Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

...

So, there are a few things here I'm confused/concerned by.


I.
If the only point of DA-as-an-action would be to nullify the cost of the next ability... is there really any point in spending a button on that? You can as easily just make the cost-nullification automatic and perhaps even conditional (used only if under 60% [two oGCDs' worth of] remaining MP).

If we make it a GCD a la Meditation, then there's more reason for that button... but then you effectively end up with it just being a competitor to Unmend and/or Unleash, either replacing them (especially, when there's more than 1 GCD but less than 2 GCDs time remaining to damage the enemy/enemies) or being made inferior to them. At most, that offers an anti-overclocking option, but not one that's particularly useful to DRK since its ppgcd variance across its combo is already low unless the one extra SE within window would replace a HS with a BS, especially with BS potency already having been further deemphasized in favor of oGCD value in EW.


II.
Though this does apply also to the current version of DA, working around a single-cast cost-nullifier means that we're absolutely stuck with every MP spender costing the exact same amount of MP.

That's not the worst thing to have happen, but it's also far from necessary. Heck, we could have taken the current DA design and just changed it such that mitigation by TBN and Shadow Wall restore %MP equal to their %HP of damage thereby absorbed -- wholly granular. You'd just have a shadowed/"barrier-ed" portion of your MP bar that notes how much additional MP value would be 'free-cast', while your MP text value just shows the combined amounts. Just call that free MP from mitigation "Dark Arts" or "Shadowskin" or what have you and voila: you've no obligation to play around a fixed MP cost for all things.

Exceptions: Technically, if we wanted to use a %current_MP spender (with whatever minimum cost), we could game that a bit with single-cast cost-nullification. Short of that, though, there's no advantage to pigeonholing ourselves in that way.


III.
Finally, let's go over the Power Slash (on CD, via a GCD, spend 20 Blood for potency + free Edge of Shadow / MP spender) and Delirium (per 60s, oGCD, spend 50 Blood for a free Edge of Shadow / MP spender) redesign ideas...

Whatever the potency of Power Slash itself, the biggest thing is that you're trading X% of the benefit of Bloodspiller over your average combo ppgcd... for oGCD potency (an Edge, at minimum). Attaching that Blood cost does (at least) mean (for better or worse) that you can't open with this skill, and have to margin differently (whereas before our margining had to do with odd/even multiples of 50 Blood generated), but... I'm not really getting the appeal of a skill whose value has to be so anchored around "Gives a free Edge of Shadow", when we already have 4 MP spending oGCDs in our immediate opener alone. I'd... much prefer Scourge, for instance, over that.

Similarly, Delirium assumes that Blood must simply be greatly inferior to MP, because you're trading (for this particular example/version) 50% of the one for just 30% of the other. Is that really a desirable balance of / take on our two resources? Do we want Blood to remain that auxiliary and lackluster, let alone become even more secondary to MP?

Honestly, I could see us scrapping Blood outright if we were to sufficiently revamp Darkside and make more interesting use of MP than as a mere DRK-Kenki gauge (without the access to a quick, low-cost gap-closer / backstep), but so long as we're keeping it, I'd rather not see it even more obviously squished into irrelevance in itself. The only reason I was at all okay with Stormblood Delirium was because of it extending Blood Weapon for self-refunding DA-Quietus cheese in large pulls.