The Rework DRK Deserves

[shao32]

"original mechanics" DRK never had an original concept. It came to be as a job that played exactly like PLD in 3.0, with extra tools that made the latter completely worthless for 2 years. The people who complain about Delirium not being interesting, I am sorry but 4.0 extra mana was even worse, you are just asking more of the same old 1.2.3 weave in between. All tanks are like WAR in some way, but I don't see people complaining at PLD or GNB. If you really want to make DRK not like WAR, you also need to remove Bloodspiller and Quietus, does that look interesting to you now?

I think I have already said it in another thread, but Delirium as it is now is very important to DRK rotation, otherwise you are gonna cap resources while weaving, unless you make obligatory to double-weave, which would kill the job for everyone who didn't live near the servers.

HW was nothing like PLD or WAR, mana management, buffs mechanics, combo system, DRK was based on speed, management and priority system wich was unique and original since only another job play like that with MP and BLM is not even comparable.

delirium concept and being mor or less impactfull doesn't matter since is the whole kit that matters, old delirium was fine as a desing concept, it could get rid of his blood cost if you want it more impactful but copy pasting inner release not only proof lazynes but kills diversity, we are the only role in the game that 3 jobs already have this nonesense, 1 is fine 3 is tedious and kills the jobs for anyone that don't like this mechanic.

PLD at least take the effort to make something diferent with his requem cast window and GNB doesn't have a spam window, it have no mercy with is a worse fight or flight but the way the job manage the burst window is nothing like PLD one at all.

DRK problems of double weaving come from DA long animation, edge have a way short anymation and most important it was imposible overcap MP on SB or HW excep you are bad, the only problem of overcapping DRK did have in the past was blood and that was bcs TBN giving a huge chunk of it and thats have been solved. weave a lot of oGCD it's fun and having 1 tank doing this doesn't hurt anyone since it have 3 other options that dont do that.

[TheForce]

Came in expecting to be disappointed OP, but your ideas are actually pretty dope. If SE decided to one day make DRK exactly like you've suggested, it'd probavly be enough to make me main it again. There is one thing I disagree with though, I do not think Delirium should take awau from any resources. It's kind of just always been that resource generator rather than consumer, and I feel like it should stay that way. So, for suggested Delirium, I believe it should simply grant the stacks of Dark Arts without consuming any Blood.

Also, LOL at the people who keep echoing "threads like this are pointless". You all can't be serious. The whole POINT of these forums is to provide feedback to the devs, trying to discourage somebody from making a post doing just that makes you look very foolish. Even if the devs won't do another complete rework, at least getting ideas in their head or simply just getting them to think about things is very good. Bottom line is, this is hands down the most boring, uninspired, and stale DRK has ever been (before people try to invalidate my opinion, I've mained DRK for years now and also leveled it to 80 weeks ago). When you set its toolkit side by side with any other Tank's, it's almost sad to see how much less depth and freedom DRK has. I mean, heck, DRK is literally the only Tank with one single target combo.

[ExLegen]

DRK dont need revamps, it just needs tweaking.

1- abyssal drain and Salted Earth needs to change.
1.1 - Abyssal needs its healing increased to work on solo targets, cooldown reduced to 30sec and eficiency halved to balance.
1.2 - Salted earth needs to go, or be made part of Abyssal Drain, or work somewhat like bowshok(GNB). It annoys me that such a uselees skills needs to to be placed instead of being pointblank.

2- Delirium and living shadow are very boring skills.
2.1 - If i wanted a cheap inner release, i would play a warrior, new delirium is just lazy design. Maybe they should give the haste effect back to blood weapon, and have delirium extend it again, like SB, having the DRK being fast and demanding for some time would actually seem very nice.
2.2 - Living shadow is a glorified dot, boring and lazy design.

3- Dark Arts as it stands right now, its high risk for neutral reward. it should at least make the next edge/flood cost no mana AND be powered up... add a DOT or more potency to dark arts edge/flood. (hello high ceiling)

4- Stwart Soul. granting MP and blood gauge is really reason enough to lose 100 potency, in comparison to the other tanks AOE combos? GNB gets the equivalent of 50 blood in one combo.

5- DRK AOE combo not being affect by skill speed seems like a design oversight, and should be changed.

6- TBN and Dark missionary.
6.1- TBN only needs its duration increase at least to 9sec. Also like i said above, a poped TBN should give free powered edge/flood.
6.2- I think Dark Missionary should be an AOE TBN, weaker of course... its just goes with the theme.
6.3- some degree of complexity could be added by having dark missionary gives an extra layer of bonus defense to someone with TBN active.

