Dark Knight Changes

[whiskeybravo]

(Why does only WAR have the OGCD stance privilege in first place?).

Because that's the way it's always been for War? Additionally their cornerstone abilities are locked behind each stance, unlike PLD and mostly unlike DRK - Blood price/weapon notwithstanding. It doesn't cost War anything to switch stances - but it does cost them abilities. If you want to talk about the costs being imbalanced, that's fair, but it's an entirely different discussion. The main reasons Defiance/Deliverance are oGCD is because there is no innate damage mitigation from the stance and because War looses parts of their tanking kit when switching.

Grit is definitely the "in between" GCD/oGCD and should be looked at by most opinions. I personally have mixed feelings on PLD oaths, I suppose if forced to settle on something I'd lean towards taking it off the GCD but retaining MP cost as PLD (and DRK) both recover MP naturally via their DPS rotations. If you are needing to switch stances because a run is going south, the last thing you should be focusing on at that point is your DPS. Just make it easy enough to switch stances and recover, then switch back when stabilized.

"But War can negate damage penalty" Big whoopee. War doesn't go to defiance and pop unchained for a DPS increase, it's still a loss. Additionally, consider that you rarely tank in Defiance with Unchained for the full 20 sec duration. At most for 3-4 GCDs on the pull, and 10 sec mid-fight until we can switch back to deliverance. (for prog it's a bit more of an advantage but not by the time you have the fight "on farm"). DRK has good snap aggro with DAPS, so it's just PLD that's losing out. But let's be honest, it would still not be optimal for a PLD to pull even if there were no MP costs/GCD loss associated with stance change. It's still delaying their dot and they still have the weakest aggro combo.

For DRK, there have been a ton of changes mentioned in the tank forums, so I don't really understand why the OP would rather have "non-tank feedback and discussions" when the one's actually tanking & commenting have a pretty good handle on what needs to happen. Regardless, they need a bit of help defensively, offensively, and utility-ely. CD reduction on Shadow Wall, a fix to LD so it's not such trash compared to HG/Holmgang. TBN would be better as a 30ish sec CD with no MP cost to help alleviate the constant tug-of-war between mitigation & dps. And they need something to compete with Divine Veil/Shake it Off - be it either giving them back HW-style Reprisal mechanic or another copy/paste AoE shield. And finally I believe they should offer a bit higher DPS than PLD. PLD simply has too much utility and defense to warrant their damage output even by SE's own idea of "balance". I certainly don't want to see PLD suffer like they did in HW, but DRK is kind of in that spot right now and they need to do something. Otherwise it'd be better for all of us to just #deleteDRK and focus on having 2 really strong, desired tank jobs.

[MilanFrozen]

I actually like how management heavy DRK is and I'm assuming they're just going to make DRK more generic and it'll give me another reason to leave.

[whiteblade89]

Snip

Based on everything we've seen from DRK in SB, I'm convinced that no one at SE has any idea of what DRK is supposed to be or how it should operate. No one plays it there, and if they do have a "DRK specialist" who gave the go-ahead for the SB changes, that person needs to be fired. They ought to have people on the dev team committed to specific jobs. People who know the inherent strengths and weaknesses of each job so that when job changes come around in new expac's, we don't have a repeat of what we have now. As it is now, I don't think anyone there knows or cares about DRK.

Not sure what you mean by "since the cross class purge they seem under equipped"

I think what OP means is that DRK lost the most amount of skills to the cross-role system in terms of skills that gave it a unique identity. Reprisal, Low Blow, and Dark Dance (now Anticipation) were unique to DRK in that its identity was partially tied to the use of those skills (Reprisal procs, DD having a DA effect, not to mention its synergy with DP, Low Blow being proc'd by parries). When OP says "purge," they're really meaning that DRK's identity was purged when those skills were taken away BECAUSE we weren't given anything to compensate for the losses. They just finished the job with taking away Scourge, changing delirium, and nerfing DP into the ground. I still don't understand why we're the only tank job without a third combo.....

[Melichoir]

I still don't understand why we're the only tank job without a third combo.....

Probably because they see BS as the third combo. I do kinda miss the old DRK (even if I was trash at it.)

