Dark Knight Megathread

[Zairava]

Snip

I actually agree with shadowbringer, I feel like if the animation was slowed down a smidge and it was moved to being a GCD it would feel better. (and if they keep the darkside timer. make it cost 15s or so)

I'm still unsure how to feel about Salt and Darkness, it feels like a missed opportunity to make Salted Earth something more than just, as you said, for damage and really nothing else.

If we're going to give Delirium the haste effect that old Blood Weapon had, why not merge Delirium with Blood Weapon, or vice versa? Blood weapon would be more than just enough mana for another edge/flood and Blood Gauge generation, and Delirium would be something more than just use the same thing three times.

Though, with "using the same thing three times" being the core issue with that ability in the first place, implementing that series of empowered sword slashes from the Shadowbringers benchmark with a 1.5 GCD sounds pretty enticing.

[ItsUrBoi]

Happened to come across some interesting ideas I thought I'd post since after looking at how many edges DRK uses and how much Darkside duration you can get I came up with something. Everything not mentioned stays the same. Across expansions Dark Knight tool kit has revolved around ~25 abilities so I won't be adding or removing more than that. I am also considering lower levels.

->Dark Mind grants 10% damage. At level 82, upgrades to Oblation, granting an additional 20% magic damage mitigation.

->Dark Missionary should be obtained at level 66.

->Carve and Spit / Abyssal Drain moved to be GCDs with 20 sec CDs.

->Bloodspiller combos into 2 more actions, part of a combo, each action costing 15 blood.

->Living Shadow increases Darkside's damage bonus to 25% for 20 seconds. Fray merges with you giving you an enshroud like effect but suited to DRK fantasy.

->Delirium grants the Delirium buff for 10 seconds. During this time Darkside cannot be obtained from Edge/Flood of Shadow, they instead increase the bloodgauge by 20!

->Quietus removed. Bloodspiller combo can have AoE fall-off.

->To replace Quietus and Dark Mind merged into Oblation you can gain Blood price and Sole Survivor.

->Blood price: When around more than 2 enemies, getting hit increases the Bloodgauge. Should be obtained in Stormblood.

->Sole Survivor: Marks target for execution. If target is killed, gain HP and MP. If target survives, gain only HP. Should be obtained in Endwalker for sustain purposes.

->Salted earth gives a regeneration effect while standing inside it. Salt and Darkness heals the DRK instantly.

Idea of mini rework:
Minimize the use of EoS/FoS outside Delirium, but make sure you keep Darkside up.
Maximize the use of EoS/FoS inside Delirium to increase the bloodgauge.
Use the bloodgauge specifically to use the Bloodspiller combo as many times as possible under Living Shadow.
Play around with TBN's Dark Arts!
More GCDs.
Merge similar defensive CDs for easier weaving of defenses, add identity in the defensive / utility kit, solidify dungeon sustain.
Add more intensity to downtime periods: C&S being 20 seconds and managing Darkside more carefully.
Distance DRK's gameplay from WAR.

[Zairava]

->Dark Mind grants 10% damage. At level 82, upgrades to Oblation, granting an additional 20% magic damage mitigation.

->Dark Missionary should be obtained at level 66.

My stance in these really hasn't changed. Oblation feels by and large like TBN should evolve into it. I'm indifferent on Dark Missionary being at a lower level or not.

->Carve and Spit / Abyssal Drain moved to be GCDs with 20 sec CDs.

->Bloodspiller combos into 2 more actions, part of a combo, each action costing 15 blood.

Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain being 20s on the GCD would feel more active...but at this point they might as well combine them into one single new ability. Don't get me wrong, I would like them to be separate and have Abyssal Drain back on the GCD with a mana cost, but that doesn't look like the direction it's headed.

Each action costing gauge sounds nice, especially considering there potentially could be micro-optimizations to be had, but that's also why they'd mostly just keep it as a combo starter that costs 50 gauge, and the rest free.

->Living Shadow increases Darkside's damage bonus to 25% for 20 seconds. Fray merges with you giving you an enshroud like effect but suited to DRK fantasy.

