Dark Knight Megathread

[MerlinCross]

couple abilities on DRK are rehashed
Like Dark missionary is just Dark mind but in reverse

This isn’t new. Inner Chaos is just fancy Inner Beast

[Shurrikhan]

This isn’t new. Inner Chaos is just fancy Inner Beast

Animation-wise, sure. But functionally, its being far stronger, being generated only through Infuriate, and locking Fell Cleave out of use until it's expended makes it a rather different skill.

[Colt47]

Infuriate is coded a bit weird most likely. When I play warrior it is definitely not in the designers intent to have the Inner Chaos get locked out during the charge window. That is to say, Inner Chaos shouldn't eat a charge from Infuriate. Same with Chaotic Cyclone.

That's one thing that DRK has a bit better with Delirium since they can choose to use other abilities without consuming charges. Also Dark Mind feels really out of place now in this game since there are points where it is hard to tell if something is doing physical damage or magic damage without looking at the combat log. if an enemy is throwing fire than it definitely is doing magic damage, but when something is hitting the player with an energy looking attack and it turns out to by physical that is always a surprise.

[Undeadfire]

Infuriate is coded a bit weird most likely. When I play warrior it is definitely not in the designers intent to have the Inner Chaos get locked out during the charge window. That is to say, Inner Chaos shouldn't eat a charge from Infuriate. Same with Chaotic Cyclone.

Inner Release shouldn't consume on other GCDs either, it makes it really scuffed for P4S.

[Shurrikhan]

Infuriate is coded a bit weird most likely. When I play warrior it is definitely not in the designers intent to have the Inner Chaos get locked out during the charge window. That is to say, Inner Chaos shouldn't eat a charge from Infuriate. Same with Chaotic Cyclone.

...Despite that being the whole point of either? There are literally the only skills that can eat Nascent Chaos, which is the whole point of lv72 trait: "Infuriate grants the effect of Nascent Chaos, upgrading Decimate to Chaotic Cyclone. Upon reaching level 80, Nascent Chaos will also upgrade Fell Cleave to Inner Chaos."

Moreover, Inner Chaos is not locked out during any charge window. The only condition is that Inner Chaos and Chaotic Cyclone require the Nascent Chaos buff. That's it. If you're refering instead to their locking out Fell Cleave... that's just what one-time upgrades do, and the devs designed it specifically to be that.

You can argue that Warrior should instead have even less thought involved (since the timing control already exists via the two charges of Infuriate) but given that the trait works exactly for those two skills as it has for any other job with similar language, and that such plays off the earlier concept seen in Enhanced Infuriate, it is very clearly the developer's intent that Inner Chaos and Chaotic Cyclone act as they do.

If, say, you want to shore up Warrior's dps gap relative to DRK and GNB, the easiest course is obvious: tune the kit roughly that much higher. Don't go on a Xenopade asking that what little gameplay complexity remains to WAR be reduced just so Inner Chaos can be better aligned to raid buffs.

Inner Release shouldn't consume on other GCDs either, it makes it really scuffed for P4S.

Oh no! Dark Release is more flexible than WAR Release. Better fix that.

I jest. Being able to spend charges of IR later would at least add as much complexity as decreased punishment from using IR on anything else would remove, so I'm not against the idea, but it is funny that finally we have a clearcut example of where the "DRK version" is better.

[Undeadfire]

Oh no! Dark Release is more flexible than WAR Release. Better fix that.

I jest. Being able to spend charges of IR later would at least add as much complexity as decreased punishment from using IR on anything else would remove, so I'm not against the idea, but it is funny that finally we have a clearcut example of where the "DRK version" is better.

Delirium is miles better than Inner Release, not a joke. The cooldown can be activated early for raid buff timers and can freely use other GCDs, while for Inner Release, pop on raid buff and enjoy your day, making some timings really damn scuffed.

[TouchandFeel]

The more that I mull over the current DRK kit and try to identify the sources of its game-play pain points, the more I keep coming back to Blood Weapon and not for the reason that most would think of.

