A few DRK abilities to which we will need quality of life changes to.

[Subery]

Hello! I am making a new thread about dark knight because it seems there is a lot of emotionally driven and even aggressive posts about the class. The purpose of this post is to bring a few abilities which urgently need a QoL change better into consideration while trying to be as brief, simple, neutral and objective as possible. This post will not take part for example dungeon balancing and so forth and is not supposed to be an exhaustive list by no means.

Short term changes:
1. Blood weapon. The skill seems to be affected by network connection, melding and other sources too much. For example, you must use it as a second oCD, meld enough skill speed to your gear and keep your uptime perfectly to get maximum potential off this ability. The best solution would be to make it stack based as delirium was made at the start of the expansion.

2. Living dead. This ability seems not in par with the other tanks' invulnerabilities. It does not provide much more utility compared to the risk it carries. I do not have much idea how to improve this, but it needs to be looked upon.

Long term changes:
1. The Blackest Night. Apart from the risky mana game mechanic it brings forth, it's also the must use ability at the start of dark knight opener, because has the potential to give you an additional Edge of Shadow for burst phase. This makes bosses, who start with a tank buster a bit inconsistent though, since you have already used The Blackest Night at this point.


This bring this representation of the needed changes to a close. Thank you.

[Seraphor]

Opening with a TBN just for the Edge of Shadow proc is a false economy, it's not "free", you've still spent 3000MP, and unless that mitigation is giving the healers more DPS it's pointless. As no other tanks are using their 'on demand' mitigation in the opener, I think healers are fine.

I do think TBN needs a bit of a buff though, considering the other tanks 'on demand' mitigations skills all got something very significant added. I was thinking something along the lines of:
Once TBN has expired, another buff is applied "The Darkest Dawn" (name TBC) which reduces incoming damage by 30% for 6 seconds if TBN was consumed, or by 10% for 6 seconds if it was not consumed.

This would give DRK a little more sustained mitigation for use in dungeon pulls, which is where it's currently weakest.


As for Living Dead, I would probably give it a couple new effects:
1. When under the Walking Dead effect, all abilities and weaponskills regenerate HP equal to 20% of the damage dealt. (stacks with other effects e.g. Souleater)
2. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 50% is restored, you will be inflicted with the Brink of Death effect. If less than 50% is restored, you will be KO'd.

This would A. make it much easier for a healer to heal you up by reducing the amount they need to heal, and B. may even under the right circumstances (with well timed Souleaters, Abyssal Drain, Bloodspiller and Edge of Shadow use, and maybe an odd Choco Cure for good measure) allow you to keep yourself alive, but suffer from Brink of Death as if you had been KO'd, but while not actually KO'ing you.


Rather than making Blood Weapon yet another stack based duration buff, why not just have it add 50 Blood Gauge by itself, instead of having every weapon skill give an extra 10? Then it will instantly half-fill the bar, and is only used for MP regen.

[Shurrikhan]

I do think TBN needs a bit of a buff though, considering the other tanks 'on demand' mitigations skills all got something very significant added.

*Points at Oblation.*

As for Living Dead, I would probably give it a couple new effects:
1. When under the Walking Dead effect, all abilities and weaponskills regenerate HP equal to 20% of the damage dealt. (stacks with other effects e.g. Souleater)
2. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 50% is restored, you will be inflicted with the Brink of Death effect. If less than 50% is restored, you will be KO'd.

This still seems needlessly complicated. The skill has a longer cooldown and shorter duration than Holmgang. Just axe the Doom/duration-shortening effect entirely and, if it is to retain a longer CD than Holmgang, slap life-steal atop it. Then, with a 5-minute cooldown, you might at least be able to do what a 4-minute cooldown and part of an "on demand" could.

Rather than making Blood Weapon yet another stack based duration buff, why not just have it add 50 Blood Gauge by itself, instead of having every weapon skill give an extra 10? Then it will instantly half-fill the bar, and is only used for MP regen.

So, DRKishoten? I mean, that's fine, but I don't see why that'd be any better than stacks?

Similarly, if Blood Weapon's still going to have the same CD as Delirium anyways... why not just wrap the effect into Delirium by making it upgrade into the latter?

