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.
Continue reading...
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.
Continue reading...