Buff DK's Sacrifice

I like the idea though I fear it would lead to many more deaths for drks. An all or nothing approach is interesting.I am more for changes that would reduce their risk or keep it as is. For example making berserk a skill that scales with hp versus the current cutting off route. So like if you have if you have 90% of your hp berserk gives you a small boost to atk versus nothing, not sure if that is possible to implement. I think an easier change is to adjust weapon speeds for warriors in general.

 

Interesting suggestion, sounds pretty fun to be honest. Haven't taken the time to think of the downsides but I think all the Warrior buff ideas that revolve around enhancing neglected/largely unused skills are all pretty cool, +1

 

Cool, but I would imagine all the DKs droppin like flies trying it until almost griefing the run.

 

I want to see the death counts rise. I like this suggestion. Sacrifice feels like a really shitty skill currently, only used to micromanage HP into zerk ranges when ginseng overheals.

 

this and panic not consuming orbs when used. only hope for cleave warriors

 

Buff player skill

 

Hear me out, make op sacrifice a slash skill to make polearm great again. Joking aside (or is it?), polearm could present an opportunity to add an extra niche to the kit if done right.

I actually dont think a simple sacrifice dpm boost does more than a bandaid fix, especially when the other warriors are factored in. If it were up to me, I'd first want to focus on identifying the core identity of each of the warriors and making sure they are different enough to have enough trade-offs and avoid class redundancy (see the current hero vs dk debate). At present, the hero and dk are fundamentally the exact same thing: similar cleave potential, and weaker single target than their paladin cousins. The biggest design difference is that the dk trades off their survivability for their hyper body skill. Which isn't the worst thing for then, as (experienced) players have shown to be survivable in many situations, and the hyper body skill alone cements their place in single target focused content like pb (for now at least). Can the dpm numbers be raised to make them even more valuable compared to other classes that would still be stronger? Certainly in the case of pb imo, but that comes at a detriment to the hero, who is fundamentally a dk without hb, with a lower damage potential simply because it's "easier".

I'd start by laying out an attempted goal for warrior identities. This is what I would currently propose as a baseline, with the current single target focused meta:

• Paladin: effective single target even on ele neutral, but trades cleave potential for elemental advantage (single target specialist, but capable of cleave especially when ele weak)
• Hero: effective single target, effective cleave. The Swiss Army Sword. Boasts similar single target output to ele neutral pally in tandem with a high cleave output perhaps just shy of dk (Single target/cleave generalist)
• Dark Knight: Trades some of their single target damage for the Hyper Body skill. While still capable of non-trivial single target, designed to be the best cleavers of the three. Hyper body's enabling of party survival or reducing potion costs should pick up the slack here (Cleave specialist support)

Note that I do not believe the trade-off for the hyper body skill should necessarily be their survivability. I actually think the biggest things holding back dk are the learning curve/barrier to entry and the fact that it is virtually inoperable at its peak in endgame pb (save a few diehard fans). I actually believe it shares some similarities to the old buccaneer. The raw dpm boosts like slightly higher mastery are nice, but perhaps the biggest benefit we ever received (second to the barrel ofc ) was giving the "perma iframe lul" class a reworked avoidability formula, allowing the class to be effectively played by more users. And even users who didn't truly "need" it saw some improvement in consistency as well.

Wrapping back around, I think Hyper Body actually does quite a bit to allow dk into single target content. Relatively few squads are outright removing dks from squads, and they aren't as muleable as bishops due to a short hb timer and need for 100% uptime. They are also certainly capable of churning justifiable damage in the right hands. Before simply raising output and being done with it, I'd actually like to see a bit more defensive quality of life brought into the zerking playstyle. After all, why learn a dk when you can learn a hero for cheaper and easier? Why learn a hero when you can learn an NL for cheaper and easier? Anyways, my goal for dk would be to separate gain of hyper body for loss of survivability in their identity, and allow some healthy separation between dk and hero kits for future balancing endeavors (ofc this is a dk thread, but my opinions on hero are above as well as in other threads).

I'm not a dk specifically, but it should be obvious that simply making dk "free" to play is a terrible idea. Dk players like flirting with disaster-even OP says you can play at 1 HP if you know what you are doing. Ideally, we aim to strike a balance between being defensive enough that zerking is easy enough in almost any situation, but a wrong step will still get you killed. Raising the skill floor won't bring new players to grab a pair of bargain bin skis; likewise lowering (or raising imo) the skill ceiling only serves to drive away the current masochistic playerbase. A change shouldn't make zerking directly "easier", simply more manageable, for new and old players alike. My personal favorite suggestion here is to increase dk invulnerability timer while zerking (Bolded because I hear that's the only thing people and staff read). In those situations where taking two hits without potting is basically out of the picture, more time between hits gives a bit more window for new dks to do the "potion math", and for the wild experienced dks to get a few more attacks before potting to safety. As a player who enjoys massive iframes, I can say firsthand that it directly improves the amount of time I have to pot up or notice a pet pot failed, of course I just push a honster and be done with it, but that's what separates the goods from the greats.

A second approach could be to make it easier to hit the "zerking threshold". Currently that's possible from higher hps: a quick roar, body touch, or sacrifice can get the job done. But outside of the minor healing beholder provides, it appears difficult to hit and maintain that 16.5k value without spending premiums on potions. A second suggestion that I've only recently started toying with is changing beholder's heal to apply a lifesteal type effect, up to a certain threshold (likely zerking value). While interesting, I think it has potential to undermine the elite "difficulty" of the zerk in the eyes of the upper echelons, but it would make potion burdens quite a bit lighter for an otherwise costly class.

Ultimately, I think looking at unused skills (like sacrifice or even polearms) is a great way to add identity to the dk class. I personally think the class needs an easier entry, a more reliable output, and a formalization of what the dk (and other warriors) identity actually is before simply raising damage numbers is a better road map for "fixing" warriors.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. /endrant

 

I really like the idea of sacrifice giving iframes the ones similar to getting hit by mobs.

Imagine avoiding stuns :0 with well timed sacrifice! It will also improve zerk uptime at all places especially bosses like nameless and verga.

 

This line fits almost all the jobs.