DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Lyth]

Hm, I don't remember anything to that effect. Living Dead doesn't really fit even from a class fantasy standpoint. DRKs are not Death Knights. Death/Undeath is not a theme here.

It's not even that hard to come up with a good invuln concept that isn't overly cumbersome or irritating to the user. For 10 seconds, you cannot go below 1 HP. Any lethal damage that you would have received gets converted to a barrier shield, up to X% of your max HP. When the ability ends, you gain said barrier shield for the next 10 seconds.

[Danelo]

Hm, I don't remember anything to that effect. Living Dead doesn't really fit even from a class fantasy standpoint. DRKs are not Death Knights. Death/Undeath is not a theme here.

It's not even that hard to come up with a good invuln concept that isn't overly cumbersome or irritating to the user. For 10 seconds, you cannot go below 1 HP. Any lethal damage that you would have received gets converted to a barrier shield, up to X% of your max HP. When the ability ends, you gain said barrier shield for the next 10 seconds.

Agreed. It wouldn’t be difficult to make an invulnerability that fit DRKs “identity”. What I don’t understand is why haven’t they made any meaningful changes to it? Many talk about WAR getting changes bcs the community is explicit about the exact changes it wants to the class whereas DRK leaves the door open and gives ideas... I don’t understand this. I haven’t heard one LD idea where someone said “it’s this or nothing” and that creates wiggle room for the dev team to create based on the TONS of feedback... over the last 6 years... the only thing I’ve heard is something Different is better than the current LD.

The irony being, and I’m sure someone has mentioned this in the past, LD is a whm cd, and we were told that abilities and debuffs that require certain jobs be brought to a comp were an overall negative to the community. So how has LD survived when all the rest seem to have made it to the trash can?

[bundythenoob]

Agreed. It wouldn’t be difficult to make an invulnerability that fit DRKs “identity”. What I don’t understand is why haven’t they made any meaningful changes to it? Many talk about WAR getting changes bcs the community is explicit about the exact changes it wants to the class whereas DRK leaves the door open and gives ideas... I don’t understand this. I haven’t heard one LD idea where someone said “it’s this or nothing” and that creates wiggle room for the dev team to create based on the TONS of feedback... over the last 6 years... the only thing I’ve heard is something Different is better than the current LD.

that problem may stem from DRK players having their own vision of the what the job should be. I've seen a suggestion about having LD cost a percentage of your mana relative to your remaining HP once the 10 seconds are over, which i thought was cool, but then others think that the DPS loss might make it too punishing. plus, if this change is made taking into account DRKs current mana buildup, that still leads to multiple follow-up questions needing to be asked, such as which skills should have their mana generation buffed to compensate for this change, or if this should be implemented for 6.0 as opposed to 5.4/5.5.

While i support change the order of learning certain skills and bandfixes to Bloodweapon and abyssal drain i considering the increase of the resource generation right now it's kinda useless, i mean yes i want more resource generation and have real management but considering DRK MP is scriped now to be in the 60s window and being a TA slave i doubt it would be worthy change that now considering the cost of the skills and the status of darkside, MP generation and usage need an extensive revision buffing it a bit now won't help much to his downtime more than forcing you use 1 edge early and increase the chances of fit 1 less on raid buffs or use your dark arts when you don't want it.

I understand that you don't see a point in reactivating the MP economy for the current build. I just added those as a small change to help current DRK feel a little more like its old self. the more pressing matter is that we DRK players need to ask ourselves the big questions for 6.0.

which skills should return as mana spenders?
should those skills potencies be tweaked to account for additional mana generated compared to SHB DRK?
which skills should return or remain as mana building tools? should blood weapon be our only tool, or should another thing be added? if so how frequently do they come up and how much should they generate?
do unleash and stalwart cost mana to allow for more spending options, or do we leave them more as building tools like they are now?
do we make living shadow the burst window for DRK or leave Delirium as an IR clone for burst?
do we propose a baby TBN to be learned at earlier levels, and how much mana would it cost? or should we keep TBN at lv 70 and instead buff low level DRks damage to compensate for lack of active mitigation?
what skills do we make proc with TBNs Dark Arts? or should Dark Arts come back as a charge button?

stuff like this is what we need to come to an agreement on and propose ourselves, since the devs seem to be unable to make a balanced DRK that everyone can enjoy from the feedback we've left in the past.

[Lyth]

People really don't like using actions that punish you when you use them. There is absolutely no reason why players should be coming up with suggestions for appropriate punishments for using Living Dead when Holmgang is objectively better in direct comparison with no drawback whatsoever. Rather, players should be asking what sorts of significant added benefits Living Dead should provide over Holmgang to warrant the minute longer recast.

