Dark Knight suggestions of my own.

[Dualblade]

We've had quite a few Dark Knight suggestions going around and I'd thought I'd throw my ten cents in...now I'm not a big raider. I try, and I'll be trying to do it when its actually relevent with Alexander now, and as well I'm not even sure if these suggestions would be OP, UP, and all that. A good bit of them also use Dark Arts as a part of it, which may or may not be good. If I don't mention CDs or status effect duration assume its the same as current.

Note: Some of these ideas came from reading the suggestions of others. I'm also bad with names.

As well I keep forgetting how to spoiler tag so this will be a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG list.

Grit: Damage taken reduced by 10%. Increase Parry rate by 55%.

Now Grit is ofcourse an ability that shouldn't change much. The reduction to 10% from 20% is mostly me being on the safe side when it comes to trying to balance it in my mind, if it was to gain the parry chance it might still be good to have overall damage reduction at 20%. The Parry rate meanwhile would add a bit extra mitigation as well as working well in favor of Low Blow and Reprisal. Speaking of Parry...

Dark Dance: Dark Arts effect: Magic becomes parryable. 10s duration

Now this would be one of the bigger changes I think. As it is right now Magic damage can not be parried or blocked in anyways...but with this effect DRK would have a great advantage when it comes to Magic attacks, since not only would they now be able to mitigate it even better, but since Dark Dance already raises Parry chance by 30% (and if the Grit change was made would go up to 85% parry, making it higher then even Dragoon's parry with Keen Flurry) you'd see quite a bit lower damage in both Physical and Magical battles. It may not be as much as block, but its a high chance with this on Grit. The reduction to 10 seconds from 20 without Dark Arts is to try and keep it balanced.

Dark Mind: Dark Arts effect: Give all party memebers 20% magic reduction

Currently Dark Mind gives 15% magic reduction without DA, and 30% with...which is all well and good. With this however, while the DRK itself won't gain quite as much they will be giving more to the team when it comes to Magic damage. While it might not be as abundent as Phyiscal attacks, there are situations where to good be very useful and helpful in mitigating damage for the whole party (if I'm correct a good recent example would be Bismark thunder phase, atleast if that does do magical damage. I assume it does, hopefully not wrong.)

Now the next ability has two different version I'm thinking it could be changed to.

Shadow Wall Possible Version 1: Dark Arts effect: Decrease damage taken by 50% 5s duration

Currently Shadow Wall is PLD's Sentinal ability with 10% less reduction to damage and the same CD. Pretty much just a worse version. With this though if you feel you can spend the mana (and a DRK should be able to for this if they aren't starving themselves of MP) they could increase it beyond even theirs...that said it may also instead just need to be 40% instead of 50%. As well the 5s part is only for the 50% one, if its 40% it would still be 10s.

Shadow Wall Possible Version 2: Dark Arts effect: Decrease damage to all party members bt 20%

Similar to the change for Dark Mind, this one would give all your party members the buff. Unlike it though you won't get quite as much benefit out of it...which is partly the point. One of the things about DRK's is sacrifice, and in this case you are sacrificing your own MP and some of your own damage mitigation to raise everyone else's. As well, this version can be very useful even if you are OT. For the big AoE hits you can help healers with mitigation so they don't have to heal as much, while in other situations like Tank Busters, you can throw this out to give the MT some mitigation, such as bringing a Paladin's 20% mitigation with Rampart become 40% mitigation instead.

Personally I like the second one better but I'm throwing both ideas out there.

Blood Price: Dark Arts effect: Recover partial HP when damage is taken. Increase cooldown to 80 seconds.

Basically a way to gain both MP and HP at once, at the price of a longer cooldown. While not exactly mitigation it does help the healers a little bit since you technically aren't taking as much damage. That said wether the extra 40 second cooldown is worth it depends on the fight/phase/person most likely.

Blood Weapon: Dark Arts effect: Increase all party members skill speed by 5% and converts physical damage you do into MP for all party members.

