Dark Knight Megathread

[Raidriar]

snip

1) That's fair. I was just thinking about how tedious it is to double weave defensives while doubling weaving offensives but if oblation was just... better, that'd make sense, too.

2)Also true! I'd be fine with a barrier wizard, too, but I believe it was mathed that in even in a raid setting, it's technically weaker (on its own) than the other tanks' new special defensives (on their own). I don't know. I enjoy DRK but I definitely feel like a gap in the tool kit.

3) As someone who's mained DRK since the dawn of time, I don't really want a rework anymore. I just want my tool kit to be as well rounded as the other three (even if its done different).

EITHER WAY! I appreciate you taking time out your day to provide me some additional insight!

[Archwizard]

Well, some good news at least: Abyssal Drain is finally a gain on 3+ targets.

Not sure how the new changes will affect Living Shadow (or Automaton Queen for that matter).

[RyuDragnier]

So a damage buff on Abyssal Drain, but not a cure potency buff, nothing done with Enhanced Unmend, nothing done with Oblation...ugh.

[Oizen]

Its about as bare minimum of a change you can make to a class.

And it seems like the Living Shadow change will hopefully mean it comes out faster and not drift into the sunset and miss every raidbuff?
Its either a decent change or a confusing one. The single target potency is the exact same as it was before, and a slight potency nerf to its AOE damage, which in all honestly is already really hard to even use in the first place.

[Crater]

Well, some good news at least: Abyssal Drain is finally a gain on 3+ targets.

Not sure how the new changes will affect Living Shadow (or Automaton Queen for that matter).

It's basically:

+ Living Shadow deals the same single-target potency (2250) but in a smaller window of time (from ~18s down to ~14s, assuming the ~6s windup remains unchanged). Hypothetically, that means that you can get its full potency into a 15s raid buff window.

- Living Shadow loses 300 AoE potency with the loss of Quietus. This is somewhat mitigated by (Living Shadow's) Shadowbringer being increased from 450 to 500 potency, and from Abyssal Drain being raised by 90 potency. Over a two minute cycle, that's a loss of 70 AoE potency, and it's a significant reduction in even-minute burst AoE damage (160 less AoE potency during Living Shadow) though a small increase in odd-minute AoE burst (90 more potency on AD).


Overall, no substantial changes, which is more or less fine. It's all minutiae and the difference will be pretty imperceptible to almost everybody, other than Living Shadow maybe feeling slightly more beefy while it's out and fitting a little better with raid buffs.

[Malthir]

So now with the buff to warriors and gunbreaker damage there's literally never a time to pick a dark knight for a raid............. Great job balance team 10/10 time to let sub lapse till they actually sort the class.

[baklava151]

Pretty neutral with this changes. The AD buff is whatever, the Living Shadow change fits it more comfortably in raid buffs and fixes the rare issue of it aggroing the wrong target so I guess it's a positive.

The Bloodfest change has me wondering if Salted Earth is gonna follow suit, I think that and Riddle of Wind (lol) are the only 90s damage CDs left in the game

[LoadedVirus]

I think it is fairly safe to say that Dark Knight will not be getting any sustain buffs, basically you will suffer and you will LIKE it.

[CKNovel]

So now with the buff to warriors and gunbreaker damage there's literally never a time to pick a dark knight for a raid............. Great job balance team 10/10 time to let sub lapse till they actually sort the class.

I disagree.
Gunbreaker lost 1/4 of Bloodfest usage, the buff just compensate for this. And it's just 10 and 20 potency on the main combo, not meta breaker.
Sure GNB will benefits more from burst phase but DRK is still insanely good with raid buffs.

I think a lot of people underestimate the value of Dark Knight's kit.

While Dark Mind is limited to magic damage, most tank buster so far have been magical. Its 60s CD would also make it broken if other tanks didn't had their 25s CD.
Oblation, while 10% seems low, is lifesaving in content where heavy mitigation is needed. It's been a blessing during DSR prog.
And today, Living Dead is one of the best tank invuln. Due to its lower cooldown it's better than Bolide or Hallowed Ground.

The changes to Bloodweapon makes DRK a very flexible tank when it comes to burst phase.

Of course DRK has the worst survivability out of all the tanks but it excels in mitigation, flexibility and damage.
The best thing DRK could get is a healing potency on Abyssal drain and a rework of Enhanced Unmend.

[Oizen]

DRK will be perfectly fine in raid content.

I think its just disappointing that they're so dedicated to homogenizing all the tanks Damage outputs and completely neglecting their defensive capabilities, you know the thing that defines tanks.