Should Dark Knight get a Rework?

[Oizen]

Carve and Spit always had the problem that it was pointless in most aoe situations. Sure, if you needed the burst of MP it was useful and maybe in Shadowbringers that could contribute to part of a Flood of Shadow, but it wasn't really worth it, especially when trash would die quickly most of the time. It was worth saving for the real enemy, the boss, that you were about to fight.

Meanwhile, Abyssal Drain was pretty useless on a single target. The potency per second wasn't good on a single target and nor was the heal. It made a lot of sense for them to do this, but I admit I found it annoying to get used to and didn't even notice at first until it felt like they were both weaving together too easily.

I haven't, because they still have the standard tools that all tanks have there, such as Shadow Wall, Rampart, Reprisal, Arm's Length and Low Blow. It's even better now that their invuln is useful. One thing that I find helps is to use raid food, because the vitality doesn't sync properly and the health boost helps, so that might make me bias.

It's not like Paladin has it much better. They just have a Sheltron and random blocks, with no self heals at all unless they use Clemency. Even if DRK has it worse below level 70, PLD actually has it worse at level 70 because their abilities do not compete with The Blackest Night.

C&S is a use on cooldown ogcd
Abyssal drain is something you hold until you need healing.

The reason why I have to bring it up is because any time I talk about buffing Abyssal I have to address the fact they pointlessly attached their cooldowns together. Carve is fine as a 60s CD ogcd.
Abyssal honestly could see its heal potency doubled and its cooldown reduced to 30s and it would still be nothing compared to Bloodwhetting.

I get that people get upset if you talk about seperating them because it would make DRK burst even higher, I just don't really care about that. I want DRK to have a decent self heal tool in dungeons again, instead of not even being a job until lv 70.

[Soge01]

I'd just like to see Abyssal Drain restored to what it used to be.
Its not the AOE version of Carve and Spit and SE was stupid for trying to make it that, and honestly I've been finding DRK to be an absolute nightmare to play in lv 60-70 content due to how much its lacking all the defensive tools its lost from that area. There are lv 60 dungeons where DRK honestly cannot do anything except pull a single pack at a time, it feels awful.

If SE ever decides to address this issue (they wont) I hope they focus on lv60 or lower skills and not add traits to Oblation or TBN.
Focus on thngs like Abyssal Drain or even Dark Mind honestly, or god forbid return some of its missing tools that it used to have to get through this content.

It felt so damn good back in HW and StB to use Abyssal Drain on a large pack of enemies and watch your HP almost fill up. Heck, I miss the way we could restore our HP period on DRK! It felt so freaking satisfying!

[Midareyukki]

Figurative language and semantics and such but... Dark Passenger was only a 30s CD, and was your most efficient use of MP after DA-C&S. Compared against the likes of Shadowbringer or C&S, you used it pretty often. It didn't give MP until after it stopped being a GCD (and not for a long while even then).

on Dark Passenger, it's a joke, dw. Basically rarely do people talk about DP
As for AD giving MP, yes. That's the point. It gives MP now, and that's the only thing it has in common with C&S in terms of effects. Because C&S is there for burst windows of damage that line up every minute, be they major or not. Abyssal Drain is a large AoE skill that provides sustainability.

Again, Abyssal Drain could not remain a GCD without killing Unleash.
Abyssal Drain could not remain at at-will AoE spender without killing Flood, which the ShB DRK dev(s) was/were apparently very attached to.
The only choice remaining was for AD to be on CD, whether as a GCD or an oGCD. Since it includes healing, they went with the more responsive option, an oGCD.
That's it. There was no confusion about what purpose it was primarily supposed to serve. Abyssal Drain itself did not heal. Dark Arts did. Most times you hit that skill was not for healing, but simply because AD dealt a third more damage than Unleash.

Uh... then I played DRK wrong because I basically only ever used it for healing. I know it took a Dark Arts use for it to work, which was expensive, but it felt well-worth it. But we had tools to easily get MP back, I never, ever, had MP issues on DRK doing that. Both on SB and HSW. And right now, it looks like a super expensive version of Bloodwhetting.

