DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

Pretty sure dissent in both the NA and JP branches on why DRK sucks probably has the devs considering what to do. They just aren't going to comment on it. Probably because they really don't know how to salvage the situation or come up with a game plan at this time.

Meanwhile I have friends echoing other forum members by telling me to play PLD or WAR instead which I don't really have any interest in. And switching to a DPS is pointless as well since queue times are idiotic and that means 7 weeks of Delta normal were wasted getting a weapon for a Tank job I can't even be happy with much less find a slot for raiding if I wanted to do that sort of thing with my FC.

Care to clue us in on what the JP consensus is?

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Care to clue us in on what the JP consensus is?

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That DRK has problems but they aren't as vocal as we are. Someone from the JP forums came over here in one of the other topics if I recall correctly.

Ah yes.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...71#post4426571

Post #564.

Some improvements:

1. HP absorption from the Souleater combo should no longer require Grit.

Paladin's Clemency, Warrior's Thrill of Battle and the Storm's Path combo self-heals without the use of their respective tank stances.

2. Make both blood price and blood weapon available to in and out of Grit like in HW. And they should also not share a cooldown timer too.

3. Make TBN have an AOE effect during Dark Arts (maybe a little bit of the blood gauge too if TBN's cooldown timer still remains 15 seconds).

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Pretty sure dissent in both the NA and JP branches on why DRK sucks probably has the devs considering what to do. They just aren't going to comment on it. Probably because they really don't know how to salvage the situation or come up with a game plan at this time.

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This is my official stance on it as well. It's one of those "we fucked up, dunno how to fix it, and if we say "we're working on improving X," there'll still be people unsatisfied with the things we want to do" situations. I honestly don't expect to hear anything til 5.0, at the latest. 4.2/x and beyond will be a welcome surprise.

Or, 4.15, with how BRD's gonna get its new music ability they could sneak in some changes, but that's not a hope i'm having.

Hi everyone! Just want to state that I'm not hardcore player, though I do enjoy savage and the harder stuff. Oh and this is my first mmo and have only been playing for a little over a year. With that being said, drk is my main and I do feel like it needs work from what I've been reading. Just had a few ideas for the devs that might help if they read this.
DA salted earth = 10% mitigation for for anyone in it but maybe drop it down to seconds 15 seconds?
Sole survivor = self buff that gives you a portion of hp back from all physical attacks including auto attacks
Additional effect DA abilities gives portion mp back (might help with self sustain, the living dead issue, and with the mp you get back might make DP worth it?)
Removing unleashed and replace it with scourge, a third tier combo so we can be on par with war in dps, and since this drk is not unique anymore due to war having a gap closer. AD would be our only aoe agro ability which could somewhat make drk unique again

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Originally Posted by Kurphew

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Simply by virtue of admitting that you are a more casual player I believe you deserve a shoutout, because overwhelmingly the casual community fights progress on these issues, taking suggestions that their job needs buffing as a personal affront to their dignity as a player and fan of the job, or just being ignorant of the issues and sticking to the trite motto of "this balance is healthy for the game" after every other job has received balance adjustments requested. Seeing a self-professed "not hardcore" player do the exact opposite is honestly a breath of fresh air. So bravo to you good sir.

Ahahahahaaa....
The first group to clear UCoB ran PLD/DRK.

If true that is by far the darkest news I have heard about Dark Knights fate. This will be used as evidence that "they're fine" for months to come.

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

If true that is by far the darkest news I have heard about Dark Knights fate. This will be used as evidence that "they're fine" for months to come.

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNxgXRHUEAE_L4R.jpg:large
source: https://twitter.com/hikouki1234/stat...21673235128320

Welp, the true hell starts now. I may be overreacting, but had the devs been forced to take notice at Dark Knight's struggle through this hardest of content, changes may have been applied sooner. Now I'm pessimistic about seeing anything before 5.0.

Idk nael and bahamut swaps but, can be they use DRK superior dps on tank stance for the win? Anyway congratz to dysnomia

Uhhh.. thanks? Idk, I just like to be good at what I do and from what I've read, that's going to be hard to do because I don't just tank.. I drk. I guess I lucked out when I came across this forum for 2 reasons. 1 I would have never known that drk was in a bad spot compaired to pld & war and 2 that's just not fair nor fun

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

Wasn't Angered but a team called Dysnomia.

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some ex-Lucrezia members are in Dysnomia btw. If anyone still remembers, Dysnomia was the first team to discover the best speedrun method and meta for a12s aka full Physical DPS team (BRD/MCH/DRG/NIN).

Riparino DRK buffs, they might still happen in 4.2..... but I guess 5.x is more likely at this point.

