Dark Knight follow up thread

[Alaray]

While I agree that the situation of TBN not breaking and losing the DA proc sucks, especially with how easy it is to do right now, I greatly disagree with the changes that you proposed.

First off, I feel that the whole TBN breaking and then enabling a strong attack is one of the most interesting parts about DRK game-play and helps sell the sense of bringing retribution to an enemy for them attacking you.

As for just functionality, the 15s recast as opposed to the ~25s of the others is incredibly helpful in some situations, like wall to wall dungeon pulls where keeping TBN on cooldown really helps with your ability to mitigate damage.
Additionally, the DA proc is very useful when used strategically since you can plan out a TBN use and have it break before a burst period, build your MP back up before your burst and viola you have an extra Edge in your pocket to use during your burst. Dark Arts is literally a container to set aside an Edge to use at a later time. That is super useful when taken advantage of, so much so that I want the devs to expand it so that I can store two Dark Arts instead of just the one. To me getting rid of it is just simply not a good idea.

So yes, the TBN not breaking to get Dark Arts situation we currently have is problematic for a number of reasons, but there are far better ways to address the issue than to just burn it to the ground. It's like cutting off your leg because you have a tendency to stub your toe.

You don't really ever sit on enough MP for the DA proc to be considered extra in a buff window. You can only do so many things in such a window to start with, and a DA EoS isn't going to do anything (since if you didn't cast TBN, you still have that 3k MP, that is now expended on an EoS anyway). It's not a reward, and it's often more of a punishment for using something defensively (especially if you used it to save a healer from a raid-wide and it didn't pop).

They could just make the shield, when it expires, explode for 500 potency but not refresh Dark Side. Which just keeps it damage neutral in all cases, while also not letting people dump all their MP into it (since you'd lose darkside)

[Tex_Mex]

They could just make the shield, when it expires, explode for 500 potency but not refresh Dark Side. Which just keeps it damage neutral in all cases, while also not letting people dump all their MP into it (since you'd lose darkside)

I like this a lot. It would also fit well with the aesthetic of the DRK. Absorbing an enemies damage and then redirecting it back.

[ashwich]

You don't really ever sit on enough MP for the DA proc to be considered extra in a buff window. You can only do so many things in such a window to start with, and a DA EoS isn't going to do anything (since if you didn't cast TBN, you still have that 3k MP, that is now expended on an EoS anyway). It's not a reward, and it's often more of a punishment for using something defensively (especially if you used it to save a healer from a raid-wide and it didn't pop).

The reward is 25% of your health worth of damage, vanished. As a tank if that's not rewarding we should just all be playing DPS. Try that a few more times than the 3 tank busters per encounter, it makes a huge difference for your healers too. Every GCD saved is a net gain.

People often talk about risk and reward, this is one of those things, why all of a sudden punishment for misuse of ability is bad? Because other tanks don't have to deal with it? I thought we all want interesting, unique and challenging mechanics for DRK.

[Alaray]

The reward is 25% of your health worth of damage, vanished. As a tank if that's not rewarding we should just all be playing DPS. Try that a few more times than the 3 tank busters per encounter, it makes a huge difference for your healers too. Every GCD saved is a net gain.

People often talk about risk and reward, this is one of those things, why all of a sudden punishment for misuse of ability is bad? Because other tanks don't have to deal with it? I thought we all want interesting, unique and challenging mechanics for DRK.

That's not a reward, and using it on a TB guarantees a pop anyway.

For most other things, like using it on auto attacks, using it to mitigate raid wides, using it to save a party member, you're punished with a 500 potency lost for a tiny bit of mitigation (since the full shield might not be used in these instances, and a use could be small but could save someone's life who might be sitting at 2k HP). Which, in the grand scheme of healing mapping, won't be impactful enough for your healers in terms of their damage gained to make up for the damage lost.

It's not risk v reward. It's pure risk.

[Danelo]

The reward is 25% of your health worth of damage, vanished. As a tank if that's not rewarding we should just all be playing DPS. Try that a few more times than the 3 tank busters per encounter, it makes a huge difference for your healers too. Every GCD saved is a net gain.

People often talk about risk and reward, this is one of those things, why all of a sudden punishment for misuse of ability is bad? Because other tanks don't have to deal with it? I thought we all want interesting, unique and challenging mechanics for DRK.

The point is that every other tank can do something similar without using an ability that eats into your dps. It's the same as if heart of stone took ammo or if raw/nascent flash(glint) took a portion of the beast gauge (500 potency loss respectively for the sake of argument). Now imagine if the full value of that ability was not used and you're out the potency.

