Opinion: Living Shadow should be a trait that replaces Darkside.

[Rollout]

Activating Edge/Flood of Shadow at level 80 should just summon the Living Shadow and it does the amount of damage you would have gained from Darkside.

[Otorinth]

Activating Edge/Flood of Shadow at level 70 should just summon the Living Shadow and it does the amount of damage you would have gained from Darkside.

Wait, what? So, it would never go away? Are you just getting rid of Darkside? We can have Darkside on WHILE Living Shadow is active. How does this increase damage? You do know that the Shadow doesn't instantly snap to another target the same time you attack it, right? You can get in a gcd or two while it's being spawned, meaning you`re losing that 10% when it's not actively attacking.

Why is the DRK level 80 skill just a trait instead of an attack? Does this mean we don't get Darkside until max level? If this is replacing Darkside at the level we get it (30), what the hell do we get at 80?
I'd rather just leave it as a bad-ass looking DOT or at least work some way in it helping defensively alongside it.

[Inuk9]

You dont even know what is the potency equivalent of this ability and want it as a trait? Lol

[Rollout]

Wait, what? So, it would never go away? Are you just getting rid of Darkside? We can have Darkside on WHILE Living Shadow is active. How does this increase damage? You do know that the Shadow doesn't instantly snap to another target the same time you attack it, right? You can get in a gcd or two while it's being spawned, meaning you`re losing that 10% when it's not actively attacking.

Why is the DRK level 80 skill just a trait instead of an attack? Does this mean we don't get Darkside until max level? If this is replacing Darkside at the level we get it (30), what the hell do we get at 80?
I'd rather just leave it as a bad-ass looking DOT or at least work some way in it helping defensively alongside it.

I meant level 80, I'm still stuck in Stormblood level caps. And I mean exactly what I said. At level 80, the Living Shadow replaces Darkside, it spawning instantly when you use Edge/Flood of Shadow and performing the same actions as you, doing the damage you originally would have gotten from Darkside. The benefit of the Living Shadow could be that it increases the amount of MP and Black Blood you generate when using Blood Weapon, along with potential health restored from Soul Eater.

You dont even know what is the potency equivalent of this ability and want it as a trait? Lol

Yes, because it's such an interesting ability. Oooh, we get to summon Fray, OMG, that's so cool. /s

Fact of the matter is that it's just a 15 second summon every two minutes that does random moves.
Unless the moves it does are fixed potencies that isn't related to the move, I won't appreciate it doing AoE moves on a single target.
And if it's doing fixed potencies, then I'd rather it just mimic my actions, instead of spamming up my screen with Abyssal Drains and Quietuses.

[Inuk9]

Even doing random moves it should have a minimum and a maximum potency equivalent, and since it is a 2 min cooldown 50 blood cost It should be at minimum a 1000 potency ability.

[TouchandFeel]

Comparing video content Living Shadow doesn't appear to be random. In every video the same sequence of abilities was used in the same order.

Abyssal Drain, Plunge, Quietus, Flood, Edge, Blood Spiller, Carve and Spit.

That gives a ratio of 3 AoE abilities to 4 single-target with an ability used approximately every 2s during the time the shadow is active (~15s).
The potency for each ability is likely to be predetermined and set to something independent of what the player has as the potency for those abilities.

I could see it being something like
100-100-100-300-200-200-100 which would be 1100 potency to a single target and 400 potency of AoE damage. That would be almost like 2 Bloodspillers and 2 Quietuses in one for the same cost as just one of those abilities.

[Danelo]

I'm still on the fence about Darkside and reworking it a different way. I, like many other DRKs aren't totally satisfied with the rework but that doesn't mean we can't work within it and be reasonable.

I think it would be a win if SE would add a combo finisher, power slash, and make it apply a dot. Then add a trait that would allow for a eos/fos proc, if Darkside is up, off the dot. It would be something else to do besides summon a shade that you have no control over during the many SE combos till delIRium is back up.

I think there is potential but asking for too much might cause SE to do nothing. For that reason I'm not asking for a haste style ability. Although it would be nice to have more control over the summon.(Maybe make it take aggro for you, take a TB for you up to a certain amount like TBN, etc. interesting stuff).

While there are other changes I have asked for specific to CDs I'll leave it to just this on Darkside.

[Otorinth]

Comparing video content Living Shadow doesn't appear to be random. In every video the same sequence of abilities was used in the same order.

Abyssal Drain, Plunge, Quietus, Flood, Edge, Blood Spiller, Carve and Spit.

That gives a ratio of 3 AoE abilities to 4 single-target with an ability used approximately every 2s during the time the shadow is active (~15s).
The potency for each ability is likely to be predetermined and set to something independent of what the player has as the potency for those abilities.

I could see it being something like
100-100-100-300-200-200-100 which would be 1100 potency to a single target and 400 potency of AoE damage. That would be almost like 2 Bloodspillers and 2 Quietuses in one for the same cost as just one of those abilities.

From what I've read, with maximum up-time, it will do 7 attacks all doing the same damage at what seems to be 400 potency, totaling out to 2800. Pretty spicy for a 2 minute cooldown and only 50 blood.

[TouchandFeel]

From what I've read, with maximum up-time, it will do 7 attacks all doing the same damage at what seems to be 400 potency, totaling out to 2800. Pretty spicy for a 2 minute cooldown and only 50 blood.

Yeah, the 7 attacks we're what I outlined above.
The potencies we're just what seemed like reasonable estimates and I could have sworn I heard somewhere, maybe Xeno's video, that they were doing about half what you would do with those attacks. If it does 400 potency per attack ... Ouch that's a strong ability.

[MaraD_]

Opinion: Darkside should have been the new Blood weapon.
Lower DRKs GCD down to 2s (w/o SkS) and keep it up 100% of the time, instead of part of the time.
this way its simplistic 123 combo will at least feel a bit more enjoyable.