Perma shelved my DRK: No role, no idenity, no lore, no worthwhile skills, no fun

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Originally Posted by Quor

You must be terrible at parties. And your reading comprehension sucks too.

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Thank you :)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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I'm not questioning your personal preference. Some people like strict rotation-based jobs, some people like more flexible jobs where you have to manage resources and make decisions on the fly. I think that you need both in game.

Your post is internally inconsistent, though. You claim that DRK doesn't have enough going on to keep your attention, but in the same breath you also say that you struggle to keep track of everything. That's not boredom. That's struggling with job mechanics. You've simply re-framed it in a way that makes you feel better about the whole thing. It's a common enough phenomenon, though. Most of the sour grapes posts express this in some form or another.

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Originally Posted by RitzNBitz

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I disagree, I would say blood weapon made the job feel fast, not because we spammed a single button between 1-2-3. It was boring spamming soul eater combo while also weaving in dark arts, we gained so much mana back that there wasn't any risk nor any real reward because all the blood and mana we gained was just used to either spam soul eater+dark arts faster or to use our fell cleave (of course the job suffers from the same thing right now). I agree on big pulls because it was risky and very rewarding when it worked out. They were probably the only thing I enjoyed doing on DRK late into the expansion. But boss fights and single target gameplay in general was a bore and a chore. I look back on our main rotation and feel like vomiting. GNB has dark arts, but I love it because it's a different animation everytime, so I may be just spamming one button, but at least it looks different. DRK should've just got a continuation combo sort of thing, but maybe they wanted that to be exclusive to GNB. (DRK continuation rip-off coming in 6.0 please look forward to it)

It's been awhile since release and as of now, aside from the animation, I do not miss dark arts' gameplay. I'm happy edge/flood have good sounds and animations to make it feel like I'm actually doing something with my freaking weapon when I press it. Delirium is so far from perfect (and it really didn't replace anything special since SB delirium wasn't that well thought out either), spamming one skill 5 times is 5 GCDs of not having to see soul eater. Fray is just a dot, but it's cool to see him attack with you especially if you like the job's lore. Am I saying DRK is perfect right now? No, far from it. I'm just going to disagree with people who romanticize stormblood DRK and pretend it was grander and big-brain than it really was. Obviously debating the state of DRK right now is always going to end up with all of us talking to a brick wall. But for me what's going to improve the job for me is haste being put back on blood weapon, more mana regain to spam flood of shadow in big pulls in exchange for the massive self sustain we had in stormblood, and lower cool downs on our oGDS, salted either changes, and something to make delirium interesting like a life steal or something.

"That was dark knight's identity as a tank, the tank where you couldn't pick your nose during pull" If you set up your buttons right and some duct tape, you could ;).

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm not questioning your personal preference. Some people like strict rotation-based jobs, some people like more flexible jobs where you have to manage resources and make decisions on the fly. I think that you need both in game.

Your post is internally inconsistent, though. You claim that DRK doesn't have enough going on to keep your attention, but in the same breath you also say that you struggle to keep track of everything. That's not boredom. That's struggling with job mechanics. You've simply re-framed it in a way that makes you feel better about the whole thing. It's a common enough phenomenon, though. Most of the sour grapes posts express this in some form or another.

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No, that part isn't internally consistent. (Another is, and I'll mention it later.) It's not like I'm overcapping MP or forgetting to use my TBN or anything. It's just that while on any other job you could ask pause the game, blindfold me, and ask "how long until X comes up" and I'd have an answer for you, accurate within a couple seconds, without raid buffs to bank for I don't have nearly so clear a mental picture of anything but TBN because there's just no reward for tracking it, and that makes me lose engagement. I constantly feel like I'm forgetting something or slipping up just because I quickly start to lose track -- not to the point of mechanical slippage, but slippage nonetheless. It literally felt to me like sleep-shakes (hypnogogic jerks, if you prefer). Paradoxically, by having so much control compared to normal, I feel less in control. I realize that's like claiming a template gives freedom and it will change with time or by giving myself the rhythmic guidelines I'm currently missing, but that was my 71-80 experience at the time I wrote it. It was merely a comment on my experience and my own confusion at it.

Again, people don't get better at something when increasing the difficulty they face because of issues within the thing itself, or else you wouldn't then see improvement under that decreased leniency / increased intensity. There must be something tangential to the issue which is then mitigated in the new circumstances. That's simple logic.

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Originally Posted by Dragonkat

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The biggest problems with the game is the combo ability system. It holds the devs back unable to create cool and unique mechanics. I mean look at how cool Black Mage is. How indepth their class is. Yet they can only be that way because they do not have a combo system to hold them back. Can we please get some more unique elements beside the 123 rotation.

