Dark Knight Megathread

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

If you think about it, it is very much similar with MCH's automaton queen where both have gap closers then vomits a lot of melees then uses a major cooldown (2 in case of AQ) before it "peace out" the battlefield.

Thanks, I hate it.

[Absurdity]

If you think about it, it is very much similar with MCH's automaton queen where both have gap closers then vomits a lot of melees then uses a major cooldown (2 in case of AQ) before it "peace out" the battlefield.

And both have a brain aneurysm when their target moves.
I've also seen Automaton Queen completely freak out in P3S during the add phase where it was just switching targets randomly, no idea if Living DoT does the same.

[ItsUrBoi]

Its not just reducing the versatility.
If you want to help a healer or dps, use TBN, giving them a 10% won't be that big of a deal. I also did Dragonsong ultimate and honestly, in which scenario would you give a dps / healer a 10% mit instead of a 25% shield?
The reason for merging those cooldowns is just to be able to add another ability that focuses on DRK's weaknesses: sustain and HP recovery. Otherwise you are basically already double weaving for like 10 GCDs in your burst, now you got to weave 4 defenses to mitigate?
Using Oblation for auto attacks is kind of pointless, you need a better tool to deal with that. Dark Mind's purpose is to work against either raidwides or magical tank busters. Giving this to someone else is over powered? How about Nascent Flash healing you for 1600 potency with high possibility of crit heals and a ~18% damage reduction and a 400 potency shield? Oh never mind the 29% magic mitigation for 10 seconds is ridiculous.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Its not just reducing the versatility.
If you want to help a healer or dps, use TBN, giving them a 10% won't be that big of a deal. I also did Dragonsong ultimate and honestly, in which scenario would you give a dps / healer a 10% mit instead of a 25% shield?

The reason for merging those cooldowns is just to be able to add another ability that focuses on DRK's weaknesses: sustain and HP recovery. Otherwise you are basically already double weaving for like 10 GCDs in your burst, now you got to weave 4 defenses to mitigate?

Using Oblation for auto attacks is kind of pointless, you need a better tool to deal with that. Dark Mind's purpose is to work against either raidwides or magical tank busters. Giving this to someone else is over powered? How about Nascent Flash healing you for 1600 potency with high possibility of crit heals and a ~18% damage reduction and a 400 potency shield? Oh never mind the 29% magic mitigation for 10 seconds is ridiculous.

1.) Intermission phase where you have the option to freely hand out two Oblations and a TBN to three DPS while your co-tank does the fourth one. You could argue overkill or issues elsewhere, but I had too many cases where that 10% extra actually made the difference of them living.

In other fights, P8Sp2 dominion for casters and healers, especially if you had a Red Mage.

2.) Gave you a solid example of how to introduce more sustain with the Oblation suggestion, gave you another based on your souleater alternative for HP + blood regen, could even toss you a 200p heal on Stalwart Soul and heal potencies on Blood skills.

So there are plenty of solutions for introducing more sustsin without upping oGCD count. If your issue is how busy the weave window is, take it up with the 2min burst window design flaw and the ability diarrhea introduced by making oGCDs with no interaction like Shadowbringer.

3.) P7 Trinity paired with TBN whenever available goes a LONG way for auto attacks. Frankly yes, outside of ultimates or AA spam phases like Thordan Unreal is limited.

Giving 29% magic mit to a non-tank is overpowered when going by the design that decided that MNK's riddle of earth had to be a single charge 120s CD, yes.

Also your comparison with Nascent Flash is flawed because even though it is powerful, it locks you out of using Bloodwhetting when mitigation matters. Also the 19% mit is for 4s, another 10% for subsequent 4s. At most the healing bonus is busted, but should we really take a busted design like WAR sustain in EW as a role model to what other tanks should get?

[ItsUrBoi]

Giving 29% magic mit to a non-tank is overpowered when going by the design that decided that MNK's riddle of earth had to be a single charge 120s CD, yes.
Also your comparison with Nascent Flash is flawed because even though it is powerful, it locks you out of using Bloodwhetting when mitigation matters. Also the 19% mit is for 4s, another 10% for subsequent 4s. At most the healing bonus is busted, but should we really take a busted design like WAR sustain in EW as a role model to what other tanks should get?

Yeah I guess you are right.
The design should be something similar to giving each tank a 3rd mitigation based on their identity ( WAR - Thrill of Battle ; PLD - Bulwark ; GNB - Camouflage )
For DRK a redesign of sorts would be pretty nice for Dark Mind, Oblation and TBN. Some ideas:
1. Disconnecting TBN from MP can make it so The Blackest Night upgrades into Oblation at lvl 82, and its just the current shield with the Oblation effect, with 2 charges, and 30 second recast per charge, instead of 60. Dark Arts could be granting the next Edge or Flood of Shadow a heal equal to damage dealt, or just flat potency heal. Or reduces the cooldown of a reworked Dark Mind.
The point is to have 1 button that does it all for your mitigation while also being able to keep the versatility, and uniqueness. If TBN was upgradable to Oblation, it could've gotten more than the 10%, and that would allow Dark Mind to get a rework.
2. Dark Mind could get a rework to be like:
- Compiles damage taken, after 10 seconds, heals for 80% of compiled damage, and 20% over time.
- Each time you suffer damage you generate 1 blood.

