Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

If you want to drag down the thread with pointless stupid semantics for another page, you're actually wrong.

Ironic.

and [Living Shadow] allows DRK in niche scenarios to keep uptime where it normally couldn't.

It doesn't, though.

A target-locked effect of finite duration that deals a fixed amount of potency over that time with modifiers snapshotted upon initial cast (call it whatever the heck you like, if "DoT" somehow won't suffice) will not increase your melee uptime unless except insofar as it replaces the time otherwise spent on a melee tool (replacing that with something of greater range and therefore able to continue attacking when you otherwise could not).

A tool like old Requiescat that allows you to continue dealing (nearly) full damage (all but AAs) for 9 GCDs regardless of range is something that can potentially increase melee uptime, but Living Shadow acts independently of the time spent on melee skills while it is active, because it's oGCD.

"Well, Living Shadow is still attacking anyways" is not a reason to feel fine about not attacking, yourself, while Living Shadow is up. Your uptime and that of LS's DoT/summon-without-any-properties-of-a-summon/pet-that's-not-a-pet function independently of each other.

So no, Living Shadow is not a "ranged attack" in even a single way that has ever been useful in XIV in the context in which it exists (PvE). It has every characteristic of a single-target DoT --that simply happens in this case to be oGCD-- and no characteristics or uses beyond that.

On the larger topic:

What kind of interplay with the Living Shadow do we want to see?

Let's throw ideas at the board, simulate them for their effects in-practice, and see what seems lucrative.

Some rough ideas mentioned thus far:

1. Living Shadow would instead cause using any GCD while still on the global cooldown to have your Living Shadow perform the attack instead (therefore without incurring the global recast time), with each oGCD granting a temporary charge that allows your Living Shadow to perform it. (Your Living Shadow will automatically teleport to enemies when directed to use melee attacks on enemies out of range, and pressing Living Shadow again while it is active would allow you to switch places with your Living Shadow.) Effectively, a different-feeling Haste buff with some extra bells and whistles. [Synergetic context: Edge/Flood are replaced by a dynamic follow-up version of DA.] -- (Based on my ideas early in the thread.)
   
   
2. Make it an actual pet, and let it do things that leverage its actually being a pet. About 3 command actions should do, some of which could probably be swapped (temporarily upgraded) actions. -- (Based on Fulminating's ideas, this page.)
   
   
3. Living Shadow gets empowered by use of certain abilities, perhaps stacking (culminating in a thus-empowered sort of Shadow-Confiteor based on the number Edge or Bloodspiller, etc. casts) or in a sort of "combo" system (to be decided). -- (Based on Lyth's ideas, this page.)
   
   
4. Doesn't need to be anything too fancy in itself, so long as its (allowances and constraints in) timing forces a significant increase in the kit's total engagement. In that sense, even just a percentile amp could do a fair bit of good for the kit well beyond what LS does now; though that increase wouldn't need to stop with a mere basic damage amp, emphasis should fall equally on the timings of the skill and its impact on (expanding) DRK's fixed CDs' usage (or, options and considerations therein). -- (Based on a frequent/shared idea.)
   
   
5. Discrete actions, similarly to Salt and Darkness (either on LS itself, or such that LS unlocks these for other skills), or perhaps 4th-step combo skills, etc., such that Living Shadow allows for whole new animations and bonus potencies. -- (Based on Zairava's ideas, previous page, themselves influenced by Lyth's and others', iirc.)

[ItsUrBoi]

[*]Discrete actions, similarly to Salt and Darkness (either on LS itself, or such that LS unlocks these for other skills), or perhaps 4th-step combo skills, etc., such that Living Shadow allows for whole new animations and bonus potencies. -- (Based on Zairava's ideas, previous page, themselves influenced by Lyth's and others', iirc.)

What about a similar thing to Bahamut phase / Pheonix phase kind of idea ?
You already have Delirium granting you x3 Bloodspillers and your burst window is kind of weird: You do x3 Bloodspillers, then a Souleater combo.

1. Delirium could grant a 5 action combo, starting with Bloodspiller.
2. All your GCD actions can be copied by Living Shadow, so you basically want to fit all of your strongest GCD attack within Living Shadow, so Frey can do them as well.
3. If you move C&S / Abyssal Drain to being GCDs, this would be 6 actions ( Delirium combo + 1 = 6 actions to be copied, which is exactly how many attacks Esteem does )

The only issue that might rise is the spawning animation delay of Esteem, to counter this Square Enix can make use of Esteem's gauge timer : when you press Living Shadow, the indicator does not appear instantly, it only appears when Frey is ready to copy your GCDs. Esteem can copy 7 GCDs so that you don't have to worry about using a GCD action too early or waiting for the timer to appear in case you use one action that is weaker potency as soon as he is actually read. Esteem's time can be 22 seconds long, so that you have enough time to use your actions.

