Resource Conversion: A Redesign of TBN and Delirium

[SyzzleSpark]

***This thread is far more "for fun" than other DRK threads right now. Its intended to be something of a buff, but I do not contend that this something DRK needs.

Based off some discussion in the Reprisal thread and a post here, I want to suggest a rework to Delirium, and TBN, that would hopefully make the abilities A) more powerful, and B) a LOT more fun.

Looking at DRK's current kit, its very hard to not draw parallels between TBN and Delirium. They both share a very interesting mechanic: Resource conversion. The main issue with this is that beyond that, the two skills are completely incongruent (one is a weak DPS ability on a long cooldown and the other is a strong mitigation ability on a short cooldown, etc.), and what I aim to prove with this post is that making them congruent is a solid design decision and an opportunity to buff the job in a way that is fun and interesting.

These two changes turn TBN and Delirium into something like “micro stances”, not unlike Astral Fire/Umbral Ice. They cannot be used with each other and are cancelled upon re-use, BUT, because of the active nature of their additional effects, which remain short duration buffs that wear off, they do not share a recast timer. However the dynamic that they create emulates a "soft" shared recast timer.

These changes are not designed to be buffs, as much as they may look like buffs. They’re intended as a redesign and redistribution of potency through resource conversion. The only intended buff of these changes is Delirium’s additional effect. However, the resource-based burst phases that these changes will cycle through do account for a boost in DPS, but not one that I'm mathematically proficient enough to measure. If anyone wants to accept that challenge, have at it. If it is substantial enough, these changes could equate to making DRK the "SAM of tanks" with high DPS and little/no utility, which is one route changes to the job could take that hasn't been explored that much. But anyway...

Without further ado -

The Blackest Night:
Halves MP costs while doubling Blood Gauge costs. Effect ends upon re-use. Cannot be used with Delirium.
Additional effect: Creates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 20% of your maximum HP, or around a party member that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP.
Effect Duration: 5s
Recast: 15s

Delirium:
Halves Blood Gauge costs while doubling MP costs. Effect ends upon re-use. Cannot be used with The Blackest Night.
Additional effect: Increases the potency of your next weaponskill by 40%
Effect Duration: 10s.
Recast: 15s.

So there you have it. A new resource conversion system based on swapping between these two stances.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking: “What’s to stop you from simply spamming Delirium and ignoring TBN, and just toggling the Delirium stance on and off while getting +40% potency on a weaponskill every 15 seconds?”

Both Delirium and TBN would have an activation cost of 1200 mana AND 25 Blood Gauge when turning either on while stance-less. This would be the norm in your opener, but having to do it midfight would be a waste of those resources.

Additionally, even when you “turn off” these stances, the additional effects still trigger, which in turn triggers the recast timer. I.E. if you pop Delirium and get the 40% boost and go into Delirium stance, and then hit Delirium again, you would cancel your stance but still get the 40% buff, but have to spend resources to get back into a stance.

While this would effectively make the recast time of both of these abilities 30 seconds, which would seem like a nerf to TBN, TBN is infrequently used on its 15 second recast. If you needed to, you could hop into Delirium and then hop back into TBN, but this can be inefficient...

In your opener, you use TBN first, because obviously you start the fight no BG but plenty of mana. So you'd dump just enough mana to avoid capping during TBN, while building the 25 BG to activate it. Then you'd basically just DA the living crap out of your target, while building Blood Gauge, then hitting Delirium, dumping a bunch of Bloodspillers and letting your mana recover.

Essentially what this would grant DRK is something of an Astral Fire/Umbral Ice style rotation, in which you would alternate focus between Blood and mana consumption. Under TBN, you would avoid the use of Bloodspiller at all costs while trying to spam DA and such as much as possible. By the time you leave TBN and enter Delirium, you would have drained your mana, and stockpiled a good amount of Blood Gauge, which you would then focus on spending under Delirium while avoiding the use of your mana.

While it might take some retuning of DRK's baseline costs/returns, this rotational dynamic also discourages you from swapping stances prematurely, as you risk not having enough of the resource you want to spend and capping on the resource that you want to avoid, BUT - it is still something you have the option to do, such as on the occasion that you might want to utilize several uses of TBN for mitigation within 15-30s.

Its worth noting that these ideas are entirely addressed to DRK’s DPS and resource management issues and do very little to improve upon utility or mitigation, which is still a problem. However, a problem for a lot of people of varying skill levels is that DRK just feels bad to play. This was an idea intended to address that as well, as I think it would add a layer of depth and strategy to the job's playstyle that SB robbed us of.

[Wyndam]

This is an interesting thought. You already have sort of a feedback loop between blood and MP while AoE tanking and that's one of the better things about DRK. And I'd also be fine with DRK's lacking group utility if it were top tank DPS. Alternatively, what I might do is put an MP gain on Bloodspiller and a Blood gain directly onto Dark Arts while also changing any potency buffs from Dark Arts to be survival/enmity oriented and adjusting baseline potencies accordingly. You could then freely spend MP without worrying about lost DPS and it would basically be MP=Defense, Blood=Offense.

[Mycow8me]

I can't help but think this is over complicating the class... Even if it is just for fun. I don't think we want to deter new players or players that can't handle when best to use/switch a system like this to stray away from dark knight for this reason instead of it underperforming. Just my 2 cents.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd rather not need to pop both DA and Delirium onto a SE or BS. I also don't see why they'd have to be mutually exclusive, as they seem to have nothing to do with each other, are consumed by separate events, and last distinct maximum durations.