Dark Knight Megathread

[RyuDragnier]

In that case I'd actually view it as a pretty big nerf considering the thing that makes TBN so good is its flexibility and low cooldown.

I personally despise TBN as it is now because it's the one thing holding DRK back because, as everybody keeps pointing out, it's the "best" unique due to its low cooldown. Remove that low cooldown, and suddenly it's no longer the best. Hell, it'd likely result in DRK getting actual things it needs without TBN being the excuse for why it gets nothing.

[Zairava]

No to TBN breaking giving Dark Arts. That has been the problem with TBN for the longest (it's a DPS loss if it doesn't break). DA is better off as its own button press.

Ultimately, this is what I actually want. I can brew up ideas on how to keep it's current form for days, but Dark Arts could and should come back as its own standalone ability, and at this point, TBN being on a 15s CD be damned.

If they are insistent on TBN staying on a 15s CD for cost-"reward", then simply refund as much mp as Dark Arts costs when the shield breaks (provided that DA has an mp cost)

[Shurrikhan]

Ultimately, this is what I actually want. I can brew up ideas on how to keep it's current form for days, but Dark Arts could and should come back as its own standalone ability, and at this point, TBN being on a 15s CD be damned.

I could hardly disagree more. Dropping its maximum frequency by 40% and/by removing a key component to its engagement? That'd be a considerable nerf to DRK's unique functionality, its power, and its gameplay. Hard pass.

I could see shifting that flexibility elsewhere or providing more means of granularity to it (e.g., assuming we had ways of far more rapidly recovering MP, having TBN consume a minimum of 1500 MP or up to 30% of current MP to provide a barrier of %HP equal to the % of maximum MP consumed, so that one could create anywhere from a 15% to 30% HP shield), but I see no problem with using a softer means of frequency-constraint atop a far shorter cooldown, in place of using just the standard/homogenous rigid 25s recast time.

[ItsUrBoi]

I don't know what the design idea for DRK is going into the next expansion but I'd certainly like to see more unique cooldowns and consolidated actions such as this:

Consolidation:
-> Changed Dark Mind to give 2 effects. One which gives 10% damage reduction and an additional one which gives 10% magic damage reduction. Then at level 82, this can upgrade into Oblation, increasing the magic damage reduction to 20% instead of 10%.
-> Bloodspiller turned into AoE and given damage fall off. Quietus removed, I highly doubt anyone would miss it.

New abilities:
-> Make Bloodspiller combo into another attack as a unique mechanic to DRK. PLD and GNB have combos, WAR has x3 Fell cleave -> Primal Rend, DRK could have something like: Bloodspiller -> new GCD. Delirium would just allow you to use x3 Bloodspillers, each fallowed up by this new GCD. You anyway do a full Souleater combo in raid buffs, which is weird, shouldn't it be your strongest GCDs?
-> A new cooldown, which would be similar to one of the older removed ones: Sole Survivor / Blood Price. A few ideas have been mentioned.
1. Sole Survivor:
Marks target. Attacks against marked target heal the DRK. Killing the target restores 20% of HP and MP. If target survives only HP is restored.
2. Bloodprice:
Idea 1. Upon activation compiles the amount of damage taken ( shielding counts ). At the end of the duration heal for 50% of compiled amount, or upon activating the ability again.
Idea 2. Marks nearby allies and enemies in a 15 yalm area around you with a buff. When marked units take damage, they drop small orbs. Activating the ability again draws in all orbs in a 30 yalm area around you but ends the effect early. Each enemy can drop up to 2 orbs in total, allies up to 1 in total per ability use.

[baklava151]

Pretty interesting to see that now that DRK is no longer unequivocally the top DPS tank, it has fallen behind even PLD on that site in number of parses. Part of that could also be the fact that not every TB is magical and inflicts a bleed like in Abyssos so you can't throw a bunch of mits at TBs and be fine, but it's still quite a jarring swing. Personally I don't care where it is in terms of DPS or number of parses and was planning on swapping to GNB before 6.4 even released, but I can see why people would want to avoid dealing with DRK's 2-minute weave hell when it doesn't net you the same results it did in previous tiers.

[Oizen]

I think its more of, why would you play DRK for damage, when you can play WAR for damage, a better invuln, better and more applicable raidwide mitigation, better party utility as a whole. Infact its kinda hard to think of content in this game where WAR isn't the best pick right now.