Anyway, i think square dumbed down DRK, is to catter to the new players joining the game in ShB. Its a smart move (marketing wise) to make the poster boy easy to play.

[Wyndam]

I miss old Abyssal Drain for dungeons because it was useful for keeping up threat while running from pack to pack. Otherwise I'm completely satisfied with the new DRK and I've been a DRK main since the end of HW, more or less.

[Danelo]

"original mechanics" DRK never had an original concept.

Of course it had an original concept. Only problem, all of the good stuff has been nerfed to a state of being unrecognizable, slashed from the hot bar (& given to a new tank job) or whored out the the rest of tanks (in the case of gap closers, whored out and improved). The only exception to this is LD. The one ability that has been horrible and most sane players have complained about from day one.

[DemonicNeko]

Another day, another DRK rework post... Warning. This will be long.

While I disagree with the way you want to rework the class. I do agree the class need to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up like they did with MCH. Sure MCH did get kinda a dumbed down but more fun version of their class. The biggest problems right now with the dark knight is they do not know what they want to do with the class. It honestly feels like they are trying to make a Blood Death Knight and cram it into a Warrior Kit. Which basic makes us an emo crap warrior. It like everything we do. A warrior does better. This really needs to change. They need to stop making us an emo version of the Warrior. Give us our own identity. Let us be more evil and focus on using the abyss.

I also disagree with everyone who says we do not need a rework. Tell me what do we bring to the table that a Paladin, Warrior, or Gunbreaker does not brings to the table? DPS? nope Gunbreaker and warrior beats us? Utility? Nope Paladin and Warrior has better utility then us? Defensive cooldowns? Well ok Blackest Night is pretty op and about the only reason you want us there to eat tank busters for days. Yet really is that what you honestly want to be? A one button class? Do you want us to be only used for Blackest Night?

[Nihility]

Dark Knight actually is ok as far as raw numbers go
My ideal rework to get rid of quirks and clunks would go like this...

Dark Mind: includes a parry buff so it can be minimally useful outside of magic tankbusters
living dead: gets a full on rework along the lines of upon death enters state of living dead for 6s cutting max hp by 50% but cannot fall below 1hp. After duration ends revive and heal 20% max hp.... retains the "flavor", is no longer a death sentence when your solo, and if healers are on par you can potentially come back at 70% hp once it ends keeping you out of danger zone
Salted earth, abyssal drain, and Carve and Spit get the axe
Bloodspiller and quietus inherit the mp regen from carve and spit. More overall mp regen over time -> more edge of shadow -> more damage than carve and spit would offer ; also more aoe friendly and would theoretically make delirium more interesting and powerful
Edge and Flood of Shadows inherit the healing from abyssal drain. Abyssal drain is kind of pathetic overall, would give some self sustain probably still lower than warrior but way better than current
Living shadow uses Dark knight version 1.0 skills salted earth, dark passenger, scourge, etc... get to have the nostalgia of old skills and they can obviously just get potency adjusted to do the damage the shadow is meant to do
The Blackest Night: duration increase to 9s, seriously have no problem with it being resource management rather than cooldown management but the way stuff seems to just decide to be less aggressive when it's up is so annoying. 2s doesn't seem like much but it would go a long way for a defense your praying fails every time you use it


and while i'm at it... Warrior spender's should all get something along the lines of extends storm's eye by 5s or 10s or something. Not enough to keep it up indefinitely but enough to keep it from being a constant annoyance

my opinion constantly evolves as i play though so don't quote me on these thoughts in the future

[SakiKojiro]

I like most of this. I wouldn't add a DoT to Bloodspiller. It creates a very specific type of rotation in which you need to spend at very specific points to maintain the DoT, and I'd prefer to not have an entirely DoT-centric rotation just for like 300 potency.

[Spune]

At this point the DRK fanbase is so fractured that there is no way that SE can ever make a DRK that everyone will like. For me DRK would have to return to its resource management roots and stable DPS. I would get rid of everything that has been added changed since HW since nothing that has been added can't be found somewhere else done better (fell cleave/decimate and Inner Release), the only thing I would keep is the TBN.

SE has removed everything I liked about my favorite tank and whats left is a color swap of warrior.

[Lannybaby]

Considering that DRK went from the least played tank to the most played, I'd say posts like this are a waste of time

I doubt they're the most played, at least not because they're in a good spot. I'm sure it's because they're the poster child for the current expac and a lot of people wanted to play it for the role playing aspect.

In practice, it performs well enough but could use some tweaks, such as the age-old concern of living dead being bad.