I've stated my support a lot for this in the past, and will continue to show said support.

->Delirium grants the Delirium buff for 10 seconds. During this time Darkside cannot be obtained from Edge/Flood of Shadow, they instead increase the bloodgauge by 20!

I'm honestly not sure if I like how this functions. If we're going to have interactivity with the Darkside timer and the Blood Gauge, I would prefer if we had an ability that converts some of the Darkside timer into Blood gauge. idk...15-30s of it, since edge/flood gives 30s?

If we were to receive an ability to convert some of the timer into Blood gauge, I feel like that would feel more like management than merely chopping off access to gaining any Darkside.

->Quietus removed. Bloodspiller combo can have AoE fall-off.

I feel like Quietus could be used in the hypothetical Delirium combo we've discussed in the past.

->To replace Quietus and Dark Mind merged into Oblation you can gain Blood price and Sole Survivor.

->Blood price: When around more than 2 enemies, getting hit increases the Bloodgauge. Should be obtained in Stormblood.

->Sole Survivor: Marks target for execution. If target is killed, gain HP and MP. If target survives, gain only HP. Should be obtained in Endwalker for sustain purposes.

I feel like the revamped Blood Price me and Lyth discussed actually would cover both of these.

Basically, Blood Price would a sustain tool. At the end of it's duration we recover a portion of the damage we took. The amount healed can be capped for balance purposes so DRK isn't potentially immortal in any given situation.

->Salted earth gives a regeneration effect while standing inside it. Salt and Darkness heals the DRK instantly.

I personally think Salted Earth could grant the user 10% mit, and then Salt and Darkness could be the heal, so they aren't just one big sustain tool when we're already giving DRK more sustain to begin with.

[ItsUrBoi]

My stance in these really hasn't changed. Oblation feels by and large like TBN should evolve into it. I'm indifferent on Dark Missionary being at a lower level or not.

Putting more into TBN is bad since it will make it harder to break, especially in lower content like Trials / Normal Raids, therefore making the use of Dark Arts harder. Instead let's try to consolidate defensive cooldowns that are lackluster: Oblation due to being only 10% and Dark Mind which is 20% against magical is cool, IF its magical damage and if it is you do need Oblation on top anyway, if its not, its useless.

I think I suggested something similar a while ago but there are design problems around that as you'd have to weave in YET ANOTHER off GCD to consume Darkside and that's just making it worse for your double weaving. Instead what I suggested with Edge/Flood of Shadow used under Delirium granting blood instead of Darkside is basically the same but smoother I think.

The job needs some sustain to make up for the lack of AoE survivability and constantly getting hit by hard hitting auto attacks in raids. My idea was that when you enter Salted Earth's area you gain a buff that stays on you even if you leave Salted Earth's area and which heals you over time slowly and makes it so that when you use Salt and Darkness you gain a small burst of healing. Adding mitigation to it might be overly complicated as you can just have that mitigation within the new Oblation ( Dark Mind's 20% magical + 10% overall damage reduction from current Oblation ) and the 20sec cooldown on C&S / Abyssal Drain.

Yeah having an ability that stores damage taken then heals you when reactivated or upon effect fading is cool too!

[Zairava]

Putting more into TBN is bad since it will make it harder to break, especially in lower content like Trials / Normal Raids, therefore making the use of Dark Arts harder. Instead let's try to consolidate defensive cooldowns that are lackluster: Oblation due to being only 10% and Dark Mind which is 20% against magical is cool, IF its magical damage and if it is you do need Oblation on top anyway, if its not, its useless.

I've already stated this in prior posts, but not really. You already use other cooldowns with TBN specifically because it makes TBN stronger. Everywhere you use it want something to be used with it anyway (Which is generally oblation), and where that is applied, the shield isn't hard to break. It pops in no time flat in trash mob pulls, and using it on tankbusters you already use Oblation in tandem because it's a light mitigation of 10%. Using TBN on auto's outside of pull is ill advised because it is inconsistent. You would want to time it around when raid-wide aoe damage is being dished out but at that point it would be better to use it on anyone that isn't a tank anyway.