[Shurrikhan]

The only issue that might rise is the spawning animation delay of Esteem, to counter this Square Enix can make use of Esteem's gauge timer : when you press Living Shadow, the indicator does not appear instantly, it only appears when Frey is ready to copy your GCDs. Esteem can copy 7 GCDs so that you don't have to worry about using a GCD action too early or waiting for the timer to appear in case you use one action that is weaker potency as soon as he is actually read. Esteem's time can be 22 seconds long, so that you have enough time to use your actions.

The first seems easily fixed, yeah. But if you have 20 seconds of actual/real duration, wouldn't you want to have it close skills at the rate their coming out, not on the 3-second tick rate? At that point, with any Skill Speed, you're looking at 9 Living Shadow cloned-GCDs under the effect, no? (Not just 7 in 21|22 seconds.)

I'm not really into the idea of making it a Pet job.
Feels like if the job was going to be that it would need to have elements of that before lv 80, it would just come out of no where for people leveling DRK.

I agree, even if I don't feel that simply being able to direct Living Shadow with one's actions, especially if at no increase to button cost would be akin to suddenly making DRK a "pet job".

Would this feel better to you if there were similar interactions earlier, such as being able to leave a dummy of sorts via a revised Shadowskin and perhaps to swap positions with it or "souls" split off of enemies via Carve and Spit (each via a follow-up action made available with those same buttons once the initiating ability is on CD)?

I guess my idea for it would honestly be to have it's actions play into your resources more,
You should get Health/mp from its Abyssal, you should get 600 mp from its Carve and spit, maybe while its out it can generate Blood and MP,
and in turn give DRK more things to spend Blood and especially MP on.

So just making the individual discrete abilities Living Shadow performs bear their full tangible effects (Blood, MP, HP)? It'd lack the control of the previously given more generic resource/damage amp ideas given before, but still would be an obvious improvement, yeah. Sounds decent.

Now should we combine the idea of having it generate resources with copying your abilities, that be something to talk about, pooling certain resource generating moves into that window to get a fat return and even more explosive burst window.

Most of the "old-Bunshin amp" or "%damage/resource buff" ideas since early in the thread involved resource gain as well as to have a more tangible impact. Are there any difference between what you're looking for and, say, just having the Living Shadow deal 20% of the copied skills' damage and 50% of its resource generation?
* (Or... 15% damage and 100% added resource generation, though that much resource gen might encourage avoiding not only Hard Slash/Unleash, but also regular Bloodspillers during that window because the Edge-potency of more Syphons could outweigh the damage bonus, etc.)

I pretty much expect the Salt and Darkness approach to it come 7.0 though, and probably more Enhanced Living Shadow traits to upgrade existing skills it uses to whatever upgrades come in 7.0.

A reasonable and therefore depressing guess. I wish those things didn't so often go together.

If you want to play super useless semantics, [Living Shadow is] a ranged oGCD DoT.

Okay, let's put it this way: On paper, it's a ranged oGCD, CD-locked, gauge-spending DoT.

• In practice, though, it's being an oGCD is irrelevant because that single GCD saved under damage windows doesn't significantly and disproportionately improve potency in window. But it could matter... if in a slightly different context.
• In practice, it doesn't matter that it's ranged, because it can't remove range requirements from any portion of your melee uptime. But it could, even if only faintly, if it weren't oGCD.
• In practice, it leverages nothing in its spending gauge because it shares that cost with literally every Blood spender; it merely causes one to be careful not to overspend Blood before the 2-minute mark (which... you'd have passively margined anyways because BW/Del ca no longer overcap you from less than 80 Blood and you always save up to that point for the 2-min cycle... because it's the two-minute cycle). But that gauge could matter if it were used differently or even... used a different gauge that itself behaves differently.
• Heck, if the underlying mechanic of the summon were slightly revised (allowing it to swap targets, allowing its hit-rate instead of merely its damage to scale with Skill Speed, etc.), it could actually be a summon, not just a DoT.

Those are the characteristics we're trying to make real --visible even in practice-- through those Living Shadow suggestions, no? We have its design intent. Now we need to make that real/actually able to be leveraged, because for now its actual usable characteristics are indistinguishable from any other CD-locked DoT.

[Zairava]

I agree, even if I don't feel that simply being able to direct Living Shadow with one's actions, especially if at no increase to button cost would be akin to suddenly making DRK a "pet job".

Would this feel better to you if there were similar interactions earlier, such as being able to leave a dummy of sorts via a revised Shadowskin and perhaps to swap positions with it or "souls" split off of enemies via Carve and Spit (each via a follow-up action made available with those same buttons once the initiating ability is on CD)?