Its pretty hopeless at this point. People are already coming onto this forum in droves and grossly parodying and misrepresenting our feedback in light of the WF clear. The growing counterpoint to our feedback is "omg, look at all these DRK QQ threads, and they were WF, they must just be butthurt that their job isn't 100% OP in every sense of the word, every syllable of all of these feedback threads is hereby invalid, LOL."

Idk about you guys but I don't think I can continue trying to get SE's attention, while also combating that level of ignorance.

dark knight is fine,do you guys even play dark knight seriously?

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Originally Posted by Gojin

dark knight is fine,do you guys even play dark knight seriously?

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There's at least a month of high-volume feedback outlining numerous, severe balance issues on this forum and not a word of it is changed by one team on one fight bringing DRK to an encounter that was not being gated by tank performance in the first place.

I haven't been watching much Ultimate prog/clear streams of late but some seem to be under the impression that Dysnomia's DRK invul'ed most of the busters in that fight. Not ignoring that Crater also mentioned in another thread that the last phase of that fight is so magic heavy that DRKs thrive there because of Dark mind. Funny enough now people are starting a "RIP DRK buffs" trend but I honestly don't see us not getting any buffs even if a DRK got WF.

Like I've stated before, I would be fine with some kind of fix for the double weaving issues, anything else is just a bonus. Even the best players have troubles doubleweaving with bloodweapon I would think. I don't generally think dark is terrible but it is alot easier to perform on warrior from what i've seen playing them side by side.

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Originally Posted by SplittingSkies

I haven't been watching much Ultimate prog/clear streams of late but some seem to be under the impression that Dysnomia's DRK invul'ed most of the busters in that fight. Not ignoring that Crater also mentioned in another thread that the last phase of that fight is so magic heavy that DRKs thrive there because of Dark mind. Funny enough now people are starting a "RIP DRK buffs" trend but I honestly don't see us not getting any buffs even if a DRK got WF.

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this might just be my inner "wide eyed idealist" talking but maybe they'll look at the classes that cleared what is probably the hardest fight in the game, see what feedback that's been going on (and there's plenty of that) and maybe make adjustments? I know it's a long shot and it might lead to nerfs but an edgelord can dream...

Mr. Happy just put out a video that will probably further screw us over.

Basically "meta doesn't matter" and "anyone suggesting DRK has problems is obsessed with the meta" have been the primary take-aways people have had in the comments.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Mr. Happy just put out a video that will probably further screw us over.

Basically "meta doesn't matter" and "anyone suggesting DRK has problems is obsessed with the meta" have been the primary take-aways people have had in the comments.

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What? Really? how anyone can say we are obsessed when we are the worst on everything? How ppl can be so blind and dont see we want a fair balance?

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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yeah was sleepy and i missread it, sorry.

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Originally Posted by shao32

What? Really? I never followed Mr. Happy but just for this i dont want know nothing about hem never, how anyone can say we are obsessed when we are the worst on everything? How ppl can be so blind and dont see we want a fair balance?

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He got lambasted by casuals in his tank vs. video for saying DRK has problems.

He didn't exactly say those things, but that is what people are interpreting it as, from the looks of it, and the way his commentary in the video was laid out, its pretty much a "shh.. its okay..." to all the people offended that he put DRK where it is in his tank vs. video: in 3rd place, and at no time did he clarify anything along the lines of "to be clear, even though DRK is viable and is completely able to clear content, even WF Ultimate, it still has problems."

Casuals are turning out to be a worse enemy of progress towards DRK changes than a meta of any kind.
Apparently people can't handle the idea that the job they find fun in 4-mans and fates is anything less than perfect, and any suggestion that it could be improved upon or that it is subpar compared to its alternatives triggers the living hell out of them.

So then WF happen and they lambasted him some more about it and I guess he was forced to bend the knee. Oh well.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Casuals are turning out to be a worse enemy of progress towards DRK changes than a meta of any kind.
Apparently people can't handle the idea that the job they find fun in 4-mans and fates is anything less than perfect, and any suggestion that it could be improved upon or that it is subpar compared to its alternatives triggers the living hell out of them.

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I've noticed this fragile mentality with a few jobs. Twice now in both MrHappy and Xeno's stream, people got their knickers all twisted because I dared to say Samurai's easy to play and needs to do more damage if its going to fill the selfish DPS role. Some people just can't stand the idea their preferred job isn't amazing.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Casuals are turning out to be a worse enemy of progress towards DRK changes than a meta of any kind.
Apparently people can't handle the idea that the job they find fun in 4-mans and fates is anything less than perfect, and any suggestion that it could be improved upon or that it is subpar compared to its alternatives triggers the living hell out of them.

So then WF happen and they lambasted him some more about it and I guess he was forced to bend the knee. Oh well.

