DRK Adjustments via Manifesto

[Leonlionheart]

I'd make a topic about it on the DRK forums, but I've never seen a job-specific forum get very much attention. It'd probably get more views here in general, but I don't like to be the guy posting about something in general that has it's own forum section.

[StingRay104]

Wow I woke up and the thread has completely lost it. Seriously what the hell happened here. SMN better than DRK at melee, swing while casting the simple fix, and leonlionheart is still thinking he knows about DRK, this is unreal.

For those of you who don't know let me re-educate you on DRK. PLD and DRK are 2 sides of the same coin, one deals in holy magic the other in arcane magic. One deals in defense the other in attack. In essence PLD is supposed to be the ultimate shield, and DRK the ultimate blade. Now we also have access to magic, and we use this magic to help us achieve our respected roles, for instance pld has flash for hate control, cures and reprisal for longevity, and phalanx, protect and shell for defense. DRK however has a different way of using its magic, it takes from its enemy to make himself stronger. Drain and aspir are self explained, but others are dread spikes (able to drain the damage one receives to 1/2 your current total hp from attacker), Absorb stat spells, and of course Absorb TP (it really does need its own category cuz not everything always has tp). DRK also has 3 other very useful spells called sleep, endark and stun. Aside from these job enhancing spells these 2 jobs have other spells that have very limited to no use, for instance PLD has the banish line of spells which are useless given the degree pld can use them. They also have enlight and holy, altho enlight could add some more damage to pld its effect is minimal and holy on pld has only 1 use, yellow proc. DRK also has spells like that, being the tier 1-3 nukes. Meant for use on blm but given to drk just because SE had no other idea for spells and felt it would be nice to give them something (Ok originally SE had a lot of stock put into SC/MB and DRK was supposed to utilize that for additional damage but nowadays that's just too much of a hassle as the damage isn't worth the time or the mp). Now some of your are saying "What about bio?" Well thats simple, mostly people want the def down from Dia and Bio and Dia cancel each other out, so in an alliance situation Dia is used, and for soloing I can't Imagine a DRK wanting to keep a dot on something just incase they need to sleep it so therefore bio is kinda useless. Poison is an interesting spell, for one its intended purpose is useless as it doesn't help an pretty much all applications, but the spell itself is a very good way to pull mobs so that you don't waste stun.

Now for all you wars out there you really have lost what your job is supposed to be. War was the original tank job but it was always intended that PLD replace it in this role, so war was the all purpose melee. You have both strong offensive and defensive capabilities, berserk and defender, warcry and retaliation. Now SE also made sure that you would hold your own as a front liner with double attack, attack bonus, crit attack bonus and fencer, but they also gave you some defensive traits also 2 tiers of def bonus, shield defense, shield mastery and resist virus (I kno rite). Now DRK on the other hand has only offensive capabilities, everything it does is for pure damage, even its 1 semi defensive spell Dread Spikes, yet you all are saying war is supposed to be king of the mountain on damage. We have tier 5 attack bonus, LR, souleater, and critical attack bonus. We can cap attack so easily but that doesn't matter in this game. SE really doesn't know what its doing atm and we DRK's are upset that we are constantly being shoved out of our jobs spot, we are supposed to be the highest damage you'll ever see, but we kill oursleves to do that. Its ultimate physical power at a cost, thats our niche.

Now to address those that I called out. First and foremost, smn will never be as good of a melee as DRK, not now, not ever, and I feel sorry for anyone who thinks otherwise. As for the subtle point hidden in your post see the next response.

As for the melee while casting fix, SE has said, and the post is still easy to find, that a complete rework of the enmity systems is not possible. Now if SE can't do something as simple as implement a enmity change/fix, then how the hell do you expect them to implement this? As for it being a simple fix, let me cruch that notion right now, there are no easy fixes for drk atm, we need several fixes (arguably each one being somewhat easy) and until we get that and our balance is restored then there will continue to be problems.

Leonlionheart. Please understand that you know nothing about how a DRK plays. Now you are a war and you enjoy war and there is nothing wrong with that so please leave the DRKs issues to the DRKs and we will leave the wars issues to the wars. However in response to your previous post, yes people are tired of not getting the interaction with the devs that they were promised so everything has seemed to been shifted to the general section for some answers. Interestingly enough according to the job forums, they were created so that players (no mention of the devs) can discuss their jobs and ideas to fix them, but the general section is for contact with the devs. I know and I agree it should be in the job specific forums but hey if SE wants it in general I guess we posting in general now for some answers.

[Dauntless]

Playing DRK again as a lowbie I realize again what SE had in mind for DRK. On no other lowbie job can I dish out weaponskills for 200 (Level 10), but I have the defense of a kitten. It seems as time went on, SE lost that vision and here we are. We still have the defense of a kitten, but now we also have the strength of a dead chicken.