I get that they didn't want to kill other skills. But right now, when compared to other tanks, Abyssal Drain is the answer we have for sustainability. Because TBN sure isn't it; it's mitigation and it's a very strong shield, I won't lie. BUT it's not sustainability. Abyssal Drain can be on a cooldown, sure, and it should be. You're not meant to spam it, and not even WARs spam Bloodwhetting. They have a cooldown between each cast of it, and it "only" lasts 3 GCDs. But that's what Abyssal Drain should do. It shouldn't be something you do at will, yeah. I agree. But it being on a 60s cooldown just because it's tied to C&S is too much for what it does on an AoE pull. Especially when compared to other tanks.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. "Ok well, we can't have that, TBN and Oblation at the same time". And naturally we can't. I'm speaking in a vaccum, bc I'm not a dev and whatever input I have is going to be "whatever". Obviously adjustments must be made, and I'm not the best indicated for those. But DRKs should have some sustainability on AoE, and it being on a 1m long cooldown isn't exactly the best :x Because even with TBN and Oblation, DRK is still considered the squishiest tank. That's what all the other comments from other people so far have been saying.

I'm not actually sure what you intend to mean by "an equivalent". If combos are in the picture, we have an ST self-heal combo in Souleater. Else, if we wanted to equivalently allow MP spending to provide eHP as before, then the most direction would be to thus empower Edge and Flood while probably just axing AD outright.

Whether we do or not is kind of irrelevant... WAR doesn't have one on its AoE kit, but it does have Bloodwhetting which does it for them. Abyssal Drain used to be the equivalent: it was our AoE sustain. Carve and Spit was in no way attached to it whatsoever, and there's no good justification for it. Because, ok fine, they are now. But they weren't before, and doing that led to AD losing its purpose.

The equivalence was because I keep mentioning how we have skills that do similar things on single-target and on AoE. Well, as you said, Souleater is our sustaining combo on ST. Abyssal Drain was MP-unfriendly, but it still allowed you to spam it if you were on top of your cooldown game. But Carve and Spit? What does that have to do with AD? Why did they join the two?

And well, the use of the word "equivalent" is less for you, and more for Jeeqbit, which is where all this started. Because there's no need for AD to have a use in single-target content, just as much as Xenoglossy no longer has a use in single-target rotations, how Shoha II doesn't have a use in single-target rotations... Like. They don't have to. And that's fine. You wouldn't use Decimate in single-target. Some stuff is for ST fights, others are for AoE. The real issue comes with the practical use for each skill. C&S makes sense to be on a minute-long cooldown. AD makes sense to have a cooldown longer than Bloodwhetting bc of TBN and Oblation, but 1m long isn't it.

[Shurrikhan]

Abyssal drain is something you hold until you need healing.

You should still typically be trying to use it as soon as you can in dungeons, as it recharges that much faster. Better to delay Shadow Wall slightly and let yourself get nuked down to what AD won't overheal than to hold AD for until you're on your last legs.

As for AD giving MP, yes. That's the point. It gives MP now, and that's the only thing it has in common with C&S in terms of effects.

And that they are damage CDs. Which is also the only thing in common between every other AoE-ST shared CD/Resource pairing.

Because C&S is there for burst windows of damage that line up every minute, be they major or not. Abyssal Drain is a large AoE skill that provides sustainability.

AD is still a damage CD. Yes, anything with AoE in this game gets downgraded to content doable while wasted beyond belief, but... you should be popping AD under raid buffs, as with any other damage CD. If that means shuffling longer mitigations CDs back/around slightly as not to overheal, so be it, but --like Dark Passenger and Shadowbringer and resource spending in general (including AD spam in the past)-- it should be done under buffs where possible. I know it doesn't feel like that much since it's been so squished to make room for Shadowbringer and the frequency of Flood, but it is likewise a damage CD.

Uh... then I played DRK wrong because I basically only ever used it for healing.

