Dark Knight Megathread

[fulminating]

Never mind sole survivor, make abyssal drain a 2.5 gcd spell again.

[Shurrikhan]

Never mind sole survivor, make abyssal drain a 2.5 gcd spell again.

A few small things:

• Abyssal Drain did not, itself, heal. If you want an Abyssal Drain that heals as it did before, it'd also cost you a third of your MP per use (combined costs of DA+AD). It also hit for barely more than Unleash, meaning it'd incur further opportunity cost relative to the Unleash-Stalwart combo.
• Abyssal Drain healed for little per target hit, and no serious content contains mobs enough to make it a noticeable source of healing per execute. If the sustain issue would extend beyond dungeoning alone, that probably isn't the right shape of a "solution" for the issue at hand.
• Returning Abyssal Drain to the GCD will cost you its present free 240n potency and 200n cure potency per minute (or, at opportunity cost of just a flat 510 potency -- a bonus of at least 210p and 600cp by 3 targets).

Now, you could craft an improved/revised spammable-GCD Abyssal Drain, but still... why necessarily have it on the GCD at all, instead of just having it, say, replace Flood as a spammable oGCD?

To be fair, the Ninja rework was for the most just making it's mudras GCD'S and buffing their potencies if I'm remembering right.

It also removed an entire combo (Shadowfang as a two-step DoT combo), replacing it with a Sonic Thrust knock-off.

As long as they make the combo OGCD's work in a way that doesn't make the already bloated opener/2m worse, I'm for it.

Sadly, it necessarily would. If the activator is to be used within the two-minute burst cycle, the only way for its second-stage oGCD (a la Salt and Darkness) not to also be used within that period is to literally run out of weave-space, which would mean the problem is already as bad as it can get and DRK would have no room for defensives over its two minute bursts.

Granted, if you wanted to rein back the burst APM and spread it over the lulls instead, the solution is pretty simple: Slap a mana cost onto Shadowbringer and Carve and Spit, increase their potency accordingly, and then increase MP generation to compensate for the extra 6k MP consumed per average minute while toning oGCD damage down also in due compensation (i.e., for the same total DPS under a meta comp). Total APM and DPS stays the same, but there are now fewer Edges bloating ones burst casts (despite keeping almost exactly the same burstiness), and more to do between burst cycles.

[Zairava]

It also removed an entire combo (Shadowfang as a two-step DoT combo), replacing it with a Sonic Thrust knock-off.

Ah right. I didn't get nin to cap that long before the rework dropped.

Sadly, it necessarily would. If the activator is to be used within the two-minute burst cycle, the only way for its second-stage oGCD (a la Salt and Darkness) not to also be used within that period is to literally run out of weave-space, which would mean the problem is already as bad as it can get and DRK would have no room for defensives over its two minute bursts.

Granted, if you wanted to rein back the burst APM and spread it over the lulls instead, the solution is pretty simple: Slap a mana cost onto Shadowbringer and Carve and Spit, increase their potency accordingly, and then increase MP generation to compensate for the extra 6k MP consumed per average minute while toning oGCD damage down also in due compensation (i.e., for the same total DPS under a meta comp). Total APM and DPS stays the same, but there are now fewer Edges bloating ones burst casts (despite keeping almost exactly the same burstiness), and more to do between burst cycles.

I would actually be more in favor of making the burst phase more GCD heavy with enough OGCD's to keep us weaving. The biggest question for that, however, lies in how that may be accomplished.

Personally, I'm for giving Shadowbringer an mp cost and reducing it down to one charge on the same cooldown, same with Carve and Spit, but I would, yes, still like it on a 30s cooldown.I will absolutely run this into the ground, but Scourge would help this, plus giving us something to do outside of bursts with Carve and Spit. Going back to said "biggest question" though, revolved around upgrading actions, though it could be personal bias towards something like that.

As a concept, Delirium could upgrade our GCD's, and to knock out 2 birds with one stone, is a perfect method to bring back old abilities and animations. if not Delirium, that's something that Dark Arts could do on a 60 or 120s cooldown. This would also more or less how we would access abyssal drain as an upgrade to Flood of Shadow, or Dark Passenger with it's blind effect, new GCD combo, etc., without inherently making the bursts and opener obnoxious thanks to Shadowbringer and Carve and Spit having an mp cost. I would bargain to say Delirium could go back to being an mp restoration tool with these changes as well, since Edge/Flood would be used much less than they are now.

The biggest issue I see arising out of this concept, however, is where could they go from there?

[Shurrikhan]

I would actually be more in favor of making the burst phase more GCD heavy with enough OGCD's to keep us weaving.

I think that'd work perfectly fine, too. I think you'll find at least a few such mock-ups, including one of my own (and, closest to what you've mentioned with Delirium, Archwizard's) within this thread.

The biggest issue I see arising out of this concept, however, is where could they go from there?

