Fixing Dark Knight, Properly

[Kabooa]

Stuff

Firstly, the text -as it is written- is what I used and responded to here. I only used Dark as it is now as a comparison, and honestly not much is changing.

Second, follow your own advice and read these again. Your comprehension on his and my post is lacking.

There are only three points worth discussing further from this, one being a lack of clarification on my end regarding TBN

Read more carefully. Its a DPS gain first use (1.8K for 40) breaks even second use (2.4K for 50, just like now) and isn't a definitive loss until the third use.

Despair is my issue here, as it serves no purpose but to punish someone with a 'fake' cooldown of 15 seconds.

The 'first' TBN (Despair 0) is the DPS gain.
The 'second' TBN (Despair 1) is a loss, because you only gain the bonus 10 blood at Despair 2 or above. This is the 2.4k for 40 blood.
The 'third' TBN (Despair 2) is a loss. 3k for 50.
Every TBN after is a greater loss.

In other words, the more the Dark Knight needs their shield, the more they are punished for it.

Sure there is. Our DPS is bottom-tier. More MP from a once-per-minute ability is a modest and totally reasonable DPS boost. .

You already get a net gain from not having to spend the 2.4k mp in the first place. "There is no Dark Arts effect". Therefore, it doesn't also need to restore MP. You're already getting the equivalent of 2.5 Dark Arts for free.

Why? Crater's idea for Shadow Wall is actually the single most intelligently-thought-out and balanced DA/non-DA interaction for a defensive ability I've ever seen, either in-game or from forum-theorycrafting. .

(Also you can just reskin Rampart)

[Crater]

Despair is my issue here, as it serves no purpose but to punish someone with a 'fake' cooldown of 15 seconds.

The 'first' TBN (Despair 0) is the DPS gain.
The 'second' TBN (Despair 1) is a loss, because you only gain the bonus 10 blood at Despair 2 or above. This is the 2.4k for 40 blood.
The 'third' TBN (Despair 2) is a loss. 3k for 50.
Every TBN after is a greater loss.

In other words, the more the Dark Knight needs their shield, the more they are punished for it.

No, you need to read it more closely.

Despair is applied when TBN's shield is applied. The stack check is performed when the shield breaks.

Your first TBN applies one stack of Despair when it is used, and so when the shield breaks, you already have one stack.
Your second TBN applies one more stack of Despair, so by the time the second one breaks, you have two stacks.


The way you're describing it only makes sense if you assume that the stack is applied as the shield breaks. However, this presents two big problems: 1) It would mean that if the shield doesn't break, you can apply it over and over at 1800 MP, with a 2s cooldown, and never incur a Despair penalty. This would allow you to, in any situation where an auto-attack doesn't break TBN, just click the skill off after reducing an attack to 0, and reapply it, to get 100% damage reduction at a cost of only 1800 MP per shield. And 2) It would increase the 'soft cooldown' of the skill to an effective 15-25s, depending on when the shield actually breaks, whereas the way I've written it would keep the 'soft cooldown' at 15s.

There's a reason that I worded it so that the bonus blood is applied at two stacks or higher, and then immediately proceeded to say that a second consecutive usage of it would net the same costs/gains as the current version of the skill.

[Kabooa]

No, you need to read it more closely.

Despair is applied when TBN's shield is applied. The stack check is performed when the shield breaks.

So it would look like:

TBN 1: 1800 cost, 40 blood (Gain)
TBN 2: 2400 cost, 50 blood (Neutral)
TBN 3+: Loss to greater loss

This is somehow...not significantly better. If I had to choose between these two, I'd ask if it could just remain the same. It is a layer to a system that doesn't do much, but as I stated, punish someone for needing their mitigation tool.

