Ways to Improve the DRK

[Nova_Leon]

Hello there, I made this thread to generate ideas to assist DRK in ways to make the class better.

Problems:

Damage mitigation: Worse than PLD

Self Healing: Worse than War

Utility: Less than both classes

Dark Mind: Even when buffed with Dark Arts only lasts for 10 seconds. That is almost worthless. That especially needs to be buffed.

Suggestions:

Capitalize on an anti-caster tank class: Give the DRK more utility that weakens spells done to the DRK or to the party. Perhaps take a page from the Death Knight and give them an anti-magic field to throw on the ground. Except make it useful in this case.

Parry: Give the DRK the ability to Parry spells from casters as well. This may or may not give the DRK his own niche and role in the tanking world.

If anyone else has suggestions or comments feel free to post them. Thanks for reading!

[Seshayn]

YES! Your parry casters idea is exactly what I was thinking would be a really cool addition to their kit! Make it so Grit allows them to parry casts!
YES! increase the duration of Dark Mind! I love it.

I would only add that the self healing combo of Souleater should not be part of the Syphon Strike Combo, It should be part of the Hard Slash/Spinning Slash combo!

I agree with you, just give them like... just a little more.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Please. No more RNG.

Make them more like Shadowknights in Everquest, Lifetaps and DOTs instead of high mitigation. NO RNG.

[Janhyua]

Would be nice if they change how "carve and spit" like when it's not buffed by DA it will regen mana and maybe gain 50 TP

And maybe change Delirium Int debuff to stackable with dragon kick that would be great because right now warrior has storm path and is not cross firing any class atm and so is paladin str down is not cross firing any class atm but why does dark knight has to get the short end of the stick

[Syzygian]

I'm failing miserably to understand the complaints with DRK at level 60.

DPS: You have two 400+ potency attacks, 75 and 40 potency DoTs with a very short cooldown and joke of a TP cost, respectively, the most spammable AoE with proper MP management, an OGCD gap closer. Suffers only a 5% damage reduction while MTing.

Utility: -10% incoming damage, -10% incoming INT based damage. Former stacks with Storm's Path. Latter procs on parry but in any fight where you're MTing its up at least half the time.

Hate: DA Power Slash is ridiculous and is enough to put you in the lead on hate to the point where you don't need to maintenance it for half a dozen full combo rotations at least, leaving you free to focus on mitigation, DPS, and utility. Gap closer supplements pulling, Abyssal Drain is targeted, ranged AoE hate. Salted Earth further supplements steady hate on trash.

Mitigation: Has a Vengeance and a Rampart. Dark Dance and Dark Mind have ridiculously short recast times, and are easily stacked with Foresight/Awareness/Convalescence/Bloodbath for a decent dual-CD. Has 4 cross-classable defensive CDs where the other tanks get 2. DA Dark Mind stacked with a Shadowskin or Shadow Wall makes most magical tank busters hit you like a wet paper bag, whereas a Dark Dance+Foresight trivializes sustained auto-attack damage. With Dark Mind already have an anti-caster tank. You have a tank buster (most tank busters thus far have been magical) CD with only a 60s recast. Its OP if anything. If you DA Dark Mind + Shadow Wall an Akh Morn with Reprisal and Delirium up that's an 80% reduction in damage. I haven't tested yet but I'm pretty sure DRK could solo the first two Akh Morns without Living Dead. With that kind of magic mitigation you don't need to parry magic. Its not worthless. Its like having a magic-based mini Sentinel, without actually using your Sentinel (Shadow Wall). Dark Dance's parry rate increase sees to it that any boss that auto attacks is going to reset your Low Blow recast and proc Reprisal with moderate consistency. It is actually possible to have 1-2 defensive CDs up with near 100% uptime with a proper rotation. Has a 400 potency self heal, a targeted, ranged AoE self heal, and cross classes Bloodbath. DRK requires tanks to stack multiple CDs on occasion in exchange for having more of them and having shorter recast times. Its not like Pally where you push one button and you're set. And if you can't time a 10s duration CD to survive a tank buster (Dark Mind and Shadow Wall are obvious tank buster CDs) you need practice.

Resource management: A DA Power Slash opener leaves you free to use Syphon Strike combos, DA Soul Eaters, maintain debuffs, and Blood Price is enough even on single targets to maintain a constant MP pool if you're paying attention.

OTing: With proper use of Blood weapon you have a 400 potency attack every 7.35 seconds for 20 seconds and an additional OGCD 450 potency attack afterwards, while maintaining debuffs and MP in the 20 sec remaining on the CD at that point. Not to mention an OGCD gap closer, stun, AoE DoT, and line AoE.

There's nothing wrong with DRK. It just does not play at all like the other tanks. But trust me, its awesome and honestly needs no fixes other than maybe OTing TP issues.

[Mattiux]

I'm failing miserably to understand the complaints with DRK at level 60.

Then you have to dig better the class, and the utility of the other 2 Tanks.

DPS: ...

The Dps is worse than a War in the OT spot and in a sustained fight you will run out of TP. In the MT spot you can do more Dps Than a pld may be, but with the far worse mitigation than the Pld and the lack of a skill like hallowed ground there is no reason to contend the MT spot if you have a PLD avaible. Same rason for the OT spot with a Warrior

Utility: -10% incoming damage, -10% incoming INT

Even the utily to the party is far behind the other Tanks. Reprisal is not reliable since you can't keep it up. If a switch happen, bye bye reprisal. In a fight you have still no reason to bring a DrK. The combo Pld+Drk+Monk will provide a FAR better mitigation just using their always up skill. (str down,path and dragon kick). And all of this without talking about Divine veil and Clemency from the paladin.

Hate:

Yup, the hate is fine. Even too easy.