I totally agree with you on the class being dumbed down to 123 and some cooldowns. Specially from someone who jumped ship of WoW where I was tanking as a Blood Death Knight. Who had to manage my Runes, my runic power, my dots, my bone armor, my Cool downs, On top of Trinkets. So a min of 6 things to micro manage on top of the dozen boss mechanics I had to deal with in mythic raiding. This goes the same with the monk tank from WoW where you took half the damage from the boss and put it in as a dot. You now you have to manage your energy, your chi and that stacking dot that if you let it ramp up to high. Will one shot you. To go from a class that had so much micro management to a class that is. 123 123 123 4. Yawns. Yes I know it a little more indepth then that but honestly. It not that hard to pop The blackest night to counter tank busters. Not hard to spend your blood gauge. Not hard to pop a cool down when your about to eat some extra damage. It really easy and boring. I am honestly tank while watching youtube videos.

I want more mechanics to manage. Not less. Not all tanks has to be brain dead simple level. At less WoW got tanking right. Where their where classes with the easy to pick up and easy to master. There was some more intermediate tanks and then their was some hard as hell to play tanks. For the people who want to show off their skill. I am honestly wanting HW Dark Knight back. That at less took some skill to play effectively. Not this rolling your face across the keyboard/go afk to take a piss and still be a good tank. Dark Knights need to get a rework. The need a new class mechanics all together. As right now. They are just a shitter version of Warrior.

I understand they can not make Dark Knight a Death Knight or a Monk from WoW. I am not asking that. I am how ever asking give me some micro management. Give me something to do. I like the idea of a tank that user their life force to slay their enemies. That eats the enemies either that they slay. That boards on the line between mankind and voidsent.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Most of this is gibberish. I understand your sentiment, though. It's worth noting that the biggest change to DRK this expansion is how buff dependent the job has become. You effectively have three different 'buffs' that are all slightly out of phase with each other. Each of them have different effects on your two resource gauge. When BW and Delirium sync up, you want to enter in with low blood, or else you're forced to cap. When Delirium and LS sync up, you want to enter with high blood, or else you're forced to delay LS. TBN adds an interesting element as well, in that it allows you to effectively 'stockpile' MP above your cap just prior to entering into a raid burst window. You need rotational freedom because each of these interactions require you to plan ahead on how you want to use your resources. Every pull, there are a ton of little tiny adjustments that you realise that you can do differently.

I think that's what makes DRK different from all the other tanks. On GNB or PLD, it feels like if you do something dumb, it's a bad mistake, but an obvious one that is usually easily fixable. DRK bombards you with the potential for dozens of small errors that add up into bigger ones. That's where your feeling of dread comes from. You can either treat it like a challenge and keep pushing yourself harder, or just sour grapes the whole thing and switch to one of the other options. I know what my decision is.

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Originally Posted by DemonicNeko

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I know it's the wrong forum for it technically. But as a lvl 80 BLM main trust me, there's still a combo of sorts. Though mostly it involves triplecast and flare while cackling like a mix of Lina inverse and Megumin. Cycle to freeze, thunder, add foul, repeat. It does however still have a lot more free form since you aren't specifically tied to X must follow Y.

Other things I find idiotic in this as of late? the whole "you must kill yourself with damage to have heart of stone equal TBN tripe in other threads. Not the damn point. If you're using them as mitigation then both serve their intended purpose, perfect example of how math =/= gameplay.

The goal is survive buster without dying or make healer's job easier. NOT imho give the healer time to DPS, that's not the healer's primary purpose, sorry parsers and worshipers at the dps altar that probably led to this moronic rebalance of tanks and healers too in the first place. That and which gives more DPS, the flood hitting multiple mobs or a gravity / holy? And if the mitigation isn't needed anyway against trash pulls that are a crapshoot on breaking TBN. so if your goal is RARR MAX DPS! why bother with TBN?

It's why TBN makes DRK a one trick pony because of it's scaling and if we're honest one of the best anti buster moves tanks have, but at the same time still a total contradiction as no other mitigation in any class is directly tied to a main resource or can result in a dps loss if used incorrectly. While at times being less effective against basic pulls compared to other mitigation sources.

Regardless you are correct. It's not that DRK doesn't work. It's that DRK is boring as is, and even the blood gauge powers are trivial now. Doubly so with the makes no sense quietus nerf taking any risk vs reward factor away from large pull scenarios. You gave us more blood gauge generation SQ but gave us nothing to do with it? And our reward for the aoe game is a blood and mp aoe that doesn't do enough?

There is zero window for improvement or skill window outside pop a GCD when mp is low, use 123, pretend to be a warrior in your burst window, repeat. The dumbing down of tank roles because of this whole "we don't want party comps" attempt fell on it's face hard.

Some may disagree, but i liked being an OT! I accepted that as my "role" to go to town with old blood weapon, keep TBN as a backup for adds, and keep yourself up with old Q and AD. Now though it's zzz. And every tank being equal in dps to me isn't a good thing, it's a sign of a problem. It's only serving vanilla ice cream but this is different because you have crushed oreo on top instead of cherry syrup.

