Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

->Delirium:
Grants the user 5 stacks of Delirium granting 15% skill speed and a separate buff granting 15% damage reduction. The reason for the 15% damage reduction is because of the added skill speed, double weaving may prove difficult so you have some defense given by default.

1. Why 5? That's a LOT of Bloodspiller spam, which would in turn require each hit to grant less effect in balance. You're increasing its attacks granted by two-thirds. Where is that otherwise extra damage coming from?
   
   
2. Does this Skill Speed buff only affect the Blood spender GCDs, or by having this affect all GCDs, are we now forced to blow 5 Bloodspillers immediately as not to waste stacks on combo skills instead of free BS casts?
   
   
3. That underlined bit, too, I have to admit... feels really odd. If anything, why not just tie some minor degree of damage absorption (shield potency per hit or based on damage) to those Delirium attacks, so you aren't so obviously trying to compensate for a concern that will only affect a portion of players? Additionally, if you just stick a mere 3 GCDs, then this 'problem' affects the DRK for no more than 6.4 consecutive seconds, which can be played around even with TBN.

->Blackblood:
Using certain actions with blackblood adds HP recovery effects to them. Bloodspiller/Quietus grant a small heal for each enemy hit, Edge/Flood grant a regen per enemy hit.

? Edge/Flood aren't Blackblood skills, though. ?

You gain blackblood whenever you deal damage to enemies with any action, some actions grating a bit more ( ex: Souleater ). The point is to allow Blackblood to enhance actions with an added healing effect to them. The souleater combo could generate as little as 10 gauge, with blood weapon granting 5 blood per action. Enhancing any actions would cost like 10 or 15 blood. The cap could be 100.

The minimum value gauges grant outside of RDM is 5. If the Souleater combo grants 10, then there must be at least one action therein that grants none.

I still don't get how this "enhancement" is supposed to work. What's the activator, if not the Blackblood skills (Quietus and Bloodspiller) themselves, or just Abyssal Drain (mentioned later)? Else, is this bonus passive?

->Abyssal Drain can be spammed and costs Bloodgauge to execute, dealing the same amount of damage and healing as it does now ( perhaps with slightly more radius, so it hits all the mobs )

Doesn't that just turn Blood gauge from an A|B spender (admittedly lackluster)... into Abyssal Gauge charges (which also means that you start combat with no access to Abyssal and cannot recharge it over downtime, both of which would hurt DRK sustain in dungeons)?

This makes the Bloodgauge unique and not a WAR copy, just enhancing actions to heal you, solving your sustain problems for single target and multi target ( Abyssal Drain )

To a degree, possibly, but turning a 'free' sustain CD (outside of a shared timer) into something you need uptime to slowly (10 per souleater combo) build towards is also a sustain nerf in turn. If there's a passive benefit to Blackblood, moreover, you'd never want to spend all of it, or --if it's proportionate to one's gauge-- spend it at all if that passive benefit outweighs AD's measly 200cp per target.



You may want to review the thresholds by which to incentivize this or that use of the kit and make sure it's neither bogging itself down nor simply turning a more intuitive gauge into a less intuitive one (essentially Darkside just being Blood, but more raid-sync-limiting and punishing of downtime) with another being spent just to show charges of a single skill (a la Shinten gauge, but for AD).