Basically a group buff for for Blood Weapon, helping your physical hitters hit faster and increase their DoT damage. The MP regen, meanwhile, is all on you but would affect everyone, which could be good for longer fights where MP may be a problem, and freeing up the Bard/Machinist to use one of their other support abilities. Still only usuable outside of Grit though so more of an OT thing then MT.

Reprisal: Additional effect: 15% chance that next parry will reset the recast timer

Everything else about it is the same, just this would give more oppurtunities for it to come up and be used, instead of always coming ten seconds after its debuff falls off. As well if the Grit change is made then its chances to proc at all go up, and the Dark Dance also makes it go up even further AND allow it to be usuable even in magic heavy fights. That said if both of those changes were made this one would probably not be since it might come up way too much.

Once again have an ability with two possible versions I'm throwing out.

Salted Earth Possible Change 1: Dark Arts effect: Freeze Walking Dead timer. Salted Earth does no damage.

Working together with the Walking Dead buff in order to help give time for you to be healed up, this would basically give you 20s to be healed to full rather then 10s, which seeing as there are apparently many problems with doing that in 10s right now could be very helpful.

Salted Earth Possible Change 2: Dark Arts effect: All party members standing in Salted Earth take 10% less damage. Potency reduced by 50%

Basically another mitigation skill for the party, though this time they must be standing in it. DRKs of course will already be getting it since they have to be in melee range anyways so even if noone else is standing with you it gives some reduction. Also useful for the big AoE hits. Also possibly increase the CD to 90 seconds when using the Dark Arts version as another balance change.

And now for the big one I think! This'll be a long one split up between each part of the ability.

Living Dead: Sacrifice 50% of your max HP to chain yourself to your target. The closer you are to your target the more damage reduction you recieve up to 50%. If your HP reaches 0 you enter Walking Dead state instead of being KO'd. Effect ends if the target dies.

So for here you'll see I'm suggesting something that could be considered a nightmare: Tanks using their own health as a resource. However I think here it would be worth it, more so since Walking Dead will still be a thing. The chain will always be one even technically when it looks like its not (like say the boss becomes leaves the arena). In those situations the damage reduction is put at its lowest (probably 10%). I'd also want there to be a number on the buff, like Living Dead 1 is 10% reduction, while Living Dead 5 (where you are basically in melee range) is the 50% reduction for you.

Walking Dead: Most attacks will not take you below 1 HP. All attacks done to the boss by party members heal you by 200%. There is no other way to heal HP. You can only do auto attacks. If 100% HP is restored the effect will fade. If the timer expires before hitting 100% HP you will die.

Once again something of a bigger change, and yes you read that right: Healers can't heal you, atleast not the normal way. Essentially rather then your healers trying to get you back up in a scrample, your DPS will basically have a quick mini DPS check: Get their tank back to 100% or lose them. Note that the damage reductions from Living Dead still apply here and ALL their attacks will be healing you, so I believe at 200% even just two Dps should be able to do this.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

Living Dead: Dark Arts effect: Sacrifice 50% of each party members max HP to chain all of them to your target. Damage reduction for all party members increases with each member's proximity to the boss up to 50%. If any party member falls to 0 HP all gain Walking Dead status instead of them being KO'd. Ends if target dies.

Yes you read that right, I went a step further with the Dark Arts one and and putting forth DRK's sacrifice 50% of ALL party members HP for this. Like with the regular version above you can have as low as 10% and as high as 50%, though it goes by 5% increments instead do to their being more people. This would mostly be for the big AoE hits, and especially if you think the healers can heal you up...or maybe in those situations where you its a party wipe without.

Walking Dead: Dark Arts effect: Most attacks will not bring down any party member past 1 HP. All damage done to the boss by party members heals everyone by 100%. If a party member reaches 100% HP the effect fades from them, and healing by damage increases by 50% (max 400%). Each party member who loses Walking Dead status decreases damage reduction by 5% (down to 10%). You can only auto-attack. Any party member who has Walking Dead when it expires will be KO'd. Any party member who has Walking Dead when you reach 100% will automatically have it fade away.