Every 'free' 10 Blood is worth about 37.6 potency. Each % of (or, 100) additional/'free' MP is worth 15.3 potency, putting current Blood Weapon at around 648 potency value if it gets in 5 hits. An additional 10 Blood and 1200 MP per strike under Delirium would carry a very similar 663.6 potency without having to deal with any awkward fractional Blood counts (as per a total of 45 under 15 per strike, etc.). Or, drop the MP gain per Delirium hit a bit and increase C&S's contribution. Whichever.

[Kalaam]

I'd rather not lose Blood Weapon's animation. It's one of the coolest we have had.

[Subery]

Opening with a TBN just for the Edge of Shadow proc is a false economy, it's not "free"

I edited my post for better understandability. I meant the proc itself, as it costs no mana. When you have filled up your mana for burst phase, it will reward you one additional Edge of Shadow for it ^^

[Rufalus]

How about no invuln, but give it a massive shield instead. That makes it more unique. You don't have any ability to pause damage occuring, but you've got like a super blackest night on a long cooldown.

I don't like gnb's invuln move either. Could replace that with something unique like a 400% increase to heals received for a short duration.

[Weetzlo]

*Points at Oblation.*

Oblation TBN compares most closely with Holy Sheltron.

HS
-Charges in a little as 20 seconds
-4 seconds of 32% damage mitigation
-4 seconds after that of 20% mitigation
-1000 potency of healing

OTBN
-60 second charge time
-[Roughly] 1500 Potency Shield
-10 seconds of 10% mitigation

I love DRK, think people are exaggerating the squishyness, and even the Oblation is slept on, but it's not "something major" by any stretch

[TouchandFeel]

Oblation TBN compares most closely with Holy Sheltron.

I think that really the main discrepancy between Oblation+TBN and the short recast defensives of the other tanks is the frequency that Oblation is available. Having it on a 60s recast, even with 2 charges, means that at most you are getting the approximate equivalent of those other abilities half as frequently, plus a flex use because of the extra charge.
I really feel that Oblation should have it's recast reduced and potentially have an increase to it's mitigation. If keeping the 10% mitigation, a 30s recast would make it relatively equitable to the ~25s recast of the other tank abilities. If the mitigation was increased to say 15%, then perhaps a 45s recast.
If Oblation were buffed a bit and players got better about layering their defensive abilities, I think that most of the complaints on DRK "feeling squishy" would likely dissipate.

Just axe the Doom/duration-shortening effect entirely and, if it is to retain a longer CD than Holmgang, slap life-steal atop it. Then, with a 5-minute cooldown, you might at least be able to do what a 4-minute cooldown and part of an "on demand" could.

I agree that just removing the "or you die" and "healing cancels the invuln" aspects would probably be the easiest and most straight forward way to make Living Dead far more user-friendly. It does leave it a bit too much like Holmgang and honestly a tad bit boring in my opinion.

While there is likely an amount of intrinsic bias involved, my favorite rework idea for Living Dead is the one that I proposed a while back.

Lvl.50: Danse Macabre (Replaces Living Dead)
Ability –Range: Self - Cast: Instant – Recast: 300s
Recovers HP to full and renders you impervious to most attacks for a duration of 10s.
Additional Effect: Afflicts the Dark Knight with Death’s March.
- Death’s March effect: Gradually damages the Dark Knight over 10s for a total of their maximum HP. This damage cannot reduce the Dark Knight below 1 HP

Basically providing a psuedo reverse Superbolide that heals you to max and then damages you over the duration of the invuln, leaving you at 1hp if you don't get any healing.

[Agner]

It's one of the coolest we have had.

So losing it would be par for the course!

[Undeadfire]

How about no invuln, but give it a massive shield instead. That makes it more unique. You don't have any ability to pause damage occuring, but you've got like a super blackest night on a long cooldown.

This ^

Invulns have actually been breaking raids for a while, recently discovered a mechanic in P3S can just pop Invuln of both tanks and everyone else does nothing, easy pass. Honestly wouldn't complain if they removed Invulns.