What DOES make TBN harder to pop is the inevitable power creep because of our HP values going up.

I think I suggested something similar a while ago but there are design problems around that as you'd have to weave in YET ANOTHER off GCD to consume Darkside and that's just making it worse for your double weaving. Instead what I suggested with Edge/Flood of Shadow used under Delirium granting blood instead of Darkside is basically the same but smoother I think.

This would be remedied by reducing the oGCD bloat during out 2-minute and opener, which we have talked about solutions for that extensively. The reason I advocate for something similar to Hagakure for Darkside->Blood Gauge is basically what I already stated. I think we're solving the issue with Darkside but just are listing different ways to go about it.

The job needs some sustain to make up for the lack of AoE survivability and constantly getting hit by hard hitting auto attacks in raids. My idea was that when you enter Salted Earth's area you gain a buff that stays on you even if you leave Salted Earth's area and which heals you over time slowly and makes it so that when you use Salt and Darkness you gain a small burst of healing. Adding mitigation to it might be overly complicated as you can just have that mitigation within the new Oblation ( Dark Mind's 20% magical + 10% overall damage reduction from current Oblation ) and the 20sec cooldown on C&S / Abyssal Drain.

Yeah having an ability that stores damage taken then heals you when reactivated or upon effect fading is cool too!

I agree, I just think we need only one form of added sustain, DRK is already very strong defensively to stand on it's own, and I like that. I believe the Blood Price revamp would more than provide what's necessary and the most easily applicable one in all situations, while simultaneously being one of the more interesting tank CD's.

[Shurrikhan]

If Dark Arts ever came back as its own separate button with even remotely the same sort of effect as it used to have, it would either have to be:
-Purely a defensive button / modifies purely defensive abilities (while not using any form of MP to prevent competition with Edge/Flood and prevent the new DA from instantly being dead on arrival)
-Purely offensive / modifies purely offensive abilities (which draws into question of it being redundant when Edge of Shadow is literally old Dark Arts taken to its logical conclusion of the dps > all game design that every good DRK was doing in SB / late HW)

You seem to be making this assumption on the basis of a single past tuning point. And yes, I do mean single. Its potency bonus, its relative potency contribution, and its defensive benefits were never changed between HW and StB.

The choice between, say, an extra X% mitigation for Y seconds and an extra Z potency (say, 140, as before) will have a best answer, but its balance point can absolutely placed at a point where that best answer is varied.

Given more than a single attempt ever for balancing, it's unlikely that an either-/mixed-use resource would have only a single real use available to it. The larger issue instead is the impact that can have on the job's output ceilings now that so few jobs have means of trading offensive throughput for sustain (pretty much only Paladin, and very poorly at that). Though honestly... that's a better reason to give such control back to tanks, rather than avoid an entire (and previously core) area of tank gameplay.

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.

Let's assume for a moment that DRK gets an ultimately balanced amount of sustain (effective healing + effective mitigation) and AoE damage. Consider then the gameplay:

• How dependent do you want DRK to be upon staying inside that red circle? Does that constraint seem particularly "DRK" to you? Does an emphasis on persisting ground effects seem more iconic of "DRK" than of any other job?
• How dependent do you want your team to be, in making full use of DRK's kit, on staying inside that little red circle? Does making your allies group up in that red circle seem more iconic of "DRK" than of any other job?

Ultimately, that should be your main reason as to whether you should siphon that sustain towards Salted Earth.

If you just want an increase to our sustain that would be more useful in dungeons than in raids or, more concretely, scales with AoE... then attaching healing to Edge/Flood can provide that lever without any of the constraints of a static ground effect.
Specifically want that heal to take place over time? Still, you can have any spender than can scale with AoE provide that healing and just make that attached healing a brief HoT while allowing multiple instances of that HoT to apply simultaneously (possibly even without a declared/discrete buff).

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.

