Dark Knight Megathread

[baklava151]

Pretty interesting to see that now that DRK is no longer unequivocally the top DPS tank, it has fallen behind even PLD on that site in number of parses. Part of that could also be the fact that not every TB is magical and inflicts a bleed like in Abyssos so you can't throw a bunch of mits at TBs and be fine, but it's still quite a jarring swing. Personally I don't care where it is in terms of DPS or number of parses and was planning on swapping to GNB before 6.4 even released, but I can see why people would want to avoid dealing with DRK's 2-minute weave hell when it doesn't net you the same results it did in previous tiers.

[Oizen]

I think its more of, why would you play DRK for damage, when you can play WAR for damage, a better invuln, better and more applicable raidwide mitigation, better party utility as a whole. Infact its kinda hard to think of content in this game where WAR isn't the best pick right now.

And when it comes to mitigation against Physical Damage, DRK's defensives are honestly pretty sub par, all it has that isn't standard is an extra 10% and TBN, Dark Mind and Missionary completely fall into irrelevance.

Like I haven't struggled to survive Tank Busters or anything, but mechs like Harrowing Hell really make you question if Dark Mind or Heart of Light really have to be locked to Magic only, especially when you look at how hilariously bloated and overtuned Shake it Off is, PLD is an incredibly clunky and questionable job, but its utility is there, DRK is more of a selfish tank to no end right now it seems.

Basically, the lack of damage was WAR's only real downside, and now thats gone.

[baklava151]

I think its more of, why would you play DRK for damage, when you can play WAR for damage, a better invuln, better and more applicable raidwide mitigation, better party utility as a whole. Infact its kinda hard to think of content in this game where WAR isn't the best pick right now.

That's partly what I was getting at, right now it's pretty solidly third in aDPS at most percentiles in each fight (except for P12S phase 1) so it's lost the one huge advantage it had last tier and the number of parses tanked immediately. Turns out having an identity staked in high DPS isn't a great idea when that could easily change within a patch and when everyone wants DPS to be tuned extremely tightly anyways.

Like I haven't struggled to survive Tank Busters or anything, but mechs like Harrowing Hell really make you question if Dark Mind or Heart of Light really have to be locked to Magic only, especially when you look at how hilariously bloated and overtuned Shake it Off is, PLD is an incredibly clunky and questionable job, but its utility is there, DRK is more of a selfish tank to no end right now it seems.

I don't see it struggling with TBs specifically, like there's been a few physical ones but it's still got plenty to deal with those. Plus I'm really missing TBN for the TB that's immediately followed by a tower in P10S because its short CD would be great for mitigating both, Heart of Corundum can't quite cover both hits. Or for covering the bleed that comes with the tower. It's just not gonna shine quite as much as it did last tier.

On the one hand, yeah both GNB and DRK are useless on Harrowing and it feels real bad, on the other hand it's the one mechanic out of an entire tier where their AoE is useless. Mitigating magic damage specifically is one thing I've always associated with DRK so it'd really suck to lose that flavor when it struggles on a single mechanic. I'm not saying that couldn't change in the future and we see more physical raidwides but I'd personally want to avoid changing it unless it becomes a huge issue.

[Malthir]

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'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

I read it, but you're introduce another selfsustain issue to then "solve" the problem you've introduced, It's a bad idea. If they want to go with the Drks draining their own health to damage they would become either completely impotent or OP as all hell there wouldn't be a middle ground.
It works fine for a DPS mech since they aren't the ones getting damaged most of the time, but introducing into a tank is problematic AF. The issue you instantly come against is you are constantly being hit so if you have a stance and moves that drain your health you're going to need an ungodly amount of self heal, more than the current state of WAR, which then break the balance since you could solo everything by refusing to use any self damage moves and use your self heal to slowly kill any fight in the game (basically what WAR currently do when they solo things but scaled up to a much higher level). If you don't give them a silly amount of self heal, no one will play with them, their self damage to self heal being out of balance puts so much pressure on healers to keep them alive why would anyone take them over literally any other tank that doesn't have this issue but has comparable damage.

