Dark Knight Megathread

[Oizen]

Simply just grant a small regen to oblation would make it a little better but not sure it would fix its issues.

The issue with oblation is it has basically no impact compared to what its competing with and its not really a skill DRK ever needed.
I think we can all agree that the design idea behind Oblation is that its mean to be paired with TBN, basically all the time, and its a really weak cooldown on its own.
It seems to me the devs thought they were being clever with its design, as people complain about TBN not breaking so if we buffed it that would happen even more.

The issue becomes "when am I supposed to use this?". Oblation is the 4th best mitigation cooldown you can pair with TBN. For anything serious you're likely going to want Shadowall for the 30%, and if thats on cooldown you're going to go with Rampart, or more likely Dark Mind with its 60s cooldown. Especially in the current savage tier, Dark Mind really outshines Oblation in any place you'd want to use it on yourself for basically any tank mechanic. It has the same cooldown, but 20% is just so much more noticable than 10% even with two charges.

All that leaves Oblation for is for throwing it on someone for their protection. Which I mean, its okay at that. TBN is going to be doing the heavy lifting if its a non tank you're trying to save, 10% is rarely going to be the difference maker there.
10% mitigation isn't nothing, but its not a lot. Worth using but its not satisfying, and in most scenarios feels like it can be ignored entirely in favor of just using TBN. Either the hit is strong enough to oneshot them through TBN, or TBN is enough on its own to dull the hit and save your target, there is a very, very small window where its required to use both to save someone.

And if you're putting it on the other tank, and they use their own mitigation, you're likely going to just be over-mitigating for no reason. So its useful, but if you're using it, you're already in sub-optimal positions. This honestly just lead to me throwing it out randomly during downtime for no other reason than I can. Like I use it in the 2nd half of P3S to take the damage from those teeth, but its not like it makes that any more comfortable for me even, its just a button I can press that feels like its almost doing nothing on its own. I've never found myself in a situation where I'm thinking
"man I'm taking a lot of damage here, good thing I have a charge of Oblation"

Its a shame, it has a cool animation, and I love tank shields you can throw onto other players, I just wish it did more, and I wish it was a skill worth using without factoring in the existence of TBN

[Archwizard]

Its a shame, it has a cool animation, and I love tank shields you can throw onto other players, I just wish it did more, and I wish it was a skill worth using without factoring in the existence of TBN

Plus I have to say, making it a regen not only overlaps with Aurora from a utility standpoint -- both share the same cooldown, "apply to ally" function, and lackluster "probably won't make a difference" strength as-is -- but... Oblation's animation is very clearly a protective shell of some kind. Even with a regen tacked on, the potency would probably be pathetic just so Aurora's "competitive" and it doesn't outshine the DR.

But going back to this point,

I think we can all agree that the design idea behind Oblation is that its mean to be paired with TBN, basically all the time, and its a really weak cooldown on its own.
It seems to me the devs thought they were being clever with its design, as people complain about TBN not breaking so if we buffed it that would happen even more.

It's an unusual case of "having your cake and eating it too," since it seems like the devs couldn't decide on whether to upgrade TBN on par with other tanks for fear of arousing the ire of players who struggle getting Dark Arts, and tried to "compromise" by adding Oblation as a separate function... that you're expected to pair with TBN anyway despite their disparate cooldowns, and contributes to our already significant double-weaving and button bloat.

The biggest oddity is that there were ways to implement a similar function without interfering with Dark Arts at all, as a potential upgrade to TBN itself rather than a separate button. (Whether to give it the new animation being entirely up to their discretion of course.)

For instance, just having a mitigation effect automatically activate on the target if/when the barrier breaks. A conditional sequence like this is already part of Living Dead, so it's not like it would be impossible to make -- they did it twice on one action in our kit already.
And without having to worry about making Dark Arts harder to get, they'd be free to amp up the mitigation as high as they saw fit should 10% prove insufficient compared to, just checking my notes here, the doubled effect and self-healing components other tanks received.