I have to disagree. The shorter/flex-CD via that MP cost accomplishes, to imo a net improvement, at least three things:

• It essentially allows TBN's total free sustain per minute to scale with incoming threat in a way that would otherwise be impossible for a purely flat mitigation tool. That's also a decent bit iconic for a DRK.
• That, in turn, allows TBN to provide a unique profile and unique feel to DRK's on-demand defensive kit, along with certain unique advantages, including the ability to pre-cast while still getting, if used skillfully, full value out of the tool.
• Those features then allow DRK a greater degree of risk-and-reward, something I would think we would want to maximize up to at least a reasonable threshold, not minimize, on a Dark Knight.

[The_User]

What DRK lack :

• No synergy between job action, almost everything is disjointed.

• No job evolution, DRK form lower level to max level just play the same.

• Button Bloat, there are action that divided to single target and aoe for no reason

What I would do :

• I would address the easiest problem first by merging the Edge&Flood into

Somethingbringer Ability Ogcd Attack Range 10y Radius 10y
Deals unaspected damage to all enemies in a straight line before you with a potency of ??? for the first enemy, and 60% less for all remaining enemies.

Cost ????MP Increase Blood Gauge by??

• Then I would Make Blood Weapon consume the Blood gauge

Blood Weapon Toggle Ability
Grants the effect of Blood Weapon,reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by ??% at the cost of ?? Blood Gauge upon landing weaponskill or spell. Effect fades and cannot be used without a sufficient Blood Gauge.
Recast 5s.

• Blood gauge that doesn't decrease on it own unless it get consume by landing the attack, in this way player won't be hard pressed to always play with a fast gcd speed, thus have more control over the pace.

• With Blood Weapon no longer a resource generator we would need another source of mp and another source of for our second gauge and since DRK is lacking a variety of gcd attack I would make

Abyssal Drain Weaponskill Gcd Attack Range 25y Radius 5y
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of ??? for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Additionale Effect : Restore ???MP

Additional Effect : Grant ? stack of Abyss

Recast 30s. Max Charge : 2

• Bloodspiller and Quietus is uninteresting and having these 2 action seperated from each other just contributed to a problem of button bloat so I would merge them and make new action that consume Abyss stack like...

Darkpassenger Weaponskill Gcd Attack Range 10y Radius 10y
Deals unaspected damage to all enemies in a straight line before you with a potency of ??? for the first enemy, and 60% less for all remaining enemies.
Cost : 1 Abyss stack.
Additional Effect : Increase Dark Gauge

• Salted Earth is another action that caused an over weaving problem and it doesn't connect to other action so I would like to make a gcd instead as well as provide a significant heal at least in dungeon. With new targeting system don't seem to have a problem with a pool aoe now so I would like to change it to be able to place it around the target instead of limit the range to around the player. Here is what I envision :

Salted Earth Weaponskill Gcd Attack Range 25y Radius 5y
Creates a patch of salted earth around the target, dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 60 to any enemies who enter.

Additional Effect : Absorbs 100% of damage dealt as HP
Duration: 15s Recast 30s.

• Living Shadow pack a lot potency for no reason but wasn't able to make the player base feel like it deliver an impact because it's own subtle way to deal damage meanwhile Salt and Darkness seem like an action that serve as a finisher but due to an attack potency that failed to reach the level of the proper finisher it remain an another mediocre attack in DRK tool kit. I would like to make this a real finisher that connect with Darkpassenger by remove the Living Shadow and allocated the attack potency to other action such as Salt and Darkness

Salt and Darkness Ability Ogcd Attack Range 0y Radius 5y
All enemies standing in the corrupted patch of Salted Earth take additional unaspected damage with a potency of ??? for the first enemy, and 60% less for all remaining enemies.
Maximum potency increase as Dark Gauge increase.
Consume all Dark Gauge upon execution.