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I think this is a pretty common occurrence. People have preferences, and sometimes we convince ourselves that something is the best or good just because we enjoy it. Dark knight looks cool, plays flashy and thats about it. I think the only thing that can be done is to keep awareness of the issues going and just hope people start to see the light as time goes by.

As for Mr. Happy. I don't follow him, but from what I have seen he has a bad track record when it comes to his tank predictions. In his 3.x video he claimed paladin and dark knight we about the same in effectiveness, they weren't. In his analysis video when he demoed the game pre-release he claimed dark knight was set up to be the damage dealer of the tanks, looking at the past standings dark knight has always seemed to be behind, and the current standings warrior has that place over dark knight by 300. His 4.x tank video does hit on a lot of good points and might be the exception.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I think this is a pretty common occurrence. People have preferences, and sometimes we convince ourselves that something is the best or good just because we enjoy it. Dark knight looks cool, plays flashy and thats about it. I think the only thing that can be done is to keep awareness of the issues going and just hope people start to see the light as time goes by.

As for Mr. Happy. I don't follow him, but from what I have seen he has a bad track record when it comes to his tank predictions. In his 3.x video he claimed paladin and dark knight we about the same in effectiveness, they weren't. In his analysis video when he demoed the game pre-release he claimed dark knight was set up to be the damage dealer of the tanks, looking at the past standings dark knight has always seemed to be behind, and the current standings warrior has that place over dark knight by 300. His 4.x tank video does hit on a lot of good points and might be the exception.

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Not to defend him, as I don't follow streamers of any kind, but no one could predict the content as "Magical damage focused" and thus pushing the PLD out of the meta (or even out of any party hoping for a down).

Making two jobs on par and one focused magical damage, the other focused physical, is technically correct if your content is either balanced around both sources, of TB include physical and magical components each times.

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Not to defend him, as I don't follow streamers of any kind, but no one could predict the content as "Magical damage focused" and thus pushing the PLD out of the meta (or even out of any party hoping for a down).

Making two jobs on par and one focused magical damage, the other focused physical, is technically correct if your content is either balanced around both sources, of TB include physical and magical components each times.

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Certainly, predictions are impossible to get right, especial with an unknown like raid tier damage. I just don't follow him and when I hear his opinion I don't necessarily take his word as gospel is all.

Statistics update. Past week in Savage:

Warrior 11,321
Paladin 13,624
Dark Knight 7,116

Past 2 weeks:

Warrior 23,091
Paladin 27,982
Dark Knight 14,756

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Statistics update. Past week in Savage:

Warrior 11,321
Paladin 13,624
Dark Knight 7,116

Past 2 weeks:

Warrior 23,091
Paladin 27,982
Dark Knight 14,756

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How is DRK damage so low? I thought it was only a fairly modest DPS difference (although still significant)
Edit I'm bad at understanding statistics :C sorry

This is how often the class is run in savage, not damage stats.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

How is DRK damage so low? I thought it was only a fairly modest DPS difference (although still significant)

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Those aren't DPS numbers, they're usage numbers. DPS numbers have DRK about 100DPS behind PLD and 200-300DPS behind WAR, depending on percentile.

As I've said in other threads, the reason usage numbers are so important is that they show that there isn't something particularly special that makes up for DRK's low DPS. If DRK's DPS was the only problem, but it excelled in certain other areas, DRK would be much closer to the other two in usage. Its so far behind because WAR and PLD just do everything better, even if only slightly.

The usage statistics are also completely unaffected by percentile, and so they are completely unrelated to meta, speed runs, prog, etc. (i.e. the argument "don't listen to the meta" doesn't apply. these numbers factor in everyone, meta-conscious or not). Its just everybody who is raiding, no matter how good or bad they are, or why they're doing it. It illustrates something of a rejection of the job by the community.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Those aren't DPS numbers, they're usage numbers. DPS numbers have DRK about 100DPS behind PLD and 200-300DPS behind WAR, depending on percentile.

As I've said in other threads, the reason usage numbers are so important is that they show that there isn't something particularly special that makes up for DRK's low DPS. If DRK's DPS was the only problem, but it excelled in certain other areas, DRK would be much closer to the other two in usage. Its so far behind because WAR and PLD just do everything better, even if only slightly.

The usage statistics are also completely unaffected by percentile, and so they are completely unrelated to meta, speed runs, prog, etc. Its just everybody who is raiding, no matter how good or bad they are, or why they're doing it. It illustrates something of a rejection of the job by the community.

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My bad sorry, hmm that is quite a big difference. Are there statistics of the DRK play rate at none savage end game?

In non-savage end-game the data is going to tell slightly less pointed story, as the content is older, people care less about what they are running, are more likely to run the content on alt jobs, farm for drops on certain jobs, etc. But DRK is still at the bottom across the board here as well. You can poke around on flogs to find all of these numbers for yourself as well, so don't just take my word for it. (not going to directly link to the site on the OF, though.)

