Core Issues With 4.x Dark Knight

[Chrono_Rising]

syphon strike bonus on grit was made to secure MP generation as they nerf Blood price how make DRK resources limitless on HW in mass pulling, Blood weapon MP burst its pretty equal to the actual shity Blood price with syphon, dont use It as a excuse BCS the MP generation out and in grit is pretty well balanced.

In large pulls sure, but single target this is nerf, we didn’t have limitless mp even with both running. This also does not explain why our GCD selfsustain must be grit locked.

[SyzzleSpark]

In large pulls sure, but single target this is nerf, we didn’t have limitless mp even with both running. This also does not explain why our GCD selfsustain must be grit locked.

Chrono you bring up some really interesting points, basically that Grit gives us bonuses in an area where, were we given the choice, we would not choose to invest them.
That 75 potency on Bloodspiller is cut by 20%.
That 70 potency via MP on Syphon is cut by 20%.
etc.

I think that the Syphon buff in Grit is certainly adapted to mitigate the nerf to BP, and I guess you could say that it succeeds at that in ST and AoE, to some extent or another. But its still a poorly implemented change that they are painting themselves into a corner with, should they ever decide to adjust either of those skills again.

Pair this dynamic with the Quietus buff and you start to wonder why they nerfed BP at all. A lot of people like the Quietus buff, but I think I was in a minority that actually thought it was really stupid, and it is the biggest adjustment we've seen since the expansion and it was really just to band-aid over one of their own mistakes which was nerfing BP in the first place. If they'd kept BP as it is, they wouldn't have had to touch Syphon Strike, or Quietus (from the MP standpoint, anyway - I personally think that Quietus' gauge cost is the most ridiculous thing about it - 50 gauge for 160 potency is really, really weak imo.). In fact they probably could have tuned Quietus' potency higher, or at least had room to do so, had they kept the original dynamic in place. The hilarious thing about this expansion is that they are actually adding additional, different complexities in areas that were nerfed to make up for having nerfed them, when the theme of this expansion was supposed to be simplification. In 5.0, They'll nerf BP to 0.01 of a DA per proc, nerf Quietus to 0.02 of a DA per proc, nerf Syphon to 1/4 of its current value, and then have to add MP regeneration to... idk, Spinning Slash or some other such ridiculous drivel, just to make up for it. I'm not the only one that sees why this is stupid and just adds complexity via nerfs, which are in my eyes, literally the worst possible functions for a nerf to serve.

If you break something over and over and over again, it doesn't matter how much or how well you repair it, eventually its going to lose its structural integrity altogether and just turn to a pile of goo.

The Grit bonus to Bloodspiller is equally perplexing. Of course I get that the idea is to make Grit less punishing (that wretched catchphrase "raising the floor, lowering the ceiling" as it were) but it really just serves to make our DPS investment in our actual DPS stance weaker by measure of ratio, whilst giving us DPS bonuses in an area where they are ineffectual, like stacking Dexterity on a f***ing Scholar.

[shao32]

In large pulls sure, but single target this is nerf, we didn’t have limitless mp even with both running. This also does not explain why our GCD selfsustain must be grit locked.

you have to keep in mind in HW MP generation in grit was lower that out of grit for no reason, what this means? means grit gameplay was slowler compared to out of grit not only bcs blood weapon, but having less MP means less DA, depend of blood price MP return in single target was clunky and inefective, so was a buff on grit on that field.

if we compared gritless on HW and now on SB i will argue we have more MP now bcs yeah we loose bloodprice out of grit but in the other hand they remove darkside MP drain, and less be honest here, blood price never cover the mana drain of darkside, we generate more MP now that before so tecnically is not really a nerf either, if will be a nerf if darkside still consume MP.

they could do it better? probably, the MP manage is more balanced in both stances? absolutely yes.

and about souleater HP drain on grit well, thats another matter, we get in to the discusion about tank stances again, you complaing about grit having all those bonus but in reality most of this bonus are to make grit gameplay fun and playable, without the bonus grit would be the most clunky, boring and disgusting tank stance ever (it is thanks to the DPS meta but that x100) so there is no sense to nerf grit gameplay to the ground or buff gritless to make grit even more less desirable to use, the problem is not the selfsustain being locked on girt, is the dps penalty.