The portion of Unleash to AD, and when to switch from one to the other, was pretty entwined with Grit and thereby Blood Price (which could only be used in Grit during Stormblood). You tended to blow enough Unleash while Grit was still active to cover for using only AD thereafter, aiming to drop Grit with resources still high going into Blood Weapon so that DA-Quietus could refund its own Blood cost. With high enough mob counts you could use that to refund the MP costs of DA-AD (about a third of your MP per cast), but spending more than you needed to on healing would ultimately cause you to exit a non-Delirium BW phase with too little MP to spend the whole remainder of the pull without using single-target skills.

DRK could push WAR's ridiculous Stormblood levels of AoE output at very high target counts off the back of BW-Quietus and AD (part of which included exiting BW phase with still nearly full MP). Using AD over Unleash was absolutely a factor in that, though.

Abyssal Drain is the answer we have for sustainability.

Anything that provides sustain is an answer to a lack of sustain. It does not require removing AD from a free cast on CD and making it again a spammable spender (to the detriment of maximum combined sustain + throughput and/or redundancy with Flood).

You could as easily have Blood or MP spenders grant a portion of damage dealt as healing. Voila; sustain. You could just buff Abyssal Drain and make it more flexible. Voila; sustain. You could make Dark Mind not crap, having it produce further sustain. Again, anything works.

Whether we do or not is kind of irrelevant... WAR doesn't have one on its AoE kit, but it does have Bloodwhetting which does it for them. Abyssal Drain used to be the equivalent: it was our AoE sustain.

Abyssal Drain was originally more equivalent to Clemency and mirrored Grit DA-SE (SE only healed during Grit originally). It was a potency loss (opposite the potency gain of DA-SE) in exchange for target-scaled sustain. Only now is it at all equivalent to Bloodwhetting as free self-healing on a CD.

Carve and Spit was in no way attached to it whatsoever, and there's no good justification for it.

I don't know why you keep focusing on the CnS-AD resource pairing. They're together only because AD's 150p attack felt, to many, more "clunk" than "complexity/freedom" in raids and CnS didn't feel terribly useful in AoEs, so the ShB opener was made slightly less crowded (in preparation for Shadowbringer as an ability) and DRK was made able to go 100% AoE with its spenders in AoE situations. They were never able to be that diverse in practice.

Now, DRK has its "equivalent" to Bloodwhetting's AoE effect (note that its ST effect, too, is similarly comparatively dog****) in/via Abyssal Drain, albeit at a timing more equivalent to any other primary sustain CD (Equil, Aurora, Req-based heals) or core damage CD (Req, FoF, NM, IR); it's just tuned needlessly weak by comparison. That's not an issue of AD being placed on a cooldown or lacking a duration of effect (bursting from critical to full in one oGCD is fine), but simply its tuning (frequency x non-excessive power).

But it being on a 60s cooldown just because it's tied to C&S is too much for what it does on an AoE pull.

It was put on that CD before being attached to C&S. C&S, also, was originally on a shorter cooldown (40 or 45 seconds).

Because there's no need for AD to have a use in single-target content

No need, sure, but it'd still be a better use for its button-space if it did. I'd say the same for Decimate and Orogeny (to be useful in ST), Fell Cleave and Upheaval (to be --differently-- useful in AoE), etc., etc. Else there's no capacity they could cover that wouldn't already be met plentifully through damage fall-off, and those buttons could be used on something more interesting than "Can you count to 3?"

C&S makes sense to be on a minute-long cooldown.

No more or less than Spirit's Within, Upheaval, Danger Zone, Shadowbringer, etc. It's pretty darn arbitrary.
And again, despite it originally being the strongest attack in DRK's arsenal (at least up until 3 targets, at which point DA-DP overtook it), it started with a considerably shorter CD than it has now.

AD makes sense to have a cooldown longer than Bloodwhetting bc of TBN and Oblation, but 1m long isn't it.