Aside of the fact we seem...not on board with making DRK a pet job, I think it would be pretty off-putting regardless. Especially considering that our Darkside is something we're supposed to be able to manipulate as one of the main sources of our power, and it should feel like we progressively get better at it(Not that the job designers currently do a good job of making sure it feels like it since the Shadowbringers culling.) with being able to either summon your Living Shadow, or fuse it with yourself for raw power per our suggestions in prior posts, being an/the ultimatum.

Most of the "old-Bunshin amp" or "%damage/resource buff" ideas since early in the thread involved resource gain as well as to have a more tangible impact. Are there any difference between what you're looking for and, say, just having the Living Shadow deal 20% of the copied skills' damage and 50% of its resource generation?
* (Or... 15% damage and 100% added resource generation, though that much resource gen might encourage avoiding not only Hard Slash/Unleash, but also regular Bloodspillers during that window because the Edge-potency of more Syphons could outweigh the damage bonus, etc.)

I feel like this possibly could be remedied if the 100% added resource generation required you to actually have the combo going. (so...say you activate Living Shadow, the 100% resource generation on Syphon Strike, Souleater, and Stalwart Soul would not be given to you unless you have the combo bonus which gives the base generation in the first place)

That being said, I think even 20% bonus damage +50% resource generation would feel good.

They could also just make certain actions upgraded when Living Shadow is activated and provide the bonuses when used when the combo conditions are met. (said actions being Syphon Strike, Souleater, Bloodspiller...the works) I feel, however, that the 20% bonus damage should apply regardless.

This is more or less how it would work:
Upon activating Living Shadow

• All abilities have an increased 20% potency for 20s (or 21/22s to make it ping friendly)
• Syphon Strike, Souleater, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain, BloodSpiller/Quietus have a 50% or 100% increased resource generation for its duration. (MP,HP, Blood Gauge)

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like this possibly could be remedied if the 100% added resource generation required you to actually have the combo going.

The problem of having +100% generation but only +10% or so damage would apply regardless of whether it requires combos. Don't Syphon and Soul eater require the combo to generate resource anyways?

No, the issue I'm referring to is if, say, Syphon normally grants a sixth of an Edge and an Edge deals 460 potency, then that's 77 potency more afforded (85 if used in-window) via that doubled resource generation (compared to only 28 from the damage buff itself), while our GCDs that hit hardest in themselves would actually be less affected (only 50 bonus potency from using Bloodspiller, which would beat out only Hard Slash/Unleash/Unmend). As such, our big hitting GCDs... would then be the second-lowest priority attacks to use within that window.

That's still not a problem per se, but it could be a little unintuitive or mathematic to want to prioritize GCDs spent on Syphon Strike or Souleater over (especially, non-Delirium) Bloodspillers.

:: Of course, nerfs to Edge's/MP-spenders' portion of total damage or making Bloodspillers grant MP regardless of Delirium would already mitigate much of that, though +20% dmg | +50% resource would still probably be the better balance.

(or 21/22s to make it ping friendly)

Final nitpick: At that long of durations, adding a second or, especially, two won't likely make the skill any more "ping-friendly" unless you cap the total number of hits, at which point you're ultimately just neutering Skill Speed's contribution to the skill.

• At 20 seconds and a 2.48s GCD (about as low as you can regularly find), you're still getting 9 hits cloned by Living Shadow, with more than 1.3 seconds of uptime loss required in order to lose a GCD.
  
• On the other hand, that means that at 22 seconds, a 2.44-GCD DRK could get out a 10th GCD with no leeway.
  
• 21 is a decent middle-ground, as one has to drop all the way to a 2.32 GCD to get an extra hit out of it, so there's little reason to push to the next point at which one could in an extra hit at zero leeway.
  
• 19 is similarly decent, as that means 8 hits with 1.5 seconds' leeway (and needing to drop to a 2.24 GCD to get in a 9th hit) but would likely somehow seem a stranger number than 21. /shrug

Ultimately, it won't matter much. 20 seconds is plenty ping-friendly unless someone has gone well out of their way to avoid even the slightest bit of Skill Speed, while by 22, you encourage a slightly lower GCD and lose all leniency.

[Zairava]

The problem of having +100% generation but only +10% or so damage would apply regardless of whether it requires combos. Don't Syphon and Soul eater require the combo to generate resource anyways?

No, the issue I'm referring to is if, say, Syphon normally grants a sixth of an Edge and an Edge deals 460 potency, then that's 77 potency more afforded (85 if used in-window) via that doubled resource generation (compared to only 28 from the damage buff itself), while our GCDs that hit hardest in themselves would actually be less affected (only 50 bonus potency from using Bloodspiller, which would beat out only Hard Slash/Unleash/Unmend). As such, our big hitting GCDs... would then be the second-lowest priority attacks to use within that window.

