New DRK Overhaul Idea

[Shurrikhan]

Compact Spitball Suggestion Set:

Dark Dance (replacing Dark Mind) - 12 duration. Causes 30% of damage to instead be taken over time. (Splits 20% of incoming damage over global ticks over the remaining duration. Any overhealing received reduces the would-be DoT value stored. These ticks themselves can be mitigated by existing mitigation effects, essentially double-dipping on the mitigation.) Dark Arts Effect: Attack Power and Evasion increased by 1% of damage mitigated or delayed during Dark Dance. [Now stacks incredibly well with Living Dead.]

Living Dead - Now simply prevents death for 10 seconds. Would-be fatal damage instead becomes a debuff which absorbs an equal amount of healing. (No, Benediction will not heal this portion in addition to 100% of Max HP, and no it cannot be cleansed.)

Shadowskin - Returned. Reduces Magic Damage taken by 15% and Dodge and Parry chance by 15%.

The Blackest Night - Now shields others for 12% of the DRK's HP. (50k -> 6k)

Sole Survivor - Your and your allies' attacks drain HP from the target.

[SkyEdge1]

That's not bad either, the changes to Dark Dance and Shadowskin still give DRK a much needed +1 to defensive skills, as for living dead, I'm still kinda torn on why DRK invul skill seems to have to co me with a negative payout, I get the whole living on the edge of sacrifice motif but in terms of practical gameplay it's always seems like a handicap given just because it fits the overlying theme.

[SkyEdge1]

[/QUOTE]
The problem I see is also the way the proposed DA was formulated. A good DRK would be able to keep it longer and do more dmg.[/QUOTE]

My main problem with Dark Arts as a whole is that its quite simply a button to press to gain a boost in numbers mainly as a DPS increase. My problem with DRK as a whole is that it has to do SO much more to achieve similar results that both PLD and WAR are able to do with relative ease. This doesn't make the class unique in my opinion, simply cumbersome. The proposed change is simply to allow Dark Arts to provide a more regulated curve for the current DRK's kit. Example if you were out of Grit and needed to maintain aggro Power Slash would retain its aggro boost during your DA window, however you would presumably lose out on an SS -> SE combo and would lose 3GCD's worth of the MP drain that I proposed for DA. So you are effectively choosing whether or not the regen from SS - SE is worth the balance to aggro from PS. It takes the complexity out of Dark Arts use, yes this was intentional, instead I moved the complexity unto DA management. It gives you a flexible window one that can be maintained for a much longer period of time and one that rewards fight knowledge, proper planning for CD, and overall player skill. Its not a timed window like FoF or IR its a stance that is lost if a player is bad. Similar to how Darkside was during Heavensward. I do however understand that it is very DPS focused change. However unless I'm horribly mistaken (serious I'm not a DRK expert) Dark Arts is done mainly as a damage increasing modifier. The Sustain from DA -AD and the Aggro boost from DA-PS seem to be the only non-damage uses for Dark Arts. The proposed change won't really affect that since it still wouldn't allow you to mindlessly spam skills as they still use a hefty chunk of MP.

[LilOtoto]

Haven't read through this thread so I have no idea if people have already mentioned these, but the ideas my group of friends had for DRK was to basically fuse Shadow Wall and Blood Price so shadow wall isn't just a bad Sentinel, and make it so you can use Blood weapon while in Grit. Maybe tweak some of the numbers but I feel that would make it feel better to play. The best suggestion I've seen for Living Dead is it make it so that if you drop to 0, instead of having to be healed to full, when the timer wears off your HP and MP "swap" so you're left with 0 MP but now have some HP

[Rathael]

Living dead should not require the healing to full. It is still inferior to hallowed ground even without this requirement, since hallowed ground has the ability to negate mechanic damage entirely whereas Living Dead only negates any damage greater than the DRK's health pool. The DRK will always need some healing afterwards anyway, whereas the paladin can use HG to stay on 100% health through things that would otherwise kill them.

I don't demand that LD be a DRK-themed Hallowed Ground, but it would be nice if the gap between the usefulness of these two actions was made a tiny bit smaller. It seems just a tiny bit unfair.

[Xenosan]

Just remove Walking Dead part of LD. So Living Dead: DRK won't die for 10 seconds (HP stops at 1). It's better than Holmgang, but on a longer CD. What's the problem.

Don't need more convoluted gimmicks to try to distinguish DRK any further.

[Shurrikhan]

Just remove Walking Dead part of LD. So Living Dead: DRK won't die for 10 seconds (HP stops at 1). It's better than Holmgang, but on a longer CD. What's the problem.

Don't need more convoluted gimmicks to try to distinguish DRK any further.

Sounds good to me, personally. It'd probably warrant a slightly longer CD at that point, but mechanically that seems perfectly sound.

Can't simply allow negative HP for the duration, sadly, so this seems the equally simply solution albeit with greater strength.