Here's the thing. If it's a DPS gain, people are going to do it. That's just the way it works. So the first TBN in the sequence is fine. It'll get used, people will get the blood, get a dps gain, and be happy, then not touch it again for 15 seconds. Until you start to need it more than once every 15 seconds. And that's where we run into the problem. Mitigation isn't something you want to have to juggle into your DPS rotation. That's why TBN is neutral. You use it as you need it, and if you use it right, you basically go on as you were without issue. If you don't need it, you Dark Arts. If it's a DPS gain for it to break, then people are going to use it to gain that damage, not to effectively mitigate.

This is why Despair is a trap. It's disguised as a DPS gain, but it's effectively no different than just buffing bloodspiller with TBN now. It's only a gain once every 15 seconds. It punishes you for needing the shield more often than that, with enough of a punishment that would discourage use of it outside those windows, and if an encounter existed that required a Dark Knight to maintain TBN through Despair, it puts them in a worse position than now, because the other tanks don't need to do that for their Shelltrons.

You would get the same defensive coverage by simply reducing TBN's cooldown as it is now, forego Despair, and slightly boost Bloodspiller and Quietus potency for a minor DPS boost.

[Crater]

If I had to choose between these two, I'd ask if it could just remain the same.

You shouldn't, because this proposed version of TBN with Despair is a straight, unambiguous, clear-cut buff to the current version of TBN.

I'm just snipping out all this stuff about how it "punishes you for needing your mitigation more than once every 15 seconds", because none of it matters when you are currently punished for needing your mitigation more than once every 15 seconds by not having that mitigation every 15 seconds.


Yes, people would be using the 0-Despair version of the skill as often as possible to boost DPS, only holding it when the delay in use will produce useful mitigation. This is a good thing. Paladins trigger Sheltron as often as possible, even when they're off-tanking and the mitigation is irrelevant, because it's a DPS boost to proc Shield Swipe. That is 100% a desirable outcome - in fact, it's almost an identical outcome: Shield Swipe is 150 potency on a 15s cooldown; Bloodspiller is in the neighborhood of 140 potency, and this would essentially be an option once every 15 seconds. The 1-Despair TBN would be used in places where TBN is currently used, which is also fine.

In most cases, yes, you would then refrain from using it for 15 seconds, and would wait out the soft cooldown on Despair. That's the whole point. If you do that, then the skill is essentially unchanged from the current version, which is exactly what I intended. However, you are then given the option to sacrifice DPS for more mitigation, which is something that Dark Knight cannot do right now, but which Warrior and Paladin are both capable of (in slightly different ways).

And yes, it matter that you have the ability to do that. You don't need to bother with the "Here's the thing: People will do things that gain DPS..." stuff - nobody is being educated, or whatever you think is going on. Not everything is an optimized speedrun. People make mistakes, or people are unfamiliar with attack patterns during prog, or sometimes losing a little bit of damage for a little bit of extra mitigation in one place can pay off by gaining a much bigger amount of damage later on. Having the option to do those things is important - particularly when the rest of the class's design leans on TBN as a primary mitigation source, in a way that the equivalent skills on the other tanks do not.

You would get the same defensive coverage by simply reducing TBN's cooldown as it is now, forego Despair, and slightly boost Bloodspiller and Quietus potency for a minor DPS boost.

This is wrong, though. A reduced cooldown with no other changes quickly takes TBN from "this is overall probably the most powerful active mitigation tool (for good reason)" into "this is completely broken and overpowered and makes every other tank obsolete".

Consider, if TBN's cooldown were simply reduced, what would happen if a DRK sat in Grit, used Hard Slash -> Syphon Strike, and then cast TBN, over and over again. You would be unkillable, and whatever damage you lost from playing that way would be recovered because there would never be a reason to bring two healers to a fight again.

The ability to use TBN more than once in quick succession is very important to DRK's future, because TBN is the only active mitigation skill that can't be used that way - but the progressive decay in MP/damage efficiency is equally important, simply to keep the skill from careening out of control and destroying the game's balance.

