Dark Knight Megathread

[ShadowMurloc]

Hey yall,

I don't know if these exact changes have already been proposed, but these are just a few potential changes I had in mind to beef up DRK sustain.

I don't claim to be a veteran of the class or the game, but it's the one I've played the most! These are the changes I've wished for in my experience with DRK. I'd love to hear thoughts on how these changes would conflict with other parts of the kit or may be be too good. The numbers are more speculative.

>> Oblation: 10% damage reduction, refunds existing or pre-existing TBN when it is broken if MP is at under 50%; grants hot if broken at or over 50%

(Oblation feels very underwhelming as a capstone mitigation ability/doesn't feel impactful to press/doesn't interact with the kit.)

>> Living Shadow: Same duration but no longer a glorified dot, copies every offensive action and gives you half the benefit.

(This has probably already been proposed but I'm not sure. Is this too similar to the clone on Ninja?)

>> Carve and Spit: Now on the GCD, recovers health if MP is at or over 50%, recovers MP if it is under 50%. Leaves a big bleed; ticks restore HP/MP.

>> Abyssal Drain: Now on the GCD, recovers health if MP is at or over 50%, recovers MP if it is under 50%. Leaves behind the "Salted Earth" AOE; ticks restore HP/MP. Salted Earth combo removed.

(I'm sure some people like the ability, but I find the salted earth combo to be little more than a fire on CD and forget skill. I think ability itself should be removed and it's damage potential distributed to more impactful abilities like Abyssal Drain (preserving the cool animation) and Shadowbringer. As these abilities will be more potent with this change, I think they might deserve a devoted GCD.)

>> Shadowbringer: Adds 50 (maybe 25?) to Blood Gauge.

(Shadowbringer has a longish cooldown, and this change could give the capstone ability some more offensive/defensive potential to justify that; see below.)

>> Bloodspiller and Quietus: Shield for 25% of damage dealt stacking as a non-extendible buff.

(This change would give the DRK some durability when spamming blood spenders, and give Delirium a potentially defensive use case. I'm guessing this might too good, it could maybe give a little DR instead?)

My idea with these proposed changes is to give Dark Knight more sustain without treading into Warrior's identity as the lifesteal/self-healing more reactive tank, giving Dark Knight some more synergy through it's kit and emphasizing MP / TBN management.

One problem I could see is that staying high on MP would be more difficult without the on-demand generation of Carve and Spit; that said, I envision the shared CD abilities providing a large amount of MP when below 50% to compensate.

I'm not sure if/how broken these changes would be, just some thoughts I had.

[Oizen]

The issue with Oblation is it doesn't have enough impact.

Dark Mind is secretly good because 20% is a fair chunk of mitigation, especially for a 60s cooldown, it honestly makes it one of the best skills in high end play for Dark Knight. I get why people who play the class casually hate it, as dungeons dont even really use it, but its a big reason why DRK has been prefered this tier outside of damage output. A rampart 60 seconds is pretty good.

On the other side, 10% mitigation for a 60 second cooldown isn't that good, this is never a mitigation you'll use alone, and if I'm being honest it wont even be good enough to pair it with just one other mitigation. The only time I use this is if Im tanking something that needs 3 pieces of mitigation which is incredibly rare.

Its not useless, its just really underwhelming. Yeah you can put it on an ally in a tight spot, but again, its 10% mitigation and competes with TBN. Its not going to be the difference maker that saves them, while TBN might be. And yeah getting two stacks of Oblation is nice, but its so low impact that I dont ususally ever find myself in a tight spot thinking "Oblation will save me!" so I actually tend to just neglect this skill outside of like...two fights in this game currently.


I'm not really into the idea of bumping it to 15%, I'd much rather see a heal utility or anything else really put onto it as I actually do not believe DRK needs any more raw mitigation. If it was instead a self heal or ally heal skill that offered 10% mitigation as a bonus, it would be pretty good.

[The_User]

I love it when the tank buster is physical so I can hold my wonderful short recast 60 sec best mitigation aka Dark Mind and eat the damage instead.


I'm happy to be the chosen one. I'll take any physical damage and keep "my precious" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyPG0qEbJM8&t=170s Dark Mind

[Shurrikhan]

I love it when the tank buster is physical so I can hold my wonderful short recast 60 sec best mitigation aka Dark Mind and eat the damage instead.

You do have a far shorter recast -- the shortest recast among all tank CDs -- too, no? It works just as well against physical damage.

[Shurrikhan]

Again, I wouldn't mind if DRK had a bit more of a generalized component on Dark Mind if

1. DRK's mitigation were otherwise undertuned,
2. Dark Mind, thereafter, still held its current advantages, and
3. Putting the missing mitigation, or that part thereof, into Dark Mind produced more theme/polish/fun than spending that budget on other skills.

Just throwing extra strength atop an already strong skill just because its strengths are more subtle than others, though, is rarely a good idea.

When a 15s recast mitigation is safe when it's used only 1 time every 60s I know I'm blessed.

You know the second boss in Smileton? The one that appears to deal virtually no damage?

You can pop TBN off it nearly on CD. It's just a matter of maximizing the enemies' uptime on you over TBN's duration. (Added benefit to the ilvl caps.)

TBN adds a further learning curve, and you won't always be able to hit it on CD, but if your worry was a physical tankbuster against which DM would do nothing... well, either your concern was unwarranted, or it's going to pop TBN.

[The_User]

Can't say how grateful I'm for having a shortest recast super awesome mitigation that isn't going have any impact on my dps if I take advantage of it short recast.


When a 15s recast mitigation is safe when it is used only 1 time every 60s I know I'm blessed.






Everyday that I don't have to rely on other healing action in the raid because I don't have any never fail to make me proud

[The_User]

Exactly! *More than 1 TBN= start losing dps* is hella safe.... any concern over using more than 1 TBN per 60s is unwarranted!



We such a fool for not appreciate the 15s recast real neat mitigation that gonna cost our dps if we didn't treat it like a once per minute recast mitigation...


This is the next level of genius, how could anyone came up with this mind blow universe shattering level of ability design?

[Oizen]

Hell even in p2s you can use tbn to take the coherence teather and itll be up again for the shared tb immediately after

[The_User]

Ah right, I forgot that 2 of 25s mitigations with no dps cost along with a 60s heal that don't care whether the damage is physical or magical is worst than 1 TBN or 2 TBN+dps cost+ a 60s mitigation that only work against magical. How could I forget that only end game matter.

[RyuDragnier]

Dark Mind is fine in endgame trials and raids...it ain't fine in dungeons, where Dark Mind is one of the most useless skills there is. I'd rather they remove it and just have Oblation take its place, but buffed to where it's 15% mitigation against everything. At least then DRK would have something other than just Shadow Wall, Rampart, and TBN to use in dungeon pulls.