Why I think Shadowbringers Dark Knight is not going to be fun...

[DRKoftheAzure]

And before I forget, what I like about Heavensward DRK; Blood Price being usable outside of Grit and making spamming Dark Arts+Abyssal Drain actually fun until Blood Price fell off, Dark Arts+Dark Dance had synergy with Dark Arts+Dark Passenger in dungeons and some bosses before everything started to become immuned to blind status, which could be be paired with Bloodbath cross class skill and Blood Weapon, Low Blow could be spammed with enough parry and with Dark Dance base effect, and alternating between combo paths.


As clunky as Stormblood DRK was with Dark Arts spam became with the nerfing of Blood Price and removal of some actually good skills, Reprisal no longer requireing a parry proc was a blessing although it should have stayed 15 second duration and still had it's damage potency, along with Low Blow/Leg Sweep(because they're basically the same skill with the exact same animation) keeping it's damage potency, although it did make certain Role Actions pointless unless certain fights had forced tank swaps making DRK not really viable until after making all role actions be available were DRK was able to get some footing unless knockbacks/draw ins were a thing in which case DRK was shelved yet again until they decided that some fights should just punish knockback prevention but at the point it was too late, but the idea of extending Blood Weapon/Blood Price is a good concept and The Blackest Night is/was pretty good even though it did justify Quietus and Bloodspiller for late game but Quietus did get buffed to have some interaction with MP which made up for the nerf of Blood Price and the 4.3 buffs were just so good but some of the effects could have been better.


And now to build off of Heavensward and Stormblood DRK;
- Dark Dance should come back with it Dark Arts effect base line

- Dark Passenger/Plunge/Abyssal Drain should have the Dark Arts effect base line

-Carve and Spit needs to deal 3 hits with 200 potency in a row, each hit restoring MP or Dark Arts potency is baseline

-Darkside needs to last 30 seconds and have the Bloodbath effect built-in with Power Slash combo extending duration to max. 30 seconds

-Dark Arts can either be 90 second recast that increases the potency of all GCD actions by 50% and and lower all GCD recasts to 1.5 seconds(if Blood Weapon/Price is active 2 seconds otherwise) for 20 seconds or works the same as it did in both Heavensward and Stormblood but only affecting GCDs

-Blood Weapon becomes Blood Price but with some changes to make it not overpowered(i.e. no MP refresh when you get hit but still passively generates blackblood since your melee/auto attacks are still generating blackblood on hit and maybe cut MP costs in half)

-Delirium going back to being a weaponskill that extends Blood Weapon/Price duration to max. 30 seconds, applies Scourge damage over time and/or a healing over time for 15 seconds

-Syphon Strike has the Souleater effect but also applies a heal shield and remove blackblood generation from Souleater but it now applies a heal shield that last 15 seconds(to help strech out defensive CDs)

-Sole Survivor recovery effect applies to all party members


And now look at the "new" stuff that Shadowbringers has and how to apply it to this brand new DRK;
-Stalwart Soul remain mostly unchanged.

-Flood of Darkness/Shadow need to be GCD and costs less blackblood but extends both Darkside and Blood Weapon/Price timer

-Edge of Darkness/Shadow is GCD but is used to spend excess blackblood

-Living Shadow is an upgraded Living Dead but no longer has those annoying pre-requisites and fully heals the DRK and make them impervious to most damage for 10 seconds(basically a better Hallowed Ground)


And finally, give DRK traits that make Reprisal and Low Blow useful...

[MagiusNecros]

Stumbled across this and it honestly looks slow and boring. Maybe I'll think differently once I actually try it but so far outlook not so good.

Skip to 1:37. Has a DRK against a ShB B Rank mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwbOPjkvSUQ

Dunno how I really feel.

[shao32]

Using only soul eater combo becomes much more evident slowly and boring without all the dark arts animation between the skills in that vid. The moment that activate delirium is like well let's go from something boring to another thing even more boring. I love all the new animations but ugh it's so slow now.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

If you watch the GNB part of that video that follows the DRK, it also looks "slow and boring" if you look past the flashy new animations.
If you pay attention to what actions the player is using in the video for any of the jobs, they are obviously not playing optimally and to any of the jobs' fullest capabilities. Since the point of the video was to show off new job actions, it is likely they intentionally simplified how they were playing to make each action used easier to see.
I would not take that video as a proper representation of how any of the jobs shown will actually play.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Using only soul eater combo becomes much more evident slowly and boring without all the dark arts animation between the skills in that vid. The moment that activate delirium is like well let's go from something boring to another thing even more boring. I love all the new animations but ugh it's so slow now.

