Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

This blood enhances certain actions, allowing them to restore HP.

Okay, but... passively? Passively with proportionate bonus? Passive with bonus if over a threshold? Else, what are the means to actively consume it?

->Delirium is a Inner release copy, along with the blood gauge.

It's perhaps overly similar, yes, but note that it is also far more flexible. Adding little thematic differences to it like length or speed that would incidentally remove its unique affordances over Inner Release would do at least as much harm as good.

->Lack of anything to do in between burst windows.

Agreed.

A good example of an interactive job would be warrior. Despite its simplicity, well maximized gauge turns into fell cleaves which reduce the CD of infuriates which grant you more gauge and stronger attacks. That is not the case here.

Ehhhh. Now that Warrior can't overcap on Infuriate charge due to that skill having two charges, that hardly seems integral. The only "stronger attacks" it offers is those spenders themselves, so the builder in the spender and the spender is the builder.

You simply happen to get more gauge-value in the process of using gauge-value, effectively just receiving minor refunds. Infuriate is worth 50 gauge per 60s, so 5s of it is worth about 4.2 gauge. Effectively, each FC costs only ~45.8 gauge, and an IR FC costs -4.2 gauge.

There's not really any resource trade happening there, nor any interplay around bottlenecks (in trying to avoid overcapping the gauge generation through skillful use of Onslaught given one's GCDs of uptime, accounting ofc for SkS tiers, between IRs).

[ItsUrBoi]

DRK needs a bit less oGCDs and more GCDs.
Specifically looking at the low impact oGCDs like Living Shadow ( 1 button press every 2 mins, no interactions!, and Salted Earth 2 button presses every 90 seconds ).

Also here's 2 more ideas:
->Abyssal Drain/Carve and Spit costing DarkSide. They no longer share a cooldown, and Abyssal Drain has no CD.
->Abyssal Drain is not bad in design but needs to be larger in radius so it catches more mobs, around 10y would be fine, its currently just 5y. Its healing potency could also be, higher at 300, even with the damage lowered to 100.

[Shurrikhan]

How is it more flexible? I know on EW release any GCD would use an IR stack which wasn't true for Delirium, so WAR was locked into using Fell Cleave once they activated IR, but they fixed that in 6.1.

Ahh, that's right, nevermind. A WAR somewhere must have complained (albeit rightly, in this case) and quickly got the Delirium treatment there too.
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->Abyssal Drain is not bad in design but needs to be larger in radius so it catches more mobs, around 10y would be fine, its currently just 5y.

While I wouldn't be particularly opposed to a bit more range, AD can already consistently hit everything so long as you're not trying to tank from the center of a ring of mobs (which would screw over all caster and their target-centered circular AoEs).

A 5-yalm range is already the same as every circular AoE (target-centered or caster-centered) in the game. Just make sure you're aiming at the center of the pack. You need only an infinitesimally small portion of the enemies' hit-rings to overlap with that area of effect. It typically hits more than it would appear to.
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Now, personally, I prefer a strong and bankable Abyssal (i.e., two charges on 40s recast, which offers a flex cast per 2min cycle) over a [even if costly] spammable one, simply because the prior is still relatively free and needn't consume too much sustain budget on the basis of its maximum practical performance, but either path sounds like an improvement.

I also agree that we want fewer dead keys, so to speak (like the fire-and-forget 2min Living Shadow or even the twice-cast-per-90s Salted Earth -- though the latter is technically better in that regard than current Carve and Spit... let alone CnS/AD as a pairing, which at 2 buttons for a press per minute is no more efficient than Living Shadow).

[ItsUrBoi]

Now, personally, I prefer a strong and bankable Abyssal (i.e., two charges on 40s recast, which offers a flex cast per 2min cycle) over a [even if costly] spammable one, simply because the prior is still relatively free and needn't consume too much sustain budget on the basis of its maximum practical performance, but either path sounds like an improvement.

I agree. Charges on Abyssal Drain would be very nice. Here's another idea: When completing a combo with Stalwart soul , reduce the CD of Abyssal Drain by 5 seconds.

I'd like to further point out the issues with Dark Mind and Oblation. One works only for magic, one is very weak. Please merge take the damage reduction, or at least a part of it, from Dark Mind and put it into Oblation, and change Dark Mind to something more interesting or that functions in synergy with your defenses.

An example would be to change Dark Mind to a new ability that increases shielding, or converts darkside into healing. You have an abundance of darkside, so using it for something would be amazing!

[baklava151]

It's perhaps overly similar, yes, but note that it is also far more flexible. Adding little thematic differences to it like length or speed that would incidentally remove its unique affordances over Inner Release would do at least as much harm as good.

How is it more flexible? I know on EW release any GCD would use an IR stack which wasn't true for Delirium, so WAR was locked into using Fell Cleave once they activated IR, but they fixed that in 6.1.