DRK change idea

[zmas]

There are 3 reasons why I think Dark Knight gameplay is boring and I'll try to give some suggestions.

I am fine with the simple rotation DRK now has so I will focus more on defensive gameplay. I do not care much about damage balance as I don't do savage raids and ultimate raids, so damage balance isn’t something too relevant to me. I hope someone finds these concepts interesting.

Problems:
1.Attack animations. The 1-2-3 combo animation looks awkward, feels like a person who doesn't know how to swing a sword
The new Scarlet Delirium combo animations look awesome, but it didn't help much unfortunately. It is because the Scarlet Delirium animations always got canceled by the intense oGCD weaving of DRK's burst phase so we can't really see it in actual combat.

2.The gameplay of Dark knight is monotonous, feels intense in the burst phase but the other 2/3 of the gameplay is just doing 1-2-3 combo endlessly.

3.Apart from that, there are also the small matter of mana generation being too tight.
If you cannot hit your 1-2-3 combo non-stop because you need to runaway to doge a giant AOE or boss become untargetable, which are surprisingly more common than I imagined, then you won't be able to fill your MP gauge to near full to cram as much oGCD into burst phase and thus making the burst phase feel empty.

Here is my suggestion on how to make Dark Knight more interesting. I will change Dark Arts, The Blackest Night, Oblation, Shadowstride and Enchanted Unmend. I'll try to keep the changes simple.

1.Dark Arts: Increase Dark Art storage to 2 stacks.

2.The Blackest Night (TBN): Decrease mp cost to 1500 mp, (maybe) extend duration to 10 seconds, other things remain unchanged.

This change can provide an alternative way to generate mp, you gain 1500 mp for each TBN shield broken in the form of Dark arts. But the 1500 mp cost can still hurt after TBN failed to break a couple times.

3.Oblation: Inflict damage to self, equal to 10% of your max hp, can be mitigated with TBN, hp cannot go below one (cooldown 60s, 2 charges).
Grant self or a party member: a shield equal to 10% of YOUR max hp (duration 20s), lower damage received by 10% (duration 10s)

I meant to change this skill into something that is weak on yourself but strong on teammates. So there is more team gameplay, I think that can be interesting.

This also serves as a failsafe for TBN, you could try to trigger TBN with this if your calculation went wrong. However, this cannot be abused (i guess?).

4.Shadowstride: Thrust towards the direction player is facing for 20 yalms, deal damage of 1 potency to enemies on the way, increase enmity. (cooldown 30s, 2 charges)
Basically Dancer's movement skill crossover Flood of Shadow. Not sure if this is good or not but I like gimmicks.

5.Enchanted unmend: reduce Shadowstride cooldown by 15s upon execution. Devs don't want to replace this with something better, so I'll just make it actually useful.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Problems: 1.) 2.) 3.)

1.) Souleater is a bit boring when we had Powerslash & HW Delirium to choose from. Torcleaver combo is actually more distinctly visible on the odd minute cycle given you weave far less on that one.

2.) Yes. The Souleater combo does a lot for the job, but it also kind of is just... that. We used to have Plunge but it got completely replaced by Shadowstride rather than having both..

3.) Technically bosses that become untargetable are balanced and designed in such a way where this becomes less of an issue in between the 60s Bloodweapon/Delirium cycles. That being said, I do think they should give us back either +2 stacks on Bloodweapon buff which they took away, or make each Bloodweapon stack give +1000 MP rather than +600.

Here is my suggestion on how to make Dark Knight more interesting. I will change Dark Arts, The Blackest Night, Oblation, Shadowstride and Enchanted Unmend. I'll try to keep the changes simple.

1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.)

1 + 2.) Stockpiling two stacks of Dark Arts is very welcome for sure. Would allow for more free TBN usage without having to spend DA in between TBNs. As for the reduced MP cost - either Edge/Flood of Shadow also have an MP cost of 1500 or a Dark Arts stack only reduces the MP cost of Edge/Flood by 50% (1500) - if neither of these happen to balance it out, TBN will become a sizeable DPS gain if you manage to consistently break it. I personally don't mind this as it is completely independent of enmity status (MT/OT), but it would absolutely result in a nerf of Edge/Flood to account for the potential DPS increase.

3.) The idea is novel and plays into the roots of Final Fantasy Dark Knight with the "HP as a resource" concept, but I do suggest that the HP shield is bigger than what you spent. 10% HP cost to 15-20% HP shield is my personal suggestion, even with the 10% base damage reduction kept in mind.

4.) 20y forward is a huge distance, all other dashes/backflips of that type are 10-15y. There is a good chance you are going to overshoot your intended spot; without Plunge existing as an alternative (targeted) dash, this would be actually a painful gimmick to deal with. Alternatively, it could behave like Shukuchi (ground-targeted) or Icarus (can be used on teammates), that way it would stand out again.

