Dark Knight Feedback

[Calib0s]

First and foremost I'd like to take the time to say that I find Dark Knight to be an extremely fun class to play. I really enjoy how active the class feels compared to the other two tanks, both in terms of mobility through plunge (something I've always wanted for Warrior!) and the sheer number of off GCD abilities that you have access to. It feels fast paced and fresh compared to the other two tanks, and at its best gives you many second-to-second decisions to make about how to best use your resources.

I also feel that Dark Knight has its place in the current raid environment and fills its niche of anti-magic tank fairly well. I feel that they are likely superior to Paladin as MT in A1, and will likely be so in A4 as well. They aren't in a bad place right now largely due to the current encounter design, assuming they are paired with a Warrior.

There are, however, a few issues I feel need to be addressed regardless.


1. Dark Knight is objectively the worst Off tank.
- A Paladin Off Tank provides extremely potent defensive abilities in Clemency, Divine Veil, STR down, and Stoneskin, while still being capable of putting out significant damage.

- A Warrior Off Tank provides a -10% reduction to all damage, as well as the slashing vulnerability debuff. They require no outside assistance whatsoever since they bring their own vulnerability debuff and have effectively infinite TP due to their free attacks and Equilibrium. They are also able to easily switch from DPS to tanking at a moments notice, and can even do so with almost no significant damage loss if the swap is for a short duration due to Unchained.

- While Dark Knight does competitive DPS with Warrior off tanks (provided they have access to the slashing debuff), they offer very little else to the raid. If your group has a monk, the Dark Knight brings nothing to the table at all beyond resource-limited DPS. And if the Dark Knight needs to swap into tank stance, they are at a significant disadvantage compared to the other two tanks since Grit is so expensive and they lose access to Blood Weapon.

Suggestions: I would really like to see Dark Knight bring more to the raid in the form of buffs and debuffs. The -10% int debuff is fine (though redundant), but they need to be able to provide their -10% damage debuff while off tanking or they will never be a real option vs. a Warrior. It would be interesting to see some other enfeeblements from Dark Knight as well such as, perhaps, a magic vulnerability debuff.




2. DRK consumes TP at an alarming rate, and has no means of restoring it.

- The crux of Dark Knight gameplay is supposed to be skillfully managing MP, however this is currently pretty trivial. TP on the other hand is a constant struggle. I’m running dry 2:00-2:30 into the fight, and there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it currently other than just sit around for a while.

- It is particularly unfun not being able to continue your basic rotation even when playing optimally. Running out of TP should be a punishment for poor play, not a foregone conclusion.

- This is also somewhat of a problem for Paladins, but at least in their case they can lean on their spells to provide non-DPS benefits to the raid and regain some TP. Shield Swipe also provides some (minor) TP restoration.

Suggestion: Dark Knight either needs access to a TP restoration ability of some kind, or should be more encouraged to use their spells in a single target situation to help alleviate TP expenditure.



3. The mana cost on Grit is prohibitively expensive and unfairly punishes DRK compared to the other two tanks when they need to change stances.

- While the mana cost is fairly similar (proportionally) to Sword Oath / Shield Oath, Paladins do not have the additional MP burden of Darkside and Dark Arts.

- Paladins rarely use their mana for tanking outside of flash, and have tools to quickly restore it in addition to lacking the constant drain DRK has.

- Warrior, of course, has very little penalty since the stances are both free and off the GCD. The 10 second cooldown between stance swaps very rarely matters.

Suggestion: Significantly lower or remove the mana cost from Grit.



4. The Reprisal debuff can only be applied inconsistently, has low uptime compared to Storm’s Path even in a best-case scenario, and cannot be applied at all while off tanking.

- Being unable to provide this debuff consistently, or indeed at ALL while offtank is a serious hindrance to DRKs ability to perform, and makes pairing them with a Paladin undesirable.

Suggestion: Dark Knight should be able to consistently apply the -10% damage debuff while tanking or off-tanking.



5. Unleashed becomes almost entirely useless as soon as you gain access to Abyssal Drain.

- Abyssal Drain fills exactly the same role as Unleashed, but does more DPS and is ranged. It’s extremely rare that I’ll use Unleashed at all (usually only if I get a free proc from unmend). At this point, it is a totally uncessary tool and wastes a spell slot that could be used for something more useful.

Suggestion: I would like to see Unleashed apply some sort of debuff to each target hit so that it will still be used in the dark knight AoE rotation (Reduced damage, magic vulnerability, Attack speed reduction, a DOT effect… anything really).



