Dark Knight Megathread

[Ryaduera]

snip

So it gets a little complicated here to do the math, so instead of direct math I'll do a lot of estimations and use vagueness that hopefully covers enough ground to make it a bit more understandable, but shielding and healing have fundamental differences in how it effects eHP. Healing can be capped, overhealing is real, but shielding can't really be capped outside of timing out, and with how much damage we're taking in this expansion, that's not really going to happen. At an initial look, this appears to have shielding more favorable, but it's a bit more nuanced than that. Under the circumstance you are missing HP (we're ignoring warrior healing from BW because let's be honest, it's just broken, and we should consider standard levels when stating why DRK is weaker) you can, of course, regenerate it. So the HP value starts to change a bit since you should also consider how much HP was removed and under what curcumstances they needed to burn through your HP. Let's use super basic numbers, 150,000 HP, being lower than what the 99 job gear gives us. My PLD HS heals for about 7600 hp, but for constency of rounding down with our HP, let's round down with our heals, too, and call it 7000. Should be about a 10% drop for both values. Let's remove Oblation and the damage reduction from the equation here as well, to keep it simple.


12s regen for 7k is 4 ticks iirc which is 4 heals. That's 28,000 HP restored. At 150,000 health TBN is 37,500 shield. This looks like TBN should be offering a greater eHP value, but the thing about healing is if you are not overhealing you need to double the value, because in order to leave you at less than full health it needs to do that damage twice, but let's assume half of your healing ends up being overheal, which it probably isn't that much. then you gain an eHP value of 42,000. And if you do get full use of your healing, the enemy has to burn through 56,000 hp. Now remember, this is without the damage reduction percentages in play. With a difference at its base value of 9500 with the numbers provided, the fact that the other tanks get even larger damage reductions on top of those heals makes DRK start to look pathetic. And then, to put some icing on the cake, heals can crit and ramparts buffs incoming healing from your tank abilities, meaning it's even easier to inflate those healing numbers by a lot. I absolutely hate bringing up healing crits because it's RNG and can lead to negligible overheal, but with how often these heals tick and proc, it should be mentioned because they will happen and it will make a difference. TNB cannot be increased outside of increasing max HP, something 2 tanks do that DRK does not.

All that to say if DRK uses TBN below full health, it takes exactly the shields worth of damage to finish them off at that amount of HP they began with, but if a heal were implemented instead it would have to had burnt through more health than you could heal for at any given time. That is to say heals and shields both grow in power equally as significantly as damage reductions are applied, this is basic tanking logic, taking less damage is always good. However, if damage reduction is applied and enemies cannot do more damage than the values of the heal, you end at a greater HP value, but with a shield, no matter what, regardless of how tanky you are, even if you take 0 damage, the shield finishes you off in the same state you began in. This is why only 10% from Oblation is just not enough. The other tanks get heals and greater damage reduction, meaning they can almost always finish off the cooldown in a greater state than they left it in, but DRK will always finish off their cooldowns in the same state they began in, so its cooldown really means nothing because there is no way to bounce back from damage that has already happened, just pausing damage for a brief moment. TBN briefly offers a greater advantage as taking no damage to your actual HP is always better, but it offers no recourse after it is broken, meaning no matter how good a tank you are, DRK will always suffer.

It really comes down to this fact; When tanking, the only thing that matters is the state of the tank after the damage has occurred, everything inbetween is just semantics. Maybe DRK does reduce more overall, but does it matter in this context if the DRK always has less HP after the damage has occurred? I argue no, not even a little bit. And no, Vigilant should not be considered because every other tank has 2 sources of healing, their special 82 mit and one other, and so Vigilant should be considered to be compared to the other tanks healing like Requiescat combo and Aurora, even Equilibrium.

EDIT: To clarify, both healing and shielding increase eHP but have different forms of impact on your tankiness, and healing only loses when you are already full health, otherwise healing and shielding have the same multipliers to your eHP when applying mitigations, but healing will leave you at a higher health value at the end creating a bouncing effect with your HP keeping you full where shielding just won't do anything about damage already taken. So yes, it probably increases eHP by a greater amount with TBN, but if nothing is done about damage taken durng its downtime, it is inherently unsustainable.

