DRK changes that would make it really fun to play

[Ryskim]

DRK has become so utterly simple and repetitive in its rotation (like most tanks, really). Why not make tanks more satisfying to play?

Giving DRK some actual dark magic spells as in FFXI would make the job a lot more awesome and interesting, while also tactical. Here are my ideas.

Remember: it's just an overview and nothing more.


DRK suggested changes:

Hard Slash Combo:
Replace with Power Slash combo. Much more good looking and satisfying to use. Power slash still absorbs damage as HP, same as Souleater.

Unleash / Stalwart Soul:
Increase radius and damage via passive. Otherwise untouched.

Grit:
Untouched.

Unmend:
Untouched.

Flood of Darkness/Shadow:
Replace with Dark Driver.

Blood Weapon:
Change effect: Increase damage at the cost of HP per hit. Duration: 20s. 90s CD.

Edge of Darkness/Shadow:
Reduce MP consumption to 1500. 25s CD. Still procs when TBN is consumed (CD resets to zero and it's free).

Dark Mind:
Remove.

Living Dead:
Reduce CD to 120s. Increase duration to 15s.

Carve and Spit:
Remove.

Bloodspiller:
Completely rework animation to make it more satisfying to use. Otherwise untouched.

Quietus:
Increase damage to 350, improve FX and animation, and slightly increase radius.

Delirium:
Untouched.

TBN:
Rework animation and FX. Otherwise untouched.

Dark Missionary:
Remove.

Living Shadow (and all its passives):
Remove.

Salted Earth/Salt and Darkness:
Reduce CD to 60s. Increase radius slightly, increas potency to 150 and duration to 20s. Absorbs a small portion of HP of enemies inside the area each second.

Abyssal Drain:
AoE HP absorb. 3.5s spellcasting animation. Cost: 6000MP. Same CD.

Oblation:
Untouched.

Shadowbringer:
Increase potency to 900.

Shadow Wall:
Untouched.

Reprisal:
Becomes a DRK-exclusive skill like before and not a role action. Increase duration to 20s. Damage dealt by nearby enemies reduced by 15%.

ADD:

Drain / Drain II (via passive):
Dark magic spell. 600 magic potency damage while absorbing part of the damage as HP. 3s spellcasting animation. Cost: 3000MP. 60s CD. Does not work on undead and automatons.

Aspir / Aspir II (via passive):
Dark magic spell. 3s spellcasting animation. 60s CD. Does not work on undead and automatons.

Absorb-STR:
Dakr magic spell. Reduces enemy STR while boosting your own. 3.5s spellcasting animation. 60s CD. Cost: 4000MP. STR buff duration: 30s.

Absorb-ACC/DEX:
Dark magic spell. Reduces enemy DEX/Acc while boosting your own and increasing critical rate. 60s CD. Cost: 4000MP. DEX/Acc buff duration: 30s.

[Archwizard]

Oh... oh no. There's so many imbalanced things here, and a few that would make the job feel so much worse.

Like, you want to add MULTIPLE 3s and 3.5s casting animation spells to a tank? Spells longer than the GCD, which means you would need to slot in Spell Speed just to make them bearable, on a tank, in ADDITION to its Skill Speed requirements?
... It would overnight create the argument not to combine those two stats into one, that's for sure... but gearing would be a nightmare...
You understand that PLD can make its spells instant, right? And generally prefers to since you can't Block, Parry, or move while casting? And also needs that time to weave in oGCDs like its mitigation? And even its hardcasts are half as long as what you propose?
Like, with the number of spells you put in, did you even consider how much of each fight a DRK would have to spend casting? I see 5 cast times here on a 60 sec CD, so ignoring MP for a second, that's over a quarter of your rotation every fight.
And you haven't even included a trait like PLD gets to be immune to interruption if something hits you too hard, which... tank.
The only reason you would ask for this is if you're a RPR main who loves hard-casting Communio at the end of Lemure Shroud and want every MP spender to feel like Communio... and forgot that Communio isn't even 3.5 sec cast. The only Black Mage spell that long is Flare, and at least they get Triplecast from that deal; ask them how they feel about long cast times and I swear to you they would never say "I'd play DRK if it had spells like us and no Swiftcast."

Every single MP skill* is on a CD, so if you manage to overcap on MP or don't have a chance to spend 3 seconds casting, tough luck. The MP costs themselves are all over the place and seem pretty arbitrary in spite of their CDs matching. Most of them are also on the GCD to boot... because they have a cast time.

* Except for Dark Driver... because you didn't explain at all what "Dark Driver" is, since it's not some classic skill for the job or recognizable attack like DRGs got from Nidhogg. The only thing that comes up from multiple web searches is that it's the title you get from "A Tankless Job 1 (Dark Knight)".
Is it some DRK-style Stardiver? ... Did you mean Dark Passenger?