6. Dark Arts + Abyssal Drain is prohibitively expensive for relatively little benefit.

- It costs an absolutely absurd amount of mana to DA a single Abyssal Drain, and to be perfectly frank the healing provided is pretty underwhelming in any reasonable scenario. To be honest, I’d really like to see Abyssal Drain *always* drain some amount of health (25%-50% without Dark Arts, 100% with Dark Arts

Suggestion: I would like to see Dark arts increase the potency of Abyssal Drain by 100% in addition to providing the healing. This is less efficient than simply casting Abyssal Drain twice and forgoing DA entirely, but it can be used to cause a large amount of up-front threat / damage and some potent healing. Sacrificing efficiency for effectiveness seems to fits the theme that Darkside/Dark Arts is supposed to represent.



7. Blood price restores very little mana when tanking a single, slow hitting target, or against spell casting enemies.

- Blood price is an excellent MP restoration tool when in extremely large packs of melee enemies, but provides little appreciable benefit against spell casters, bosses, or other large and powerful enemies.

Suggestion: I would like to see Blood price restore a percentage of damage received as mana rather than a set amount per hit so that it is useful against bosses and slower, harder hitting enemies.



8. Dark Dance is an extremely unreliable and fairly weak cooldown against a single target, and using Dark Arts to empower it has drawbacks in the best case scenario and is completely ineffective in the worst case.

- Dark Arts + Dark Dance has two major issues. First off, the dodge rating that it applies is completely useless against raid bosses since nothing of consequence can be dodged. Second, against trash packs it provides significant (though random) damage reduction, but it negatively impacts the amount of mana restored when using Blood Price, generally when you need that mana the most.

Suggestion: Change the effect Dark Arts has on Dark Dance. Instead of providing 20% evasion, which is effectively useless in raid content, I would like to see it increase Parry Chance by an additional 20%, and increase the amount of damage reduced when parrying to 40% for the duration of the buff. This provides a similar benefit in most situations and removes the penalty of using this ability paired with Blood Price.


9. Carve and Spit does not provide enough MP restoration to make it worth using without Dark Arts.

- Using Dark Arts to buff Carve and Spit provides +350 potency. Using it without Dark Arts only provides 50% MP cost of a single Dark Arts (Effectively you can consider this to be worth ½ of the bonus potency provided to Soul Eater by Dark Arts, so +70 from CAS in most cases).

Suggestion: Carve and Spit should provide significantly more MP for the restoration effect to be useful. Currently, it is almost always a loss to use Carve and Spit without Dark Arts except in a complete emergency situation (i.e. you can’t afford to switch Grit on and need it immediately) or very large AoE pulls.


10. Shadow Wall is a pretty lackluster ability given its cooldown.

- Compared to the similar abilities given to Warrior and Paladin (Vengeance and Sentinel) it is strictly inferior to both, and not really made up for elsewhere in the Dark Knight kit.

- It doesn’t provide much more damage reduction than shadow skin, and for half the duration and twice the cooldown. I also feel that its long cooldown leaves a significant gap in the Dark Knight’s defenses where they are vulnerable for a period of time that Warrior or Paladin have no problems covering at the moment.

Suggestion: I’d like to see the cooldown reduced significantly (and perhaps made buffable by Dark Arts).


11. Sole Survivor is a pretty underwhelming ability.

- It’s nice to get a little bit of mana back to continue AoEing during a trash pull or to get ready for the next wave, but doesn’t serve any real purpose in most encounters.

- Even if you can reliably use it on cooldown, the healing is almost never useful and the MP restore is quite low - Not even enough to cover a single Dark Arts.

Suggestion: I’d like to see the “Another Victim” debuff weaken the target it’s placed on for the duration of the debuff.



12. Living Dead has significant drawbacks compared to the other two tanks’ emergency buttons, requiring more coordination and continued throughput from the healers in order for it to be effective at all. On top of this, it has a pretty massive cooldown.

- Hallowed ground is, of course, the king of emergency cooldowns. This can completely trivialize otherwise difficult phases, give your healers a much needed respite and gives them time for some free DPS or to resurrect / heal up the party and ignore the tank.

- Holmgang can be used to survive powerful tank busters without requiring a damage reduction cooldown or significant preparation from the healers, and is available often enough that it can be used several times throughout the fight.

- Living dead’s one advantage is its potentially large duration (up to 20 seconds of safety assuming you take fatal damage at the end of the buff and the healers wait until Living Dead is about to fall off to heal you up), however, this is a pretty unrealistic scenario. It effectively provides very little security, and your healers can’t afford to ignore you for very long due to the possibility of death. Healing early also removes the Walking Dead buff, making the Dark Knight vulnerable again earlier than the other cooldowns.

Suggestion: Living Dead should either be made more powerful to compensate for its long cooldown and inherent drawbacks , or the cooldown should be reduced. In general I would like this to be a bit of a more reliable cooldown.