Dark Knight Feedback

[Erim-Nelhah]

Just some things I'd like to see on DRK. I'm only lvl 54 though so I don't know about the last 3 skills;

1. Plunge should have a 25y range. 15y is so pitifully small that it doesn't feel very fun/effective.

I think Plunge is fine as it is. Other things need changes more, imo.

2. Blood Weapon should be usable with Grit on - if anything change the effect to a TP regen ability. Instead of regenerating MP on hit, make it TP while Grit is on. Either this or make DRG our cross-class instead of GLD.

This doesn't help us. We need TP regen more when we're out of grit than when we're in it. In grit, if we just weave in an Unmend every once in a while, we're good for TP. And changing our cross-class from MRD to LNC has problems of its own (Keen Flurry, Blood for Blood, loss of Foresight, Bloodbath).

3. Make Reprisal instantly usable if Dark Arts is active. (and consume Dark Arts).

How would this be implemented? If using Dark Arts while Reprisal is on CD resets the Reprisal CD and eats the DA, then we'd never get to use DA for anything else. If it resets the CD but doesn't eat DA until Reprisal is actually used, then we could simply use Reprisal after using the DA (which is OP). If it only becomes available when on CD if DA is active, that's gonna require some new code on the client side just to handle this one ability. I agree this needs a change, and your suggestion is good thematically, but it would be a nightmarish minefield for the devs to implement.

4. Dark Passenger should be free to cast. Most skills with lengthy cooldowns are free in this game. It takes too much MP to cast DA+DP combo that I can almost never afford to use it.

Hmm...this is an interesting change, but I'm not sure it's needed. The skill is useful as-is.

5. Living Dead should just be a trait you get at level 50, that has a 6 minute cooldown and does not need to be activated. It should also not require 100% HP regen in order for it to work, as there are very few times where heals can actually get you to 100% health. Make it 50-75%.

No. LD needs a change, true, but this isn't it. I want to be able to control when this happens - especially given how much stress it places on the healers in its current form. This change would make some healers never want to heal a DRK ever.

--Erim Nelhah
(Master, Astral Descendants <AD>, Malboro)
(60 DRK Main)

[Xenosan]

How would this be implemented? If using Dark Arts while Reprisal is on CD resets the Reprisal CD and eats the DA, then we'd never get to use DA for anything else. If it resets the CD but doesn't eat DA until Reprisal is actually used, then we could simply use Reprisal after using the DA (which is OP). If it only becomes available when on CD if DA is active, that's gonna require some new code on the client side just to handle this one ability.

Huh? If they went this route with Reprisal change, I don't see the issues you list. There's plenty of WSs already that require a buff to be executed (Geirskogul?). Would it be OP? If they adjusted the recast to 20 seconds so that 100% uptime is possible - yeah would lean to heavily on DRK/WAR WAR/DRK groups. But to compensate for that all they'd have to do is make it so it doesn't stack with Storm's Path.Of DRK's entire toolkit, Reprisal is near the bottom of my list of concerns - but a change to it isn't unrealistic I think.

It's just preference - but I would hate to see more Parry focus for DRK. That's not their intended design. If SE goes that route it's stepping away from MP management & Spell focus tanking. They already share too much in common with PLD, trying to buff Parry use to work like a PLD's Shield for both physical and magical hits.. not very original.. and DOA imo

[Dante_V]

Abyssal drain requires less mp than unleash? Huh?

[Faytte]

Abyssal drain requires less mp than unleash? Huh?

No it doesnt but its 120 potency for roughly 20 ish % more mana. Unless you are starved for the mana, its better to abyssal drain as you are saving to output more damage and threat (and frankly, mana is largely not super relevant in aoe situations due to blood price? Not saying you can spam it to high hell, but on its own without the DA affect, its generally better).

