Dark Knight Redesign For Fun

[Chrono_Rising]

This is a for fun redesign of Dark Knight. I was inspired when reading Lyth’s post about Dark Knight’s identity. It is a bit different from current tank design in that it does not use a traditional tank stance or passive mitigations. Instead this tank will focus on active mitigation, self buffing, and enfeeblement. One focus of this build is to smooth out gameplay while keeping things fast paced. I believe this build would be exceptionally powerful but require some skill to use effectively. This is probably also a little OP but meh.

My stated goals are primarily achieved through expanding our dark arts. Like our current dark arts, these abilities would augment our ability effects depending on the form we choose to use. In a sense these act as short duration “stances” which we are forced to cycle around to be effective.

Debilito
Duration 20 seconds
Recast 15 seconds
Cost 2400 mana
Enemies which attack Dark Knight suffer from weakness, absorbs 10% of enemy stats for 40 seconds and can be refreshed.
Shares recast with Vindicta and Caedis.

Vindicta (Punishment. In this stance the Dark Knight will focus on punishing enemies actions either directly through counter attacks, or HP and mana restore.)
Duration 20 seconds
Recast 15 seconds
Cost 2400 mana
Cooldown timers reduced by 25%. Enmity generation is increased.
Shares recast with Debilito and Caedis.

Caedis (Murder. In this stance the Dark Knight has a single and final goal. Potencies gain large buffs in exchange for ending resource generation.)
Duration 20 seconds
Recast 15 seconds
Cost 2400 mana
Resource costs reduced 30%. Resource generation from all sources, including self, canceled for the duration. Outgoing damage increased by 10%, Critical Hit Rate increased 20%.
Shares recast with Vindicta and Debilito.


Below is the order of unlock of the skills and their new effects.

Hard Slash -- unchanged

Spinning Slash -- unchanged

Unleash -- Increase potency back to 100 otherwise unchanged.

Syphon Strike
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Hard Slash
Combo Potency: 250
Dark Arts Combo Potency: 390
Combo Bonus: Restores MP
Debilito Bonus Target suffers damage down 20% for 40 seconds.
Vindicta Bonus MP restore doubled
Caedis Bonus Combo and Dark Arts Potency increased by 50%. No mana restored.

Unmend
Upgraded to Abyssal Drain at level 56.
Debilito Bonus Damage converted to HP
Vindicta Bonus 50% chance Dark Passenger will cost 0 mp. Enemies afflicted with bleed for 6 seconds, bleed damage converted to HP.
Caedis Bonus Potency doubled. HP restore Canceled.

The Blackest Night
Creates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 25% of your maximum HP, or around a party member that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP.
Duration: 7s
Increases Blood Gauge by 50 when full 25% (10%) is absorbed.
Debilito Bonus When full shield is absorbed remaining damage is mitigated by 20%. Future damage mitigated by 10% for 10 additional seconds.
Vindicta Bonus 20% of Damage reflected back on enemies when full 25% absorbed
Caedis Bonus Bloodspiller and Dark Arts can be used once free of cost when full damage is absorbed. Shatter: on breaking target receives bleeding damage for 9 seconds.

Power Slash -- unchanged

Dark Side
Reduces weaponskill cast time and recast time, spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 20% and converts physical damage dealt into MP and Blood, while reducing weaponskill TP cost by 25%. Also increases Blood Gauge by 5 and restores mana each time a physical attack lands on Dark Knight.
Debilito Bonus Restores HP at 10% of damage dealt.
Vindicta Bonus Resource Generation is doubled for duration
Caedis Bonus MP and Blood Generation canceled. Enemies suffer from Dark Burns, MP and Blood Gains converted to dot damage.

Debilito
Duration 20 seconds
Recast 15 seconds
Cost 2400 mana
Enemies which attack Dark Knight suffer from weakness, absorbs 10% of enemy stats for 40 seconds and can be refreshed.
Shares recast with Vindicta and Caedis.