If I was reworking DRK, I would do the following:
1) Make Darkside provide a baseline faster GCD, in the same vein as Huton and Greased Lightning.
2) Make DRK really be about resource management. Every time that you use an action that costs MP, have it generate a small amount of Blood. Every time that you use an action that costs Blood, have it generate a small amount of MP. Have Blood Weapon amplify these exchanges.
3) Turn abilities like Bloodspiller and Carve and Spit into a multi-hit attacks instead of one big Fell Cleave styled hit. Have Delirium amplify the number of times each action hits. Have Living Shadow link into all this. 99-hit combo? Yes please.
4) Build around a shield theme defensively:
Have Souleater give you a small barrier shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have Dark Mind increase your magic defense by a small amount while you have an active shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have TBN apply a shield to both yourself as well as an ally, with the option to not target anyone. If NF gives you that option, so should TBN.
Have Dark Missionary spread your existing shield to all nearby teammates and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have your invuln convert the lethal damage that you take while at 1 HP to a shield, up to a maximum of say 50% of your health total, and extend your cumulative shield duration.
Have your rate of resource generation increase while you or a teammate has an active shield.

[bundythenoob]

snip

I think that your idea of having our abilities extend our shields durations could work if we get a baby TBN introduced at lv 30 (something like a 10 second shield that mitigates 15% worth of our hp) that upgrades to TBN at lv 70, or else there might not be a point to "managing shields" if we don't get it started till lv 70. otherwise we end up in the current state of DRK which is just a blue DPS with some tanking cooldowns and no utility.

The only problem I find is, do we incentivise making long lasting shields and keeping them up, or incentivise using small but powerful shields during specific times that pop to proc Dark Arts/mana refunding?

For Bloodspiller and CnS being multi hits, I think it might be better if Quietus could be the multi hit aoe attack while CnS could be the multi hit single target, which have their effects amplified by your new delirium. as for bloodspiller, if delirium is changed once again to enhance abilities, BS could be changed under new delirium to be a sort of "STB delirium" attack that consumes 50 blood but refunds us enough mana for a TBN, just in case we need to convert resources like Delirium used to, and that way its not a spammable attack, but instead is a big hit with resource conversion that we can use sparingly (maybe every 60-90 seconds, depends on Delirium cooldown)

if Dark Missionary is meant to spread shields, it definitely needs to be introduced before TBN for raid utility. if dark mind only works while you have a shield, your shields might need to be strong enough to survive while you pop the buttons back to back on multiway combat, but in single it can work as a preemptive for a magical tankbuster.

if we generate mana/blood more than the current build, do we introduce abyssal drain as a spender to make up for souleater no longer healing? does dark arts spend mana, or is it on a charge system? would TBN and its baby version refund mana if popped/proc DA, or absorb mana thru hits if we go with consistent shielding, maybe having a blood price effect attached to them that maxes at 3000 mp (since theyll be castable to other members under your suggestion, it wouldnt force DRK in the MT slot like in the past)

our resource generation skills would have to be looked at too. Blood weapon is currently our only resource generation tool, so would it be better to shorten the cooldown or strengthen its effects and duration? would stalwart still work the same as it does now? do our shields have blood price effects added to them, or would that make them too strong in terms of dps via resource generation?

I love your LD idea though. having it proc when our HP drops to 1, but converting all subsequent damage into a shield that maxes at 50% would be a cool way to change the skill, while still keeping it different from the other invulns. I would say that change alone would make LD much better than its current iteration by a lightyear.


TL;DR
the way i see it, we either go with short powerful shields and have Dark Arts remain as a proc for TBN which affects multiple abilities, or we go with the sustained shield model, which means DA would have to return either as a spender or charge ability. introducing Shadowskin at lv 30 (15% hp shield, 1500mp cost, 10 sec duration, 30s recast) would be needed for either build, since it could either be sustained or refund mana if popped.

if we go with short shields, I would say let Dark Mind gives us 20% magic dmg reduction and generate its own shield that is worth 10% hp. otherwise your idea works for sustained shields model.

Delirium could enhance Bloodspiller to generate a large chunk of mana on usage, make quietus and CnS have multihits while retaining their innate mana generation. maybe even enhance stalwart to generate extra resources per hit.