Worst part is if you start using your AoE GCD rotation then go into single target GCD rotation and then alternate just so you don't be bored out of you skull with the single target GCD rotation, then that's when you know tank balance is worse than it was in Stormblood... which doesn't even work for single target encounters and in which case you might as well buff the DPS single target rotation just to make up for the fact that tanks are going to be using their AoE GCD rotation part of their overall single target rotation...

[MagiusNecros]

If you watch the GNB part of that video that follows the DRK, it also looks "slow and boring". If you pay attention to what actions the player is using in the video for any of the jobs, they are obviously not playing optimally and to any of the jobs' fullest capabilities. Since the point of the video was to show off new job actions, it is likely they intentionally slowed things down to make each action used easier to see.
I would not take that video as a proper representation of how any of the jobs shown will actually play.

I think it gives me a rough idea however since I'm seeing the numbers these attacks on average at lvl80 are going to generate. I'm sure every competent DRK out there is going to prioritize building up that MP and blowing our load weaving in the MP spenders between the Delirium burst phase when applicable.

It's still going to be feel slow and unengaging.

Dancer in that vid is looking damn sexy to me though. It's a DPS but damn that borderline 80k crit looks enticing for a 2 minute cooldown skill.

[Alexow]

If you watch the GNB part of that video that follows the DRK, it also looks "slow and boring" if you look past the flashy new animations.
If you pay attention to what actions the player is using in the video for any of the jobs, they are obviously not playing optimally and to any of the jobs' fullest capabilities. Since the point of the video was to show off new job actions, it is likely they intentionally simplified how they were playing to make each action used easier to see.
I would not take that video as a proper representation of how any of the jobs shown will actually play.

I think hes comparing it to HW/SB Dark Knight, which you use ogcds more often and Blood Weapon has an haste effect
The video shows that you get MP slowly which wont let you use the MP spenders as often as before, and also no way to increase attack speed

[Satarn]

If you watch the GNB part of that video that follows the DRK, it also looks "slow and boring" if you look past the flashy new animations.
If you pay attention to what actions the player is using in the video for any of the jobs, they are obviously not playing optimally and to any of the jobs' fullest capabilities. Since the point of the video was to show off new job actions, it is likely they intentionally simplified how they were playing to make each action used easier to see.
I would not take that video as a proper representation of how any of the jobs shown will actually play.

GBN also looks slow because it is slow. The job only has one 30 second ogcd to weave in outside it's burst windows, other than that it's also 123 and gcd gauge spender, just like SHB DRK. GBN might be a bit more involved, especially in it's burst, but it's not gonna be fast-paced like old DRK.
There is no artificial delay between the skills, because if you look at hotbars you can see the gcd is constantly rolling.

Also god, I love Bloodspiller animation and sound to death, but it looks like ass when it's spammed - the wind up and everything. While I hate WAR's FC spam too, the skill at least looks visually designed for it.

[shao32]

If you watch the GNB part of that video that follows the DRK, it also looks "slow and boring" if you look past the flashy new animations.
If you pay attention to what actions the player is using in the video for any of the jobs, they are obviously not playing optimally and to any of the jobs' fullest capabilities. Since the point of the video was to show off new job actions, it is likely they intentionally simplified how they were playing to make each action used easier to see.
I would not take that video as a proper representation of how any of the jobs shown will actually play.

Well if we compared GNB with DRK, GNB is mostly 1-2-3+4 until you have to use you flashy combo every 30s, if we discount the time we spend using that combo the effective waiting it's even lower so feels more dinamic.
Now DRK is mostly stuck with souleater only, if we take that the optimal play is trow everything in delirium there will be the most boring 80s of the world and delirium it's not even better.

[FallenWings]

From that video, Edge of Shadow/Darkness looks kinda lame. It's a really quick side slash that does a little black orb and fades immediately. The SFX is very dull and the VFX is alright. I personally would've preferred if we just had Flood be both since that would give us another skill. Flood has a nicer and longer animation as well as a great VFX and SFX.

You could've argued the snap animation of Edge would've worked better if we attacked faster but well... y'know. Perhaps the animation is intended for double weaving but... not everyone can double weave. Honestly Carve and Spit has a better animation and SFX but will hit like a cotton ball as far as media tour numbers are concerned. They could've brought back old Reprisal animation and it's hella meaty SFX but I guess they only wanted old Reprisal Icon lol.

So many good DRK animations lost and unused. Reprisal1.0, Delirium1.0, Shadowskin, Dark Dance, Scourge, Dark Passenger, Sole Survivor, Blood Price, Power Slash and now Dark Arts. Honestly, I would've preferred that Dark Arts simply got changed to grants 500 Pot to next GCD instead of a seperate damaging oGCD, then DRK could've retained one aspect of identity as the class that used resources to buff up its moves. The only class that has any semblance of that mechanic left is SAM with Kaiten and DRG with Life Surge.

DRK just loses things pointlessly each expansion that could've been repurposed. Yikes.