Soul Eater
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Syphon Strike
Combo Potency: 300
Dark Arts Combo Potency: 440
Absorbs a portion of damage dealt as HP
Combo Bonus: Increases Blood Gauge by 10
Debilito Bonus Soul Devour debuff placed on enemy, 5% of original damage is dealt to the enemy and further restores HP, 9 second duration. Additional applications do not stack on the same target.
Vindicta Bonus Increases parry rate by 40% for 21 seconds. 50% of parried damage mitigated dealt back to target. Can be refreshed.
Caedis Bonus Cancels HP and Blood Gain. Combo and Dark Arts Potency increased by 50%

Dark Passenger
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 160 to all enemies in a straight line before you.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Dark Arts Potency: 300
Debilito Bonus Enemies inflicted with Blind 15 seconds
Vindicta Bonus Enemies receive 10% damage from attacking dark knight. Duration 12 seconds
Caedis Bonus Enemies receive vulnerability to Darkness. Increases Caedis stance duration by 5 seconds.

Vindicta
Duration 20 seconds
Recast 15 seconds
Cost 2400 mana
Cooldown timers reduced by 25%. Enmity generation is increased.
Shares recast with Debilito and Caedis.

Dark Arts
Mana Cost Increased to 4800
Dark Knight gains Dark Arts buff augmenting the potency of many skills, duration 10 seconds.

Delirium
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Syphon Strike
Combo Potency: 300
Target suffers from Delrium. Reduces Enemy stats by 20% for 7 seconds.

Living Dead
Grants the effect of Living Dead. When HP is reduced to 0 while under the effect of Living Dead, instead of becoming KO'd, your status will change to Walking Dead.
Living Dead Duration: 10s
While under the effect of Walking Dead, most attacks will not lower your HP below 1. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 100% is not restored, you will be KO'd. All abilities gain a self sustain component.
Walking Dead Duration: 10s

Salted Earth
Creates a patch of salted earth, dealing unaspected damage with a potency of 75 to any enemies who enter.
Duration: 21s
Additional Effect: Increases Blood Gauge by 1
Debilito Bonus Enemies entering Salted Earth gain salt status, in anger they attack each other and selves at random instead of dark knight.
Vindicta Bonus dot damage is restored to dark knight.
Caedis Bonus Potency increased to 100. Blood Generation Canceled.

Plunge
Delivers a jumping attack with a potency of 200.
Cannot be executed while bound.
Range increased to 20.

Caedis
Duration 20 seconds
Recast 15 seconds
Cost 2400 mana
Resource costs reduced 30%. Resource generation from all sources, including self, canceled for the duration. Outgoing damage increased by 10%, Critical Hit Rate increased 20%.
Shares recast with Vindicta and Debilito.

Sole Survivor
Damage Dealt restores HP/Mana/Blood for 15 seconds
Debilito Bonus Restore increased by 50%
Vindicta Bonus Lowers Cooldown timers on abilities for each action taken by target
Caedis Bonus Damage dealt compiled and applied as a dot. Each tick worth 10% of the total damage dealt during Sole Survivor Buff. Dot duration 15 seconds. HP/Mana/Blood Restore canceled.

Carve and Spit
Delivers a threefold attack with a potency of 100. Also restores MP if used while not under the effect of Dark Arts.
Dark Arts Potency: 450
Debilito Bonus Damage dealt restored as HP
Vindicta Bonus enemy flinches and cannot attack for 3 seconds
Caedis Bonus Potency increased 50%. Cooldown decreased by 33%

Quietus
Delivers an attack with a potency of 160 to all nearby enemies.
Dark Arts Potency: 210
Additional Effect: Restores own MP
Blood Gauge Cost: 50
Debilito Bonus Enemies suffer a 5% damage down
Vindicta Bonus Increases mana restore, restores some blood
Caedis Bonus No MP restored. Potency and Dark Arts potency increased by 20%

Bloodspiller
Delivers an attack with a potency of 400.
Dark Arts Potency: 540
Blood Gauge Cost: 50
Debilito Bonus Enemy suffers bleed. Dark Knight gains HP.
Vindicta Bonus Enemy suffers from open wound debuff. Actions taken cause enemy to take damage.
Caedis Bonus Potency and Dark Arts Potency increased 50%

Dark Atonement
Resets all cooldowns, grants 4800 MP and 50 Blood.
Recast 120 seconds.