The reason why Drks are No.1 in savage raids is because although their self sustain sucks and is significantly less than WAR and Pal when they are being hit by 5+ enemies, it's fine against 1 big enemy. It's not at a detrimental level and the damage they offer is about 5% more than WAR and Pal. If however you introduce another self sustain problem to their health that 5% extra damage is not worth it when the healers are having to literally baby sit them meaning the healers are not damaging/unable to heal anyone else.

[Lyth]

Damage balance problems aside, I think that raid mitigation on DRK needs to be revisited. In an environment in which PLD and WAR have raid damage reduction actions that works on all damage types, being a 'magic only' specialist is just another name for 'physical damage liability', and I think Harrowing nicely highlights that. The fact that Dark Missionary was released later than Divine Veil and Shake it Off, is magic only, is on the same recast, and was completely ignored as these two already overpowered actions were buffed is a bit of a joke.

If this was a WAR action, they would have forced a revision of the action to something overpowered in Shadowbringers itself. Squeaky wheel and all that.

[Shurrikhan]

I read it, but you're introduce another selfsustain issue to then "solve" the problem you've introduced, It's a bad idea. If they want to go with the Drks draining their own health to damage they would become either completely impotent or OP as all hell there wouldn't be a middle ground.

That's not particularly accurate, no, unless healer oGCDs would otherwise go to waste (at which point, it redeems otherwise wasted party resources, but no more).

It just requires that the offensive potency rewarded be lower than the GCD rDPS opportunity cost of restoring that health.

It works fine for a DPS mech since they aren't the ones getting damaged most of the time, but introducing into a tank is problematic AF.

No. This part is irrelevant to whether it'd be workable, and on the contrary, it being on a tank allows it greater efficiency in party resource usage.

On a DPS it'd likewise be able to redeem otherwise wasted free heals, converting them into offensive potency much like Energy Drain does (though probably at nearer to pre-nerf efficiency), but your ability to do the same for mitigation-based free eHP increases would be limited to the single, if any, personal defensive found on a DPS (none on DRG, SMN, RDM, or the physical ranged).

And that's assuming the HP spent could ONLY be spent towards pure offense, not %mitigation, etc. In the latter case, you could keep HoTs from overhealing over damage lulls, all while banking potential mitigation for a tankbuster, smoothing out damage intake.

Yes, there is a decent advantage also in being able to spend all one's HP before a damage-less jump (again redeeming otherwise wasted healer resource), but that's far from huge, let alone balance-breaking. We see just as much diversity in potency-recovery available just via the % of a kit's damage is passively generated / "free" (generated only from time elapsed or generated specifically over downtime).

In 60 seconds, a DRK will passively generate a Shadowbringer (600p), a Carve and Spit (510p), 1.33 Edges (613p), and .67 Salted Earths (167p). Delirium effectively counts for another 918 and Blood Weapon for another 367. That's 3175 potency per minute, or 3492 with Darkside... generated freely.

Even just a quarter of that is likely going to make a larger difference per average fight than the ability to HP-spend under raid buffs or just before jumps in which the DRK can be healed back up.

:: For point of comparison: Auto-attacks account for 2,200 effective potency per minute on DRK, and DRK's raw combo ppgcd is 257 -- or, 286 [314.6 under Darkside] when including Blood spent on Bloodspiller (faintly higher if you account also for Living Shadow's contribution as a Blood spender, under a particular GCD rate), giving just shy of 10000 ppm from uptime. Run the same for WAR, PLD, GNB, and you'll probably find a fair bit of disparity there that has nonetheless been considered pretty damn acceptable.

The reason why Drks are No.1 in savage raids

They aren't. They currently beat only PLD at best in aDPS while bringing the least mitigation+healing combined to most fights (likely to every fight in this tier).

5% more than WAR and Pal

DRK currently offers slightly less damage than WAR, even in the most raidbuff heavy of compositions. GNB is the highest damage tank in the game at present, and WAR has the highest combined damage and sustain (effective mitigation+healing).

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Edit: (Daily Post Cap)

However what you're failing to recognise is why would a party want to do extra work to take you when they can take a different tank that doesn't require them to do as much and achieve the same thing.

That question is effectively just either "Why take an underpowered job?" --despite no one having suggested that it should be underpowered-- or "Why would take a job that has performance not commensurate to its effort" -- which is a hell of can of worms, especially so long as the likes of SMN having a higher damage ceiling than RDM despite having higher reliability and ease of play, both.