A damage buff that costs HP had promise... until you mentioned that it costs HP on every hit.
Y'know how Bloodwhetting can fully heal a WAR in under 4 sec in AoE? Imagine that in the opposite direction.
What happens if the buff would lower you below 1 HP -- do you die? Does the buff fall off and waste the remainder of the CD?

Living Dead on 250% faster CD and 50% longer duration would be far and away the most overpowered Invuln available to any tank, since it would be Holmgang on steroids.
Admittedly Living Dead (and Holmgang)'s effects can probably offset the chance of Blood Weapon killing you, but then we're talking about popping your Invuln as part of your damage rotation, aren't we?

Your Absorb skill suggestions are probably the biggest offenders -- the EW change to Feint was partly inspired by how mob damage is unclear about its contributions from Strength vs Dexterity (we only just got confirmation on a QoL change to even see Physical vs Magical damage), and now you want to separate those effects? Like, do you happen to know offhand which bosses use Dex to attack?
The stats you have for Reprisal are completely bonkers, since it has the same potency as Passage (and a slightly longer duration to boot) at no uptime loss to the DRK.
And, for the kicker, you removed Dark Missionary in order to emphasize the Absorb spells and Reprisal as DRK's group-wide mitigation -- neat on paper, but what do you do when the enemy can't be targeted? Or when the enemy is completely Immune? Hell, what do you do if your roulette gives you two DRK tanks who can't stack the same debuff on the boss? Because those are issues with the existing Reprisal.

The only things I've seen in here that seem to nudge towards "making the job feel more fun to play" are just the notes to have some skills "rework the animation to feel more satisfying to use", which... isn't any specific in most cases and doesn't really impact gameplay.
Not to mention, personally I think Bloodspiller looks great as-is, it just doesn't feel proportionally impactful cuz it's just a weaker knockoff of Fell Cleave.

[Flay_wind]

Dood, which part of the suggested changes is supposed to be fun?
That would cause so much unnecessary headache i am not even sure where to start. 3s casting spells? On a TANK? What if you need to move? Or mitigate next attack? Or you're forcefully moved by a knockback effect? What if you need to look in a specific direction? All of these would interrupt the cast.
You want to remove Dark Mind and Dark Missionary and leave OBLATION untouched? I'd want some of what you're smoking.

Edit: Also what were you trying to achieve with this?
Abyssal Drain:
AoE HP absorb. 3.5s spellcasting animation. Cost: 6000MP. 90s CD.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Putting aside the sentiments I share with the other two...

2min Living Dead? Really?

Im not against HP-Spender DRK and I firmly believe it is possible to design a tank around that, but this isn't the way to do it.

[Rithy255]

I'll just list out some things I disagree with, don't get me wrong I want Dark knight changed but not like this...

1. Removed Actions, Dark Mind, I'm generally not opposed to this but I think it should just apply a "10%" or something to physical damage while being slightly stronger aganist magic damage so it would still be a useful action, Carve and spit, yeah I don't really mind that being removed, Dark Missionary? nah it doesn't need to be removed I'll get onto your reprisal change later... Living shadow, I mean sure? I don't like the ability personally feels like a damage over time that walks around.

2. Changed Actions.... Living dead being on 120? what Invuls shouldn't be below anything that current warrior has, 120? no. They need to change PLD's invul more then anything to be shorter in general invuls need some look at but not made very short, Blood weapon... No Hp drain really doesn't work on a tank, the tank will always use the HP drain and expect the healers or other tank to pick up their mess eating up their resources so the drk can get max damage, Hard slash combo? I rather DRK get something unique to it's rotational gameplay (Dark Arts? perhaps...) something that sets DRK away from the warrior but more busy playstyle. Edge of darkness? I'm sorry I don't really think your changes here make sense. Reprisal? No First off why remove it from all tanks apart from Dark knight? Tanks having at least 2 raid wide mitigations are a good thing, I personally believe they could/should even get stronger raid wides and play a stronger part in helping healers.

3. "Unchanged" stuff TBN, I personally think this skill needs a rework I don't like not being able to use it in "non optiomal" or situations where it wont break, a lot of the time during autos the boss decides to cast and it can be annoying, I understand people generally like the nature of this ability but I personally think it just punishes the DRK for using a defensive skill while the other tanks get to use for free. I feel like DRK can be a interesting tank without a janky CD. Oblation? also I don't like this ability feels underwhelming to me...


I think the issue I have is generally these changes don't really consider how the current game works and why you can't have a tank who drains their own Hp or a tank with a 120 CD invul, Instead I think giving Dark Knight a more Interesting rotation, working on skills and defensives to stand out but also be useful and not punishing (perhaps rewarding for correct use cases would be better), To be fair Dark knight is a powerful tank in the meta right now but It doesn't mean people have problems with it.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I'd like to point out that Oblation is surprisingly versatile, which is the main strength of the cooldown.

