Quote Originally Posted by Ditto View Post

Abilities:

A REAL DPS Stance. No, Darkside is not a DPS stance. It's our Maim/FoF
Vanquish
Become a vessel of the Abyss, channeling it's darkness through your every move. When under the effects of Vanquish, all abilities that would normally cost TP now cost MP, and TP will not regenerate.
Cannot be used with Grit.
Additional Effect: MP costs for preexisting MP abilities are reduced by 50%.
Additional Effect: Darkside no longer consumes MP
//Additional Effect?: Total MP pool is increased by 20%?"
Not really needed. While DRK's DPS might need to be adjusted, it's not to the extent that it needs a full new stance for it.

Riposte
Guarantees a parry on the next 2 incoming attacks. The second parry is at 50% of the parry strength of the first. Each parry immediately triggers a 100? potency counter attack.
//Vanquish Effect: Restores MP equivalent to the amount of damage each counter did.
//Grit Effect: Restores TP equivalent to the amount of damage each counter did.
30? Second Cooldown.
Just replacing Dark Dance with this would solve so many of DRK's problems. You could stop reading this thread here, and it would already be golden.

Soul Devour
After a short cast, pull a lost soul from the depths of the abyss and absorb it, restoring your HP. Cure Potency: 1200.
60 Second cooldown.
(They ALL have one except Dark Knight, that's not exactly cool yo. You can argue that it's because Souleater restores 100% constant, but at current HP possibilities, that is not a lot. Perhaps if you're building full damage and Dark Arts the souleater it'll have a nice HP return, but outside of that it's small enough to not matter. Large burst self heals are what matter the most in self healing)
Honestly, not really needed. We already have Sole Survivor, just focus on fixing that (and not with the method listed below, because I can think of a better use for that...).

Traits:

Fortified Wall
Shortens Shadow Wall recast time to 120 seconds.
//Shadow Wall now does "???" (Don't know yet, was thinking something similar to vengeance, but more DRK like. Don't know if it's even needed.)


I'd really prefer if Shadow Wall was improved in a way that made it feel more unique.

//Shadow Parry
//Shadow Parrying is the practice of using your own dark energy to nullify the impact of magic before it hits, allowing you to parry magic in a 360 degree radius.
//Scales off of the Parry stat.
//Requires you to be under the effect of Grit.
Yes. This needs to be a thing yesterday.

//Dark Link
//Sole Survivor now tethers the Dark Knight to it's target with a dark tether, sapping the life away from it with a potency of 100 every 3 seconds, and returning the damage done as HP and MP to the Dark Knight. If the target is killed before the duration of Sole Survivor expires, the recast time of Sole Survivor is reduced by 30 seconds.
Dark Arts Effect: The tether can be intercepted from the Dark Knights side by a party member, giving them the restoration effect.
Does NOT cause fixation.
Interesting idea, but not for the right skill. Improve the potency, drop the DA and cooldown effect, and move it over to Living Dead. Suddenly, Living Dead becomes not entirely terrible, and very unique.


//Dark Prison
//Targets within the effect of Salted Earth deal reduced damage by 10%. For every extra enemy added, it's effect is reduced by 1% to a minimum of 5% per enemy.
This is the only one of the three reasonably worth considering.

Adjustments
Adjustments to what they already have.

Abilities:

Grit
MP cost to enable is reduced by 75% (332 MP @ Lv.60)
Cannot be used with Vanquish.
//While under the effects of Grit, you are now capable of Shadow Parrying.
Yes. The MP cost attached to Grit is obscene as it is. I'd also opt to remove it from the GCD, but that's just me.

Living Dead
HP restoration requirement to nullify Walking Dead's instant kill reduced to 50% of the Dark Knights total HP.
Walking Dead is given it's own visual effect to better alert others that you are now undead for 10 seconds. See quote here: SPOILER ALURRRT http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...36#post3077436
If you've gotten this far, you've already seen the solution I would prefer.

Sole Survivor
Sole Survivor can now be used on teammates, as well as enemies. (Cause why not, it adds a really interesting way of using it)
//Sole Survivor now increases damage done to the enemy by 5%. (Don't know, it would make it worth using on bosses just for that effect, but I feel like we already have a lot of bonus damage effects from other classes already)
-OR-
//Sole Survivor now replenishes 20% of your total HP/MP upon expiration whether the target dies or not.
-OR-
//Additional Effect: Sole Survivor now enables the Dark Link Trait.
Just find a way to make its use not contingent on something dying, that's all it needs. Give it something flavourful.

Dark Dance
Parry rate increased from 30% to 60%.
Dark Arts 20% evasion stays, it's nice for dungeons. (L2 not blood price with dark arts)
Just replace it with your equivalent of Riposte. Can even keep the name.

Carve & Spit
Recast time reduced to 40 seconds.
-OR-
MP restored and base potency increased.
Yes.

Reprisal
//Parry requirement to Reprisal removed?
Window of use after a successful Parry has been lengthened by a lot. Like really a lot.
Just remove the parry requirement, and reduce the damage by a touch.

Blood Weapon
Can now be used under the effect of Grit.
As someone who detests the idea of "dead skills," I'd appreciate this quite a bit. Could potentially make MP management easier than it should be, however.

Dark Mind
Extra Dark Arts Effect: Applies 'Linked Mind' to all party members, reducing magic damage taken by 10%. Lasts 15 seconds.
Not a big fan of this. While Dark Mind is a fairly situational skill, when it works, it already works really, really well. If Dark Mind needs a buff, it's not in its already stellar situational use.