[MuzakFan]

No it doesnt but its 120 potency for roughly 20 ish % more mana. Unless you are starved for the mana, its better to abyssal drain as you are saving to output more damage and threat (and frankly, mana is largely not super relevant in aoe situations due to blood price? Not saying you can spam it to high hell, but on its own without the DA affect, its generally better).

Wanted to point something out here. Abyssal and Unleash generate the same amount of enmity due to the hate multiplier being higher on the latter. Despite it doing 20% more damage, it DOES NOT generate more hate. SOURCE HERE

I only use Abyssal for situations where 1) I can boost it with DA in large packs; 2) as a ranged nuke if for some reason I'm not in melee range of a large pack; or 3) the increased damage from Abyssal outweighs the higher MP cost. Otherwise, I stick to Unleash.

[Calib0s]

Abyssal drain requires less mp than unleash? Huh?

That's not what efficiency means, but actually looking at the values again I was wrong. They're nearly identical in terms of mana efficiency. Abyssal drain will yield more DPS since it is higher damage per cast for the same mana efficiency.

This is entirely missing the point however. They are nearly identical spells that fill exactly the same role. There's really no reason to have both.

Yes, I understand the mechanical difference and marginal usefulness in having a spell that requires a target vs. a PBAoE. I just don't think that's enough to justify a spell slot.

[Faytte]

That is news to me. I suppose all things being equal, if theres 4 or more targets id be draining, and unleashing at 3 or less.

Its also interesting that, given you have so many short cds, that you actually generate some pretty good aggro over the fight as a dark just by poping things (dd, da, bp, etc).

[Abdullah]

Where can i write my own post for drk ?
Guys i think the sound effect and the movements when drk hits need to be addressed

[Kallera]

Currently my drk is 51. I often find i run into issues where i either maintain hate on mobs but lose darkside, or keep darkside but some mobs pull away in combat. Would DAunleash help?

Any pointers as to controller setup before i get the new actions?

[Xyphon]

I've made quite a bit of my own suggestions regarding what should be done to "spruce up" drk a bit. I agree that some skills are redundant, and don't seem to fit into one theme. Such as drk has been suggested as a magic tank. Skills such as "dark dance", seem a bit out of place imo. If drk was a full on parry tank, then this would have been a different story.

I'm also not really a fan of dark passenger, even though I do use it in my rotation. Like abyssal drain, it doesn't seem to work very well on single targets. Its funny to, because Yoshi P kept saying over and over how much he hated speed runs....

I feel like they made drk a mixture of to many things, instead of one main focus. The main focus imo is the mp mechanic. I've already suggested some ways to remove certain skills by integrating them into "grit", and "darkside". That way other skills such as a skill to exchange mp for tp, could be added. (look at how many things are integrated into to the warrior stances).

My suggestion for grit was to scale a version of blood price natively into it, and scale a version of blood weapon into darkside (which could be only used without grit active). As it stands now, this is the current theme of how you MT and OT. Meaning; blood price for MT, and blood weapon for OT.

I completely agree about the tp issue, and how mana costs seem pretty obscene. I tend to end up OTing in alot of situations, probably because most of the time I'm rocking my str acc lol. I almost wish that as a counter to the tp issue, you could use mp as OT to some how dps till your tp gets back to a reasonable level. Such as if war was AOE tanking, after your tp gets lower you can just simply switch to using flash.

I've also suggested before that it would be nice to see more skills with a dark arts side, such as sole survivor. It would be nice if you had a way to use sole survivor on a single target, like a boss. Since it originally gives hp/mp on the death of the enemy, perhaps the dark arts version could do some form of drain. Or perhaps it could do an "absorb" skill, like ffxi .

I suggested a while back that giving magic vuln from delirium would be the way to go, and it would fit with the theme of drk being a magic tank (aka a knight that hunts down mages).

When I first heard that drk was getting "dark arts", I was like omg drk is going to be able to use black magic. Thinking of something similar to what scholar got in ffxi. Sadly, it sure wasn't what I expected lol.