Dark Knight Megathread

[ArthurATDayne]

But, how sad is it that if Drk wants to sustain, that in wall to wall pulls, they have to rely on Souleater and single target combo chains, as their strongest source of it to help offset healer stress, whereas in comparison with the other tanks, that isn’t even necessary on their end so much.

I need to sneak a few 1-2-3 Souleater restore health combos in to save my ass many times when Abyssal Drain was on CD, I don't necessarily need to be topped off full health to survive, just enough to keep myself from going to 0 health and dead.

The only time I died so far getting to 90 and going through MSQ was falling off a platform in a trial, but other than that, if I didn't resort to 1-2-3 Souleater combo in low health situations like mistimed tank buster or AOE, going in blind, I think I would've died. DRK has been pretty fun for me so far in EW, but too many close calls with other players. Trust healers were pretty safe and consistent.

For added context, I always have TBN or Mitigations up when I can help it and don't let large gaps in defenses when I can help it i.e. Rampart has 1s left, TBN, TBN either pops or has 1s left, Oblation, Oblation about to end and no tank buster, Shadow Wall, Shadow Wall has 1s left, Reprisal and/or Arms Length/Dark Mind etc whatever as the situation deems fit so damage intake is mitigated enough to give player healers time to react and for myself to 1-2-3 Souleater to not die...

If Unleashed + Stalwart Soul 2 AOE Combo also had some heal potency on there like say 200 I think it would be a huge quality of life convenience. It'll just be the AOE version of Soul Eater Combo. In addition... Carve and Split really should get some heal potency on there too or just merge Abyssal Drain and Carve & Split so that the 1st Mob takes full big damage and subsequent mobs take less damage and it heals the DRK player, 1 less button and just 1 less CD to manage.

This is another small issue I have and it's with Button Bloat and Shadowbringer... it's an awesome 2 charge 60s CD Line AOE DPS Skill, I love it, but would it have hurt to have it replace a pre-existing skill at level 90 to save on Hotbar space like maybe replace Blood Weapon to restore Mana/Blood like each use of Shadowbringer also restores at least 300 Mana/25 Blood so that two uses of it restores about 600 Mana/50 Blood total or more?

Since we can only use Shadowbringer while Dark Side timer is up that already comes with a pre-condition of using Edge or Flood of Shadow beforehand so naturally Mana Restore wouldn't feel out of place. Could also make Shadowbringer Light Up Blinking when during Dark Side duration after using Edge/Flood skills so it feels more like there's DRK mechanic cohesiveness.

I.E. Use Edge/Flood 3000 Mana, Now I need Mana Back, Shadowbringer Skill Icon is Blinking/Lit, Hit Skill to Restore some Mana/Blood while also nuking the enemy further. Can Combine with Delirium Stacks or Bloodspiller/Quietus on own to spend that Blood. Now you can feel more like a badass who pulled off a satisfying combo chain Edge/Flood with Shadowbringers and Bloodspiller/Quietus to nuke the enemy outside of Delirium.

[WhyAmIHere]

But, how sad is it that if Drk wants to sustain, that in wall to wall pulls, they have to rely on Souleater and single target combo chains, as their strongest source of it to help offset healer stress, whereas in comparison with the other tanks, that isn’t even necessary on their end so much.

Point taken on the data. I just see it as reinforcing my own idea, in that a DRK would be using souleater how much more/less frequently than HoC? If more, then i can see the excessive numbers. If less then it shows how often / free HoC is as a sustain tool for GNB.

But I'd still argue / lament that DRK's sad state of affairs is its design. TBN is holding back the entire job alongside whatever SE does with it. JP players seem to love it, and sure it's good, but it's not the best thing since sliced bread. Especially with living dead still existing as it does. But more than that it's also the identity of it. Both WAR and DRK's lore is supposed to pertain to one's inner emotions, so it makes sense thematically that they'd have a similar design. Plus, lvl 70's job quest rewards TBN and the skill's tied into that chain of job quests so any potential rework'd have to include it IMO.
Personally I'd love to see DRK return to a mix of it's heavensward roots, and keep the frentic pace of SB. Kinda like how RPR plays now, ngl. But we have RPR now, so...

[Sazuzaki]

Personally I'd love to see DRK return to a mix of it's heavensward roots, and keep the frentic pace of SB. Kinda like how RPR plays now, ngl. But we have RPR now, so...

If only. I really wouldn't mind having TBN be free if we had other MP spenders. I fully agree this single skill is holding the job back, yet I don't want its MP cost removed because then the job would be way too easy. Don't get me wrong, removing the MP cost on TBN is the best decision balance wise, but gameplay wise? God, the job would fall so low in terms of skill.

This job just desperately needs a rework, it's already having its core gameplay fall apart. The devs need a better foundation than TBN alone.

[Shurrikhan]

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any reason why that wouldn't also be a fine solution, in principle. To me, I think it would be a lot more simple to extend the Edge cooldown since that would only require changing one skill, rather than changing the MP cost and also having to change the MP gain on Blood Weapon, Delirium, Syphon Strike, and Stalwart Soul, keeping in mind that natural regeneration is probably set at 200/tick - but as long as it accomplished the end goal of leaving DRK free to use TBN at will without losing DPS, changing MP costs/generation wouldn't bother me.

