Core Issues With 4.x Dark Knight

[Rhais]

D) It matches up fairly well with DRK's current offensive identity, which is all about using Dark Arts as kind of a per-GCD Berserk

This is just another huge problem with DRK though, there is nothing even remotely fun about spamming a boring potency buff before all your GCDs. The current offensive identity of DRK is also very flawed and needs to be looked at. SE's current concept of DRK has so many problems both in terms of how engaging and fun the job is to play and how effective it is at doing its job that a few small tweaks to various skills are not going to be adaquate.

[SyzzleSpark]

This is just another huge problem with DRK though, there is nothing even remotely fun about spamming a boring potency buff before all your GCDs. The current offensive identity of DRK is also very flawed and needs to be looked at. SE's current concept of DRK has so many problems both in terms of how engaging and fun the job is to play and how effective it is at doing its job that a few small tweaks to various skills are not going to be adaquate.

A lot of people would disagree here, because what is the alternative? Just give DRK another FoF/Zerk clone? Not really my idea of a fix.

I agree that DRK's problems run deeper than that which mere potency buffs and random tweaks will fix, but the idea of actively boosting your damage on demand, gated by a resource rather than a cooldown that you push every 60s and then call it a day, is probably one of the more effective aspects of DRK's design, insofar as giving the job an actual identity. There are many things I would fix before this, assuming enough people see it as an actual problem.

[Chrono_Rising]

I really like that suggestion Crater, this solves a number of issues easily. Would TBN continue to restore blood in this hypothetical?

[Crater]

I really like that suggestion Crater, this solves a number of issues easily. Would TBN continue to restore blood in this hypothetical?

I think the MP and the Blood could stay the same with no issues.

However, one other indirect benefit to that would be that, if it's understood that every 30s or so TBN will result in a substantial potency boost (barring any Parry procs), there's less pressure on TBN, on Bloodspiller, on your Souleater combo, etc, to remain in this weird, tightly-bound network where all the potencies have to kind of more or less break even with one another for the whole system to stay together. I don't know if there would be any real call to do that, but it at least puts the option on the table for the future.

[Rhais]

There can be other ways to give the job an offensive boost aside from making a FoF or zerk clone. The way SE has chosen to do it though, it doesn't make for very compelling gameplay in my opinion. HW DRK didn't have an equivelent to FoF or zerk, and it still managed to function offensively, and was a lot more fun then the current design.

[Chrono_Rising]

There can be other ways to give the job an offensive boost aside from making a FoF or zerk clone. The way SE has chosen to do it though, it doesn't make for very compelling gameplay in my opinion. HW DRK didn't have an equivelent to FoF or zerk, and it still managed to function offensively, and was a lot more fun then the current design.

Beyond giving us back oGCD attacks, I think our unique offensive buffs need to regenerate our resources.

[SyzzleSpark]

Yeaahhh... I'm gonna give that idea its own thread. More than any other suggestion I've seen for DRK in months, it deserves it. Like a bloody lightbulb zapping on.

[Sipherous]

Grit: Leaving your tank stance on paladin and warrior are straight gains except in terms of mitigation and selfsustain. Dark knight loses these things as well, but also resource generation, slowing down its mana accumulation by punishing siphon strike and locking blood price which leads to a lower expected dps gain when dropping grit, and loses potency on our hardest hitting move. This doesn't happen to any other tank when leaving tank stance.

I think you have grit backwards in regards to syphon strike. Going into grit doubles the MP generation of syphon strike not punishes it and also adds the lifestealing effect to souleater. Also argueably DRK is the strongest Tank of the three while in Tank stance because they have permanent dmg increase from darkside, double mana generation increased potency and life steal equipped to their primary dmg combo. In contrast WAR lose all their strongest skills by going into Defiance and PLD has a massive 35% DPS decrease from the loss of sword oaths potency gain. A DRK in grit will out DPS a PLD in Shield and a WAR in Defiance.

[Chrono_Rising]

I think you have grit backwards in regards to syphon strike. Going into grit doubles the MP generation of syphon strike not punishes it and also adds the lifestealing effect to souleater.

Your are saying the same thing as me just giving it a positive spin, going into grit gives you these benefits, vs leaving grit removes these benefits. At the end of the day this means that part of our potency, mana regeneration, and selfsustain are locked into one stance. More over the "extra" damage is locked into the defensive stance under a penalty of a 20% damage down. Its opposite of what you want, warrior for example going into dps stance is gaining a damage up, potency, and its resource generation is untouched and even enhanced with inner release cutting costs on skills, and it is gaining this dps when it would most want it, while trying to dps.

Also argueably DRK is the strongest Tank of the three while in Tank stance because they have permanent dmg increase from darkside, double mana generation increased potency and life steal equipped to their primary dmg combo. In contrast WAR lose all their strongest skills by going into Defiance and PLD has a massive 35% DPS decrease from the loss of sword oaths potency gain. A DRK in grit will out DPS a PLD in Shield and a WAR in Defiance.

First, a 35% dps decrease is extremely steep. I would expect 25% on the high end (15% for stance and 10% from sword oath). We can loosely compare skills but paladin's combos have higher potencies (in particular goring blade) to match the fact that dark knight has a constant 20% buff, a buff which also essentially exists on warrior except you have to upkeep the skill. Paladins and warriors have a higher amount of self buffing. Warrior also doesn't lose all of its strongest skills going into tank stance, upheaval, for instance is actually stronger in tank stance than in dps stance. Warrior does lose fell cleave, but inner beast is still fairly strong and ignores the damage penalty, and it retains its on GCD selfsustain which is also part of its dps rotation, the difference is warrior keeps this regardless of stance. The point here is that the other two tanks leave tank stance and actually gain dps without losing dps resources (potency and guage). In contrast, Dark Knight is also shedding its damage reducing tank stance, but loses potency and and resource generation in the process, which is counterproductive to the goal which is to do damage as an OT (or even MT if you are into that sort of thing).

Regardless, we can argue theory all day about who does more in tank stance. The quicker resolution I think, is found by appealing to the data compiled by savage players. The conclusion that dark knight out dps paladin in tank stance isn't supported by the data. If you compare percentiles dark knight trails behind warrior and paladin at just about every percentile. Now, at high percentiles we expect this since out of tank stance most people agree dark knight is behind warrior and paladin, but at low percentiles where there are high uptimes on tank stance we still see dark knight behind. If dark knight was more powerful in tank stance, then I would expect to see a reversal at lower percentiles. The thing is we don't see that, we see paladin leading ahead of dark knight contradicting our initial assumptions.

[Reynhart]

Now, at high percentiles we expect this since out of tank stance most people agree dark knight is behind warrior and paladin, but at low percentiles where there are high uptimes on tank stance we still see dark knight behind. If dark knight was more powerful in tank stance, then I would expect to see a reversal at lower percentiles. The thing is we don't see that, we see paladin leading ahead of dark knight contradicting our initial assumptions.

A little question on those numbers. Do they take into account who really tanks ?
For example, in O1S, you don't need to tank swap, so you can have a DRK main tanking the whole fight while the PLD or WAR stays out of tank stance. And since DRK brings basically nothing by being an off tank, I'd say it would be a pretty common situation.