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.

[Shurrikhan]

Neither is the concept of pure healer and barrier healer but the devs set a precedent with that so naturally my expectation is the devs finally telling as which tank are actually supposed be main tank or off tank other taking a guess or scream that every tank plays EXACTLY the same for 3 expansions in a row...

That has nothing whatsoever to do with Enmity combos, though. Combos used solely for Enmity are only ever going to be bloat so long as Enmity exists as a simple, non-decaying value, let alone when we have (or, per your suggestion, only half the tank cast would have) Enmity stance toggles.

You don't need Enmity combos to split the tanks cast into MTs and OTs, nor do you need separated MTs and OTs in order to have Enmity combos.

Nor is there benefit in either endeavor. They're both bad ideas without some radical prior shift in the game's context. Simply removing more shit from our tanks to second-class half of them in light-party content --such as by removing Nascent Flash or making it so Aurora can only heal oneself (a la Equilibrium)-- isn't going to diversify our tanks in any meaningful way.

And the "pure" and "barrier" healing distinction is largely lip-service anyways. WHM, the "purest" of "pure healers"... has three mitigation skills. It's just a matter of who can spam what via GCDs, but we don't spam GCD heals anyways. Ultimately, even SCH's worthwhile barrier is still locked behind a CD, Recitation (and Emergency Tactics).

I personally despise TBN as it is now because it's the one thing holding DRK back because, as everybody keeps pointing out, it's the "best" unique due to its low cooldown. Remove that low cooldown, and suddenly it's no longer the best. Hell, it'd likely result in DRK getting actual things it needs without TBN being the excuse for why it gets nothing.

This also doesn't quite make sense to me.

The expansion in which TBN was added, at its greatest strength (12s CD, granting 50 Blood, back when Bloodspiller was far more prominent and Quietus automatically gave MP and had damage fall-off instead of just the fixed minimum AoE damage, ultimately synergizing with DA-AD especially in the context of mass-pulls), was also the expansion in which we had the most self-sustain and most bizarre extreme capabilities/cheese.

We could literally MP-cap ourselves in a single BW-Quietus swing, and pop TBN on CD atop alternating DA-AD and DA-Quietus for nigh immortality.

The most frequent and more than arguably the strongest TBN we've ever had (and a more synergetic form, at that)... uniquely coexisted with the strongest self-sustain and shenanigans we've ever had. How the heck, then, is TBN the thing that would be holding us back?

If TBN replaced that insane self-healing, I'd see your point. But it didn't. It introduced our era of peak self-healing. Or, more precisely, it was introduced just fine alongside it and in synergy with it. The same expansion that gave us TBN also gave us our mass-pull god-mode era -- alike to (enjoyably, imo) a convoluted but technically slightly higher-highs Warrior in dungeon-cheesing.

[Zairava]

snip

1) It's mostly to avoid accidental usage on say...edge instead of Shadowbringer, if edge is still 3k and Shadowbringer is 5k, for example. I understand the preference for it being automatic though. They could also put it on conditional usage as you mentioned. Do you think they could somehow tie Darkside to DA?...in any sense that it would actually be interesting, anyway.

2) The only thing preventing them from giving different mp costs is their incessant desire to make everything as safe as possible, otherwise we would likely have different mp costs on abilities now. Whether it's single use or not doesn't matter, because that's an issue that already exists without it being a GCD with a maximum capacity of 2-3 charges. There doesn't have to be some complicated method to having different mp costs, just make the ones with a higher mp cost on a cooldown. I do think that there should probably be some degree of increased mp restoration regardless of DRK iteration in 7.0 to maybe get one or two oGCD's in during burst downtime.

3) The idea wasn't to use it immediately anyway. With Blood Weapon in its current installment, you get 70 blood gauge. 20 would be for the spender and 50 would be for Delirium (refer to my note about Living Shadow.)

However, I'm with you on points here.

• I would infinitely rather we just get Scourge back instead of my "spender gives DA charge" concept.
• The Blood gauge is completely lackluster, they could completely remove it and I would be none the worse for wear. Especially if they have no intentions on doing anything with it.

[JPMJ]

As for mp spenders...ideas for those are up in the air. Giving Shadowbringer an mp cost as well as Abyssal Drain are a couple I'm in favor of.

I'm dissatisfied that only the Dark Knight doesn't have a finisher.

If you want to add MP cost to Shadowbringer, please increase the potency so that you can use it as a finisher.
Or make Blood Delirium activating condition
There is no charge, and the CD of 60 seconds and the potency is about 1200
GCD skills are even better.