[EthanXdeath]

Yes TBN is a cooldown, but it's not free like HS, HoC, or BW. You lose 3000 MP every cast, and the amount of MP regained between it coming off cooldown isn't equal, not only that, it's a straight up DPS loss if it doesn't pop, 3000 MP out the window that you can't get back and you could've used on an edge of shadow for damage instead. The other tanks just have better defensives overall and sustain. DRK has souleater and abyssal drain that directly correlates to the amount of enemies it hits and is on a 60 second cooldown. Personally I think DRK just needs a complete overhaul since it's basically a discount warrior.

[Ryaduera]

12s regen for 7k is 4 ticks iirc which is 4 heals. That's 28,000 HP restored. At 150,000 health TBN is 37,500 shield. This looks like TBN should be offering a greater eHP value, but the thing about healing is if you are not overhealing you need to double the value, because in order to leave you at less than full health it needs to do that damage twice, but let's assume half of your healing ends up being overheal, which it probably isn't that much. then you gain an eHP value of 42,000. And if you do get full use of your healing, the enemy has to burn through 56,000 hp. Now remember, this is without the damage reduction percentages in play. With a difference at its base value of 9500 with the numbers provided, the fact that the other tanks get even larger damage reductions on top of those heals makes DRK start to look pathetic. And then, to put some icing on the cake, heals can crit and ramparts buffs incoming healing from your tank abilities, meaning it's even easier to inflate those healing numbers by a lot. I absolutely hate bringing up healing crits because it's RNG and can lead to negligible overheal, but with how often these heals tick and proc, it should be mentioned because they will happen and it will make a difference. TNB cannot be increased outside of increasing max HP, something 2 tanks do that DRK does not.

I decided to do the math and if HS ticks twice under the first set of mits and twice under just the one 15% mit then it's eHP regeneration would be equal to 33985, slightly less than TBN but if you add Oblation to TBN should make it 40800 eHP, the problem comes exclusively in overheal potential to reduce that PLD eHP with HS, but then they have healing regularly in their offensive kit where DRK gets one heal in pulls and 1 GCD heal exclusively, so once the healing from the other tanks kits are applied it becomes apparant where DRK has a problem in not being able to restore damage that has already been done to it. Honestly, a 100 potency per tick regen on Oblation could probably solve this issue and sway the math towards DRK, but still has an issue with Dark Mind, an easy solution being to add a 10% physical damage reduction and keep the 20% magical. Simple solutions to fix the defensives issue.

[excelsiorjones]

Do you think DRK would feel better to play if:

* Passive MP regen was dramatically increased
* TBN had it's cooldown dramatically reduced (say around 10 seconds)
* Dark Arts could hold 2 charges

Thinking leaning into MP management as more of a thing.

[rxantos]

My biggest complain would be the lost of Plunge.
The new animation is lame, does no agro does no damage. Nor does it feel natural to use as plunge was.

Meanwhile both WAR and PLD closers remain with their agro and their damage. Which removes the excuse of not having the damage or the agro.

[Conando]

If anything the other tanks need their self sustain brought down to Dark Knight levels.

That's not going to happen. It's been 2 expansions.

[Conando]

To add to that, even with the slightly meatier hits in DT, a lot of PUG healers refuse to gcd heal so it would end very poorly.

[Ryaduera]

Do you think DRK would feel better to play if:

* Passive MP regen was dramatically increased
* TBN had it's cooldown dramatically reduced (say around 10 seconds)
* Dark Arts could hold 2 charges

Thinking leaning into MP management as more of a thing.

I don't think reducing the cooldown would help the main issue of sustainability or be healthy for the game. MP regen isn't necessary either, but would certainly help the defensives since TBN consumes MP meaning it's cooldown is actually shorter than it's realistic uptime. The main issue with DRK is sustainability. I'm pretty sure that, because of TBN and its cooldowns, technically DRK reduces damage taken by the largest amount, the issue comes from regenerative abilities and its lack of in long term situations. Every other tank can heal, then when they are done healing, they can heal until their heal is ready. DRK can just heal once off an oGCD every 60 seconds and once every 2 minutes. I think that because of this a better solution is to just throw a small HoT on Oblation or add heals to your Delirium combo and make Dark Mind do something useful. As it stands the main issue with Dark Knight is it just runs out of mits and cannot keep itself up long enough to see them come back.

But also, 2 charges on Dark Arts would be very nice.