*Can't help but notice Equilibrium, Aurora, and Paladin's 3200 potency of self-healing per minute.*

Again, I'd rather see its CD shortened (and, more importantly, made more flexible via a 2nd charge), but... there's nothing inherently wrong with a damage CD, a self-healing CD, or a two-in-one combo like AD (though decent only in AoE) being on a 1-minute CD. There's no reason for Equilibrium to make sense there and Abyssal to inherently not.

DRK merely needs additional sustain (sum of capacity for damage reverted without excess [effective healing] and damage nullified [mitigation]). Given that its mitigation is basically fine and applying sustain increases across the board would therefore might be excessive to its mitigation, that should mostly come from self-healing. But, we can apply that anywhere.

I like the idea of first siphoning a bit of power from DRK's dullest areas into CnS and AD because a 2-charge 40s CD would then provide at least one entirely flexible use per raid cycle (none if using a 60s CD or a single charge), and I feel that DRK currently has a lack of interesting/punctuating events outside of the 2-minute bursts.

For that self-healing, though, anything works. I'd buff AD a bit, especially against its primary target, just because I feel like it currently has a bit too little numeric impact for what its visuals entail. Beyond that, though? MP spenders and Blood spenders are both more flexible and iconic ways to get at that self-healing that would happen also to (A) not require Abyssal Drain be tuned down in becoming spammable / "at-will" and (B) encourage DRK towards a bit more action/complexity that'd fall outside of the 2-minute bursts. Compensate that healing for some inevitable waste due to burst window optimization, and you're good.

[Midareyukki]

*Can't help but notice Equilibrium, Aurora, and Paladin's 3200 potency of self-healing per minute.*

Cool that you notice those! Now tell me what's the equivalent to Blodwhetting, HoC and... ... ok I won't compare clemency. But that's why PLD has those heals on skills now.

Is it TBN? If so, a 25% shield. Uh-huh. So too does BW shield you and HoC as well. They may be weaker, but they have other effects to compensate + they have sustain. Next.
Is it Oblation? If so, oh wow, mitigation, aaaand that's about it? Even PLD's skills have more than just a block rate upgrade now.

Where the sustain at?

:T I'm not ignoring those. Those are just not at all skills you can compare the problem to. If Abyssal Drain is indeed our current answer to all those skills, then it's doing a really poor job. Because it's literally doing the same as Bloodwhetting, while DRK only has TBN (which costs MP) as its subsequent "sustain". And shields aren't sustain.

That is but one of the reasons people ask for DRK to be reassessed. Because cool that you noticed those... but then you didn't do the same effort of looking at DRK and wondering which skills match and how their usefulness compares to those other tanks.

TBN isn't an answer. It's a 25%-scaling shield that costs MP to use, you can't spam it as freely as HoC and Bloodwhetting. It's not just the cooldown time. It's the cost.

The whole point of this isn't to blindly say "Oh hey, Abyssal Drain is bad, bring it back". It's "does DRK's kit perform as well as other tanks"? And the answer is no. Because great that you have a shield, but you still need to heal or you're just pressuring the healer. And it having an MP cost when others don't is unfair. Its justification shouldn't be "Oh, but you get "free" damage out of it". It not only is it not free, you just replace the cost elsewhere, it's also heavy on your cooldowns.

Otherwise, I agree. Reduce its cooldown. I too agree that there's nothing inherently wrong with a damage cooldown. But you know why it makes sense for Equilibrium but not Abyssal Drain? Because the whole point of this thread is that DRK's kit needs to be looked over, especially when compared to other tanks. Warrior's got a free instant heal on its back, which is why Equilibrium is actually overkill. GNB has other cooldowns and PLD has block rate, and in between those, they're gaining HP. They can sustain themselves just fine. Some even have shields, weaker than TBN they may be. Dark Knight doesn't have that, which is why Abyssal Drain doesn't make sense. For it to make sense, either TBN needs to give what it's actually worth in comparison to skills like Bloodwhetting and stuff like that, OR AD itself needs to be reworked. If you ask me, I'd rather AD remained as is, and DRK had something to use that gave them small amounts of sustainability until AD came and gave them a burst of sustain. WITHOUT ADDITIONAL COST.