[Panthera]

The "Absorb" series of spells is in many ways the heart and soul, as morbid as they are, of the job. Dark Knight can absorb just about anything; base stats, HP, MP, TP, and Accuracy. And yet the ability to absorb Attack is missing. Dark Knight is defined by it's Attack stat as much as anything else; it's even a Job Trait. So what could be more essential to the job than to combine Absorbing with the Attack stat? It's also worth considering Absorbing the enemy's Evasion and Defense. Perhaps a super spell that absorbs several things at once? Similar to the effect of the Weapon Skill "Full Break."

[StingRay104]

Lots of people (Myself included) have suggested absorb att, and it really should be made a spell, as well as the other stats not mentioned, def, eva, Matt, and Mdef. Another popular idea is DRK only nukes that have status effects on them, kinda like a mini impact (which has all base stats down 20%) except more mp proficient. It would be cool to have some other ideas of spells that went along these lines but it also needs to consider the DRK's main role, killing things.

[Unctgtg]

Learn to adapt to play the job at its max.

[Malamasala]

Playing DRK again as a lowbie I realize again what SE had in mind for DRK. On no other lowbie job can I dish out weaponskills for 200 (Level 10), but I have the defense of a kitten. It seems as time went on, SE lost that vision and here we are. We still have the defense of a kitten, but now we also have the strength of a dead chicken.

I don't know. I think most armors still are PLD/WAR/DRK, so you got the defense of a Paladin, and the strength of a dead chicken. Naturally, defense is pretty pointless and useless.

[Dauntless]

Learn to adapt to play the job at its max.

Yeah, that's the problem. Its "max" is pathetic. The way DRK is right now, there really is nothing to adapt to.

[Leonlionheart]

StingRay104

wut

1: I been saying that about DRK all this time. The only problem is none of those spells are worth casting. If you cast Absorb-anything other than tp then you are severely gimping your DRK. Absorb-Accuracy maybe if you have a NIN or DNC tank. Dread Spikes is pre-battle. Drains are a destruction of your DPS, unless you absolutely need them for your HP. So I ask, how in hell is swinging while casting a bad idea? It lets you be the melee you always wanted, while being the arcane master you always wanted.

2: WAR hasn't been intended for tank capabilities since a very long time ago. Everything past level 25(defender) should lead you to believe that WAR is nothing other than an amazing DD. Seriously, access to 2 of the top WS (Rampage and Raging Rush) along with Double Attack makes WAR what it is. Not to mention Warcry, Berserk, and the famous Steel Cyclone + Warrior's Charge + SA. You'd notice this when you realize that WAR gets pummeled by everything. DRK is a more survivable tank than WAR is.

You have to be completely ignorant to say that WAR could possibly be intended for tank after a certain point. Provoke and Defender are nice, but that's all they were, and they aren't anymore. Neither of them are even close to useful at this point.

Enmity reworking is not possible because it would break the way the game is played, and it would break levels 1~75 where PLD or NIN, or anyone else who wants to tank really, have no real issues keeping hate in most situations. It's not a coding problem iirc. Not an implementation problem, though there may be some issues with that, rather than a battle system breaking problem.

Swinging while casting for one job isn't really a complete reworking of the battle system, now is it?

StingRay104 please understand that you know nothing of how damage is dealt. It's like there are no real players in the DRK player base, just fanboys who think that their spells can do something as they are now. They are nice, but only absorb-TP and dread spikes, and only while disengaged. (and obviously stun and, though rarely, sleep.)

[StingRay104]

So lemme get this straight, war/pld/drk all have access to the super heavy gear, and the good -dmg gear, war also sports the shield abilities that pld has, and war also gets 2 tiers of defense + and defender yet a drk is a better tank than a DRK?

Sounds silly now doesn't it, I thought I explained it very well when I said DRK's only defensive ability was dread spikes, yet this one thing apparently negates all the defensive abilities war has because you say so. Sure you probably don't want to use this stuff after all your a war all you do is berserk blood rage ws ws ws ws ws ws, to hell with anything else right?

I also explained quite clearly why melee while casting wouldn't work because it is along those same lines as the enmity cap problem, and SE specifically said that they couldn't do that due to issues involving the game. Also it won't change the fact that our nukes and yes you were right our absorbs atm aren't worth casting, which is one of the hot topics we DRKs keep bringing up for SE to fix (our absorbs not nukes, too much mp to consider using).

Btw I know a lot more about DRK than you and I think its sad that someone who just joins jobs because they are the new hot damage jobs is pretty pathetic. I like to fully utilize all the jobs capabilities, example when I play mnk I don't just impetus ws ws ws ws, I use all those job abilities, counterstance, boost, focus, dodge, chakra, chi blast, and of course perfect counter. I take full advantage of my jobs capabilities and not just do what all the cool kids are doing. As for my knowledge of damage, I know lots about damage, for instance until the big souleater nerf DRK was the king of damage thanks to KC zergs. Altho magic can be useful it has never been effective part of DRKs repitoire which is why we DRKs have been asking SE to stop trying to push all this increase elemental bs on us.

Finally once again I'm gonna say it clearly, you know nothing about DRK, please leave your misconceptions about the job somewhere else and go back to spamming your ws's on war. Shame really if you were really all about the ws's you'd probably play sam, but now sam is going back to sc master.