[excelsiorjones]

I don't think reducing the cooldown would help the main issue of sustainability or be healthy for the game. MP regen isn't necessary either, but would certainly help the defensives since TBN consumes MP meaning it's cooldown is actually shorter than it's realistic uptime. The main issue with DRK is sustainability. I'm pretty sure that, because of TBN and its cooldowns, technically DRK reduces damage taken by the largest amount, the issue comes from regenerative abilities and its lack of in long term situations. Every other tank can heal, then when they are done healing, they can heal until their heal is ready. DRK can just heal once off an oGCD every 60 seconds and once every 2 minutes. I think that because of this a better solution is to just throw a small HoT on Oblation or add heals to your Delirium combo and make Dark Mind do something useful. As it stands the main issue with Dark Knight is it just runs out of mits and cannot keep itself up long enough to see them come back.

But also, 2 charges on Dark Arts would be very nice.

Thanks for the reply! I suppose I was thinking that more TBNs (especially during dungeons) would allow DRK to just straight-up not need as much healing in your average dungeon pack. I was thinking of it, like, "why not allow me to blow all my MP if I need it? MP is already a limiting factor, let me spam shields. PLD can shelltron back to back."

[Ryaduera]

Thanks for the reply! I suppose I was thinking that more TBNs (especially during dungeons) would allow DRK to just straight-up not need as much healing in your average dungeon pack. I was thinking of it, like, "why not allow me to blow all my MP if I need it? MP is already a limiting factor, let me spam shields. PLD can shelltron back to back."

PLD can Shelltron back to back yeah, but you really shouldn't. You have to build your gauge back up, it amounts to about 21 seconds of autos if you don't need to step away from your target. Damage reduction only lasts 8 seconds where the HoT lasts 12, so you want to keep those both working for you. You can, however, use Shelltron pretty much every 20s resulting in intentionally stacking defensive cooldowns, which actually increases the value of the regen that comes from Shelltron. The math here is a bit complicated and I... don't feel like doing it this time. But it means the HP value from the regen builds up to a significant number. The PLD has a regen totaling a potency of 1000 every 20s, roughly 30 thousand using my level 99 gear and tomestone accessories. DRK was given a 1200 potency once every 2 minutes. PLD has a 400 cure potency every 3rd GCD in AoE, then 400 cure potency on 4 GCD in Requiescat making 1600 over 4 GCD. DRK has a 40k shield every 15s but only 2 opportunities to fill that gap with any sustain. I really think a 100 or 200 potency regen for 12 seconds on Oblation solves this issue no problem, as well as a 10% mit on Dark Mind for all damage not just magic (Never forgive that Camouflage is just HW DRK Dark Dance reworked, buffed, and given to a different tank). 6000 heal potency over 2 minutes (not calculating Abyssal Drain because it's target dependent) will still not compare to the PLD with it's 2 minute heal potency total being 29,200ish (idealized AoE scenario) while also giving PLD a 1000 potency shield on top of it all. Baring in mind that Ramparts can amp any 20s window of that healing as well, and that, of course, those heals can crit, and over the course of a pull, they will.. (Why 2 minutes? Because that's when all cooldowns would be equally "reset", I do realize how infrequently you'd get all 2 minutes out of a single pull, but it's the simplest way to display the math, as well as using PLD because it's pretty baseline with what a "healer tank" should do)

That said, the reason I point out it wouldn't be healthy is because DRK would then just not take damage at all, even Warrior has to actually take damage. A lowered cooldown on TBN could work but adding the MP regen wouldn't. Outside if Delirium, it takes 6 GCD's to recharge 3000 MP for TBN, which is basically a 15s recharge anyway, so you'd have a burn mechanic for your MP, but again, once the shields are down, pretty much any damage you take sticks on you forever.

EDIT: Interestingly if a single 1000 potency heal on my gear is just over 30,000 HP then by that math PLD would heal around 300,000 hp with no crits or ramparts, which at 40k hp shielding from TBN is 7.5 total TNBs which also takes 2 minutes to burn through on a 15s cooldown if used entirely off cooldown. Obviously round up to 8. So if the healing without crits and without ramparts is actually the same as TBN, surely something is to be said for the extra damage reductions PLD gets from Bulwark, the greater value from HS compared to Oblation, and the passive blocking that does happen regularly? This kind of math is why TBN just doesn't work, it's too short term and with nothing to fill in the time inbetween when damage is properly taken. It's more damage taken with less health to bump survivability. The math is there, I don't know why the devs allow this to continue. Abyssal Drain also isn't really a heal to me, it's more of a "free bounce back once a minute" in pulls, but this could be attributed to my way of thinking with reliability and consistency and pressure to use it in burst windows regardless of current HP. That's why I haven't considered it into my numbers.