Dark Knight Megathread

[Shurrikhan]

The only issue that might rise is the spawning animation delay of Esteem, to counter this Square Enix can make use of Esteem's gauge timer : when you press Living Shadow, the indicator does not appear instantly, it only appears when Frey is ready to copy your GCDs. Esteem can copy 7 GCDs so that you don't have to worry about using a GCD action too early or waiting for the timer to appear in case you use one action that is weaker potency as soon as he is actually read. Esteem's time can be 22 seconds long, so that you have enough time to use your actions.

The first seems easily fixed, yeah. But if you have 20 seconds of actual/real duration, wouldn't you want to have it close skills at the rate their coming out, not on the 3-second tick rate? At that point, with any Skill Speed, you're looking at 9 Living Shadow cloned-GCDs under the effect, no? (Not just 7 in 21|22 seconds.)

I'm not really into the idea of making it a Pet job.
Feels like if the job was going to be that it would need to have elements of that before lv 80, it would just come out of no where for people leveling DRK.

I agree, even if I don't feel that simply being able to direct Living Shadow with one's actions, especially if at no increase to button cost would be akin to suddenly making DRK a "pet job".

Would this feel better to you if there were similar interactions earlier, such as being able to leave a dummy of sorts via a revised Shadowskin and perhaps to swap positions with it or "souls" split off of enemies via Carve and Spit (each via a follow-up action made available with those same buttons once the initiating ability is on CD)?

I guess my idea for it would honestly be to have it's actions play into your resources more,
You should get Health/mp from its Abyssal, you should get 600 mp from its Carve and spit, maybe while its out it can generate Blood and MP,
and in turn give DRK more things to spend Blood and especially MP on.

So just making the individual discrete abilities Living Shadow performs bear their full tangible effects (Blood, MP, HP)? It'd lack the control of the previously given more generic resource/damage amp ideas given before, but still would be an obvious improvement, yeah. Sounds decent.

Now should we combine the idea of having it generate resources with copying your abilities, that be something to talk about, pooling certain resource generating moves into that window to get a fat return and even more explosive burst window.

Most of the "old-Bunshin amp" or "%damage/resource buff" ideas since early in the thread involved resource gain as well as to have a more tangible impact. Are there any difference between what you're looking for and, say, just having the Living Shadow deal 20% of the copied skills' damage and 50% of its resource generation?
* (Or... 15% damage and 100% added resource generation, though that much resource gen might encourage avoiding not only Hard Slash/Unleash, but also regular Bloodspillers during that window because the Edge-potency of more Syphons could outweigh the damage bonus, etc.)

I pretty much expect the Salt and Darkness approach to it come 7.0 though, and probably more Enhanced Living Shadow traits to upgrade existing skills it uses to whatever upgrades come in 7.0.

A reasonable and therefore depressing guess. I wish those things didn't so often go together.

If you want to play super useless semantics, [Living Shadow is] a ranged oGCD DoT.

Okay, let's put it this way: On paper, it's a ranged oGCD, CD-locked, gauge-spending DoT.

• In practice, though, it's being an oGCD is irrelevant because that single GCD saved under damage windows doesn't significantly and disproportionately improve potency in window. But it could matter... if in a slightly different context.
• In practice, it doesn't matter that it's ranged, because it can't remove range requirements from any portion of your melee uptime. But it could, even if only faintly, if it weren't oGCD.
• In practice, it leverages nothing in its spending gauge because it shares that cost with literally every Blood spender; it merely causes one to be careful not to overspend Blood before the 2-minute mark (which... you'd have passively margined anyways because BW/Del ca no longer overcap you from less than 80 Blood and you always save up to that point for the 2-min cycle... because it's the two-minute cycle). But that gauge could matter if it were used differently or even... used a different gauge that itself behaves differently.
• Heck, if the underlying mechanic of the summon were slightly revised (allowing it to swap targets, allowing its hit-rate instead of merely its damage to scale with Skill Speed, etc.), it could actually be a summon, not just a DoT.

