Dark Knight Megathread

[SargeTheSeagull]

I picked up DRK again this morning for the first time since getting it to cap about a year ago. My big question: Why on earth is there a timer on the job gauge showing you how long living shadow is active if there's no way to make him stay longer AND his presence doesn't change your gameplay at all? That seems so weird to me. I'll also throw these ideas out there while I'm on the topic:

1. Make Shadowbringer a GCD.
2. Shadowbringer consumes 20 seconds of darkside and keeps Living Shadow out for an additional 10 seconds.
3. Add some passive effect to living shadow. Maybe you generate blood gauge faster, maybe you take less damage, maybe your mitigations last longer, or generate more MP, something like that.

[ForsakenRoe]

If they made LS 'flat potency per hit, but strikes when you do', and allowed it to trigger 'bonus effects' that might be interesting, eg the MP restore from Syphon/Blood Weapon, or the Blood generation from BW or Souleater. They'd probably have to remove the horrendously long 'spawn in' animation, and have some way to get it out as one of the first moves available (maybe have it able to consume dark arts, and respawn/zone into instance with a dark arts proc ready?)

Still remember being very excited when the SHB job actions trailer came out because of LS, I had had a similar idea back in early Stormblood to steal Dancing Rune Weapon but make it 'our darkside' rather than a simple floating sword. Instead it's a glorified DOT that can 'sort of target swap but not very well'

If anything was to get hammered by a rework though, IMO it's Salted Earth, that skill is on a ventilator and an IV drip at this point, I'm surprised they added S+D as a followup rather than just deleting the damn thing. If it were up to me I'd make Salted 100% uptime, lower potency to compensate, 3s CD so you can easily reposition it, and give a bunch of bonus effects while you are inside it, like Syphon Strike stealing a bit more MP, or Souleater healing twice, or the slam of Plunge causing an eruption of darkness (you know, like Salt and Darkness currently does). Then you'd be able to have a conditional trigger like 'while inside your Salted Earth, your MP drains steadily to pause Living Shadow's remaining time' or something. Oh and I'd also rename Living Dead to 'Borrowed Time', I mean come on the icon's an hourglass how did they miss a trick that easy

[Zairava]

With the shift to every tank having some short ~25s CD Super Mitigation tool, the game really doesn't teach you how to use it optimally at all. I think it be good to teach players earlier on by increasing the need for tanks to actually use their mitigations.

Tank is honestly all over the place in terms of how difficult or easy it can be based on the content being run its honestly a bit crazy.

It would be nothing but beneficial for us if they increased the need for us to actually use them. Kinda sucks to see something like Shadow Wall be on the bench until a Tankbuster when TBN+oblation in itself is generally enough outside of trash pulls.

If they made LS 'flat potency per hit, but strikes when you do', and allowed it to trigger 'bonus effects' that might be interesting, eg the MP restore from Syphon/Blood Weapon, or the Blood generation from BW or Souleater. They'd probably have to remove the horrendously long 'spawn in' animation, and have some way to get it out as one of the first moves available (maybe have it able to consume dark arts, and respawn/zone into instance with a dark arts proc ready?)

Still remember being very excited when the SHB job actions trailer came out because of LS, I had had a similar idea back in early Stormblood to steal Dancing Rune Weapon but make it 'our darkside' rather than a simple floating sword. Instead it's a glorified DOT that can 'sort of target swap but not very well'

If anything was to get hammered by a rework though, IMO it's Salted Earth, that skill is on a ventilator and an IV drip at this point, I'm surprised they added S+D as a followup rather than just deleting the damn thing. If it were up to me I'd make Salted 100% uptime, lower potency to compensate, 3s CD so you can easily reposition it, and give a bunch of bonus effects while you are inside it, like Syphon Strike stealing a bit more MP, or Souleater healing twice, or the slam of Plunge causing an eruption of darkness (you know, like Salt and Darkness currently does). Then you'd be able to have a conditional trigger like 'while inside your Salted Earth, your MP drains steadily to pause Living Shadow's remaining time' or something. Oh and I'd also rename Living Dead to 'Borrowed Time', I mean come on the icon's an hourglass how did they miss a trick that easy