[addz3]

I don't really understand why the OP would rather have "non-tank feedback and discussions" when the one's actually tanking & commenting have a pretty good handle on what needs to happen

Because not everybody reads the tank forums and you don't need to be a tank to have an opinion.

[Luin]

What do I expect Dark Knight to get?

Negligible potency changes.

What do I want Dark Knight to get? Blood Weapon to become a maintenance buff like Blood of the Dragon, basically like HW DRG with BS being the "Geirskogul". I just want constant fast skill speed. Is it good? I don't know. I don't care, I know it'll be fun to play.

Because not everybody reads the tank forums and you don't need to be a tank to have an opinion.

Because most that play DRK right now just want HW DRK and that'll never happen.

[MonteCristo]

Make dark knight great again....make it what it has originally been loved as DPS and introduce a new tank class altogether. #PLEASE!!!!!!!

[KageTokage]

Aside from removing the MP cost from the skills I mentioned earlier, I think I'd like it if they doubled the MP cost on Dark Arts, but also doubled the effect it has on various skills (Though perhaps not for Dark Mind), while also removing Siphon Strike from the list of the skills it affects.

Having to hit Dark Arts so often is probably one of the only things that bugs me about the class, and boosting its potency would also make it better in a pinch when it comes to the HP drain on Souleater/Abyssal Drain, as it could be used as more of a panic button if the heal is greater, but not available as frequently.

[Alaray]

What I'm expecting:

Potency changes on abilities.

What I'd like:

Sole Survivor to provide a debuff onto the target to make it useful in single target instances (Raids, dungeon bosses besides when it dies). I'd rather it not be a crappy trick attack like some people do want, but a HP siphoning effect on it would be nice if the siphoning effect could work similar to passive mitigation (Like, for example, how PLD can buff block rate, just a different flavor/execution).

Souleater healing out of grit.

Shadowall either having a lower CD, or having a decent secondary effect tied to it.

Dark Arts becoming something more like a gauge to maintain along the lines of DRG's Blood of the Dragon thing (the timer thing that counts down, but is extended via abilities).

I wouldn't complain to have a piercing debuff to bring to parties tbh.

LD to also be less irritating, kinda sucks butt that it's an invuln that kills you if you end up not receiving a benediction or enough healing. I wouldn't complain if it restored x amount of hp relative to y amount of damage taken, or something, after it expires. Then again, I also wouldn't complain if it just didn't kill you.

Remove DA effect from Dark Mind and just give that to Dark Mind.

I also wouldn't be adverse to Grit's MP cost being lowered so it's easier to get into it during unplanned situations (ie: MT eats the dirt, so using Grit to help stabilize the fight).

And Dark Passenger being changed in some way. Be it potency buff, or a MP cost decrease. But... something.

Also I'd appreciate it if the Plunge animation wasn't so... meaty.

If SE chooses to keep it utility light, then buffing it's damage output to make it desirable wouldn't be something I'd complain about. Giving it a proper niche (More risk to take due to lack of veil, cover, and having a worse intervention while not bringing something like Clemency for emergencies), but reward through it's damage output comparatively to kill things faster wouldn't be something I'd find terrible. Basically kind of making it a "speedkill" tank when paired with a warrior.

[whiteblade89]

Probably because they see BS as the third combo. I do kinda miss the old DRK (even if I was trash at it.)

If they really felt this way, someone needs to smack the devs. BS acts the same as WAR's Fell Cleave in that FC is on the GCD, yet WAR retained its third combo. I think the reason for that is because WAR's combos all have relevancy to them, whereas the devs wanted to get rid of things like INT down, thus changing Delirium. What bugs me about this is that they could have easily adjusted Deliriums effect to something other than INT down. Some have said that they should add the Scourge DoT to the third combo, which I'm not opposed to. The third combo also could have helped with building blood, but maybe gives 5 blood instead of 10 to make Soul Eater the desirable combo finisher. Idk why Soul Eater has to be the ONLY weaponskill in DRK's arsenal that builds blood. Our blood gauge in general just doesn't seem to be thought out very well. Blood Price and Blood Weapon building blood makes sense, but the in-between times when those skills are on CD just feels terrible and too slow. I miss HW DRK too, but I guess now we should just hope that they'll fix the mess they made. What was so wrong with the way DRK operated in HW that they had to gut us so bad, I wonder?