Those are the characteristics we're trying to make real --visible even in practice-- through those Living Shadow suggestions, no? We have its design intent. Now we need to make that real/actually able to be leveraged, because for now its actual usable characteristics are indistinguishable from any other CD-locked DoT.

[Zairava]

I agree, even if I don't feel that simply being able to direct Living Shadow with one's actions, especially if at no increase to button cost would be akin to suddenly making DRK a "pet job".

Would this feel better to you if there were similar interactions earlier, such as being able to leave a dummy of sorts via a revised Shadowskin and perhaps to swap positions with it or "souls" split off of enemies via Carve and Spit (each via a follow-up action made available with those same buttons once the initiating ability is on CD)?

Aside of the fact we seem...not on board with making DRK a pet job, I think it would be pretty off-putting regardless. Especially considering that our Darkside is something we're supposed to be able to manipulate as one of the main sources of our power, and it should feel like we progressively get better at it(Not that the job designers currently do a good job of making sure it feels like it since the Shadowbringers culling.) with being able to either summon your Living Shadow, or fuse it with yourself for raw power per our suggestions in prior posts, being an/the ultimatum.

Most of the "old-Bunshin amp" or "%damage/resource buff" ideas since early in the thread involved resource gain as well as to have a more tangible impact. Are there any difference between what you're looking for and, say, just having the Living Shadow deal 20% of the copied skills' damage and 50% of its resource generation?
* (Or... 15% damage and 100% added resource generation, though that much resource gen might encourage avoiding not only Hard Slash/Unleash, but also regular Bloodspillers during that window because the Edge-potency of more Syphons could outweigh the damage bonus, etc.)

I feel like this possibly could be remedied if the 100% added resource generation required you to actually have the combo going. (so...say you activate Living Shadow, the 100% resource generation on Syphon Strike, Souleater, and Stalwart Soul would not be given to you unless you have the combo bonus which gives the base generation in the first place)

That being said, I think even 20% bonus damage +50% resource generation would feel good.

They could also just make certain actions upgraded when Living Shadow is activated and provide the bonuses when used when the combo conditions are met. (said actions being Syphon Strike, Souleater, Bloodspiller...the works) I feel, however, that the 20% bonus damage should apply regardless.

This is more or less how it would work:
Upon activating Living Shadow

• All abilities have an increased 20% potency for 20s (or 21/22s to make it ping friendly)
• Syphon Strike, Souleater, Unleash, Stalwart Soul, Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain, BloodSpiller/Quietus have a 50% or 100% increased resource generation for its duration. (MP,HP, Blood Gauge)

[ItsUrBoi]

I think they should make the job more engaging by going away from copied Warrior design. Warrior is well designed because all the skills don't just "do damage" and that's it, they interact even if in little ways such as increasing your Shake it off strength, reducing your Infuriate cooldown or by maximizing your Surging Tempest damage buff so you do as many Storm Paths as possible.

The easiest changes they could do to improve on the current state of DRK would probably be:

• Make Delirium grant a special combo. PLD has 4 actions, GNB has 3, DRK could get a 5 action long combo. Or if DRK has no budget since Stormblood since Shadowbringers made it a Warrior copy and Endwalker memed it a bit too, then just give it 2 new actions going off of Bloodspiller.
  
  Move Dark Missionary anywhere below level 70 please. Why does GNB have it but DRK doesn't in UCOB/UWU?
  
  Change Dark Mind to grant 10% damage reduction. It upgrades to Oblation at level 82 granting another 20% magic damage reduction. It really hurts having to triple weave TBN, Dark Mind, Oblation and all the offensive oGCDs.
  
  Move Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain to the GCD, with a cooldown of 20 seconds. The first fixes the fact that you have nothing to do on the job between burst windows, and the second fixes your dungeon sustain as you can use the button more often.
  
  Add a healing skill. Examples can be to add "Blood price" which lasts for 10 seconds and stores up a portion of the damage you take. At the end of the duration heals you for stored amount, or upon activating the ability again.
  
  Get rid of Quietus. Bloodspiller combo can have AoE fall off.

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like this possibly could be remedied if the 100% added resource generation required you to actually have the combo going.