Which is all irrelevant to the concept of a tank that damages itself to do damage

They're not irrelevant, though; they're two sides of the same coin: disproportionate performance as downtime increases. They're both effective batteries, one storing the results of time and the other HP.

The reason why that persons whole build idea is bad, is they are baking in a self dot to a class that already struggles with self sustain

I can't comment as to the quality of the package of ideas all together --I'd still need to actually simulate them-- but neither is it particularly worth making judgments of that nature on an exploratory/spitball idea. You condemned the concept itself of HP spending according to certain warrants. I've therefore given you the reason those warrants are faulty or, at best, irrelevant unless you're willing also to address the other ways identical balancing (non)issues occur.

To put it most simply, though: The most sensible place to allow for the utilization of any resource is among a kit that actually works with that resource -- especially if in to limited totals and/or through actions that must themselves be optimized.

Putting HP-spending on a DPS who has no interactions with damage intake would likely end up either a long-winded way to offer every healer an Energy Drain analog by spending their otherwise excess healing on that job or a soft reward for bringing Regen (or otherwise low ppgcd opportunity cost) healers and soft punishment for not doing so.

Put HP-spending on a tank, on the other hand, and you have the resource being used by the person entrusted with knowing the incoming damage curves and for whom that (e)HP is actually already manipulable and integral.

[Malthir]

That's not particularly accurate, no, unless healer oGCDs would otherwise go to waste (at which point, it redeems otherwise wasted party resources, but no more).
It just requires that the offensive potency rewarded be lower than the GCD rDPS opportunity cost of restoring that health.

However what you're failing to recognise is why would a party want to do extra work to take you when they can take a different tank that doesn't require them to do as much and achieve the same thing. It's creating a problem for a class that already has a problem and then hoping that players will want to do a more inefficient fight than an efficient one, to do something like this to a tank would require a complete re think on all classes and combat. Or you create a super tank that everyone takes everywhere cause it's self-sustain and damage is busted or a garbage tank that does ok damage but requires everyone else to play well in order to do any content.

On a DPS it'd likewise be able to redeem otherwise wasted free heals, converting them into offensive potency much like Energy Drain does (though probably at nearer to pre-nerf efficiency), but your ability to do the same for mitigation-based free eHP increases would be limited to the single, if any, personal defensive found on a DPS (none on DRG, SMN, RDM, or the physical ranged).

I was speaking to the turning Darkside into a self DOT, since darkside increases our damage if your increase in damage is at the cost of health then it's only viable for a DPS not a tank unless you make the tank broken with self heal or completely change combat encounters.

That's 3175 potency per minute, or 3492 with Darkside... generated freely.

Which is all irrelevant to the concept of a tank that damages itself to do damage, the tank would have to be doing so much damage that all other tanks don't even come close so you wouldn't care that the healers have to extra babysit, or it has so much selfsustain that it's unkillable, the third option being it's trash and no one would pick it.

They aren't. They currently beat only PLD at best in DPS while bringing the least mitigation+healing combined to most fights (likely to every fight in this tier).
DRK currently offers slightly less damage than WAR, even in the most raidbuff heavy of compositions. GNB is the highest damage tank in the game at present, and WAR has the highest combined damage and sustain (effective mitigation+healing).

Yes I already made a thread about the latest patch being a massive middle finger to all Drks from the dev team, they used the argument that Drk's did the highest damage so we had the lowest self sustain, then they ramped up all other tank damage and didn't even slightly increase our self sustain because of either incompetence or malice, pick your poison.


The reason why that persons whole build idea is bad, is they are baking in a self dot to a class that already struggles with self sustain, the TBN change they suggest is not even a fix to a problem they have created and the other two moves functionally already exist so would therefor not fix the additional self sustain issue you've created Drk's would be completely unplayable.

[Zairava]

The reason why that persons whole build idea is bad, is they are baking in a self dot to a class that already struggles with self sustain, the TBN change they suggest is not even a fix to a problem they have created and the other two moves functionally already exist so would therefor not fix the additional self sustain issue you've created Drk's would be completely unplayable.

Again, I repeat.

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 maintaining 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.