Despair is not intended to, nor would it ever, "trick" people into thinking that it's there to improve their DPS (the fact that it can be used to square the circle of people avoiding TBN entirely because "it's a DPS loss" is just a nice, small side effect). The change is there to improve flexibility in DRK's mitigation toolkit, which is currently massively lacking compared to the flexibility that the other tanks offer.

I like some of these ideas and others not so much, but I had a humble suggestion regarding your proposed change to Dark Arts. Instead of making the DA version restore MP to where it yo-yos (since we all know how janky SE server ticks can be with this stuff), why not instead make Dark Arts free but the modified attacks (that you wished to have an MP cost) take MP to use?

This is a good idea! I'd kind of wondered if there was a way to make the proposed interaction between DA and DRK's defensive skills a little bit less clunky, and had sort of thought of this myself.

The possible problem with it is basically: What happens when you use the 'free' DA, but then don't have enough MP for the skill you want to use it on? Would the skill fail to execute, or would it simply perform the non-DA version of the skill? And if it's the latter, would it consume the DA effect anyway, or would it stay active (possibly getting used on a skill that you didn't want to DA in the first place)? And maybe more importantly, how would you write the skill tooltips to reflect this behavior, so that new players will understand how their skills work?

Not saying it wouldn't work (in fact, in a lot of ways it's probably better than the version that I've written), but programming the functionality and figuring out how to convey that functionality to players might be more complicated than simply having the skills refund the MP that you spent on DA.

[Kabooa]

In most cases, yes, you would then refrain from using it for 15 seconds, and would wait out the soft cooldown on Despair. That's the whole point. If you do that, then the skill is essentially unchanged from the current version, which is exactly what I intended. However, you are then given the option to sacrifice DPS for more mitigation, which is something that Dark Knight cannot do right now, but which Warrior and Paladin are both capable of (in slightly different ways).

They can. It's called Grit. People just want to avoid it like the plague. So rather than complicate TBN with that, you could just put Grit off the GCD. Your on demand mitigation sacrificing DPS.

You could also utilize your Weapon stance proposal to achieve this aim. This honestly has the potential for more defining gameplay than modifying TBN from its current point, both allowing for optimizing DPS potential or achieving active mitigation.

Despair only opens up a can of worms under the guise of filling in the Dark Knight's mitigation toolkit. From what I've read from other Dark Knights, the primary issue is tying cost into mitigation in a toolkit that still needs its 'free' sources filled out. This doesn't address that. It just encourages TBN to be used for a DPS gain, avoiding the neutral version at all costs unless you're definitely going to die, and never looking at the skill again at 2+ stacks until the timer resets.

[SyzzleSpark]

By making TBN a straight up damage gain in that one circumstance, the rest of the design will only be seen as sub-optimal in its use. ... It's now sub-optimal.

You're so stuck on "optimal" when "optimal" was never part of the design decision in the OP, any more than Inner Beast, Defiance-Equilibrium, Clemency, or PoA are "optimal". In this game where DPS is synonymous with optimization by your own admission...

If it's a DPS gain, people are going to do it. That's just the way it works.

...sacrificing DPS for mitigation is obviously suboptimal.

Pointing out a self-evident and readily inferred element of an opposing argument as proof of its falsehood when that same element was part of the original premise does nothing to advance your own argument. Moving The Goalpost, Red Herring, Irrelevant Conclusion, idk which applies. Probably all of them.

The idea succeeds in its premise: TBN as it exists now (1 use per 15s) is no longer a DPS loss. Good. This is what people wanted. But... In addition, it gives a DRK the option to sacrifice DPS (by using increasingly DPS-inefficient casts of the ability) for more mitigation, an option that DRK currently does not have. The goal wasn't a mechanic that was universally optimal regardless of usage, the goal was to give DRK a choice between "optimal" and "potentially not dying". That's really all there is to it.

It also, as Crater mentioned in his reply to my first post, does this without laying a finger on Bloodspiller, thus avoiding the situation wherein too many of DRK's DPS eggs are in one basket a la WAR's Fell Cleave. I personally could go either way on this as I think costs could be cut to allow us more meaningful burst windows, but either way, the OP states its intentions pretty clearly and the changes meet the conditions of those intentions.