I'm not forgetting those. I'm just pointing out that there's a hole, one currently being filled by TBN which isn't enough. Because the moment you bring those other two into the game, sure it's fairer to compare AD to those (though its effect is more in line with Bloodwhetting), but then you have to really see if TBN matches the sustain (and often times shield and/or mitigation on top) the others have.

[Shurrikhan]

TBN isn't an answer. It's a 25%-scaling shield that costs MP to use, you can't spam it as freely as HoC and Bloodwhetting. It's not just the cooldown time. It's the cost.

It effectively has no cost. Any event worth using Shelltron for will pop TBN as well, recouping the MP spent via nuDark Arts.

It would only have been a cost if you could otherwise spend every edge within raid buffs. You can't. And the final TBN per raid cycle is actually a damage increase in that regard, as MP spent during an unbuffed period is nonetheless able to claim damage as if it'd been spent during a buffed period.

Where the sustain at?

Anywhere we want to place it. Technically, the only unreasonable place to put it would be on something spammable if that thing also comes at little to no potency cost -- i.e., akin to old Abyssal Drain. Parity-wise, that's about the only thing that won't work, as all other sources of free sustain are fixed (on CD or resource cost that are themselves time-based).

Arguably, those other tanks' self-healing is also excessive. Warrior has probably too much self-healing, especially in AoE situations. Paladin, as of Conf and Conf-combo getting heals, probably has too much self-healing all around. GNB's is more reasonable, but part of it is also applied in one of the dullest (lowest skill-ceiling) ways possible, an Excog effect.

But you know why it makes sense for Equilibrium but not Abyssal Drain? Because the whole point of this thread is that DRK's kit needs to be looked over

But that kit is not limited to Abyssal Drain. You don't need to make a single CD, or any form or function you want to slap onto its name the primarily --let alone only-- way of dealing with that shortfall. Just like if DRK currently lacked damage, that wouldn't have to be dealt with by buffing C&S to 1k potency.

Find a balance between burst capacity and granularity that allows you to tidily place that self-healing where you want it. You don't want your CD-based means of healing to be just left on reserve, but the stronger it is, the longer you need to let it rest for to avoid overcap. At the same time, you do want it (or, the total throughput across its max charge count) to have some serious saving powerful. Balancing that will usually mean placing that on-demand self-healing across multiple places, such as via both mid-length CDs (e.g., 40-60s) and resource spenders (such as Edge/Flood).

If you ask me, I'd rather AD remained as is, and DRK had something to use that gave them small amounts of sustainability until AD came and gave them a burst of sustain. WITHOUT ADDITIONAL COST.

Well, you're in luck. Our lack of self-healing is, itself, under zero debate (we can argue only over whether it's actually any significant disadvantage given current content).

We have the budget. We just need to decide where we want to spend it. For me, I'd rather buff AD just enough to feel sufficiently impressive and offer at least one flexible use per raid cycle and then probably split up the budget's allocations thereafter.

sustain

Just to be clear, I've been using "sustain" to mean anything that sustains you / keeps you alive longer, which therefore includes both damage nullification [mitigation] and damage recuperation [healing]. I focus on healing here simply because our mitigation is already up to snuff. If there were no other obvious balancing constraints, we technically could just buff TBN, Oblation, Dark Mind, and Shadow Wall to high heavens and we wouldn't give a damn about self-healing. But, that would also obviously make DRK broken in any context with external healing since it'd be that much more able to cheese vuln stack mechanics (or avoid them completely by taking no damage, depending on the type of debuff application), stacked TBs, etc.

[Oizen]

You should still typically be trying to use it as soon as you can in dungeons, as it recharges that much faster. Better to delay Shadow Wall slightly and let yourself get nuked down to what AD won't overheal than to hold AD for until you're on your last legs.

Ummm Duh? You hold it until you need healing that's what I said, I didn't say you hold it until you might as well use Living Dead.