It's not the fact that it is duration based and not stacks, which it absolutely should be, but instead it's the fact that it is an ability that is meant to be a primary focal point of our rotation yet actually does little to nothing to change our rotation when it is used.
If you look at the other tanks, they for the most part have something that occurs roughly every 30s that noticeably alters what they are doing and what buttons they are pressing for their rotation. PLD switches between physical and magical rotations as they swap between Fight or Flight and Requiescat. GNB has Gnashing Fang to deviate from their standard weaponskill combo.

DRK doesn't get this with Blood Weapon though because, even though DRK has two rotation defining 60s abilities with Delirium and Blood Weapon, Blood Weapon doesn't change what you do with your rotation while you are using it, you just continue with the same weaponskill-combo rotation that you normally do. Because Blood Weapon doesn't really change the buttons you are pressing much at all, it results in you repeating the same combo rotation with no deviations for longer periods than other tanks, which lends credence to and potentially pinpoints the primary source behind the common complaint for DRK "being stuck just doing a 1-2-3 combo most of the time". Without Blood Weapon actively changing your rotation upon use, you really only have Delirium and that is only every 60s which is a long time.

If Blood Weapon were to actively change your rotation by doing something like enabling the use of some other abilities that consume its stacks and provide the resources instead of sticking to your basic weapon-skill combo, this could help create that necessary rotation deviation that would help players not feel like they are just pressing 1-2-3 ad nauseum.

Here's a quick off-the-cuff example to illustrate what I am talking about.
If when Blood Weapon is used it changes Unleashed into a separate AoE weaponskill that does X potency to the first target and 50% less to the remaining (to balance between single target and AoE) and consumes 1 stack of Blood Weapon while providing some amount of Blood and MP per stack consumed, and then Stalwart is changed into a different AoE weaponskill that does Y potency to the first target and 50% less to the remaining (you get the idea) and restores some resources just like the altered Unleashed but consumes all remaining stacks of Blood Weapon and provides some other bonus (like say some-self healing) that scales upwards per stack of Blood Weapon consumed. Yes I know this is similar to Req and Confiteor, it's just an example and the specifics don't have to be exactly what I laid out.
The point is that something like this where Blood Weapon directly changes the buttons you are pressing and the actions that you are taking, it will make the 60s basic rotation for DRK less monotonous.

This of course doesn't need to be the only potential change to improve DRKs' rotation and game-play, nor does it need to be the only aspect of change that Blood Weapon could or should get. However, I feel that it is something important to keep in mind when thinking about what the problems are that are contributing to the aspects of DRKs' game-play that players are finding to not be enjoyable.

[Kalaam]

So in a way Blood Weapon changing our weaponskills combo actions for new ones while active ?

[TouchandFeel]

So in a way Blood Weapon changing our weaponskills combo actions for new ones while active ?

Basically yes, but preferably not your standard Soul Eater 1-2-3 combo since that would likely result in the same buttons being pushed in the same way just with different set dressing which wouldn't really address the issue.

That is why I went with the two AoE abilities changing instead. The new abilities would need to be weaponskills of course and not spells like Unleashed and Stalwart to not mess with single-target rotations.
If it were to change/swap out the Soul Eater combo 1-2-3 actions, it would need to change out the sequence of presses somehow, like making it 1-1-2-2-3, 1-2-1-2-3 or something like that. It doesn't even need to be 5 actions long, it could be 6 and replace two full 3 part combos or 4 actions long or whatever. It would also have to be something that functions for both single-target and AoE situations.

But overall, yes, Blood Weapon changing some of the combo actions so that what buttons we are pressing in what order changes during it and are different from the rest of our standard rotation.

[shao32]

Sounds like Reaper shroud Mode to me but fixated to a recast and no oGCD gained on It.

At the end of the day if i have to address problems with Blood weapon i would say apart of his nerfs in recast and duration and his controversial efective use i say is most about all the skills that stop interacting with It like all the oGCD and Delirium.
Blood weapon wouln't be a problem if everything around It wasn't destroyed, It was a skill to suplement Darkside and MP control gameplay, now it's just and old nerfed skill that aport almost nothing to the overall Gameplay just like the rest on the painfully boring souleater downtime. Darkside and MP control are the things that need to be adrersed to make Blood weapon stop feeling bad with some of his nerfs reverted, not reinvent the skill on my opinión.