And when it comes to mitigation against Physical Damage, DRK's defensives are honestly pretty sub par, all it has that isn't standard is an extra 10% and TBN, Dark Mind and Missionary completely fall into irrelevance.

Like I haven't struggled to survive Tank Busters or anything, but mechs like Harrowing Hell really make you question if Dark Mind or Heart of Light really have to be locked to Magic only, especially when you look at how hilariously bloated and overtuned Shake it Off is, PLD is an incredibly clunky and questionable job, but its utility is there, DRK is more of a selfish tank to no end right now it seems.

Basically, the lack of damage was WAR's only real downside, and now thats gone.

[baklava151]

I think its more of, why would you play DRK for damage, when you can play WAR for damage, a better invuln, better and more applicable raidwide mitigation, better party utility as a whole. Infact its kinda hard to think of content in this game where WAR isn't the best pick right now.

That's partly what I was getting at, right now it's pretty solidly third in aDPS at most percentiles in each fight (except for P12S phase 1) so it's lost the one huge advantage it had last tier and the number of parses tanked immediately. Turns out having an identity staked in high DPS isn't a great idea when that could easily change within a patch and when everyone wants DPS to be tuned extremely tightly anyways.

Like I haven't struggled to survive Tank Busters or anything, but mechs like Harrowing Hell really make you question if Dark Mind or Heart of Light really have to be locked to Magic only, especially when you look at how hilariously bloated and overtuned Shake it Off is, PLD is an incredibly clunky and questionable job, but its utility is there, DRK is more of a selfish tank to no end right now it seems.

I don't see it struggling with TBs specifically, like there's been a few physical ones but it's still got plenty to deal with those. Plus I'm really missing TBN for the TB that's immediately followed by a tower in P10S because its short CD would be great for mitigating both, Heart of Corundum can't quite cover both hits. Or for covering the bleed that comes with the tower. It's just not gonna shine quite as much as it did last tier.

On the one hand, yeah both GNB and DRK are useless on Harrowing and it feels real bad, on the other hand it's the one mechanic out of an entire tier where their AoE is useless. Mitigating magic damage specifically is one thing I've always associated with DRK so it'd really suck to lose that flavor when it struggles on a single mechanic. I'm not saying that couldn't change in the future and we see more physical raidwides but I'd personally want to avoid changing it unless it becomes a huge issue.

[Lyth]

Damage balance problems aside, I think that raid mitigation on DRK needs to be revisited. In an environment in which PLD and WAR have raid damage reduction actions that works on all damage types, being a 'magic only' specialist is just another name for 'physical damage liability', and I think Harrowing nicely highlights that. The fact that Dark Missionary was released later than Divine Veil and Shake it Off, is magic only, is on the same recast, and was completely ignored as these two already overpowered actions were buffed is a bit of a joke.

If this was a WAR action, they would have forced a revision of the action to something overpowered in Shadowbringers itself. Squeaky wheel and all that.

[Oizen]

Damage balance problems aside, I think that raid mitigation on DRK needs to be revisited. In an environment in which PLD and WAR have raid damage reduction actions that works on all damage types, being a 'magic only' specialist is just another name for 'physical damage liability', and I think Harrowing nicely highlights that. The fact that Dark Missionary was released later than Divine Veil and Shake it Off, is magic only, is on the same recast, and was completely ignored as these two already overpowered actions were buffed is a bit of a joke.

If this was a WAR action, they would have forced a revision of the action to something overpowered in Shadowbringers itself. Squeaky wheel and all that.

I think its also notable that Shake and Veil are useful in all forms of content while misionary is a button that you'll only press in 8 man content.
Even if all they did was make it affect all damage, that would go a long way. Though honestly I'd also like them to just re-evaluate either Dark Missionary or Heart of Light and not make them literally the exact same skill

[Kabooa]

I think its also notable that Shake and Veil are useful in all forms of content while misionary is a button that you'll only press in 8 man content.
Even if all they did was make it affect all damage, that would go a long way. Though honestly I'd also like them to just re-evaluate either Dark Missionary or Heart of Light and not make them literally the exact same skill

In the pre-CrysCon days, Heart of Light spread your Brutal Shell to your party.

I'MJUSTSAYIN'THAT'SACOOLIDEA.

Thematic skill interaction that also serves the same purpose? Lets get some more o' that please.