Dark arts could give free Edge/Flood/Abyss Drain, could possibly give CnS/quietus a potency boost with no mana generation, could give shadow wall the blood price effect (for MTing) or maybe could give Dark Missionary a blood price effect (for OTing). blood price effects would have to cap at 2000-3000mp to not be dps advantage over the free spenders. if its on a charge system, we could make it grant the blood price effect to our TBN instead of shadow wall.

Blood weapon, Stalwart, and Syphon would remain our standard mana building tools, with CnS and Quietus having inherit mana generation which are enhanced by Delirium, or removed for potency buffs by DA. Salted Earth should return as a blood builder as well.

Living Shadow could definitely be our burst source, perhaps esteem mimics our rotation to output extra damage.

Your LD idea is pretty bomb, so we keep that one regardless of which build we go with. much better than square's version.

Lastly, I would change souleater into power slash, but that's just a personal choice cuz I think the skill has a sick animation.

[DRKoftheAzure]

that problem may stem from DRK players having their own vision of the what the job should be. I've seen a suggestion about having LD cost a percentage of your mana relative to your remaining HP once the 10 seconds are over, which i thought was cool, but then others think that the DPS loss might make it too punishing. plus, if this change is made taking into account DRKs current mana buildup, that still leads to multiple follow-up questions needing to be asked, such as which skills should have their mana generation buffed to compensate for this change, or if this should be implemented for 6.0 as opposed to 5.4/5.5.

Well everyone knows I have my own vision for DRK. But even I will admit that we all need to be unified in some capacity if we want to see the some of those visions become a reality.

I understand that you don't see a point in reactivating the MP economy for the current build. I just added those as a small change to help current DRK feel a little more like its old self. the more pressing matter is that we DRK players need to ask ourselves the big questions for 6.0.

All right, let's see the questions.

which skills should return as mana spenders?

Dark Passenger and Edge of Darkness/Shadow.

should those skills potencies be tweaked to account for additional mana generated compared to SHB DRK?

This, for me at least requires reworking Dark Arts COMPLETELY which would more like the following; Dark Arts is used for various things for specific set of abilities/weaponskill/spells such doubling potency, ignoring MP/Blood Gauge costs, adding more effects, or even outright changing the skill for more damage(which applies the double potency after for EVEN MORE DAMAGE).

which skills should return or remain as mana building tools? should blood weapon be our only tool, or should another thing be added? if so how frequently do they come up and how much should they generate?

Souleater, Syphon Strike, Abyssal Drain, Carve and Spit, Quietus, Bloodspiller, and Stalwart Soul, though are mostly tied to combos.

do unleash and stalwart cost mana to allow for more spending options, or do we leave them more as building tools like they are now?

See above answered questions.

do we make living dead the burst window for DRK or leave Delirium as an IR clone for burst?

See above answered questions, but as for Living Dead... Lyth already provided a good alternative to what we already have in the game but... their is a good chance that the devs won't bother to even fix it no matter what suggestion we give...

And as for Delirium, make it a combo ender that maintains Darkside related buffs with Scourge being second stage combo button(Hard Slash is the base combo starter).

do we propose a baby TBN to be learned at earlier levels, and how much mana would it cost? or should we keep TBN at lv 70 and instead buff low level DRks damage to compensate for lack of active mitigation?

Baby TBN would be Shadowskin, 25 second recast with 10% HP shield, NO MP cost, becomes The Blackest Night at level 70 quest with 25% HP shield.

what skills do we make proc with TBNs Dark Arts? or should Dark Arts come back as a charge button?

See my answer to the second question, and I will say bring back Dark Arts as a separate button that gives max number Dark Arts stacks(think Monks Chakra stacks that lets you hold maximum of 5 but you get to hold 5 more at higher levels) and this also answers question number 5 as well.

stuff like this is what we need to come to an agreement on and propose ourselves, since the devs seem to be unable to make a balanced DRK that everyone can enjoy from the feedback we've left in the past.

I agree. And I gave some of my input, I just hope we can agree on at least some of the things.

(I still think DRK should have more combos, just saying)

[DRKoftheAzure]

People really don't like using actions that punish you when you use them. There is absolutely no reason why players should be coming up with suggestions for appropriate punishments for using Living Dead when Holmgang is objectively better in direct comparison with no drawback whatsoever. Rather, players should be asking what sorts of significant added benefits Living Dead should provide over Holmgang to warrant the minute longer recast.

This is so true...

If I was reworking DRK, I would do the following:

Oh boy, here we go...

1) Make Darkside provide a baseline faster GCD, in the same vein as Huton and Greased Lightning.