Over 2 weeks:

Rabanastre:
Warrior 7,539
Paladin 10,591
Dark Knight 6,661

Susano:
Warrior 1,245
Paladin 1,601
Dark Knight 1,092

Lakshmi:
Warrior 815
Paladin 933
Dark Knight 654

Shinryu:
Warrior 3,915
Paladin 4,752
Dark Knight 2,042

I don't know where to post this but I would like to just point out something. I notice people telling us that our dps only matters in speed runs and if you are at the top 1%. While higher dps is important in those instances I would like to point out that this is not an issue which only effects that 1%.

Dark Knight dps, and thus one of the factors people consider when choosing a tank, is behind at all levels of play. This is not a 1% issue, your dps does matter, and while not as pronounced at lower percentiles, you can still expect to be behind paladin by 100 to 150 dps and behind warrior by 200 to 300 at most percentiles. Don't let people tell you it doesn't matter, because quite frankly it does. If I could find 200 dps on my dragoon (I should try jumping into less aoe) I would be doing everything in my power to find it.

I also notice people are commenting about warrior buffs, and pointing out the inconsistencies of the highest tank feeling it needs more damage. But I've noticed a steep decline in conversation in dark threads about buffs. We need to keep the conversation going as much as possible.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I also notice people are commenting about warrior buffs, and pointing out the inconsistencies of the highest tank feeling it needs more damage. But I've noticed a steep decline in conversation in dark threads about buffs. We need to keep the conversation going as much as possible.

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WF combined with Xeno's ridiculous interview (where he says that utility should be balanced by damage while in the same paragraph implying that WAR should deal more damage than DRK in spite of also having better utility) has encouraged a lot of gaslighting towards DRK's asking for buffs. I'm honestly not sure how to combat that, short of writing a literal scholastic essay covering every single aspect of balance between the tanks with DPS, mitigation, and utility gains/discrepancies fully and completely mathed out with statistics and parses to back the data up (which we have, but I guess no one person has time to compile it all).

When I saw the WAR buff threads pop up I was like really? Is this a thing that is actually happening right now? Did I slip into some extraplanar dimension of quantum inversion? Was the removal of half of your gauge costs and the addition of a free party shield not enough? To which they'd all say "well those were fixes to stuff that never should have been broken" implying that everything that is currently busted right now about DRK is exactly as it should be, which - I don't even know what to call that, other than an insult.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

When I saw the WAR buff threads pop up I was like really? Is this a thing that is actually happening right now? Did I slip into some extraplanar dimension of quantum inversion?

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I think there will be a group of WAR players who won't be happy until WAR is again required in every party and that 3.0 was well balanced for the tank jobs

Also those end game play rates still look pretty bad, I had wondered if it's play rates where quite good in the dungeons and the like it might give SE the impression that it's still popular despite it's issues in high level content which might explain there slow response to the requests for buffs.

I thought the whole point of that sarcastic Shake It Off thread was bitterness towards the fact that everyone seems to accept that it's more likely Warrior will have any outstanding minor issues complained about addressed before Dark Knight receives anything other than extremely small potency buffs. This is, in fact, our dimension.

And I actually agree with a lot of what Xeno brought up, I'm not sure it was explicitly said that he wanted damage buffs for Warrior, moreso that it should be redistributed to be more stable across a fight, lowering the skill ceiling. However, the way the community takes this is in a very different direction indeed...

Edit: I reread it, and he does mention "Both of the other tanks have more utility than Dark Knight, so Dark Knight needs some potency increases so they can do more damage. That’s all they need." By his logic, Dark Knight should be doing astronomically higher damage than Warrior.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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Agreed, both conversations are necessary, I just mean to say we cannot afford to let one conversation go (buffing dark knight) while pointing out that warrior has 3 full time buffs before even looking at berserk to augment its damage. The "argument" in the interview was very cherry picked as far as details.

I think it would be great to put up a full analysis of dark knight backed up with statistics.as its own post. Maybe people have ignored it in the past?

Well even in the Shake it Off thread there were serious responses, haha. The sarcasm was prompted from reality, after all.

And yes, that's using the logic in the interview that currently complaining Warriors are glossing over.

I feel differently, in that +/- 200-400 DPS of eachother is an annoying fact of life that should be adjusted for identity's sake, but it's the actual abilities and interaction with the party that Dark Knight needs an extreme makeover with.

Of course, there's a basic skeleton that everyone seems to agree upon (Dark Passenger, TBN extension, Shadow Wall recast, etc.) so continued ignorance of just the easy absolute basic necessity changes is by far the most insulting thing, let alone admitting there's more extensive work to be done.