Obligatory pent-up dark knight ideas threadFollow

I know, I know, it's another one of 'those threads'. But I've had some thoughts I really like, and I'm curious to hear what others think. I've also tried to internalize the SE mindset of new things with shared recast, since I recall hearing somewhere they're running out of memory for more timers.

First off, the groundwork. A 'Dark Celerity' ability, to lower the recasts of dark magic spells. I know a lot of people say dark magic fast cast, but I think I'd prefer more sizeable recast reductions to that, personally.

On the subject of our magic, then, we get to another idea that certainly isn't groundbreaking, but is oft expressed in vague terms.

Blood Magic
1 min. recast, 5 min.-2 hour duration
Allows the dark knight to cast elemental magic spells with hp instead of mp, at a ratio of 1 hp for every 2 (or perhaps 3?) mp of cost. Grants an amount of magic attack bonus and fast cast that varies with current hp. (more hp = more mab and fast cast)

Another idea I've had forming in the back of my mind is a partner to souleater, and not the 'add mp to your damage' sort most think of. Now, I also think souleater should have its recast reduced to 2-3 minutes or so, since it already has its cost plenty built in. This, then, would share it's recast with souleater and be similar, but more fulltimey.

Bloodlust
3 min. recast, 2 min. duration
Grants the dark knight additional melee attacks and increased Drain potency at a cost of health. Restores health for every enemy felled. This would give the dark knight a 20+/tic damage over time effect while active, in exchange for something like 20-30% double attack, and a 25% or so increase to drain (and maybe aspir, since the two tend to be linked) potency. Would then also restore hp whenever an enemy is killed within 10-20' of you, at least like a cure 4-5, if not outright full heal.

That one might be a bit overpowered as is, not sure, would need to be tested and possibly have the numbers tweaked. Still, I think it would be a good compliment to souleater that would be useful in today's fast paced exping environment. Would also be an option against souleater resistant NMs.

This next one, I'll admit, is a bit of a nod towards my own vision of dark knight, as a mixed DD/tank that plays dangerous games with its hp. All of these so far go along those lines to some extent, but this one is to adress the fact that for a job that gambles with its hp, I kinda think they don't have enough as-is to gamble with.

Deathless Body
5 min. recast, 2 hour duration
Increases max hp at a cost of max mp, This would give a max hp boost in the range of 30-50% or so, preferably enough to put a drk somewhere in the vicinity of a monk of the same race, but would also cut max mp down by about 50% as well. One would think Blood Magic would negate this penalty, but do note- that only applies to elemental magic for this very reason.

I have one last idea, and this one builds on weapon bash. Again, I think that weapon bash should probably have its recast lowered to a minute or so, for a start. Then these two abilities could be added, sharing a recast with weapon bash, but also, and this is why I like this idea, separating scythe and greatsword into somewhat different playstyles.

Reaving Slash
1 minute 30 second-2 minute recast (Longer, if SE really can't wrap their head around why weapon bash doesn't need a 5 minute recast)
Performs a melee attack that drains hp and inflicts a variable potency plague. The lower the dark knight's hp is when they use this attack, the higher the plague potency. Only usable with a scythe.

Crushing Blow
Same recast as Reaving Slash.
Performs a melee attack that stuns the target and inflicts a 10-20 second amnesia effect. Only usable with a greatsword.

I really don't think cutting weapon bash down to a minute or a minute 30 seconds is an unreasonable request. I know we also have stun the spell, but it's hard to argue that more stuns would be broken when blue mages have at least like 15 stuns spells, most of which also do damage, and one of which not only does damage, inflicts reliable stun, is obtained at level 12, and can be used every 12 seconds or so. Besides, thief has sneak attack and trick attack, dragoon has jumps, I never got why weapon bash had to have a 5 minute cooldown.

So yeah, I -think- that was everything I was thinking of, not sure though because I've spent like an hour working on this, might have forgotten something I meant to say. Looking for thoughts/comments/feedback, I figure I'll workshop this here and then send it along to the official suggestion forum once it's been put through the wringer a bit (To be dead, buried, and safely ignored, I know).

Edit: I remember now what it was I was forgetting. Increase Dread Spike's duration from 1 minute to 5. It already has the hp limitation and potentially resists against things that matter, it won't break the game if we can lol at easy prey a bit harder. This would also ease up prediction and make cast time less of an issue.

Edited, Aug 16th 2011 9:00am by VonCrown

The new SCH spell is used with their 2-hour, dingus.

I suppose DRK should be able to cast it with a 10 second recast for just 12 mp then too?