I'd go 1 step further and make it so that you need to activate Darkside to even generate Dark Arts in the first place and require you use Blood Weapon/Price, but yes haste effect can help, and and Blood Weapon can still generate MP with Blood Price generating HP.

2) Make DRK really be about resource management. Every time that you use an action that costs MP, have it generate a small amount of Blood. Every time that you use an action that costs Blood, have it generate a small amount of MP. Have Blood Weapon amplify these exchanges.

See my recent quoting(surprised that's even actually a with spellcheck) and responding of bundythenoob.

3) Turn abilities like Bloodspiller and Carve and Spit into a multi-hit attacks instead of one big Fell Cleave styled hit. Have Delirium amplify the number of times each action hits. Have Living Shadow link into all this. 99-hit combo? Yes please.

Same as the last sentence mostly, though I will add my thoughts on Living Shadow; just make it an ACTUAL TANK PET that TANKS, COMPLETE WITH TANK ROLE ACTIONS(yes I do expect SOME Shirk shenanigans with this idea).

4) Build around a shield theme defensively:

Can work with constant HP recovery of Blood Price suggestion.

Have Souleater give you a small barrier shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.

To elaborate on why I would want Souleater to restore MP as well HP, Syphon Strike I also want to restore HP and you would need to have it generate barrier that stacks with the Souleater barrier.

Have Dark Mind increase your magic defense by a small amount while you have an active shield and extend your cumulative shield duration.

And already I have no idea what this is supposed to mean...

Have TBN apply a shield to both yourself as well as an ally, with the option to not target anyone. If NF gives you that option, so should TBN.

Good idea that I am in favor of, so long as it also applies to the Shadowskin Suggestion I made.

Have Dark Missionary spread your existing shield to all nearby teammates and extend your cumulative shield duration.

All of them? Sweet.

Have your invuln convert the lethal damage that you take while at 1 HP to a shield, up to a maximum of say 50% of your health total, and extend your cumulative shield duration.

The devs are gonna find a way to NOT implement this idea...

Have your rate of resource generation increase while you or a teammate has an active shield.

Ehh... kinda be too OP if we combined this with my idea so there would need to be HEAVY resource generation nerfs for this to probably work IF it does end up being too powerful...

[DRKoftheAzure]

Lastly, I would change souleater into power slash, but that's just a personal choice cuz I think the skill has a sick animation.

Honestly I would bring back enmity combo JUST for Dark Knight(the whole combo) because of how cool it is and satisfying it was to use back in the day...

[Starkbeaumont]

Honestly I would bring back enmity combo JUST for Dark Knight(the whole combo) because of how cool it is and satisfying it was to use back in the day...

I would just trade the Souleater animation. that "uppercut" is really not fitting and old Power Slash (which isn't a slash anyway) is just more fitting and visually appealing

[Lyth]

If you want DRK to have more combos, it should be something analogous to MNK in which you can jump between two different combos so long as you follow the correct order. An easy way to do this is to have one combo (1 2 3) restore MP, and a second (1 A B) build up blood, such that you can mix and match (i.e. 1 A 3 or 1 2 B) however you like to build up MP and blood as needed. The caveat would be that each step (2 vs A or 3 vs B) should be equivalent in terms of both potency and resource generation.

...

If you want to incentivise shields, you have to reward the player for defending themselves and their teammates with shields. Replace the Darkside timer with a number from 1 to 100. Every time your shields mitigate some damage, the meter goes up, which in turn increases your attack speed and power up to some maximum threshold, while reducing the recasts of some offensive oGCDs. Let it then decay over time, with some abilities (let's say Edge and Flood) that halt the decay. It should feel like you're building up offensive momentum as you shield more and more damage.

I'm not sure what the skill progression should be while levelling. It's okay for TBN to come a bit later. Sometimes it actually works out really well when a missing piece of the puzzle slips in to make everything else work out better.

I find it a bit strange that we have some very clearly copy pasted abilities (Sentinel, Shadow Wall, and Nebula) while getting rid of others (Shadowskin). I think the solution, like has been done with Vengeance, is to keep each ability similar with a job flavoured twist. So bring back Shadowskin, and have it give you a bit of shielding. Do the same for Shadow Wall, as its bonus effect (Vengeance has a bonus thorns effect that nobody else has, so there's no reason why every job can't have a bonus effect).

As for resource generation, I think the simplest way to do this is to have magical attacks that aren't part of your standard combo (Abyssal Drain, Salted Earth, Edge/Flood etc.) cost MP but give you blood back, and physical ones (Bloodspiller, Quietus, etc.) cost blood but give you MP back.