Should Dark Knight get a Rework?

[Midareyukki]

Figurative language and semantics and such but... Dark Passenger was only a 30s CD, and was your most efficient use of MP after DA-C&S. Compared against the likes of Shadowbringer or C&S, you used it pretty often. It didn't give MP until after it stopped being a GCD (and not for a long while even then).

on Dark Passenger, it's a joke, dw. Basically rarely do people talk about DP
As for AD giving MP, yes. That's the point. It gives MP now, and that's the only thing it has in common with C&S in terms of effects. Because C&S is there for burst windows of damage that line up every minute, be they major or not. Abyssal Drain is a large AoE skill that provides sustainability.

Again, Abyssal Drain could not remain a GCD without killing Unleash.
Abyssal Drain could not remain at at-will AoE spender without killing Flood, which the ShB DRK dev(s) was/were apparently very attached to.
The only choice remaining was for AD to be on CD, whether as a GCD or an oGCD. Since it includes healing, they went with the more responsive option, an oGCD.
That's it. There was no confusion about what purpose it was primarily supposed to serve. Abyssal Drain itself did not heal. Dark Arts did. Most times you hit that skill was not for healing, but simply because AD dealt a third more damage than Unleash.

Uh... then I played DRK wrong because I basically only ever used it for healing. I know it took a Dark Arts use for it to work, which was expensive, but it felt well-worth it. But we had tools to easily get MP back, I never, ever, had MP issues on DRK doing that. Both on SB and HSW. And right now, it looks like a super expensive version of Bloodwhetting.

I get that they didn't want to kill other skills. But right now, when compared to other tanks, Abyssal Drain is the answer we have for sustainability. Because TBN sure isn't it; it's mitigation and it's a very strong shield, I won't lie. BUT it's not sustainability. Abyssal Drain can be on a cooldown, sure, and it should be. You're not meant to spam it, and not even WARs spam Bloodwhetting. They have a cooldown between each cast of it, and it "only" lasts 3 GCDs. But that's what Abyssal Drain should do. It shouldn't be something you do at will, yeah. I agree. But it being on a 60s cooldown just because it's tied to C&S is too much for what it does on an AoE pull. Especially when compared to other tanks.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. "Ok well, we can't have that, TBN and Oblation at the same time". And naturally we can't. I'm speaking in a vaccum, bc I'm not a dev and whatever input I have is going to be "whatever". Obviously adjustments must be made, and I'm not the best indicated for those. But DRKs should have some sustainability on AoE, and it being on a 1m long cooldown isn't exactly the best :x Because even with TBN and Oblation, DRK is still considered the squishiest tank. That's what all the other comments from other people so far have been saying.

I'm not actually sure what you intend to mean by "an equivalent". If combos are in the picture, we have an ST self-heal combo in Souleater. Else, if we wanted to equivalently allow MP spending to provide eHP as before, then the most direction would be to thus empower Edge and Flood while probably just axing AD outright.

Whether we do or not is kind of irrelevant... WAR doesn't have one on its AoE kit, but it does have Bloodwhetting which does it for them. Abyssal Drain used to be the equivalent: it was our AoE sustain. Carve and Spit was in no way attached to it whatsoever, and there's no good justification for it. Because, ok fine, they are now. But they weren't before, and doing that led to AD losing its purpose.

The equivalence was because I keep mentioning how we have skills that do similar things on single-target and on AoE. Well, as you said, Souleater is our sustaining combo on ST. Abyssal Drain was MP-unfriendly, but it still allowed you to spam it if you were on top of your cooldown game. But Carve and Spit? What does that have to do with AD? Why did they join the two?

And well, the use of the word "equivalent" is less for you, and more for Jeeqbit, which is where all this started. Because there's no need for AD to have a use in single-target content, just as much as Xenoglossy no longer has a use in single-target rotations, how Shoha II doesn't have a use in single-target rotations... Like. They don't have to. And that's fine. You wouldn't use Decimate in single-target. Some stuff is for ST fights, others are for AoE. The real issue comes with the practical use for each skill. C&S makes sense to be on a minute-long cooldown. AD makes sense to have a cooldown longer than Bloodwhetting bc of TBN and Oblation, but 1m long isn't it.