You can say "DRK need dark-based nukes" instead of "DRK should get that spell just because we do the Dark Magic stuff and SCH's 2-hour should stay worthless."

I chuckled a bit, I admit.

Drain is pretty good for its mp cost, but I wouldn't say it really fills much of a role as a nuke. Hell, even drain 2 needs nether void to reach what I would consider 'a decent nuke'.

You know, all this talk of drks, nuking, and things that scholar got remind me of another rant I've been storing for a really long time. Did you all know that back when dark knight came out, before NA release, Dark Knight nukes had a point? That it wasn't completely pathetic that drk only got tier 1/2 nukes? (Probably only tier 1, I think this was at the 50 cap before AF came out)

Prepare to have your minds blown.

Long, long ago, in a distant age, before the patch that introduced magic bursts, dark knights used their nukes. You see, before magic bursts were added to the game, all spells skillchained, all the time. That's right folks, dark knight was the original solo skillchain job. Sure samurai had their two hour, but dark knights were skillchaining all over everything's faces, and it was as simple as nuke, weaponskill, profit. No chain affinity timers, no saving 200% tp and waiting for sekkanoki, no automaton AI hassle.

Then magic bursting came, and with it, the days of freeze macros that told the melee's when to weaponskill, and all of that. But the ones most left out in the cold were dark knights. Even to this dahy, some echo the call of 'you have small nukes so you can magic burst off skillchains you participate in'. Small comfort when the nukes are so bad, there's no reason to bother trying.

And yet, SE has yet to acknowledge that the dark knight nukes are the most stupidly pointless bit of spell list padding you'll find in this game. It's downright shameful that we're only now, at level 90, in the midst of nukes black mages get in their 60's, and rdms their 70s. Not that we'd have enough mp or magic attack bonus to do anything meaningful with higher tier nukes, of course.

Anyways, there is a point to this rambling. I don't think enough people know -why- dark knights had nukes in the first place. Hell, I'm not sure even the current development team knows. I want this information to spead, for people to know about this. I think if SE considered all that, they could take a step back and see things the way we do. That no amount of occult acumen or magic damage boosting job abilities are going to make up for the fact that these nukes take up half our mp, and we HIT THINGS harder, faster, and for more reliable TP gain than these nukes offer. We could have literally infinite MP and it wouldn't matter, our melee will still be better than these crappy nukes.

For nukes to matter, the entire current progression has to be torn down and re-built. The paradigm that made drk nuking relevant is LONG gone, and that aspect of the job has to be re-made from scratch to have any meaning at all. Or at least, acknowledge it as pointless, and stop holding the job back because of it.

A final note, yes, when I came back from a 6 month break and found out while I was gone they gave scholars the ability to skillchain with nukes, I raged. Hard. F$%k merton, give dark knights immanence.

I would agree, on the whole, but the fact is that they are -there-, and are thus factoring into whatever insane balance calculations the Devs are doing regarding drk. That and the -vast- majority of the idea SE are putting forward are various tradeoffs to increase nuke damage, we really need to drive the point home that drks nukes were initially balanced around a system that no longer exists, so if they want to give us buffs to them, instead of, you know, useful things like beating sh*t with a stick, we should try our best to get them to at least address the underlying reasons -why- our nukes are so worthless, namely and in descending order of importance

1. Crap nuke tiers that we're getting 20-30 levels too late
2. Not enough mp to really let loose with
3. Lack of native magic attack bonus

Now, it seems more and more like all they're really looking to address is number 3, which alone still won't make our nukes worthwhile. And worthwhile or not, our nukes are always gonna be a big part of the reason we don't get nice things like Ukko's fury.

Summoners have spirits and they are useless, and what Summoner in their right mind would actually WANT to use spirits, thats how I feel about nukes on DRK, let them stay useless, ramp up the usefulness of our dark magic be it enfeebles or supplements to our melee capabilities, and quietly forget that we even have nukes in our spell list

New DRK info straight from the Devs:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/11544-DRK-Adjustments-via-Manifesto?p=172904&viewfull=1#post172904

For elemental nukes, I really liked what SE suggested as a JA:I would not mind dumping most of my mp simply for 50tp and bonus damage. DRK elemental nukes will never be relevant in a fast paced setting, but sometimes, I find myself just sitting back and watching to limit TP gain. This would be the perfect setting for such a JA.

Of course, I definitely should not get my hopes up and just expect another series of worthless job updates. It's always the safest bet with SE.

@#%^, now I'll actually have to skill Enfeebling.