Also very weird advice to tell someone to delay their 30% mit until they've already taken damage. When your HP is low, 30% mit isn't going to do anything for you.
Doesn't change the fact that AD isn't used on cooldown like C&S is, nor does it make Abyssal Drain the AOE version of C&S.

They're not Orogeny/Upheaval, you use them at different points.

[Shurrikhan]

Ummm Duh? You hold it until you need healing that's what I said, I didn't say you hold it until you might as well use Living Dead.

Also very weird advice to tell someone to delay their 30% mit until they've already taken damage. When your HP is low, 30% mit isn't going to do anything for you.

That's... quite the strawman. I have not said to delay use of mitigation until low HP. I'm saying that delaying a 3-minute CD by those 5 seconds it takes to fit AD w/o overhealing will cost you a lot less than delaying a 1-minute CD by 10 seconds (as would be the case in blowing your big CDs first). Blow the lower CD asap as to inflict less total delay on your kit.

Open with pre-pop TBN (unless it'd be excessive and delay AD too much to use get an extra use between bosses) and then Oblation, Abyssal as soon as you can avoid overcapping it, then (i.e., in the same double-weave as AD) slap on your larger CDs, etc. With that, you're not stuck just waiting for your HP to get low enough not to waste AD, wasting some 10-20% of its recast time (as opposed to some 3% of SW's).

Adjust, of course, based on time between pulls in your given party (and the needs of said pulls), but generally one favors throughput-per-minute over throughput-per-use for total effectiveness, and low CDs over long CDs for sync if/when conflict arises.

Doesn't change the fact that AD isn't used on cooldown like C&S is

Both are delayed until they wouldn't overcap their outputs. C&S likewise shouldn't be used at full MP, as not to overcap its reward, just as AD shouldn't overcap HP or MP. Luckily, that's easy enough to design in and, on pull, follows what you'd have done anyways (generating Darkside before popping C&S). I'm only recommending you apply the same thought to AD; by delaying SW/Ramp slightly, you can sequence it in earlier, to less overall cost to your kit's total outputs. AD should be used as near to CD as possible, not treated as a reserve tool.

[Shurrikhan]

So, random thought, but... would anyone like to see more of interest done with Unleash and Stalwart Soul?

Additionally, could Living Shadow be significantly improved by directing it (instead of it being a glorified DoT)? That could be by having it simply imitate your every attack at much-reduced %effect, having your oGCD gaps allow for GCD actions to be made on the oGCD (via your Living Shadow), or whatever else.

Finally, assuming we're allowed to siphon a bit of mitigation budget towards Dark Mind (or towards it and Oblation, with Dark Mind upgrading into Oblation), is there anything... unique, anyone would like to see attempted there? What synergies might it provide?

[Soge01]

So, random thought, but... would anyone like to see more of interest done with Unleash and Stalwart Soul?

Additionally, could Living Shadow be significantly improved by directing it (instead of it being a glorified DoT)? That could be by having it simply imitate your every attack at much-reduced %effect, having your oGCD gaps allow for GCD actions to be made on the oGCD (via your Living Shadow), or whatever else.

Finally, assuming we're allowed to siphon a bit of mitigation budget towards Dark Mind (or towards it and Oblation, with Dark Mind upgrading into Oblation), is there anything... unique, anyone would like to see attempted there? What synergies might it provide?

Living Shadow following what you do would be really great! Would probably make it feel less clunky for most players that main DRK. In addition to that, I'd also like to Living Shadow immediately attack the enemy we're targeting right after we summmon in. No time wasting animations for it to get up from its kneeling position. Just launch at the enemy with a speedy gap closer right out of the gate! I like how Summoner doesn't have this probably with Bahamit and Phoenix, as far as I can tell.

And this may be controversial, but why can't Dark Mind and Oblation just be a lesser damage absorption barrier version of TBN? Dark Mind just feels like an old outdated relic from HW and Oblation just feels like our old Rampart clone mitigation ability from that same timeline. Since DRK is so focused on using the TBN, why not just go all in and make its two mitigation moves lesser barrier abilities, too?