[Chrono_Rising]

you have to keep in mind in HW MP generation in grit was lower that out of grit for no reason, what this means? means grit gameplay was slowler compared to out of grit not only bcs blood weapon, but having less MP means less DA, depend of blood price MP return in single target was clunky and inefective, so was a buff on grit on that field.

if we compared gritless on HW and now on SB i will argue we have more MP now bcs yeah we loose bloodprice out of grit but in the other hand they remove darkside MP drain, and less be honest here, blood price never cover the mana drain of darkside, we generate more MP now that before so tecnically is not really a nerf either, if will be a nerf if darkside still consume MP.

they could do it better? probably, the MP manage is more balanced in both stances? absolutely yes.

and about souleater HP drain on grit well, thats another matter, we get in to the discusion about tank stances again, you complaing about grit having all those bonus but in reality most of this bonus are to make grit gameplay fun and playable, without the bonus grit would be the most clunky, boring and disgusting tank stance ever (it is thanks to the DPS meta but that x100) so there is no sense to nerf grit gameplay to the ground or buff gritless to make grit even more less desirable to use, the problem is not the selfsustain being locked on girt, is the dps penalty.

As much as I loved HW dark, I'm not entertaining arguments of "we had this in HW, they needed to fix it now because...". Sure it is important to understand why things happened, but it is far far far more important to me that the job plays in a way that makes sense now in SB.

The net effect of what they implemented in SB makes our stances dancing even worse on Dark Knight. To enhance resource generation in one stance (in particular the wrong stance) compared to the dps stance doesn't make sense, imagine if on warrior resource generation was cut in half (5 gauge compared to 10) across all skills when switching from tank stance to dps stance. There is really no reason to do this, except that it would make defiance less punishing and give it a "faster" play style.

Maybe the solution might make grit less boring, but this points to a problem with grit play. Even with the extra mana I find grit play boring and excessively slow. I would say the most annoying thing about grit play is breaking my soul eater combo because in large pulls abyssal drain is a dps increase and siphon strike is necessary to keep my mana up. Furthermore, I have never relied on soul eater selfsustain when tanking in grit, maybe I've gotten lucky with healers, or maybe it is because large pulls favor the self heal on abyssal drain. When did I want soul eater self sustain? I wanted it when I was against a single target out of grit and being hammered with autoattacks but in that case I only have TBN for 5 seconds. I don't find grit play particularly fun, enjoyable, nor does it actually flow or feel right. I get why they did it, but that isn't a reason that it should be this way.



*** Before I get flammed by someone with "don't like don't play", I really enjoy tanking on dark knight in dps stance.

[shao32]

snip

i dont say we have to return to HW DRK, i just point how was there and how is now, and for me keeping the same ratio of MP generation in both stances its a good thing, the only diference in grit MP is more sustain and out of grit is more burst windows but the result is the same so i dont really see what is you problem there bcs the result is the same MP ratio in both stances, to be more precise gritless generate more MP that grit so thats make you argument more meaningless.

grit is more slowly even now thanks to the bloodweapon+delirium window, blood price dont really match blood weapon in that field, you feel grit is wrong and poorly, i complety agreed with that, but making it even more less desirable or useless dont really solve the problem unleash you want to delete grit and compensate grit bonus somehow.

[Chrono_Rising]

i dont say we have to return to HW DRK, i just point how was there and how is now, and for me keeping the same ratio of MP generation in both stances its a good thing, the only diference in grit MP is more sustain and out of grit is more burst windows but the result is the same so i dont really see what is you problem there bcs the result is the same MP ratio in both stances, to be more precise gritless generate more MP that grit so thats make you argument more meaningless.

grit is more slowly even now thanks to the bloodweapon+delirium window, blood price dont really match blood weapon in that field, you feel grit is wrong and poorly, i complety agreed with that, but making it even more less desirable or useless dont really solve the problem unleash you want to delete grit and compensate grit bonus somehow.

