Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

What I'm trying to go for is more variety in the GCD rotation... especially in the early levels so that some players are less tempted to buy progression skip items from the mogstation but let's be real here, they're gonna do it anyway...

Stripping away oGCDs and reducing overall apm to introduce alternate GCD combos only gives you "more variety" in the GCD rotation for the brief moment before hitting [Button 2] after [Button 1] becomes automatic. And you end up with far less variety in button-presses / movement across the keyboard / joystick overall in turn.

But Abyssal Drain would be a GCD that costs 3k MP, instead of 60 sec cooldown, when you first get it, and Flood of Darkness/Shadow would be the combo ender for that, nd yes I would make sure the AoE MP burst spender do just as much as the single target job gauge spender, and I have to say job gauge to clarify what resource should be used...

You'd make Abyssal Drain deal as much damage per target as... Edge? Why then would Edge exist? (Or is the "single target job gauge spender" supposed to be... Bloodspiller? You need to specify which gauge. DRK technically has 3, MP, Blood, and Darkside.)

Job gauge is single target Combo that restores HP and MP, and MP Spender combo is AoE that is just as strong in single target as it is in single target (DPS neutral in single target DPS gain in AoE) that Restore HP and generates job gauge if this explanation is easier and better to understand.

That is much better, yes.

Still, though, you've completely removed all offensive oGCDs from the game until level 52 (Salted Earth), with only 3 in total by level 90 (it, Carve and Split, and Shadowbringer). On a job that has traditionally been the most packed with offensive oGCDs. This doesn't seem thematic, let alone cohesive.

Darkside needs its own re-work though...

Aye. I'd recommend you start there, then. Decide first whether you even want a spendable duration gauge a la HW Blood of the Dragon (which is the only way you're going to be able to leverage that gauge as more than just an oGCD-procced Surging Tempest), whether you want to replace that gauge with something completely different, or it's better off scrapped entirely.

Personally, the strongest choice seems to be to start from the assumption that Darkside is gone. In that way you avoid convolution and focus on getting the rest of the kit up to par. In the course of that, if you find something that'd make the rest click, the create it in order to advantage the rest of the kit, but it makes little sense to involve Darkside just because Dark-Tempest / Surging-Dark exists at present. The debris of half-assed systems doesn't require replacement. The space, instead, just needs to look a whole better, and that's often easier without the garbage still scattered about.

As for the enmity combo question; people still don't how to turn on/off tank stance, don't know how Shirk works, and don't know how Provoke works... their are also fights that are designed with tank swaps that also auto-attack 2 players and still use the enmity list to determine where autos go for some reason... I am not joking...

That's not a warrant for the return of enmity combos though. If anything, it would assume that that effort would be pointless and could actually detract those first three brain cells' of output from occasionally hitting their tank stance button.

[DRKoftheAzure]

snip

Alright, Blood Gauge combo; Edge of Darkness(becomes Edge of Shadow level 72/74 along with Flood of Darkness becoming Flood of Shadow with a potency of 520) is the the starter with 300 potency(500 for Edge of Shadow), Bloodspiller is middle combo but you get it at level 58 with 100 less potency and level 62 where Bloodspiller is at now increases the potency to where it is at now, Carve and Spit becomes the combo ender, potency remains unchanged. MP Combo, Abyssal Drain at level 30 potency is 300 and potency becomes 500 at level 72/74, Quietus is obtained at 54/56 along with Flood of Darkness with potencies being 350 and 400 respectively, with Quietus potency becoming 500 at level 64. Goal is to have some overlap with some other jobs in terms of DPS while keeping the core DPS of what we currently have the same, and if you still struggle with that idea, let's just agree to disagree...

Salted Earth just becomes Salt and Darkness at higher levels with a 20 cooldown and no more 90 second cooldown for that ability... since you really care about APM THAT MUCH...

Darkside basically starts out as 3.x Blood Price at level 30 for the job quest ability, then becoming 3.x Blood Weapon at level 35 but keeps the the Blood Price effect, but also has Bloodbath effect baked in just in case, when you gain Edge of Darkness, you get Blackblood Gauge and the ability to generate 10 Blood Gauge every successful button press(see Reaper combos for more clarification), and at level 50 Blood Weapon becomes Darkside 10% via job quest which maxes out at 20% and still has all of the previous effects it had before, level 70 is where Darkside becomes Living Shadow where the potency of all abilities go up by 200, which the Living Shadow Mastery potency caps out at 500, which is A LOT OF DAMAGE, because might as well throw a bone to the FF11 players out there, duration caps at 30 seconds and is basically the button you press to refresh the buff timer in between you combos since, again, you really care about APM THAT MUCH...

Shadowbringers basically remains a oGCD with 30 second charge instead 60 seconds, but also generates 50 Blood Gauge upon execution and potency has no change whatsoever...

And just for good measure; Living Dead now drops your HP to 1 but your cannot go below 1 HP and whenever you deal damage you heal yourself with a cure potency is 1200 and the duration is 20 seconds with no change to the recast timer...

And at least with enmity combos you know which tanks are nice enough to be second on aggro list...

EDIT: because I was so tired when I typed this post last night I forgot some other things, such as bringing back Dark Passenger as a 30 second cooldown with 300 potency AND 50% accuracy down on anything hit by it for 15 seconds.

Delirium restores 6000 MP on a 30 second cooldown.

And bring back Dark Arts button to give 2 stacks of Dark Arts to be used for MP burst combo on a 30 second cooldown, and have The Blackest Night give 1 Dark Arts stack when it falls off and 2 for when it breaks.

You know, for AMP for your parser logs thing.