As it is now, the two jobs mentioned above have it as a gain no matter what. War has a self sustain out of it. Heart of stone is just free. So those jobs get the mitigation at no cost. TBN is neutral at best. It's a simple disadvantage.

All I want is good gameplay to be rewarded. If you jack up, fine, eat the 500 potency loss. But if you do it well then it's a gain and not neutral.. The idea that it's neutral or loss just sucks.

[Tex_Mex]

While I agree that the situation of TBN not breaking and losing the DA proc sucks, especially with how easy it is to do right now, I greatly disagree with the changes that you proposed.
First off, I feel that the whole TBN breaking and then enabling a strong attack is one of the most interesting parts about DRK game-play and helps sell the sense of bringing retribution to an enemy for them attacking you.

I couldn't disagree with you more on this aspect. It's not interesting. It's simplistic and just flat out lazy.

As for just functionality, the 15s recast as opposed to the ~25s of the others is incredibly helpful in some situations, like wall to wall dungeon pulls where keeping TBN on cooldown really helps with your ability to mitigate damage.

I see your point here. But the skill would need to be nerfed a bit if the mana cost and Dark Arts were removed so that it wouldn't be completely broken. Hence, why I put it in. Adding 10% physical mitigation to Dark Mind would likely offset this though (considering Dark Mind is a 60 sec CD)

So yes, the TBN not breaking to get Dark Arts situation we currently have is problematic for a number of reasons, but there are far better ways to address the issue than to just burn it to the ground. It's like cutting off your leg because you have a tendency to stub your toe.

I'd like to hear your idea for how to do it better.

[TouchandFeel]

I couldn't disagree with you more on this aspect. It's not interesting. It's simplistic and just flat out lazy.

I could see how someone could see it as not being interesting, but how is it "just flat out lazy"? How is making TBN just like the other tank frequent-use defensive abilities less of a lazy approach? It really seems like calling a design "lazy" has become the go-to put down for something someone just simply doesn't like here on these forums.

I'd like to hear your idea for how to do it better.

I've spoken to this multiple times in different threads. I even created my own thread with detailed thoughts and suggestions on many of the issues that people are expressing DRK has.
Here is the thread, you are welcome to go and read my thoughts on TBN changes there. They are under the third hidden section labeled Dislikes and Proposed changes.

[Danelo]

While I agree that the situation of TBN not breaking and losing the DA proc sucks, especially with how easy it is to do right now, I greatly disagree with the changes that you proposed.

First off, I feel that the whole TBN breaking and then enabling a strong attack is one of the most interesting parts about DRK game-play and helps sell the sense of bringing retribution to an enemy for them attacking you.

As for just functionality, the 15s recast as opposed to the ~25s of the others is incredibly helpful in some situations, like wall to wall dungeon pulls where keeping TBN on cooldown really helps with your ability to mitigate damage.
Additionally, the DA proc is very useful when used strategically since you can plan out a TBN use and have it break before a burst period, build your MP back up before your burst and viola you have an extra Edge in your pocket to use during your burst. Dark Arts is literally a container to set aside an Edge to use at a later time. That is super useful when taken advantage of, so much so that I want the devs to expand it so that I can store two Dark Arts instead of just the one. To me getting rid of it is just simply not a good idea.

So yes, the TBN not breaking to get Dark Arts situation we currently have is problematic for a number of reasons, but there are far better ways to address the issue than to just burn it to the ground. It's like cutting off your leg because you have a tendency to stub your toe.

While I don't think the current mp gain resources are enough to justify it being tied to our damage, I do understand it is done to maintain dark arts in the game and keep the idea of DRK being a resource tank. That being said, it needs more depth. Make the risk and reward higher. If you make it a free defensive ability like all the rest it just moves further in line with war and GNB with heart of stone. Don't take the risk away: keep it the same but add that if it pops you get the 3000 mp refunded. It'll add to the skill ceiling and there is a greater element of reward.

If they increase the recast timer to 9 seconds that would be appreciated for usage outside of TBs and hard hitting raidwide AoEs.

[Tex_Mex]

Don't take the risk away: keep it the same but add that if it pops you get the 3000 mp refunded. It'll add to the skill ceiling and there is a greater element of reward.

The issue here is that now DRK needs to be MT in order to to max damage. This is also not a good design.

[Danelo]

The issue here is that now DRK needs to be MT in order to to max damage. This is also not a good design.

I get it to bust just as much when I'm a mt as when I'm an ot