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.

You're discarding my, concept at that, without even accounting for the favorable possibility they would need to give us more sustain than what I originally listed to stay alive in the first place. I even brought that up in my response and listed more possibilities to account for that. So...I will bullet point what I now posted twice then, and add/modify [to] it.

• Revamp Sole survivor to inflict a DoT and give you a HoT over it's duration
• Revamp Blood Price into a sustain tool rather than an mp tool
• Expand upon DA, make edge/flood heal with DA or something. On top of this, TBN nullifies the self-DoT from Darkside for 7s
• Rework Delirium into a self-sustain cooldown. 20% bonus self healing or just a flat heal potency like Equilibrium is.
• Scourge returns as a Gauge Spender, Abyssal becomes a gauge spender, or they are both merged into one single potent heal ability based on your remaining HP that costs X gauge (20-30).

And it isn't limited to this list, either. They could slap a heal potency onto Carve and Spit for some more passive sustain and so forth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly frustrated about them culling DRK too, but making its self-healing uneccessarily tuned upward isn't gonna make it not any less similar to warrior. If we're going to give it sustain, it needs to be in its own form. Because...right now, it doesn't desperately need it except for possibly criterion dungeons. The healers probably relish when they get a DRK in dungeons because we don't have the insane amounts of self-sustain WAR/PLD has and they actually need to heal. They have the tools at their disposal to make DRK have its own identity again, they just need to do it, and this is one such route they can take.

The entire premise of my rough concept is that you have the utility to stay alive, and you also have the option to turn Darkside off if you truly have to or there's downtime where there's no targets. We're paper thin now if we don't use cooldowns, we still would be here, but there's the accessibility route where you leave Darkside inactive (though you would be essentially immortal, but you can make restrictions such as Blood Price and Scourge/AD not being usable without Darkside active, etc.) The skill ceiling is higher, the skill floor comes at a cost, and that means learning how the job works, which isn't a bad thing.

And as I also mentioned before, they could just as well make Darkside drain MP again, and conversely make my HP restoration suggestions MP restoration tools instead.

[Malthir]

Again,

• Revamp Sole survivor to inflict a DoT and give you a HoT over it's duration
• Revamp Blood Price into a sustain tool rather than an mp tool
• Expand upon DA, make edge/flood heal with DA or something. On top of this, TBN nullifies the self-DoT from Darkside for 7s
• Rework Delirium into a self-sustain cooldown. 20% bonus self healing or just a flat heal potency like Equilibrium is.
• Scourge returns as a Gauge Spender, Abyssal becomes a gauge spender, or they are both merged into one single potent heal ability based on your remaining HP that costs X gauge (20-30).

None of that was in the post I commented on, even then your concept doesn't introduce anything new, you basically took the static Dark knight as it stands and introduced issues then made "fixes" for the issues your concept created basically just making the class worse.
Below is everything your post was about.

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

why? What do you gain from this, unless you're suggesting adding even more damage gain from darkside but the question becomes why? what's to gain from this.

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.

So basically souleater with an additional step and being GCD means it interferes with the rest of the rotation, so it's bad

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.

So current Abyssal Drain with extra requirements, so way worse than what we currently have.

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

So a minor attempt to fix an issue your concept introduces

That was the post I replied to and that's why I said it's a bad idea, every change you're suggesting is basically a worse version of things we already have.

[Oizen]

Damage balance problems aside, I think that raid mitigation on DRK needs to be revisited. In an environment in which PLD and WAR have raid damage reduction actions that works on all damage types, being a 'magic only' specialist is just another name for 'physical damage liability', and I think Harrowing nicely highlights that. The fact that Dark Missionary was released later than Divine Veil and Shake it Off, is magic only, is on the same recast, and was completely ignored as these two already overpowered actions were buffed is a bit of a joke.

If this was a WAR action, they would have forced a revision of the action to something overpowered in Shadowbringers itself. Squeaky wheel and all that.

I think its also notable that Shake and Veil are useful in all forms of content while misionary is a button that you'll only press in 8 man content.
Even if all they did was make it affect all damage, that would go a long way. Though honestly I'd also like them to just re-evaluate either Dark Missionary or Heart of Light and not make them literally the exact same skill