The problem of having +100% generation but only +10% or so damage would apply regardless of whether it requires combos. Don't Syphon and Soul eater require the combo to generate resource anyways?

No, the issue I'm referring to is if, say, Syphon normally grants a sixth of an Edge and an Edge deals 460 potency, then that's 77 potency more afforded (85 if used in-window) via that doubled resource generation (compared to only 28 from the damage buff itself), while our GCDs that hit hardest in themselves would actually be less affected (only 50 bonus potency from using Bloodspiller, which would beat out only Hard Slash/Unleash/Unmend). As such, our big hitting GCDs... would then be the second-lowest priority attacks to use within that window.

That's still not a problem per se, but it could be a little unintuitive or mathematic to want to prioritize GCDs spent on Syphon Strike or Souleater over (especially, non-Delirium) Bloodspillers.

:: Of course, nerfs to Edge's/MP-spenders' portion of total damage or making Bloodspillers grant MP regardless of Delirium would already mitigate much of that, though +20% dmg | +50% resource would still probably be the better balance.

(or 21/22s to make it ping friendly)

Final nitpick: At that long of durations, adding a second or, especially, two won't likely make the skill any more "ping-friendly" unless you cap the total number of hits, at which point you're ultimately just neutering Skill Speed's contribution to the skill.

• At 20 seconds and a 2.48s GCD (about as low as you can regularly find), you're still getting 9 hits cloned by Living Shadow, with more than 1.3 seconds of uptime loss required in order to lose a GCD.
  
• On the other hand, that means that at 22 seconds, a 2.44-GCD DRK could get out a 10th GCD with no leeway.
  
• 21 is a decent middle-ground, as one has to drop all the way to a 2.32 GCD to get an extra hit out of it, so there's little reason to push to the next point at which one could in an extra hit at zero leeway.
  
• 19 is similarly decent, as that means 8 hits with 1.5 seconds' leeway (and needing to drop to a 2.24 GCD to get in a 9th hit) but would likely somehow seem a stranger number than 21. /shrug

Ultimately, it won't matter much. 20 seconds is plenty ping-friendly unless someone has gone well out of their way to avoid even the slightest bit of Skill Speed, while by 22, you encourage a slightly lower GCD and lose all leniency.

[Zairava]

The problem of having +100% generation but only +10% or so damage would apply regardless of whether it requires combos. Don't Syphon and Soul eater require the combo to generate resource anyways?

No, the issue I'm referring to is if, say, Syphon normally grants a sixth of an Edge and an Edge deals 460 potency, then that's 77 potency more afforded (85 if used in-window) via that doubled resource generation (compared to only 28 from the damage buff itself), while our GCDs that hit hardest in themselves would actually be less affected (only 50 bonus potency from using Bloodspiller, which would beat out only Hard Slash/Unleash/Unmend). As such, our big hitting GCDs... would then be the second-lowest priority attacks to use within that window.

That's still not a problem per se, but it could be a little unintuitive or mathematic to want to prioritize GCDs spent on Syphon Strike or Souleater over (especially, non-Delirium) Bloodspillers.

:: Of course, nerfs to Edge's/MP-spenders' portion of total damage or making Bloodspillers grant MP regardless of Delirium would already mitigate much of that, though +20% dmg | +50% resource would still probably be the better balance.

Yeah that makes more sense then whatever I was babbling about.

If they were take this route, I suspect they would take the +20% damage and 50% more generation anyway, as 100% would be massive and possibly lead to issues (mostly in our big burst. My biggest assumption is that we would probably have much more mana than we rightfully need while bursting if edge/flood are to remain our only mp spenders outside of TBN.Though they could also, ya know, bring back Dark Arts). I think it goes without saying that regardless of how high they make the added resource generation, they are still going to nerf the mp spenders potency and raise others anyway.

[ItsUrBoi]

A decent idea ( or so I think) for Living Shadow would be if it were a GCD, and the spawning animation is severely speed up so that he spawns and is ready to attack within 2.35 seconds or roughly so. Then he'd just copy all the GCDs and off GCDs you do for a reduced potency. In the Shadowbringers media tour everyone was really happy to see Frey seemingly copying your actions and it looked cool. It would also make more sense for the red job gauge with seconds counting down. It would also add a bit more depth to the job as you now need to get as many GCDs and off GCDs in that duration as possible.