[Zairava]

I'm dissatisfied that only the Dark Knight doesn't have a finisher.

If you want to add MP cost to Shadowbringer, please increase the potency so that you can use it as a finisher.
Or make Blood Delirium activating condition
There is no charge, and the CD of 60 seconds and the potency is about 1200
GCD skills are even better.

I personally would prefer if Delirium granted a finisher (or a combo thereof, instead of just 3 Bloodspillers), but I don't feel like Shadowbringer quite hits that mark like PLD's confiteor combo or WAR's Primal Rend does, so I'd like something that feels like it has more power behind it

[JPMJ]

I personally would prefer if Delirium granted a finisher (or a combo thereof, instead of just 3 Bloodspillers), but I don't feel like Shadowbringer quite hits that mark like PLD's confiteor combo or WAR's Primal Rend does, so I'd like something that feels like it has more power behind it

Whatever changes are made, I hope that the style will be more powerful and aggressive, using great swords and dark magic.

[Zairava]

This Darkside is a bit of a spitball, and one I'm not entirely certain they'd be keen to implement, but nonetheless I will post it.

Darkside, but instead of draining MP, it drains HP. Don't worry, this isn't going to be one of my weird ideas where Darkside is draining HP and Grit replenishes it

I have a few things in mind for this to be implemented, but is not limited to what I'm putting here.

The Blackest Night:

• Costs X MP
• Functions the exact same it does now, but this gets added (and therefore TBN itself)

  Additional effect: Nullifies the negative effect from Darkside. Duration: 5s

Scourge:

• Weaponskill on the GCD
• Requires 30 Blood Gauge and Darkside to be active
• Deal X potency to target
• Additional effect: Restores HP up to that of a heal of X potency. The lower your HP is, the higher amount of HP that will be restored.

Abyssal Drain:

• Spell on the GCD
• Requires 30 Blood Gauge and Darkside to be active
• Deal X potency to target and all targets nearby it
• Additional effect: Restores HP up to that of a heal of X potency. The lower your HP is, the higher amount of HP that will be restored.

Really, your usage of TBN won't change, it nullifying the HP drain from Darkside is a safety net to ensure bosses won't kill you with auto's right after TB's because of the HP drain and to remove any need to remove Darkside in any given situation with oncoming damage.

Scourge and Abyssal Drain realistically could just be one ability in this case, but we know how that goes. (They could also just make carve and spit fill that slot instead of adding Scourge back, but that would be shooting themselves in the foot honestly. C&S would be better served being on a shorter CD than 60s)

Also, ideally the potency on Scourge/Abyssal would be such that it isn't used over Bloodspiller/Quietus in burst windows unless you need the sustain, which is..well.. what they are there for. They could just make it a new button in itself that just heals us...but what I suggested feels like it would be more interesting overall.

For the rate at which HP is drained...maybe 5% per tick?

As for the ye old button bloat situation:

• Merge Dark Mind into Oblation
• per above, as stated, my suggestion for Scourge/AD could easily be consolidated into just one button
• Merge Bloodspiller and Quietus
• Merge Delirium into Blood Weapon, if nothing else is going to be done with Delirium.

[ItsUrBoi]

I don't know what the design idea for DRK is going into the next expansion but I'd certainly like to see more unique cooldowns and consolidated actions such as this:

Consolidation:
-> Changed Dark Mind to give 2 effects. One which gives 10% damage reduction and an additional one which gives 10% magic damage reduction. Then at level 82, this can upgrade into Oblation, increasing the magic damage reduction to 20% instead of 10%.
-> Bloodspiller turned into AoE and given damage fall off. Quietus removed, I highly doubt anyone would miss it.

New abilities:
-> Make Bloodspiller combo into another attack as a unique mechanic to DRK. PLD and GNB have combos, WAR has x3 Fell cleave -> Primal Rend, DRK could have something like: Bloodspiller -> new GCD. Delirium would just allow you to use x3 Bloodspillers, each fallowed up by this new GCD. You anyway do a full Souleater combo in raid buffs, which is weird, shouldn't it be your strongest GCDs?
-> A new cooldown, which would be similar to one of the older removed ones: Sole Survivor / Blood Price. A few ideas have been mentioned.
1. Sole Survivor:
Marks target. Attacks against marked target heal the DRK. Killing the target restores 20% of HP and MP. If target survives only HP is restored.
2. Bloodprice:
Idea 1. Upon activation compiles the amount of damage taken ( shielding counts ). At the end of the duration heal for 50% of compiled amount, or upon activating the ability again.
Idea 2. Marks nearby allies and enemies in a 15 yalm area around you with a buff. When marked units take damage, they drop small orbs. Activating the ability again draws in all orbs in a 30 yalm area around you but ends the effect early. Each enemy can drop up to 2 orbs in total, allies up to 1 in total per ability use.