[Kabooa]

The three augmentations I think would be better granted through Combo Finishers. It separates it mechanically from the Song rotation that Bards do, while providing a certain tempo and choice to which stance you feel you need the most, while not feeling like a mandatory ABC buff maintenance like Samurai. If we even out the Blood gain from weapon skills to not only be on Soul Eater, this can at least serve to shake up the standard weaponskill rotation. Thematically, the 'stance' idea still fits as the Dark Knight is effectively swinging this huge weapon, building up their momentum and adjusting their posture as well. (think Seigfried from Soul Calibur)

For the sake of simplicity, individual weaponskills should probably not have all different bonuses in addition to what the augmentations do. Abilities such as Dark Passenger, Carve and Spit, and Plunge should gain specific effects from them, based on your intended windows for the Augments. Weaponskills you do not use as part of your standard cycling such as Bloodspiller and Quietus can also maintain specific bonuses.

Using Plunge as an example:
Debilito: Inflicts the enemy with Weakness at twice the potency.
Vindicta: Parries and broken Blackest Nights cause the next Plunge within 10 seconds to guarantee a critical strike.
Caedis: Plunge deals additional damage based on the enemy's current health (Execute style)

With the above in mind, I believe Debilito could use an additional effect, Vindictus a tweak on its Cooldown reduction, and, with the changes to Dark Arts, Caedis would have a swapped effect.

Debilito: Gain MP when taking damage.
Vindictus: Abilities have their active cooldowns reduced by X when taking damage. (instead of 25% reduction)
Caedis: Instead of additional damage, have it grant much greater attack speed. This removes some of the necessity to fit every OGCD into Caedis windows, but makes the Dark Arts window much more effective as it's a 'For the Duration' in your design.

[InfiniDragon]

They won't do anything this fancy but you made it for fun, after all.

This sounds kinda awesome though, kinda like tank version of BRD songs. And the Latin name choices are on point, they sound like stuff SE would actually name the attacks instead of some of the more generic names folks came up with in their rework ideas.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I must say I am quite intrigued by the idea of a three-stance tank job. While it may not fit entirely for Dark Knight, it would definitely fit for a hypothetical tank job such as Rune Fencer / Spell Blade (see FF Tactics or Halicarnassus from Omega Deltascape v.3.0).

Overall, the idea of modifying skills heavily based on frequent stance dancing is clearly amazing, however I'd suggest a duration of 20s per stance instead of 15. If you were to pick 15s duration and 45s recast on each of them, you'd either find yourself without a stance for a short period or you'd find yourself clipping the stances a bit in between. With 18-20s duration you'd have a decent time window to swap the stance for another without having the urge to entirely use the time of one stance to the limit.

[Marxam]

Two swords.

[Chrono_Rising]

Two swords.

Very awesome.

[TheFibrewire]

nice design.

But If i designed it I will keep Vindicta a Debilito. these 2 stances are not activated these are done through combos with skills yo have enmity rotaiton that will cause Vindicta you have your DPS soul eater combo that will cause Debilito, The players Aim is to change combos depending upon the situation. I will keep dark arts as it is and will add scourge back. SE will but surely not use this and DRK will be forgotten with blue mage in next expac. The whole blood gauge thing looks very artificial currently.

[InnerBeastMode]

I love this exactly as is although I am in favor of raising the duration to 20s from 15s as Reinhardt said. As one who has leveled all three tanks and currently leveling BRD, I'm just imagining how this would work in dungeons and it already feels beautifully deadly. I see a little BLM sprinkled in (one free DA) which makes sense with the themes of both. Supremely cool redesign. Well done. ^^

[Chrono_Rising]

Yeah, looking back at this 15 seconds probably makes the timers a bit tight to meet, 20 seconds would give some breathing room.

[Danelo]

Love this rework idea. Whether the enfeeb-drain-murder idea is based on stances or buffs from combo finishers it sounds like it would be fun! DRK is viable through content but that doesn’t mean it feels rewarding; Quite the opposite, it feels disjointed and clunky. I had never played a tank until DRK in HW and, although it felt somewhat disjointed then, it’s still a shell of its former self. A niche needs to be carved out for the job to thrive.