And of course this part...like the Living Dead Dark Arts version its similar to the normal version but on a party wide scale. However initial healing is reduced, in part because the non-tanks have less health and thus the 100% healing should bring them up: And then when they hit 100% it increases it for everone else. Again its also a mini-DPS check, except this time you could lose more then just the DRK. The final part is mostly in concern to tanks, especially WARs, so it pretty much is just a race to the DRK up. More so if they are using STR instead of VIT on their bonus stats since they'll have the least health of the three Tanks in the exact same gear.

For all of the Walking Dead suggestions, both are good with Salted Earth since it would freeze it and let you get more HP back in 20s instead of 10s, though everyone would have to stand in it or the time would be out of whack for the Dark Arts version.

[Kiteless]

At first, I was going to go through and discuss what problems I had with each individual ability, but as I went through each 'adjustment,' I came to figure it's not worth it. Having some abilities gaining party support properties is definitely something to add value to DRK, but most of these suggestions just aren't very good, and don't take much consideration for how the game or the class itself even work.

[Dualblade]

Like I said I was throwing things out there, not even saying they all would have to even go together. I'm still leveling it and most of these were just thoughts while I was bored at work. Was pretty sure they wouldn't be that great but hey, don't know till you throw it out there.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Would be cool abilities for Bard.

[Xenosan]

Grit: Damage taken reduced by 10%. Increase Parry rate by 55%.

This first was hard. Please no Parry focus. Parry already serves a purpose through Reprisal and Low Blow. An RNG tank will always be at the bottom of any hierarchy. Parry itself has never been effective mitigation. Why not just keep a the straight 20% reduced damage opposed to adding RNG to the stance.


I like the Dark Arts buff for Dark Mind, I posted an identical suggestion somewhere a couple days ago. With DrkArts buff, Dark Mind grants the 15% magic resistance to all party members in a 7y radius - not just self. Good utility, mixes well with INT Down, and provides buff/utility that is completely unique. Support this 100%,

Dark Dance: again the parry thing. Please no more Parry. IMO it's fine as is, DRK has enough MDEF - don't need to crawl further into that niche than DRK already has.. but if the DrkArts buff were to change, have it do something like the Dark Mind adjustment - provide raid-wide utility (increase movement speed? +eva? anything). Pple need to stop looking at Dark Dance as a one-touch mitigation CD and instead be lining it up for force-proc'ing Reprisal. That CD and the WS work together and balance each other out when in single and multi target situations. (Oh, and change the name: Demon's Waltz > Dark Dance )

Shadow Wall/Shadowskin IMO are solid - locked in, no DA necessary. The PLD-side of DRK's arsenal is fine as is, that's not a problem. This includes Dark Dance IMO - for reasons stated.

Salted Earth, that sounds cool.. but just how many different ways are we spending Dark Arts now. But I can support anything that has to do with bubbles.. love them.. bubbles bubbles bubbles (It is unnecessary, but how groovey would it be if a Dark Passenger crit hit had a chance to reset Salted Earth's recast.. more bubble.. longer bubble..)

It's the Dark Arts side of tanking that isn't holding it's share of the weight - specifically Souleater. 400 potency self-heal is incredible, but why does it go unnoticed - why is DRK squishy when there's 400 potency self heal happening on-demand. Same reason as Warrior 2.0. Self-healing just doesn't cut it. Healers don't feel it, they just see the ka-plunk of DRK's HP bar before hand and Cure-Bomb away. Like Parry, it leads into overhealing more than into an EHP buffer - but to an even worse extent.

In fact, it should be called IEHP. Ineffective Health Points.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Self Healing and lifetaps are good when they are procs or happen on every spell like Bloodbath. However when its one hit it isn't that good.

Lifetap Tanking was really good as a Shadowknight. However, their healing was rather significant.

One of their AOE heals healed them for 50% of their life, for example. With a low cool-down.

However, unlike the other tanks they didn't have much mitigation either, however they did have a shield.