While I don't think that concern ought to preclude changes in the upcoming expansion on the basis just that it might need yet another rehaul after (so long as the 7.x version ends up better than what we have now) nor do I think we can afford to purposely delay what fun additions we can imagine today just for additions in 8.0, 9.0, etc... I agree that it is an important question. I'll need more time to think on it, though, before I can do a decent mock-up that accounts for what could be done down the line.

Sidenote: I think an even stronger constraint that could be worth waiting for, though, is what ought to be done for tanking as an entire role -- and not just in the sense of contextual gameplay (pre-positioning bosses, coordinating mitigation CDs back and forth with one's cotank, etc.) or bloated systems like our former Enmity "management". There's tons more that each tank job could enjoyably include... if the role were so permitted.

[Zairava]

Sidenote: I think an even stronger constraint that could be worth waiting for, though, is what ought to be done for tanking as an entire role -- and not just in the sense of contextual gameplay (pre-positioning bosses, coordinating mitigation CDs back and forth with one's cotank, etc.) or bloated systems like our former Enmity "management". There's tons more that each tank job could enjoyably include... if the role were so permitted.

I want to return to this point in particular, especially the enmity management portion.

I've thought on and off extensively over this particular point of discussion, and nothing I could possibly come up with would help tanking as an entire role that wouldn't be considered either streamlining or bad, seemingly pointless homogenization that would mostly be used in dungeons, rendering it niche and just overall not helping tanks mechanically.

Henceforth, I return to and look to the enmity management. No, this doesn't mean make it a hindrance and reliant on the entire party's cooperation. I have spoken about this method before, but this would be personal enmity management. I still refer to this as possibly one of the better and easier things to implement as enmity is baked into the game.

So, this is how it would work:

1) The simple modifications first

• Tank Stance is changed to already be baked in. No turning it on, no worrying about having to reapply it after being synced down. You just get it naturally.
• Our former DPS stances make a return. GNB is given it's own variant as it was added when they were "removed".

2) How it actually functions. You may be able to see where I'm going with this from the prior changes

• Enmity Generation is about 25-50% of what it is now.
• Activating dps stance reduces your enmity generation to that of our generation without tank stance on currently.
• We get our Enmity Combo finishers back. However, they are NOT a seperate action.
• The dps combo finisher gets roughly 30-60 higher potency than the enmity combo. This does NOT mean the enmity combo has the same potency as our current 1-2-3 combo does. It means it's lower.
• The enmity combo finisher is what we have without DPS stance on. It gives bonus enmity, obviously.

  PLD -> Rage of Halone
  WAR -> Butcher's Block
  DRK -> Power Slash
  GNB -> ???

• With DPS stance on, we have our current combo finishers. These finishers Replace the Enmity combo finisher upon activating DPS stance. this is to prevent attempts of staying in dps stance for an entire fight, if being relegated to attempting to hold aggro off of pure dps wasn't dissuasive enough.

  PLD -> Royal Authority
  WAR -> Storm's Path
  DRK -> Souleater
  GNB -> Solid Barrel

This, I feel, leaves a comfortable skill floor, as you can just stay in tank stance if you so want to, with a high skill ceiling for people who want to go for that extra. As there could be optimizations as main tanking with provoke during dps stance. You aren't using say, just one Power Slash and holding aggro reliably for that higher dps gain during DPS stance. The enmity management is also solely on the tank themselves, not everyone else needing chip in and use diversion/lucid at the start of a pull or otherwise.

It could also be said that dps stance should have a cooldown to prevent just using one enmity combo then hitting Darkside for example, but I'm on the fence about that in particular.

[Shurrikhan]

enmity management.

A few points, not necessarily in any cohesive form:

If the difference between having an enmity stance vs. a potency stance is simply which finisher you use...

1. It feels unnecessarily punishing to opening enmity (on our combo openers, oGCDs, and ranged attacks) and AoE enmity generation, since you penalize the whole of enmity generation by 50-75% just to buy it back with only a singular single-target skill per job.
   
   
2. In that case, why not simply offer the alternate finisher freely, a la the difference between Storm's Eye, Storm's Path, and Butcher's Block if each fed from Maim?

3. Moreover, though, what is the intended goal of this system?

While the old Defensive/Offensives stances at least also allowed for an extra degree of fall-back safety against mechanics and tankbusters, this would leave only the old game of "How tightly can I barely outpace, up to the end of the fight, the enmity my team has generated?"

Unless something about Enmity itself has changed or encounters bring in ways with mess with it, now that you have removed the opportunity cost across actions other than the combo finisher, there's also nothing left to game while managing that enmity -- no complicating factors beyond whether someone would overtake enmity on the particular target within 3 GCDs (with PLD and GNB being uniquely disadvantaged). There's no difference, even, in what to use raid buffs on, as increasing the damage of an Enmity Finisher would mean that many fewer Enmity Finishers required overall, thus winning back that damage, regardless, so long as one still manages to let their excess Enmity on the given enemy be trimmed away before its death.

Countersuggestions coming on edit.

