#BringBackHeavenswardReprisal

[SyzzleSpark]

I'm giving this its own thread because I'm simply in love with this suggestion and it is the most simple, easy, as-close-to-perfect-as-you-can-get solution to DRK's problems that I have seen on these forums. And I've spent more time than I am willing to admit without embarrassment brainstorming my own ideas and they all pale in comparison to this exquisitely minimalist idea:

But, in light of SCH/SMN getting back sustain after much outcry, [...] I feel like it's entirely within SE's capacity to repair the damage done.

Actually, reading this bit kind of caught my eye.

Hypothetically, let's suppose that SE gave the old 3.x Reprisal back to DRK, with the old effect, old potency, old everything, and just one small change: The skill procs either on a successful Parry, or when a TBN shield is broken.

Let's look at everything that would do for DRK;

- Gives DRK extra damage, up to 210 potency every 30 seconds. All by itself, this closes about half the gap between WAR and DRK in terms of total DPS.
- Gives DRK a reason to use TBN more often than "only when you're absolutely sure it's necessary or will save a healer GCD", without flipping things around so that every DRK wants to spam TBN on cooldown for max DPS.
- Gives DRK the party utility that it's now conspicuously lacking. The advantage it holds over the other tanks' party utility skills is that it has much higher uptime, but that's balanced out by the fact that it can only reduce damage from targetable sources, and that its mitigation is going to always be lower than Divine Veil/Passage of Arms, always lower than a 1-4 buff Shake it Off, and typically lower than a 0-buff Shake it Off (due to the nature of Shields versus mitigation).
- Bolsters DRK's personal mitigation, by restoring one of DRK's 3.x era network of low-effect-but-easily-stackable 'fluff' mitigation tools (Reprisal, Foresight, and Dark Dance, in 3.x). The high-uptime 10% would tend to be enough to keep DRK from getting trucked by standard attacks in between tankbusters, and also enough to let TBN be used as the 'primary' cooldown on most medium-large tankbusters, instead of needing to pair TBN with another cooldown anyway.
- It also solves the 3.x Reprisal problems, which were: 1) You couldn't use it if enemies had unparryable attacks, and 2) You couldn't use it as an off-tank. By allowing TBN to proc it, you could pop it against magic damage and you could pop it as an off-tank.

Honestly, if it had an enmity modifier, that'd be very close to solving DRK's relevancy issues in one move.

I do not care what needs to be done to make this happen as far as the existing Reprisal, if its name needs changed, or the new DRK Reprisal has to be called something different/get a different animation (I miss the *shing-shwing* of 3.x Reprisal but I'm not about to push my luck) I just want this suggestion right here to happen. Please do it. DRK has the least number of buttons out of all 3 tanks, so button bloat is no excuse. Put this back on our hotbars.

Crater's post speaks for itself, there's very little I can add to it other than giving it its own thread. Its too good of an idea to be buried in the pages of the thread where it was originally posted.

SE, if you do nothing else to DRK for the rest of SB, do this one, unbelievably simple change. You'd fix or damn-near-fix tank balance and make DRK mains very happy without robbing PLD or WAR of their niches.

*****

Also, this, to those whom it may concern:

Regarding the... role-action thing that is currently in the game, going around calling itself "Reprisal", I don't see any reason why that can't stay as a separate skill for all the tanks to use. Rename it to "Intimidate" or something, which is more descriptive anyway - The dictionary definition of "Reprisal" is literally "an act of retaliation", so what the hell is this role action "retaliating" against, when you can use it before an attack even happens?

A Reddit response to lukewarm/antagonistic reception of this idea:

"DRKs need to stop being nebbish and timid, shuffling their feet and staring at the floor while going "Well gee guys, maybe we shouldn't be good at anything, it's not fair to those other tanks who are way better than us at everything..."

It's okay to have strong abilities. It's okay to have very strong abilities. It's a good thing for every class to have abilities that make people think "I really wish we had one of those in our party". Warrior has skills like that. Paladin has skills like that. Ninja has skills like that, and so does Dragoon, and so does Bard and so does Machinist, and so do all three healing classes.

Dark Knight needs at least one more skill like that, and bringing back Reprisal would pretty much fit the bill."

#BringBackHeavenswardReprisal!