I think the issue is that I'm not saying how grit itself should be fixed, because the heart of this post is to not suggest fixes, just identify what needs to be fixed. Grit itself needs a rework, it is boring and clunky game play that is not rewarding. This is very noticeable on dark knight, but this is a tank stance issue in general.

The issue I am identifying is that dark knight offers dps tools when its dps is being punished by tank stance, when we want to dps our resource generation is cut because we lose our "grit bonus" but gain access to blood weapon. This feels weird and clunky like an unhappy patch to a tear in fabric, giving us tools which enhance certain skills but in the wrong context just creates a weird clashing feeling when playing the class and trying to plan out your abilities. Grit should have a way of generating resources in a balanced way compared to dps stance, but locking us out of resource generating abilities depending on stance just creates tension within the class itself.

To enhance resource generation in one stance (in particular the wrong stance) compared to the dps stance doesn't make sense, imagine if on warrior resource generation was cut in half (5 gauge compared to 10) across all skills when switching from tank stance to dps stance. There is really no reason to do this, except that it would make defiance less punishing and give it a "faster" play style.

Imagining this type of game play in a different context and it makes no sense. No warrior would look at this and say, "what a great deal", they would say "where is the rest of my gauge in deliverance".

[SyzzleSpark]

Imagining this type of game play in a different context and it makes no sense. No warrior would look at this and say, "what a great deal", they would say "where is the rest of my gauge in deliverance".

Pretty much. There really shouldn't be DPS perks to a stance that nerfs your DPS by 20%.

[Chrono_Rising]

Please tell me if I miss something, but essentially blood weapon's entire function is to compress our 40 seconds of grit siphon strike into 15 seconds of no grit mana and generate blood.

In 40 seconds in grit I can siphon strike 5 times: in grit this equates to a bonus 6000 mana generated over a 40 second interval. We also are moving our GCD .8 GCDs (1.8 but blood weapon also moves us up 1 gcd during this interval) every 40 seconds, meaning that we will being getting an unaccounted for 6th siphon strike every 80 to 120 seconds due to GCD migration.

Blood Weapon: increases my autoattack speed and GCD by 10%, my BIS for dark has me at 2.38 GCD. I expect from blood weapon 480(15/2.7+15/(.9*2.38))= 6028 mana and about 37 blood.

Blood weapon is just returning the mana we would have generated if we stayed in grit for the 40 second cooldown. Though this is an advantage during bursts (remember we line up for every other one) but this means most of the damage gain is actually coming from not having a grit penalty and the blood generated.

In particular this means that we actually gain more mana in grit with the use of blood price than we do out of grit with blood weapon. So switching off grit actually does lower our mana resource pool as compared to our tank stance.

[shao32]

Imagining this type of game play in a different context and it makes no sense. No warrior would look at this and say, "what a great deal", they would say "where is the rest of my gauge in deliverance".

i dont deny that but otherwise will be imposible play with grit, i mean compared to other tanks they dont generate/use less resources on tank stance, idk why DRK have to have this diference more when MP is not only dps but mitigation too, adding a bonus on gritless can end in a surpluss we cant manage without wasting resources and nerf it in grit hurt grit dps and mitigation, specially dps bcs all mp will be save for TBN, granted at high levels we play without grit but i dont think a change like that can be made without a proper grit rework, other whise grit will me more punishing for no reason.

[Chrono_Rising]

i dont deny that but otherwise will be imposible play with grit, i mean compared to other tanks they dont generate/use less resources on tank stance, idk why DRK have to have this diference more when MP is not only dps but mitigation too, adding a bonus on gritless can end in a surpluss we cant manage without wasting resources and nerf it in grit hurt grit dps and mitigation, specially dps bcs all mp will be save for TBN, granted at high levels we play without grit but i dont think a change like that can be made without a proper grit rework, other whise grit will me more punishing for no reason.

Agreed they should not further hurt grit, but they should unify our resource generation, grit needs it but dps stance should see us get as much or more.