Too many times did I have moments where I can freely chuck it at a Caster or Healer, distribute it among myself and my co-tank or essentially have an upgraded Dark Mind when pairing it (same CD is nice).

It is not a great cooldown in solitude, but it is an excellent cooldown paired with literally anything else. I used to think it needs a bit more, which it still might be, but honestly it will be difficult to not break the skill.

If I may agree on one thing though, it is kind of flavourless other than being a chuckable mitigation, but this is very common for tanks nowadays with exception to their short CDs.

[Rithy255]

I'd like to point out that Oblation is surprisingly versatile, which is the main strength of the cooldown.

Too many times did I have moments where I can freely chuck it at a Caster or Healer, distribute it among myself and my co-tank or essentially have an upgraded Dark Mind when pairing it (same CD is nice).

It is not a great cooldown in solitude, but it is an excellent cooldown paired with literally anything else. I used to think it needs a bit more, which it still might be, but honestly it will be difficult to not break the skill.

If I may agree on one thing though, it is kind of flavourless other than being a chuckable mitigation, but this is very common for tanks nowadays with exception to their short CDs.

Oblation mainly exists because of how TBN works right now as if you added mitigation to TBN it would make it harder to break which is counterproductive, oblation even looks like "enhanced TBN" from the animation

The Good about it is it's flexible and useful in certain situations, the issues it has is it is kinda weak and not needed in a lot of situations (you should still use it, but it's not really gonna be game changing.)

I guess I wish it did something like maybe have a small amount of sustain on it (something that current drk lacks) or something interesting, It's underwhelming for a late stage ability for me.

[ForsakenRoe]

OP, a lot of these changes suggested are just... A 15s duration Invuln on a 2min CD? That's potentially 1/8th of your gameplay with the invuln effect being in effect, 12.5% uptime, what? Shadowbringer 900 potency so it can feel even worse to not-crit, what?

Off the top of my head, I think they should introduce Oblation at like, way earlier levels (maybe 45 alongside Dark Mind) to address the 'DRK is squishy until TBN' issue, then at it's current level, trait upgrade it to have 2 charges. That seems like a change they could actually do

[Archwizard]

Oblation mainly exists because of how TBN works right now as if you added mitigation to TBN it would make it harder to break which is counterproductive, oblation even looks like "enhanced TBN" from the animation

Even then, they could have directly upgraded it multiple ways without making Oblation OR increasing the difficulty toward getting Dark Arts. Off the top of my head:

• Reducing the barrier potency of TBN to 20% but adding on a raw mitigation effect over it to compensate, which would continue even when the barrier is consumed.
• Extending the duration of TBN and causing a raw mitigation effect on its target for the remaining duration whenever the barrier is consumed early.
• Causing TBN to also grant a healing effect of some variety, like Bloodbath or restoring a fraction of damage absorbed.
• Causing Edge and Flood to gain Drain effects or Cure potency when used under Dark Arts.
• Just giving TBN a second charge like Sheltron, and letting you store two Dark Arts at once or spend Dark Arts on TBN.

The only justification for adding a double-weave on our basic mitigation and contributing to button bloat with an excessively weak tool, is in attempting to balance out TBN's awkward position compared to other on-demands as a tool usable 67% more often.

Off the top of my head, I think they should introduce Oblation at like, way earlier levels (maybe 45 alongside Dark Mind) to address the 'DRK is squishy until TBN' issue, then at it's current level, trait upgrade it to have 2 charges

At that point it seems more likely they would just rework Dark Mind, fusing the 10% raw mitigation onto it with a bonus to magic resist, a la Camouflage.
The two share the same CD after all, Dark Mind is already decried for being niche, and it would save a button in the long run. Maybe trait an extra charge onto Dark Mind at the level Oblation is normally introduced. Whether it gains the ability to cast on allies at that point or earlier is up for debate.

Or, they could solve that issue by adding a downgrade to TBN at lower levels (return Shadowskin?), that upgrades into TBN at 70.
... Of course, they would need to address the MP economy of TBN if they wanted to make a downgrade to it without turning TBN itself into the downgrade. Can't have an MP-based mitigation without giving Dark Arts to compensate for the DPS cost, and as Rithy pointed out, any upgrade that makes it harder to get Dark Arts is counterproductive.

[Luizgazen]

About merging TBN and Oblation, to me all it would take would be to increase TBN's duration to 10s and give the 10% mit during the shield only, that would more than compensate the added "difficulty" on breaking the shield without making the skill unbalanced... if anything it would make even easier to break the shield since you are adding a lot of extra time to be hit