[Malthir]

This Darkside is a bit of a spitball, and one I'm not entirely certain they'd be keen to implement, but nonetheless I will post it.

Darkside, but instead of draining MP, it drains HP. Don't worry, this isn't going to be one of my weird ideas where Darkside is draining HP and Grit replenishes it

I have a few things in mind for this to be implemented, but is not limited to what I'm putting here.

The Blackest Night:

• Costs X MP
• Functions the exact same it does now, but this gets added (and therefore TBN itself)

  Additional effect: Nullifies the negative effect from Darkside. Duration: 5s

Scourge:

• Weaponskill on the GCD
• Requires 30 Blood Gauge and Darkside to be active
• Deal X potency to target
• Additional effect: Restores HP up to that of a heal of X potency. The lower your HP is, the higher amount of HP that will be restored.

Abyssal Drain:

• Spell on the GCD
• Requires 30 Blood Gauge and Darkside to be active
• Deal X potency to target and all targets nearby it
• Additional effect: Restores HP up to that of a heal of X potency. The lower your HP is, the higher amount of HP that will be restored.

Really, your usage of TBN won't change, it nullifying the HP drain from Darkside is a safety net to ensure bosses won't kill you with auto's right after TB's because of the HP drain and to remove any need to remove Darkside in any given situation with oncoming damage.

Scourge and Abyssal Drain realistically could just be one ability in this case, but we know how that goes. (They could also just make carve and spit fill that slot instead of adding Scourge back, but that would be shooting themselves in the foot honestly. C&S would be better served being on a shorter CD than 60s)

Also, ideally the potency on Scourge/Abyssal would be such that it isn't used over Bloodspiller/Quietus in burst windows unless you need the sustain, which is..well.. what they are there for. They could just make it a new button in itself that just heals us...but what I suggested feels like it would be more interesting overall.

For the rate at which HP is drained...maybe 5% per tick?

As for the ye old button bloat situation:

• Merge Dark Mind into Oblation
• per above, as stated, my suggestion for Scourge/AD could easily be consolidated into just one button
• Merge Bloodspiller and Quietus
• Merge Delirium into Blood Weapon, if nothing else is going to be done with Delirium.

No offense but this would be awful and make Drks completely unplayable. Drks already have a self sustain issues, baking in another self sustain issue would kills the class completely.

[Zairava]

No offense but this would be awful and make Drks completely unplayable. Drks already have a self sustain issues, baking in another self sustain issue would kills the class completely.

No offense taken, I don't expect this would be a popular idea, but you did read it in its entirety right? I listed TBN would cancel it's effect for 5s AND listed sustain tool(s). It's just a concept right now, so it can be expanded upon with even further sustain tools.

The idea would be a reasonable drain and to provide sustain through the Blood gauge as I listed so that it isn't just a straight up copy of the beast gauge, this would also enforce different abilities other than Bloodspiller/Quietus during burst downtime, as your mainting your HP.

I shouldn't have to say this, but cure potencies and drain would be balanced as such you aren't gutting yourself because the max potency on the heal from Scourge/Abyssal Drain is set to something laughable like 400. It would need to probably be something like 1,200-1,500 cure potency maximum.

They could even bring back Blood Price and revamp it with suggestions in earlier pages, like pooling in damage dealt to enemies and healing you based on how much has been inflicted or upon activating the heal effect early. Sole Survivor even, place a DoT on the enemy and heal yourself for its duration. Delirium can increase self-healing by 20%. There's a number of things. You'd simply just deactivate Darkside in boss downtime when the boss becomes untargetable.

I'm not making this suggestion without actually giving us sustain tools in mind, that would be ludicrous, and completely defeat the point of managing your HP. The idea is that you are sustaining yourself.

Of course, if HP isn't a viable outfit for this either, there is MP as well, though that would require me to make another giant theorycraft again since TBN is a touchy subject there, as removing its MP cost mandates it be put on a higher CD, which effectively nerfs us unless we get something to compensate.

Although, you could also reverse the roles of what I said. Instead of self-healing, they would be mp restoration tools