• Now I think DRK action would more or less regain some synergy

------------------------------------------------------------------------



Other issue we talked a lot about DRK is the TBN and the defensive actions. DRK lose physical damage mitigation when Developer took Dark Dance and give it to GNB, result in a situation that DRK no longer have extra mitigate for a physical damage before they able to reach 2 expansions later to acquire "The Blackest Night" action. Needless to say there are a lot of fight that full of physical damage that the DRK player have to go through before reach that point in the story and we would have to suffer again should we partake in the fight that TBN action isn't available!!! thus I would like to make such a change :

• Bring back Shadowskin and make it replace Dark Mind

• Make Shadowskin upgrade to The Blackest Night when the action is available
• Make TBN 25s. recast and make don't consume MP.
• Then Make The Blackest Night gain physical mitigation effect as an upgrade at later level
• Change Oblation action into a heal that require mp cost.
• And make Obalation consume Dark Art instead of MP that the DRK received from when TBN completely absorbed an attack
• In this way player that want the significant of breaking the TBN and player who doesn't want to lose DPS when it doesn't break would be able to more or less able to compromise.
• This is what the description of these action would look like:

Shadow Skin
Reduces damage taken by 15%.
Duration 20s. Recast time 90s.




The Blackest Night
Creates a barrier around self or target party member that absorbs damage totaling 25% of target's maximum HP.
Grants Dark Arts when barrier is completely absorbed.
Dark Arts Effect: Consume Dark Arts instead of MP to execute Oblation

[[Upgrade] Additional Effect : Reduces damage taken by a party member or self by 10%.]




Oblation
Restore target HP. Cure Potency 1200. Cost : ????mp

• With this there would be at least an evolution/upgrade and synergy in defensive actions of DRK

[Zairava]

big snippery

We can almost all agree that there's no real synergy in the kit, however...

1) The issue isn't button bloat, it's an oGCD bloat during our big bursts..all the while there is zero interaction within the kit outside of DA granting a free flood/edge. However, if they do absolutely nothing there WILL be button bloat come next expansion.

I do believe there could be actions combined and given a new animation for said ability, though.

merging Edge/Flood gives us even less abilities that use mana and still doesn't solve the issue of oGCD bloat into one single window. I'd like to keep a single-target and aoe variant, but if they combine them...a conal aoe, please.

2a) I don't believe your Blood Weapon suggestion would actually work well in practice, but I can see what you're going for.

As for Abyssal Drain granting mp, unless it gives us 1.5k per charge (or they massively buff our mp generation), it will NOT be more useful than just having Blood Weapon give us both mp and blood gauge. Furthermore, they would have to skyrocket our blood gauge generation to make up for it. I would rather Blood Weapon just gives the haste it gave when using it before 5.0.

It would be cool to see them merge Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain into something we use every 60s though. Some heavy-hitting ability with a 3000mp cost.

MP expenditure could be thus:

• Shadowbringer on a one-charge system
• Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain merge suggestion as stated above
• Edge/Flood
• The Blackest Night

2b) Bloodspiller and Quietus are only uninteresting because we spam it so much.

You mention Salted Earth being a root cause of causing an overweaving issue along with Salt and Darkness feeling like it's meant to be a finisher, but falling flat because of potency, which is not the case.

• Your idea for Salted Earth doesn't change anything because it doesn't solve the issue of the boss moving outside of the puddle. Salted Earth should have some other interaction and stay. That, or just bring Scourge back as a GCD, replacing Salted Earth and Salt and Darkness and make it an aoe DoT we use every 30s that costs 20 Blood gauge. It would kill not two, not three, but FOUR birds in one stone.
  1. oGCD bloat reduction
  2. Blood Gauge having more meaningful usage since we would need to ensure we have 20 gauge for an important ability
  3. Adds a GCD for a much needed change of pace
  4. even if slight, more interesting downtime
• Salt and Darkness is a mediocre ability with a mediocre animation that only serves as yet another oGCD that feels slapped on to DRK's kit, which DOES cause an over-weaving issue. Nothing about it feels like a finisher.
• Bloodspiller feels much more like it should be a finisher given it's animation, we just got bored of it because of how often we use it. If they're gonna give us any aoe finisher combo, make something of Bloodspiller and either remove Quietus or use it in some form during the combo.
• I criticize Living Shadow a lot now for reasons beaten to death, but to safe..It is just a press and forget overglorified DoT, and I still hold that opinion. However...between LS and S&D, Living Shadow at least holds some identity lorewise.

3) DRK is fantastic defensively, it doesn't need another physical damage mit because of TBN.

