once at the end. It'd be interesting though since it would take some fight knowledge to use effectively.