This would also allow the developers to remove the trait that makes sure Esteem uses Shadowbringer instead of Flood of Shadow. Its a bad trait, if he copied all your abilities / actions then there'd be no need for that and it could be replaced with something actually usefull.

The trait that increases his damage, makes sense if the need for different dps values from lvl 80 to lvl 90 content changes.

Living Shadow being a GCD allows for a speed up animation so that Esteem is up and ready to copy your actions before your next GCD is ready. He could only copy GCDs to make sure you do not use an off GCD immediately in the GCD after Living Shadow and miss Esteem copying it as he is still spawning.

[Asetoni]

I don't really like this idea of making Living Shadow a damage buff (through a straight +X% or by having it mimic your moves), because it wouldn't really change anything at all about how the class is played now. You already hold resources and dump everything at the 2 minute burst anyway, and Living Shadow is already the first button you wanna press there because of the spawn time. Like this could be added to the game today and the rotation would stay exactly the same. Literally all it would do is shackle DRK to the 2 min burst if the game ever moves away from the 2 min meta in future expansions (cope, I know, but let me believe).

And honestly one of the cool things about ShB/EW DRK is the flexibility in its damage. You ideally put stuff in burst, but if there's a phase you need to end or a mob you need to kill (in ultimates or criterion savage), you can dump your resources early much easier than any of the other tanks. Ofc you could still do this even if Living Shadow was a damage buff, but it'd be more punishing to do so.

I do like the resource generation idea more, but that would also need to be done in a way that doesn't just ultimately result in an additional Edge/Bloodspiller in burst.

[RyuDragnier]

The problem is there isn't much they CAN do with Living Shadow. If it's a copy of us, then it needs to copy us completely (like Bunshin), there's no real other way it would make sense to use for. And a tank with Bunshin? That's not only unique, it also fits how aggressive DRK are supposed to be in battle (and fits our old skill speed selves from HW).

[Oizen]

I do like the resource generation idea more, but that would also need to be done in a way that doesn't just ultimately result in an additional Edge/Bloodspiller in burst.

Its why I want to see DRK get more magic and MP spenders outside of Edge/Flood/TBN. Whether that be the return of Dark Arts, changing existing skills, or adding new ones in 7.0.
In this hypothetical scenario, It would also be interesting of the TBN break stack just acted as a 1 free use of any MP skill (except TBN) instead of being exclusively for Edge/Flood.

Good example to me would be take Abyssal Drain to either a GCD or oGCD (uncoupled from C&S), give it an MP cost, and make its heal much fatter, but lower its damage potency, making it DRK's healing option comparable to other tanks, but at the cost of not being the AoE Damage option compared to Flood.

I'm really not into the idea of removing the MP cost of stack effect from TBN, I'd rather see it expanded. I just think its inherently more interesting than the use on CD nature of something like Bloodwhetting.

[Zairava]

I thought of another "out of there" hardball.

Let's say hypothetically they got rid of tank stance and bake the aggro generation in.

What if...They brought back Darkside as an actual toggle? I'll elaborate on my idea here, it's heavily inspired by Black Mage. It's going to be a curveball that I'm not sure anyone would want as a general direction.

• Remove all MP spenders (except maybe TBN, or Dark Arts if by some miracle they bring it back) but make Darkside gradually wane down your MP with 0 auto-generation with the boon of 15-20% more damage. Essentially HW Darkside
• Grit now functions as a MP restoration tool, when you exhaust your possible MP usage, you would activate Grit and it increases both your auto-generation of MP and (maybe) the generation from Blood Weapon by X amount.
• Potencies (or the % of added damage from Darkside) would be adjusted so that Grit is not the meta stance if the mana cost(s) on anything offensive (or neutral) is/are kept.

This is just an idea that popped into my brain some minutes ago, a concept even. It would be interesting to see people's thoughts on it though