[Zairava]

Back by unpopular demand: Me. Good to see the discourse is still alive.

For DRK a redesign of sorts would be pretty nice for Dark Mind, Oblation and TBN. Some ideas:
1. Disconnecting TBN from MP can make it so The Blackest Night upgrades into Oblation at lvl 82, and its just the current shield with the Oblation effect, with 2 charges, and 30 second recast per charge, instead of 60. Dark Arts could be granting the next Edge or Flood of Shadow a heal equal to damage dealt, or just flat potency heal. Or reduces the cooldown of a reworked Dark Mind.
The point is to have 1 button that does it all for your mitigation while also being able to keep the versatility, and uniqueness. If TBN was upgradable to Oblation, it could've gotten more than the 10%, and that would allow Dark Mind to get a rework.
2. Dark Mind could get a rework to be like:
- Compiles damage taken, after 10 seconds, heals for 80% of compiled damage, and 20% over time.
- Each time you suffer damage you generate 1 blood.

1) Personally, I'm unsure if I'd like oblation's mit effect tacked onto TBN, especially since it gets harder to break the more we're geared. If we're going to use oblation as an upgrade I would prefer to have our next Dark Arts expenditure to grant some healing, which you listed. Or something like arcane crest where when TBN breaks it grants us a HoT.

2) I'm of the mind of wanting to keep Dark Mind as is, but I would take using this model for Blood Price. Also, the healing return for the concept is a bit high imo maybe 50%(straight up)/50% HoT split?

2a) Read the prior page, I absolutely would take Stormblood Delirium and the playstyle we had in a heartbeat.

[mallleable]

I think a kinda thematic resource flow for DRK could be like MP(HP) spenders, Dark Arts spenders, and Blood Gauge spenders. MP is a stand in for HP, any action that restores HP should also restore MP at the same time, and rate. When you use an attack that costs MP, you gain Dark Arts which you can hold up to 3 Dark Arts stacks. Dark Arts can be spent on tanky actions, but can also deal some damage. The Blackest Night, Salted Earth, and some kind of burner action now cost Dark Arts. TBN now procs Abyssal Drain when broken, Salted Earth now provides personal mitigation when you are in its area of effect -- and it's made slightly bigger, and the burner action now just deals damage, and restores MP/HP. Keep Blood Gauge simple, using weapon skills, builds gauge to spend on more weapon skills.

[GoatOfWar]

I think a kinda thematic resource flow for DRK could be like MP(HP) spenders, Dark Arts spenders, and Blood Gauge spenders. MP is a stand in for HP, any action that restores HP should also restore MP at the same time, and rate. When you use an attack that costs MP, you gain Dark Arts which you can hold up to 3 Dark Arts stacks. Dark Arts can be spent on tanky actions, but can also deal some damage. The Blackest Night, Salted Earth, and some kind of burner action now cost Dark Arts. TBN now procs Abyssal Drain when broken, Salted Earth now provides personal mitigation when you are in its area of effect -- and it's made slightly bigger, and the burner action now just deals damage, and restores MP/HP. Keep Blood Gauge simple, using weapon skills, builds gauge to spend on more weapon skills.

That will never happen because it would end up being shit.
You can't have one tank that actively drops their own health just to play the game without any reward. But the streamers have already decreed that no tank can be better at anything than Warrior.
So it would just end up being an annoying mechanic that's either irrelevant by the self damage being super low, or makes healers play ping pong for no reason.

[Lyth]

I think at this point most direct changes to DRK's single target mitigation are going to result in a net nerf in terms of recasts. Oblation doesn't really have a proper niche as a tank mitigation tool, though, especially when you consider that several melee dps get personal 10% mitigation on half the recast from actions that they obtain 30 levels earlier. If 'Oblation' is an offering, perhaps the effect needs to be changed to empower the next defensive/utility action to have either an alternative or more potent effect. That would give you the primary strength of Heavensward's Dark Arts system without any of its design flaws. It could even be a way of working around DRK's magic-only effects. As some examples:

Dark Mind + Oblation: 15% physical damage reduction, increases recast to 90 seconds.
Dark Missionary + Oblation: 10% physical damage reduction and increases movement speed, increases recast to 120 seconds.
TBN + Oblation: 30% HP flat damage reduction, removes MP cost, restores HP on shield break without granting Dark Arts, increases recast to 30 seconds.
Blood Weapon + Oblation: Restores HP in addition to MP and blood gauge.

Having it on set charges would force you to be selective on how you wanted to augment your cooldowns on a fight, especially since most of these are on 60+ second recasts to begin with.

[Flay_wind]

Augmenting your mitigations is good, but why increase recast time (especially TBN, which doubles the recast)? Sounds like a step forward and two steps back. You're already limited by charges as is.