An alternative that was suggested to me before by Shurrikhan is to instead reduce the strength of the barrier to, say, 20% of max health but simultaneously apply a 20% DR (like SMN's barrier in PVP). It would provide the same relative strength of the existing TBN while the barrier's active (within 1% EHP anyway), but also extend its value once the barrier is shattered which is TBN's great weakness -- another total upgrade that doesn't threaten Dark Arts acquisition.

It might require a tiny bit of creative thinking, but if they focus on the barrier itself as the initial "extra defense for timing your block", they'd just have to extend the back half of other on-demands onto TBN to put us on par.

Admittedly I almost have to wonder if the reason they were skittish about upgrading TBN directly is because they couldn't think of another ability name to escalate off "The Blackest Night", but I imagine a far more practical reason is that TBN's "unique" cooldown and resource cost combination just makes it too difficult for them to balance against their projections for other on-demands. The fact that TBN can potentially be used 4x per minute versus Oblation's maximum of up to twice a minute (more in line with other oDs) is probably significant to that decision.

[Marxam]

It honestly didn't need to be anything more than just adding 10% mit alongside TBN and TBN increased to 10 secs to compensate for the added mitigation. All they did was make an already ogcd heavy job more annoying to play on controller.

[Archwizard]

It honestly didn't need to be anything more than just adding 10% mit alongside TBN and TBN increased to 10 secs to compensate for the added mitigation. All they did was make an already ogcd heavy job more annoying to play on controller.

... Admittedly I can sort of see why they didn't go that particular route, given that 10 sec duration on a 15 sec cooldown means you'll spend more time with it active than not if you use TBN on CD.

[Marxam]

they can always adjust the recast timer and increase it for balance or even have the oblation effect directly tied to TBN so its done when TBN expires, but imo the MP cost was always just enough of a deterrent to teach players the importance of always holding 3k mp. Just because it's on a short cd doesn't mean you always have the MP to use it when its up and I've seen enough DRK's dump all their mp in their burst only to have the healers carry them on the next mechanic because they didn't save 3k for a TBN.

However if TBN is up more often then theoretically, you would need less heals since most of the time you are taking 0 dmg till the shield pops putting it imo on par with WAR's BW in terms of sustain.

[Lyth]

I wish that they would just redesign DRK's mitigation effects so that they were are consistently flat damage reduction bubbles across the board (i.e. Oblation and Shadow Wall) to match the animations. You don't actually need to use %DR on every job, and it's a nice flavor choice.

[Vatom]

I wish that they would just redesign DRK's mitigation effects so that they were are consistently flat damage reduction bubbles across the board (i.e. Oblation and Shadow Wall) to match the animations. You don't actually need to use %DR on every job, and it's a nice flavor choice.

No Im tired of bubble parties but I agree with you flavor and cohesiveness is a great idea but NO MORE BUBBLES GRACIAS! (might have spelled that wrong lol)

[Marxam]

I wish that they would just redesign DRK's mitigation effects so that they were are consistently flat damage reduction bubbles across the board (i.e. Oblation and Shadow Wall) to match the animations. You don't actually need to use %DR on every job, and it's a nice flavor choice.

Honestly I think they should split the tanks in the same way they split the healers. You have have flat mitigation tanks, PLD/GNB (shield oath) and eHP tanks, WAR/DRK (Defiance). The bigger HP pool would buff TBN and would differentiate the tanks enough at a glance just by looking at their HP. It would also pair well with shield healers. Throwback to WAR/SCH synergy of the older expansions.

[Archwizard]

Honestly I think they should split the tanks in the same way they split the healers.

I'd think if they were going to split the tanks in any way, it would have been between Main Tanks and Off-tanks, like they planned when they added Gunbreaker.

[Griphyt]

i just need they change battle stance like cloud xd