Mitigation:

The mitigation is behind too. vegeance have shorter CD and Sentinel 10% more mitigation. Shadow Skin is on the same level of Rampart and Inner beast. with Dark mind on the same utility spot of Thrill of Battle and the Block chance you still lack of CD in the 50-60 lv range. ( Clemency, Divine Veil,Sheltron, Raw intuition, equilibrium) wich set the Drk on a spot with TWO (2!!!) less cooldown.

All of this put the Drk in a bad spot. You can do every content right now with it? yeah, sure. The other two tanks make it easier and play their job and role better in ANY situation? Again, Yes. No reason to carry a DrK in a party if you have the other 2 job avaible.

[Xenosan]

DRK's aggro management has to be godly easy.

They're the only tank punished for using their enmity combo.

RoH: STR debuff. BB: Highest potency combo
Power Slash: Second weakest combo, no utility, no Syphon for MP rejuvenation.. You're losing 2-3 ticks of MP via Darkside just using it. I expect DRK aggro modifiers will be adjusted nerfed in 3.05, as well as adding a buff of some sort to PS so that it will become a viable part of DRKs rotation. As is, avoid it like the plague.

[Reynhart]

(most tank busters thus far have been magical)

Wrong.
In 2.x most of tank busters were physical.

Mountain Buster
Death Sentence
Ravensbeak
Bahamut's Claw
Critical Rip
Revelation
Flatten

[Hundred]

Lol'd so hard when I read Dark Mind is worthless because it lasts 10 seconds. You know how long Sentinel & Shadow Wall lasts or Inner Beast? The duration is fine. Know when moves are coming out and act accordingly.

Drk Isn't on a spot with 2 less cooldowns, They have the same quantity as PLD's. PLD's Sentinel and Convalesence (and awareness but lol) are more potent. Shelltron is physical 1 hit, Dark Mind is magical however many hits fit in 10s.


The deal isn't to make tank classes the same. If one wants all classes the same then there is no point in classes at all. Its for each Job to have is strengths and weaknesses to make them valuable. Square is setting up Pld to be the main Physical damage tank with defensive team support, thats not a biggie. They've set up warrior to enable the other tanks full potential via Storms Path & Storms Eye while also being potent as general damage mitigation through Inner Beast. They're setting up Dark to be the Paladins Magical counter-part but it does not have defensive team support. In terms of every tank having its niche that makes it desirable the questions are primarily

1) Has SE met its goal of DRK having an advantage for Magical Damage.
2) If SE has Met the first goal is this advantage large enough to make up for the reduced Utility they provide to teammates
3) If the Advantage is not large enough, then what other advantages do they bring. Is it personal damage, team defensive, team offense, team healing?
4) For their Skills/mechanics in general does everything have its purpose is anything particularly clunky/unwieldy. Obviously some skills are not meant to be used generally and are there for specific situations, are they good at these situations?
'As far as Magical damage goes I believe the DRK is pretty much where it needs to be.

Living Dead is an example of 4). It works and its a functional skill but does not speak well for the long term. The more Health a DRK has the more health that must be restored. Health goes up with gear, while the CD is lower then Hallowed ground it is certainly a more cumbersome skill with lesser results. Is the expectation that Healer output will scale linearly with tank health so that there is no disruption at all as we gain more and more health?

[Launched]

I'm failing miserably to understand the complaints with DRK at level 60.

DPS: You have two 400+ potency attacks, 75 and 40 potency DoTs with a very short cooldown and joke of a TP cost, respectively, the most spammable AoE with proper MP management, an OGCD gap closer. Suffers only a 5% damage reduction while MTing.
Individual potencies don't matter, overall DPS does. WAR wins on that. WAR also has unlimited TP, PLD can go for 30-45s longer than DRK. DRK does 1*0.8*1.15=92% of a DRK with no Grit/Darkside. WAR does 1*0.75*1.2=90% of a WAR with no Defiance/Deliverance, but WAR also has Inner Beast and Unchained which ignore the penalty.

Utility: -10% incoming damage, -10% incoming INT based damage. Former stacks with Storm's Path. Latter procs on parry but in any fight where you're MTing its up at least half the time.
Reprisal is completely random. Delirium isn't unique, MNK has the same debuff.

Hate: DA Power Slash is ridiculous and is enough to put you in the lead on hate to the point where you don't need to maintenance it for half a dozen full combo rotations at least, leaving you free to focus on mitigation, DPS, and utility. Gap closer supplements pulling, Abyssal Drain is targeted, ranged AoE hate. Salted Earth further supplements steady hate on trash.
Enmity is literally no problem. Both PLD and WAR can hold single target and aoe enmity with no change of losing aggro, so I don't see why that would be considered an advantage of DRK.

Huge wall of mitigation text
DRK simply can't match PLD or WAR in a cooldown rotation. Even in magic heavy fights, WAR ends up with more mitigation thanks to Inner Beast and its short cooldowns. That's kinda funny considering magic tanking is meant to be DRK's gimmick.

Resource management: A DA Power Slash opener leaves you free to use Syphon Strike combos, DA Soul Eaters, maintain debuffs, and Blood Price is enough even on single targets to maintain a constant MP pool if you're paying attention.
Probably the only place you're right, but WAR/PLD don't even have to deal with that at all.

OTing: With proper use of Blood weapon you have a 400 potency attack every 7.35 seconds for 20 seconds and an additional OGCD 450 potency attack afterwards, while maintaining debuffs and MP in the 20 sec remaining on the CD at that point. Not to mention an OGCD gap closer, stun, AoE DoT, and line AoE.
And you'll be out of TP and useless at 2:15 into a fight. You don't even burst higher than WAR in that time.
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Stuff in bold.