I just want Living Shadow to get reworked into something that merges with us and gives us some extra high power abilities. Something that isn't its current state of glorified DoT

That being said, I'm honestly surprised about Salted Earth as well. If they don't give it some sort of boon for us like it does in pvp I'm still fully expecting for it to get deleted in 7.0, though, and see it be replaced with some sort of GCD. Something either like Death's Design or the Goring Blade treatment.

[Oizen]

I think it be really cool if Salted gave the mitigation and healing it does from PVP. The damage boost is probably a bit much, but the other two would be really appreciated, especially if its mitigation/healing affected the entire party.
It would make it an interesting tool thats a mix of damage and defensive utility, could also change Salt and Darkness to give a burst of healing while inside it as well.

I really hope the skill isn't scrapped because honestly 6.0 PVP has shown how cool Salted Earth could be as a skill.

[SamSpirit]

I'd like to see the free EoS you get from TBN to heal you as well when you use it. It would justify the 3k mana you spend on TBN at least.

[baklava151]

I'd like to see the free EoS you get from TBN to heal you as well when you use it. It would justify the 3k mana you spend on TBN at least.

I personally wouldn't care if they add a heal to it or not, but the mana cost is already justified by the short CD that TBN has, otherwise it would be 25 seconds like WAR/GNB. Especially this tier that's a huge advantage because with good timing you could use 2 TBNs every tankbuster and mitigate for 50% of your health or split it between tanks if needed.

[RyuDragnier]

The mana cost will never be justified when it's taking a resource that damage moves also take, because that means it will always be a DPS loss to use (DPS neutral at best).

[baklava151]

The mana cost will never be justified when it's taking a resource that damage moves also take, because that means it will always be a DPS loss to use (DPS neutral at best).

Like I said, the MP cost is what allows it to be on a shorter CD and give you more uptime on it which is not something to sneeze at, so there's definitely a good reason to make TBN cost 3000 MP. Anytime Square ties utility to some kind of resource, they always give it a shorter CD like SAM's Gyoten, PLD's Shelltron, formerly WAR's Onslaught. Hence why I would be opposed to removing the MP cost entirely so as not to lose that aspect. Now could they just have TBN automatically grant a DA proc as soon as you use it or when the shield expires to make it fully damage neutral? Sure I guess, I personally would say it's really not that big a deal and to time TBN better, but that option is there.

[RyuDragnier]

Like I said, the MP cost is what allows it to be on a shorter CD and give you more uptime on it which is not something to sneeze at, so there's definitely a good reason to make TBN cost 3000 MP. Anytime Square ties utility to some kind of resource, they always give it a shorter CD like SAM's Gyoten, PLD's Shelltron, formerly WAR's Onslaught. Hence why I would be opposed to removing the MP cost entirely so as not to lose that aspect. Now could they just have TBN automatically grant a DA proc as soon as you use it or when the shield expires to make it fully damage neutral? Sure I guess, I personally would say it's really not that big a deal and to time TBN better, but that option is there.

I'd prefer for TBN to have no MP cost and be on a 25s cooldown. Make it so if the shield doesn't break, the remaining HP of the shield is thrown back into your health pool, and if it does break, you get a regen. Then we could throw something that could be a potency boost skill (think something like Kaiten) to replace it in the MP cost pool.

[Zairava]

I'd prefer for TBN to have no MP cost and be on a 25s cooldown. Make it so if the shield doesn't break, the remaining HP of the shield is thrown back into your health pool, and if it does break, you get a regen. Then we could throw something that could be a potency boost skill (think something like Kaiten) to replace it in the MP cost pool.