Meanwhile playing DRK feels like every problem is a nail, so let's use my TBN hammer. While playing GNB feels like weaving and playing a piano. The results may be close, but I feel like fun factor and flow really did not get taken into account, which is a huge issue.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Most of this is gibberish. I understand your sentiment, though. It's worth noting that the biggest change to DRK this expansion is how buff dependent the job has become. You effectively have three different 'buffs' that are all slightly out of phase with each other. Each of them have different effects on your two resource gauge. When BW and Delirium sync up, you want to enter in with low blood, or else you're forced to cap. When Delirium and LS sync up, you want to enter with high blood, or else you're forced to delay LS. TBN adds an interesting element as well, in that it allows you to effectively 'stockpile' MP above your cap just prior to entering into a raid burst window. You need rotational freedom because each of these interactions require you to plan ahead on how you want to use your resources. Every pull, there are a ton of little tiny adjustments that you realise that you can do differently.

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Only one part of this is even new to 71-80. One. LS. Nothing more. And it's obvious to anyone who's played around SAM's Guren. The rest was already seen with our former variant of Blood Weapon. So why belabor points that have been common knowledge for two years? TBN pre-popping may be more versatile now, if you will. But, tracking one's current combo progress and using TBN to trade an ending Hard Slash for a Bloodspiller if more than 15s from the next tankbuster wasn't any less nuanced. I'd argue, even, it was more difficult to manage (if slightly) than what we have now through our Edge of Shadow refund.

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I think that's what makes DRK different from all the other tanks. On GNB or PLD, it feels like if you do something dumb, it's a bad mistake, but an obvious one that is usually easily fixable. DRK bombards you with the potential for dozens of small errors that add up into bigger ones. That's where your feeling of dread comes from.

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I agree with you as to why DRK feels distinct, and enjoy that part of it, but such simple mechanics are not the source of my "feeling of dread", as you put it. This isn't a "ton" of adjustments. Almost are are just... playing a basic form of SAM, but with a split gauge.

I'm increasingly enjoying the job, but only in the process of finding out which things will work to pop TBN and where I can fit it for additional defense for myself or (especially fun for me) a party member who'd otherwise have lethally screwed up. It's nothing to do with subtle mechanics that have long been habitual to deal with; they've long since been discovered, enjoyed, and made... part and parcel of the job (among others) in no surprising way.

You can assume that anyone who disagrees with you somehow isn't engaging with as many aspects of the job or to the same degree as you do, but that's just not always going to be the case. Unless you have another list twice that length somewhere, it's not the case here. Call me the curmudgeon for wanting more if you like, but it appears I'm engaging with all the same mechanics you are. Finding DRK a bit lacking is not an opinion based solely on ignorance, as much as you might like to reduce it to such.

Allow me to throw some of my own opinions out there. Sorry in advance, I am terrible at verbalising my thoughts. For some background: I picked up DRK late HW. It's been my main ever since. I took it through ShB MSQ and am currently progging Eden Savage with it. On to what I am enjoying: MY GOD are all the OGCD's snappy as hell. No joke this feels really nice in combat. Even the new EoS/FoS have little animation lock and this really helps set the stage on the feeling of this job. Next up TBN. This shield dummy thicc. I'm still on the fence of it dipping into our Mana, but that's a topic for another day. Point is I absolutely love pressing this button when I can. It really scratches my tank itch if that makes any sense. Onto the dislikes: I legitimately tried to remove the darkside gauge from my HUD. It's literally that useless. SE tried to simulate "complexity" by throwing a bunch of gauges and timers at us, when ideally I'm still only looking at Blood and MP. Just spend extra Mana on EoS/FoS and there's no need to look at the darkside gauge. Onto Delirium. I'm sorry in advance. This skill actually pisses me off. NOT because it's WAR copy-paste, but because SE actually didn't know how to increase DRK outgoing damage without destroying one of the greatest feelings of the job. I miss being able to hold my MP reserves and dump on a trick or party buffs. This was such a huge factor in playstyle for me <--key words and it really shows now that it's gone. We can still kind of do this with EoS/FoS but not nearly to the same degree. I suppose I just dislike being stuck to a 90s timer for burst. And now for (in my opinion) the biggest perpetrator. This one is difficult to explain, and that is skill synergy. All other tanks have some sort of web of synergies to thier toolkit, and it has been the biggest issue with DRK since it's debut. Allow me to provide examples: Divine Veil/Clemency combo and Intervention with it's additions with defensives for PLD. GNB with Superbolide/Aurora to help with it's unique invuln. As well as HoS. WAR with...hell...most of thier toolkit. SiO+defensives. HG and Equilibrium. Pairing Nascent with IC or CC. It has soooo many options and these all feel great to use. The DRK toolkit just lacks synergies. And some of thier offensive buffs even DON'T play well together. Try using BW and Delirium at the same time. I know that other tanks also have issues similar to this, but it's still a gripe nonetheless. Full disclosure before I finish up: I AM still enjoying DRK and tanks are honestly VERY well balanced this expac. The order for dmg needs to be flipped though IMHO. I don't foresee any major changes to any of the tanks in the near future, and that's okay! Here's hoping SE reads these and develops a plan to make DRK better for us all. Cheers my fellow edge lord's.

Also paragraphs are for chumps.