• I get why people are suggesting Oblation merging with Dark Mind, it's to reduce button bloat, but it makes far more sense to merge it as an evolution for TBN, as I've stated numerous times. Oblation already feels like it's meant to weaved with TBN. The HP gains we get from power creep has far more to do with TBN not popping than a mere 10% mit does. You even suggested to give TBN more mitigation later on. Dark Mind is incredibly powerful where applicable, and DRK has been known for being the most magic defensive tank, and that's some semblance of whatever identity is left I'd like to keep.
• Bringing Shadowskin back as a low level TBN IS, however, a good change I've suggested as well. The upgrade path should be Shadowskin->The Blackest Night->Oblation.
• It doesn't make sense to make oblation a 1,200 potency heal, the animation itself implies it's a dark barrier protecting you. Moving the mp to that isn't something they would do either, because it would be 3k that could've been used on edge/flood.
• To give DRK some sustain to help it where needed, again, just revamp Blood Price into something that pools damage taken up to a certain heal potency and when it reaches that potency, it heals you for that amount. It would also heal you for whatever WAS pooled at the end of the duration if that condition was not met.

edit: After re-reading a few times, I thought of an issue some people may find with a suggestion i listed above, particularly Scourge returning as a 30s Dot costing 20 gauge. Which may bring up the question of "But we need 50 gauge for Living Shadow in our opener"

Some solutions would be:

• Make it free to use (the least interesting, but simple, option)
• Make Blood Weapon immediately grant 50 blood gauge on top of it already generating gauge
• Make Delirium immediately give 50 Blood Gauge on top of granting the hypothetical Bloodspiller combo for free

[The_User]

If it isn't now it is going to be problem soon. Right now you have Flood/Edge taking 2 hot bar and produce no synergy. Same with Bloodspiller and Quietus. If you don't merge it now the next expansion you would have too anyway.


And for Abyssal Drain it doesn't give a blood gauge it only restore mp and give a stack of abyss which is a bullet for darkpassenger.
However if this version of Abyssal Drain does restore mp too fast then there is an alternate it could be like :
Upon landing Abyssal Drain restore 600 mp and grant a buff which make the next 4 gcd restore 600 mp upon landing but I prefer 1 hit and the job done if possible since I don't want to experience the nuisance when the target just decide to jump or teleport/became untargetable before I could land all the hit.


If you want to convince all the DRK main to not turn tbn to 25s and no mp cost then be my guest. I won't engage in that topic and I can't be convinced otherwise.

[Zairava]

If it isn't now it is going to be problem soon. Right now you have Flood/Edge taking 2 hot bar and produce no synergy. Same with Bloodspiller and Quietus. If you don't merge it now the next expansion you would have too anyway.

Yes, as I already stated it would be a problem in 7.0 if they don't do anything about it. Edge/Flood's interaction lies within DA procs, and that requires TBN to pop, which...isn't much. It's there, though.

And for Abyssal Drain it doesn't give a blood gauge it only restore mp and give a stack of abyss which is a bullet for darkpassenger.
However if this version of Abyssal Drain does restore mp too fast then there is an alternate it could be like :
Upon landing Abyssal Drain restore 600 mp and grant a buff which make the next 4 gcd restore 600 mp upon landing but I prefer 1 hit and the job done if possible since I don't want to experience the nuisance when the target just decide to jump or teleport/became untargetable before I could land all the hit.

MP gain being too fast wouldn't be the problem here; Shadowbringer is essentially the spiritual successor to Dark Passenger. Again, this may sound good on paper but it likely wouldn't be received well in practice. Bosses becoming untargeteable is a fight to fight basis and falls upon the player(s) to plan around that (not that it's always well timed given the 2-minute burst meta..).

If you want to convince all the DRK main to not turn tbn to 25s and no mp cost then be my guest. I won't engage in that topic and I can't be convinced otherwise.

It is quite literally a nerf to DRK's defense, the same exact thing you claimed to wanted to remedy the lack thereof because of the removal of DRK dance. This is also without mentioning you wanted to make Oblation have an MP cost. so, if DA didn't break, you would still lose out on dps if the shield didn't break. TBN is fine as is.