[InfiniDragon]

I like some of these ideas and others not so much, but I had a humble suggestion regarding your proposed change to Dark Arts. Instead of making the DA version restore MP to where it yo-yos (since we all know how janky SE server ticks can be with this stuff), why not instead make Dark Arts free but the modified attacks (that you wished to have an MP cost) take MP to use?

Anyhow, I'm glad more folks are making threads like this. Even though I'd much rather see DRK in old WAR's position (an HP draining offensive focused tank that is fairly self-sufficient, a lot like classic DRKs) any discussion that's good discussion increases the chance that SE will finally notice one of the 18 gazillion threads about our job.

[Tanathya]

I strongly agree with most of what you suggest, especially fond of Part I. Personally, and as you said since Dark Arts lost its purpose to be just a simple potency boost, I'd definitely take the boost out of a few skills, especially from Syphon Strike, make it cost a bit more, and add even more potency to Souleater, for example. I'd also love the Carve and Spit change suggestion; get both bonuses (MP restoration and damage boost) without the need to use Dark Arts. Carve and Spit feels even clunkier than in 3.0 when used with Dark Arts, due to Syphon Strike having the potency modifier added. Also, the stances suggestion would make the whole thing actually fun, and would set it apart from WAR and PLD.

[Reynhart]

It's generally pretty agreed-upon that DRK gets the short end of the stick compared to the other tanks when it comes to their basic weaponskill combos. They have one fewer combo than the other two tanks, period, and they're the most heavily-penalized tank for using their enmity combo. And despite this, they're also more reliant on their combos for damage and enmity - DRK has no enmity-generating off-GCD like Circle of Scorn, Shield Swipe, or Onslaught

I'm not so sure about that. RoH of Halone is a pretty big loss in potency, and missing the MP return for Riot Blade will probably prevent you one cast of Holy Spirit during your requiescat window, or worse, not trigger the damage buff. DRK also have an obscene enmity multiplier on DA-Power Slash, to the point where you frequently don't need any more enmity combo throughout the rest of the fight even when stance dancing. Considering any tank should do one enmity combo right at the start to let their DPS burst without any issue, it's not really a penalty.

DRK does not have a +damage cooldown on a timer like Berserk, Requiescat, or Fight or Flight that they can use to 'hide' low-DPS combos in, and DRK has no way to 'make up for' any lost damage from their enmity combo, the way that PLD can use Sheltron to recover MP they don't get from Riot Blade.

No, but they have Darkside, a permanent (and now almost free) 20% damage boost. They're also the only tank that can increase the potency of their weapon skill, on top of having, on average, higher potencies that the other two tanks.

Apart from the lack of diversity in their weapon skills, I really don't think combos is where DRK get the short end.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

RoH is a big loss, but after establishing enmity you have two oGCDs with modifiers that help you sustain it. DRK doesn't. Also bringing up DA Powerslash is kind of a loaded argument, as using that just makes the potency loss even bigger. In any discussion about balance you, for better or for worse, have to consider unoptimized and unorganized play just as much as top tier raiding. Enmity may be trivialized for some of us, but in dungeons and raid pugs it can still frequently boil down to you and you alone if you are paired with poor players.

Darkside isn't a consideration, because its always on, so its potencies are balanced around it. WAR has SE. PLD has a ludicrously potent DoT that provides a similar, constant pseudo buff. (The DoT ticks of GB are in the neighborhood of 20% of DRK's PPGCD, ergo, GB is essentially PLD's SE/DS). We're talking about things outside of things that are always running, things like Berserk, FoF, etc. DA is our per-GCD-basis form of this, but its not enough, and statistically our DPS is bottom tier and we don't bring anything to the raid that makes up for this, and certainly nothing that isn't 1-up'ed by the equivalents the other tanks possess.