5.) Replace it with a proc that let's use Plunge after using Unmend (and lower the Lv requirement to learn it to at least the Lv62-70 range).

Enhanced Unmend (Lv.54-70 Trait)
Upon execution of Unmend you are granted the effect of "Plunge ready", changing the action Shadowstride to Plunge and allowing you to use Plunge without cost.

Plunge (Lv.54-70 Ability)
Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 200.
Bonus effect: Enhanced enmity

※This action cannot be assigned to a hotbar.
※Shadowstride changes to Plunge when requirements for execution are met.

[Carighan]

No I actually like the 10%->10% idea, for two reasons:

* It puts the onus onto using it as a support-tool, not for ourselves. Beyond helped to break TBN, it'd be a wash for ourselves. And that's fine, rather buff TBN because of how unique that is.
* Rather, it's very strong when used on somebody else. Our HP pool is bigger, and it'd be 10% of our HP.

Plus, we can already use TBN on someone else. Meaning that'd be someone who can seriously shield others as needed, and that'd be a neat niche at least. And if nothing else we can keep using it on the other tank, while we slowly re-heal from the 1-2-3 combo.

[zmas]

1.)
1 + 2.) Stockpiling two stacks of Dark Arts is very welcome for sure. Would allow for more free TBN usage without having to spend DA in between TBNs. As for the reduced MP cost - either Edge/Flood of Shadow also have an MP cost of 1500 or a Dark Arts stack only reduces the MP cost of Edge/Flood by 50% (1500) - if neither of these happen to balance it out, TBN will become a sizeable DPS gain if you manage to consistently break it. I personally don't mind this as it is completely independent of enmity status (MT/OT), but it would absolutely result in a nerf of Edge/Flood to account for the potential DPS increase.

The DPS gain through show of skill is exactly the 2nd reason I have in mind when thinking about the TBN change (I can't type it out in the original post because I am at the word limit). I don't mind jobs having bigger variation on DPS, though I don't oppose the idea of Edge/Flood of shadow decrease potency for balance either.

[zmas]

4.) 20y forward is a huge distance, all other dashes/backflips of that type are 10-15y. There is a good chance you are going to overshoot your intended spot; without Plunge existing as an alternative (targeted) dash, this would be actually a painful gimmick to deal with. Alternatively, it could behave like Shukuchi (ground-targeted) or Icarus (can be used on teammates), that way it would stand out again.

5.) Replace it with a proc that let's use Plunge after using Unmend (and lower the Lv requirement to learn it to at least the Lv62-70 range).

Enhanced Unmend (Lv.54-70 Trait)
Upon execution of Unmend you are granted the effect of "Plunge ready", changing the action Shadowstride to Plunge and allowing you to use Plunge without cost.

Plunge (Lv.54-70 Ability)
Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 200.
Bonus effect: Enhanced enmity

I had considered 10y-15y range for the thrust movement skill and I am ok with it, I slapped 20y on it because it gives more challenge as it is more likely to overshoot.
But your argument is right, 10y-15y is more practical.

In fact, I think it is a fun idea to combine my overkill 20y thrust and your Unmend proc trait. Then DRK movement skill becomes something like: You want control over direction->don't use unmend; You want your movement to be precise-> use unmend.

I would want DRK movement skill cooldown to decrease from 30s to 20s if unmend don't reduce shadowstride cooldown. May as well give my thrust movement 70-100 potency, good luck using that 20y thrust as a dps skill.

Create more choice making on the utility side of the job while keeping the DPS side simple and straightforward

[Zarkovitch]

They idiot proof drk aint no way they are going make it harder.

[zmas]

They idiot proof drk aint no way they are going make it harder.

gotta at least let them know there are people who don't want to have the same gameplay as the idiots'

and my changes are mainly utility changes, the dps rotation remained basically the same. People should have no problem doing dps even with these changes

[Derio]

Honestly they just need to look at the good animations in the past. I wouldnt mind Dark passenger to Scourage to Power slash being a combo that has a 45s cooldown. Pretty much anything below lvl 100 now feels bad since you still only have one combo and that is even worse when you dont have delirium.

[GrizzlyTank]

Bring back plunge!

It just felt satisfying to use.

[bundythenoob]

I'm pretty sure we've been asking for 2 DA stacks since the ShB rework, but I do quite like the Oblation idea!
if anything, I wish the devs would nerf the potencies on Edge/Flood so that we could be allowed to generate a lot of mana again.
maybe allow Dark Arts to change Flood into Dark Passanger and Edge into Power Slash (no idea why those animations were tossed aside, they're still as magnificent as I remember)