How should tbn get changed/updated?

[Reginald_Cain]

The blackest night has always been one of my favorite tank skills and now that the other tanks have gotten powerful short cd skills of their own i was wondering what changes you all think would improve it.

I'd also like feedback on my own ideas.

I know a lot of people want it have a heal or regen but personally I'd prefer it remain a powerful shield.

Heres my proposed changes.
The first change would be to make it refund half it's mana cost if it's not broken.
The second would be for it to give 3 stacks of blood weapon upon breaking so that successful uses are mana positive instead of neutral.
My 3rd change would be a high level trait that makes the skill provide an additional barrier that scales with the dark knights max hp instead of the targets. The targets hp is used to calculate the weaker shield that you actually want broken. The weaker shield would be coded to break first when taking damage. Note the addtional shield only happens when tbn is used on allies. This way you can save more lives without being an off healer like the other tanks.

[Mesarthim]

Change it so other DRK cannot use theirs on you if yours is up. That in itself is dumb and long overdue to get fixed.

This isn't a problem with shield healers, but if a DRK uses TBN on you with yours up then yours gets overwritten and your reward for 3000 mp is "lol".

[Supersnow845]

TBN is like the only part of DRK’s kit I wouldn’t change

[Reginald_Cain]

TBN is like the only part of DRK’s kit I wouldn’t change

It is one of the best designed abilities imo so I understand.
A lot of people feel like it's been a bit power creeped and neglected compared to the other short tank cds and I'd like to see it be a bit better.
I feel like it's a good place to add more spice to the mana generation of dark knights kit. We never got compensation when blood weapon lost 2 stacks.

[Valence]

TBN is like the only part of DRK’s kit I wouldn’t change

It's the other tank signature defensives that need to be toned down to the level of TBN. And if possible made more skill expressive than they currently are. TBN is at least based on resource management and will peter out past a point if one keeps using it.

[VictorSpoils]

8 second duration instead of 7 (like in PVP; they know 7 seconds is dumb)

[Carighan]

The only thing I'd change is remove the weird delay between when you get the flying combat text that you have the buff vs when it can actually start to absorb damage.

[Alice_Rivers]

I did suggest previously, and have run it by a couple of my friends, making it so that TBN implodes if it doesn't pop before the 7 seconds are over in a 5-8y aoe that hits everything including the tank and party for an amount proportional to the amount of shield left at the time. That way it's still useful even if the shield doesn't get used but there's also a risk in having too much shield left.

[Wyndam]

Add a HoT when it expires regardless of whether the shield was used or not. Delete Oblation which feels even more like it's just button bloat after the Dark Mind change. Alternatively, allowing the unused portion of the shield to convert to healing when the shield expires would lower the skill floor. 2nd alternate suggestion would be roll the mitigation from Oblation into TBN but I can only imagine the complaints if that happened.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...]Delete Oblation which feels even more like it's just button bloat after the Dark Mind change.[...]

Being able to freely throw a 10% mitigation to self or a teammate on a 60s recharge, indepedently of Dark Mind and TBN, is not button bloat. The power is in its flexibility. 10% is also not a small amount if you layer it with other things. I mean, healers have a plethora of things doing 10% mitigation (single-target and AOE). It's not your first-response tool, but an extra layer to your bulk.

Sorry, but every comment that says "delete Oblation because its bloat" disappoints me a little. How about we "don't" delete things based on a whim?