That's still not a problem per se, but it could be a little unintuitive or mathematic to want to prioritize GCDs spent on Syphon Strike or Souleater over (especially, non-Delirium) Bloodspillers.

:: Of course, nerfs to Edge's/MP-spenders' portion of total damage or making Bloodspillers grant MP regardless of Delirium would already mitigate much of that, though +20% dmg | +50% resource would still probably be the better balance.

Yeah that makes more sense then whatever I was babbling about.

If they were take this route, I suspect they would take the +20% damage and 50% more generation anyway, as 100% would be massive and possibly lead to issues (mostly in our big burst. My biggest assumption is that we would probably have much more mana than we rightfully need while bursting if edge/flood are to remain our only mp spenders outside of TBN.Though they could also, ya know, bring back Dark Arts). I think it goes without saying that regardless of how high they make the added resource generation, they are still going to nerf the mp spenders potency and raise others anyway.

[Oizen]

Ironic.
It doesn't, though.

More fun useless petty semantics.
I literally just used it in a Eureka Orthos solo to keep uptime on a mob that was Enraging so I could LoS it and keep significant damage up.

Its a ranged attack, just because its not conventional to your semantics doesn't mean it cant be used at a range or while the Dark Knight themselves are not within melee range.

If you want to play super useless semantics, its a ranged oGCD DoT. Which is different from Sonic Break. But no matter how you break it down, it still means it's more than "just a DoT".
Its it an incredibly niche and semantic way to look at a skill? Yes. But so is saying "its a DoT!" as if that really means anything.

Ironic.
[B]What kind of interplay with the Living Shadow do we want to see?

Having it directly copy your actions is a decent idea, though I really question whats the point of having it copy your GCD specifically is. This essentially translates to "It spams Bloodspiller too".
Which I mean its more interactive by technicality, but you're going to be doing the same actions during a burst window,
I just don't think it'll feel all that different than if it cycled through automated attacks like it does now. And we'd have to include a fairly large rework to DRK's core rotation to make it copying GCDs feel worthwhile.

The idea to be able to teleport to where it is sounds neat though. I want more mobility on tanks.

I'm not really into the idea of making it a Pet job.
Feels like if the job was going to be that it would need to have elements of that before lv 80, it would just come out of no where for people leveling DRK.
I also don't think the skill has the uptime to warrant such a drastic change in skill set.

I guess my idea for it would honestly be to have it's actions play into your resources more,
You should get Health/mp from its Abyssal, you should get 600 mp from its Carve and spit, maybe while its out it can generate Blood and MP,
and in turn give DRK more things to spend Blood and especially MP on.bringbackdarkarts

Now should we combine the idea of having it generate resources with copying your abilities, that be something to talk about,
pooling certain resource generating moves into that window to get a fat return and even more explosive burst window.

I pretty much expect the Salt and Darkness approach to it come 7.0 though,
and probably more Enhanced Living Shadow traits to upgrade existing skills it uses to whatever upgrades come in 7.0.

[Silver-Strider]

More fun useless petty semantics.
I literally just used it in a Eureka Orthos solo to keep uptime on a mob that was Enraging so I could LoS it and keep significant damage up.

I don't even play DRK and even I can tell that Living Shadow is just a Glorified DoT. It doesn't give you any more uptime than any other DoT in the game

[Lyth]

The reason why I put up that disclaimer advising against going off on wild tangents around the 'philosophy of DoTs' is because this was all mapped out on reddit ages ago. My personal favorites are 'Auto-Attack is a DoT and 'Substats are DoTs'. But while funny, it derails the more useful and practical discussion at hand over semantics.

If Living Shadow simply duplicates your actions, it turns into Fight or Flight/No Mercy with some arbitrary multiplier attached ('Fight or Flight is a... never mind'). There are alternatives, of course. You could go with a middle ground where Edge/Flood is copied, or Bloodspiller/Quietus produces an upgraded attack when active. You could have Living Shadow itself become a (GCD) proc button when active. You could have an X stack finisher that rewards you for what you do while the Shadow is up or truncates the effect early for phase transitions.

I don't expect a direct rework to Living Shadow. But I would like to see additions to DRK that expand out its offensive gameplay. We need at least one more regular GCD, perhaps comboing off of Bloodspiller such that it indirectly impacts Delirium as well. A finisher to Living Shadow that builds up damage based on what you do while it is active would be nice as well. For a third action my strongest preference would be for a non-damage linked movement ability, or if we could replace Dark Missionary with something more iconic like Runic. What I expect to see is either a merged upgrade of Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain, or an upgrade to Dark Mind that ends up being an indirect nerf.