[Zairava]

Snip

1) The main reason why the enmity generation would be nerfed so hard is because we currently generate way more than we know what to do with currently. I personally wouldn't want to go lower than half of current. If we kept it with my changes in mind, there is a chance we could have a repeat of just constantly being in dps stance and pushing as much as possible that way. Which bring up the question of why even bother have the enmity finisher to begin with? I don't know if there's a cap on how much enmity can be held, but if there is one, it could potentially solve an issue here.

Another point is that the aoe for tanks have been a long process, being that in shadowbringers we finally got a 2-part combo, and Paladin got total eclipse in stormblood. The bonus enmity could also be something that's slapped onto the aoe combo, but the primary reason for the single target finisher in particular having the bonus enmity is to make accessing a reliable burst window in DPS stance faster.

2) I would like to make the finishers separate, but it's more to avoid not using the finisher in itself in turn for more dps. Which, aside of dps stances being removed, is very likely the reason why the enmity combos were removed to begin with. (They could just as easily have kept those in place of the dps combos and just transferred the mp/hp restore to those, though). The other reason is bloat, but that could be resolved in a number of ways which would make having them separate much, much less of a problem.

3) The overarching goal of it is for something for us to pay attention to and monitor, especially in downtime between bursts. To keep the current low skill floor and make the skill ceiling higher.

We would actually have some use for provoke while main-tanking. It's there as a crutch in case you really need it, but not something you would want to resort to. We would still have shirk for tank swaps, so ideally you would want to stay in second in the aggro meter, not too different to now, or it has ever, been.

The only real way to completely prevent just barely staying above the party in dps is to make dps stance have a cooldown, which at that point really isn't really fixing what I'm trying to solve.

Another thing I had in mind was for us to keep our current high enmity generation and to make it gradually wear off while in dps stance, which might sound more appealing. When I think about it, though, it sound like it would be a mess to deal with in any content that requires two tanks, and would probably lead to people complaining about not being able to use, say, souleater while main-tanking.

[ForteNightshade]

This, I feel, leaves a comfortable skill floor, as you can just stay in tank stance if you so want to, with a high skill ceiling for people who want to go for that extra. As there could be optimizations as main tanking with provoke during dps stance. You aren't using say, just one Power Slash and holding aggro reliably for that higher dps gain during DPS stance. The enmity management is also solely on the tank themselves, not everyone else needing chip in and use diversion/lucid at the start of a pull or otherwise.

It could also be said that dps stance should have a cooldown to prevent just using one enmity combo then hitting Darkside for example, but I'm on the fence about that in particular.

This is the primary reason they removed enmity management in the first place. Nervous and inexperienced tanks wouldn't touch their DPS stance, thus dealing significantly less damage for no discernable benefit. Even with your suggested aggro generation thresholds, you'd still tank almost exclusively in your DPS stance because 25-50% higher than everyone else adds up quickly. Not to mention, Provoke + Shirk would allow tank to walk that line even longer. The end result is a return to the old days which very few players found engaging. Enmity simply isn't an interesting mechanic because it's entirely binary. What you're describing isn't really a skill ceiling but more playing correctly and playing incorrectly. Siting in tank stance is objectively wrong because there's no tangible benefit to doing so.

Another issue is the opener, especially nowadays in this burst centric meta the devs have insisted upon. One tank essentially sacrifices massive amounts of DPS because they have to open with their stance. I can all but guarantee PF would be a complete mess with tanks fighting who has to "main tank." Which brings up yet another potential problem. If tanks couldn't simply Provoke and Shirk each other but actually had to turn on stance occasionally, one tank will be essentially taking a giant L for most of the encounter. Take a fight like Hegemone. You can go over half the fight without needing to swap once after the initial Synergy depending on RNG. So now you have a scenario where one tank is having to give up damage because of an arbitrary aggro system that is neither interesting nor rewarding.

At the end of the day, aggro management simply isn't a rewarding system. It actively punishes the player without providing any sort of benefit.

[Zairava]

Snip

It's just the first thing I come back to when I try to think of what can be done with tanking as an actual role, since we already had it in the past and was something I actually liked. My obvious bias is obvious.

That said, I really am trying to wrap my head around what actually can be done given the current iteration, and I can't help but feel like the answer directly related to how the tank jobs are designed themselves.

I've thought of debuffs coming from your aoe/ST, buffs to yourself from them, etc. Which essentially is just storms eye or what flash/Dark Passenger were. This also would imply bosses would be allowed to have these debuffs, which is incredibly unlikely I imagine.

Say...

DRK:
Salted Earth gets its pvp variant. It pulls mobs to you
Dark Passenger comes back as an upgrade to Flood of Shadow when TBN pops. Edge gets an ability that does the same. They both apply blind and it also applies to bosses.

WAR:
Storm's Eye remains the same
Orogeny/Upheavel increase the potency of your next fell cleave/Decimate by X and gives a vulnerability debuff to the mob(s) hit by them.

Those are just examples though, and are more interactive and passives we really don't need to pay attention to, as we would be using them anyway. Which solves almost nothing.