Just to clarify my earlier meaning by way of a spitball example:

Put Carve and Spit, Abyssal Drain, and Blood Weapon on 45s CDs. Increase Edge/Flood/TBN cost to 4k. Up MP generator's effects slightly (net gain to MP spenders per minute, for which kit potency is generally rebalanced back slightly, atop the effects of reducing the MP-generating abilities' CDs). And just like that, we've got less absurd lulls in our action. A C&S + BW raid window will still manages a handy 4 casts under buff, or 5 with Dark Arts, but we're no longer lulled to half to a third of that cast rate between burst periods.

Easy further adjustments:

• Increase the MP gen of only Syphon Strike and Stalwart Soul, increasing lull cast rate more so than casts under burst.
• Have Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain merely reduce the MP cost of your next cast within X seconds, instead of granting fully bankable MP.

• Ideally, have this be Dark Arts, and perhaps thereby allow for TBN proportionate refunding for proportionate barrier consumption. That holding duration X probably ought to be set between 5 and 10 seconds, as to give a small recovery bonus for downtime enough to fit it under per-minute raid buffs without having to balance its use around that fact (since it'd normally be better just to spend it almost immediately). The downside of this idea is that you'd never want to use C&S as a finisher, unless DA duration was frozen outside of combat.

[Lyth]

Some general thoughts after levelling DRK:

1) DRK doesn't need to get on this self-sustain bandwagon. Everyone misjudges tank squishiness at the start of expansions due to gear and stat changes. If anything, tanking this time around felt unusually robust. Perhaps they should take Living Dead's penalty mechanic off of DRK and give it to one of these self-healing types.
2) I'm not really sure what niche Oblation is designed to cover. This is a single target Reprisal, down to the cooldown timer. When coupled with other forms of damage resistance, it provides even less value than the listed 10% because they are multiplicative. It looks cool, but that's about it. I'd like it more if it was a 15% bubble.
3) Salt and Darkness was surprisingly fun to use. It's a single button press, but it's unique. I suppose it's in part because it's a trap that you can activate.
4) Shadowbringer doesn't really feel like a capstone ability. I hardly notice when it goes off because of how similar it feels to Flood.
5) Enshroud is so much fun to use, especially when you do a back to back Shroud with Plentiful Harvest. Oh wait, wrong job. But imagine if Delirium had no recast but cost 50 blood to use, and when you use it you do the old Dark Arts animation and gain a dark shadowy flaming aura with glowing red eyes, granting you a 1.5 second GCD and upgraded animations on all your actions. And then when you Living Shadow, it automatically puts you into Delirium mode as well. That's kind of what it would be like.

There are plenty of players who chose to invest their time into jobs that give them a competitive advantage even if they don't find them to be particularly entertaining, because the outcome is more important than the process to them.

Where are the statistics? I doubt it's going to be many players.

Not that I'm the sort of person who enjoys saying that 'I told you so,'' but...

I told you so.

[Kalaam]

I wish delirium was enshroud

[Deathshiro]

I wish delirium was enshroud

Twisting this a bit, why doesn't Blood Weapon work functionally like Enshroud. (if not the gcd increase, at least the duration w/charges) 9.5 second duration on Blood Weapon is just taking the piss out of people with anything more than 130 ping, when (correct me if i'm wrong) game is intended to be played at 200 ping. Is Blood Weapon intended to be only 4 gcds then? I'd genuinely love if this was asked in an interview with SE.

[WhyAmIHere]

Twisting this a bit, why doesn't Blood Weapon work functionally like Enshroud. (if not the gcd increase, at least the duration w/charges) 9.5 second duration on Blood Weapon is just taking the piss out of people with anything more than 130 ping, when (correct me if i'm wrong) game is intended to be played at 200 ping. Is Blood Weapon intended to be only 4 gcds then? I'd genuinely love if this was asked in an interview with SE.

wHaT lAtEnCy IsSuEs? WeVe NeVeR hAd A pRoBlEm On OuR sIdE wItH pInG

[Duskane]

Blood weapon is just badly design and had no thoughts put into it with DRK aoe being spells
it use to be a 18 second speed buff you could extended with delirium but now its infuriating Infuriate

[Shurrikhan]

Hot-take:

I'd kind of love it if Blood Weapon and a defensive or two (with alternate payoff and thereby some banking opportunities, a la TBN) were our only MP spenders and MP spent in turn generated a separate... Shadow gauge. Add some interactions between Shadow and Blood and you've got your thematic "Black Blood" burst periods. Drop Quietus; make Abyssal Drain a variable Blood spender, and add a leech (damage dealt heals you) period to Bloodspiller, causing all Blood spenders to self-heal. Have a low base/resting point for Blood to which DRK will passively generate gauge when out of combat (e.g., 30 out of 100 Blood, enough for a single undercharged Abyssal Drain).

Living Shadow is unlocked after having spent X amount of each among Shadow and Blood. Rather than displaying yet another gauge, you simply see Living Shadow's 'cooldown' spin up to show the duration it'd have. While Living Shadow is active, your damage is reduced by 20%, but your Living Shadow precisely copies your offensive actions for half effect. As such, it's still a damage bonus (.8*1.5) of 20% -- effectively more when counting MP generation. There, we'd now have the best doppelganger skill.